If you would like to refute the idea that Rand believed real-life difficulties were temporary and exceptional, why not start by explaining the Peikoff quote I provided?
I already addressed it. I'm not sure what more there is to say about it.
I'll give you an analogy, if you want. The US Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal". Does that mean the founders of the US all believed that nobody is born with any sort of handicap?
Clear?
She tells us to be rational and accept reality as it is, while at the same time telling us to assume that everything will turn out to the best, because it feels right.
That's not what that quote says. I've actually never read it before, so thanks; it's a side of her I've never seen. I thought her books were rather dreary - getting through Atlas Shrugged was truly a pain. The quote you provided is actually quite beautiful. I'm not sure why you're claiming it makes claims about how things will turn out, though, since she's clearly only talking about feelings and emotions.
Well, given that we have upwards of 40% of unearned wealthy out there, I don't really see how it improves matters to think that my grandchildren will see a similar proportion with largely different surnames. It sounds convincing until you think about but at the end of the day -- so what?
Jealousy is an ugly thing. The difference between me and you is that I see opportunity, while you see oppression and injustice. Wanna take bets on which of us will be worth more in a decade or two?
There's also an awful lot of weasel wording in your explanation, which makes it less than compelling. It's "pretty clear" that these families "tend to lose" their wealth "within a few generations at most". If your rebuttal was any woolier, it would a sheep.
Yes, like most skeptics and scientists, I'm careful to word my responses in an accurate manner. If you're looking for absolutes and certainties, talk to ideologues and theologians.
I'm also not enirely comfortable with calling 60% a "vast majority"
That's 60% within the top 800 richest in the entire world. The discussion was originally about the top 5% (roughly 325 MILLION people). The number gets significantly larger as you include people further down the ladder, simply because it's much easier to lose $10 million than it is to lose $10 billion.
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.
For example, being born with a disability is no excuse for failing, since limitations outside of yourself are always temporary and exceptional.
That's the exact opposite of objectivism, since a disability is a very real problem which actually exists. Even the sentence you quoted implicitly allows for the possibility of such limitations when it talks about "accidents".
It's new-age woo-merchants like Deepak Chopra who argue that "limitations outside of yourself are always temporary and exceptional" - Rand would have been appalled at the idea.
So you're saying that if I happen to be born rich and lazy, there's a reasonable chance that in a hundred years or so my descendants will be poor?
Could be as short as 10 years, could be as long as a hundred, sure. The timeframe is irrelevant, the point is that money is just as hard to keep as it is to make, and the vast majority of those at the top tend to be the ones who worked their asses off to get there.
You clearly consider this a telling point, but I'm afraid I'm having difficulty seeing its relevance.
He was suggesting that the "really rich" are just the same few thousands families, all passing their money on to their descendants generation after generation. I've explained that to be false. How can you not see the relevance?
Mmmm... you say that, but Objectivism seems to me to be deeply and fundamentally judgemental. Look at your next paragraph
You could argue that some adherents of Objectivism are judgmental, but I think you'd have a hard time showing that the ideology itself is inherently judgmental. As for "my next paragraph" - I should point out that I don't consider myself an objectivist. Nor do I see anything preticularly judgmental in pointing out that communism allows for plenty of abuse, both from the chronically lazy as well as the brutally ambitious.
Which seems to cast everyone as either affluent or as a parasite. But the real world doesn't work like that
Yes, I know. As I was writing my previous response, I considered whether to explain that the objectivism/communism divide is a false dichotomy. In the end, I didn't bother because I didn't want to complicate the issue any further. You're right, though - there are plenty of other ideologies that fit somewhere in between.
When a tsunami devastates the coastline of half a continent, saying "shit happens" and turning our backs is neither admirable nor acceptable. And yet that seems to be the response that obectivism calls for.
As I said - I saw nothing in Rand's work which argued against willingly helping those in need.
And are those the only two options? A world where the ablest are enslaved to the masses, one where the privileged and fortunate get to grind the masses into the dirt? I find both scenarios equally appalling, to be honsest. And I don't accept that those are the only options.
Ditto. I think Rand would agree with you. If you actually read her book(s), and you STILL think that she was arguing for "grinding the masses into the dirt", then there's probably not much I can say that would change your mind.
In our society hard work is only enough to get into the top 20%. The top 5% is mostly locked in and handed down the children of people already there.
Sheer nonsense. Forbes magazine tracks the richest people in the world, and currently has a list of some 800 billionaires globally. More than 60% of the people on that list are "self-made".
If you want to talk about "the top 5%", that would be anyone who has more than a million dollars. In that case, it's worth mentioning that the VAST majority of todays millionaires did NOT inherit their wealth. Most also say they don't consider themselves wealthy.
There have been plenty of studies done on the subject, and the conclusion has always been pretty clear: those who inherit their fortunes tend to lose them within a few generations at most, while being replaced at the top by those who started with nothing.
I may well misunderstand Objectivism. If so, perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain why, politely.
Well, the wikipedia page has a fairly decent explanation. I'm not going to waste time providing definitions and explanations which are available there, but I will address your comments/questions.
But as I understand it, Objectivism takes the view that everyone is responsible fort their own actions. We all have the smae chances, the same opportunities, and that therefore anyone who doesn't do very well in life has only themselves to blame.
First sentence, yes, second sentence, NO!
There's no suggestion of any such "equality" inherent in Objectivism. The main theme which Rand pushed was the idea that rational self interest based on an objective analysis of reality should be the guiding principle of all human actions. She certainly never suggested that everyone is equal or that everyone has the same opportunities. Insofar as she may have spoken about equality between men, she meant to convey the same idea as what the founding fathers meant when they they stated that "all men are created equal".
Communism says we can all have the same quality of life, which should be achieveable, if beset with practical difficulties.
If that's your definition of communism, then it's very possible - we've seen that, in practice, communism leads to 99% of the people having a bottom 5% life:)
Objectivism, it seems to me, says that anyone who is poor has only themselves to blame, which has always struck me as somewhat self serving.
Well, AFAIK, objectivism has nothing to do with assigning blame. For one thing, I don't think Rand had anything against charity per say - she only objected to the forced "charity" instituted by governments. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an objectivist who is opposed to helping the people who really need it.
Also, I should mention that I find communism to be far more self serving. It gives every parasite the opportunity to say "it's not MY fault I'm poor, so YOU need to take care of me!". It allows the lame and the lazy to shackle the strong and the industrious - a situation far worse than the one which you seem to fear.
In Bioshock, Fontaine summed up the problem with Objectivism with the line "someone has to clean the toilets".
How is that a problem for objectivism?
It seems to me that Objectivism assumes a world where 100% of the people can have a top 5% lifestyle if only the work hard enough, and that anyone who fails to make that level is a slacker or a loser. The trouble is that 95% are necessarily going to fall short, no matter how hard they work.
Again, how is that a problem for objectivisim, rather than your misunderstanding of the objectivity philosophy?
What you're describing is communism - a society in which 100% of people can (theoretically) have a top 5% lifestyle. Objectivism promises no such equality. I don't know how you can read the works of a violently anti-communist woman, and conclude that she's pushing communism.
You clearly haven't been living in Britain for the last decade, haven't needed treatment in that time, or else you're just trolling. There are no 8 month waits to see a specialist. For any medical problem you have a right to treatment in the worse case within 18 weeks. That's not just seeing a specialist, that's to have the operation or whatever treatment it is you need.
Awesome - maybe you can send some doctors and politicians to Canada so they can show the clowns here how to do it right. Meanwhile, I'd just be happy with a private option.
Last two times I've been to A&E, both non-serious, the patient has been seen in about 30 minutes.
The only time I've waited 30 minutes was when I walked into the ER with an arterial bleed that was spraying like a water fountain. Every other time, I've had to wait at LEAST 3 hours.
Last time I needed an operation, again not too serious, it took a month and a half from first visit to my GP to operation done. 2 visits to the specialist and one pre-op included in that time.
I booked an appointment with a dermatologist about a month and a half ago. I won't get to see him until October.
The amazing thing for those of us outside America is not how the US healthcare industry has so successfully lobbied government over the years so that they can continue to squeeze profits out of the sick. It's how they've managed to lobby so many of the population to believe it's best too.
Well, as someone "outside of America", I can say that the amazing thing to me is how governments have successfully lobbied so much of the population into believing that 6 hour lineups and the emergency room and 8 month waits for a specialist are a GOOD thing.
You can complain how China is now polluting more than the US, but per person a Chinese citizen uses 47.81 GJ per year, whilst an American uses 327.38 GJ per year.
So they get to keep polluting because they were good at pumping out babies?
I have an idea - if you're REALLY serious about reducing consumption, how about we start taxing people globally based on how many children they have? Since the industrialized nations generally have birth rates which are below sustainability, I'd be quite happy to "help the environment" in that manner. Why screw with carbon emissions when we can address the issue much more directly?
It's irrelevant whether she wins. The defendant has already lost - legal fees will cost them double the damages claimed if they fight the case.
The suit is silly enough that they could just hire a temp for $8 an hour, buy him a suit, and sent him to sit in the courtroom and wait until the case is dismissed.
This virus is not going to "evolve" into another form any time soon, it has simple been designed to make limited adaptations to local circumstances
That's primarily because nobody has bothered to make evolving viruses. Sure, we've made some that can change their code in order to try and avoid detection, but their "mutations" are intentionally limited because, in the end, the "intelligent designer" still wants them to continue functioning in a certain way.
Now, if you didn't give a damn WHAT your virus did as long as it continued to replicate, there's no reason why you couldn't make one that does actually evolve. Now that you've brought it up, I'm almost tempted to try and make one:)
MAYBE, but in your country you walk a block to the local DVD store and choose from a selection of thousands of pirated DVDs, each selling for the equivalent of 1.25 USD per disc?
More like $5 here in Canada, but generally, yes. Why do you ask?
1. "University Science Dude Says" is not a citation. 2. That's fucking stupid. If you wanted to say that "carbon credits" are a form of wealth redistribution you MIGHT be able to make a decent case (probably not). However, claiming that an entire field of scientific research is a wealth redistribution scheme is simply idiotic.
The video shows a 24 year old woman committing suicide. She's so tired she can barely walk. It shows workers being denied their 10 minute breaks. It shows that 5% of the workers quit every month, and a diary where a man says he feels like he's living in workplace hell, day-after-day, year-after-year.
Sounds like my last IT job. There's a reason I got out of it. The military was paradise, in comparison.
Being that a carbon tax will have little to no effect (per "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" proponents that will greatly benefit, monetarily, should such come to pass) on the amount of human generated carbon in the atmosphere, all talk of such "carbon" or similar taxes should completely scrapped.
[citation needed]
It is, and always has been, nothing more than A) a power grab and B) a method to bilk even more money out of tax paying citizens who are already over-taxed in the extreme to help cement further control and enslavement of the United States citizenry.
Yep, those power-mad science types are at it again. As if it's not enough that they created this InterWebs thingie to make us all slaves of technology, now they want to make us slaves of the environment, too! Well enough is enough! I say we go torch every forest we can find. That'll learn 'em!
Slashdot Mirror
If you would like to refute the idea that Rand believed real-life difficulties were temporary and exceptional, why not start by explaining the Peikoff quote I provided?
I already addressed it. I'm not sure what more there is to say about it.
I'll give you an analogy, if you want. The US Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal". Does that mean the founders of the US all believed that nobody is born with any sort of handicap?
Clear?
She tells us to be rational and accept reality as it is, while at the same time telling us to assume that everything will turn out to the best, because it feels right.
That's not what that quote says. I've actually never read it before, so thanks; it's a side of her I've never seen. I thought her books were rather dreary - getting through Atlas Shrugged was truly a pain. The quote you provided is actually quite beautiful. I'm not sure why you're claiming it makes claims about how things will turn out, though, since she's clearly only talking about feelings and emotions.
Well, given that we have upwards of 40% of unearned wealthy out there, I don't really see how it improves matters to think that my grandchildren will see a similar proportion with largely different surnames. It sounds convincing until you think about but at the end of the day -- so what?
Jealousy is an ugly thing. The difference between me and you is that I see opportunity, while you see oppression and injustice. Wanna take bets on which of us will be worth more in a decade or two?
There's also an awful lot of weasel wording in your explanation, which makes it less than compelling. It's "pretty clear" that these families "tend to lose" their wealth "within a few generations at most". If your rebuttal was any woolier, it would a sheep.
Yes, like most skeptics and scientists, I'm careful to word my responses in an accurate manner. If you're looking for absolutes and certainties, talk to ideologues and theologians.
I'm also not enirely comfortable with calling 60% a "vast majority"
That's 60% within the top 800 richest in the entire world. The discussion was originally about the top 5% (roughly 325 MILLION people). The number gets significantly larger as you include people further down the ladder, simply because it's much easier to lose $10 million than it is to lose $10 billion.
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.
For example, being born with a disability is no excuse for failing, since limitations outside of yourself are always temporary and exceptional.
That's the exact opposite of objectivism, since a disability is a very real problem which actually exists. Even the sentence you quoted implicitly allows for the possibility of such limitations when it talks about "accidents".
It's new-age woo-merchants like Deepak Chopra who argue that "limitations outside of yourself are always temporary and exceptional" - Rand would have been appalled at the idea.
So you're saying that if I happen to be born rich and lazy, there's a reasonable chance that in a hundred years or so my descendants will be poor?
Could be as short as 10 years, could be as long as a hundred, sure. The timeframe is irrelevant, the point is that money is just as hard to keep as it is to make, and the vast majority of those at the top tend to be the ones who worked their asses off to get there.
You clearly consider this a telling point, but I'm afraid I'm having difficulty seeing its relevance.
He was suggesting that the "really rich" are just the same few thousands families, all passing their money on to their descendants generation after generation. I've explained that to be false. How can you not see the relevance?
Mmmm... you say that, but Objectivism seems to me to be deeply and fundamentally judgemental. Look at your next paragraph
You could argue that some adherents of Objectivism are judgmental, but I think you'd have a hard time showing that the ideology itself is inherently judgmental. As for "my next paragraph" - I should point out that I don't consider myself an objectivist. Nor do I see anything preticularly judgmental in pointing out that communism allows for plenty of abuse, both from the chronically lazy as well as the brutally ambitious.
Which seems to cast everyone as either affluent or as a parasite. But the real world doesn't work like that
Yes, I know. As I was writing my previous response, I considered whether to explain that the objectivism/communism divide is a false dichotomy. In the end, I didn't bother because I didn't want to complicate the issue any further. You're right, though - there are plenty of other ideologies that fit somewhere in between.
When a tsunami devastates the coastline of half a continent, saying "shit happens" and turning our backs is neither admirable nor acceptable. And yet that seems to be the response that obectivism calls for.
As I said - I saw nothing in Rand's work which argued against willingly helping those in need.
And are those the only two options? A world where the ablest are enslaved to the masses, one where the privileged and fortunate get to grind the masses into the dirt? I find both scenarios equally appalling, to be honsest. And I don't accept that those are the only options.
Ditto. I think Rand would agree with you. If you actually read her book(s), and you STILL think that she was arguing for "grinding the masses into the dirt", then there's probably not much I can say that would change your mind.
In our society hard work is only enough to get into the top 20%. The top 5% is mostly locked in and handed down the children of people already there.
Sheer nonsense. Forbes magazine tracks the richest people in the world, and currently has a list of some 800 billionaires globally. More than 60% of the people on that list are "self-made".
If you want to talk about "the top 5%", that would be anyone who has more than a million dollars. In that case, it's worth mentioning that the VAST majority of todays millionaires did NOT inherit their wealth. Most also say they don't consider themselves wealthy.
There have been plenty of studies done on the subject, and the conclusion has always been pretty clear: those who inherit their fortunes tend to lose them within a few generations at most, while being replaced at the top by those who started with nothing.
I may well misunderstand Objectivism. If so, perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain why, politely.
Well, the wikipedia page has a fairly decent explanation. I'm not going to waste time providing definitions and explanations which are available there, but I will address your comments/questions.
But as I understand it, Objectivism takes the view that everyone is responsible fort their own actions. We all have the smae chances, the same opportunities, and that therefore anyone who doesn't do very well in life has only themselves to blame.
First sentence, yes, second sentence, NO!
There's no suggestion of any such "equality" inherent in Objectivism. The main theme which Rand pushed was the idea that rational self interest based on an objective analysis of reality should be the guiding principle of all human actions. She certainly never suggested that everyone is equal or that everyone has the same opportunities. Insofar as she may have spoken about equality between men, she meant to convey the same idea as what the founding fathers meant when they they stated that "all men are created equal".
Communism says we can all have the same quality of life, which should be achieveable, if beset with practical difficulties.
If that's your definition of communism, then it's very possible - we've seen that, in practice, communism leads to 99% of the people having a bottom 5% life :)
Objectivism, it seems to me, says that anyone who is poor has only themselves to blame, which has always struck me as somewhat self serving.
Well, AFAIK, objectivism has nothing to do with assigning blame. For one thing, I don't think Rand had anything against charity per say - she only objected to the forced "charity" instituted by governments. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an objectivist who is opposed to helping the people who really need it.
Also, I should mention that I find communism to be far more self serving. It gives every parasite the opportunity to say "it's not MY fault I'm poor, so YOU need to take care of me!". It allows the lame and the lazy to shackle the strong and the industrious - a situation far worse than the one which you seem to fear.
In Bioshock, Fontaine summed up the problem with Objectivism with the line "someone has to clean the toilets".
How is that a problem for objectivism?
It seems to me that Objectivism assumes a world where 100% of the people can have a top 5% lifestyle if only the work hard enough, and that anyone who fails to make that level is a slacker or a loser. The trouble is that 95% are necessarily going to fall short, no matter how hard they work.
Again, how is that a problem for objectivisim, rather than your misunderstanding of the objectivity philosophy?
What you're describing is communism - a society in which 100% of people can (theoretically) have a top 5% lifestyle. Objectivism promises no such equality. I don't know how you can read the works of a violently anti-communist woman, and conclude that she's pushing communism.
You clearly haven't been living in Britain for the last decade, haven't needed treatment in that time, or else you're just trolling. There are no 8 month waits to see a specialist. For any medical problem you have a right to treatment in the worse case within 18 weeks. That's not just seeing a specialist, that's to have the operation or whatever treatment it is you need.
Awesome - maybe you can send some doctors and politicians to Canada so they can show the clowns here how to do it right. Meanwhile, I'd just be happy with a private option.
Last two times I've been to A&E, both non-serious, the patient has been seen in about 30 minutes.
The only time I've waited 30 minutes was when I walked into the ER with an arterial bleed that was spraying like a water fountain. Every other time, I've had to wait at LEAST 3 hours.
Last time I needed an operation, again not too serious, it took a month and a half from first visit to my GP to operation done. 2 visits to the specialist and one pre-op included in that time.
I booked an appointment with a dermatologist about a month and a half ago. I won't get to see him until October.
The amazing thing for those of us outside America is not how the US healthcare industry has so successfully lobbied government over the years so that they can continue to squeeze profits out of the sick. It's how they've managed to lobby so many of the population to believe it's best too.
Well, as someone "outside of America", I can say that the amazing thing to me is how governments have successfully lobbied so much of the population into believing that 6 hour lineups and the emergency room and 8 month waits for a specialist are a GOOD thing.
This is the UK we're talking about here. Healthcare is controlled by the government.
Ok, so we can rephrase his comment to:
Of course, this will end when a bureaucrat complains about a delayed blood test...
You can complain how China is now polluting more than the US, but per person a Chinese citizen uses 47.81 GJ per year, whilst an American uses 327.38 GJ per year.
So they get to keep polluting because they were good at pumping out babies?
I have an idea - if you're REALLY serious about reducing consumption, how about we start taxing people globally based on how many children they have? Since the industrialized nations generally have birth rates which are below sustainability, I'd be quite happy to "help the environment" in that manner. Why screw with carbon emissions when we can address the issue much more directly?
It's irrelevant whether she wins. The defendant has already lost - legal fees will cost them double the damages claimed if they fight the case.
The suit is silly enough that they could just hire a temp for $8 an hour, buy him a suit, and sent him to sit in the courtroom and wait until the case is dismissed.
These guys need to shut the hell up and stop being so critical of every semi-religious/spiritual statement people make.
Why?
....aren't Jews not supposed to do any work, like, you know, picking up and throwing rocks, on the Sabbath?
Ah, but stoning is ok, because it falls under the category of "god's work".
This virus is not going to "evolve" into another form any time soon, it has simple been designed to make limited adaptations to local circumstances
That's primarily because nobody has bothered to make evolving viruses. Sure, we've made some that can change their code in order to try and avoid detection, but their "mutations" are intentionally limited because, in the end, the "intelligent designer" still wants them to continue functioning in a certain way.
Now, if you didn't give a damn WHAT your virus did as long as it continued to replicate, there's no reason why you couldn't make one that does actually evolve. Now that you've brought it up, I'm almost tempted to try and make one :)
The military is not exactly in a position were it can pick and choose who it lets in, they have to pretty much take all comers at this point.
That's a pretty sad commentary on the state of the average American citizen.
It's both. Ignorance and irrationality create religion, which encourages continued ignorance and irrationality. It's a feedback loop.
It is a political power issue, period.
[citation needed]
Wake the f*ck up!
Stop getting all your opinion from Rush Limbaugh.
MAYBE, but in your country you walk a block to the local DVD store and choose from a selection of thousands of pirated DVDs, each selling for the equivalent of 1.25 USD per disc?
More like $5 here in Canada, but generally, yes. Why do you ask?
1. "University Science Dude Says" is not a citation.
2. That's fucking stupid. If you wanted to say that "carbon credits" are a form of wealth redistribution you MIGHT be able to make a decent case (probably not). However, claiming that an entire field of scientific research is a wealth redistribution scheme is simply idiotic.
The video shows a 24 year old woman committing suicide. She's so tired she can barely walk. It shows workers being denied their 10 minute breaks. It shows that 5% of the workers quit every month, and a diary where a man says he feels like he's living in workplace hell, day-after-day, year-after-year.
Sounds like my last IT job. There's a reason I got out of it. The military was paradise, in comparison.
Being that a carbon tax will have little to no effect (per "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" proponents that will greatly benefit, monetarily, should such come to pass) on the amount of human generated carbon in the atmosphere, all talk of such "carbon" or similar taxes should completely scrapped.
[citation needed]
It is, and always has been, nothing more than A) a power grab and B) a method to bilk even more money out of tax paying citizens who are already over-taxed in the extreme to help cement further control and enslavement of the United States citizenry.
Yep, those power-mad science types are at it again. As if it's not enough that they created this InterWebs thingie to make us all slaves of technology, now they want to make us slaves of the environment, too! Well enough is enough! I say we go torch every forest we can find. That'll learn 'em!
No, it's not: 6.697 - 300 millions = 6.397
Hah. Ok, fair enough.