Fred Weiss

I think you overrate Chomsky's influence - except on the very radical left, whose influence is dwindling in this country. To give you some perspective, in my college days the left brought out a steady stream of books with some intellectual substance and which carried a great deal of weight (and had significant influence) - books like Silent Spring, Michael Harrington's books on poverty, John Galbraith's books, etc. Today it's mostly trashy polemics, like Michael Moore or Al Franken. The left is truly intellectually bankrupt and I wonder if even at some level they realize it themselves and sense the extent to which they are adrift. I believe they may even acknowledge it among themselves. (The death of communism was the coup de grace). It's a huge vacuum waiting to be filled. So you young people with an interest in joining the intellectual fray have a wide open field in front of you - and I believe you will be surprised at the rather pathetic opposition you will experience. Those of us who participate on hpo experience this virtually every day. Consider the fact that a number of us, all non-academics, are decently able to take on even the academics who descend on hpo to pick on Objectivists. I think Betsy, Don, David, etc. will agree with me. Fred Weiss

It wasn't clear to me where you were posting from. I truly don't know what to tell you because you are in a very bad situation. Your command of English is pretty good. Have you considered the possibility of translating Ayn Rand into Croatian? Various people have done that in other countries to some effect - Russia and Scandanavia come to mind. Or perhaps figuring out some way to get to the United States? The only thing I'd advise you is not to fall into a state of total hopelessness. Out of curiosity, how did you discover Ayn Rand? Fred Weiss

You said that rational persuasion doesn't work any more, which I assume means that you think you possess reason and others don't. As for having to wait 30 years - or however long it takes - what is the alternative? Furthermore, I do not say just wait. What you do is fight for it, the way all men have fought for ideals down through the ages - men who realized that anything worth achieving involves struggle. I might add that what you are saying is that Ayn Rand's achievement was futile and she shouldn't have bothered, since the world didn't immediately embrace her ideas. Fred Weiss

Do you possess some gift from god which grants you reason - and no one else? I'll just mention to those genuinely concerned about the state of the culture that no new idea - certainly none as radical as Objectivism - has ever been able to change a culture overnight. It takes time, usually several generations at least. It was 75 years - 3 generations - between John Locke's treatise on gov't and the American Revolution. There was a similar period between Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and complete free trade in England. Atlas Shrugged was written less than 50 years ago. No, we are still a far distance from seeing its ideas sweep the world, but there are signs of some influence, including the death of communism. And who any more of any intellectual stature even advocates socialism? As bad as things must seem to the younger people here and as discouraged as you understandably must be, I can assure you that intellectually it was much worse in the 60's and 70's. Fred Weiss

But it does make sense to you that either you were determined to utter those particular words or they came out of your mouth for no reason whatever???? Fred Weiss

I enjoyed my first. That's why I went for the second. There are a number of things I had to acquire the taste for (which I didn't particularly like when I first tried them) - wine, coffee, spicy food for example - but cigarettes I liked right from the start. Wine and coffee btw are other examples of products which when taken in excess can be very damaging to your health, but which in moderation may actually be good for you. Again, I'm not making an argument for smoking. I'm just saying that the antagonism toward it has gotten hysterical and overblown. Furthermore, it depends a great deal on your own ability to handle it. I am reminded of the character in the TV series "The West Wing", Leo, the Chief of Staff, who is an alcoholic. He is asked once, why it is, now that he hasn't had a drink in 6 years, and now that he has it under control, he can't have a drink now and then. His answer is that he doesn't want one drink, he wants 10 and can't even understand how anyone could just want one drink. So if you have a similar attitude toward smoking, it might be better if you never smoked at all. Fred Weiss

But that's what I was responding to, not the virtues of smoking 2-3 packs a day. And I suspect, just that nothing more, that smoking occasionally does have zero negative physical effects. Whether it might even have positive effects is an open question. I can't even phathom what Don is getting at when he says it's not pleasurable. It's an entirely personal experience and if someone experiences it as pleasurable, then it's pleasurable. If I'm enjoying a cigarette or a glass of wine, I can't even begin to grasp what it means to say "you're not really enjoying them". This of course isn't equivalent to saying that anything pleasurable is good or moral. That's an entirely different question. But we have reached a point in our culture where it is regarded as almost immoral to smoke - and that's what I'm reacting to. It's full-blown "puritanism" and it's the same mentality that led to Prohibition. It really shocks me when I hear Objectivists, of all people, embracing such notions. I am mindful of the fact that a small percentage of the population is asthmatic or suffers from other respiratory problems and for whom smoking is a serious irritant. One should be curteous and not smoke in their presence. But a great many people, who were never bothered by it before, have "suddenly" become hysterical and hypersensitive to smoking. It's reached the point of the ridiculous when there are people who claim they can tell if someone smoked in a hotel room 6 months before. I had a business colleague who used to tell me that - and this very same guy used to bum cigarettes from me!!. Another business colleague was so allegedly sensitive to cigarette smoke she came into the office one day wearing a gas mask to make her point. This very same person would leave our offices on Lexington Ave. in NYC and walk down into the street bombarded by bus and car exhausts, chimney fumes, sewer emissions, and the masses of unwashed and perfumed - and that didn't bother her in the least. Fred Weiss

"My own personal advice, for whatever that is worth to you, is to throw your cigarettes away and have a happy, healthy, and long life. There are so many other pleasures in life that await you, of far more depth and significance than smoking." You might as well stay "stop driving on the freeway" or "stop eating hamburgers" or "stop using potentially dangerous tools", etc. Almost anything pleasurable we do carries some risk and I would argue that smoking occasionally is no more dangerous than any of those. Fred Weiss

What does this have to do with the issue raised by "galt"? No one is saying that we are happy with taxation or gov't involvement in the economy. The question "galt" is raising is whether, given the current situation and until we can get it changed, what is the proper way to deal with it. I'm sorry that you don' t "feel" any better about it. But that's the way it is. Objectivism is starting to have some influence on the culture but it is still a long way off before you can expect any kind of radical shift toward laissez-faire. In the meantime, if one values living in a civilized society and accepting its benefits, which are many even with the degree of statism we must endure, then one must accept the proper means for changing that society: rational persuasion. When, and if, we reach a point where rational persuasion is no longer possible, then and only then is it proper to consider other means. Fred Weiss

I disagree with you and Stephen. Smoking occasionally probably has close to zero, if not zero, negative physical effects. Strolling on the streets of NYC and in the process imbibing bus and car fumes is probably much more damaging to the lungs - or for that matter living in Southern Calif. The more serious effects of smoking probably don't kick in unless you graduate to a pack or two or more a day. Even that will vary considerably from person to person. As for it being a "death sentence", that is utter nonsense. It does increase one's risks of developing certain diseases, but it will not necessarily kill you. There are people who chain smoke into their 80's and 90's. Does anyone ever consider that there might be benefits of smoking, not just psychological, but physical? Can you imagine the gov't ever funding a study to show such possible benefits? To even suggest such a thing in the hysterical environment today on the subject would turn one into the equivalent of a "witch in Salem" and you would probably be burned on the proverbial stake for the mere idea. Fred Weiss

Objectivism does seem to have some presence in India, tiny of course in relation to the population, but nonetheless noticeable and greater than in other parts of Asia. I attended Brooklyn College, run by the city of NYC, and then went to the Univ. of Wisconsin, a state school. As an out of state resident, I did pay some tuition at UW but it was a fraction of what I would have paid at a private university. I never, then or now, felt the slightest guilt about it. The gov't has usurped a huge part of education, funded by taxation which both you and your parents pay. So long as it exists and so long as you are penalized by the taxation, you should feel no guilt in taking advantage of it - and in effect getting back some of the funds which they have confiscated from you. I'm not sure how you think this issue relates to the question you are raising. Suffice it to say that your choices have been limited by gov't interference in the education marketplace (and others) and you are compelled to pay taxes to support it. No, you aren't forced to use the highway, but why would you want to penalize yourself in that way - by not using them - when the gov't doesn't permit private highways? You have been forced to sacrifice already in the taxes you and your parents have paid to build and maintain the highways. So why now add to your sacrifice by not using the highway? You mean, "is evil that impotent", i.e. that unproductive. The answer is yes. Virtually anything the gov't does would be better done privately. Fred Weiss

Don't worry about. It's not really a post, since a post should consist of a new thought not previously posted. Fred Weiss

The one I'd like to unleash on "Gabriel" is Charles Novins. But I think we'd have to get him a "special dispensation" from the O-O moderators or he'd be kicked off the board in 3 days. :-)

Why don't you be our first. Your approach to Objectivism...and Objectivists is so incredibly superficial, it appears to be a natural choice for you. This is a total non-sequitur. Ayn Rand had no problem with comedy or comedians per se - and being serious about philosophical issues doesn't not preclude humor. In fact she used it herself. I can't help noticing that you have yet to raise one substantive issue about Objectivism since you've joined this Forum. Your purported concern with the supposed manner in which Objectivism is presented I suspect masks some deeper questions you have about the philosophy. Maybe you'd make a little more headway if you raised them, rather than dancing around the issues with trivial comments about surface issues. Fred Weiss

I'd also highly recommend Nevil Shute's Landfall. It's one of his underrated novels, but I'd put in on my personal list of his top six. Also set in WW2, the story is about a British pilot who is accused of inadvertently sinking a British ship and the indefatigable efforts of a woman he meets, and who falls in love with him, to clear his name. Fred Weiss

Would you mind giving us a little report on what is happening in Eastern Europe in general, and Hungary in particular, these days? I was just talking with someone the other day about how little we hear about it here in the United States. Fred Weiss

I don't know about Sweden, but from reports I've read the welfare state in Germany is starting to unravel. Out of controls costs are forcing even the socialists to propose cut backs, prompting massive street demonstrations by their erstwhile supporters, such as the labor unions. I suspect it's a harbinger of things to come in the other European welfare states. The demographics in all of the advanced, industrial countries, with longevity continually increasing along with advances in medicine, is spiralling costs out of control. It's possible that just as we were surprised by the sudden implosion of communism, the same thing may yet happen with the welfare state. Fred Weiss

I just thought I'd try to get a rise out of you. Fred Weiss

In actual practice, "open-mindedness" means that one should entertain any idea toward which "conventional wisdom" hasn't yet reached a consensus. But challenge anyone on the tenets of the conventional wisdom and see how open-minded they are! The most adamant dogmatists I know are the people who are constantly demanding that *you* be open-minded. I tell people quite forthrightly that with regard to a great many issues I am no longer open-minded. I have given these issues too much thought and regard them as too solidly supported with overwhelming evidence to doubt them any longer. Ask the "open-minded" crowd if they will entertain the possibility that slavery was a good thing or if the earth is actually afterall flat. One should of course be open-minded with regard to any issue with regard to which you yourself haven't yet reached any firm conclusions. And in principle if the evidence presented is well-supported and convincing, one needs to be willing to reconsider even one's firmest convictions. But that doesn't mean that any claim someone blurts out has to be seriously considered. Fred Weiss

Capitalism Forever,Jun 6 2004, 04:08 AM Or at least ...err...show something else. Yes, I agree. If laws are violating your rights I believe you are entitled to evade them. Not required to evade them, but you can at least attempt to minimize the extent to which they penalize you. The extent to which you do so is up to you and should be tempered by a degree of necessary prudence to avoid fines or jail terms - and of course you should not do so in any way that violates anyone else's rights. The underlying point of the Rule of Law is that laws be just, clear, fair and reasonable and apply equally to everyone. Certainly in situations where laws are inherently absurd or their application almost entirely arbitrary and where enforcement is spotty and compliance erratic, you would be acting sacrificially to volunteer to penalize yourself. In cases where laws constitute egregious violations of rights, they should be actively resisted and fought. Fred Weiss

Discussing it in what way? You've completely lost me. Both in my current and former town homeowners without children and without any intention of having children will pay over a period of years 10's of thousands of dollars in school taxes. So are the homeowners with children "immorally consuming goods and services paid for by the productive effort of others" (namely people without children)? In addition, parents with a single child will subsidize parents with two children in schools. Parents who send their children to private schools will subsidize the education of children in the public school system. If you want to discuss the alleged injustice of "illegal aliens" supposedly not paying for the services they receive, why is it any different from the same injustice which is rife throughout the system? Furthermore you have completely ignored a number of comments I've made which questions the charge that "illegal aliens" are not paying for these services. And why are you focusing specifically on "illegal aliens" most of whom, as I understand it, come here to work? Why are you focusing on them when there are Americans who are not productive and who mooch on the system? The problem is not illegal aliens per se. It is the non-productive looting the productive which is the problem. The reason why I am approaching it in this way and not in your way is because the real fundamental issue is a tax system which penalizes productivity. There may be other issues regarding illegal aliens, some of which Stephen is raising, but it has nothing whatever to do with them mooching on our economy. In fact from everything I know, they are a net positive to the economy. Fred Weiss

I believe there is/was a law in Connecticut that the use of condoms in sex was illegal. Whether there is/was such a law, suppose there was. Or suppose you lived in a country, otherwise reasonably civilized, where the use of any form of contraceptive device or pill were illegal. Suppose in addition you knew that the law had not been enforced in 50 years and the only reason it was still on the books, and likely would remain there, was to appease the Church and the segment of the population which supported it in regard to that issue. Suppose in addition that recent attempts to overturn the law had failed. Would you obey that law? Fred Weiss

I think you are on to something. I'll provide a personal anecdote - which should be taken for nothing more than that - but nonetheless which does color my approach to this issue. My father died rather young (early 60's) from a heart attack. So my brother, wanting to avoid that fate and assuming he would be prone to the same outcome, decided he would do all the things my father didn't, but which modern health consciousness prescribes. So he gave up smoking, followed a very restrictive low fat diet, watched his weight, and exercised regularly and vigorously. He died of a heart attack at 58. Go figure. Fred Weiss

Technically, if there is a law and you are obeying it, your compliance can never be considered unforced - however unlikely it is that you might get caught. Admittedly some laws are almost inherently unenforceable or so unlikely to be enforced that complying with them out of fear of lawbreaking is rather absurd. Examples that come to mind are your private sexual practices with another consenting adult or jaywalking at 3AM when there isn't a soul around and there are no cars on the street. In the example I cited (of my working from home in violation of the zoning laws), I never completely lost the concern that they might try and stop me, perhaps as the result of being reported by some nasty neighbor. But, since the law did exist, however ridiculous and however unlikely to be enforced, if I had chosen to abide by it, I don't think you could have considered it a sanction of the law. There are however some category of laws which are such egregious violations of rights - such as the "runaway slave laws" of the pre-Civil War era - that compliance with such laws is immoral. I don't think you would necessarily have to feel obliged to harbor a runaway slave, but if the law required you to report such activities if you knew about them or if you were obliged to bear witness to observing such activities, I know I would refuse. But I wouldn't do so only if I didn't fear I might get away with it. I simply wouldn't do it, even if there were some risk involved. So, in that regard, I do agree with you - at least with respect to some laws - that one cannot in good conscience choose to comply with them. But it is not on the grounds that you think you could get away with it. It is on the grounds that such laws are abominations. One can give some considerable credit to people who looked the other way even if they knew of activities which were aiding Jews during Nazi occupation. It is quite another those contemptible scum who reported such activities. Fred Weiss

You'll have to invite me over some time. Amen. Objectivists, of all people, shouldn't fall into the near Puritanical, fanatical over-focus on health, which borders on hysteria, and which has swept this country in recent decades. But unfortunately I observe many of them who do. If you've been diagnosed with a particular health problem, or if your family history is a marker for your likely developing a particular problem, than you should have due regard for it and act accordingly. But, look, if you insist on following every passing health fad, it likely will do you little good anyway. Your genetics are probably going to be the decisive factor regardless of what you do. Furthermore, if the studies are to be believed, the secret to longevity is to survive on a near starvation diet. You're welcome to such a life if that's what you want. Fred Weiss