Imagine

[Zundfolge]

Well, Ayn Rand's philosophy in a nutshell is that it's unethical to do something for someone unless you're getting something out of it.

That's just flat wrong ... that's like saying that the central thesis of Christian philosophy is about eating bread and drinking wine.


Ayn Rand's philosophy is that it is wrong to force someone to do something for someone else without compensation and it is evil to expect others to do things for you without some form of compensation. Its based on the idea that freedom and liberty can only truly exist when people are free to pursue their own interests and are not enslaved by obligations the unproductive.

That doesn't mean no charity and no caring for your fellow man or just looking out for #1, it means no forced charity ... no coerced egalitarianism ... no sharing the fruits of your mind and your labor at gunpoint.

It means that the powers that be can't say "your work is useful therefore it belongs to everyone else and that schmuck over there who goofs off all the time and/or is an idiot gets to benefit from your hard work as much as you do (and actually a little more since he didn't have to work for it in the first place)".

I'm all for GNU and Open source as long as its voluntary ... eliminating copyright and patent laws is NOT voluntary and is nothing more then government complicity in theft.

If GNU proves to be the better solution in a truly free and open market then that's wonderful, but using government to force one person to freely give of the work of their mind or their back is slavery and just simply immoral, unethical and evil.


My response was to the goofy Utopian idea that if we did away with patents that the world would be a better place, not to the concept of free GNU licensing.


And if you don't like Rand there's always Freidrich Hayek, Thomas Sowell or Walter E Williams.

[kleeman]

OK then lets take this crackpot philosophy of Rand to its logical (and absurd) end:

1) I don't like my (hard earned) tax dollars being spent to fund the US Army in Iraq. Can I get a refund from the neocons? I don't think so.

2) I am funded to do environmental research. The oil industry (who pay taxes) doesn't like my research because it threatens their revenue stream by showing that greenhouse warming is caused by the oil industries products. Thus the Oil industry is being effectively coerced to fund my research. Can they get a refund? I don't think so.

The obvious consequence of these arguments is that no taxation is possible in Rand's philosophy because it implies coercion. Is a no taxation world a good one? Of course not because we all have communal responsibilities. Do right wing republicans who claim to support Rand believe in abolishing taxation? Some do but most want to keep the US military even if it is funded partially by pacifists.

All this shows that these right wing "intellectuals" cannot be taken seriously. They are taken "seriously" by neocons because the philosophy offers a convenient smokescreen for defending monopolists who pay the neocons their salary.

[poofyhairguy]

Unfortunately in "the States", it seems that success is only measured by how much money you make. So economic might makes right. When the country was first founded, religious extremists (such as puritans, quackers) valued hard work more than anything. Your success was determined by how much you were respected in your community because of your work. Then prohibition brought quick money and a new facination with wealth and its been downhill from there.

What I think is interesting is how many common (as in not rich) Americans support allowing Big Companies and rich people do almost whatever they want (and avoid all the taxes they want). These people seem to buy the American dream hook, line and sinker- they support laws favoring the ******* elite "because one day I might become the ******* elite." They constantly believe the tripe that as long as they work hard, they too will one day party like Billy G. (note: I think B. G. is actually a halfway decent person- he has given up most of his ill gained money- but there a LOT of really bad rich people). In truth illegal mexicans work harder in a week than the average rich white person works in a year, but the rich white people stay on top because they are part of a social network that allows them to get jobs from their rich friends (or in the case of the president and his employment before the whitehouse- from daddy's rich friends). And they sit and there country clubs and spend billions on marketing -"join the Republicans- the new majority"- to continue to trap the common man in that ******** they call an American dream.

Sorry for the rant.....John Lennon always brings out the fire in me.....

[kassetra]

Sorry for the rant.....John Lennon always brings out the fire in me.....

Either that or you might want to switch to decaf.

[poofyhairguy]

Either that or you might want to switch to decaf.

lol

EDIT: True.

[Chris Ferrell]

Don't confuse FSF/GNU extremists with Open Source.

http://linux.omnipotent.net/article....ticle_id=12503

Someone like Richard Stallman does have a political agenda that goes beyond software, so be careful when you start throwing out words like "neo-con" because it can come back to haunt you.

[Chris Ferrell]

Advocating abolition of copyrights is a political agenda that takes away rights from producers. I reject that.

[machiner]

It's a good thing I'm in a Sonny Rollins "Grand Street" kind of a mood, else I might have to lay in deep to all this Ayn Rand nonesense.

Debates like this are best left to those living large outside of someone's back pocket, and having their house in order.

I get pretty insulted when Homo Sapien is described as having a "civilized" characteristic. Treading the abused snake of this diatribe leads nowhere and only gives merit to simpletons like Rand.

Including the likes of Rand and some further expose within a post entitled "Imagine" scares me no end.