The New Individualist, Atlas Society in Pittsburgh Paper

The March 16th issue of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review featured a column based on the latest efforts of The Atlas Society. The piece was also posted on the RealClearPolit ics website.

In the piece entitled "Saving a divided GOP soul," writer Dimitri Vassilaros highlights the insights made by New Individualist editor Robert Bidinotto and Atlas Society executive director Edward Hudgins in the March issue of the magazine and in a new collection of articles entitled Straight Talk About the Soul of the Republican Party. This book includes pieces by Ed and Robert from earlier issues of the magazine plus pieces by other Atlas writers. Bidinotto, who comes from Pennsylvania, was interviewed for the Pittsburgh paper piece.

Copies of the Straight Talk book have been sent to all New Individualist subscribers, Atlas Society members and others who have attended Atlas events. (Extra copies can be purchased at the Objectivism Store.) The book was prepared for this year's Conservative Political Action Conference. Five thousand copies of the book, along with copies of the magazine and the new TAS brochure, were passed out to conference attendees to challenge the GOP and confused conservatives who vacillate between supporting individual liberty and demanding government micro- management of individual morality. You can read about the Atlas efforts at CPAC on the TAS website.

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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Saving a divided GOP soul

By Dimitri Vassilaros
Friday, March 16, 2007

Robert Bidinotto cannot say the Republican Party lost so badly on Election Day because it had lost its soul. Mr. Bidinotto, a New Castle native and editor-in-chief of The New Individualist, is unsure if this party had a soul. But he is sure it doesn't have a core philosophy. He believes the GOP can recover -- if it's the advocate of the individual.

"Conservatives never dared to fully embrace individualism," says Bidinotto, who studied economics at Grove City College in Mercer. "Conservatism has no central defining principle. Conservatives cannot make up their minds if they are champions of the individual and his rights, or of society and its traditions." Such as, how many conservatives believe an adult has the right to read, view or hear anything society labels as obscene?

The New Individualist is published by The Atlas Society, a Washington think tank. The magazine champions reason, individualism and freedom inspired by author and philosopher Ayn Rand. It co- sponsored the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, offering libertarian principle to the intellectually bankrupt.

If the GOP has a soul, it is a blackened and divided one, he says. "It's a soul divided against itself with too many competing ideas and values to have any notion of identity."

Exhibit A is President George W. Bush's oxymoronic "compassionate conservatism" -- "We are using an active government to promote self- government." Active government (in the former Soviet Union, Cuba or FDR's) doesn't seem to lead to much self-government.

It's a perfect example of throwing out constitutional limitations on government intervention to service a values agenda, Bidinotto says.

Cultural (social) conservatives believe we should accept ideas and values merely because our ancestors did, he says. "They confuse tradition with truth. By saying freedom only can be grounded in faith and tradition, conservatives are saying there is no rational case for human liberty. That's very important because when arguing with secular liberals, conservatives only can point backward to their ancestors."

In "Straight Talk About the Soul of the Republican Party," a book published by The Atlas Society, many so-called conservatives who talk like liberals are quoted. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said, "This whole idea of personal autonomy -- I don't think that most conservatives hold that point of view." Santorum also rejected the idea that government should stay out of the economy and bedroom when he criticized the "libertarianish right."

The Leave Us Alone Coalition created by conservative/libertarian Grover Norquist tries to unite libertarian and social conservative Republicans by a common desire to limit government intervention.

The government you may run one day can turn around and support values and ideas you loathe the next when the other side wins, Bidinotto says. "(Social conservatives) would do well to seek private ways to promote their values rather than grant to government the power over values."

The GOP could rise again, he says. But it would have to believe in this JFK-esque motto:

"Ask not what government is doing for you; ask what it's doing to you."

Make that Ronald Reagan-esque.

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(Dimitri Vassilaros can be reached at dvassilaros@tribweb.comThe Atlas Society and The Objectivist Center
email: toc@objectivistcenter.org
phone: 202 296-7263
web: http://www.objectivistcenter.org
Thank you for Dimitri Vassilaros for allowing us to post his article on this blog.