[What do you think of the concept of "luck"?]

I would define 'good luck' to be the receiving of significant benefits from events that lie outwith your control (and possibly your knowledge), and 'bad luck' similarly to be receiving negative effects from events outside your control.

To me the word (un)lucky, is just used to describe an event that was against the odds. For example in Holdem Poker, if I get dealt two aces and don't win the pot, this is against the odds and can therefore be described as unlucky. The person who beat my two aces, started with an inferior hand and inferior odds and was therefore lucky.

[Taxes: The Taxman And The Objectivist]

You did not create the system; your were born into it. You live your life as best as you can and you do everything possible to change the world within which you live. It is not a sanction as long as you do not intellectually support and advocate the system that makes the tax man possible.

Does what you have just said contradict the message of "Atlas Shrugged"? In the book it clearly indicates that to produce what you know will be looted is to sanction the looter.

[Taxes: The Taxman And The Objectivist]

In "Atlas Shrugged", one by one the characters realise that it is they who have sanctioned what happens to them. By continuing to be productive and to give in to the looters demands for some of this production, you sanction the looter to loot from you. The message is to remove your production and therefore there is nothing to loot.

Have I sanctioned the taxman? By producing something of value that the taxman wants, that I know he will steal from me, am I sanctioning him?

[Taxes: The Taxman And The Objectivist]

If the taxman demands money from me, what should I do as an objectivist? If I don't pay him then I will be sent to court. If I still refuse to pay, bailiffs will come and physically remove items of value from my home.

[Democracy: Democracy And Objectivism]

What if a socialist came into power and made an ammendment to correct an error in the constitution? An "error" such as private property for example.

[Democracy: Democracy And Objectivism]

In a perfect constitutional republic, is the system of ammendments possible?

For example in the US Constitution -

Amendment XVI (1913)

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration.

If this happened in the perfect constitutional republic, it would appear that the "constitutional republic" is more like a democracy. For example you have the constitution of rights, but these rights can be changed according to the whims of the majority (or whoever ammends the constitution).

[Democracy: Democracy And Objectivism]

I am in England. I am an 18 year old student, about to start university in October.

I have never come across the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic before.

Please explain the difference between the two.

[Democracy: Democracy And Objectivism]

Under democracy, the individual must submit to the whims of the majority.

Is democracy a form of collectivism? How does democracy fit in with objectivism? Would a perfect system of capitalism (the kind espoused by Rand) be democratic?

Thanks in advance.