Melissa-R-2004

Someone in a Yahoo Group pointed me here, chuckling about the notion of my being both a libertarian and Objectivist, and how libertarians were being talked about in this forum. I see them as perfectly compatible in a modern context. Keep in mind that Rand had her own prejudices, based on the context of the times she lived in. For example, she also hated gays, considering it "unnatural". But the science has evolved since then and I'm not sure if she would now. I've run across several gay Objectivists, by the way. “Who is a libertarian? A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." -- L. Neil Smith ( Smith is a well known libertarian author and award winning sci-fi writer ). I'm a libertarian because at the most basic level I've come to believe that it's morally wrong to initiate force, or to delegate its initiation. Which matches up with Rand's Objectivist ethics: "The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others." - The Virtue Of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand I've heard that there are different camps of Objectivists too, some who are more modernists and some who are personality cultists after Rand. I could never get into the cultist end of things. As far as libertarianism, I disagree with all those who misuse the term, and there are many. I believe that it must be objectively defined, and that's why I subscribe to the NIoF ( Non Initiation of Force ) principle as its definition, per Smith's quote above. Without an objective definition, it can be anything anyone says it is, and it becomes absurd. Like when Bill Maher calls himself a libertarian, when I think he's really just a socialist, so I laugh at him. What a fool. I see Objectivism as being very useful and symbiotic with libertarianism because it gives the "why" of why we should have individual rights, when too often so many libertarians will just reply; "because". I think Objectivism provides the objective derrivations for libertarianism to succeed, and per those two quotes above, I see the political philosophies of both as being identical.