Posted on 04/22/2003 5:25:25 PM PDT by RJCogburn
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. — Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
In her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and in nonfiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand forged a systematic philosophy of reason and freedom.
Rand was a passionate individualist. She wrote in praise of "the men of unborrowed vision," who live by the judgment of their own minds, willing to stand alone against tradition and popular opinion.
Her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the ethics of self-sacrifice and renunciation. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort.
Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value.
Upholding the use of reason to transform nature and create wealth, Objectivism honors the businessman and the banker, no less than the philosopher and artist, as creators and as benefactors of mankind.
Ayn Rand was a champion of individual rights, which protect the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself; and of capitalism, which is the only social system that allows people to live together peaceably, by voluntary trade, as independent equals.
Millions of readers have been inspired by the vision of life in Ayn Rand's novels. Scholars are exploring the trails she blazed in philosophy and other fields. Her principled defense of capitalism has drawn new adherents to the cause of economic and political liberty.
I've been down this road many times with pretty much the same Freepers - sometimes just reading their posts, sometimes responding. No reasoning, no degree of secular authorities will change the equation:
There are many people who are not Hindu or not Buddhist or not Muslim or not Jewish – but it does not suffice many to simply be not Christian. Even where they loathe the beliefs or believers of Buddhism and such, they don’t invest the energy and emotion to undermine the belief itself. By contrast, many are compelled to be anti-Christian.
Many of the same people deign to judge God Himself. Notably, they don’t ordinarily try to falsify the gods of other religions - instead they go directly after God as revealed in the Word. As an example, there is concentration on death by forced conversions to Christianity, centuries in the past – while ignoring death by forced conversion to Islam in the present. And some even blame God, or the belief in God - rather than those who actually did such murders, which were and remain strictly in disobedience to the Word.
IMHO, we who are Judeo-Christian should take this as even more confirmation of the Word who prophesied this, the spirit of Anti-Christ. So if we are engaged in battle of spiritual dimensions, we ought not combat with the mortal weapons of materialistic rationalizations, but rather we ought put on the whole armor of God – our prayer, faith and especially the Word.
Which you cannot seem to agree is an absolutely inalienable right, only restricted by constitutional due process.
tpaine, as you know, I am a (generic) Christian. As such, I believe with my whole heart and soul that the dignity of human life requires the "inalienable rights" of life, liberty, and property, by virtue of the fact that God created man in His own image -- possessing reason and free will as divine grants. Human liberty accords and comports with the nature God created in us.
The Framers of the Constitution were also firm believers in this Christian "anthropology" of man; they designed the Constitution with that anthropology ever in mind (i.e., man according to the "...the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," as TJ put it in the DoI).
But the plain fact is, in our own day and age, the idea of the dignity and sanctity of the human person has increasingly come under attack, because it is no longer broadly accepted (at least among the fashionable intelligentsia) that man's rights are sacrosanct, "inalienable," if you will, by virtue of his divine creation. With the "divine imprimatur" going out of fashion, man's rights increasingly are coming under attack. This is no accident. And we have learned how little the Constitution really can protect human liberty from infringement.
Betty, you seem to believe that because socialists are presently 'winning' by ignoring our constitution, that we can fight them by using an authoritaran 'morality' that also ignores individual rights.
Our society increasingly becomes morally decadent -- because influential sectors of it, the "opinion makers," reject God and all his works, including His Law, and His creation, man, whose rights are increasingly viewed as mere grants of the state.
I refuse to accept that we can abandon the use of constitutional means to fight this statism. -- As per Clair Wolfe, it is not yet time.
To put it another way, God recognizes our rights as inalienable, because He vested them in us. And because I believe He sees it that way, so do I.
But the state, feeling no longer bound by God's moral law, apparently can spit on man's rights with impunity, whenever it's convenient to do so. Absent societal consensus about God's moral law for man, the Constitution has, in actuality, been weakened to the point that it cannot help us assert our unalienable rights against the interests of the overweening, illegitimate state. Just look at the destruction wrought WRT the BoR in recent times.
My problem with Randian philosophy is that, although it upholds human rights with a vengeance, it refuses to acknowledge the authoritative Source of those rights, who alone makes them inviolable, with His Law.
The 'authoritive source' of rights are the people.
Your claimed moralistic 'authority' is no better than that of the statists who claim a 'social' authority.
Thus she "kills" the only Judge who could hold the unjust violators of our rights accountable for their infringements, their transgressions against God-given human liberty. She turns the only incorruptible and truly loving Judge into a "hallucination" or a superstition -- as if He were what Marx said He is: "the opiate of the masses."
I have no idea what this line means. - Do you?
I have said this before, but I'll say it again: You can take a shot at God; but it will always be man who takes the bullet. Peace, my friend.
There will be no peace in this free republic, my friend, until we can arrive at some sort of consensus on protecting basic individual rights, regardless of what we ~believe~ about their source.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So much repetition of the ploy of feigned ignorance and lack of understanding, tpaine.
Look at what is up there in bold. You know very well what this means. Just because irrational "objectivism" denies the reality of it, it doesn't mean that you don't know precisely what betty boop has served you exceedingly to remind you.
Then you send yourself further down the river of denial, feigning further ignorance by refusing to go back and read this in the post I pointed out. Now, I have taken considerable time from my day, to put it in front of your eyes. Please show some intellectual honesty and comity. You are neither fooling us, nor God.
"I have no idea what this line means. - Do you?" -- Are you going to keep using this false premise and worthless excuse through Judgment Day? You have been given a much better education than that in your days.
Going yet further in denial, you set up a senseless false dichotomy between God's authority and human rights. I think that goes to the problem with the various kinds of atheists and "agnostics," including "objectivists." You are offended by the authority of your Creator and Judge. Just as the "righteous" Pharisees that Jesus confronted in the days he walked the earth, you refuse to believe you need salvation. Not only does this keep one separated from God, it denies the basis for sustaining the very freedoms that you hold to be so quasi-absolute.
Very serious indeed.
My problem with Randian philosophy is that, although it upholds human rights with a vengeance, it refuses to acknowledge the authoritative Source of those rights, who alone makes them inviolable, with His Law.
I replied, [to the sentence above]:
The 'authoritive source' of rights are the people.
Your claimed moralistic 'authority' is no better than that of the statists who claim a 'social' authority.
Betty's remarks continued, [in reference to Rand] :
Thus she "kills" the only Judge who could hold the unjust violators of our rights accountable for their infringements, their transgressions against God-given human liberty. She turns the only incorruptible and truly loving Judge into a "hallucination" or a superstition -- as if He were what Marx said He is: "the opiate of the masses."
I replied, in reference to the above portion of her opinion on Rand] :
I have no idea what this line means. - Do you?
---------------------------
Big deal.. Just exactly WHAT is your problem with the above?
So simple, and so obvious. Why don't they get it?
Good, since discussion and debate are part of what this site is about.
maybe we need to consider disenfranchising people's right to vote, too
Sounds kinda authoritarian to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.