1/1 Randoids go berserk, disagree with tsunami aid.
http://csua.org/u/ajf (Ayn Rand Institute)
Money sentence is the one about how "most" of the victims were hurt
through "no fault of their own."
\_ Ah, yes, the age old question of governmental aid. The fallacy of
the article, like most of Objectivism, is its failure to acknowledge
interdependency, much like the failure of it's diametric opposite,
Communism, albeit in a different manner. Complex social systems
rarely break down into over-arching theories of what should and
should not be done. But it does raise an interesting issue, when
should aid be given and when should it not? If someone disagrees
with an agenda and questions its efficacy, shouldn't we take time
to consider it rather than outright rejecting it? It appears
that the left and the right are both ramming things down their
respective throats without evern considering the other side...
\_ Like all libertarians, they are right wing shills: take a look
at their essays on Iraq from the 90's when Clinton was in power, and
then what they have to say when Bush is in power. They use the
same rhetoric about how "our leaders lack moral certainty," but
the message is clear: Republican good, Democrat bad.
Libertarians: Republicans, only more pompous, and with more lies.
\_ This is flat wrong, which explains why you don't provide URLs.
Among libertarians many faults is a tendendcy to be overly
isolationist (politically). As with the vast majority of the
libertarian ideal, it is absolutely wrong in theory, but since
society is so far gone in the opposite direction, the policy
implications are mostly correct.
Libertarians, particularly the libertarian party, have been among
the most outspoken opponents of the war in IRAQ and this Bush
administration in general. I don't know what The Ayn Rand Inst.
has to say and don't care. She is an idiot and her followers are
worse. All groups have their fanatic/moronic fringe, and when
you are a fringe group to begin with, well ...
\_ The URL to back up what I said is simply the OP's URL. I
clicked around and read their essays on various subjects.
They sounded exactly identical to our loudest local
libertarian here on the motd. I hope I am wrong about
libertarians at large. Do you want to point me to what
you consider to be a representative libertarian
website/book/article?
\-For "respectable" academic Libertarianism, see
R. Nozick: Anarchy, State and Utopia. --psb
\_ Thanks! I'll check that out.
\_ 1st, The left-right dichotomy is lame (see other threads).
2nd, going with it anyway, the greens are shills for the left
much more than libertarians are shills for the right. As i've
said before: Libertarians gloat when they take votes away from
Republicans. Contrast this to Nader supporters. Libs under-
stand that one corporate bought, pandering, fear-mongering
aristocrat from one faction of The Party is effectively the same
as the other.
\_ While Randroids are libertarians, they represent libertarianism
about as well as the PETA folk represent Evironmentalism.
I.e. not at all.
\- As with racist and bigots, this seems to be one of those cases
where I want to see them "talk more" and undermine themselves and
reveal themselves for what the are. A good essay is "The Procedural
Republic and the Unencumbered Self". It is avail from JSTOR. BTW,
"randoid" has been deprecated in favor of "Randroid".
\- re: "all libertarians ..." i think there is a
respectable academic argument to be made by
libertaianism. however i think many libertarians
outside academia are "accidental libertarians"
... meaning they are really not interested in where
the philosophical arguments take them, but the cleve
to a philosophy which seems more respectable than
simple Hedonism to justify [sic] being the way they
are [selfish hedonists]. i think the philosophical
sophistication totem pole looks something like this:
hedonists [people who say things like "i need to be
true to myself"], then randroids ["altruism is
corrupting"], then libertarians ["contractualism" is
a pretty powerful argument]. there are a few
reasonable libertarians ... like by best friend, who
is one of the most considerate persons i know ... but
they are generally not "libertarians unius libri".
This is sort of a funny story about the Academic
Libertarian-in-Chief: http://csua.org/u/ajg ... one
Berkeley people can relate to. ok tnx.
\_ I am a little confused by the (lack of) distinction.
Hedonism is a moral commitment, libertarianism a
political one. Related to be sure, but not the
same. Are you saying it's unsophisticated to be
concerned with political philosophy? I think
adopting a position to see where it takes you
is quite a bit more phony than adopting one you
actually believe in (because of how you are).
Life is not a rhetoric class. -- ilyas
\-what is phony is shopping around for a
justification that sounds better than
"do whatever you want and take whatever you
can get" whent that is what you believe.
some people answer the question "what do we owe
one another?" with "whatever!" [in the sarcastic
sense of "i dont care to talk about this"], some
with "nothing." and still other with "nothing,
because...". what i am saying is the reasoning
in many people's case is an appendage adopted
for the sake of form, not truly to explain why
you have arrived at a particular place. BUSHCO
didnt invade iraq to free the iraqi people,
although it's convenient to trot out. on the
flip side, meaning you dont get moral credit
for someting done out of inclination rather than
duty, as sondheim writes "nice is different than
good".
\_ Partha, you are projecting. People who are
hedonists tend to view selfishness as a
virtue, not a vice in need of justification.
Whether you get credit for something done
out of inclination or out of dity depends on
your ethics. Not everyone's a Kantian.
-- ilyas
\_ I'm not trying to be an asshole here, I'm just
curious: why *do* you think BUSHCO invaded
Iraq, exactly?
\- i think they believed in WMD. I think they
were wrong. i think they should have been
fired for being wrong. i think they are
incapable of admitting it. i think thier
reputation in history should have been in
tatters.
\_ No, believing in WMD (which i agree they
did) is just like believing that tax cuts
for the wealthy are the right thing for
the economy. They believe it because it
justifies what they want to do. WHY they
wanted to invade IRAQ is because it was
an untennable situation with a leader who
hated america growing in power while his
country(and the world) suffered due to
sanctions that we couldn't/wouldn't lift.
The only people benifiting from the sitch
was the UN and
thoze embezzling from their program(s).
It was a bad situation and many leaders
in the bush admin felt it was a giant
loose end that they wanted to tie up.
They just grossly underestimated the
aftermath of occupation (as historically
countries have). -phuqm
\- another value of non-anon posting is
it's either to figure out who is
not worth talking to. you cant compare
facts [existence of WMDs] and values
[progressive taxation] and theories
[what econ effects of policy X will
be]. --psb
\_ I wasn't comparing facts with
values, i was comparing MOTIVATIONS
and rationalization. Politicians
wanted to cut taxes on those that
contributed to their campaigns, so
when some Academics came along and
told them that was what was good for
the country, they were quickly able
to believe that. When (other) pols
wanted to invade Iraq and the intel.
community said Iraq had, or soon
would have WMD, they found it very
easy to believe. -phuqm
easy to believe. To paraphrase and
distort: "The facticity of a
proposition has little to do with
it's believability." -phuqm
\_ Apostrophe abuse! Three demerits!
\_ ugg, fixed. -phuqm
\_ Demerits retracted.
\_ I somehow doubt that last bit.
Everyone else was talking about the
aftermath problems. They chose to
simply ignore that because it would
provide support for opposition. The
whole war was done this way: build up
troops without a war, oh now we have
to fight, it would look stupid to
withdraw all those troops, oh look
things are fucked up, well we can't
cut and run, you have to give us a lot
more money, sorry bout that, support
our troops and all, etc.
\_ http://www.newamericancentury.org -tom |
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