Posted on 01/14/2005 2:46:14 PM PST by billybudd
The Ayn Rand Institute published an op-ed by David Holcberg during the tsunami disaster arguing that the US government should not give aid to the tsunami victims. After the PR disaster that followed, ARI "clarified" its position in another article (which I will discuss later). I noticed, however, that ARI removed the original op-ed from its web site. The link that originally pointed to it has been redirected to an article about Iraq. Fortunately, Google has a cached copy of it. Clarifying your position is one thing; obliterating history so that you control the discussion is completely unethical and unwise of an organization who wants its ideas taken seriously.
"Anthem" is one of the worst books ever penned. Prometheus...EGO. Execrable. And Ayn boasted of how she wrote Anthem before 1984 and Brave New World came out, as though the fact that her book was earlier somehow made it better (she also conveniently forgot that "We" was the first modern dystopia, preceding her effort by a number of years). Perhaps it's unfair, but I could never bring myself to read any Ayn Rand works after that abomination. So I am not surprised to see her institute carrying on her lamentable legacy. Objectivism = objectionable.
You didn't miss much. Last year I finally got around to "Atlas Shrugged." I can see how it appeals to precocious 16-year old boys, but for anyone else...
The book's philosophy is distasteful, mostly because it takes a germ of truth and, like all mindless ideologies, insists on following it, even when it falls off a cliff. But what really bothered me was how poorly it was written, both from a logical and a literary standpoint. It was less-than-well-thought-out philosophy presented in a unbelievably bland fashion.
U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami Victims
Thursday December 30, 2004
By: David Holcberg
Our money is not the government's to give.
As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday's tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, especially considering that most of those affected by this tragedy are suffering through no fault of their own.
The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Why? Because the money is not the government's to give.
Every cent the government spends comes from taxation. Every dollar the government hands out as foreign aid has to be extorted from an American taxpayer first. Year after year, for decades, the government has forced American taxpayers to provide foreign aid to every type of natural or man-made disaster on the face of the earth: from the Marshall Plan to reconstruct a war-ravaged Europe to the $15 billion recently promised to fight AIDS in Africa to the countless amounts spent to help the victims of earthquakes, fires and floods--from South America to Asia. Even the enemies of the United States were given money extorted from American taxpayers: from the billions given away by Clinton to help the starving North Koreans to the billions given away by Bush to help the blood-thirsty Palestinians under Arafat's murderous regime.
The question no one asks about our politicians' "generosity" towards the world's needy is: By what right? By what right do they take our hard-earned money and give it away?
The reason politicians can get away with doling out money that they have no right to and that does not belong to them is that they have the morality of altruism on their side. According to altruism--the morality that most Americans accept and that politicians exploit for all it's worth--those who have more have the moral obligation to help those who have less. This is why Americans--the wealthiest people on earth--are expected to sacrifice (voluntarily or by force) the wealth they have earned to provide for the needs of those who did not earn it. It is Americans' acceptance of altruism that renders them morally impotent to protest against the confiscation and distribution of their wealth. It is past time to question--and to reject--such a vicious morality that demands that we sacrifice our values instead of holding on to them.
Next time a politician gives away money taken from you to show what a good, compassionate altruist he is, ask yourself: By what right?
David Holcberg is a research associate at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.
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