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To: Sherman Logan

A scholar! :) I was stretching the definition I suppose to apply it in the fashion that Ayn Rand would. Rand would have called it the use of force to loot the productive work of others. But I recognize your correction. My main point is that Islam created a class culture based on bigotry, whereby non-Moslems represented an underclass. This held true in the Soviet Union, but the underclass in that case were the farmers, who were expected to feed the working class. There is the definition of collectivism, but in practice the “people” never really benefit.


42 posted on 05/03/2013 9:25:50 AM PDT by Sam Gamgee (May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't. - Patton)
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To: Sam Gamgee
Rand would have called it the use of force to loot the productive work of others.

That's also called taxation. :)

Rand and her followers considered any such use of force to be illegitimate, and that is a defensible position, in theory.

Back here in the real world, reasonable people recognize that (some) taxation is needed by any people who wish to protect themselves against internal and external threats.

Which is not to say that any given level of taxation is reasonable or appropriate, only that sufficient taxation and internal cohesion is necessary if the society is to survive.

For an example of a society that committed suicide by insisting on its own "Golden Freedom," I refer you to the Poles. Their refusal to give up any of their freedoms ensure that they wound up losing them all.

43 posted on 05/03/2013 9:35:17 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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