From: sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steven Arnold)
Subject: Re: 2 questions
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1993 07:54:14 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College

In article <29DEC199210015387@mivax.mc.duke.edu>, seth@mivax.mc.duke.edu (Judge Not) writes:
|> What a wonderful group I stumbled on.  Intelligent discussions and no flames.
|> I must be dreaming.
|> 
|> Anyway, two questions:
|> 
|> 1) Looks to me everyone here is an anarchist, or at least a libertarian.  Does 
|> this follow naturally from objectivist thinking?  Ie., if I am rational, then no
|> one else (government included) has the right to tell me what to do?

	I am not an anarchist.  Neither, by the way, was Rand, and I really don't
think that the principles of Objectivism can possibly lead to anarchism (by which
I mean the condemnation of all government as contrary to human freedom).
	In fact, I'd say that if anarchy were ever realized, it would be followed
quickly by tyranny, and probably a fairly severe and unhappy tyranny.  If anybody
should be able to do absolutely anything they wanted to do, then why shouldn't
fundamentalists of every stripe get together, take over by force, and force their
religious beliefs on everyone else?  What could possibly be wrong with that? 
It's what they want to do, after all.
	If you maintain that people have rights which cannot be violated, then
you are faced with two choices.  If you say there should be no government, then
you must admit that for all eternity, those rights will mean nothing in a
practical sense, because without government we will quickly end up with rule by
the strong, plain and simple.  But if you advocate some form of government as an
effective means of protecting rights, then you are not an anarchist, but rather
some brand of libertarian (there are many).
	Now, if you're going to tell me that the system we live under is rule by
the strong, I'd say you're part wrong and part right.  I would observe, first of
all, that while we still have tyranny in the US, we have a heck of a lot less
than has ever been known before in the history of the world.  To me, that proves
pretty effectively that SOME government is better than NO government as far as
protecting people's rights.
	Nevertheless, the objection has merit.  We in the US have rights because
we have a powerful government, a government which is sufficiently powerful to
dissuade others from trying to take what is ours.  So yes, in a sense it is still
rule by the powerful.

|> 2) I've read Rand's fiction but not much of her political works.  What I did 
|> read didn't seem purely "rational" or up to date or all that impressive.  
|> I'm under the impression objectivism and/or the libertarians have left her 
|> in the dust.  Not to diminish the importance of Rand's founding ideas... 
|> At any rate, correct me if I'm wrong.  This is just a query.

	I'm the exact opposite of you: I've read her political stuff and skipped
the fiction.  I think Rand deserves a great deal of credit for injecting
penetrating thought, sound argument and rational philosophy into what had been a
rather chaotic libertarian philosophy.  I don't agree with everything she says,
but I do agree with a good deal of it.  Similarly, I don't agree with everything
Aristotle said, but he was a giant nonetheless, and mankind would be half what it
is without him.
	I think Rand is rather weak in the Fundamental Whys department.  Why do
people have rights at all?  I don't think that saying "just because they're
rational" cuts it.  Nor does saying "people must be rational in order to live;
therefore, it is a right of everyone to behave rationally."  How does necessity
imply a right?  For example, suppose that for some reason it was necessary for me
to kill a dozen people to continue living.  Would I have a right to do so?  In my
opinion, definitely not!

Steve