bluey

She sounds like me from about seven years ago and it's a hard place to be. I was raised in a very sheltered, Christian home and went to Bible college after high school. Taking classes like Ministry to Children opened my eyes to exactly why I believed what I had always assumed to be true (there are very specific processes and tactics to get a child to belive something, base their entire sense of self and self-esteem on it and never question it, it's practically a science), and I realized that if I was going to make any sort of career out of indoctrinating children to believe those same things I should really try to understand exactly what I was saying (at that point I didn't have a problem with the indoctrination itself, as long as I thought it was true). Studying deeper lead to asking what I thought were simple, obvious questions, such as "what is a god, anyway"?. Those kinds of questions can really get you into a lot of trouble at Bible college, turns out, so I went to another college on the other side of the country to see if they could tell me anything. No luck. It's strange how vicious people can be towards someone for simply refusing to lie to children Anyway if she's asking questions like that then she knows, or soon will, that she has a simple choice between owning herself or throwing her mind away to the highest bidder. Which is what it comes down to, of course. Maybe some people never consider the facts because it honestly never crosses their mind - they just never notice any contradictions for whatever reason. But once you do notice and ask, there's no turning back to "innocent ignorance" - if she remains a Christian now she'll always know that she's lying to herself. There's no point in trying to help her, really; there are plenty of smart, logical people who wouldn't be in church if they could see it as the matter of simple addition that it is. Instead it's a fundamental choice between her own integrity and whatever she's now getting from her religion (acceptance from family/church, colour-by-numbers worldview ... changing your mind is hard work!). On the other hand, it took me six years after realizing that Christianity wasn't true, to figure out what is true. Namely, A = A - a concept I'm sure I could have grasped by about age 4 if I'd just been left alone to figure it out. We're talking about millions of dollars and formative childhood years being spent wiring people's brains to belive they're being constantly watched by a vindictive deity, that matter isn't ever only matter, that minds are mystically connected, that spiritual health is a real concern, that the "good" is only knowable through mysticism and irrationality and that eternal suffering is an eminent possibility. That's difficult stuff to dig yourself out of, especially if the only options presented to you are basically the same mystic bullshit with an even less optimistic outlook (after leaving Bible college I took Philosophy in university, thinking that I'd find something better. A whole year after graduation I finally found Atlas Shrugged and knew immediately that I'd finally found something that all added up). The truth should be totally obvious but it's actually really difficult to find, even for someone who was looking as hard as I was. I guess my point is that people like this woman and myself are/were actively looking for the truth and know they are being fed lies. If they could find something true they'd probably recognize it, but the fact is that it's bullshit no matter where you look. Reality isn't rocket science, it's just being actively covered up by groups with a lot of money and resources and a very organized task force. You can't fight it on a message board. I've been wracking my brain for a year trying to figure out how to tell the truth to people who belive that thinking will get them tourtured for eternity but I don't know how it could be done. The best I can come up with is just to stay the hell away from Christian message boards, so I can at least avoid doing too much of this But the fact is that for every one of me, who decided against the odds to take responsibility for my own mind, there are a hundred new Christians preaching and practicing altruism and doing their best to make it harder for everyone to live life qua man.

For starters, John Galt was somebody. He was the one man with the ability to stop the motor of the world, and the strike was the greatest (not easiest) action that it was possible for him to undertake - action, that is, not hissy fit, not futile rebellion against a fact of the world he was powerless (in your case, not even attempting) to change. The strike was his challenge and he rose to it. It was personal. He wasn't throwing away his values just because someone made things harder for him; he was not just the one man willing to do what anyone else could have done. He stepped out of society because he saw what he could do and how it could be done, and he did it. He used his mind, not his ass, to further his own self-interest, and it actually mattered. So it's really totally dissimilar to what you're describing.

1. Even if you could never be expected to relinquish your own right to life, you would still not be justified in stealing or killing to save the life of your child. Not even if you think they mean more to you than your own life. What would stop someone from valuing, say, every child's life over her own life? Nothing but force? Taking a value from person A and giving it to person B, to your own detriment, and defending yourself by saying that you're doing it for yourself (ie because you want to see your child alive) despite the fact that, if caught, you won't be alive or free to do any valuing at all, is altrusim, pure and simple. 2. Let's look at what you just said and how it totally doesn't apply here. Man always has the right to: a) defend, b ) protect and c) work to sustain one's own existence. I completely agree. My first argument is that failure to do those three things before an emergency situation arises is NOT a justification for looting someone else when your neck is on the line. However, since I know you want to isolate a moment in time, analyzing the situation without considering events before or after, I'll do that too and pretend that there's some perfectly legitimate reason why looting is your only option in this situation (i.e. you haven't violated any rights up to this point), and that stealing medicine from a sick kid or killing someone to keep your own kid alive isn't a criminal offence in every jurisdiction anywhere and that you'd clearly end up with a net loss in value. So I'll argue instead that killing or stealing to save your child's life is not defending, protecting, or working to sustain your life. Who, in this situation, are you defending your life from? No one is initiating force (except you) and it isn't even you whose life is in danger. So that right of ours doesn't justify this action. Protect? Again, protection from illness is mainly something you do before you get sick. You absolutely have the right to take care of yourself and, once sick, to get the best medical attention available to you. Nobody could stop you. Oh - unless you try to kill them, then they'll stop you, because that's NOT what "protect" means at all. How about working to sustain one's life - killing someone to steal their money to buy medicine for your child is pretty honest labour, right? Especially if you do it out of desperation at the last minute because you aren't able to face reality and/or because you don't believe in preparing for emergencies? Your statement that "Man always retains his fundamental right to life. This means the right to defend, protect, and work to sustain one's own existence" doesn't mean "Man always has the right to take whatever he needs from his neighbours, even if he has to kill them for it, but only if it's really really really serious (to him personally) and he can't think of any other way to solve his problems or deal with his reality". Sacrifice is exactly what you're advocating - you're sacrificing someone's life or property for your own ends, and sacrificing yourself for someone else (your life, or freedom, or integrity for your child, who is NOT you even if they mean a lot to you). In the end though, I don't think you think it's within your rights at all. I think you're just saying you would do it anyway, even if it isn't, ethics be damned, and that you wouldn't feel any guilt or regret over it afterward. That I can't argue with, because I can't argue with an emotion. Let's just say that if it were me or my kid that you tried to pull one over on for your benefit - believe me, you wouldn't be better off in the end. And I would not only feel justified in defending myself and my family against your violation of our rights, I also would be right, alive, free, and human. I can't make it any more clear than that, and won't be attempting to. [edit for messy html]

But she is within her rights to keep the ball's owners off her property, even if it means they aren't able to retrieve it, right? And she clearly can't be forced to physically give it back to them - what if it were something bigger that a little old lady wouldn't be able to move by herself. And while the ball's owners have a right to their ball, they don't have a right to violate the old lady's rights in order to enforce their own (in this case, since the old lady is simply taking no action at all - she didn't take the ball, they forfeited it, in a sense - she's not initiating force so they can't retaliate with force). It's obviously petty though and especially when the police came for it, she should have given it back, if not long before (on as many occasions as necessary). Or at least leave the balls in her yard and try not to mind when the kids go in to get it. If that's the principle she's standing on then I can't say I disagree with the principle, if not with the act of making a mountain out of a molehill.

I'd say that when I'm sitting in jail for stealing medicine, and possibly murder if someone dies as a result of my stealing, and my wife is dead anyway because I stole the medicine too late or just because illnesses work like that and you can't always fix them (or even if she didn't die, and I'm now sitting in jail counting the years until I'm free to be with her), then beyond a shadow of a doubt I'd be a heck of a lot less happy than if I had acted rationally (in my own long-term self interest!) and buried my wife knowing that I am free to pick up the pieces and carry on with my life. You're operating on the assumption that you're living in a moral bubble where as long as your wife or child or whoever lives, that will be the end of the story and you will both go back to life as always. On the other hand I'm saying that violating someone's rights to get what you want instead of earning it will not be in your best interests, because of the fact that irrational actions have consequences. I'm not saying you should blindly do whatever some system tells you to do, even when you think there is another option that would end up better for you. I'm saying that rational action is rational on the basis that it furthers your ability to live the kind of life you want to live by recognizing the facts and acting accordingly. If your child is sick and you steal medicine from another sick kid and your kid gets better, that won't ever actually BE the end of the story and you won't just go back to life as you intended with your child. In this case - because you will be caught and either go to jail or be made to pay or will have to continually look over your shoulder for an extremely angry father whose kid died because you stole his medicine. If you think you could ever find yourself in a situation where: 1. you or a loved one is fatally ill 2. a single medicine exists that could cure the disease, but you don't have insurance/don't have savings/don't have a house to mortgage/don't have family or friends to help you/can't find a charity to help and therefore can't afford the medicine - you or your loved one will certainly die 3. you happen to know of someone else whose loved one is also fatally ill with the same disease, but they do have the medicine 4. you are able to steal it AND know, somehow, with 100% certainty, that you will not ever be caught, your wife won't get better and then leave you because she doesn't agree with your judgment (I'm thinking I would have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that someone who should rightfully have been alive is now dead because I am alive) or your child won't grow up and resent you for the same reason, causing you to lose your highest value in the end anyway, and that doing something so unjust will be no sweat off your back for the rest of your life Then maybe - maybe! - you could justify the action by saying that this is how to make sure the situation ends up best for you in the long term. I am extremely skeptical that such a situation could arise. I wouldn't accept the premise that your loved one could be such a high value to you that you would sacrifice your freedom or even life if it meant that loved one living. That's altruism, as I'm sure you will recognize, because you're putting a higher value on someone else than on your own life. So given that the consequence for murder (which is surely how the courts would see it when someone dies because you think you need and therefore deserve the medicine more than them, rights be damned) is a loss of freedom, there's no justification. I also agree with David Odden that this does not constitute a lifeboat situation, so my answer above should not be construed to apply to lifeboat situations. HOWEVER, I strongly disagree with this statement: Of course morality still applies in lifeboat situations. Emergencies don't just give everyone the right to stop thinking. However since they are so out of the context of regular life it's impossible to judge the morality of any course of action from outside of that specific lifeboat situation. If I found myself in a lifeboat-type situation, assuming the situation does not leave me unable to think clearly, there could still be courses of action that would be immoral and better courses of action that would be moral - or possibly only a number of irrational options, and I would have to try to choose the best one - not just act randomly or erratically. However, because of the singularity of such situations and also because of the state of mind of people in them who are often really not able to think clearly (due to extreme hunger or thirst, for example), there is no way to evaluate the situation hypothetically or in hindsight to say what should have been done differently. There is also really no advantage in evaluating such situations morally, for the same reasons. In fact the "moral loophole" in emergency situations is NOT that you can just use other people however you want: Rand's view was that only in lifeboat situations is it appropriate to try to help other people. David - if my understanding of a lifeboat situation is incorrect, could you please explain how? The only Rand I have read on it is the entry under "Emergencies" in the lexicon, but the above is how I understand this: And as for this: I counter with this:

Egoistic ethics doesn't "provide" you with options, either. You're using anthropomorphic language and then dismissing my replies because I echo your anthropomorphic language. The fundamental principal my morality is based on is, like Kevin said, "that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine". This is because I recognize the reality that if I disregard another's rights and initiate force on him, I am undermining my own existence and inviting retaliation. There is no situation where violating another's rights is going to improve my life - even if such an action extends it. If you don't agree with that then what do you think the point is in living rationally in any situation?

By "must" I meant: if you're going to act morally at all, introducing a natural death into the situation doesn't change anything. Obviously there's no commandment, and there doesn't need to be. Well there's no other kind of life that I know of ... No, because reality says to you that sometimes you don't get a choice. Morality isn't a tool that you use to make your life better. Morality is recognizing that reality exists and you can't just choose to ignore reality in situations you don't like. Well - of course, you can choose to, but only by acting irrationally. Are you saying that you're committed to acting rationally except in situations where your very highest values are at stake? I don't know why you think you will always have the option to extend your own life? Cause I hate to break it to you ... Well in that case I think it has already been covered: You do what you have to do and make restitution to the property owners later. In the car example below, there's a good reason why people have car insurance. That's what it's for. Even in that case, though, you have to act rationally - for example by keeping your brakes in good repair in the first place, by not doing any more property damage than you have to, by steering into a parked car instead of a crowd on the sidewalk, etc. If you live ethically in daily life then you'll have lots of practice using your reasoning skills in lots of different situations and that practice will really help in an emergency. In a situation with a sick child, if you want to act ethically in the first place (I'm beginning to wonder whether you do, considering that you seem to want to chuck morality out the window whenever something unexpected happens), you have the same responsibility* to act rationally. Have health insurance, keep your credit healthy, have friends, find a charity, mortgage your house, something. In Atlas Shrugged, isn't there a part where Galt or Francisco tells Dagny that because she has acted irrationally for so long, she's only got two irrational choices left to her, but that doesn't free her from the responsibility of choosing? So maybe the answer you're looking for is that if you get yourself into a situation where you only have irrational options, that it's ok to be irrational. Well I wouldn't say it's okay. It's still irrational and therefore immoral and therefore still your fault if something bad happens - if you have to pay or go to jail there's no ethical loophole to get you out of it. Is that what you mean? *Not a responsibility because of god or authority or anything like that. A responsibility in the sense that you're the one who will have to explain to your kid why he's alive but probably still sick and now you're in jail and can't work and things are actually going to get a lot worse. That's another reason to be ethical: because being ethical means being rational, and being rational means making the best decision for yourself and usually when you makes rational decisions you'll be right (in the sense that you'll make things better, not worse, at least in the long term). Even in emergencies, when you're really emotional and want to do something drastic. Isn't reality great?

The fact that death is no moral criterion means we must act morally in every circumstance. Even the ones that might involve death. The thing about living qua man is that a life earned by deliberately killing someone who is no threat to you simply because you can and want to is not better than death. Even if you want to because you want to avoid death. A fatalist view would say that there is no point to life because it must eventually end in death. I am saying that there is so much value in life that to destroy that value (by destroying that value in someone else, by killing them when they haven't done anything to you except do the best they can to exist) is to negate your own life. If my cell phone were lying somewhere where someone was about to die if they didn't use it, then I hope they wouldn't wait for my permission before calling 911. If I didn't want something like that to happen then I shouldn't leave my stuff lying around. Be realistic. Using the resources at hand to deal with a situation you find yourself in is NOT the same as killing some other child so my child can live, when the only justification for it is that it is MY child. Your life may be precious and irreplaceable to you, but from my perspective there are billions just like you. If my kid is sick and you come sneaking in through the window at night to steal his medicine so your kid can have it instead, well you're asking to die right there basically. Sure, if you hate having friends who will respect your rights and plan for emergencies ...

That isn't really choosing to die, it's just choosing to live realistically and accepting the fact that all lives eventually end in death. Choosing to live right and accepting the consequences of that (even if the consequences are death now as opposed to death in the future) isn't at all the same as suicide. I think the criteria Ayn Rand used to define an emergency is when there is no moral option, therefore you (and everyone else) have to just do whatever you can. In a flood there is no initiation of force, everyone is in an equal position of vying for their own lives and so pure strength and ingenuity are going to be the determining factors in who lives and who dies - you have just as much of a right to use your mind as anyone else in this situation and if that ends up being good for you and bad for them there's still no blame to be placed. If someone holds a gun to your head then that person is initiating force and you have every moral right to do whatever you have to to defend yourself, retaliation included. Someone being sick doesn't count as an emergency because it's just you in that situation and it still doesn't give you a right to use force against someone who is completely removed from your personal tragedy and therefore can't (morally) be forced into helping you. One of the facts of life is that it's going to end. You can't ignore this fact and use it as a justification for force. You aren't choosing non-existence - you're accepting existence as it is, death and a lot of other potentially terrible side effects included.

What is it exactly that the boyfriend has contracted to trade with her? If there is a contract between boyfriend/girlfriend, wouldn't it be the sort of thing where either "party" could terminate the contract at any time, for any reason - a really informal and loose contract? Are the terms that neither will have sex with anyone else until such time as the contract is "officially" terminated? Cheating is dishonest, usually, but I don't think it extends as far as a violation of the girlfriend's rights. If you cheat on her, she'll just dump you and find someone else to get whatever benefits of a relationship from. I'm not sure exactly what the value or consideration would be that would make it a contract. Dating is more of a "research period" based on which you can choose to enter a contract (marriage) or not. Other than getting his ass dumped and his reputation damaged, I don't see why or how a boyfriend would need to be punished for cheating or how a girlfriend would have anything to take to court.

Thanks Sophia, I'm checking out the videos you linked to and they're really helpful. I basically take your position anyway - that there's no reason to take action. Global warming theory might be a set of arbitrary claims and then of course nothing should be done, but it seems like a lot of people are genuinely convinced so I don't think it should just be dismissed altogether and even if the data is being misused, that doesn't necessarily make it an arbitrary claim. I don't think we should do anything about it until they can come up with better evidence, and even then I don't think it would warrant large-scale government intervention. So I agree that the burden of proof is on the guys making the claim.

That may be, but my point is that as a layperson who can't help but hear all kinds of stuff about global warming, I don't have any reason to simply dismiss it out of hand, either. I agree that I have no reason to take any specific action, but it seems to be worth keeping an eye on. In a few years I guess either things will be really different or really not different at all, and either the technology will have developed enough to give me some evidence I can understand and evaluate or we'll still be looking at a lot of conflated line graphs. I guess you could call me a principled agnostic on the global warming issue - but eventually I will settle on one side or the other, when I either have more information or it becomes clear to me that the whole thing is bunk. It's fine to say that they have the burden of proof, but really that's a minor technicality if what they're saying happens to be true and we all are in fact going to die if we don't do something about it. Whichever position you take if you think you're right then surely you can come up with some better way of convincing me than a bunch of lame charts that apparently you have to be Joseph Smith to be able to read correctly. If that's all you've got right now, then go come up with something better and show us all in a few months.

If I may hijack just a little, I think the problem with the debate is that it can only ever end up like this. Green Guy: Check out all my charts and science and shit. We are clearly about to kill off our own entire species and probably ruin the only known life-supporting planet in the solar system. We need to change things fast, and since god can't be trusted we're putting the government in charge. Skeptical Guy: I see your charts and science and shit and raise you this new set of charts and science and shit that totally disproves your conclusions. You just want to tax us all into socialism and guilt us into voluntarily devolving into vegetarian cavemen. Green Guy: Dude, it doesn't matter, if we don't do something we're ALL GONNA DIE!!!! Plus you're reading the charts wrong. Skeptical Guy: You're reading your charts wrong and also any scientist who believes that isn't a real scientist. There's no reason to panic, especially since if we do things your way we're definitely all screwed. Green Guy: Your scientists aren't real scientists. Ours are. You're crazy and we're ALL GONNA DIE!!!! Skeptical Guy: Nope you're crazy. Green Guy and Skeptical Guy: Nope you are. Pepsi jinx! Me: So ... no matter whose story I listen to, they both end up with my life or at least the human condition getting really a whole lot worse. The only question that I have any reason to ask - that is, the only fact I really need in order to continue to make rational decisions in my own self interest - is, "am I in a situation where there is a risk to my life (or other values) that I can act to avoid or prevent?" There are a range of possible answers: 10. Yes. Clearly this specific bad thing is going to happen if I don't do x, so I'd better do x. 5. Possibly. There is (indisputable/strong/weak/imaginary) evidence that event "a" may happen within my lifetime, which (may/will probably/definitely will) raise the risk of terrible thing "b" and/or "c" happening which would harm me (fatally/physically/economically/etc.). Therefore I should take steps d, e and f to make sure that I am prepared for all reasonably foreseeable emergencies. 1. No. Either the evidence is not compelling at all (I don't think GW quite fits in this category, this is more like "if I go to Australia I might fall of the earth from being upside down" territory) or there is no possibility of me personally being at risk. There is no threat and therefore no reason to take action. I don't know anything about the science behind it and, mysticism aside, I don't see anything in either argument that logically leads me to reject or accept it. The evidence in front of me is a lot of scary predictions coupled with the observable facts that Atlantic Canada is really, really bloody cold for six months out of twelve so if it gets too hot for you you could probably just move here, and that you can't rely on the weather network to tell you if it's going to rain on the weekend, much less if a new ice age will have ended the human species 650 years from now. So I conclude that the most reasonable course of action for most people who aren't environmental scientists and therefore can't have access to (or understand) first hand evidence, is to continue to expand my reasoning and innovation skills and be prepared for emergencies. There's no bloody reason to panic and certainly no reason for governments to get all tax happy! Of course then I have to wonder, since it seems like such a non-issue, who exactly is benefiting from all this panic and throwing around of tax dollars??

Mike I think that if you look closely at your analogy with the typewriters you'll see where your argument breaks down. You said: It seems that from your perspective, cities are equated with "modern life" and rural areas are "old fashioned". I definitely know a lot of people who feel this way, who live in cities and just cannot imagine life any other way. Cities at other times in history were clearly a lot more "rural", before electricity and other things that really are trademarks of modern cities, so it's easy to see how people who are bored in the country just can't see how anything could be better. You see city life as the awesome new version of civilization - and once you have a newer awesomer version of something, who wouldn't rather upgrade? Of course it's not really like that. The living standard across the board has increased with advances in technology. Depending on what you do you might make more or less in the city or the country, and for someone who's more comfortable with a few acres between them and the neighbours it makes perfect sense to go into a career they can pursue in a rural area. The reason why it's a personal preference is because two people could make completely opposite decisions based on their values and make equally rational choices. The reason why people are disagreeing with you is that you are actually arguing that cities are intrinsically better than rural areas, presumably because that's how you feel about it. If this were so it would follow that everyone who was making a rational choice would choose rural life. Since there are many, many people who rationally choose rural lives, you can't say that one is any better objectively than the other. Even though, to you, cities are clearly better. If I'm reading you wrong let me know. Basically the question to ask to see where your argument fails is "objectively better for whom", but I think that sometimes a choice just so obviously suits your values that you never bother to think through any other alternatives (and I think that's perfectly reasonable) and you can't help but want to answer "everyone!" However, that answer doesn't happen to reflect the reality that some people objectively think cities are awful (and not even just the awful cities).

That's certainly true, and I think this is what leads to the misconception of an ethical code being necessarily unattainable - that's how deeply ingrained altruism is. Ethics are supposed to be a standard you can never quite live up to, in Christianity living a virtuous life basically means constantly striving for a standard that you can't ever acheive (until you get to Heaven where, since the rules of logic don't apply, everyone will be a perfect altruist and also, of course, perfectly happy!)

If only that were true ... instead it seems most of the popular blame is landing on the capitalists - and everyone is looking to the government for "solutions". I really don't think the message is getting out there that things like this WOULDN'T happen if only the governments would stop frigging around with the markets. I hear more along the lines of "see, this is what happens under capitalism. It's time to stand up for equality" and crap like that. Reminds me of the White Stripes song about how you can't take the effect and pretend it's the cause ...

Ha yeah, Elizabeth May was going on about how Harper was cutting funding for the arts during the English debate (I didn't watch the French one). She kind of ruined her own point though when she said that the funding he cut was for the trucks that carry things around between museums, now the museums have to pay for that transportation out of their own budgets. She was clearly scandalized by such grotesque injustice. This entire election seems to be based on who can scare more people into voting for them so they can spend a lot of our money on saving the world just the right way. Canada to the rescue! I'm glad it will all be over in a couple of days and hopefully we'll just end up with another minority so that none of them can screw anything up too badly!

Also, you haven't really asked a question. You've made a lot of generalizations and vague accusations and voiced your disillusionment with an entire philosophy based on your personal distaste for people who were probably just answering your non-questions with reasonable disinterest. Don't be a troll, man.

Why would anyone need to "account for" any of that? If you think that Rand's basic premises are right but that some of her specific arguments are wrong, why don't you try focusing on one specific argument, explain how you come to a different conclusion than Rand using the same Objective premises, and ask whether anyone can find any flaws in your argument? In fact you don't even appear to be arguing her conclusions, but only the fact that she wrote a lot about the things she thought were wrong. So what? If you're convinced that hippies are bad for society after 10 pages, then don't bother reading the other thousand, I guess. What exactly are you looking for an explanation of?

Thanks for all your answers. I've been doing some more reading and I think I understand more of what the issue is now. Of course there needs to be a constitution because a group of people needs an explicit context in which to deal with each other (when there are enough of them that they need to deal with strangers regularly), and it follows that there needs to be a government in order to enforce the constitution, protect the community from malicious outsiders, and settle civil disputes. I think that because the Canadian government is the only one I have any experience with, the whole concept of a "government" seems necessarily socialist to me - i.e., that it's a given that people can't govern themselves and therefore need a government to do it for them. It makes more sense when you frame it in terms of everyone agreeing NOT to use retaliatory force (except in cases of emergency and immediate self-defence) and instead appoint a government and give it "the exclusive right and obligation to use retaliatory force in order to protect the rights of an individual". Then you avoid vigilanteism without giving up any positive rights. But then again that's how it all starts, isn't it? It seems like in Canada if there is anything that everyone is perceived to need equally, then that is something the government should take care of. Moreover, most people feel that giving up a percentage of their income in taxes is a worthwhile cost for the services they are provided in exchange (I'm pretty sure that will change eventually, because we're going to reach the end of our resources and things will start falling apart, like in Germany, but for now there's no denying that life in Canada is a pretty good deal. Complaining about taxes is like complaining about the weather.). So if the rational for a government being the appropriate institution to enforce national security is that everyone wants the country's constitution enforced, and therefore everyone will give up thier right to retaliatory force (either voluntarily or as a condition of citizenship) and agree on a government to enforce the laws instead and this government will somehow be funded through non-coercive means - then what's to stop this reasoning from extending to other things like health care? Everyone is going to need or want basic health care at some point. Couldn't one argue that it would be so much more effecient if we just all gave up our right to get that health care from whoever we wanted, pooled our resources and had the government dole it out according to need? Obviously no, that would not be more effecient at all, because the nature of a government is ineffeciency and while it might sound great to some, the reality of the situation is inferior technology and service, unnecessary deaths due to long waiting lists, etc. So if a government can't run a health care system effeciently, why can it run national security effeciently? Why do we need a government to protect us from muslim extremists but not from cancer - given that the technology exists to control both threats? [if I'm hijacking this thread let me know and I'll start a new topic. It seems relevant to me so I'll keep it here for now.]

I'm new to this forum and relatively new to Objectivism, but so far from what I have read it appears to be often taken for granted that in a free society there must be a government to "enforce" such freedom - i.e., to protect citizens from violations of their rights by force (constraint from rational action). It's true, I think, that in anything *less* than a purely free economy, where conflicts can arise between two individuals or groups who are acting on fundamentally opposing metaphysical philosophies, there is a practical need for a mutually accepted authority which can "lay down the law" because otherwise an irrationality on the part of one or both parties will result in the initiation of force. I do not dispute the need for a government given current facts of reality. However, given that Zip's query stipulates the context of a "pure laissez faire economic system", I am surprised that all the responding posters assumed government involvement in such a society. I have noticed this tendency on other threads as well if anyone disputes that it is a common view, and will support this assertion if anyone cares to question it. Far from assuming that a society exclusively made up of "a small group of dedicated O'ists" who are able to "carve out a piece of territory for themselves" - which I assume would mean that they or one or some individuals among them possess property which they are legally and practically able to defend the borders of and control entrance to - why does this group then need to formally agree upon such a constitution or the means of enforcing it or by whom it is enforced? Instead, it seems that such a society would "ensure their hard, moral and correct work doesn't get corrupted by an influx of moochers, looters and other various flavours of socialists" individually, rather than collectively, by whatever means proves most economically effective. For example, in Atlas Shrugged, Midas Milligan owns Galt's Gulch and sells parcels of it to others who share his ethics and from whom he thinks he will probably derive some value (because he gets to live in a society of rational men). He also personally pays to have the entire community protected from outside influence by means of the ray shield and by means of making sure anyone who gets to enter the community is someone who deserves the privilege. Midas obviously makes money from the whole setup or else he wouldn't do it - but everyone inside obviously concedes benefit as well or else they wouldn't stay or would find a better way of protecting themselves. Someone will anticipate the potential for a problem before a crisis arises, develop a profitable way to deal with it, and use the market to distribute it and profit from his work. Such measures would preclude the possibility of moochers, etc. just joining the community and ruining everything. If someone inside the community started acting immorally/irrationally, then people would stop doing business with him. A competitor would seize the opportunity to take over his market and he would end up having no influence - his filth won't spread. So I think a pure lassiez faire system would naturally protect itself from Nihilist infection and I don't see why a government would be needed to get involved for the purpose of "protecting" a society from moochers or any other breed of parasite. Footnote: I would describe a "government" that is funded by "voluntary donation" a business, not a government. Everyone pays the fee and if they don't get what they signed up for, they stop paying you and find someone who can do it. In a purely free society where everything is privatized, governments would simply be irrelevant because for every function the government performs, someone would find a better way to do it. Of course I realize that I'm describing some kind of anarchy, and that there must be some reason that Objectivism is not categorized as an anarchist system, so what am I missing? I certainly can't see any justification for needing to "watch the culture" or steer public opinion. If you're right, be right, be the evidence that you are right, just as Ayn Rand's writing Atlas Shrugged was evidence in itself that people like Dagny Taggart exist in the world. If no one, in a society of free men whose common tie is a commitment to reason and lives of reason, agrees with your evidence, then I think you would have good reason to go back to the drawing board and examine your own reasoning. EDIT: Sorry for such a long post. I should add that, like I said, I'm new to this and my goal is to clarify my understanding of Objectivism. So if I accidentally said anything offensive, please chalk it up to being a noob and explain what the error is.