[Sir Francis Dashwood]

And if I were a judgmental "Randroid," I'd make the claim that the author was using Rand as a scapegoat because he lacked the cojones to go after Nietzsche.

I would say you are wrong...

Thomas Hobbes is better than all of them combined...

In fact, Rand, Nietzsche, Locke, the whole synod of presbyters and conclaves of papists cannot make a scratch on Thomas Hobbes.

I like Ayn Rand, but I'm no devotee...

Hobbes nailed these religious fakes to the wall in 1651.

[Cronos]

Hobbes made quite a few errors of his own...not the least the social contract theory that I see as leading to the rise of Marx's ideas (have you read Das Kapital -- surprisingly good read, but I deviate)

I disagree with Hobbes's political points - his elevation of the state to "mortal godhood" gives moral reasoning to kleptocracies

My own views are libertarian. Hobbes disregards the morals of the free market

[Cronos]

When individuals are in charge of their own destiny rather than subject to the “mortal god” state, I believe they have reasons for co-operating with each other. The wars of the state or the Hobbesian ideal of the centralised state created Sparta, the early Islamic Empire, Prussia, Nazi Germany and led to WWI and II