Heather Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Colorado State Senator Attacks University Bias "Critics accused the senator of cooking up a quota scheme for conservative professors and encouraging students to blacklist and snitch on their teachers." Ackowledgement is the first step to solving a problem, even if the law doesn't pass (and I doubt it will), but I'm not so sure force is the way to resolve the issue. It's the way THEY play the game, and I despise it. What do you guys think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather Posted January 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Horowitz arguing his point on Hannity & Colmes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalism Forever Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 I'm not so sure force is the way to resolve the issue They get their funding from non-consenting taxpayers, so the use of force has already been initiated, and the "professors" are knowing and willing beneficiaries of the use of force. What's more, they spend their entire carreers advocating the continued use of force. So I don't think we should have any compunctions about answering them with force; in fact, the correct thing to do would be to try these people and throw them in jail, or even to execute those of them who are found guilty of high treason. What keeps this from happening is that Americans don't see why it is immoral to forcibly redistribute wealth and why the knowing and willing beneficiaries of such redistribution deserve to be treated as criminals. So the first step in solving the problem is to make Americans see this fact; once that is accomplished, the rest will come pretty easily. While the proposed legislation was obviously not authored with the above in mind, it has the effect of drawing attention to the existence of a problem. And when people begin to recognize the existence problems, and develop a willingness to solve them, that provides a good opportunity for Objectivists to explain why the problems exist and how they can be eliminated. (There are many similar opportunities nowadays; for example, the Catholic church's lack of moral clarity--to put it mildly--with regard to pedophilia and terrorism is prompting many people to re-examine their moral evaluation of Catholicism.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinorityOfOne Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Whaaa? CF, am I understanding you right? You think people ought to be put in jail (or worse) for teaching the wrong ideas? Or people who are "knowing and willing beneficiaries of the use of force", i.e., just about any teacher at any school anywhere in the U.S.? I really hope I misunderstood you there, because that's nuts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_feldblum Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Willing acceptance of money the government taxed (stole) on your behalf is a moral crime. (Although reclaiming money from the government which it had no right to take from you in the first place is not.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielshrugged Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 What is the difference between reclaiming money through scholarships to a university, which Ayn Rand argued in favor of, and through a paycheck at a university? Both seem to be wiling acceptance of money the gov't taxed on your behalf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadCap Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Daniel Do you remember the conditions AR listed which qualified the acceptance of such scholarships as moral? With that in mind, do you REALLY think most teachers even come close to meeting those conditions? That should answer your question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinorityOfOne Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 The standard, as I've most often heard it articulated, is: would this job be performed in a free market? That makes sense to me. You're not responsible for the government's intervention in the economy, and you shouldn't be a martyr. Incidentally, note that Rand never said that people who accept AND support government scholarships should be legally culpable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_feldblum Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 Daniel, The difference is in rights - as soon as one claims they are not an inherent universal absolute, one has none (one can claim a thing merely as a privelege revokable, which means revokable at any time by others). The university professors claim debts against the lives of taxpayers and is therefore a moral criminal; the rational scholarship candidate claims "public property", which really means "that which by rights any and all have a claim to", and is there morally clean. The former claims your life; the latter claims something nobody owns. Yes, the number of bills and the colorful patterns printed on them may in fact be the same in both cases: it is the content and context of the claims by which one judges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalism Forever Posted January 20, 2004 Report Share Posted January 20, 2004 You think people ought to be put in jail (or worse) for teaching the wrong ideas? No. Merely teaching the wrong ideas is not an initiation of force and therefore not a matter for the criminal justice system to deal with. It is (legally) OK to teach communism in a private school. Or people who are "knowing and willing beneficiaries of the use of force",If I ran a pirate ship and offered you a job as a sailor, wouldn't your acceptance of the job make you an accomplice in my crimes as a pirate? Even if your "job description" didn't include active involvement in capturing and looting ships, just normal sailor's activities, you would get paid with stolen money, for helping me sail the ship so I could steal money. That pretty much means that you are getting a share of the loot in exchange for your assistance in obtaining the loot, in other words you are an accomplice. i.e., just about any teacher at any school anywhere in the U.S.? Only the teachers who advocate the use of force to fund schools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather Posted January 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2004 A point just occured to me....I go to a California state university. My education is heavily subsidized by the "masses" of California, my family included, and I will heavily subsidize the education of many others like myself, by force, in whichever state I choose to live. The survival of the state school system, and the survival of my many professors' careers, depends on my (and the rest of those who are the products of public education's) willingness to acquiesce to such a system, hence thier self-serving interest in pursuading me that this forced-altruistic system is morally correct. On top, the fact that I am willingly allowing myself to be educated by such a system is an acquiscence on my part all in itself. Any fight I put up after-the-fact would make me a hypocrite. Probably a lot of other students are in the same position that I am in. I know Rand said a lot on this topic--Does anyone know where I could find that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalism Forever Posted January 21, 2004 Report Share Posted January 21, 2004 On top, the fact that I am willingly allowing myself to be educated by such a system is an acquiscence on my part all in itself. Any fight I put up after-the-fact would make me a hypocrite. If you are taxed against your will, going to a tax-funded school does not constitute acquiescence in your being taxed and does not make you a hypocrite. Getting some of your stolen money back is part of the fight against theft. It is paying the taxes and NOT benefiting from them that would be acquiescence and make you a hypocrite: you disagree with being looted, but do nothing to get back your stolen property. You can't fight the doctrine of selflessness by being selfless. But the best way to fight theft is to refuse to be robbed. When there are enough people who recognize the immorality of taxation, we could start organizing things like "taxpayer's strikes." If one guy refuses to pay taxes, he'll be thrown in jail, but if half the nation does so--including many of the major corporations that keep America alive--what can the IRS do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_feldblum Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 What can the IRS do -- without a budget? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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