Discrimination...

[SapereAude]

Ultimately, folks, I do not support a philosophy that holds property rights higher than human decency.

Since you are obviously completely unfamiliar with the philosophical works of Ayn Rand you might want to read her essay on racism:

http://alexpeak.com/twr/racism/

I think you will be surprised to find that Ayn Rand gave one of the most rational and coherent arguments against racism ever recorded.

edited for poor cut and paste

Edited October 29, 2010 by SapereAude

[OCSL]

I think this closer to actually agreeing with what cleanremarks is saying, so I'm addressing it. If you don't like the obvious danger of such a road, don't drive on it. No issue of force involved, whatever the property owner says goes, unless force is initiated.

Your right, thanks for clarifying.

[2046]

I guess I have to get my shots in too.

I appreciate all your responses. I enjoy a good debate.

Some of you are pointing to the idea that I am promoting a "liberal dictatorship." Meaning, the government is involved in ALL affairs, arbitrarily. I have said nothing like this, nor have I said anything that could be carried toward the idea.

I appreciate your post too, but just to clarify, no, no one has suggested you're explicitly promoting a “liberal dictatorship” (that would really be a contradiction in terms, we Objectivists are ultra-progressive liberals, actually.) What I was trying to communicate, however, is that the interventionist premises you put forth logically reduce to totalitarianism (in other words, it was reductio ad absurdum.)

A dictatorship is nothing I or anyone would wish, of course.

Of course. But saying “we didn't mean it, we thought we were making the world better” when you wake up in a world of concentration camps and gas chambers is too little too late. Do you think historical dictatorships happened because some people woke up one day and went "Hey, let's take away all freedom because we're evil people. Yeah that sounds like a good plan."? All I'm suggesting is that you stop working toward goals that necessarily will end up as something completely opposite from what you claim to want.

I agree with you all that arbitrary, unchecked power is something to be passionately resisted. However, I do believe that the government has the right to make reasonable laws at the demand of its people.

But what is “arbitrary?” Arbitrary means: without proof, or rational justification. Something that is not grounded in reality and logically derived and validated is arbitrary. Arbitrary laws are exactly what you advocate.

The PEOPLE are the government. The PEOPLE decide what is reasonable, not by overwhelming majority, but by reason and fairness.

Actually, “the people” are not the government. The government is not “us.” This is a clever phrase to throw ideological camouflage over the reality that the government is that apparatus of coercion in society. If “the people” are the government, and “we” are “the people,” then anything the government does is good and voluntary because it is only us doing it to ourselves. We are spending "our" money, and taxing "ourselves." The Jews in Nazi Germany must have not been murdered, but voluntarily committed suicide, since their government was democratically elected. If 51% of us decide to loot and kill the other 49%, then it is right because "we" decided and the "Will of the People" is sacred, the standard of value, being that it is right exactly because the majority decided it.

But no man may vote away the rights of another man. And no representative can said to have rights which his constituent that voted for him does not himself possess. In short, what determines what is proper and improper for governments to do are, in essence, the same principles which differentiate the proper from the improper actions of the individual. Government has no more right to tax, ban discrimination, nationalize industries, and violate rights in the way you described than I do.

Any educated adult knows the difference between a fair legislation(i.e. the civil rights movement or minimum wage) and the arbitrary practice of tyranny.

Appeal to consensus.

Also, I believe the government has the right to tax its citizens. However, consequently, the citizens have a right to demand services from the government because of this(roads, schools, defense, etc.). How would there be things like traffic laws if everyone owned their own roads? It would be as chaotic as driving in the Congo(which I've done).

Objectivism does not posit that everyone will own their own private road. This does not even seem possible, at least not in this dimension. What Objectivism does posit is that transportation is a good and it is not somehow magically exempt from the laws of economics, by some undefined manner. Among the most absurd objections to the de-socialization of transportation, is that without government we would all just ram into one another. This is nonsensical because the reason we don't ram into one another is that that would be stupid, not because the government passed a law giving them a compulsory monopoly of all roads and highways to be funded by taxation.

A second point, is that we do not posit or advocate that there “be no rules” on roads or otherwise. What is a more obvious initiation of force than ramming my car into your car? Road companies have a financial need to attract customers and thus to have safe roads. Your argument invoking the Congo is a strawman. You seem too smart for this. You really ought to familiarize yourself with some literature on the prospect of a free market in transportation before throwing up the usual fantasy objections like: “But what if the road owners made us all ram into one another, or what if they had some crazy rules like we all should drive in reverse, or what if all the owners never let anyone drive and we were all stuck, or what if there were a road from Maine to San Diego and they never let anyone on it and the country were divided in two!”

Ultimately, folks, I do not support a philosophy that holds property rights higher than human decency.

It is only to the degree of and on the basis of individual rights that any society can have human decency. If you consider yourself a liberal and a humanitarian, then you cannot hold the collective or group above the individual. It's one or the other. Either the individual has a right to exist for his own sake, or he doesn't. Either he owns his own life and his own physical body and its product, or someone else owns him. Either he can control his life, body, and property, or someone else can. Either you believe that each individual man has value, dignity, decency, and certain inalienable rights which cannot be sacrificed for any cause, for any purpose, for any collective, for any number of other men whatsoever. Or else you believe that a number of men, it doesn't matter what you call it: a collective, a class, a race, or a State, can sacrifice an individual man for some collective good, whatever the group deems to be its “good,” it doesn't matter what you call it: a better distribution of wealth, equality, racial justice, “turmoil” of boycotts, whatever. Make a choice and don't fool yourself.

[Hotu Matua]

Ultimately, folks, I do not support a philosophy that holds property rights higher than human decency.

It will help you to remember that Objectivism condemns discrimination as irrational and hence immoral.

But the purpose of the State is NOT to make you moral and rational. This is your responsibility.

The purpose of the State is to protect your rights. Nothing else.

If I sell tacos on the street, no one has right over my tacos if no payment/agreement has been made. So I can irrationally refuse to sell my tacos to people with red hair or short stature or a foreign accent or a beard if I like. I can do all this without being prosecuted, for the simple fact that my tacos are still my tacos.

You can refuse to open the door of your home to a man with a tattoo. It is your home. You can refuse to let him in and miss a wonderful opportunity to know a man that, incidentally, happened to be the wisest man you would ever have met. Your loss. The State should have no grounds to prosecute you, because the man with a tattoo didn't have a right over your home, to start with.

[JeffS]

I agree with your argument that logical people would probably boycott the services of such an idiot--as they should. That being said, why is it wrong to create a law that says a man cannot discriminate based on race or color? Wouldn't that proactively dissolve turmoil and, ultimately, benefit everyone?

It's interesting that you should so clearly support boycotting a business, yet so vehemently condemn refusing service to someone based on their skin color. Both are forms of discrimination. You believe your form of discrimination is "right," yet the latter form is "wrong." I wonder, can you identify why?

[RationalBiker]

I

Ultimately, folks, I do not support a philosophy that holds property rights higher than human decency.

Unfortunately, this is not an accurate conclusion to the topic under discussion. You've come in here to ask a couple questions on a HUGE topic with lots of background uncovered and come to a decision prematurely without a more comprehensive understanding of what it is you are characterizing. With that in mind, your lack of support for something of which you only have a cursory misunderstanding is hardly meaningful.

[cleanremarks]

Just curious, do you consider yourself an objectivist or did you just come here for a debate (nothing wrong with that)? You say you disapprove of a dictatorship but what you are suggesting is certainly not total freedom for its citizens. If all roads are privatized I would assume traffic laws would still exist. The government's job would be to protect against the initiation of force in an objectivist society. If the owner of a road said people can drive in any direction at any speed I would assume the government would intervene. People often confuse total freedom in the objective sense with anarchy. However in your example, no harm comes to the people who are discriminated against. Ultimately the land owner would suffer when he loses customers for his highway.

I appreciate your sincere interest.

In a way, contrary to a few here labeling me as some ignorant outsider, I have devoted hours upon hours to reading and researching Ayn Rand and Objectivism. I agree with a lot of the things it contains. There are simply a few things that I wanted to address.

You say you disapprove of a dictatorship but what you are suggesting is certainly not total freedom for its citizens.

You're right. I am not suggesting total freedom for all citizens. I am also not suggesting total freedom of the government. I am suggesting that as long as there are soul-less opportunists in the world, there will always be injustice to those with less power. As long as the margins and bar-graphs show "PROFIT," I believe that people will accept or overlook any wrongs they may commit upon others. Most people are not moral in their principles unless there is an angry mob outside their door(figuratively speaking) demanding it.

That is why I believe the government has the right to intervene within the economy: to protect those who do not have the means to pick up and move because some CEO refuses to give them a reasonable wage. What right do you have to ask someone to do that? Some towns have ONE factory as the pillar of their livelihood.

No one is taking away your right to be an industrialist or to start your own business. I challenge anyone to find a law that suggests one cannot be. Let me save you the trouble--you won't find one.

Most users in this forum say the word "altruism" only if they have enough breath to condemn it, shortly after. I am not suggesting that absolute altruism(or absolute objectivism, for that matter) is good.

I wish everyone could start their own industry, but it is just not reality. That isn't some pessimistic underestimation of my fellow man--that is stating the unfortunate obvious.

[cleanremarks]

Unfortunately, this is not an accurate conclusion to the topic under discussion. You've come in here to ask a couple questions on a HUGE topic with lots of background uncovered and come to a decision prematurely without a more comprehensive understanding of what it is you are characterizing. With that in mind, your lack of support for something of which you only have a cursory misunderstanding is hardly meaningful.

Instead of relishing in my supposed ignorance of your philosophy, why don't you explain WHY I am wrong?

[cleanremarks]

It's interesting that you should so clearly support boycotting a business, yet so vehemently condemn refusing service to someone based on their skin color. Both are forms of discrimination. You believe your form of discrimination is "right," yet the latter form is "wrong." I wonder, can you identify why?

Taking social action against someone's unfair practice of business, and disagreeing with someone's ridiculous claims that a person of a different color is the embodiment of all the (supposed)wrongs of their ancestors is quite another thing. I think viewing them in the same light as a form of discrimination is telling half the truth.

[cleanremarks]

It will help you to remember that Objectivism condemns discrimination as irrational and hence immoral.

Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?

[Eiuol]

You're right. I am not suggesting total freedom for all citizens. I am also not suggesting total freedom of the government. I am suggesting that as long as there are soul-less opportunists in the world, there will always be injustice to those with less power. As long as the margins and bar-graphs show "PROFIT," I believe that people will accept or overlook any wrongs they may commit upon others. Most people are not moral in their principles unless there is an angry mob outside their door(figuratively speaking) demanding it.

You see, it's not that anyone here thinks it's right to discriminate based upon sex or skin color, but that the government is not remotely the most practical way to deal with these issues. Property rights will by far help more people avoid improper discrimination because property rights specify what makes it possible for a society to run in the first place. Your statement about the CEO... that's going off topic. The topic has grown broad enough now that there really is no way to discuss this anymore.

Edited October 29, 2010 by Eiuol

[cleanremarks]

I am trying to respond to all of your arguments, lol. I have to work and go to school, so it's difficult.

[cleanremarks]

The topic has grown broad enough now that there really is no way to discuss this anymore.

I understand and I apologize. I thank you all for caring enough to answer my questions. I don't mean to obscure the logic of this debate with rhetoric. I just have a lot of views that I believe are worthy of clarification.

[OCSL]

Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?

Objectivism is also against religion but should people still have the freedom to believe in god? Of course. On a side note, some people might argue that people who believe in god can be much more dangerous then people who are racist. I do not believe that people should be barred from doing things just because I or the philosophy I follow disagree with them. The contradiction between taking a stand against something and not creating laws against it holds no weight to me. There is no reason that restrictions should be placed around someone on how they want to live their life. As sad as it would be to see someone running a business based around discrimination, the fact is he should have the right to do so.

[cleanremarks]

What I was trying to communicate, however, is that the interventionist premises you put forth logically reduce to totalitarianism (in other words, it was reductio ad absurdum.)

The premises I put forth aren't totalitarianism.

The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.

Edited October 29, 2010 by cleanremarks

[JayR]

... we Objectivists are ultra-progressive liberals, actually.

Good post 2046, this part struck me though. Do most Oists consider themselves progressive liberals? I realize the statement needs to be taken in context, but I dont think Ive heard an Oist refer to himself as an ultra-progressive liberal before.

[Black Wolf]

The premises I put forth aren't totalitarianism.

The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.

And that's part of what you're doing wrong: you're not taking something to it's logical extreme, as you should. Taking something to logical mediation is setting yourself up for contradiction

Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction

There's no such thing as "a bit of a contradiction". What is contradictory, is proclaiming to be in favor of individual rights, while using force of some sort against someone who uses his individual rights in a manner you (properly) disapprove of. This is why we don't use force against people for being racist. It's an inherent contradiction to say that not using force against a road owner is valuing human decency over property rights, since what separates us humans from other animals is that we survive without the use of force.

Edited October 29, 2010 by Black Wolf

[SapereAude]

Of course it does. But how can you say that it takes a stand against that, if it protects someone who discriminates against a group of individuals? Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction?

Your premise is faulty.

The discriminator is not "protected" by the government- because in a proper laissez-faire government would not be involved in such matters.

Here's the problem with the just and righteous use of force that you desire in government enforcement of morality.

You believe that a business man should have to hire people he may not want to hire. You want to dictate your morality to them.

The majority of people in the world believe abortion is murder. Should they dictate their morality to you?

There are whole parts of the world where the majority of people believe women are inferior to men and shouldn't be able to vote, go to school, choose who they marry- should they be able to force that on you?

Many people belive that eating pork is a crime against god. Why, if you are allowed to force your views of right and wrong on others should these people not be allowed to jail you for your crimes against their morality?

That is what you don't understand about force.

Force seems like a great idea when it is you daydreaming in your own little wrold about how righteous your beliefs are and that if you could just make people behave the way you know to be right the world would be a place of beauty and justice.

Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Hitler... they thought that way as well.

The problem with force is that once it is deemed proper to initiate force everyone's going to have their own ideas about who it is to be used against.

Now you will argue that what you advocate is true and what they advocate is false. They will say the same of you. You will say it is self evident that women are equal to men. They will say it is self evident that women were intended to be the property of men.

You are trying to divorce the actions you advocate from what will occur when they are taken to their logical extreme. You cannot do that.

You are deliberately evading reality.

[cleanremarks]

Force seems like a great idea when it is you daydreaming in your own little wrold about how righteous your beliefs are and that if you could just make people behave the way you know to be right the world would be a place of beauty and justice.

I will give you the non-condescending dignity that you have just denied me.

Your premise is faulty.

The discriminator is not "protected" by the government- because in a proper laissez-faire government would not be involved in such matters.

I never said "the government." I was referring to Objectivism protecting him, philosophically.

You believe that a business man should have to hire people he may not want to hire. You want to dictate your morality to them.

No. I believe businessmen have no right to deny someone employment based on race or sex.

The majority of people in the world believe abortion is murder. Should they dictate their morality to you?

Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization and you have no evidence to support it.

There are whole parts of the world where the majority of people believe women are inferior to men and shouldn't be able to vote, go to school, choose who they marry- should they be able to force that on you?

No, because I have already stated that I do not believe in overwhelming majority as a means of legislation.

Many people belive that eating pork is a crime against god. Why, if you are allowed to force your views of right and wrong on others should these people not be allowed to jail you for your crimes against their morality?

Those people are religious, and have no right to pass legislation based on their religion.

Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Hitler... they thought that way as well.

By the way,"guilty by association" is one of the many logical fallacies that Ayn Rand detested.

The one problem I have with objectivism is that it excludes any act of humanitarianism, if that act doesn't serve oneself.

I suppose that I, selfishly, wish for the welfare of all people.

[2046]

The premises I put forth aren't totalitarianism.

The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.

Again, it appears you have a misunderstanding of the role of logic in knowledge. The starting point of reason is direct observation of reality. These percepts form our axiomatic concepts, which in turn form the laws of logic, e.g. the law of identity. Logic is applied to our percepts to form true and valid knowledge and concepts such as “dictatorship” and “totalitarianism” consist of long chains of classifications. By application of logic they are reducible to their base in perceptual reality. You are basically denying this. This is essentially why you are able to state two contradictory sentences and pretend nothing is wrong with it: you don't know what logic is. You seem to think logic is something that stands apart from reality, not affected in any way by it. It's just words on the screen that don't mean anything to you, not concepts that have referents in the world.

Propositions are proved by showing that they are logically necessary and therefore factually necessary, its denial would contradict facts already known to exist. Logic (and all true knowledge) is based on the law of identity, which means logic is not a linguistic convention or words floating around in our heads, but the necessary outcome of the premises, i.e. facts known. To say that your ideas necessarily reduce to dictatorship is to say that your ideas will lead to dictatorship.

“Dictatorship” is the necessary outcome of interventionism, whether it by planning or by “democracy.” A mixed economy cannot be permanent. It is a method for transforming an economy from capitalism into socialism by a series of successive steps. Look around us, look at history, and think. Interventionism creates dislocations which necessitate further controls, which then breed more controls, until the economy cannot function and eventually either all controls must be repealed or all power given to a central planning board or dictator. Interventionism leads to dictatorship because dictatorship is the most effective means of coercion. “Middle of the road” policy leads to socialism. There is either the government or the market, there is no third option. Every step away from capitalism is necessarily a step nearer to dictatorship.

It is wrong to believe that coercive power is somehow okay if it is conferred “by the people” democratically. Of course a dictatorship in America would look and feel different from Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, etc. You are expecting brownshirts and 1984, but this is unlikely. Democracy can destroy freedom as complete as any autocracy. The realization of utopia if only the government is given power to intervene “reasonably” where a pragmatic consensus agrees “moderation” is needed and as long as it isn't “arbitrarily” is every bit as arbitrary and impractical as it comes.

Most people give lip-service denunciations to dictatorship, but it is those well-intentioned fools that promise salvation through government coercion that are preparing the way for dictatorship. Ayn Rand explains it:

The mark of an honest man, as distinguished from a Collectivist, is that he means what he says and knows what he means.

When we say that we hold individual rights to be inalienable, we must mean just that. Inalienable means that which we may not take away, suspend, infringe, restrict or violate—not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever.

You cannot say that "man has inalienable rights except in cold weather and on every second Tuesday," just as you cannot say that "man has inalienable rights except in an emergency," or "man's rights cannot be violated except for a good purpose." Either man's rights are inalienable, or they are not. You cannot say a thing such as "semi-inalienable" and consider yourself either honest or sane. When you begin making conditions, reservations and exceptions, you admit that there is something or someone above man's rights who may violate them at his discretion. Who? Why, society—that is, the Collective. For what reason? For the good of the Collective. Who decides when rights should be violated? The Collective. If this is what you believe, move over to the side where you belong and admit that you are a Collectivist. Then take all the consequences which Collectivism implies. There is no middle ground here. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. You are not fooling anyone but yourself.

Do not hide behind meaningless catch-phrases, such as "the middle of the road." Individualism and Collectivism are not two sides of the same road, with a safe rut for you in the middle. They are two roads going into opposite directions. One leads to freedom, justice and prosperity; the other to slavery, horror and destruction. The choice is yours to make. The growing spread of Collectivism throughout the world is not due to any cleverness of the Collectivists, but to the fact that most people who oppose them actually believe in Collectivism themselves. Once a principle is accepted, it is not the man who is half-hearted about it, but the man who is whole-hearted that's going to win; not the man who is least consistent in applying it, but the man who is most consistent. If you enter a race, saying: "I only intend to run the first ten yards," the man who says: "I'll run to the finish line," is going to beat you. When you say: "I only want to violate human rights just a tiny little bit," the Communist or Fascist who says "I'm going to destroy all human rights" will beat you and win. You've opened the way for him.

[2046]

Another thing you bring up is that you think the government should intervene in the determination of wage rates because you think there is a power rift between the rich and the poor. But this ignores the distinction between power over nature and power over men, that is between the power of production and creation, and the power of coercion and destruction.

When the power to initiate violent coercion is vested into the hands of the State (or “society,” the “people,” the “majority,” whatever), the power over us is complete. The violence against you is legal, and resistance to it illegal. Whatever power a rich person has, it is not the wielding of complete control over a man's life through coercion onto him. The rich cannot coerce us without the government's help. Economic power is the power of production, trade, wealth. This power comes from the law of supply and demand, not the barrel of a gun.

I should point you to Galt's speech, where he says the following:

You had said that you saw no difference between economic and political power, between the power of money and the power of guns—no difference between reward and punishment, no difference between purchase and plunder, no difference between pleasure and fear, no difference between life and death. You are learning the difference now.

"Economic power," then, is simply the right under freedom to refuse to make an exchange. Every man has this power. Every man has the same right to refuse to make a proffered exchange.

The minimum wage law is not only immoral, but utterly impractical. (In Objectivism, morality is based on reality, therefore the moral is the practical.) The belief that a worker is being “exploited” if he is not receiving a “reasonable wage” as you put it is based on Marxist dogma, whether you realize you have accepted it or not. The crack-pot theories such as “the labor theory of value” and the “iron law of wages,” are things that you accept, probably without knowing where they come from or what their supposed validations are.

In short, you think wages are determined arbitrarily at the capitalists' whim. But this couldn't be more false. Wages are determined by the “discounted marginal value product” of labor, i.e. the productivity of that labor, and the law of supply and demand (the supply of and demand for labor.) The supposed “greed” of the capitalist, and the “need” of the laborer are utterly irrelevant.

The minimum wage does not push up wage rates, it only disemploys marginal workers. In other words, it doesn't make anyone get paid a single cent more, it only causes unemployment. Compulsory unemployment. It is the effect of interference with the market phenomena intent upon enforcing by coercion and compulsion wage rates higher than those the unhampered market would have determined. Wage rates are increased not by arbitrary fiat, but by increasing the productivity of labor, that is, by investment (yes, of rich people) into capital goods (thereby raising the “diminished marginal value product.”)

All price controls involve the use of physical force to alter the terms of on which individuals exchange goods and services. Minimum wage laws are a price control on the selling of labor services. Just as maximum price controls on consumer goods create shortages, a minimum price control creates a surplus, that is, unemployment. The minimum wage is destructive and evil. The only thing driving you to support it is ignorance and altruism.

Edit: Got minimum and maximum mixed up, corrected.

Edited October 29, 2010 by 2046

[SapereAude]

I will give you the non-condescending dignity that you have just denied me.

My point was unclear and I apologise for that. It was not meant as "you" specifically. Perhaps "one can" would have been made clear. There was no attempt to condescend to you but to the overall idea that one person believes that what they consider ideal is a justification for enacting force upon others.

I never said "the government." I was referring to Objectivism protecting him, philosophically.

Objectivism does no such thing. Objectivism completely rejects all forms of collectivist thinking including racism. I see you neglected to read the provided link to Ayn Rand's essay on the evils of racism.

No. I believe businessmen have no right to deny someone employment based on race or sex.

You are again evading the consequences of what you promote.

That means that you do in fact advocate forcing people to hire people they do not want to hire.

You cannot evade the reality of what you are saying and the end results of what you promote. You are advocating force.

Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization and you have no evidence to support it.

Actually, statistics on the beliefs of world religions and the people who belong to them support this. I'll get you some links when I have more time.

No, because I have already stated that I do not believe in overwhelming majority as a means of legislation.

But you have stated that you believe that "We the people" is the government and has the right to force people against their will into a morality chosen by others. The government is elected democratically. Use what words you want but the meaning is the same.

Those people are religious, and have no right to pass legislation based on their religion.

True, which is why it is a good example- they have exactly as much evidence to support their right to use force to promote their beliefs as you do to support yours.

By the way,"guilty by association" is one of the many logical fallacies that Ayn Rand detested.

Again, you mistake my meaning.

I do not deem you to be guilty by association but since you already admitted in an earlier post that totalitarianism in the end extreme of what you are promoting those names are relevent in the argument. They advocated force to promote a "better society for all". There is no accusation of "guilt" within my statement.

The one problem I have with objectivism is that it excludes any act of humanitarianism, if that act doesn't serve oneself.

Objectivism in no way excludes acts of humanitarianism.

In fact, to be "charitable" one has to have a choice in the matter to begin with.

To give at the point of a gun is not kind or charitable or generous.

Generousity exists only when one is free to give or withold.

I suppose that I, selfishly, wish for the welfare of all people.

Actually what you are talking about has nothing to do with rational selfishness. Or self-regard. Or self-esteem. In fact.. you are ignoring what you could do voluntarily for others

yourself in favor of spending time concerning yourself with using coercion to force other to do your good works for you.

A politician who raises taxes to fund a homeless shelter does nothing whatsoever for the homeless-they create tax-slaves to do their bidding and then take the credit.

The business owner who holds a fundraiser which people freely buy tickets to with the purpose of raising funds for job training on the other hand is doing somthing for the homeless.

Can you understand the difference here?

edit.. sorry for so many typos... sticky keyboard

Edited October 29, 2010 by SapereAude

[SapereAude]

My other post where you argued I unjustly lumped your ideas in with those of totalitarian dictators is supported by this:

The premises I put forth aren't totalitarianism.

The premises I've put forth, when taken to the logical extreme(which I am not doing), are totalitarianism.

You can assert all you want that you do not advocate for the extreme end of the premises you put forth. But your disclaimer is made irrelevent by the fact that you admitted that the end extreme was the logical end of what you are putting forth.

I'm not sure you grasp the meanings of all the things that you say.

If you advocate shooting someone in the head- the logical extreme end is that the person shot will die. You do not need to advocate that the person you want shot be killed. The death is the logical end.

When you advocate that force be used to take away people's rights to determine the use of their time and property, and that force be used to take away their right to free association you don't have to advocate a totalitarian state. Totalitarianism is the logical end.

[JeffS]

Taking social action against someone's unfair practice of business, and disagreeing with someone's ridiculous claims that a person of a different color is the embodiment of all the (supposed)wrongs of their ancestors is quite another thing. I think viewing them in the same light as a form of discrimination is telling half the truth.

"Taking social action...." Read: getting a mob together to single out a particular person and prevent them from voluntarily trading with others.

"Disagreeing with someone's ridiculous claims...." Actually, you're not advocating simple disagreement, are you? You're advocating using government guns to force someone to at least act like they agree with you. In other words, your statement would read: getting a mob together to single out a particular person and prevent them from voluntarily trading with others.

Can you tell the difference between the two?

[RationalBiker]

Instead of relishing in my supposed ignorance of your philosophy, why don't you explain WHY I am wrong?

I'm not relishing in anything. I'm telling you that Objectivism is a pretty comprehensive philosophy and you are asking a way up the ladder kind of question without having (apparently) studied some of the more fundamental issues from an Objectivist perspective. You are rejecting something without fully understanding it REGARDLESS of whether or not someone else explains it to you. I'm simply telling you that you are coming to a conclusion prematurely out of ignorance. Not everyone who points out that you are ignorant on an issue is attacking you. The post to which I responded seemed to suggest you had come to your conclusion and that was that.

How many of Rand's books have you read on the subject? Do you reject the concept of property rights and all that entails?