Posted on 09/05/2005 5:33:55 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
The New Orleans Disaster and the Line on 'John Galt' September 2, 2005
"...It was supposed to be a light column about this and that, with a brief update on a movie adaptation of my favorite novel, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged..."
(Excerpt) Read more at boxofficemojo.com ...
Yes...I can see where it would have been interpreted that way. Imprecision is the death of communication! Thanks...
Contrast Conservatism with Progressives (Liberalism).
If you are a liberal, and you deviate from the party line, you are an apostate, and liberals will shun you, ignore you, attack you and eject you from the "family" of liberals (if they really believe in such a thing as "family")
Conservatives are much more tolerant of views that do not fit the whole picture. Three tenets of Conservatism are Personal Property rights, Individual Rights, and minimal Government involvement in an individual's personal life. If another conservative disagrees on one of these three, then the argument can be made (and often is) that the person is not a "Conservative". But individuals are not attacked, shunned and ejected from the group because they may disagree on various points.
That does not mean conservatives are less principled than liberals, just more grounded in reality, the limitations of Human Nature and what can, might or should be accomplished by politics.
Liberalism is the party of the Looters. (to use her phrases)
And so it is with Ayn Rand. I do not share her atheism. But I do share her views on capitalism, personal responsibility and property rights. But I consider her to be formative for me on those points, but not influential to me on matters of faith.
The standard is not the same. The "non-initiation" principle states that "no man may initiate the use of physical force against others." That's a pretty straightforward statement. It says you can't shoot first, no matter what.
Your standard is different. You say that it is permissible to initiate actual physical force in cases where a) there is as yet no physical force but b) you have reasonable cause to think there may be.
There are two important differences in play here. First, you've given yourself the right to initiate actual physical force in some cases. Second, your justification for doing so is based on your subjective perception that there is a threat directed toward, and that you must shoot first.
It's clear, then, that your version of "non-initiation" is not the absolute principle put forth by, e.g., Ayn Rand. And if it's not absolute ... well, then the morality of your initiating force depends on the context in which it takes place. And the context is defined by your subjective assessment of the immediate situation.
You originally stated this: "There is nothing 'relative' about the non-initation principle."
We have demonstrated that the non-initiation principle is context-sensitive, and therefore your statement is incorrect.
Easy stuff, DC. Pity you can't admit it.
"The fact that most people think that being selfish means harming one's fellow man, that pursuing one's own self-interest equates to behaving brutally or irrationally, is, as Ms. Rand noted, a 'psychological confession' on their part. In fact it is against one's own long-term self-interest to behave irrationally or trample others. Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive." -- Wayne Dunn, here
Kindly define the difference between religion and superstition. Thank you
No. It isn't. If you swing your fist at me I am under no obligation to stand there to see if it hits or misses. You have initiated the action. Same thing pointing a gun at me. Only your characterization of the act in your strawman has changed.
You are right. This is easy stuff.
Your day job? Don't quit it.
And what do YOU believe, r9? Do you own yourself, or are you just another piece of government property? Society's property? Your congregation's property? Since man is a social animal, isn't it enough that his associations be voluntary? Or must they be coerced by some outside authority? One of YOUR personal dictating? Do YOU believe in any type of personal autonomy? If so, how do YOU define it, how do you limit it and why? Where would you say it starts, and where would you say it ends?
I disagree. I say that I own you, and I seem to have just as much basis for that claim as you do for yours - i.e., none.
1) No cat has two tails.
2) A cat has one more tail than no cat.
3) Ergo, a cat has three tails. QED
In this particular case, r9etb is making use of the following distinct definitions of the word "subjective":
1) Modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background.
2) Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world.
Using definition (1), r9etb sets up an example of a situation where a person's understanding of reality is (as it always is to some degree) limited by that person's previous knowledge and sensory perceptions. Then comes the switcheroo to definition (2), leading to the absurd conclusion that to have a limited or incorrect perception of specific facts is equivalent to being disconnected from reality and guided by arbitrary notions out of one's head.
Who said anything about brutality? Three hots and a cot, that's not so bad, is it? And I think it's pretty obvious that owning slaves is a perfectly rational choice on my part, insofar as I can maximize my own well-being while minimizing the effort required to do so.
It's a free country. You are free to believe you should be called Princess Tinkerbell for all I care. Now try and assert your claim. See what happens to you.
Yep. I noticed. Good way to break it down. Breaking down the strawman still leaves the straw though.
Okay, so now we're back to it simply being a matter of whether or not I can actually make it happen. Might makes right, in effect. Well, that's a morality of sorts, I guess.
That's the standard "if you believe otherwise, you're crazy" gambit, which was coincidentally a favorite tool of the Soviet Union.
But let's see if the assertion holds water by testing this statement:
Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive.
And yet there are literally millions of people who became wealthy, and lived long, comfortable lives, all on the backs of slave labor -- including American plantation owners, pharaoahs in Egypt, Romans and Greeks, Incas, and many others. Clearly it's not always "self-destructive" to own slaves, and even to abuse or even kill them.
By any physical standard these people profited handsomely from their ownership of slaves -- it did, indeed, serve both their self-interest and their happiness. In order to defend your "self-destruction" claims, you pretty much have to resort to things like psychological definitions of "happiness," coupled with "what if" scenarios -- which forces you into a subjective philosophy.
Hokay. Are you prepared to state, now and for the record, that the existence of large numbers of people who enjoy material prosperity all their lives while rejecting a certain philosophy is proof that the philosophy in question is erroneous?
Where they correct? Is the world flat?
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