Solomaxwell6

Wouldn't it be just the opposite? By removing government restrictions on stem cell research, he's creating more freedom and opportunity, not restricting them or forcing them to do anything.

In the sense that Lincoln was a terrible leader, no. In the sense that the North was worse than than the South, definately.

I'd have to disagree with you. Although Lincoln was the leader, he was only a temporary leader. The South as a whole supported slavery, but Lincoln was just leader for a few years.

Thank you, everyone. You know something that I find ironic? People harass me because of the fact that I'm an egotist. However, if they looked closer at Objectivism, they'd realize that it's superior even from an altruist point of view; Objectivism improves society much more than their primitive measures do.

Yes.

The Virtue of Selfishness. As I recall, she gives her answer to my question towards the beginning of the book, but it's an answer that you'd pretty much already have to be an Objectivist to believe. I'd have to check the book to find out exactly what her point was, anyway, but I no longer have it. I'm young (only 16), but it's been the morals I've followed to some extent my whole life, even though my parents are both Christian. I lost faith when I was about 12, and became an agnostic, and then an atheist. I was certainly an egotist long before picking up a copy of Atlas Shrugged (pure chance, actually; I was just picking up books that looked interesting from the Literature section of a small book store). I read it when I was 15, and found myself agreeing with pretty much every moral point in the book. It is, for me, an innate "I know this is right." I have to admit that I'm too psychologically and philosophically immature to be able to put it into better words than that. I realize that that's a fallacy, but I'm unfortunately unaware of any belief systems that are evil from a Christian perspective that have over a million adherents. Satanism probably has a million+ people, but it's certainly not evil (and he, at the very least, realizes not to judge Satanism based on the name alone).

Although I don't have any articles or anything by Rand herself, I'm sure she'd be for the North side. Remember; she believed that it was perfectly moral to invade a looter's country. Although slavery extended into several of the Northern states, it was waaay more significant in the south. As a result, despite her opinion in states' rights, she'd consider it perfectly within moral bounds to attack the Confederacy. In the Union, which was approaching full democracy (obviously, there were still slaves in some states, women couldn't vote in all states, etc), so the Northern states had right on their side.

First of all, is there any way I can get any information about the number of Objectivists? Some guy I was talking to on a forum says that Christianity counts as "good morals" because so many people believe in it, but Objectivism is not because there are fewer followers. I asked him how many it takes to become "good morals," and the number he gave me was one million. Now, that's a bs argument by him, but I kinda want to prove him wrong, you know? Second of all, a question I hadn't seen answered very well in the books that I've read... What makes Objectivism the "true" moral system? I personally follow it and find it to be moral, but it's not like we can pull the "God wanted us to do this" crap like Christians or other religious people can...