Posted on 08/28/2010 7:06:10 PM PDT by Mojave
This past spring, the Financial Industry Inquiry Commission held hearings on the world's recent financial crisis. The star witness was Alan Greenspan. The Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan translated Greenspan's typically elusive testimony this way: "I didn't do anything wrong, and neither did Ayn Rand by the way, but next time you might try more regulation."
There were obviously many reasons for the Great Recession. But I believe Noonan got to the root of one particular evil.
Fortune magazine once labeled Greenspan "America's most famous libertarian, an Ayn Rand acolyte." (While Rand formally rejected libertarianism, libertarians nonetheless admire her.) But today, both libertarians and Randians are disassociating themselves from Greenspan as quickly as Wall Street.
Mojave has a selective quotation issue.
Do I really need to draw you this picture? The French Foreign Legion was known far-and-wide to take in mercenaries that fought with no allegiance to a cause other than themselves. Duty with no purpose as you depict it is not the way to happiness. The French Foreign Legionaries notoriously subjugate their own happiness to their duty and that is, in my opinion, the very worst rejection of purpose in life.
There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man.
Source: "We The Living" Part One, Chapter 6
You try to define sacrifice and duty as a some kind of commercial transaction..everybody wins...yea , right...try telling that to a guy who just jumped on alive grenade to save his buddy. Even you don't believe that.
The GI that jumps on the grenade does so from the expectation that it is what his buddy would do for him. It is the logical conclusion that we all should make between our fellow man. It is not some kind of commercial transaction but a social transaction which does not go against Objectivism. Ayn Rand never said you must never attempt to help your fellow man, only that you should not do so through coercion or some misguided so-called sense of obligation.
Enlightened self interest as an explanation for sacrifice and duty..INDEED !! What a heartless, cold and UNHEROIC WORLD THAT WOULD BE.
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.If I am heroic I will be of myself, of my volition, without any false sense of duty. As a matter of fact, I believe I am the hero of my own life already.
"Atlas Shrugged"
Jefferson's letters tell of the circuit riding preacher regularly visiting Monticello.
It was said that he was an intimate friend of Thomas Jefferson, and as Mr. Jefferson was the leader of Republican ideas in Virginia in politics, and Mr. O'Kelly [171] in religious thought, it is not strange that they should have been warm friends, and very congenial.It is highly probable, that what occurred at a later period, that he visited Mr. Jefferson at Monticello on his preaching tours. The story goes thus:
"On one occasion Mr. O'Kelly visited Mr. Jefferson in Washington. The great statesman, knowing of the preacher's ability, obtained the use of the hall of the House of Representatives and invited Mr. O'Kelly to preach. The invitation was, after some consideration accepted, but to the chagrin of the distinguished host, the preacher fell far below Mr. Jefferson's expectation. Believing this failure did his friend great injustice, the great political leader insisted on a second effort. Mr. O'Kelly agreed. The appointment was again made, and the people urged to give him another hearing. They did hear him again, and were abundantly repaid, for Mr. O'Kelly preached one of the great sermons of his life, and the host was the most delighted man in the audience. When he had finished Mr. Jefferson arose with tears in his eyes, and said, that while he was no preacher, in his opinion James O'Kelly was on of the greatest preachers living.
"Mr. Jefferson's friendship for Mr. O'Kelly was responsible for the charge that this eminent statesman was an infidel. To this day the facts are but little know to the public, but they are well authenticated. It is known that the charge was laid against Mr. Jefferson, but the cause and the injustice of the charge are little known. Mr. O'Kelly's leadership in [172] the session from the Methodist Episcopal Church had made for him many strong enemies, who called him an infidel because of his supposed unfaithfulness to his church. His enemies pressed this charge against him without specifying it's nature, till the impression gained credence that he was an infidel to the Christian faith.
"When Mr. Jefferson boldly showed his friendship for Mr. O'Kelly, it was construed by the enemies of the latter as sympathy for him in his work as a reformer, and at once Mr. Jefferson was charged with being an infidel. His political enemies began to proclaim the charge against him in their efforts to defeat him for the presidency, and in a short time the rumor was generally current among the people. So intense was the feeling thus engendered against him, that in some places, notably in Pennsylvania, the report was believed and it was talked among the people that if Mr. Jefferson should be elected President, he would order all Bibles to be burned throughout the land. An instance well authenticate, is reported of a Christian mother, who, influenced by this talk against him, on hearing that Mr. Jefferson had been elected President, took her Bible and hid it away, declaring that the infidel President should never burn her Bible. There is good reason to believe that this is the origin of the charge of infidelity against Thomas Jefferson, and though having no foundation, many well informed people are not sure, even to this day, that he was not indeed an enemy to the Christian faith. Of course [173] neither James O'Kelly, nor Thomas Jefferson was an infidel"
(This was given the writer by Dr. J. P. Barret, editor of the Herald of Gospel Liberty, Dayton, O.)
On one of his preaching tours Mr. O'Kelly was taken very sick near Winchester, Virginia. He and Bishop Asbury had not seen each other for some time, and it so happened that the Bishop was in the same locality at the time. On learning that Mr. O'Kelly was very sick he sent two of his brethren, Reed and Walls, to ask if Mr. O'Kelly would like for him to visit him. The reply was in the Affirmative. Here on Monday the 23d of August, 1802, we have an account of the last meeting on earth of these to great men. Mr. Asbury, in his "Journal," Vol. III, page 76, has this to say in regard to the meeting: "We met in peace, and asked of each other's welfare, talked of persons and things indifferently, prayed, and parted in peace. Not a word was said of the troubles of former times. Perhaps this is the last interview we shall have upon the earth." This meeting shewed that both of these leaders had great souls within, dough differing so much in many mattes.
From Life of James O'Kelly Chapter 13 Thomas Jefferson - by W. E. MacClenny
Balderdash!
All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. "The Virtue of Selfishness"
My time in our Military was not a lark. I served to protect my family from the wanton force initiated against us.
Though I am way over the hill now, I would gladly give my life to fight against the evil twin forces of Socialism and Islamism.
Let me guess, Garry believes in collective salvation.
Thanks for demonstrating Randian doublethink.
How heavily and dishonestly you redacted/mutilated that quote.
The actual statement by Locke:
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions....
Are you living in a state of nature removed from the community of men, Abundy?
Again:
"Whosoever therefore out of a state of Nature unite into a Community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into Society, to the majority of the Community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one Political Society, which is all the Compact that is, or needs be, between the Individuals, that enter into, or make up a Common-wealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any Political Society, is nothing but the consent of any number of Freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a Society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful Government in the World." --John Locke
Sure does sound like Rand, doesn't it?
Other than being in the same language, no.
Well said.
justMoral is not moral; A is not A.adjective: of moral excellence
Another excellent example of Randian doublethink.
Hardly. Bundy's decision to act without regard to the lives of his victims was cold and calculated. In that, he was a de facto Objectivist.
I quote, you misquote. That's the issue.
Your seem to have some pathetic thought processes. Men should hold noble aspirations instead of bounding down into decrepitude.
"Your" seem to be unable to answer the argument.
Men should hold noble aspirations
Objectivism is the rejection of noble aspirations in favor of self worship.
I am my brother’s keeper. I am not your brother’s keeper.
Not Ayn.
bfl
Objectivists hold that the initiation of physical force against the will of another is immoral.
Since reason is the means of human knowledge, it is therefore each person's most fundamental means of survival and is necessary to the achievement of values. The use or threat of force neutralizes the practical effect of an individual's reason, whether the force originates from the state or from a criminal. Ayn Rand said, "man's mind will not function at the point of a gun." Therefore, the only type of organized human behavior consistent with the operation of reason is that of voluntary cooperation.
Your refusal to participate in a discussion based on reason stops all argument in a steaming pile of ignorance.
You say Objectivism is a rejection of noble aspirations in favor of self worship, but that is because you setup a strawman of your own creation to tear down with foolish glee. Your lack of knowledge and understanding of the precepts of Objectivism and your refusal to accept reasoned responses presented to you make it impossible to continue a discussion.
I embrace Ayn Rand for her vehement Anti-Communist writing and her role as the bellwether against the evil Socialist path that our United States have followed for over a hundred years now. That alone is the most noble act possible.
I regret her Atheist belief but considering she was Jewish and endured first hand, the horror and anguish of the Russian Revolution at the age of twelve (read "We the Living"). I believe that puts more clarity on her misguided rejection of God. I, as an Individual do not have to accept her mistake.
That doesn't detract at all from the revelation of Objectivism as the guiding definition of the proper interaction between all men as equals within our ideal of a Laissez-Faire Capitalist Society.
Gobbledygook. If self interest trumps the interests of others, that doesn't follow. In Ayn's pretense of reason, A is simultaneously A and not A.
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