Objectivisim: To The Ramparts

The welfare state is not the fault of the welfare recipient; its the fault of the intellectuals and philosophers who advocate for it, and the cheats who know better, but turn a blind eye and reach into the cookie jar. There is plenty of empirical evidence to expose the welfare state argument as a con man's come on, and plenty who have left it and built a life for themselves. What needs to be done is what Yaron Brook is doing. lecturing, writing, educating, and proselytizing, wherever and whenever rational. And that is the purpose of this board. I am interested in the honest thinker, not the pseudo-intellectual who wishes to be Plato's Philosopher King, or worst yet, his court jester (spooky). So far, in my judgment, most here are the honest ones, and for your interest and contributions, thank you. As for the others, enjoy yourselves and best of luck.

Miss Rand: "But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/happiness.html

 

It's Socrates' Philosopher-King, and well done on figuring out that's my goal in life. I am an honest thinker, which is why I can have quibbles with Ayn Rand's pronouncements, even while embracing her overall philosophy. For example, she confused the two groups of people, the "thinkers" and the "doers", believing that they were one and the same group. They're not. For another, she oversimplified the concept of "is to ought". There is no way to go from what is to what one ought to do simply because if everyone did what they ought to do, then it would be an "is" as well. But because people make different choices, and don't do what they ought to do, or have different oughts, then one cannot describe what is and prescribe what should be at the same time. But, like I said, these are quibbles.

 

She was referring to the Founding Fathers, and was referring to the fact that a countries leading political philosophers happened to attain political power. I don't think this is a very convincing way of looking at the Founding Fathers.

Regarding "is to ought" I think that you're missing the point of the problem. If you believe that there is an "ought" at all you're taking Rand's position. Her position was that the facts of reality imply certain "oughts." That isn't to say that the "ought" is always what occurs.

 

And become an adult sheep, obedient and unquestioning of the shepherds to decide for us? That may be utopia for you. It's not for me.

 

Ridiculous. As more wealth is created, those who are relatively poor have more than they did in the past. If there is such high profit to be had, entrepreneurs will come through with better ideas, goods, and services to capture that profit.It's the government that is expensive and keeps you poor.

 

Apparently, reading comprehension is also evil to someone like you, as that's not what was said about helping others. You should go back and read the OP again. See if you can understand it.

Your "cutthroat capitalist world" is bringing the world out of abject poverty. It sees everyone has a consumer, and it finds ways to get them the good and services that they want in return for whatever they can produce. Meanwhile, the politicians and their benevolent governments that you revere make war all around the world, keep people poor, and transfer wealth unto themselves and their cronies. They don't care about helping the poor; they care about maintaining their power. The question is: who do you prefer. Those who want to rule over others regardless of their condition (politicians and government), or those who benefit from making the conditions of others better (capitalists)? I think the answer is obvious. When the poor are lifted out of poverty by the advancement of wealth, you lose your victim status.

 

We don't live in a cutthroat capitalist world. We live in a mixed economy with regulations and welfare systems.

 

You sound like someone who just read Atlas Shrugged...on Paul Ryan's lap.

There's another philosophy supported by works of fiction, it's called Scientology. I give both Objectivism and Scientology roughly the same weight which is exactly 0 pounds.

Rand was railing against a problem that didn't exist. The real problem is she was thinking she needed to justify selfishness, but since all humans are selfish, self motivated, and rarely act outside their interests if ever, it was a pointless book. And a poorly written book. I mean, sixty pages of one character droning on and on? That's poor writing.

 

I'm sorry, did you just say that capitalists, as you mean in today, care about people and politicians don't? Ha ha ha ha.

Tell you what, the next time you need help, call Walgreens and see what they do for you. And by help, I mean not the kind you have to give them money for.

I won't say that politicians all care about the poor either, but no business is interested in helping the poor. They are interested in making profit, that's it. Nothing else matters and nor should it.

 

Sheesh, some people should at least read Adam Smith. The bigger picture is that our own "self-interest" creates an economy where all (or at least most) benefit. I think it was Pres. Kennedy (D) that said, "A rising tide raises all boats," and then proceeded to cut taxes.

Steve

 

So if the illustration by fiction of body of philosophy makes it false, would that apply to all philosophies that use any form of fiction, such as metaphor, alliteration, etc.?

I am just curious if you base your entire opinion on the irrational idea that any narrative that does not entirely reflect the absolute truth must therefore make the underlying point false, or if you just use that as an excuse to discount that with which you find disagreement.

 

You think that the winners of popularity contests care all that much about anything other than winning more popularity contests? Your faith is naive, like that of a religionist who believes in an angry and judgmental sky daddy.

You mean, people are less likely to part with their resources when it's their own and not the result of their theft? Huh. I bet if I called you, you 'd be far less forthcoming than Walgreens.

No government is interested in helping the poor, except as a means of generating more vote. Nothing else matters.
And, you are wrong. There are many non-profit and not-for-profit businesses. It may come as a surprise to you, but a non-profit organization is a business with a mission other than profit. It still must raise funds, find volunteers, and dispense resources according to it's mission. Government just steals and gives out wherever it benefits politicians and their cronies.

You are also wrong that corporations seek only profit. The charter of your typical class C corporation is to maximize shareholder value. In many cases, that means foregoing profit in order to realize longer term gains. That comes from investment, and careful divestment or poorly performing units (whether they are sold or dissolved.)

A class B corporation has a charter which puts the social cause first, rather than shareholder value. Maybe you aren't aware of those and just spout off like you know something about evil, greedy corporations?

A class S, or privately held corporation (also LLCs, partnerships, etc) may be profit-oriented or may be legacy oriented, or may just be there to earn a living for a handful of owners.

 

A problem that didn't exist? Really? How stupid can one be? You and reality just don't exist in the same universe, right?

Germany: 6 million slaughter under the slogan of nation socialism (There is no "I" in Germany=--Goebbels); 30 Million, almost the whole Kulak culture, slaughtered by Stalin in Russia, the great communist collectivist paradise where the individual existed to serve the state or died, where men where so desperate to rebel against Stalin's Gulags, they'd nailed their testicles to their benches.; Mao, the greatest mass murderer in human history, 60 million during his "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,"; Cuba, one giant torture camp bled red by the psychopathic Castro, and his inhuman monstrous henchman, Che Guevara. Today, North Korea, Putin, and many more collectivists states and leaders.

Some other interesting points about railing against problems that didn't exist: after Mussolini allowed the release of the movie of Ayn Rand's "We the Living" in Italy because of its anti-communist theme, Hitler called him up and asked him if he had lost his mind and ordered him to ban it immediately. (The actual theme of We the Living is the individual vs the collective or state); and secondly, WWII, supposedly fought to set the world free from tyranny, left more people under the rule of dictators than at any time in history up to that point,

As to her writing, go ahead, do better. She is so bad according to you it ought to be easy and you should make millions. Her books still sell in the millions .BTW: I read Atlas Shrugged before Paul Ryan was born; and I know Objectivism, and Paul Ryan is no Objectivist, just another conservative parading as a defender of liberty and Man's rights.

And lastly, your post proves the point, self interest is misunderstood, under attack, smeared, mocked, and being intellectually murdered. In other words, selfishness is not doing whatever makes you feel good, but is acting according to the best within you to achieve your highest potential as a rational creative and productive being.

Miss Rand:

"There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”).

If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html

 

The business man and his wallet does more for the human being, than the politician with his gun.

Miss Rand:

The flood of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today have no idea (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature. While archeologists are rummaging through the ruins of millennia for scraps of pottery and bits of bones, from which to reconstruct some information about prehistorical existence—the events of less than a century ago are hidden under a mound more impenetrable than the geological debris of winds, floods, and earthquakes: a mound of silence."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html

MIss Rand: "If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on businessmen were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business. The evils, popularly ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls.--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html

A free man trades what he's earned for that which he desires with other free men; a politician takes a gun and points it at your head and says: "Do or die, give or rot". You choose which is a better system, the wallet (capitalism) or the gun (tyranny)?

 

So I won't quibble.

 

Who's money does the politician use to help you? Is it their own?

How does a business make a profit? Do they have some mechanism by which if you fail to pay them money for something that you don't want you end up in jail?

https://www.walgreens.com/pharmacy/pharmacy_chat_landing.jsp

https://www.walgreens.com/topic/sr/sr_giving_back_contribution.jsp

 

It's the government's. It's not yours anymore, you paid it to someone else to represent your interests.

They do nothing for you until you pay, more often than not.

Oops, you picked the place my dad retired from after 35 years working. Walgreens is no charity. They are a cutthroat, bottom line, retail store and they have had one of the best runs in drug retail stores because of it. They are no charity and they provide less assistance to the poor than the government, which is run by politicians, does.

 

Guns do nothing for anyone anyway so this statement is probably true. Of course, the government has a big, big wallet and businessmen do nothing for human beings that isn't driven by profit. So if you can't help their bottom line, they do nothing for you. Government doesn't work that way. So if you compare wallets to wallets, as you should, then you lose and government wins.

These are great quotes, but even in Ayn Rand's times capitalism didn't exist. Corporatism ruled and still does. Please read the Wealth of Nations. In it Adam Smith specifically details why the collusion of capital is an evil and threat to capitalism.

Here's why, Capitalism developed along the Rhine where small villages each had their own baker or whatever. That baker had to produce quality products at fair prices or else he went out of business and starved. In today's world, bakeries are largely incorporated which means even if a small one fails, that person largely doesn't risk their personal property. The same is true if they poison half their customers. They can go out of business for a while and then pop up somewhere else in another state consequence free. That was harder to do back then because trade and information moved quickly along the river and there were far fewer people.

So Miss Rand or whatever you want to call her was nothing more than an ill informed zealot. Oh and a terrible writer. She should have taken a class or something.

 

Your ability to write must be superb to recognize the inadequacies of Ayn Rand.

Miss Ayn Rand:"
“Mediocrity” does not mean an average intelligence; it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/mediocrity.html

Best of luck

 

The moral quest continues: Time to make money,

Miss Ayn Rand "So you think that money is the root of all evil? . . . Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/money.html

 

Today's enlightenment for the wise and the foolish:

Miss Ayn Rand: "To think is an act of choice. The key to what you so recklessly call “human nature,” the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival—so that for you, who are a human being, the question “to be or not to be” is the question “to think or not to think.--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html

I see a world filled with jets, with organ transplants, computers, space ships, refrigeration, Xboxes, nuclear submarines, sonic booms, and yet, I see college students on college campuses who hold faith as absolute, who excuse and tolerate Islamic terror, horror, and blood, who demand safe spaces so as not to have to make moral choices, who can not differentiate between speech and action, who want their cake and eat it too, but don't want to do what needs to be done to bake it. Who can't even tell you who Immanual Kant and John Locke are. A world where astrology is still viewed by many as real as ghosts.

I live in a world that is sacrificing the wonder of human reason to the faith of altruism. Soon the jets will fall, along with our life expectancy and prosperity. Soon, the religious tyrants will once again rule with the terror of another dark age.

Can it be stopped? We have free will. We can think. To quote a favorite philosopher, Dr. Leonard Peikoff, "“To save the world is the simplest thing in the world. All one has to do is think.”
― Leonard Peikoff

Will we? I'm not sure because electing Trump, the King of the non-thinker, is not a very encouraging sign, and there are many more such ominous acts. But if we do, it will be because Ayn Rand showed the way, and we took her advise by learning her philosophy of Objectivism and living it.

 

The Roots of War: North Korea is starving, but has the funds to build and launch missiles. At end of the Korean conflict, North Korea was richer than South Korea. Today North Korea is a dictator's cess pool, and South Korea is a lighted paradise where the average person has all the comforts of a pro-capitalist republic. One nation poor and militaristic and another prosperous and peaceful. One threatening war, the other promising to defend its property and citizens. The roots of war? Statists and dictators who have looted their nation and enslaved its citizens, and now are on the march to start looting and enslaving others. In other words, the demand for a requlated and state run economy and a prohibition against Lassie Faire Capitalism. Or simply put: the hatred of the good for being good.

Those too busy creating wealth and earning a living don't have the time, the soul, or the corruption and hatred to start wars. Those who have no self-esteem, seek the sanction and worship of others, who value ostentatiousness over accomplishment, and seek to stay in power, they are the war mongers. The Roots of War: The desire of the unearned be it prestige or riches, or again, simply put: The hatred of the good for being good. An excellent morality tale demonstrating this monstrosity, Orwell's Animal Farm

Miss Ayn Rand: "Wars are the second greatest evil that human societies can perpetrate. (The first is dictatorship, the enslavement of their own citizens, which is the cause of wars.)--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/war.html

Miss Ayn Rand:"Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships. By the nature of its basic principles and interests, it is the only system fundamentally opposed to war."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/war.html

Miss Ayn Rand: "Let those who are actually concerned with peace observe that capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history—a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world—from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914."http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/war.html

Miss Ayn Rand: "During the nineteenth century, it was free trade that liberated the world...wrecking the remnants of feudalism...and statist absolute monarchies."--http://austrianeconomicsandliberty.blogspot.com/2012/02/roots-of-war-ayn-rand.html

I say its obvious to the most ignorant and blind of man: If man truly wants to end war and create peace, prosperity, and happiness on earth, let him choose the liberty of capitalism, not the hatred and envy of statism, be it a religious tyranny such as Islam, or a racist nationalism such as Nazi German and Imperial Japan, or today's America's BLM and the alt right.

 

The UN: The great collective of tyrants, cowards, and crooks:

After WWII--the war to end all wars, the war to end dictatorships and free men from tyranny, but yet delivered more men into slavery than at any other time in history--created a collective body called the UN. Wars were over. Men would be free. Prosperity and peace would flourish, Yet since its creation more men have lived, been tortured, been imprisoned, and been butchered by tyrants then ever before. Why? Why such a failure on such a grand scale that men now hold governments, politicians, diplomacy, and promises of freedom and prosperity with contempt and disdained and instead of accepted of working peacefully for a future of prosperity, they choose the doctrine of kill or be killed?

Altruism, the doctrine of evil, that is the morality that men hold sacred and are taught from birth, and it is the doctrine destroying man.The principle of sacrificing your values to others for the sake of sacrificing your values to others. A doctrine that causes men of peace to sacrifice peace to the men of war; to cause free men to sacrifice liberty to tyranny, prosperity to poverty, justice to mercy, condemnation of bad to forgiveness of the evil. It is altruism that creates a hatred for America, and praise for the Soviet Union; that created a despised Israel , and worship of Arafat and his followers. That created a laughing sneering crowd of cowards over Israel's tears over a murdered busload of children. That created the worst violators of the rights of free men being put on committees created to protect the rights of free men. In essence,it is altruism that takes the doctrine of sacrifice of the individual for the collective good and puts it on a pedestal to be worshipped, while the dreams, hopes, and loves of the individual are put under the whip "for the good of society".

And when will this insanity stop? When will man realize sacrificing the one to many can only lead to the many dying and bleeding for the one who has dictatorial powers over them? When will they realize it is selfishness that is good, and sacrifice that is evil. When they wake up and see a child brutally murder in front of his family because the father of the family strayed to far from the collective good.. When they realize that Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei is a human butchering monster and Benjamin Netanyahu is a man of integrity seeking to bring peace and prosperity to all who live in the Middle East. When the leaders of the world realize that French left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was wrong, and Emmanuel Macron’s speech was right. And many such more examples........

In other words, when they realize their is no moral justification for sacrificing the individual for anything, especially the collective, and realize it is the selfish that is the good and the altruistic that is evil.

Miss Ayn Rand: "Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good"--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/collectivism.html.

Miss Ayn Rand: Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html

It can't be said any clearer. We, as free beings, must start demanding our politicians start living up to the standards of liberty and individual rights, or we start marching to the reeducation camps. The decision is ours, as well as the responsibility of what the future will bring, rivers of blood or rivers of milk. Time is growing short.

 

To: Beer w/Straw:

A news item today states Pakistan will not let the doctor who helped America catch the human butchering piece of garage, bin Laden, go free because the good of the nation outweighs the rights of the individual. Of course they put it as: he broke the nations laws, no one is above the law. So for the sake of the common good, in prison he stays. Well if Pakistan is a civilized nation of laws and morality, then North Korea must be the land of the obese.

Again, any nation or human that advocates for the sacrifice of the individual for the common good, has renounced their humanity and joined the ranks of history's monsters.

The result so far of this policy of sacrificing the individual to the common good...over 100 million slaughtered by German, Russian and Chinese dictators.

Miss Ayn Rand: "When “the common good” of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. It is tacitly assumed, in such cases, that “the common good” means “the good of the majority” as against the minority or the individual. Observe the significant fact that that assumption is tacit: even the most collectivized mentalities seem to sense the impossibility of justifying it morally. But “the good of the majority,” too, is only a pretense and a delusion: since, in fact, the violation of an individual’s rights means the abrogation of all rights, it delivers the helpless majority into the power of any gang that proclaims itself to be “the voice of society” and proceeds to rule by means of physical force, until deposed by another gang employing the same means."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/common_good.html

There you go champ. Now show us how brilliant you are and destroy that argument. And then explain what happened to the Kulaks, the Jews, the Chinese peasants, and the doctor in Pakistan.

 

Whoa, seriously I just woke from a bad dream in which someone was trying to steal my cat. Clicked on an alert of Ayn Rand which gave me a link to this subforum and now I see five pages to a challenge I thought was addressed to me or something.

Anyway, my counter argument would probably be based off of this: http://lioncel.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/frommselfishnessandselflove.pdf

I'm not trying to obfuscate. Just wanting to indicate I'm not dead and will look at this later.