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You completely avoided my question about Social Security. Funny how leftism works isn't it? Here is a read for you. Consider it possible that you are the hypocrite, not Rand.

Not prophetic? The consumption of media by talking heads to push propaganda in the US: Check. Pushing dialogue because "feelings" in spite of facts: Check. Massively increased taxes and for wealth redistribution: Check. Expansion of regulations to ensure Government control over the economy and businesses: Check. The "progressivism" in Europe accelerating much faster than the US: Check.

We are not quite to the end of the road, but her book describes much of what's been happening over the last 20 years pretty well. But I'm guessing that you are intentionally attempting to conflate "prophetic" with "prophesy" because again.. ideology.

So ad hominem attacks is the best you have?

Being consirned with ones own self intrest, and not that of the others is the common thread that I see with the GOP, it started with Ayn Rand:

https://www.aynrand.org/novels...

You can disagree with it all you want, but you get more what about me out of the GOP then you get out of the dems, we are generally about helping others.

> Needless to say, it did not work out well.

Thanks - but that's a story.

Here's how real life 'worked out' for the author -- she who collected social security cheques as one who “regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism”.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://ari.aynrand.org/issues...

Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking.[95] In 1976, she retired from writing her newsletter and, despite her initial objections, allowed Evva Pryor, a social worker from her attorney's office, to enroll her in Social Security and Medicare.[96][97] During the late 1970s her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979.[98] One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.[99]

But to your main point - 'to each according to his needs' (Rand's story) is very different from 'set minimum wage' (Gravity Payments).

In fact, the story it should remind you of is this one (at least that's what Gravity's CEO states was his inspiration behind his move):
https://www.biblegateway.com/p...

http://ari.aynrand.org/issues/... Here you go. environmentalism is 'anti-reason' according to libertarians. Looks like you're the one misinformed.

Your conception is wrong:

http://capitalism.aynrand.org/yaron-answers-what-would-driving-laws-be-like-in-a-free-society/

Of course, I don't recall where Rand specifically targeted traffic regulations. It may not have hit her radar of 'shit that mattered'. Which is to say, your conception is very wrong. She wasn't an anarchist though she might prefer an organizational structure as suggested by Yaron in that link.

It wasn't a BFD (to her - else she could have written about it).

To Rand, the "intolerable infringement on her liberty" was living as a prisoner inside the confines of the USSR. She got out. She moved to a society where she could speak/write her mind with complete freedom (regarless of whether or not that society still exists as it did at her death in 1982), not drive like a maniac. That was the shit that mattered. Grow the fuck up already.

For those too lazy to look it up: Rand on ... pretty much everyone ack then.

Thank you. That's nicely done (the site). I'm going to enjoy seeing what I can find there.

I was there. Back then, I split $people up into, "Hippies", "Freaks" (or "phreaques" -), and anyone over twenty. The Hippies went to Goa (or grew up and went back to school), the phreaques built the modern world (or washed out and went into selling it; hi guys; no offence intended :-), and everyone else was either a boss or a cow-orker [sic], or a customer, or one of numerous versions of busy-bodies ranging from that old bat or fart living next door to "The Authorities" (cops, gov't, licencing bureaus, lawyers, bouncers, teachers, mall cops, (you get the idea) et al (in decending order of respect from me)).

The funny thing for me is I've always been a Randroid, since long before I even heard of her or saw any of the movies. I'd really like to know where that in me came from (and it certainly wasn't handed down by my parents or family).

It's an interesting phenomenon. It's even more interesting that I was a lot more Hippie back then than phreaque. I wouldn't expect those to fit well together; sixties Woodstock, The Doors, Jimi Hendricks, Concert For Bangladesh ... and all this Rand/Libertarian/philosophy/Rothbard ...) stuff, all in one room?

Tooduls. [sic]

For those too lazy to look it up: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

Well, let's see. As of 2009, the US GDP was $14.2 trillion. .5% of that would be $70 billion. I understand that's a drop in the bucket of our current budget, but that's OK.

Our current military budget is $533 billion, before "emergency" spending. First, all troops based outside the borders of the country are cut. Their affairs are none of ours.

Second, power projection. We do not need 10 active carrier battle groups to protect our immediate interests. Cut them. We do not need hundreds of thousands of active troops. Cut them. We do not need anything not directly related to ensuring the territorial integrity of the US.

The new military would be 1/20th the size of the existing one. A large portion of that budget would be spent on R&D - the rest would be spent on procurement of weapons systems and maintaining an active training and maintenance contingent.

Do away with the ability to draft troops. If war is necessary, then the populace should agree, and there should be no problem recruiting volunteers.

Defense would consist of two parts - an advanced, capable, and numerically superior nuclear division. This would consist (currently) of ICBMs fitted with high-yield, high accuracy MIRV warheads and SLBMs. The second part is the volunteer army. Volunteer periods would be two to six years, and during that time, troops would be trained and deployed along the land borders, acting as border guards.

Police could be similar to the military, with service commitments, or privatized with centralized standards and accountability. Courts are revenue neutral - if you lose a court case (civil, guaranteed by the .5% fee), you pay the court costs. If you can't afford to pay those costs, you are incarcerated and provided the basics of life until you work off the debt. The production of those incarcerated would then be sold as securities essentially, to businesses who believe they can get more work during their confinement than they paid. Again, central and transparent management and accountability - if you treat a debtor poorly and violate the contract, you're liable and can be held as such in court.

As for consumer protection - some of that would indeed be covered by "fraud". If someone sells a microwave oven that they know will burn down your house, then they're willfully misrepresenting - fraud.

That's about it. I've been accused of being an anarchist, but that's not true - I'm a minarchist. Government is a necessary evil, to be watched, contained, and kept to the minimum possible exercise of power.

A good read for this point of view is "The dollar and the gun". It provides a clear view of the difference between economic (voluntary) power and coercive (involuntary) power. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_harry_binswanger_the_dollar_and_the_gun

So, let's hear the libertarian solution:

Same as with Mars: First company to land on it, owns it. If you manage to (pick some technology you think will be available in 150 years) capture it into geosynchronous orbit, you get a free space elevator to go with a big nickel mine. (Small moons can also be pretty harsh mistresses :)

Even if you can't do anything useful with it, it's in your best interest - whether you sit on the board of ABC or just have 100 shares of XYZ that your great-great-Grandpa passed down from the dot-com era - to buy a few shares in "Asteroid Removal, Inc.", when they go public. ARI is just as interested as you are in removing that hunk of rock, but they can't do it without funding.

I thought we agreed we were discussing ideologies in terms of their application in the real world?

Oh, I see. Sure, I have no problem with that, but I think you'll find that rather difficult to do with an ideology like objectivism, simply because it has so few adherents and so little impact. I don't think it's possible to meaningfully comment on how it manifests in reality.

I thought I had a quote from her where she pretty much claimed that helping those who couldn't help themselves was fundamentally immoral ....

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

Rand had a weird way of defining altruism. You can check here for a brief overview from the Ayn Rand Institute. Essentially, she/they define it as the idea that "a 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". I disagree with that definition, although if I accepted the definition I would agree that it was an immoral concept.

But as I said previously, we're supposed to be comparing apples to apples here. Soviet Russia was an economic train wreck, Objectivist ideas get trotted out every time some corporate PR flack wants to screw over the ordinary men and women in an area; whenever a politician needs a moral sounding excuse for something that's going to blatantly soak the poor and give to the rich.

Could you give me an example? My first reaction is to say that, depending on what you're talking about, such ideas are probably not unique to objectivism, and the people whom you're referring to may well be capitalists, corporatists, liberterians, or any combination of the above. I'd need to look at a specific case to understand what you're talking about.

Citation

The only legitimate job of a securities law enforcement division is to protect investors against the specific crimes of theft, fraud, and breach of contract.

I believe Ayn Rand herself argued that taxation to fund contract enforcement is not a legitimate use of governmental force, but that the service should be provided on a percentage-of-transaction basis, and used as an optional means of generating revenue.

Also see the Heritage Foundation's Sentencing of Corporate Fraud and White Collar Crimes

Yeah we aren't going to tax you, we are just going to collect a fee based on the total amount of the transaction and use it for purposes pursuant to the good of the general public.

Wow Ayn Rand has done it again! She solved taxation!!!!!!!!!11oneoneoneelevntybillion

Citation

The only legitimate job of a securities law enforcement division is to protect investors against the specific crimes of theft, fraud, and breach of contract.

I believe Ayn Rand herself argued that taxation to fund contract enforcement is not a legitimate use of governmental force, but that the service should be provided on a percentage-of-transaction basis, and used as an optional means of generating revenue.

Also see the Heritage Foundation's Sentencing of Corporate Fraud and White Collar Crimes

Guess what? The Libertarian Party was formed by fed up Republicans. Nixon was not a liberty and small government Republican so other Republicans started the Libertarian Party. The first meeting of the LP was held in David Nolan's home in 1971. Republican though he was, Goldwater Republican, he opposed Nixon's "imposition of wage and price controls, as well as his closing of the foreign gold window". Nolan was also influenced by Ayn Rand, and if there's one thing that Democrats love to hate it's anything Randian.

Ron Paul even ran for president on the LP ticket in 1988.

Falcon

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=6177 is good for general quotes from the Founding Fathers regarding religion. I like:

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." - John Adams

"...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." - John Adams

"...an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, 'Jesus Christ...the holy author of our religion,' which was rejected 'By a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination.'" - Thomas Jefferson

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." - James Madison

"All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." - Thomas Paine

That implies that stealing is the irrational choice. Is it always?

Yes. Irrational actions are contrary to your life as the fundamental standard of value. Theft is an act of force against another individual, and so violates their rights. Theft is irrational, because it is not in the long-term interest of your life. Not only can you not pretend to know that your theft will succeed, but you also make yourself dependent on the failures of others. In addition, you encourage a society of theft in the process, making it more likely to impact your own life in other situations.

For a more thorough explanation, I would check out Ayn Rand's essay Man's Rights .

That's rhetoric and ideology, not legal reasoning.

My "rhetoric and ideology" is based on decades of rational thought and experience. I know you statists hate to admit it, but the free market is PROVEN to be the only rational way of running a society. So please stop trying to change the subject and start educating yourself.

Pot, meet kettle.

I asked a simple question, the answer to which would have been some concrete facts about specific rights, duties, etc. You responded with standard libertarian ideology.

I didn't say that you were wrong. Whether or not your ideology is correct is irrelevant to this. I just said that you didn't answer the question, which you didn't.

And then you accuse me of trying to change the subject and link to Ayn Rand in the same breath?

You're either a towering hypocrite or a troll.

Dan Aris

That's rhetoric and ideology, not legal reasoning.

My "rhetoric and ideology" is based on decades of rational thought and experience. I know you statists hate to admit it, but the free market is PROVEN to be the only rational way of running a society. So please stop trying to change the subject and start educating yourself.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter whether you think you have a right to it or not. Unless you can defend that right, or get others to defend it for you, your belief that you have a right to it is meaningless.

Whether or not something is defended in practice does not define its existence - that would be utilitarianism. The nature of man and the requirements of his existence define his rights as metaphysical fact. Check out Rand's essay Man's Rights, or you could also read the forerunners - Richard Price's Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776) is quite clear, and there's also the writings of Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Locke. Or if you want to go back to the source, read Aristotle's Politics, On the Soul, and Metaphysics.

Only through laws do we establish a universally recognized right to property.

Laws can happen to acknowledge our rights, or incorrectly assert some while ignoring others, or give them some origin in the state or supernatural. Yes, any of these can happen. They do not change the rights of individuals, and they do not legitimate the violation of those rights.

We do that because it is beneficial to our society in that we can prevent others from taking what is ours by agreeing not to take what is theirs.

Yes, that is beneficial. But it is not a guarantee. There is no guarantee that everyone in society will agree to these terms, all day, everyday. The purpose of government is to acknowledge our rights and uphold and protect them. We are in agreement about this, but it seems you take the government's acknowledgment of our rights as defining them into existence.

Same reason we don't consider writings and discoveries to be property

Discoveries can't be patented because they are facts. The discoverer did not create them. If he wants to profit exclusively from a discovery, his only choice is to keep it secret. A book, on the other hand, is created by a person, and so should be copyrighted by that person. I have already explained this bit and the justification for the copyright term limits in an earlier post.

There ya go.

You are partially correct - monopolies can sustain themselves: Here is an example of how Standard oil kicked everyone's ass simply by being the best at everything it did.

However a business cannot keep out other businesses by constantly raising/lowering prices - that's a fictional scenario that would bankrupt anyone who actually tried it. (See 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal' for a thorough debunking of common fallacies about Capitalism)

I was referring to a coercive monopoly. Yes, there can be an earned monopoly. See the case of how standard oil kicked everyone's ass simply by being better than everyone else

I disagree. Economic power involves voluntary interactions, but political power involves forceful interactions. Even for a billion dollars, Redford can't make Demi sleep with him.

Also, there is a difference between a coercive (government-forced) monopoly and an earned monopoly. See the case of how standard oil kicked everyone's ass by being the best, and in the process enhanced everyone's lives

Put the Ayn Rand fanboyism to some good use and try to earn some cash:
Ayn Rand Institute Essay Contests

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_contests_index

To be absolutely fair, the Ayn Rand Institute gives tens of thousands of dollars to students each year in essay contests where you write about Ayn Rand's books. I don't know about you, but for $10,000 I'd absolutely LOVE Atlas Shrugged. =p

And when you're done reading it, encourage high schoolers you know to read it too as the Ayn Rand Institute offers cash prizes for their essay contest.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_contests_tf

Read an awesome book, begin studying an intriguing philosophy, write an essay, and make some money. Wish someone had told me about this in high school, I'm six years removed from HS and just finished it a few months ago.

i really don't think it's appropriate to label him as the archetypal Randian objectivist.

I beg to differ. In her books, Rand repeatedly advocated sacrifice to develop new technologies that advance the human potential. Rand was not against charity, as long as the giver can afford it. However, she was opposed to the idea of "charity as a virtue" when those monies could be better spent elsewhere. Similar as the "give a man a fish, or teach him to fish" analogy. I think Rand is largely misunderstood in this respect. See the link below for more info.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=faq_index#obj_q7

Cheers.

i really don't think it's appropriate to label him as the archetypal Randian objectivist.

I beg to differ. In her books, Rand repeatedly advocated sacrifice to develop new technologies that advance the human potential. Rand was not against charity, as long as the giver can afford it. However, she was opposed to the idea of "charity as a virtue" when those monies could be better spent elsewhere. Similar as the "give a man a fish, or teach him to fish" analogy. I think Rand is largely misunderstood in this respect. See the link below for more info.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=faq_index#obj_q7

Cheers.

Science is not alone as an area of expertise where most people have trouble discerning fact from fiction. And an extra science class in school isn't going to do the trick. People need a solid foundation for thinking and reasoning. Objectivism is a great introduction to the philosophy of rational thought. I recommend Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (a story about an architect that refuses to compromise his work or his life) as a great place to start.

Except it's Microsoft who calls themselves an innovator. The Ayn Rand Institute even said during the MS trial that MS should be allowed to innovate. And MS had it's own Freedom to Innovate campaign.

This article (linked from this comment) makes the salient point that what we are talking about here is one very specific form of price fixing, which is agreements between a manufacturer and its dealers. It is not about allowing collusion between would-be competitors. I would agree that the latter is quite harmful.

TFA is not a news article, it is a guest editorial by a friend ("amicus") of the defendants. So, it is very slanted as to why minimum resale price agreements should continue to be in violation of antitrust laws. Knowing there is always two sides to a story, I sought out that other side and found this from the Ayn Rand Institute:

Legalize "Price-Fixing"

Please note that by posting this, I am not saying I support the Ayn Rand Institute's side; I mearly think it is important to hear both sides of the debate. In this case, I think the Institute does a poor job of convincing the public that their position in in our best interest.

... to which the answer is no. "Caring about race" is racism, no matter which way you spin it - whether you're parading around in white sheets, or demanding scholarships because of the colour of your skin, you're still a racist. See here for an excellent pictorial explanation if you're still confused.

But then again, No Real libertarian is a Objectivist, they are instead Objectionists.

"For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called 'hippies of the right,' who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultaneously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs."

Ayn Rand - September 1971

"Brief Summary" - The Objectivist
As quoted From the Ayn Rand Institute's website

"Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to 'do something.' By 'ideological' (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the 'libertarian' hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies."

Ayn Rand, "What Can One Do?" - Philosophy: Who Needs It

Aynnie used to be a darling of libertarian leaning conservatives, until the great bookburning of the reagancomdedy, when someone explained to the hammerheads that she was really a godless slut, and they burned her books along with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

You may have noticed that i use a small l for libertarian. This is intentional, because what passes for the Libertarian Party has very little to do with true libertarianism. All those clowns seem to want to do is eliminate the minimum wage, and end eminent domain, they could care less about other things, like due process of law and habeas corpus, you know, REAL LIBERTY.

Your anti-global warming quip was off mark also. Most anti-global warming tripe is passed by the corporate funded faux libertarian tanks with Cato at its helm. Something closer to True libertarian thought can be found at Raimondo's antiwar dot com. Those faux-libertarian think tanks are doing a great disservice to libertarianism with their anti global warming garbage. They should instead be focusing upon effective market solutions to greenhouse emissions, instead of letting lame-brained leftyist anti-market solutions muck it up even worse. One quick and easy method would be to apply the accounting principle of future value for remediation of greenhouse gases done today, as well as factoring future valuations into present-day increased greenhouse gas emissions. That would greatly reduce the balance sheet liability for the cost of remediation, and place the burden where it belonged. See how easy that is?

I call BS. I do not have the article in front of me, but there was a cabin/cottage or some such thing on a mountain. The site is physically inaccessible to the handicapped due to nature putting rocks and ledges and trees and things in the way. So the owners never added ramps and such. Well, a group sued under the ADA and they were forced to add these things. Why? Because a judge said so, eventhough the people in wheelchairs couldn't get there without gross assistance.

The group then dragged (and this is more literal then you might think) the people to this place so they could make use of the ramp. Trust me, this law is abused and misrepresented more than you would think. I honestly believe we will begin to see people attempting to receive accomodations under the ADA soon for obesity (if they haven't already).

Aha! Found It!

If you want to know the truth of Enron, read this.

I realize the very mention of her name is likely to start an off-topic flame war here, but I have to point out that Ayn Rand wrote in some detail about this in The Virtue of Selfishness .

Also, Michael S. Berliner wrote an essay called Against Environmentalism on this subject.

Now, arguably he casts too wide a net in his diatribe against "environmentalists". I very much share his preference for technological and free-market solutions. But writing from Singapore - currently blanketed with an unhealthy level of smoke from Indonesian forest fires started by unscrupulous plantation managers and ignorant savages practicing slash-and-burn farming - I have to wonder whether there's a point at which pollution moves from being a tort, to a crime, to an act of war.

Good story, wrong lesson. The lesson is nature is nature and human nature is human nature. To deny it is to deny the sun and the earth. Stop living off others. You're making yourself miserable. Here's some homework for you:
http://www.aynrand.org/

Ayn Rand is nothing but caveman crap. That shit is regurgitated from the deepest pits of mankind's cesspools that even the old-testament patriarchs (you know, those who eat their children) would consider it "shoot on sight" stuff, lest it made their brains recess well beyond the ape-stage (as this would definitely prove the validity of Darwin's "origin of species").

Ayn Rand crap is touted by people who have no sense of Civilization, and solely view their own self enrichment as the only thing in the world; actually, precisely like those DRM lawyers.

Whenever someone talks about Ayn Rand, one can be sure that this fellow is at the mental level of a caveman, and has no humanity beyond what it takes to swing a club and enjoy his own little superiority over others to rape, pillage and plunder the weaker.

http://www.aynrand.org/

or

http://www.atlassociety.org/

You are not going to change the frog, the scorpion or the human. And they are all beautiful. But please, if I am wrong, please let me know when you've convinced the scorpion to share his food, his recordings and his software with you.

Defacing a web site is an attack on free speech. No one has the right to break into someone else's server and change
the content being distributed. No surprise that these criminals have no respect for free speech though,
considering it is not something valued in Muslim culture.
See here

Ayn Rand fans are selfish cunts

For the record, Ayn Rand would be proud of your assessment of libertarians.

As for the question of whether the state will start regulating more than just consigners, you don't need to read a 1,000+ page book for the answer. You just need common sense.

I don't know where you copied this article for your trolling...

The Ayn Rand Institute: Columbus Day: A Time to Celebrate

Capitalism is a system which assumes everyone is ethical too, however, the definition of ethics in both systems is exactly opposite! Communism projects living for others as the ultimate ideal (which is so obviously wrong that it can't be achieved - and hence its failure), while on the other hand capitalism requires everyone to be totally selfish , which means you live for your own good (and at the same time not sacrificing others for your purposes.) For detailed analysis of the true face of capitalism refer to Ayn Rand's work

" Since when does the constitution provide the right to require the government to help you deliver an unlimited amount of commercial advertising? For the last time, SPAM IS NOT A FREE SPEECH ISSUE! Popular message or not, no mail administrator is required to deliver mail. The spammer is not being restricted from sending mail at all. Free speech does not entitle the speaker to a free platform."

Here's the problem. No private entity is required to deliver spam to you, as you point out. However, a public school is run by the govt. What right does the govt. have to decide for you as a student what e-mail you should read or not. Clearly this is censorship and a 1st amendment violation. This is exactly what the founding fathers worried about, govt. entities censoring speech. These types of dilemmmas become inevitable when we allow govt. to run institutions that should be run by private citizens.

> People who use the crazy straw man arguments of Ayn Rand tend
> to be the type of people who want an excuse to feel good about
> doing nothing.

Well said.

It's not enough for Ayn Rand supporters* to have their own justification for being selfish. They want to be considered the most virtuous of all for being selfish. They want to be admired for being selfish. So not only do they shun any form of altruism, they want a medal for it. **

As for Clinton, I don't anyone is calling for banning of violent games. Doing a study isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly because although your average Senator (or middle-aged anybody) understands football, they simply don't understand today's video games. Hell, even my sister doesn't understand Final Fantasy VIII/X and why there would be a concert for it. So at best, the study will help them understand that many video games today could be thought of as interactive movies.

The fact that GTA wasn't rated mature is a problem, and if the industry is going to self-regulate, they're going to have to be serious about it.
__
* Look, no name calling! I didn't say "Randroids" although I really, really wanted to!

** The irony is only more painful when one discovers that the Ayn Rand Institute is a charity and is looking for funding handouts. I believe they had a convoluted explanation for this on their web site last time I looked.

money is teh awesome

is here

The brand of Capitalism (the purest form Ive ever come across) that he was referring to (read the last line of his post containing "Ayn Rand") would not allow the gov't to sieze property thru tax evasion simply because the gov't would not be allowed to have the power to levy taxes. Its considered immoral in Ayn Rand's philosophy. http://www.aynrand.org/ - for more info

OK, I think I see what you are saying and I will try to explain the US point of view here.

We certainly see that poverty is a basic problem which leads to many other problems. However, our view is that the power to fix any problem, including poverty, lies in the hands of the people themselves. All power originates with the people. It is up to the people to exercise that power and not to allow themselves to be pushed around.

No one is saying this is easy. In the late 1700s the US fought what was a major war for us at that time to gain our freedom. There was another war for freedom again from 1861 to 1865 which was won (slaves were freed) and lost (power was concentrated in Washington) by both sides.

Anyway, the national character of the US from an early time has been that people should help themselves and not rely on a patronizing government to help them (any government can only return to the people that which was originally taken from the people - taken either in the past through taxes or in the future through inflation).

The result of this has many aspects. One is that we believe people should be armed as a matter of principle. It is the armed civilian population which has always kept corrupt governments at bay in this country. Many of us also believe "an armed society is a polite society" which means criminals like the thought of unarmed victims.

We also believe there are four boxes which protect freedom: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo which should be used in that order (i.e., free speech, elections, jury nullification, then revolution). In order to maintain a credible threat of revolution to keep a government under control the people must be armed. No government can properly respect the authority of an unarmed populace. They may pay lip service to the populace but everyone know who is really in charge in that situation - the ones with the weapons: the government.

It is also why, historically, we have been against socialism. Socialism is only a form of organized theft (not the only one, I'll grant there are systems which claim to be "capitalistic" in which similar theft occurs through complex tax codes and regulations) which is not only immoral but which ultimately only benefits a few at the expense of the many (e.g., Stalinist Soviet Union or Cuba).

Another is we have a low tolerance for those who seek help without first trying to help themselves. Revolutions which seek to install socialist governments do not get our sympathy - see the previous paragraph.

Anyway, I think we agree the difference is cultural. I believe our way works better than anyone else's (I have been to other countries, including former Soviet republics) but that our way is not perfect except in some theoretical sense (see http://www.lp.org/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian, http://www.aynrand.org/, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivist_philosoph y).

Luckily, we are stilled armed in this country so we have a chance to fix our government! :-)

One small problem... Capitalism is not a philosophy. It only deals with the economy. It says nothing about morality or the nature of the world.

Other philosophies, like Objectivism http://www.aynrand.org/ have as their economic portion a system called laissez-faire capitalism which does have in it patents & copyrights (but only by allowing people to use ideas as their own and to control the usage of their ideas).