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Thread: Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong

  1. #1

    Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong


    Robin Hood: Why Ayn Rand Got It Wrong

    Charles Burris

    April 20, 2015


    For sixty years I have been captivated by the heroic stories of Robin Hood. The Adventures of Robin Hood was my favorite movie as a kid, Errol Flynn my favorite actor. Adventures of Robin Hood, by Eleanor Graham Vance, was my favorite book as a kindergartener.

    I still have it in my library.

    Over the past several days I have once again been reliving my corrupted youth by watching on DVD the 143 episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Richard Greene. Above is Outlaw Money, one of my favorites with many themes LRC enthusiasts will relish.

    The television series was produced in England by Sapphire Films. Sapphire Films was founded by producer Hannah Weinstein allegedly with funds provided by the Hollywood branch of the Communist Party USA. The ingenious Weinstein hired many blacklisted Hollywood writers to write scripts for The Adventures of Robin Hood. She and her conspiratorial cohorts devised a sophisticated covert procedure to keep their identities secret and protected. All this elaborate ruse would seem to vindicate Ayn Rand’s crusading war against these Hollywood Reds and the destructive Robin Hood myth fostered in the series they created. The novelist/philosopher was perhaps the fiercest enemy of these Hollywood Communists and of Robin Hood. She famously testified as a “friendly witness” before the House Committee on Un-American Activities concerning Communist infiltration and propaganda in Hollywood. In one of the most memorable passages of her novel Atlas Shrugged she has one of her major characters, Ragnar Danneskjold, condemn Robin Hoodin the harshest and most vindictive manner.

    But Rand got it wrong. In the TV series which aired contemporaneously to the publication of her novel, Robin and his band are not the proto-Marxist proletarian plunderers of the productive rich and despoilers of private property but are actually defenders of justice in property titles, the rule of law, and the non-aggression principle. Virtually every episode is replete with imaginative tales of rebellious Saxon peasants battling against Norman tyranny and taxation by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his minions acting as the corrupt arms of the State.

    I recommend all Randroids not paralyzed from the neck up “objectively” read Robin Hood: People’s Outlaw and Forest Hero: A Graphic Guide, by the scholar and masterful left-wing propagandist Paul Buhle. It is a delightful, unrepentant, and informative exploration of the Robin Hood legend and why the tales of his exploits have remained popular for centuries.

    In his powerful introduction to Lysander Spooner’s No Treason, the inestimable James J. Martin, cited Vasilii Klyuchevski, the giant of historical scholarship in the last century of Czarist Russia, in observing: “the State swells up; the people diminish.”

    The Robin Hood series repeatedly makes it abundantly and explicitly clear that taxation is theft and that the State is not the people but is composed of a parasitic elite that feeds and preys upon them, eating their sustenance. Would a contemporary dramatic series scripted by today’s Randian militaristic defenders of the invasive National Security State make such bold and forthright assertions? No, it would champion the Sheriff of Nottingham as a neocon hero besieged by the subversive rabble, justifying assassination, preventive detention, asset forfeiture and plunder, preemptive war, rendition, and torture.

    The Best of Charles Burris

    Charles A. Burris [send him mail] teaches history in the Murray N. Rothbard Room at Memorial High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

    Copyright © 2015 Charles A. Burris

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/...is/robin-hood/

    Copyright © 2015 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are provided.



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  3. #2
    Ayn Rand got a lot of things wrong. I'm not sure why people treat her as such an intellectual god. But yes. Robin Hood was "stealing" from a corrupt state that was stealing through taxation. Ayn should have been to see this. But I guess she was too self absorbed. Or she never got past the slogan "Steal from the rich and give to the poor".
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  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    Ayn Rand got a lot of things wrong. I'm not sure why people treat her as such an intellectual god. But yes. Robin Hood was "stealing" from a corrupt state that was stealing through taxation. Ayn should have been to see this. But I guess she was too self absorbed. Or she never got past the slogan "Steal from the rich and give to the poor".

    Ayn never got past her statism, though her ideal was much different than her/our reality. I do acknowledge an intellectual debt to her, however.

  5. #4

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Vanguard101 View Post
    Ayn Rand is overrated
    Ayn Rand is dead.

  7. #6
    I think of her as a one-trick pony. She successfully, even brilliantly, identified the psychological illness of villifying the economically successful and glorifying economic failure. Everything else she did was at best a rehash of better works and was at worst elitist, inconsistent, and wrong.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  8. #7





    The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

    by Ayn Rand, Harry Binswanger (Editor)

    The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

    A prolific writer, bestselling novelist, and world-renowned philosopher, Ayn Rand defined a full system of thought--from epistemology to aesthetics. Her writing is so extensive and the range of issues she covers so enormous that those interested in finding her discussions of a given topic may have to search through many sources to locate the relevant passage. The Ayn Rand A prolific writer, bestselling novelist, and world-renowned philosopher, Ayn Rand defined a full system of thought--from epistemology to aesthetics. Her writing is so extensive and the range of issues she covers so enormous that those interested in finding her discussions of a given topic may have to search through many sources to locate the relevant passage. The Ayn Rand Lexicon brings together all the key ideas of her philosophy of Objectivism. Begun under Rand's supervision, this unique volume is an invaluable guide to her philosophy or reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism--the philosophy so brilliantly dramatized in her novels The Fountainhead, We the Living, and Anthem.

    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...n_Rand_Lexicon

  9. #8
    Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.



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  11. #9
    Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:





    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.
    https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ed=0CEsQ1QIoAg

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:





    I won't go into her assumptions about human perception being based on reason. So we can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some. While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort. In other words, there is no way to measure or evaluate happiness objectively. That's in the first ten minutes of the first video. Probably not going to make it any farther because I can't decide which of the two I find more repulsive.

    This error comes to its natural fruition with Ayn Rand's justification of the European conquest of the Indians based on the Indians being "savages" who were not using the resources of the continent to best advantage. Ayn Rand claims everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness so long as it is happiness as SHE sees it. But the objective reality is that some people prefer the life of the hunter/gatherer to the life of the modern western man.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.

  15. #13
    I feel like the Rand bashing of this thread might be a little severe.

    Of course she's not perfect. She has some beliefs we'd all consider naive today but I'd image that goes with every figure in history. She was a great thinker in the world of media. (Talk for a few hundred hours on camera and see how stupid you look.) She was able to introduce this conversation to way more people than any of us could imagine communicating with and she did it in a system without the internet. Insult her novels all you like but a ton of people really enjoyed her work. She was obviously doing something right.

    That all being said, I would have thought I'd be the one Rand bashing in this thread... She's certainly said some stupid things (as did just about any public figure.) She's also done some very stupid things. I'm just saying this because that shouldn't completely overshadow the good she did. She had a waterfall of stupid later in her career but if anything, that just helps emphasize the idea that power corrupts (even her.)
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  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Ronin Truth View Post
    Ayn never got past her statism, though her ideal was much different than her/our reality. I do acknowledge an intellectual debt to her, however.
    As do I. She helped put focus on the concept of 'Individualism vs. Collectivism'. For that I am grateful to her.
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  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    Watch these and tell me what she got wrong:





    The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I won't go into her assumptions about human perception being based on reason. So we can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some. While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort. In other words, there is no way to measure or evaluate happiness objectively.
    Rand:

    What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

    Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

    Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.”
    Rand's concern is the idea that pursuing self-interest is immoral, when in fact, it is self-interest that justifies freedom.

    continuing:

    The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality—with the code of self-sacrifice—is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state. Soviet Russia is the ultimate result, the final product, the full, consistent embodiment of the altruist morality in practice; it represents the only way that that morality can ever be practiced.
    and...

    From her start, America was torn by the clash of her political system with the altruist morality. Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on earth—or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.
    The question to ask, is: Who's life is it? Yours? Yes or No?
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.
    In a "truly free" society, the individual would CHOOSE what if anything he wished to contribute.
    And "communitarian roots" is straight from the Progressive playbook..
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    The kind of atomistic individualism that Rand put forth would never be able to lead to a functioning civilization. Any truly free and prosperous society has deep communitarian roots, with people who sacrifice their own wants or the immediate gratification for the prosperity of the organic community.
    Some strange language here. If you're trying to describe "rational self-interest". I would agree. Communitarianism, in a really strict practice, has always been an epic failure. It's the model that the pilgrims in the early tried until they nearly $#@!ing starved to death living in dirt poverty.
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  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    In a "truly free" society, the individual would CHOOSE what if anything he wished to contribute.
    Yeah sure, but any civilization worth living in has a deep sense of community, where people feel connected to their family, their neighbor, their culture. The West has lost that, and that's one of the many things that's causing the decline.

    And "communitarian roots" is straight from the Progressive playbook..
    Progs think they're for the community, but nothing could be further from the truth. Progs like big government, which is always, always, ALWAYS opposed to the organic, bottom up community. Giving some bureaucrat in DC control over regulating local resources, or telling the communities how they can and can't organize themselves is NOT communitarian in the way I define it. The kind of communitarianism I advocate for is organic, anti-egalitarian, radically decentralized, hierarchical, traditional, ethnically centered and mostly based on cooperating property owners as opposed to communal property. There's nothing progressive about any of that, any prog would run screaming from such a community.
    Last edited by ThePaleoLibertarian; 04-21-2015 at 02:47 PM.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    Some strange language here. If you're trying to describe "rational self-interest". I would agree. Communitarianism, in a really strict practice, has always been an epic failure. It's the model that the pilgrims in the early tried until they nearly $#@!ing starved to death living in dirt poverty.
    Maybe "communitarian" is the wrong word, because I'm not talking about communal property, or equally sharing in resources regardless of one's individual contribution. I'm talking about decentralized groups of people who are involved with the people around them and look after one another.
    Last edited by ThePaleoLibertarian; 04-21-2015 at 02:51 PM.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    Rand:



    Rand's concern is the idea that pursuing self-interest is immoral, when in fact, it is self-interest that justifies freedom.

    continuing:



    and...



    The question to ask, is: Who's life is it? Yours? Yes or No?
    If you define altruism as "charity" by force, as she does in your quote, I wouldn't argue with what she says about it. But that is not the dictionary definition of altruism. Furthermore, my interactions with Objectivists (including the current head of the organization) suggest that Ayn Rand and most Objectivists don't just advocate against altruism as Rand defines it here, but against altruism as defined in the dictionary ("unselfish concern for the welfare of others" -Webster's Second Edition). And that is not only not a rationally-based position, but is a position that infringes on individual freedom and makes for an impoverished society.

    Furthermore, the Objectivist hostility towards altruism as defined in the dictionary puts liberty in a bad light. A deeply and pervasively altruistic society is perfectly, indeed optimally, compatible with the maximum liberty. I would not want to live in a society where nobody cared for the welfare of others.
    Last edited by Acala; 04-22-2015 at 02:22 PM.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I think of her as a one-trick pony.
    Perhaps, but it was a pretty damned good trick. But I don't think she was that. She may not have had all the details correct, but the basic gist of her world view was in fact quite good. I'm not going to dismiss the good one produces simply because they are not 100% correct all of the time. I take from Rand that which I find agreeable, truthful, and of good use. I ignore the rest. Then, I take the good and mess with it to see whether there is any way in which it may be improved, whether by expanding upon it, clarifying, or what have you.

    She successfully, even brilliantly, identified the psychological illness of villifying the economically successful and glorifying economic failure.
    And I would assess that as absolutely spectacular. Not only did she identify it, she articulated it clearly and exhaustively - something nobody had really done before; at least not in a style that was immediately accessible to the meaner, which is a very different thing from the dry and arcane styles of men like Kant and Milton who packed into one page more semantic density than most people manage in 400 pages of output.

    Those who so viciously villify Rand are IMO very foolishly tossing the baby out the window along with the bath water. Take what is good for you and forget the rest. I doubt too many of us are completely correct at all times... except for me, of course.

    Everything else she did was at best a rehash of better works and was at worst elitist, inconsistent, and wrong.
    Care to list these works from which you claim she borrowed? I would be interested in knowing.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

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  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by ThePaleoLibertarian View Post
    Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a poor philosopher, who wrote some (at best) mediocre books decades ago. Why anyone cares about her now is beyond me.
    Forgive me, but this sounds like some sound-byte you are repeating, thinking it sounds cool because it is negative.

    She was not a spectacular writer, to be sure, but she was definitely not "bad". She was a sound writer with a bad habit of using 100 words to say that which required only 15. That does not make her a bad writer, but only one whose style may lack appeal for some. Those are two very different things.

    If she was so poor a philosopher as you claim, it would be helpful if you would give some detail as to how and why you feel that to have been the case. I disagree with that assessment. She helped the human race learn something it had long since forgotten. She took the tacit assumptions by which this world operates and subjected them with some considerable analytic adeptness and dissected them, separating the essential core ideas underpinning those beliefs from the smoke and mirrors in which they are packaged. The world owes her a debt of gratitude for what she did, even if they do not like her stories or her writing style. If nothing else, she provided the people of the twentieth century with the opportunity to at least examine the world from a differing perspective precisely because she questioned that which has gone unquestioned for a very long time.

    Much of the American "liberty movement" would not have been possible but for the wake-up call Rand trumpeted to the world 5+ decades ago. Rather than taking a giant, steaming $#@! on her memory and works, you might be better served by appreciating the gift of her sharp mind and the fact that she gave enough of a damn to want to at least try to save the human race from itself. If you think Rand has had no significant impact on even your own thinking, I would suggest that you are fooling yourself. She provided much of the conceptual basis for today's libertarian thought. She clarified many ideas and untangled the truth from the bull$#@!. Clarity is important, even when completeness may be absent.

    She was by no means perfect, but for pity's sake open your eyes and give credit where due, and she's due a lot.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    Perhaps, but it was a pretty damned good trick. But I don't think she was that. She may not have had all the details correct, but the basic gist of her world view was in fact quite good. I'm not going to dismiss the good one produces simply because they are not 100% correct all of the time. I take from Rand that which I find agreeable, truthful, and of good use. I ignore the rest. Then, I take the good and mess with it to see whether there is any way in which it may be improved, whether by expanding upon it, clarifying, or what have you.



    And I would assess that as absolutely spectacular. Not only did she identify it, she articulated it clearly and exhaustively - something nobody had really done before; at least not in a style that was immediately accessible to the meaner, which is a very different thing from the dry and arcane styles of men like Kant and Milton who packed into one page more semantic density than most people manage in 400 pages of output.

    Those who so viciously villify Rand are IMO very foolishly tossing the baby out the window along with the bath water. Take what is good for you and forget the rest. I doubt too many of us are completely correct at all times... except for me, of course.



    Care to list these works from which you claim she borrowed? I would be interested in knowing.
    I certainly have not read all of her work, not will I, as I find her writing mundane. But I am not aware of her writing anything in the realm of morality, law, or economics that was not stated more succinctly by Bastiat and rigourously by Spencer, to name just two.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    [W]e can start off with her assumption that altruism does not bring happiness to some.
    She did not say that. I would assess her error as laying in her method of expression. I take from the first 9 minutes that altruism is, firstly, a myth and I agree. There is rarely any such thing as selfless action. Whatever one's true motives for doing, there is always a pay-off. There may be rare cases such as when one reacts almost reflexively to scoop a child out of the path of an oncoming bus such that there was no time for the actor to consciously assess the relative merits of his action. But generally speaking, those who "suffer" for the sake of others do not do so selflessly. There is alway a pay-off, regardless of how subtle.

    Therefore, altruism is basically a nonexistent thing beyond mere appearances. She did not say altruism cannot bring happiness; her words implied to me that forced altruism where the altruist is compelled to "serve" his fellow man is in fact, evil. I agree completely with that assessment. If you wish to serve others, regardless of the reasons, have at it. But to force someone to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of those of his fellows is a far greater evil than raping a child. It is, IMO, unforgivable and worthy of death itself.

    While one person may find happiness in building a railroad, another might find happiness in devoting their life to serving others and denying their own comfort.
    We agree, and I believe that Rand may have agreed as well, so long as the service was wholly voluntary and not coerced.

    This error comes to its natural fruition with Ayn Rand's justification of the European conquest of the Indians based on the Indians being "savages" who were not using the resources of the continent to best advantage.
    I do seem to recall something along that line of reasoning, which would be one of the paths she took with which I am in disagreement. Her one-size-fits-all bled upward into levels of consideration far too high. She was on the money, but did not constrain her opinions to the bottom-most fundamentals of life. This is similar to asserting that all people love vanilla ice cream. Some so not like vanilla; some don't like ice cream; some dislike both.

    Ayn Rand claims everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness so long as it is happiness as SHE sees it.
    You go too far. I do not take this from her words at all, though once again she extends her otherwise commendable parochialism to considerations to which it does not apply. So, she wasn't perfect. Whoopdee friggin' doo... welcome to the human race.

    But the objective reality is that some people prefer the life of the hunter/gatherer to the life of the modern western man.
    And here your point is valid - once again Rand mistakenly applying valid principles to invalid cases or in invalid ways. Take what good there is and make use of it. I'm not a fan of AK-47s, but if I need a gun and that is the only thing available, I am going to make use of it. I don't have to be in love with it, but will accept that it has utility.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    I certainly have not read all of her work, not will I, as I find her writing mundane.
    Well, <phoom><phoom><phoom> Mr. Fancy Pants... I think this is an unfortunate attitude, but so be it. You don't need to read her works in any event because the important things have been distilled by others, myself included, for the sake of clarity, correctness, and completeness. But you should not judge her harshly until such time as you can say you have indeed read her work, and then only after having identified the salient points she makes, ignoring the at-times unfortunate ways in which she made them.

    But I am not aware of her writing anything in the realm of morality, law, or economics that was not stated more succinctly by Bastiat and rigourously by Spencer, to name just two.
    That may be true, but nobody in 1959 was reading Bastiat et al. She brought good ideas to the masses and for that you should be thankful because had she not done what she did, I daresay the USA would be in even sorrier shape than that in which we now find it.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  31. #27
    Interesting conversational exchanges, Guys.

    Thanks!

  32. #28
    Since my pen is warmed up on the subject, let me go a step further.

    Objectivist villification of altruism is almost entirely without practical value because in Washington D.C., altruism is simply not a factor in policy-making. Sure, there are a handful of altruists in Congress, just as there are a handful of true free marketers. But they don't make policy. Although there is plenty of altruistic rhetoric being spewed, policy in Washington is directed by crony-capitalism, not altruism. Don't believe me? Name a program enacted in the last fifty years that is driven by altruism.

    Obamacare is a subsidy for the health care and insurance industries.
    Student loans and grants are subsidies for the education industry.
    Food stamps are a subsidy for agribiz and the banks.
    Mortgage deductions on your taxes are a subsidy for banks and the home construction industry.
    And on and on.

    Our foreign policy isn't altruistic.
    The drug war isn't altruistic.
    The Federal Reserve and monetary system are not altruistic.
    The FDA isn't altruistic.
    The EPA isn't altruistic.
    Homeland Security isn't altruistic.
    Gun control isn't altruistic.

    To hear Objectivists talk, they have pinpointed the crux of evil in the USA. But where IS all this evil altruism?

    Altruism is irrelevant in US policy-making. Nobody is taking money from the productive people and giving it to the "poor", except tangentially.
    Altruism in the US government serves only as a thin cover story for the real agenda of taking money from the productive people and giving it to the insiders, and as political bait.

    Rank and file Democrats are duped into thinking they are being humane by supporting candidates who pretend to be altruistic.
    Rank and file Republicans are duped into thinking that lazy poor people are getting all their tax money and that the Republican candidate is going to put a stop to it. The lie is obvious, but it sells nonetheless. Politically, altruism is nothing but a fabricated bone of contention to keep the masses divided. So, not only are the Objectivists attacking a straw man when they attack altruism, they are helping to fuel the two big lies that define the false dichotomy of the major political parties. They are playing into the hands of the puppetmasters.

    Finally, although Ayn Rand has helped to wake up some rationalists, those people would all have woken up eventually anyway. And the Objectivist creed is worse than useless at converting non-rationalists who see it as a heartless philosophy. It divides and alienates people.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Acala View Post
    Since my pen is warmed up on the subject, let me go a step further.

    Objectivist villification of altruism is almost entirely without practical value because in Washington D.C., altruism is simply not a factor in policy-making. Sure, there are a handful of altruists in Congress, just as there are a handful of true free marketers. But they don't make policy. Although there is plenty of altruistic rhetoric being spewed, policy in Washington is directed by crony-capitalism, not altruism. Don't believe me? Name a program enacted in the last fifty years that is driven by altruism.

    Obamacare is a subsidy for the health care and insurance industries.
    Student loans and grants are subsidies for the education industry.
    Food stamps are a subsidy for agribiz and the banks.
    Mortgage deductions on your taxes are a subsidy for banks and the home construction industry.
    And on and on.

    Our foreign policy isn't altruistic.
    The drug war isn't altruistic.
    The Federal Reserve and monetary system are not altruistic.
    The FDA isn't altruistic.
    The EPA isn't altruistic.
    Homeland Security isn't altruistic.
    Gun control isn't altruistic.

    To hear Objectivists talk, they have pinpointed the crux of evil in the USA. But where IS all this evil altruism?

    Altruism is irrelevant in US policy-making. Nobody is taking money from the productive people and giving it to the "poor", except tangentially.
    Altruism in the US government serves only as a thin cover story for the real agenda of taking money from the productive people and giving it to the insiders, and as political bait.

    Rank and file Democrats are duped into thinking they are being humane by supporting candidates who pretend to be altruistic.
    Rank and file Republicans are duped into thinking that lazy poor people are getting all their tax money and that the Republican candidate is going to put a stop to it. The lie is obvious, but it sells nonetheless. Politically, altruism is nothing but a fabricated bone of contention to keep the masses divided. So, not only are the Objectivists attacking a straw man when they attack altruism, they are helping to fuel the two big lies that define the false dichotomy of the major political parties. They are playing into the hands of the puppetmasters.

    Finally, although Ayn Rand has helped to wake up some rationalists, those people would all have woken up eventually anyway. And the Objectivist creed is worse than useless at converting non-rationalists who see it as a heartless philosophy. It divides and alienates people.
    My guess is that Ayn would claim that free market capitalism without any government involvement, what so ever, would be the correct answer.

    And NEVER, EVER, EVER any Socialism.

  34. #30


    It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand

    by Jerome Tuccille

    It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand 3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 33 ratings · 2 reviews

    This edition of "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand" contains much of the text that appeared in the original edition-revised and edited to conform to modern style-plus new chapters dealing with events that took place after the book was first published.

    Some of the new material deals with my campaign for Governor of New York as the Free Libertarian Party candidate, a discussion of events that transpired on the American political scene after that benighted campaign, plus thoughts on my current political and spiritual leanings. The perennial success of "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand" has startled no one more than me. Sales started slowly, then began to pick up over the years, until the book became an underground classic that has gained readership over the decades. It should be read as political memoir, a first-hand account of a political movement, mostly fact, but with fictional elements and hyperbole added for effect. A reviewer once said that most memoirs are neither fact nor fiction; they are the truth as the author remembers it. So it is with "It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand."


    Paperback, 280 pages

    Published November 5th 2007 by ASJA Press


    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..._with_Ayn_Rand

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