Objectivisim: To The Ramparts

Miss Ayn Rand: "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/minority_rights.html


A short time ago, in a land very close by, there lived a civilization based on the principle of individual rights. In essence this meant that your life was yours to live, not God's to command, society's to rule, your neighbors to rob, or the government's to rule. But the culture had a disease called altruism or self-sacrifice. This disease was intellectual and philosophical and it stated that what you did for others was good; what you did for yourself was evil. This caused great harm to this great civilization and its dedication to individual rights, and it slowly began to die and fall back into another dark age. The Civilization, America. This is a call to save this great civilization called America by promoting Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, and it is you who will decide America's fate. We shall see what happens.

Miss Ayn Rand: "Since the golden age of Greece, there has been only one era of reason in twenty-three centuries of Western philosophy. During the final decades of that era, the United States of America was created as an independent nation. This is the key to the country—to its nature, its development, and its uniqueness: the United States is the nation of the Enlightenment."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/america.html

Yaron Brook:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

America began with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, a country founded on the idea that people have essential, inherent rights that no government can interfere with. On this week’s episode of “The Yaron Brook Show,” Yaron Brook talked about why he left his country of birth to come to America as well as what “American exceptionalism” means.

“I’m patriotic for all the virtues that are America,” Yaron said. “I believe in this country.”

The best thing about America is our founding principles, as encapsulated in the Declaration. This document makes America special and is still revered today.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

America began with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, a country founded on the idea that people have essential, inherent rights that no government can interfere with. On this week’s episode of “The Yaron Brook Show,” Yaron Brook talked about why he left his country of birth to come to America as well as what “American exceptionalism” means.

The best thing about America is our founding principles, as encapsulated in the Declaration. This document makes America special and is still revered today.

“It’s the first time a country is founded on the idea of individual rights,” Yaron said.

See more from Yaron on TheBlaze Contributors channel and listen to “The Yaron Brook Show” live every Sunday from 2pm-4pm ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network."--https://www.theblaze.com/podcasts/y...because-america-is-founded-on-this-principle/

 

Well altruism doesn't exist, its impossible.

Everything an individual does, everything is about selfishness. There is no act someone can do that they aren't doing for themselves.

So on that basis I must disagree with this OP.

 

To piece pick apart a concept while ignoring the meaning of its whole is to confess to being a con-man. To state because I am goth and I wish to cut myself for my selfish gratification, therefore I am behaving selfishly and morally is to destroy the concepts selfish, pleasure, and morality. It is dishonest, and self-destructive to use concepts upside down to burn down the planet while claiming to be watering the plants. Unfortunately, in your case your corruption is so deep and so profound I see no path to redemption. You truly are a lost soul and in the name of sanity and morality must be blocked. Bye. Best of wishes.

Miss Rand:
It is the fundamentals of philosophy (particularly, of ethics) that an anti-conceptual person dreads above all else. To understand and to apply them requires a long conceptual chain, which he has made his mind incapable of holding beyond the first, rudimentary links. If his professed beliefs—i.e., the rules and slogans of his group—are challenged, he feels his consciousness dissolving in fog. Hence, his fear of outsiders. The word “outsiders,” to him, means the whole wide world beyond the confines of his village or town or gang—the world of all those people who do not live by his “rules.” He does not know why he feels that outsiders are a deadly threat to him and why they fill him with helpless terror. The threat is not existential, but psycho-epistemological: to deal with them requires that he rise above his “rules” to the level of abstract principles. He would die rather than attempt it.

“Protection from outsiders” is the benefit he seeks in clinging to his group. What the group demands in return is obedience to its rules, which he is eager to obey: those rules are his protection—from the dreaded realm of abstract thought.



“The Missing Link,”

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anti-conceptual_mentality.html

 

The problem with objectivism is that it is based on fiction and it uses fiction to explain it. It does not use real world simulations as its basis therefore the negative parts can be overlooked, ignored, or explained away without having to define them. Its a philosophy based on tautology, many concepts taking from other places and repeated.

As for altruism it can be applied to anything, not just self harm. You can say a soldier that dives on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers is altruistic but that is false. He does it because he gets more from doing it than if he didn't. He is making a choice of what HE wants more, whats more important to him. He wouldn't do it if he felt not doing would give him a greater reward.

 

You're a bit spooky. Not original, but true.

 

Objectivism is the conceit of College juniors and selfish tax cutters looking for an excuse.

Grow up

 

Antifa: Claims to be anti-fascists and pro-individualists: Obviously they need to read Atlas Shrugged to learn that hating the state for being the state and hating Trump for being Trump is not a legitimate ideological movement, but a vulgar vile of pig manure uttered by a bunch of brats and punks having a bunny fit, and as laughable and ridiculous as a boring clown living in a sewer. So keep clowning around, dummy bunnies, I like laughing at fools.

Miss Rand: "For many decades, the leftists have been propagating the false dichotomy that the choice confronting the world is only: communism or fascism—a dictatorship of the left or of an alleged right—with the possibility of a free society, of capitalism, dismissed and obliterated, as if it had never existed."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fascism_and_communism-socialism.html

"A majority without an ideology is a helpless mob, to be taken over by anyone . . . . Political freedom requires much more than the people’s wish. It requires an enormously complex knowledge of political theory and of how to implement it in practice."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ideology.html

 

It is not conceit it is an ideology worth exploring. You pass it off as conceit because it frightens you.

Tax cutters need no excuse as there is nothing immoral about cutting taxes

 

Hi, Starjet. Nice to have a fellow Objectivist on the forum. We can spend time discussing what's great about Ayn Rand or if you'd like, we can spend some time discussing where she went wrong.

You are correct, of course, but consider the question, WHY does he want it more, WHY is it more important to him, WHY does he think not doing it wouldn't give him a greater reward? It's because society has ingrained in his brain the false notion of altruism rather than enlightened self-interest. He has so absorbed the principle that sacrificing oneself for others is the greatest good that he takes it to the ultimate limit, the sacrifice of his own life to save that of others. But what does HE gain from it? Nothing. He's dead and no honors, awards, or glowing speeches are going to do a damn thing for him. Something like 90% of the population today, asked why we are here, would answer, "To serve others." (9% would say to serve God, with the remaining 1% giving other answers.) Objectivism says that serving others is self-abnegation, the denial of the most important being, oneself. It is a denial of the ego, the rational brain, the SELF. Altruism is the path to madness and the grave. Madness because to serve others, you must deny your own rational thought, which is to put yourself above all others. The grave because in order to fulfill the prescription, you must deny your own life in service to others. Objectivism, or enlightened self-interest, is the path to sanity and life.

 

I'm not sure to whom you are referring to, unless its spooky. I put that poster on ignore, or whatever they call it. That poster has nothing of interest or enlightening to say. Besides, the poster is a spook in the mystical sense, and spooks don't exist, so I'll respect that persona and treat it as such.

 

She died in poverty on the welfare teat.

Must emulate, must emulate, must emulate.

 

Selfishness is simply measuring value against the amount you value your own life. There is no other way to measure value, because without human life value does not exist.

 

Who cleans the toilets in Galt's Gulch?

 

Anyone who wants to. Is there no value to a clean toilet?

 

Will the wage paid for cleaning toilets allow a poor person to survive in the cutthroat capitalist objectivist world? If not, what social safety net will exist for them? Remember, giving to charity is altruism and therefore evil.

 

How much do you value clean toilets?

If the purpose is just to give poor people something to do, why do we not employ all the world's poor and pay them a survival wage to count gains of sand on the beach?

Altruism and charity are not synonymous. Altruism is the belief that the value you produce beyond the minimum amount that you can consume must be given to others without the expectation that you will receive some kind of benefit in return. Such a belief is not sustainable, as value is a hierarchy that begins at zero value production and ends with a relatively small proportion that produces the majority of value. This is called the Pareto principle.

Charity on the other hand is the belief that you can choose to gift value to others in the hope that you will realize a personal benefit.

 

What personal benefit does charity give?

No one is going to pay toilet cleaners a wage that will allow them to survive in a laissez fairs capitalist society. The only reason Galt's Gulch could function in the book is because Galt invented a laws of physics-violating free energy machine.

Essentially if the answer to the question, who cleans the toilets in Galt's Gulch? Is anything other than "an inexhaustible supply of robot slave labor", the whole thing will fall apart. Poor people can't survive in an objectivist society.

 

It depends on the charity you're giving to as to what the benefit to you could be. The point is that individuals can decide for themselves what that benefit is. Conversely, altruism is an imposition on the individual that provides it, an expectation based on the premise of altruism.

If the need exists, it will be serviced. If it does not it will not. Again, if it makes sense to force someone to pay one person to clean a toilet, why not force them to pay 100 people to do it?

The answer is the combination of tasks of lesser value. You don't pay someone to clean the toilet only. They clean the whole office, and many others.

 

And you pay them the absolute minimum they will work for while simultaneously charge them the absolute maximum they will pay for any given good. Under objectivist systems, first degree price discrimination is not only moral, it's expected. When the goal of every seller is to totally capture consumer surplus, you are going to end up with a system where no poor people can survive.

 

Let me put it this way, if someone offered to clean the toilet in your own home would you accept, refuse, or demand they take a living wage?

 

Let me put it thi way, how many janitors are below the poverty line and require some sort of public assistance of themselves and their family to survive? How many do you think would be if employers demanded their employees compete to drive their own wages down and would only allow the lowest bidder to work on any job?

 

So? If your prescription works, why not force someone to pay 1000 janitors a living wage to clean a single toilet? The answer is the same for paying a single janitor to clean a single toilet. It's a waste of value. No-one benefits from the waste of value. Beyond that it eventually it runs out.

 

Even with janitors cleaning multiple toilets, they still don't make enough to be above the poverty line except where they can benefit from unions (not allowed under objectivism) or minimum wage laws (not allowed under objectivism). They still tend to need public support from one or more welfare systems (not allowed under objectivism) to survive.

You end up with a system where the poor cannot survive. But poor people aren't just going to lay down and die.

 

The Nurse, The Fascist, and the Constitution

I watched the video and my heart sank. This is exactly the wrong type of person to be a police officer. The number one principle police officers often forget, and need to be constantly reminded is that they work for the citizens, specifically, to protect each and every one of ours individual's rights; not to boss others around to make their egos feel larger then they are. This officer needed only to acknowledge that the nurse was right, that he had made a mistake, apologize for his error, and reassure the nurse that he would correct it immediately. Instead, he defiled our bill of rights, and behaved as a thug. The Fascist police state is arriving faster than I previously thought. It's time to hit the ramparts and take no quarter.

Miss Rand: "
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html

Miss Rand: "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html

Just as driving isn't a privilege, granted by the state; this man's right to his blood is absolute, and not a favor the state grants out of the kindness of its heart.