Grendel

Here's some more of my work. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/artbylukehaynes

I've studied philosophy for three years and the reason that she gets no respect for the majority of philosophers comes down to the same reason Howard Roark was shunned by the majority of arcitects; because she gave a valid, logical argument for all her positions and essentially answered all the questions that philosophers spend countless hours debating but not answering. In short, their afraid of her.

Wow I've just read a post on the site from a guy talking about all the stuff he owns and how it was ok to get rid of it because they were no longer giving him value and that it was selfish (in the utilitarian sense where thats a bad thing) to hold on to them when they could be giving value to someone else! So so many things wrong with that. However, I haven't stopped laughing yet so I made read some more posts! And now I've just read one sating that they didn't get how the government could limit people to only one company and that couldn't Rearden have just made a huge conglomerate? they really have read the book have they?

maybe someone really is trying to stop the motor of the world.

Found this article on http://www.mikementzer.com/ by Dr. Adrew Bernstein and I'm using it as part of my final year dissertation, would be interested in anyone's thoughts on it. thanks.

I realise that this topic is old but I'm new and i've only just read it and felt i had to add my thoughts. I like the fact that he keeps refering to sub-saharan africa as an example of what an objectivist means by a free economy, these would be the economies that are largely dependant upon hand outs from the west which goes straight into it's leaders pockets, leaders who hold their position by the barrel of a gun. The statement that he makes about socialism working because western society has a better standard of living also amuses me because it shows a clear looters mentality; remember that all the benifits we have in the west are the direct result of individuals, not social policies; remember who James Taggart wanted to get rid of the producers but not the products, you can't mortgage a zero. My impression of the guy you were arguing with is this; he as abdictated reality by stating what he did in the above areas he shows me two things. firstly that he assumes that an individual who is centred on their own wellfare will act like a looter and take as much as he pleases without fear of consequence, this is however an error. Any individual who is trully concerned with living their own life cannot do so without accepting that existence exists, that the law of causality is absolute, no man who is concerned with the betterment of his own existence could by his own standard of values commit theft and lie because to do so is to create a false reality that imprisions not the one you are cheating but you yourself, you are imprissioned in a false reality that you cannot escape because to do so would be to accept that you were not looking out for your own interests but instead trying to abdicate reality. To abdicate reality is to demand your won death by your own hand. The people who really care about their lives can only deal with the world in the manner that concurs with their own standard of values, their own lives. I've come across many people like the gentleman you've faced and i have tried my hardest to explain the logic of my positions but i have infact been guilty of two errors. The first is to assume that these people accept logic when clearly they do not and anyone who states "well it's only my opinion" is a person who thinks that everything is realtive and that reality is fluid, these people cannot be reasoned with because they do not see contradictions as mistakes. The second is that I was guilty of giving said individual power over my own mind, my desire to show them the truth gave them the power to accept it or reject; in other words to pass judgement on it and also myself. When we give a fool the power to pass judgement we abdicate our own minds. I now realise that these people are fools and should be ignored. They are not our adversaries because our defintion of and adversary is someone of equal merit who defends a position contrary to our own; these people don't, their only code of value is "either i like it or i don't", they are not our equals. They are obstacles, nothing more, avoid them when you can but don't ever feel guilty when you have to walk right through them. h

what are you studying by the way, i noticed on your profile that you listed researching oxidation mechanisms as one of you favourite things to do so I'm assuming it's something to do with that.

Well the pose was picked because it was part of a larger photo that showed a fencer advancing and I liked the shading and the lines of the fencer in en garde, thought it was very powerful. Sorry to hear you can't afford to fence but I can sympathise I've only just been able to afford it myself and thats in my third year at uni! I love fencing epee but I'm very bad at it but I suppose I can't complain, my Sabre makes up for it as I can use it in both hands. How long is university over there, it's three years here.

Charging more a peek times would be fine in a capitalist state where competition were possible and we could refuse to use the service but if no way would it ever reduce congestion, people got to work at 9am so it will always be busy, to say that congestion charges are intended to reduce congestion is to abdicate the reality that it won't. I am in favour of paying per mile but not by force and not to government that has no interest in maintaining the quality of it's product because it knows we have no alternative.

My issue with it isn't on being charged per mile but with the way it would be imposed and what it is that i would be paying for. For starters there is the fact that nearly 70pence of every £1 I spend on fuel goes to the government in tax, then there is £100 in road tax i have to pay every six months, in both cases the government has said that it may reduce them if the implement tax per mile but this is only a maybe and does not fill me with confidence. Secondly there is the morality of the situation; galileo blog you said that it was based on sound economics and you will reduce congestion; how is this so? consider that for it to be a sound economic system then it would have to offer the consumer (in this case the tax payer) the ability to refuse to by and seek out cheaper competition, but in this case the government owns not only all the roads but also all the other transport systems so it is impossible for us to choose, in effect we are being forced to buy something at the point of a gun. Then there is the issue of it reducing road congestion; in London they have introduced the congestion charge and that seems to have done nothing to reduce congestion but as certainly increase government revenue, why is this the case? Because people do not on the whole drive unless they have to, the arguement that it would prevent people from driving at busy periods is flawed; the people who drive between 8.30am and 9.30am do so because the have to go to work, they're not doing it for fun, who in their right mind would want to sit in traffic for an hour unless they had to? What this current tax propses is to force people to pay to go to work because they have no other option, that is not sound economics. Not to mention the fact that I haven't driven on a decent road for the last 8 years yet on my own have contributed around £13650 in tax, if you were to by a defective fridge you'd send it back and demand a refund, we as road users don't have that choice.

Here is a little article I wrote in 40 minutes in a blinding rage over the proposed pay per mile tax that Tony Blair would like to pass in the UK and that would quite literally bankrupt me. it isn't original and I give full credit to Ayn Rand. A Tax on Reality I am writing to you in reference to the governments proposed scheme of taxing us for every mile we drive. Any one with any amount of intelligence would realise that this is a ludicrous idea that will never produce what mister Blair and his looters promise. They say that it will reduce congestion by convincing those who don’t have to drive during busy times not; this argue is flawed in assuming that any rational human being would willingly sit in traffic for and hour unless they had, the reason we have congestion at 8.30am is because it is a fact that all those driving have to go to work! In answer to this fact that mister Blair and is Looters would argue that instead we should car pool or use public transport; in answer to this I would like to point out two things. Firstly those most that can car pool do but that the instances where those who live near to each other and also work near each other are few and far between. Secondly the suggestion that our public transport is in any condition to support the huge numbers of people that would be the result if we followed that governments suggestion is laughable, it can barely keep up with it’s current capacity and is totally unreliable. With these facts in mind I realise that every rational man who has heard of this proposed tax cannot fathom why the government whish to continue with it, we all realise that we are trapped and would find ourselves forced to pay huge taxes to go to work or to not work at all and suffer that fate. I am sure I was not alone when I asked myself what were the government thinking, no rational man could argue that their plan makes any kind of sense yet that is what they are arguing. They hail it as the answer to all our problems of congestion and pollution yet I ask you, how does looting more money from the tax payer going to solve this problem? The answer to this problem lies in a mistake that we the tax paying public have made, a mistake that has cost us when we need never have paid for it. We thought they were rational, they are not. The government does not want us to stop using our cars, far from it, they want us to continue to use them, they full appreciate that the society will live in is dependant upon the modern automobile for its survival. They appreciate this fact and have been cashing in on it for years. We are led by a government of looters who seek nothing less than the total abdication of reality; the reality that it is they who are dependant upon us, not the other way round. Consider that any society in order to be successful must produce and it is those that produce that are the creators of that society. What then may I ask doe the government produce? The answer to those of you who my state that public welfare is what the government produces is that the government does not produce this and that even if it did who are the ones who pay for it? You and me. We are the ones who produce, the ones who earn a living, who drive to work, who work in factories, in offices and banks, we are the producers of this countries success and nobody else, and it is built and maintained on our own work. If you are unsure of whether you are truly a producer or not the test to see if you are or not is very simple; Open you wage slip, if you are paying tax, you are a producer. Yet does anyone of us feel that way? Do you feel like you have produced something that you should be proud of, that this country is built on your efforts. No you do not. But do not doubt that it is. Every penny you are taxed is a penny that you have earned, that you are entitled to and that every penny you give in tax is a trade with the government, you are paying for services such as public transport and healthcare just as you would a chocolate bar in a shop. If you bought said chocolate bar and it was out of date you would demand you money back yet the state of our public systems is beyond the worst kind of out of date food and no one asks for their money back. Why? Because they can’t. They are both trades but the difference is that with taxes we have no choice but to buy. This would not be considered a problem were we getting our money’s worth but we are not; imagine being forced at gun point to buy a £100 chocolate bar; sound absurd? Welcome to how you are taxed. But this is a fundamental error is this system. It requires our own sanction to work. We must accept the government’s right to take by force that which we have earned; this may sound foolish at first considering that we are forced to pay taxes but I will explain. We are the ones that produce; we are what make this country tick, its motor. But who are we working for? The product of our own efforts belongs to us and us along and no one else has any claim to it other than the claim that we allow them. To those of you who would state that we work for others consider the following, that those who benefit from the work of others are dependant upon that person who is free to withdraw their support at any time. You may force a man to work for you at the point of a gun but if he chooses to stop to think for you then you are lost. How can you force a man to think? The product of our own efforts should be the things we hold in highest regard as well as the things that are the product of mankind’s mind. Such as the car. Think of it, the ability to travel hundreds of miles in a few short hours in comfort. We should feel proud of this achievement it is the embodiment of humanities mind, his capacity to think and to make his own life between. Yet do any of us feel that? No. Why? Because we have offered our lives to a looting government who would use our virtues, the very thing we should be proud of, as vices to be turned against us. We are told that we are destroying the planet when ever we get in a car, that we shouldn’t make unnecessary journeys, to slow down, we are made to feel in every way that a thing we should be proud of is thing we should be most ashamed of. We feel guilty for our ability to drive, to produce. It is that guilt that the government relies upon to loot the produce of you work. If you feel guilty for you success, you ability to produce, then you feel you have no claim to it and so surrender it to others who claim that they do. They don’t I said earlier that the government wishes to abdicate reality and here is what I meant. They damn as evil the very thing that keeps them alive, with out the products of the producers they would perish yet they damn them as evil and those who produce as evil incarnate. Without cars the country would fail to produce and they would perish yet they damn cars as evil. See the contradiction? In reality there are no contradictions, if you find one check your premises. Our premise was that they were rational, we were wrong. They are not ration because they believe that they can continue to loot from motorists without feel of reprisal; they think they can tax the producers out of existence and keep their product. They want to have there cake and each it to. What they are doing is denying causality, the law of cause and effect. How can you have a product without those who produce it? How can you produce without the means to produce? In this case the means to produce is the car. They will tax us off the roads and then demand that we still keep on producing, blindly ignoring the fact that we will turn to them and say; “with what?” They are relying on our ability to support them, they think that the can tax us as much as they want and that we will somehow produce, as if it where merely a matter of clicking our fingers. How much longer to you wish to work for your own executioners? That’s what it is, make no mistake, they want you to go gladly to you grave and sharpen their axe as well. How long are you willing to work for those who take from you but give nothing in return? Those who demand that you must produce for them, who produce nothing. But then, what are we to do? Simple. Stop. They are dependant upon us remember? Without us they cannot produce. So we must not produce. They will perish we will not, we never have because we can. If they pass their new tax our answer is simple. Stop using our cars. Use their warn out public transport, walk, bike do anything to get to work but do not use your car. Can you see where that would lead? A rational man could. It would lead to total chaos, the transport system would collapse, industries would grind to a halt and the government would loose millions in tax. It would take all of 3 days to bring this country, or rather the looters who feast on it, to its knees. Then they would be to accept reality, that it is they who need us and that we are free to support at any time and that we will only deal with them of fair terms, that every penny we give them is for our own benefit, the benefit of better schools, roads, hospital, not for our own destruction. If the do pass their law I suggest that everyone who owns a car register it as off the road and claim back the tax that they are owed and entitled to do so. They need us the producers; we do not need them, the parasites.

I've had quite a bit of experience having to write what my tutors want to hear (had three essays handed back) so I know how you feel, I would recommend telling them what they want to hear but I realise that it isn't fair that we live in world that is supposedly for the free thinking but clearly isn't. However don't feel guilty that you have to work on their terms; remeber that to them everything is relative therefore nothing has any meaning therefore write an essay that whilst crafted to make all the right sounds doesn't commit you to anything in particular, firstly they'll probably love it and secondly you haven't sacrificed your integrity. hope that helps. I've just read when this was posted, I'm a year to late.

I think the reason Roark talks to keating more can be seen when at the begining when Keating asks his advice about taking the job in new york Roark says that keating does good work sometimes. I think he talks to him as a nod to those times when Keating actually lives up to his potential, this may jar a little when you consider this is Roark we're talking about but how many of us have continued to talk to people we should cast aside because they show instances of brilliance?

Got the image of a fencer off the net, I fence to, Sabre mainly what about you?

Apologies for the spelling and I'm at uni in northampton england.