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Jefferson Vs. Ayn Rand

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the tortured one

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I regard both people as my intellectual ancestors so reading this is very concerning to me.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/otjindex.htm

thoughts?

oh by the way, I happened to get this from a "small l" Libertarian, you know the type, the "leave me the hell alone" types who are libertarian because they want to smoke weed or they are Objectivists because they want to be athiest. Of course, in the thread it was posted it degenerated into a flamewar with another Libertarian...

man, as much as I try to keep faith the fact that they can be receptive to Objectivism, some of them are really irrational. (then again, the same can be said of liberals and conservatives)

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Indeed, there is nothing absolute in the individual's conclusions drawn from the use of reason. The conclusions of reason are at best tentative because reason is always subject to misapplication and error.

Just one quote from the site I would like to adress. He is ignoring the fact that in order to fix that error one has to use reason. This guy sounds like a person who is trying to sound smart.

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The website is grossly biased against Rand in such a way that really doesn't give credit to what the ol'Lass actually did compared to her comtemporaries. She was one of the few that actually delved back to the roots of thought in American culture and revitalized interest in the ideas of Reason, Objective Reality, and so forth. This site smacks of bashdom to me rather than a rational treatise on any particular differences between Jefferson and Rand. Although it could be hypothized that Jefferson would have disagreed on some points of Rand's but the point is really moot, he died well before she came to be. :) I just take contention with websites that are pure bashfests, personally. o_O

-- Bridget

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It seems this site is biased although I didn't have a time to read it in a critical fashion. Seems to me they are confused about Ayn Rand's reason. They seem to make a difference between some pure, ivory tower reason and reason applied to daily life and society. Ayn Rand they say doesn't make this distinction and tries to treat reason as applied reason. It seems to me Ayn Rand's reason only is applied reason.

Reason leeds to error so what? This is known for centuries. When this happens, you have to check your premesis. Deductive reasoning is a sure way of getting to truth starting from true premesis. Having the wright premesis, having enough data, to define a principle starting of with real world observations is the challenge.

I think all enlightend statesmen, like the Founding Fathers of the USA, had some notion of the concept social contract. This is individuals forming a nation for their mutual benefit. Like in any other contract there are terms to respect. Jefferson was right that people should bare the consequences of not respecting their contract with society. However I don't think he meant society has precedence over the individual, which would mean ignoring the social contract. In this sense I think Jefferson and Rand agree.

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