Tom Robinson

Clearly there is a difference between activity and inactivity. Under the principles of Objectivism, no person is required to risk his life for another. If remaining silent prevents one’s throat from being slit, then one is entirely justified in saying nothing. This is altogether different from waving to a killer on the run and providing him with bed and breakfast during the course of a dragnet. (At the risk of committing tu quoque, I should point out that you have evaded my point that a subpoena is no different in principle from a military draft.) Since I responded to your post by differentiating between criminal and non-criminal activity, my reply could not have been more to the point. You’ll have to make better arguments if you want your discussions with me “to go anywhere.” You stated that my case is “that assisting evil is a right.” Since I never made such an assertion, I am not obliged to defend it. I did you the courtesy of ignoring the accusation rather than calling you a liar. I considered my response sufficient to respond to your false assertion that I have equivocated "withholding evidence" with "doing nothing." But if you need further argument, here it is: certainly, a tax evader is withholding property from the government; a draft dodger is withholding labor from the military; a person who does not respond to a subpoena is withholding his mind and body from the clutches of state power. But none of these instances of withholding constitutes the initiation of force. And only the initiation of force can be subject to retaliatory force. On that principle see Atlas Shrugged or The Virtue of Selfishness. I won’t cite particular quotations to avoid being accused of quoting out of context. Since it has been my position all along that subpoenas are the initiation of force, a fact which you too acknowledged when you wrote, “Yes, it is an initiation of force . . .” (Post #46), it was entirely appropriate to discuss whether actions which do not initiate force can be the subject of criminal penalty. As to my quotation, if you believe that the context of the Galt quote changes its meaning, feel free to present evidence thereof. If you’d like I’d post the complete text of AS if copyright laws permitted. Why did I quote your text? Because it was in your post! I did not respond to the first part because it did not make any new points that had not already been addressed. You wrote: “But there is an obvious difference between providing testimony and using force to capture criminals. The use of force, except in certain circumstances, is the job of the police. Reporting the crime, then staying out of the way while the police do their job, and then cooperating with the police afterward, is not the equivalent of withholding testimony.” Now explain how this justifies the state’s initiation of force against non-compliant witnesses. This is what I’m waiting to hear. Unproven assertion. Split into two posts to fix excess quote problem --JMeganSnow

If a strong federal government prevented the individual states from waging wars, how did 618,000 Americans happen to die from 1861-1865? If statism is better than anarchy, wouldn't it be better for the U.S., Canada and Mexico all to be under one federal government of North America?

This thread reminds me that Ayn Rand's most memorable print interview was with Playboy. We can only speculate about why Hugh Hefner’s magazine chose Rand as a subject and why Rand agreed to talk to a writer from Playboy and appear in its pages. I can only suggest that both Rand and editor Hugh Hefner were each in her/his own way enemies of sexual prudery, and of the religious forces that fostered it. So a question for the opponents of pornography: if an Objectivist man should come across a copy of the March, 1964, Playboy, would it be inappropriate for him to stop to gaze at the fold-out of Miss March? Or should he go straight to the interview, do not pass Go? How do you suppose Miss Rand felt about appearing in a girlie mag? Does her appearance in Playboy constitute sanctioning the immoral actions of pornographers?

HÜLSMANN: "Economic growth is determined by two elements, (a) by the available quantities of goods that can be used in the productive process and ( by theadroitness with which these available factors of production are combined." Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth What explanation did your colleague give for a decline in economic growth?

If one willingly and knowingly invites a criminal into one’s home, an action takes place. Any action part of an enterprise to deprive a person of his rights constitutes initiation of force and is properly subject to punishment. By contrast, if a criminal breaks into your home and you take no action, you are not guilty of initiating force. Your reasons for not speaking may stem from purely rational self-interest. The contents of a person’s mind are his property exclusively. The police are entitled to the contents of a citizen’s mind only by his consent. I oppose capital punishment. (See The Objectivist Newsletter, Jan. 1963) If the government sends an innocent man to the gallows, then it has not based its case on sound evidence and it is entirely responsible for the injustice. Regardless, no person’s needs constitute a claim on the property or freedom of another person. "No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave." (Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights”) Citizen A does not lose his right not so speak because of Citizen B’s need to prove his innocence. C does not lose his right not to take part in military service because D’s rights are being violated by an invading army. In fact, my position is the opposite: no one has the right to extinguish someone else’s liberty, even for a brief moment. In the examples discussed, the state would be the aggressor: for executing the innocent suspect, and also for conscripting the witness into its courtroom. Now, if you wish to argue the opposite, then your position would be that rights are not absolute but conditional: A has a right to his property only if B is not in need of a part of A’s property. This is called pragmatism. That would mean there is no individual right to one’s own body. Accordingly, the military draft would be legitimate. Then you will have to show why the former have no exclusive rights to their bodies and the content of their minds. I don’t deny this difference. I merely point out that neither a police state nor a constitutional republic owns the bodies of its citizens or the contents of their minds. Not speaking is by definition a non-action. Non-actions cannot be regarded as the initiation of force, since initiation implies action. “Government . . . may resort to force only against those who start the use of force." (Galt's Speech, Atlas Shrugged) If a witness is threatened with jail time for not speaking, his rights are under attack by the state. Nobody, not even a king on his throne, is entitled to someone else’s body or the contents of his mind.

Then a subpoena is no different than military conscription. In both cases a citizen is ordered under threat of force to appear in a certain place at a certain time to render services to the government. If the draft is a form of slavery, then the subpoena is no less so. Only the initiation of force justifies retaliatory force. If a witness to a crime does not speak, he is doing precisely nothing. Doing nothing does not constitute the initiation of force, since doing nothing is by definition not the initiation of anything, much less of force. No. For the reasons given above and in my previous post, there is no duty on the part of a witness to testify. Obligations to others must be self-chosen. A witness to a crime had no choice in having the crime suddenly appear before his eyes. Nor has he by any action of his own incurred a duty to speak or write or appear in a court of law. I never signed a contract to give testimony in all cases involving crimes to which I was a witness. Good. If a witness believes that testifying would place his life at risk, then in the name of anti-sacrifice he may rightfully ignore the subpoena.

I have been placed on warning by the powers that be to stop "promoting" libertarianism. Therefore, I can add nothing further to this conversation.

But, as Ayn Rand pointed out, one person's needs are not a valid claim on someone else's property or freedom. By comparison, we can say that the fact that government and laws are necessary for civilization does not entitle the government levy taxes (initiate force) to finance its operations. Just as the government must respect property rights in its gathering of revenue, it must similarly respect free speech rights (including the right not to speak) in its gathering of criminal evidence. “A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force." (Galt's Speech, Atlas Shrugged) It would be legitimate for a court to force information out of a witness only if the information inside a witness’s mind properly belongs to the court. However, under any non-contradictory system of individual rights, each citizen owns his whole body, including the contents of his mind. If we deviate from this principle, then what is to stop a court from employing medieval instruments of torture to pry information (supposedly owned by the court) out of a non-compliant witness? This goes back to the issue of one person’s needs versus another person’s rights. Forcing a person to speak against his will is simply another form of slavery. Ayn Rand: “No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man.” (“Man’s Rights”) No I don’t. I recognize the obvious differences between a constitutional republic and an absolute dictatorship.

I can't get very enthusiastic about a politico who supports the first clause of the First Amendment and then leads the charge to crush the second clause. McCain-Feingold is the most pernicious attack on free speech since the end of World War II.

But surely, C.F., you do not favor forcing anyone to contribute to a cause they do not support? Thus if all meddling is to be purely voluntary, your position is no different from the libertarian's: no one should be required to give his labor or his property for any purpose against his will. As to whether a Libertarian Congress would authorize a “retaliation against Islam,” that would depend on what you have in mind. How exactly does one physically retaliate against a set of theological assumptions? In any case, there are a number of libertarians who are on record as supporting deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world (“meddling,” if you will): J. Neil Schulman, David Boaz, Tom Palmer, Williamson Evers and Neal Boortz among others. So your attempt to equate libertarians with Nazis does not bear scrutiny.

It's the same as trespassing. If I rent a concert hall exclusively for my one thousand closest friends and you, an uninvited guest, take a seat inside, you are trespassing. The fact that I don't catch you does not mean that you have not violated my property rights.

Well said, Montesquieu! One of the saddest developments in American politics is that Republicans and conservatives, once bitter enemies of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy, are now praising them as exemplary models of leadership. How unfortunate that Victor Lasky's excellent JFK: The Man and the Myth (New Rochelle: NY Arlington House, 1963) is long out of print. Those dedicated to unearthing the truth about the man who would have ushered in what Rand called "the new fascism" should seek out this work from used book sources.

Actually the LP explicitly opposes any prohibition on U.S. citizens volunteering their treasure or labor to foreign conflicts. From the LP Platform: "Repeal the Neutrality Act of 1794, and all other U.S. neutrality laws, which restrict the efforts of Americans to aid overseas organizations fighting to overthrow or change governments." Every American would then be free to meddle as much as he wanted. A planeload of armed Objectivists could land in Baghdad or Kabul or Riyadh and say, "Howdy ya'll, we're here to fight the Islamists." Since Objectivists believe in completely voluntary government revenue collection, fighting Islam by private means would be accomplished no differently than by government means: through the voluntary actions of individual citizens.

Tell us more about the LP's plans to impose Sharia law once the LP occupies the White House and Congress.

I am a libertartian, and I support your right to meddle with Islamists to your heart's content, C.F. -- provided that it's your own money and blood that you're putting on the line. Now prove the above statement is in error.

Harboring an escaped convict requires an action. Not speaking is a non-action. Since only actions constitute the initiation of force, then not speaking is a non-crime and would not be punishable under any system of law that respected individual rights, particularly the right to control one’s own body. Funding and arming killers are actions. Actions which are a part of an enterprise to initiate force are criminal and should be subject to punishment. On the other hand, not speaking is a non-action and cannot be regarded as either the initiation of force or criminal. Then by the same logic we can state that the responsibility for loss of individual rights in a mass round-up of black males was always with the actual criminal, not the police who conducted the round-up. If doing nothing constitutes assisting evil, then any citizen who does not stop a purse snatching or prevent an act of shoplifting or stop a bank robbery would also be “assisting evil” and would be subject to prosecution and punishment. Now, you may respond that a citizen’s intervention in these crimes would subject him to physical harm. But the same is no less true of a witness. Those who testify against criminals have later been found murdered. This does not answer the question. Why should self-incriminating testimony but not non-self-incriminating testimony be protected? Or, in your own terms, why punish the “assistants to evil” for not speaking, but not the evil-doers themselves for not speaking?

So a party that wishes to end the federal income tax, end regulation of business, end welfare, end subsidies, end foreign aid, end the drug war -- is worse than a party that not only does not oppose these things but has sought to increase them?

No, libertarians support your right to meddle with Islamists to your heart's content, C.F. -- provided that it's your own money and blood that you're putting on the line.

From http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/Russell_Feingold.htm Voted NO on Balanced-budget constitutional amendment. Voted YES on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. Voted YES on setting aside 10% of highway funds for minorities & women. Voted NO on ending special funding for minority & women-owned business. Voted YES on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. Voted NO on banning affirmative action hiring with federal funds. Voted NO on Educational Savings Accounts. Voted YES on national education standards. Voted YES on removing consideration of drilling ANWR from budget bill. Voted NO on defunding renewable and solar energy. Voted NO on cap foreign aid at only $12.7 billion. Voted NO on establishing a free trade agreement between US & Singapore, US & Chile Voted NO on expanding trade to the third world. Voted YES on imposing trade sanctions on Japan for closed market. Voted YES on banning "soft money" contributions and restricting issue ads. Voted NO on require photo ID (not just signature) for voter registration. Voted YES on continuing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Voted YES on favoring 1997 McCain-Feingold overhaul of campaign finance. Voted YES on $40 billion per year for limited Medicare prescription drug benefit. Voted YES on increasing tobacco restrictions. Voted NO on killing an increase in the minimum wage. Voted NO on Social Security Lockbox & limiting national debt. Voted NO on allowing Roth IRAs for retirees. Voted NO on allowing personal retirement accounts. Voted NO on cutting taxes by $1.35 trillion over 11 years. Voted NO on across-the-board spending cut. Voted NO on requiring super-majority for raising taxes. Rated 17% by National Taxpayers Union, indicating a "Big Spender" on tax votes. (Dec 2003)

I don't see a problem with a bank issuing a certificate (or title) backed by Smith's 3-bedroom house or Jones's 1996 Corvette or Robinson's lumber yard -- provided that such certificates state exactly what they represent. We would call them house certificates or car certificates or lumber yard certificates. We would still have to stipulate that house-certificate holder Brown and house resident Smith could not both be exclusive owners of the same house at the same time. In other words, we cannot logically or morally increase titles to houses without increasing houses by a similar amount. Furthermore, we cannot say to Brown that he has a house certificate -- but in reality back his certificate with something other than a house, say, a soccer field. The problem with fractional gold reserve certificates is that they claim to be backed by gold, whereas in fact the gold that they supposedly represent a claim to, has already been claimed by someone else's certificate. This is fraud pure and simple. Furthermore, if a bank claims its certificates are backed by gold but are in fact backed by something else, this too is fraud. Can there be a car title which is actually a title to a boat?

You mean a party like the one that President Bush is in.

On the basis of what evidence do you make this claim? Earlier you had written that a race where the only two candidates were a Libertarian and a Nazi would be a race where "both candidates were Nazis...." Is it your view that Naziism and Sharia law are one and the same?

Then you might say Reagan had the courage of a faith-based, right-wing ox.

That's fine, nimble, but what A. West has outlined is something other than what you describe. He wrote, "banks can't and don't need to pay off all deposits at once." This suggests that a depositor and a borrower can both be issued receipts for the same bar of gold, and that such double-issue is legitimate since the bank need not cover the claims of depositor and borrower at once. I say that any bank that issues separate certificates for the same quantity of gold (and this is what fractional reserve banking is generally taken to mean) is engaging in a fiction, a fraud if you will. For two independent legal claims to the same quantity of gold (or other precious commodity) cannot be reconciled except by awarding ownership to one or the other.

QUOTE(Tom Robinson @ Apr 11 2005, 05:54 PM) In a race where the only two candidates were a Libertarian and a Nazi Is it your view that members of the Libertarian Party advocate genocide of non-Aryans, worship of the head of state, total government control of the economy, and expansion of national boundaries through military aggression? If so, I eagerly await references.