-I do not want to turn my blog into a debate forum, however, when I run across an article of another blog dedicated
to defaming me - as incompetent as the author's attempted may be - it still ruffles my feathers.
-When I first started blogging, I dedicated a column to websites that promote(d) ignorance. The links offered ranged from the KKK to ultra-liberal "intellectuals". After time passed, I decided to get rid of the entire project; probably because every time I looked at one of those links, I almost got sick. Little did I know, that back in May, one of the authors of a pro-socialist/highly-liberal blog actually responded, on his blog, to my decision to list him as ignorant. My stance has not changed.
"Ah, but as I've learned, blaspheming The Gospel According to Ayn is a deeply serious offense in some circles: serious enough to get you placed on a list with the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church."
-Regarding the "Help Combat Ignorance" links; I did not list them in order of the greatest offender to the least. The degree of how ignorant you are was never determined. Not once did I state that "Nick Woomer is as evil as the KKK." That inference was made by you on your own terms. Criminals are criminals, but the boy who stole a CD from Wal-Mart isn't as evil as the man who committed cold-blooded murder; however, either way they're both wrong.
"You, dear reader, are free to make up your own mind, but I think it's kinda offensive to suggest -- as the list necessarily does by grouping various kinds of alleged "ignorance" together -- that there's any qualitative similarity between a group that terrorized and murdered black Americans for decades, and someone like me, who wrote that Ayn Rand is overrated on his vanity website."
-By stating this, the writer assumes that the only reason I listed him in the "Help Combat Ignorance" column is because of his
post of Ayn Rand. That post was one of many that I disagree with. His post about Ayn Rand was mild compared to some of his
others.
"I don't want to generalize from one example -- especially a rather pathetic one produced by some undergraduate at the University of South Florida. Nevertheless, this kid's comparison (conscious or not) between a violent white supremacist group and my writing (or, for that matter, that of my distinguished listmates Noam Chomsky and Cornel West) is symptomatic of a widespread problem among right-wingers: They find economic interventions, by the state or anyone else, so odious they stop seeing the context in which these interventions are made, and they lose perspective when it comes to talking about and addressing genuine social harms."
-He speaks as if my undergraduate status as a student has any bearing on the merit of my statements. He refers to me as a "kid" as if the relationship between his birthday and mine has anything,
at all to do with our political points of view. Of course he attempts to cloud reason and facts with rhetorical babble and illogical appeals to emotion; look at what he does for a
living. Regarding Chomsky and West; why should I
not classify those two "intellectuals" as ignorant when they both advocate a system (pure democracy) that's based entirely around the
ad populum fallacy? The only kind of person that would classify them as
"Distinguished listmates" would have be be considered ignorant for making such an elementary error in logic. I suggest you learn something from this
"kid".
-If anyone considers Ayn Rand a "right-winger" they are completely lost.
-I'll figure out why taxes need to be put in place when private businesses can replace those governmental institutions. It's in the companies best interest to provide the best service(s) at the best price. Why the government insists on sticking its nose into their private matters, and why people like Nick Woomer endorse their behavior, I'll never - rationally - know. Free-market advocates are the people who
know that all tax is theft; not all "right-wingers".
-Apparently I'm not the only one who sees through this type of garbage thinking. I don't need people to fight my battles for me, but my personal friend David Radford has something to say as well. All of the following statements are from David Radford's blog, and I have been given the permission to post the entire thing:-"It's hard to come by objectivists now-a-days, so I like to think that those of us who converge on Ayn Rand's philosophy should do our best to defend each other when mystics and clowns come to our doors with chants and comedy. Though I do not hold any of you to that obligation, I am willing to offer my services to anyone who asks.
-My friend Dan over at University Suckers happened to have a "lawyer" try to misrepresent Rand's ideas and regarding my friend's reasoning as inferior. Therefore, naturally I would like to help my friend respond; when an objectivist's values are misrepresented, in turn, so is objectivism.
-We can clearly tell this man isn't a lawyer but a comedian; we can tell by looking at his "about" column that "He is a former backup dancer and aspiring rapper." I know this is ment to be a jest. It's also not funny. He is a lawyer but perhaps he should have been a comedian, because the only thing that makes me laugh is his command of flawgic.
Now onto some of his statements.
"As I implied in my post, I think the average Rand fan is a pretty intelligent (if misguided) fellow; therefore, I expected the backlash against the post to at least take an intellectually credible form. I imagined, for example, a snide e-mail or a comment mentioning that the philosophy department at such-and-such college or university had offered a course on Rand every other year since 1985, or that X, the relatively well-regarded philosophy professor, had actually published a paper on Rand in the respected journal Y."
-His attempt to belittle our intelligence by referring to snide emails and worthless comments is very amusing. It's also amazing how he refers to us as misguided; I'm only as misguided as anyone who follows a code of reality and rationality is.
"You, dear reader, are free to make up your own mind, but I think it's kinda offensive to suggest -- as the list necessarily does by grouping various kinds of alleged "ignorance" together -- that there's any qualitative similarity between a group that terrorized and murdered black Americans for decades, and someone like me, who wrote that Ayn Rand is overrated on his vanity website."
-This is where he tries to swindle a compliment that infers immaturity via the form snide emails and worthless comments. But I don't necessarily imply this, he does this with his own words in the second quoted paragraph. However, my friend didn't imply anything when he placed you under the list; it is ment to state unequivocally that you are ignorant. If you are not happy with your "qualitative similarity" to the KKK and Westboro Baptist Church you are more than free to introduce yourself to the fields of logic and economics (As well as a theory of government based solely on the protection of individual rights). Only then you may be removed from the "ignorant" list, because
factually you purposely ignore these things.
"I don't want to generalize from one example -- especially a rather pathetic one produced by some undergraduate at the University of South Florida. Nevertheless, this kid's comparison (conscious or not) between a violent white supremacist group and my writing (or, for that matter, that of my distinguished listmates Noam Chomsky and Cornel West) is symptomatic of a widespread problem among right-wingers: They find economic interventions, by the state or anyone else, so odious they stop seeing the context in which these interventions are made, and they lose perspective when it comes to talking about and addressing genuine social harms."
-This undergrad has a greater rational faculty than you'll ever possess. This "kid" - which is a surprising assertion coming from a man who's reasoning skills are compared with that of an infant - purposely included you with those groups because you are ignorant and you share some of the irrational essentials that these groups all have in common. You are not included because you aren't the moral equivalent of a killer, and for you to try and suggest that that was the message Dan was trying to convey shows an overabudance on your lack of character and integrity. Whether your list mates are "distinguished" or not hardly matters. In fact, your "distinguished listmate" Chomsky is a known apologist for economic systems that lead to the constant destruction of human life. Chomsky is a very evil human being who thinks that the US is the greatest "evil" in the universe and that a communist purge will create the purity to strive for a more perfect government. Yet I've only witnessed continual destruction from any communist country then and since. Noam Chomsky has enough critically analyzed essays against him to shatter his career; but I guess when you abandon your ability to distinguish fact your man-hating ability is of no consequence. I, a
rational human being, wouldn't be proud to name him as a "Distinguished Listmate". Cornel West is a rapper not an academic who is yet another socialist horn-blower who doesn't produce any serious books anymore but re-releases old ones, a trick I'm sure he learned from Chomsky. You must know that anyone who hangs around Al Sharpton must have some quality...The reverend is a known racist who uses his influence over the foolish to gain political power; a consequence of pure democracy/pressure group warfare since pure democracies have the power to change law. I can't wait until Sharpton becomes president and tries to outlaw anyone of Jew blood from owning a store; he and the socialist greens can usher in the new era...just like Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. As for referring to objectivists as "right-wingers" you are sadly mistaken. Even right-wingers tend to skew on the side of rational business; they are known for their altruism and attempts to legislate religious morality at the expense of individual rights. We are not right-wingers. We only consider the state intervening in economic affairs a violation of individual rights. As an extension of violation, any industry the government gets involved in suffers extensively because of Uncle Sam's monopolistic power, which can only be created by forcing competitors out of the market by changing the rules of business. We see economic intervention by people via the price system a successful and peaceful way to coexist without violating rights, including and especially charity. We also do not see government intervention as "odious"; we see it as morally wrong and as an impractical and wasteful way for the economy to run.
"Take the familiar right-wing slogan "all taxation is theft." The theory behind this is that the state uses its monopoly on violence to steal money from citizens in order to further plans those citizens may not support. Usually the state is compared to a mugger demanding money from innocent passers-by and threatening them if they do not comply (in the state's case, with imprisonment)."
-The real trick comes with defining theft. I take theft as the forced acquisition of a good. With that said, I hardly think the government forcing taxpayers to pay taxes on unessential functions (i.e. the reallocation of resources to welfare, socialized medicine...all of which foster dependence and inefficiency.) constitutes as a "theory" of theft. Sounds more like a fact.
"Most people find this kind of argument...uncompelling. First, with corporate taxes, the entity being taxed is not even a person, but an undemocratic, theoretically immortal, profit-maximizing legal fiction intended to benefit its shareholders above all else. Second, this attitude disregards the Enlightenment "social contract" philosophical tradition upon which all modern democracies are founded. The acceptance of state violence (in this case, in the form of taxation) is based on a collective recognition that, in the end, the state's power makes our lives better -- especially when it comes to providing services like meat inspection and fire departments. Third, even if it's true that "all taxation is theft," not all theft is equally bad. Stealing from someone of substantial means to, say, feed your family or to get enough money for life saving prescription drugs just doesn't strike most of us as a terribly wrong thing to do -- whereas stealing from a poor person to buy something frivolous does."
-Whether most people find this argument uncompelling has no bearing on its truth. While wikipedia is not the most scholarly source, I am certain it will do. As for corporate taxes, I will assume that you mean that it can't really be theft since the entity (the business) isn't human. I do not know what you were trying to accomplish with your statement that corporations are "undemocratic, theoretically immortal, profit-maximizing legal fiction intended to benefit its shareholders above all else." I do know that in most corporations share-holders vote to make decisions and vote to hire CEOs; that's not even counting how people vote with their dollars on the market; so obviously your "undemocratic" allegation is thrown out the window. The "legal fiction" you speak of is in fact known to exist; just because it appears on paper doesn't mean that it's not real; it also doesn't mean you can dismiss it from reasonable analysis. You ment to dismiss the relevance of protecting it under the rule of law, but tell me this: the Constitution was written much like a corporation is, with it's own analogous shareholders and Ceos. Yet you don't claim it as "legal fiction." Although the Constituion is written on the same thing - paper - as a an Article of Incorporation. Why is that? Maybe it's because the Constitution might be the only thing keeping armies of thugs from looting us all the time and from our own government doing it as well. The point that you were trying to make about how a corporation isn't human, so taxing it couldn't be considered theft, is completely unreasonable. Since I have stated earlier of what I regard as theft - which I would assume is a reasonable definition - take this into consideration: A bank is also not human, it is as "fictitious" as a corporation. In fact, it is a type of corporation where people invest their money for safe keeping. If a robber stole from the bank, would it also not be considered theft since the entity is non-human and because it is a profit making institution? My example makes it much more obvious that these entities are real and humans do make them up and that loss from physical coercion is theft. Period.
"Second, this attitude disregards the Enlightenment "social contract" philosophical tradition upon which all modern democracies are founded."
-That is blatantly incorrect; the social contract theory is not a tradition of modern democracies. In a democracy people can vote to change the contract to whatever the majority wants, which contradicts the concept of a "contract". Our government - a Constitutional Republic - explicitly has a stable set of rules that are agreed upon and set in stone (though our Republic has turned more and more into a mob ruled country in constant legal flux). The social government is intended to severely limit government force to the sector where it is relevant; that being protection from coercive force in the form of physical violence and fraud. It is also ment to insure that individual rights are not violated; that is why it is a contract, not a whimsical document delegated by some majority.
"The acceptance of state violence (in this case, in the form of taxation) is based on a collective recognition that, in the end, the state's power makes our lives better -- especially when it comes to providing services like meat inspection and fire departments."
-Of course the great "nanny" state is known for it's successes where it is tried; like when communist countries attempt to feed their population(s) and fail. Regarding these countries, any attempt to manage the distribution of food have been proven unsuccessful at best; do you honestly think that the government is fit to manage far more detailed and complex elements of our life, when they can't even provide basic needs? Regarding the aspect of meat inspection; government oversight fails and like every other federal program is only instituted to cater the politicians for re-election or to satisfy whatever pressure group they happen to be in, or whatever meat company bribes them to set the standard, which only increases the monopoly power of those businesses. The government's power is bought by businessmen who want to use it. The best way to ensure this doesn't happen is to limit government power. The need for fire departments is quite extraordinary. However, just because people need it doesn't mean the government should provide it. It's been proven in the past that every form of activity that can be done in the marketplace will always show itself better than its government regulated counterpart.
"Third, even if it's true that "all taxation is theft", not all theft is equally bad. Stealing from someone of substantial means to, say, feed your family or to get enough money for life saving prescription drugs just doesn't strike most of us as a terribly wrong thing to do -- whereas stealing from a poor person to buy something frivolous does."
-What you should have probably said was something that sounded like this: "It doesn't strike those of us who are moral subjectivists who rule out the possibility of an alternative to squeeze in an argumentative victory as a terribly wrong thing to do, stating that it is less wrong to steal from anybody has opposed to anybody else." That statement - the statement I just said - is saying that all people are not held equally accountable by the law based on who they attack as well as what it was for; instead of what they did. A subjective standard of punishment is a poor way to implement law and an even worse way to implement justice, which holds that all men are accountable for their bad behavior. Who the criminal steals from or what their means are are not questions of law. In your example, the only way to eat food or buy medicine is to steal, yet I see all these homeless people who are unhygienic but are certainly nowhere near the standard of "poor" compared to that of the 3rd world (who surprise, are repressed by none other than their government). I would like to know how the homeless manage to afford the habits that got them there. Surely not all of them steal constantly; otherwise in cities with high homeless populations you would hear more about packs of the homeless robbing people, but you never do (though you get the odd man out who steals sometimes). Charity organizations exist and constantly give to the needy in every way possible; but you already know that the rich need to be taxed in order to build that bridge leading to nowhere and to fund the inefficient social system instead of giving their funds to people they want to see helped. But the "Robber-Baron" businessmen in your world - I'm sure - never do any sort of philanthropy. It's not like one of them left the head position of the most profitable company on earth to do strict charity with around 28 billion dollars or anything; it's not like one of the main "Robber-Barons" (
Andrew Carnegie) of the "Gilded Age" built 2,509 libraries around the English-speaking world or anything...oh wait. Before the idea of a free economy everyone was poor; no one's standard of living could increase because their government could just seize whatever asset developed or good that was produced because they owned the land by virtue of having power and force. In the welfare system, people are not held accountable for their behavior; it is bad enough that they are poor (but lets us not ask why; all poor people tried their hardest not to be poor...psyche). Why should we criticize what they do with what the government gives them? This type of mentality fosters a waste of resources and a lack of accountability for poor investment and savings, on top of advocating frivolous spending because no one is held accountable. If the welfare system runs low, all you have to do is just increase taxes; surely no one is going to come to the system looking for a free ride. It's not like people immigrate to America for socialist medicine or the welfare available in European nations. These symptoms lead to the development of unsavory behaviors since the "nanny" state (your taxes) will pay for everyone's stupid and ill prepared decisions, with no penalty.
"The right-winger will have none of this -- stealing is stealing is stealing and that's all there is to it. The moral analysis is crystal clear and the complicated distinctions collapse: any tax, against any one, regardless of how useful or benevolent it might be, is theft."
-It's not just the right-winger who won't have any of this; there is no such thing as a benevolent violation of individual rights...since everyone is an individual, everyone suffers. The moral analysis is indeed crystal clear and the distinctions don't "collapse", they are just as irrelevant when the nature of the crime is considered and not who it happens to, etc. A useful tax except when used for police, courts or military defense is a contradiction in terms; the price system of profit and loss is far superior than any entity that answers to no one (the government) and has funds as unlimited as the entire GDP. Every cent removed from private enterprise is wasted by inefficient popularity mongering. In order to make a profit, companies have to answer to buyers; in order to be re-elected a statesman needs only to kiss enough babies - because how friendly or charming he/she is - is enough to get a vote. But how rational he/she is, apparently doesn't matter. When you buy an inferior product you experience a loss; other options are always present. The consumer could always switch products and sometimes return the item that was deemed inferior. This is not so with a government official; he gets a standard set of years in which and if his actions lower the economy or violate someone's rights, it isn't really a big enough deal to get him booted out. To say that someone who has nothing to lose, when investing money that's not his, will benefit over someone carefully selecting what will increase their utility (satisfaction) with their own money, is ridiculous; it also hurts the economy in the form of lost potential profit since the richest people do their best to invest in the creation of capital goods to remain rich. When their money has an impact creating goods, it lowers their cost and increases the output of the entire economy, which in turn makes products cheaper and better for those who invest their money into much more direct tools or goods that satisfy them. Justifying an act of force because it is benevolent is what Communist countries have been doing for the last century; it's strange how their standard of living is much lower than ours, yet their system is regarded as more "benevolent". Think about the idea of justifying force as a means to an end in principle; think of what would happen if you were to apply that in any consistent manner; if after every act of force someone tried to justify it by whatever they
feel; since that is what you have been using as guide to what is right or wrong (subjectivism). What kind of world would that be? If you want to know, just open any modern history book and look at every desolate communist country and their mountains of dead bodies, who justified their force by crying that their cause was "benevolent" or for the "common good". You honestly don't think that your in the same category as the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church? You tried to justify theft, as long as it was for a "benevolent" cause. That is simply what the KKK does for murder. "But David, my way is different! I wouldn't murder people!" How do I know that? How will you feel about it tomorrow? They justify their actions by feelings, just like you. The connection is crystal clear; you justify flexibility in law by considering things like "who" did it and "what it was like for them." The KKK justifies flexibility in law by considering things like "who" did it (someone black) and what it was like for them (how blacks are "inferior"). However, if murdering any human in a certain fashion is "just" murder, suddenly everyone is saved from subjective assesments of who and what it was like. Everyone is equally protected, because everyone is an equal individual and considered a human under any type of respectable law.
"It's here that right wingers start making truly absurd statements: for example, that unions are "terrorist organizations," or that anyone advocating for a more progressive tax system is guilty of promoting "hatred" of the rich (and everyone knows that "hatred" in Americans' cultural lexicon is intimately related to racism)."
-While I'm doubtful of every right-winger saying that "unions are "terrorist organizations"...", I'll go with your assumption. I don't have anything against labor banding together to remind a company of their value, I do, however, have a problem with Unions requiring, by law, to force workers in many areas to join it as a prerequisite for their job. The government has no right to say under what conditions anyone will get a job. Unions that attempt to raise prices beyond how valuable their employees worth is will only cause their companies to fail, and in the, put those employees out of a job. That's why in working places the employees vote non-union. In any field where competition exists, the market determines how much your labor is worth.
-I'm glad you recognize that some words are thrown around far more often then the situations they are relevant in (I am merely assuming this but I will give you the benefit of the doubt). While I know judging anyone on the basis of race is wrong, since the color of a persons skin does not determine the content inside their head or the motive of their action, it is not a valid way to judge another human, and will only result in loss for those who practice it. On hatred, I, however, have a different stance; hatred and anger are emotional attitudes and responses. Anger and hatred in and of themselves aren't bad (unless they have no cause then you might have some mental problems). It depends more on what your hating or are angry at; I hate Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Theocratic Dictatorships, etc. Does this automatically brand me as an immoral person? Is it immoral to hate in and of itself even if the object of your hate is pure evil? From any sort of rational perspective no.
"Sliming your political opponents by implying that they're somehow related to something really bad, like the Ku Klux Klan, is a tried and true rhetorical maneuver. But when you start taking your own rhetoric too seriously, as many a conservative "grass roots" activist does, well, then you just look like a fool."
-It was never said anything about you being really bad; you are grouped with them because you are ignorant. However, now that I have thought about it some more, you do advocate the same method of determining justice as the KKK, which is the subjective consideration of who and what their conditions are, as opposed to examining what they have done. Daniel never implied you were the most of the worst, even though you spout social subjectivist non-sense. I think you are ignorant of what your proposals will ultimately end with in reality. However, we as objectivists take our viewpoints very seriously because we take ideas actively, which, in turn, is the same reason why we practice objectivism. If anybody should be worried about looking like the fool, it would be the man who only talks of the non-sense that he does take seriously."
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-The bottom-line is identical in all of the previous responses; quit with the BS.
-Thanks, Mgmt.
