Leaderboard

Jeez dude ... if this post represents your understanding of Objectivism, I have to ask, what is it exactly that you like about it?? The government according to Objectivism exists to protect individual rights - that is, the right to use their own mind and act however they want as long as they don't violate anyone else's right to do the same. The only way you can prevent someone from using their own mind to guide their actions is through force (physical force) or fraud. The government then exists to protect individuals from force or fraud. A father selling his children into prostitution is OK because it's an economic exchange?? That's pretty much the most twisted logic I've ever heard. The children are individuals, not property. They can't be exchanged. That's force against the children. There's nothing OK about it. As for "utopianism", Objectivism doesn't require that the individuals in a society agree to act or think in any particular way at all. It simply doesn't shield them from the consequences of their own irrationality, and the assumption (or observation, really) is that when people aren't protected from the consequences of being stupid and lazy, they tend to start taking care of themselves and avoiding those consequences. People are smart; nearly every single human being who is born has the capacity to figure out life. In an Objectivist society you wouldn't have to be selfish, you just wouldn't last very long if you weren't - cause that's how reality works. If by "police state" you mean there would be police to defend against criminals and mobsters, then yeah, of course there would be police. But keep in mind that the only crime would be force or fraud, so I don't know why you seem to think we would need so many of them. Mobster-ing would become a lot less lucrative without a monopoly on illegal substances etc., so crime control would really not be as big of an issue as it is now - and I'd hardly call what we have now a "police state". Some Objectivists and people who call themselves Objectivists are idiots. Some of them are mean idiots. Sorry. The rest of us can't really help you with that one. You're free to identify them as such and not spend your time and energy on listening to them. There is really only one main, unsolved debate "within Objectivism", and if you look into it you'll see that it's a fairly fundamental issue to a point that the two sides really aren't saying the same things. It's more like totally different philosophies that use the same language and the same name. It's unfortunate and can be confusing, but you can look into it on your own and make a decision on who's right. It's not between Rand and Peikoff either. That's my 2c worth, I'm sure other people will weigh in. I'd simply advise that from what I can see, your understanding of the philosophy is not very solid, but you're in the right place to get a firmer grasp on it.