He's an objectivist:
Quote:
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Ayn Rand is the inventor of the objectivist philosophy. I consider her the greatest thinker since Aristotle.
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and the gang rape sentence is grossly taken out of context. There's a long talk about objectivism, with T.G. describing in short this view, then more specifically about people who have faith (relligious, faith in "common good", etc.) and enforce their beliefs on others (objectivism is against that) and then there's a question about War on Terror, which he answers in this manner:
Quote:
There is no such thing as a "War on Terror." This is another example of philosophy corrupting action. You can't have a war on a name. "Hate crime" is another one of those things: either it's a crime, or it's not. Either someone is doing something wrong, or they're not. We're not having a war on terror, we're having a war on Islamic fundamentalism. We're afraid to name the enemy, and in [that fear], we give them strength. When you can't name the enemy, you've already lost. When you're afraid to see who it is you're fighting, you've already lost.
Take, for example, what we're doing in Iraq. The basic thing we're trying to do is enforce democracy. Democracy is a free-floating concept. There's no goodness [inherent] in democracy. Gang rape is democracy in action. Why should we enforce democracy? Why should we have Americans die so [Iraq] can elect a government who wants to kill us? It's stupid. Force should be used by a government just like it should be used by an individual: to prevent someone else from harm. That's the only valid, moral, ethical purpose of force: to protect your life. If somebody's trying to protect you, you should protect your life.
We have Americans dying over there to enforce democracy so that [Iraq] can vote to kill us. It's absurd. There's nothing holy about democracy. The sidetrack of adopting slogans like "making the world safe for democracy"... it's a free-floating concept; there's nothing good [inherent in] democracy. Democracy can be good if it's supported by other ethical values; justice, for example, and not hurting other people. But we're not enforcing a moral form of democracy; we're just supporting the idea of democracy in general, and there's nothing more about democracy in and of itself.
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Someone taking one sentence out of 70 kB of interview certainly makes ma want to read his books; I get curious why T.G. gets attacked like that.
Also, he says he's been labeled as a fantasy author, and his story only happens in fantasy world - but its about people. So it might not appeal to fans of strictly fantasy, but rather to people who like to read about other people in general.