Posted on 07/22/2002 4:31:37 PM PDT by dubyagee
I disagree. Most of mankind acts quite rationally. And men are totally free to choose their acts.
Exactly! Thinking, by the way, is just the common term for reasoning. Logic is the formailzation of correct reason. Therefore, all thought is "reasoning," that is, the use of the rational faculty (since it is the only one we have to think with). I think part of the problem here, is a misunderstanding of what rationality actually means. It does not mean reasoning correctly, it means only the capacity to reason or the faculty with which we reason. It can be used both correctly and incorrectly.
Hank
You claimed Rand as some sort of visionary for predicting confiscatory tax rates. I pointed out that beginning with FDR tax rates were confiscatory. As to me not understanding the effects of inflation on income tax, yes I do understand that.
As to the tax burden being higher on the average person today, yeah, that's true. However, even with the higher tax burden middle and lower class people have a higher standard of living, if they care to. That $10 worth of groceries you were talking about took two days to earn at $25 a week. My dad nearly stroked when he found out a house he purchased was going to cost him $73 a month in 1960. Maybe it's just because my Dad started out as a tenant farmer and we were considered poor white trash, but my childhood memories include raising chickens in the back yard because it was cheaper than going to the store, and asking my grandmother to buy me an apple, and her telling me we couldn't afford it. I remember her saying, "those apples are over ten cents apiece. We can't afford that." My dad worked six days a week repairing appliances, my mom worked 6 days a week fixing hair (until 9 pm on Mondays and Thursdays) and we thought we were stepping in high cotton when we bought a 5 year old car. Here in 2002, I'm not considered rich, but I'm looking out over the driveway at a new extended cab Chevy pickup, an Astro Van for the wife, three TV's, two computers, a hundred year old restored house in a small town with three porches and two porch swings, central air, dishwasher, a fat bank account with a 401K (got out of the market in '99 and have been sitting in a fixed account ;o>), my wife doesn't have to work outside the home and I can look after my mother and make sure she doesn't need anything. Pretty tough for me to grouse too much. God's treated me far better than I deserve.
BTW, my old man worked his *ss off. He taught me everything I know about earning a living, and he was the smartest man I've ever known. Never rich, but everybody from bank presidents to janitors knew and liked him, and he treated both with the same respect.
Sorry to go off topic like that, sometimes I get a little philosophical when I think about the old man. Back to point, though, I wasn't trying to make the claim that the average person was taxed at the same levels that they are now, but that FDR seriously wanted a cap on how much people could make. This fits in well with Rand's thrust that the "looters", as she called them, believed everyone who was smart, worked hard, and accomplished something should have the majority of it taken away from them and given to other people.
Take care,
A big part of that moral code is part of Objectivism or at least derived from it, just as yours (I presume) is from Christianity.
I think I'm no longer an Objectivists because of a few minor differences, and AFAIK Objectivism is very strict in its definition. It's not an easy path of study, no one falls into it, so those who stay are likely to do as I did. But I hope one day that something very close to Objectivism gains such prominence that it's taken for granted like Christianity! LOL I think Christianity's remarkable for all it has done for all people and how well it has weathered it's success.
Thanks for the kind words for Christianity!
Know that I'll give your proclamation the attention it deserves.
But never mind, yendu. You've already been indoctrinated with the Socialist sheeple propaganda.
Now, start slandering - it's what Liberals do.
What are you talking about? I'm not a liberal. What socialist sheeple propaganda are you talkin about? Am happy to defend anything I said on this post, just have no idea what you're talking about.
Hello. I commend what you have written and the depth of thought that has gone into it, but i feel that there are some things you may have missed, that i will put forward for consideration. i have realised this was posted 10 years ago and you are probably not even on this site anymore, but i want to write it anyway!
I see Objectivist thought disagreeing with Religion (and this is my thinking) because it is not a personal moral code they are taking on; but that of a collective, so overall religion has no place for individualism and restricts, in some ways, rational thought in the place of obsequious belief (this is further backed up by Orwell in 1984, jus’ sayin’).
To address your second point, i think you have a different understanding of good and evil. You pose them to be contradictory of one another, when in fact they could only be classed as a contradiction when applied to the same situation, instead they are able to exist at the same time, but not in the same situation. You are right that Rand shows she does believe for evil to exist and i think that evil can exist, because as Rand puts in the book, the evil comes from someone who defies themselves and their own values of life and existence; that is the evil of man. The whole point of her book is to show the stupidness of man defeating their species in order of some values that is not their own. They, she believes are capable to do it through (as D’anconia puts it) through the only evil thought, not thinking.
The last reference to the soul is one that can be explained with some knowledge on Greek thoughts of the soul (Aristotle is the one major influence in rand’s life, she says). A way of seeing the soul by this line of thought is through reason, a belief was held by some that reason was the proof of the soul and part of what made it up. So by Aristotelian standards, the soul is not devoid of reason but infact the best, most humanistic part of it is made up by the capacity of reason.
I hope you read this :)
Welcome to FR. I would not expect a reply to the poster you addresses, as they have not posted here since 2003, and the thread you posted to was from 2002.
All the same, we do discuss Rand here a fair amount and I hope you will stick around and participate.
Contradictions, schmontradictions!
Among other things, I categorically disagree with Ayn Rand's atheism as well, but it's quite refreshing to recognize that there is still plenty of common ground to be found between patriotic atheists and patriotic Christians, both of whom ardently believe in Liberty, privacy, conservative economics, minimally intrusive government, and so on.
I, for one, bemoan the frequent antagonism between these groups, because, to my mind, there is much more that we hold in common than there is to divide us.
Wow. I don’t even remember writing this! It’s ten years old! And I completely agree with your post. I have grown tremendously in my faith and as a person since I posted this vanity and believe that a belief in true liberty is key to conservatism. Most liberals have no faith in humanity and no basis for morality and believe we have to be ‘lawed’ to death to make us behave. Then they want to be above those laws of their own making...Ahhhh...could go on but will spare you.
Here’s to a bunch of ‘freeping’ years! LOL.
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