From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: Negative Income Tax (Was: Social programs)
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 05:58:27 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.181556.29061@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>In article <1993Jan3.072921.9716@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>
>>When "the right to vote" exists and is seen to be meaningful and
>>able to be exercised by the poorest in the society, this is the
>>best protector of all the individual rights of all the rest of
>>the citizens, including the property of the well-to-do.
>
>you still haven't the foggiest about what rights are, how they work
>and how they interact. pretty sad. still sure that you have no
>prioritization of rights, that which you accused objectivists of?
>

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a "right" as "a thing one
may legally or morally claim; the state of being entitled to a
privilege or immunity or authority to act".

This is the precisely the sense in which I have been using the
term "right", as in the "right to vote" and "the right to property"...
it is a positive definition about what one is able to do, not a
negative one defined in terms of what others may possibly do to you,
which is the sense you have been promoting it.  The notion of
individual rights whether it be the right to free expression, the
right to property, or the right to vote does impose obligations
and limitations on not only government, but on other individuals...
the obligation to other individuals from the notion of rights is
mostly one of tolerance, but both the right to property and the
right to vote do impose a minor finanical obligation on individuals,
whether it be to support the courts, police, and the well-being of
those incarcerated, and a minimal social-safety net to guarentee
that all individuals are able to exercise their right to vote...
and this notion of a "right" as I have used it is entirely
consistently which its commonly acceptedly denotation and connotation...
and not some twisted Randian redefinition to fit into Objectivist
fundamentalism.

>
>>A human being is not a rational animal, if they are starving, and
>>the other citizens cannot expect that starving human being will act
>>rationally.  There are enough real criminals to worry about...it
>>is foolish to create them, along with the need for more police.
>
>this is a practicality argument that does not belong in a
>philosophical debate. in fact, you are the one who insisted upon
>this in another post, when i raised the issue of potential compromise,
>remember?  don't even *start* with me on practicality --
>because the practicality of your "right to vote" perversion is even
>worse than its theoretical foundation.
>

Thanks for conceding that your philosophy has nothing to do with
the reality of life, economics, and politics of individual human beings
and their societies.  What an assertion...don't let reality interfere
with the argument or the debate!  The test of any philosophy, ideology,
or scientific theory is reality...now it is clear that what you offer
is a fundamentalist dogma, since you don't appear to give a damn whether it
has anything to do with reality.

>>The right to vote does put constraints on the right to property, but
>>ultimately, democracy will impose the minimal constraints on the
>>right to property.
>
>so now you admit the hierarchy that you refused to admit before?
>where is your response to my demonstration in a previous post
>that you actually have at least as strong a hierarchy as an
>objectivist (even though yours is not nearly as supportable)?
>the evidence that you are willing to tolerate any obscenity to guarantee
>your definition of the right to vote?
>

The right to vote puts less constraints on the right to property than
the taxation necessary to maintain the courts, the polices, the prisons,
and the cost to feed and house all the prisoners, costs required to
guarentee the right to property.  I am not saying the right to vote
is more important than the right to property...the lines are or should
be drawn in the grey areas to maximize the ability of individuals to
exercise both rights, just as the line is drawn between freedom of
expression and other rights.

>>Too bad more Objectivists would not read Les Miserables along with 
>>Atlas Shrugged.
>
>this is mere foolishness. you project your ignorance upon those you
>unsuccessfully criticize. you also demonstrate more socialist bias
>by this statement, which you will no doubt protest again without
>valid counter-argument.
>

A socialist does not believe in property rights...I do.

>
>i refuse to continue this alleged discussion with you any longer.
>you clearly don't know how to debate; you don't understand objectivism;
>you confuse practicalities with philosophies (i.e. "what will
>you do with the people who are starving", when we were only considering
>how philosophically *right* it was for them to have a right to food);
>you can't even admit when you have been proven wrong -- instead you
>ignore arguments that i spend literally hours putting together.
>

Philosophy is not divorced from reality...philosophy is about the
heart of reality...the thing that I find amazing, it the statement
I am making now is a statement an Objectivist would make, and
the statement you have made is typically what Objectivists would
say the enemies of Objectivism would make.

Gerald