Ayn Rand Christmas Cards

Damocles said:
This is basically the same thing you played before. The same answer applies. It does not serve your rational best interest to steal from another, this is the poorest assumption and only serves to underline that the writer of the article makes the same mistake as you do. First rational self-interest understands they have rights, which conversely means that you also have rights. Two with that same understanding and following the philosophy would not try to take what they have not earned from another.


This is also a failure to understand the central theme of the philosophy. What you call "duties towards each other" is simply a recognition of my rights/your rights. You do not steal from another because they have no right to take what they have not earned from you, therefore you do not have a right to take what you did not earn from them. It is rational to act on behalf of their rights if you expect them to act the same.


It is not altruistic to simply recognize that hypocrisy is not a rational action. It is rational to expect others to act with knowledge of your rights, it is a simple logic to act the same towards theirs. It is, in fact, rational to make laws to protect those rights. Hence the illegality of theft.


And this one makes me laugh the most. It is not necessary to list every "negative right". The government has no right to coerce me to change my religion, some thought it necessary to list this right in the Constitution but it doesn't make it necessary to list every right. Observed by Amendment 9...



No, the logical fallacy displayed before doesn't allow for this extension of absurdity.



And this is still a further extension of the fallacy presented from the beginning. The whole article plays off a false assumption which extends further using other logical fallacy (argument to the absurd being the most prevalent, piano shot from a cannon... geebus).

The reality is, almost all of your objection is based on a misunderstanding of the basic premise. It isn't altruism that would cause the rational mind to accept the rights of another, it is simple self-interest. If I expect my rights to be observed I must act the same towards others.
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I totally understand the basic premise, Rand thinks that people will do the right thing when they become selfish, but it is not basic human nature to become self involved and thus become more beneficial to others, it is in fact the opposite, i do not misunderstand anything of Rand's philosophy, all I have to do is look to her life. She was very self absorbed, how did her self absorption help others? And in the end, she ended up being the very thing she hated. It seems fitting.
 
kaz said:
That's ridiculous, that she wouldn't take your property or freedom while Marx would leave you with neither is in no possible way a "moot point"
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it is if you take it too Rands extreme....or Marx for that matter.

Look, there are are alternate philosophies of governance besides utilitarianism of which Marx and Rand propose two polar opposite extremes neither of which have been proven to work. Utilitarianism has been proven to work for millennia. I'm not closed minded but I'm going to stick with what has been proven to work.
 
Damocles said:
This is basically the same thing you played before. The same answer applies. It does not serve your rational best interest to steal from another, this is the poorest assumption and only serves to underline that the writer of the article makes the same mistake as you do. First rational self-interest understands they have rights, which conversely means that you also have rights. Two with that same understanding and following the philosophy would not try to take what they have not earned from another.


This is also a failure to understand the central theme of the philosophy. What you call "duties towards each other" is simply a recognition of my rights/your rights. You do not steal from another because they have no right to take what they have not earned from you, therefore you do not have a right to take what you did not earn from them. It is rational to act on behalf of their rights if you expect them to act the same.


It is not altruistic to simply recognize that hypocrisy is not a rational action. It is rational to expect others to act with knowledge of your rights, it is a simple logic to act the same towards theirs. It is, in fact, rational to make laws to protect those rights. Hence the illegality of theft.


And this one makes me laugh the most. It is not necessary to list every "negative right". The government has no right to coerce me to change my religion, some thought it necessary to list this right in the Constitution but it doesn't make it necessary to list every right. Observed by Amendment 9...



No, the logical fallacy displayed before doesn't allow for this extension of absurdity.



And this is still a further extension of the fallacy presented from the beginning. The whole article plays off a false assumption which extends further using other logical fallacy (argument to the absurd being the most prevalent, piano shot from a cannon... geebus).

The reality is, almost all of your objection is based on a misunderstanding of the basic premise. It isn't altruism that would cause the rational mind to accept the rights of another, it is simple self-interest. If I expect my rights to be observed I must act the same towards others.
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the false premise of your argument is that recognizing a collective interest is not alway ultruism nor is ultruism or a collective interest always mutually exclusive with rational self interest.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
the false premise of your argument is that recognizing a collective interest is not alway ultruism nor is ultruism or a collective interest always mutually exclusive with rational self interest.
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The problem you have is in the spelling of altruism, and a misunderstanding of "collective interest". The "collective interest" is an oxymoron. Groups have no consensus on their interest in a singular fashion. The group is best served if the rights of each individual are realized and protected.
 
evince said:
why does the right claim helping others is evil?
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They don't. That's just stupid, Desh. The right understands that taking your money to give to a charity we believed deserved it more would be wrong. Just as you taking our money to give to what you think is most worthy but others do not is wrong.
 
pretending that whatever the people do as a democracy is evil makes you people un-American and evil
 
evince said:
pretending that whatever the people do as a democracy is evil makes you people un-American and evil
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That's absurd, Desh. If we just did everything by democracy gays still wouldn't be able to marry. Interracial marriage would never have been legal in some places, etc.

Democracy itself does not ensure ethical and "right" action.
 
Damocles said:
The problem you have is in the spelling of altruism, and a misunderstanding of "collective interest". The "collective interest" is an oxymoron. Groups have no consensus on their interest in a singular fashion. The group is best served if the rights of each individual are realized and protected.
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Damo, that was a completely nonsensical thing to say. If you live on a mountain top devoid of any contact with humanity you may have a point. If people never interacted with each other you might have a point but that's not the reality. The reality is we live and interact with each other not just as individuals but as groups. What you are essentially advocating is anarchy as it would make any sort of collaborative activity impossible as it would ultimately violate some individuals rights.

In other words your reasoning is worse than my spelling.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Damo, that was a completely nonsensical thing to say. If you live on a mountain top devoid of any contact with humanity you may have a point. If people never interacted with each other you might have a point but that's not the reality. The reality is we live and interact with each other not just as individuals but as groups. What you are essentially advocating is anarchy as it would make any sort of collaborative activity impossible as it would ultimately violate some individuals rights.

In other words your reasoning is worse than my spelling.
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You are again incorrect, I simply understand that the individual is the ultimate minority and that recognizing the rights of each individual will ultimately lead to the type of society that you think would best serve society as a whole. What you want is for me to ultimately be forced to "agree" by simply taking from me to give to what you believe is best. That is wrong.
 
Damocles said:
You are again incorrect, I simply understand that the individual is the ultimate minority and that recognizing the rights of each individual will ultimately lead to the type of society that you think would best serve society as a whole. What you want is for me to ultimately be forced to "agree" by simply taking from me to give to what you believe is best. That is wrong.
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Your last sentence encapsulates liberalism to a tee. They have a general disdain for their fellow citizens and really don't want them making their own decisions because they may make decisions liberals don't like and liberals can't have that. Better for a liberal to force their conscience on others.
 
Damocles said:
You are again incorrect, I simply understand that the individual is the ultimate minority and that recognizing the rights of each individual will ultimately lead to the type of society that you think would best serve society as a whole. What you want is for me to ultimately be forced to "agree" by simply taking from me to give to what you believe is best. That is wrong.
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No, I'm saying that you propose a hypothetical that has never existed. You are making claims that look good on paper but has never existed in reality. It's why we collaborate, it's why we have the rule of law because individual rights in a society have limits and at times we balance societies needs. Your paradigm won't get roads built or defend our shores or get accomplished many of the things we need to accomplish. It's mostly pretentious bullshit. As I posted earlier the prisoners dilemma exposes the flaw of your argument.

To put it simply the alternative form of governance you support has little in the way of evidence to support that it works and and a lot that shows it doesn't.

Utilitarianism is proven to work and utilitarianism recognizes that that governing is a balancing act between individual rights and societies needs and no modern government exemplifies that balancing act than our government.
 
I Love America said:
Your last sentence encapsulates liberalism to a tee. They have a general disdain for their fellow citizens and really don't want them making their own decisions because they may make decisions liberals don't like and liberals can't have that. Better for a liberal to force their conscience on others.
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I got news for you Tinkerbell. There isn't a conservative government anywhere that isn't utilitarian in nature.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No, I'm saying that you propose a hypothetical that has never existed. You are making claims that look good on paper but has never existed in reality. It's why we collaborate, it's why we have the rule of law because individual rights in a society have limits and at times we balance societies needs. Your paradigm won't get roads built or defend our shores or get accomplished many of the things we need to accomplish. It's mostly pretentious bullshit. As I posted earlier the prisoners dilemma exposes the flaw of your argument.

To put it simply the alternative form of governance you support has little in the way of evidence to support that it works and and a lot that shows it doesn't.

Utilitarianism is proven to work and utilitarianism recognizes that that governing is a balancing act between individual rights and societies needs and no modern government exemplifies that balancing act than our government.
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I am not pointing out any form of government. I am pointing out that the word "selfishness" as described by Ayn Rand is entirely different than the word "selfishness" being assumed.

I know of no libertarian that sees no use for government, the absurd claim that it would be "anarchy" is solely based on moving the goalposts, a basic strawman fallacy position. I make points about her views on selfishness and how it is being misunderstood, you claim I am talking about government and then start arguing that strawman. I have been speaking about what she means when she speaks of self-interest.

First the assumption that Ayn Rand was against charity can be proven wrong by simply reading what she stated.

You can read what she said about charity here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html

The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.
 
Maybe she should have used another word than selfish, if that's not what she meant. That's why the thesaurus was written.

She reminds me of Gordon Gekko: "Greed - for lack of a better word - is good."
 
christiefan915 said:
Maybe she should have used another word than selfish, if that's not what she meant. That's why the thesaurus was written.

She reminds me of Gordon Gekko: "Greed - for lack of a better word - is good."
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What words other than self interest should she use to describe rational self interest?
 
And for Mott, here is what Ayn Rand has to say about Anarchism:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anarchism.html

Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction: . . . a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy: even a society whose every member were fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy; it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government.
 
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