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Leonard Peikoff, intellectual heir to Ayn Rand, explores the unlikely tension between a democratic nation and its people. Peikoff claims that, from its beginning, America has stood for the ideals of the Enlightenment: reason, individual rights, capitalism, and the pursuit of happiness. He asserts that the dominant trends in America today, trends endorsed not only by our leadership, but seemingly by the general public, represent the opposite of these ideals. Dr. Peikoff, considered the foremost philosopher of objectivism, explores this contradiction, along with what he calls our current moral cowardice, with special emphasis on US foreign policy.

In this talk, Peikoff analyzes and rejects the Bush administration response to the terrorist attacks on the U.S., from 9/11 until today. America, he says, should have reacted to 9/11 as it did to Pearl Harbor by declaring war not on Afghanistan or Iraq, but on Iran. The public's approval of Bush's policies, he argues, indicates the tragic deterioration of the American mind in the last 60 years, owing to the influence in our schools and colleges of Progressive educators and intellectuals.