Glenn

Ayn Rand in a Playboy interview (on drinking): PLAYBOY: What about discriminate and selective indulgence in other activities—drinking, for example, or gambling? Are these immoral? RAND: To begin with, those are not in the same category as sex. Drinking, as such, is not immoral, unless a person is a drunkard. Merely taking a drink is hardly a moral question. It becomes an immorality only when a man drinks to the point where it stifles and stunts his mind. When a man drinks in order to escape the responsibility of being conscious, only then is drinking immoral. As to gambling, I wouldn't say that a person who gambles occasionally is immoral. That's more a game than a serious concern. But when gambling becomes more than a casual game, it is immoral because of the premise that motivates it. The passion for gambling comes from a man's belief that he has no control over his life, that he is controlled by fate, and, therefore, he wants to reassure himself that fate or luck is on his side.

I have never once seen such sloppy thinking and total evasion by a self-proclaimed Objectivist. When a government cuts taxes for one group of individuals and does not simultaneously reduce the services to that group paid for with those taxes, then other people who ARE paying taxes are picking up the tax tab and are therefore subsidizing the first group. The government is forcing others to pay for the first group, therefore the government is providing a subsidy in the form of services to the first group, all on the backs of others. The first group is getting a FREE LUNCH, something you accuse FPO of promoting, which is blatantly false. This is what FPO is against. I don't know why this is hard for you to understand. Nowhere does FPO think that tax cuts SHOULDN'T be followed with a subsequent reduction in spending. That should be a given to any objectivist. A government should be reducing taxes AND spending and that is exactly what FPO advocates. Targetted tax reductions are not something that any freedom oriented party or person should be advocating just for the sake of reducing taxes. A freedom oriented party should be advocating a simultaneous reduction of government taxation AND spending across the board, not just for some segmented group of the population. That is exactly what FPO does. You might do well to first start by browsing the Freedom Party website before making such ridiculous assumptions. www.freedomparty.on.ca

Hi Paul, As an objectivist and a member of Freedom Party of Ontario, I can tell you that the policies of FPO are completely consistent with Objectivism. Freedom Party is most definitely Objectivist and not Libertarian. Freedom Party leader, Paul McKeever is an objectivist. You can listen to his thoughts on Rand vs. Libertarianism here: ....along with other video clips on the party itself and our platform. As you probably know, there will be a provincial election this year (most likely in October). FPO is currently preparing and recruiting candidates to run. If you are interesting in running in your riding, call the headquarters in London and speak to Bob Metz 1-800-830-3301. If you have any other questions, I will be more than happy to answer them. Cheers, Glenn

In my mind, the first taxes that should go are: income and property taxes. Income Tax because they punish productivity. Property tax because it is a double tax on your productivity (you pay for your property with income that is already taxed) ,it is downright evil to force one to pay rent to the government on something they already paid for with after tax dollars. But it would depend on what funding certain taxes are used for in certain areas. For example, here in Ontario, Canada our provincial Income Tax was implemented to pay for our provincial health insurance plan. An objectivist would want to eliminate the government monopoly on health insurance and make all health insurance voluntary, so in order to do that you would first have to eliminate the tax used to fund health insurance in the first place so that people can be able to afford their newly chosen insurance plan. Property taxes are used to fund municipal expenditures. A property tax could be scrapped and replaced with a locally administered consumption tax. If taxes have to be there (which they will in the transition to laisse-faire), taxing property is far more unjust than taxing consumption.

Hello, I am starting an Objectivist meetup group in preferably London, Ontario. If anyone from the Toronto/Southwestern Ontario or even Michigan area is interested, please contact me. I am specifically interested in starting an OPAR study group and meeting at least once or possibly two times a month. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks, Glenn