khaight

It took us many decades to get into the hole we're in now; it will take additional decades to climb out. The metaphor provides the key lesson: stop digging! In political policy terms, that translates into the principle 'no new coercion'. Beyond that, we repeal existing coercive policies in whatever order we can generate sufficient public support for, always tying the repeal back to the underlying principle of individual rights. You might be interested in the final chapter of George Reisman's book Capitalism, in which he lays out a possible political program for the restoration of laissez-faire in the United States.

I'm a fan of the series (particularly the first season, which was spectacular), and I have a lot of personality traits in common with House, but he's not an Objectivist. He's seriously emotionally damaged, and suffers from a nasty mind-body split in the form of the reason vs. emotion dichotomy. It's very refreshing to see a TV character explicitly espouse the virtue of rationality, but the character is undercut by the package-dealing of rationality with callousness and emotional immaturity. Gena Gorlin wrote an article "Mr. Jekyll and Dr. House: The Reason-Emotion Split as Manifested in House, M.D." for the Objective Standard, although the full article isn't available for free.

I think the root of the problem here is that modern political science treats rights as subjective -- they are viewed simply as a class of legal claims upheld by the government, given priority over other claims because the legislature or the judiciary has decided to do so. If that is what you think a right is, then the distinction between 'negative' and 'positive' rights, and the idea that the former are legitimate and the latter not, is just incomprehensible. A 'right' is just a grant of privilege by the state, and the notion that there are some types of privilege the state should extend (like the right to free speech) and others the state should not extend (like the right to free health care) is a mere arbitrary policy preference. Again, as I said earlier in the thread, what's missing here is the understanding of rights as objective -- as an identification by men of certain facts about human nature and their implications for survival in the presence of other men. I don't know whether Rand's theory would be classified as upholding "natural rights", but it certainly upholds rights that are factually-based, absolute, and applied to individuals.

It's probably a mistake to view the Tea Party movement as a monolith across the whole country. The character of the Tea Party in a given area depends significantly on the nature of the leaders who have emerged in that area. I understand that in Oklahoma, for example, the Tea Party has been completely taken over by the religionists. There are other parts of the country where that isn't true, e.g. I know that Sylvia Bokor, an Objectivist, has been heavily involved with the New Mexico Tea Party. Ellen Kenner has had a very positive reception passing out copies of Rand's articles "Man's Rights" and "The Nature of Government" at various Tea Party functions in Massachusetts. At the Tea Party rally in San Jose on April 15th I saw a handful of 9/11 truthers, but they weren't speaking and the vast majority of the attendees either frostily ignored them or responded to them with active hostility. Etc. I'm not saying it would be an easy sell, but that's how you win an ideological battle -- one mind at a time. If you don't think Tea Parties are a good venue for finding potentially receptive minds, present a superior alternative.

It's almost eerie how closely the job requirements match my background and interests. Sadly, I don't think I have the time and/or energy to do both this and maintain my primary career at the same time. If somebody were to give me a big pile of money so I no longer need to work for a living, I would be on this like white on rice.

This is a classic example of the false dichotomy between the intrinsic and the subjective. Either a right is a thing intrinsic in reality, wholly independent of human consciousness, or it is a subjective and arbitrary construct of the human mind. What's missing here is any concept of the objective -- of facts as identified by consciousness. The principle of individual rights is an identification, in conceptual form, of certain facts in human nature and their implications for human survival in the presence of other men. Those facts and their implications exist whether we identify them or not, but the principle is not simply the facts. It is our grasp of the facts. Rights aren't intrinsic because we have to identify the facts on which the principle is based; they aren't subjective because we have to identify the facts on which the principle is based.

Debate and experiment. It's worth noting that the first government established by the founders under the Articles of Confederation proved unsatisfactory in operation. That's what led to the drafting and adoption of the Constitution. Figuring out how to structure a government that would protect rights was the central focus of the constitutional debates. Read a copy of the Federalist Papers. Again, no clear philosophic answer. I could envision a proper government in which nobody got to vote. It probably wouldn't be stable over the long term, though. I view this and the prior question as two sub-aspects of the same general question: Given that the function of government is to protect individual rights, how should it be structured to best achieve that end?

That's sort of like the drunk who dropped his keys in the dark but looked for them under the street lamp because the light was better.

As far as I can tell that's yet another poll testing the various GOP contenders against Blumenthal in the general election. What I want to see is a poll of the Republican primary. I don't think Schiff is even going to get the nomination, which means his hypothetical performance in the general election is beside the point.

While this revelation about Blumenthal has the potential to make the race winnable for the Republicans, I don't see that it alters the GOP primary -- and I still haven't seen any evidence to indicate that Schiff is competitive there.

Wow, way to work that benevolent universe premise. Absent any specific evidence to the contrary, my default presumption about people I meet is that they're earning their own living and are consequently rational to at least that extent. I'd also point out that one of the core principles of the Objectivist social ethic is the trader principle. If you want to obtain values from others you must trade for them -- and you can't trade without offering. One final thought. Through your actions, you are an ambassador for your principles and values. What kind of message are you sending to those around you about them, their effectiveness and contribution to your happiness?

Very, very interesting. His observations about TiVo are right-on -- I'm a long-standing member of the 'Cult of TiVo' for exactly the reason he describes. It lets me decide how I want to watch TV. It's about control. When I try to sell someone else on TiVo, that's how I talk about it. But the company itself does not, and I never understood why. I'm going to think a bit on integrating this insight with Objectivism's view of life as a process of goal-directed action. In essence 'goal-directed' means 'motivated by why'. There may also be a lesson applicable to the Tea Party movement -- they have a 'what' and they're fumbling towards a 'how', but a coherent 'why' is arguably exactly what that movement is missing.

The unemployment rate does not count 'discouraged workers' -- people who lack jobs but have given up looking for employment. I think what's going on here is that the number of jobs in the economy increased, but the number of people looking for work increased even more. The result is a higher unemployment rate in the face of job creation. This is actually a positive sign for the economy: it means that people who had given up on finding jobs are now trying to return to the workforce.

That one struck me as a bit odd too. Could you explain what you think is irrational about waving to an unknown neighbor? Under what circumstances? I know I'd feel more comfortable in a neighborhood in which I was met with friendly waves than one in which I was met with flat, hostile stares. More generally, I think it's important to understand that while principles of ettiquette may be arbitrary -- there's no reason to put the fork on the left other than that we live in a culture in which that is the norm -- but that doesn't make them irrational.

I agree that this is the root of our disagreement, but (unsurprisingly) I don't consider it an error. Remember that the government doesn't have any wealth of its own; everything it has it took from someone by force. And it doesn't just take that wealth and stick it in a warehouse; it gives it to other people. Any time I manage to claw back some of my wealth from the government, the government has to take it from someone else. That's inherent in the setup -- it's the conflict of interest created by introducing force into human relationships. I don't claim a right to post-termination compensation per se; I claim a right to compensation for the wealth taken from me by government by any legal means possible.

There's an assumption of symmetry here that I don't think is valid. If the government takes money from me by force, I'm morally entitled to get money back from the government. But that moral right doesn't restrict me to getting money back the same way it was taken -- I can get more from Social Security than I paid in to Social Security, because the government also exacted money from me in a myriad of other ways. But that isn't my argument. The employer does not deserve to be the victim of force -- but he is, nevertheless, and I can't choose for that not to be the case. But the fact that my reclaiming money exacted from me by the government leads to the government exacting money from others by force is not my responsibility. The government, by initiating force, has set up a conflict between the interests of me and my ex-employer. The responsibility for that conflict lies with the government. Given that the conflict exists, then, the question is whether I should pursue my interests or those of my ex-employer. As an egoist, I choose my own interests.

But why sacrifice yourself for your ex-employer? The government is violating your rights and your ex-employer's rights. Why are you morally obligated to act for your ex-employer's benefit rather than your own, particularly if you oppose the existence of the welfare state and your ex-employer (most likely) does not?

One quick thought on the Peter Principle. This can be mitigated because competent people know their limits, and don't like being placed in roles where they know they will perform poorly. As such, they will actually refuse promotion into jobs that they know are beyond their abilities, i.e. they will refuse to play along with the Peter Principle. If you're willing to take on a job that you know you can't do well in exchange for higher pay, you've already made a mistake.

I really don't follow the logic here. Obviously you won't advance yourself career wise if you're unemployed, but that's due to the unemployment, not due to your accepting unemployment benefits from the welfare state. And you will we better off financially, ceteris paribus, if you accept the benefits than if you don't. Accepting the benefits only has a negative impact on your self-esteem if doing so is an act of parasitism or dependence, and as Rand's argument indicates it isn't. Taking advantage of opportunities under the law to reclaim your property from the welfare state isn't hypocrisy, it's self-defense. Suppose that, instead of unemployment insurance, the government created an 'unemployment tax credit' that someone who was unemployed for more than 3 month in a year could claim on their tax return. If you had been unemployed for the requisite period, would you claim the tax credit? If so, how is that morally different from unemployment insurance? If not, do you apply the same standards to other tax credits and deductions?

I have some sympathy for the idea of taking the extra money and donating it to ARI. It isn't like the government is going to give it back to its original owners if you don't accept it, and at least you'd be using it to help defend the rights of those victimized by the welfare state. There may be a parallel here to Ragnar.

The term 'value' is used in two distinct ways in the Objectivist literature -- a generic sense, and a consistent sense. Generically, a value is simply that which one acts to gain and/or keep -- a goal towards which one's actions are directed. In this sense people obviously work towards goals whose achievements are inconsistent with the requirements of their lives. The entire point of Rand's meta-ethical argument is to analyze this generic sense of value and by identifying the connection between goal-directed action and life, to validate the conclusion that if one wishes to consistently engage in goal-directed action then one must choose goals which are consistent with the maintenance of one's ability to keep pursuing goals. This is the consistent sense of value as that which contributes to the survival of a living organism.

The aspects of Austrian economics that are usually identified as incompatible with Objectivism are its strictly deductive method and its avowed subjectivism in value theory. Objectivism holds that scientific methodology should be inductive. The notion of deriving the principles of economics by deduction from a handful of "apodictically certain" premises (as Rothbard puts it in his famous 'In Defense of Extreme Apriorism') should give any Objectivist pause. Austrian value theory has varied over time. The theory of the early Austrians, like Menger, is very similar to the Objectivist concept of 'objective value'. Later Austrians have shifted to a much more subjectivist approach, e.g. that of Lachmann. At the time Rand was writing, Mises was the preeminent Austrian economist, and she also had issues with his essentially Kantian philosophical premises in epistemology.

Why not? Philosophical politics defines the proper relationship between morality and government -- the latter protects the necessary conditions for the exercise of the former in a social context. Nothing in that dictates the precise form of government. One evaluates such questions by the standard of whether they help or hinder the government's ability to protect individual rights over the long run. Generally speaking I like the existence of the Electoral College because having different sections of the government selected by different methods makes it more difficult for a single faction to capture control of all of them. It's part of the check/balance system and it generally works well. People who argue against the Electoral College generally do so for one of two reasons: either for short-term partisan reasons or from a commitment to egalitarian direct democracy. The former is not a proper ground for altering the form of government and the latter is a false theory of politics.

Rand usually is. I'm always amazed at the clarity, precision, depth and disturbing prescience of her writing. It's like standing on a mountaintop while having your brain scrubbed out with steel wool. And on that mixed yet unsettling simile, I shall go to bed.

No. I quote from the article: "The recipient of a public scholarship is morally justified only so long as he regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism. Those who advocate public scholarships have no right to them; those who oppose them have." This means that, as long as you make clear your opposition to the existence of such programs, one is morally entitled to use them to get back a share of the wealth the welfare state has and will expropriate from you. She goes on to note that "The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance, or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the 'right' to force employers and unwilling coworkers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money -- and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration." You have a moral right to your property, which is violated when the government takes it from you by force. You have every right, morally speaking, to use whatever openings the law leaves open to you to reclaim part of what was taken from you. Ask yourself the opposite question. If taking advantage of public scholarships (or unemployment insurance, or social security) is immoral, that means it harms your life. Given that these institutions exist, in spite of our opposition, how does taking advantage of them make your life worse than not? If we held to the opposite principle, that it is immoral to make use of illegitimate government programs and property, how would we even be able to get to work? The roads are public property. The only 'moral' course would be starving in our houses, which would be an absurdity. Remember that morality applies to what is within our power of choice. While we can (and should) argue against the existence of welfare-state programs, we cannot simply choose for them to not exist. And as long as they do exist, we have to choose how to deal with them. Rand notes that "Minimizing the financial injury inflicted on you by the welfare-state laws does not constitute support of welfare statism (since the purpose of such laws is to injure you) and is not morally reprehensible. Initiating, advocating or expanding such laws is." She concludes that "So long as financial considerations do not alter or affect your convictions, so long as you fight against welfare statism... and are prepared to give up any of its momentary benefits in exchange for repeal and freedom... you are morally in the clear." The overall article covers a number of additional issues, including private scholarships, government research grants and the moral principles involved in taking government jobs. It's worth reading in its entirety if you're at all confused about the moral principles involved in these kinds of government interactions.