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| 5/24 |
| 2005/1/1-2 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:35508 Activity:insanely high |
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 |
| 5/24 |
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| csua.org/u/ajf -> www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10688&news_iv_ctrl=1021 Support ARI Op-Eds US Should Not Help Tsunami Victims Thursday December 30, 2004 By: David Holcberg Our money is not the government's to give. As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday's tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, e specially considering that most of those affected by this tragedy are su ffering through no fault of their own. The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Every dollar the go vernment hands out as foreign aid has to be extorted from an American ta xpayer first. Year after year, for decades, the government has forced Am erican taxpayers to provide foreign aid to every type of natural or man- made disaster on the face of the earth: from the Marshall Plan to recons truct a war-ravaged Europe to the $15 billion recently promised to fight AIDS in Africa to the countless amounts spent to help the victims of ea rthquakes, fires and floods--from South America to Asia. Even the enemie s of the United States were given money extorted from American taxpayers : from the billions given away by Clinton to help the starving North Kor eans to the billions given away by Bush to help the blood-thirsty Palest inians under Arafat's murderous regime. The question no one asks about our politicians' "generosity" towards the world's needy is: By what right? By what right do they take our hard-ear ned money and give it away? The reason politicians can get away with doling out money that they have no right to and that does not belong to them is that they have the moral ity of altruism on their side. According to altruism--the morality that most Americans accept and that politicians exploit for all it's worth--t hose who have more have the moral obligation to help those who have less . This is why Americans--the wealthiest people on earth--are expected to sacrifice (voluntarily or by force) the wealth they have earned to prov ide for the needs of those who did not earn it. It is Americans' accepta nce of altruism that renders them morally impotent to protest against th e confiscation and distribution of their wealth. It is past time to ques tion--and to reject--such a vicious morality that demands that we sacrif ice our values instead of holding on to them. Next time a politician gives away money taken from you to show what a goo d, compassionate altruist he is, ask yourself: By what right? David Holcberg is a research associate at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvin e, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of A tlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. |
| csua.org/u/ajg -> home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/Anarchy_Cambridge_and_RentControl.txt Anarchy, State, and Rent Control (excerpted from _The New Republic_ Dec. All emphasis and parenthetical comments are in the original. Postcard Cambridge: ANARCHY, STATE, AND RENT CONTROL Robert Nozick, a philosophy professor at Harvard, is the intellectual hero of libertarians. His book, _Anarchy, State, and Utopia_, winner of the National Book Award in 1974, argues that "free minds and free markets" are the key to a successful society. While endorsing personal choice on social issues like drugs and pornography, Nozick mocked the economic interventionism of contemporary liberals who, he said, are "willing to tolerate every kind of behavior except capitalistic acts between consenting adults." Alas, it now appears that like so many other advocates of the free market, Nozick is willing to make one small exception --himself. In September 1983, Nozick signed a one-year lease on a condominium apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, owned by Eric Segal, the eminent classical scholar and author of _Love Story_. Segal, who bought the place in 1972, has lived there only occasionally and now resides in England. The apartment is a beauty, actually two combined units with 2,500 square feet of space, a wine "safe", Jacuzzi, sauna, and a 50-foot balcony overlooking the Charles River. As a consenting adult, Nozick agreed to pay Segal $1,900 a month. When the lease came up for renewal a year later, Segal bumped the rent up to $2,400. A lot, but Cambridge is a hot real estate market and Nozick, as a consenting adult, signed again for another year. Cambridge, after all, has one of the nation's most draconic rent control ordinances --as do many college communities where students and junior professors have imposed economic regulations on the "townies" who rent them apartments during the school year. Was it possible, Nozick wondered, that Segal might be violating the law? Less than a month later, Nozick showed up at the offices of the Cambridge Rent Control Board and asked if the city rent regulation applied to his apartment. "We told him it certainly did," said Bernard "Buddy" Packer, who makes sure all rents are fair and square in Cambridge. "The final, legal, maximum rent on that apartment should have been $1,900." And so the matter was settled, as far as Buddy Packer and the Rent Control Board were concerned. Like the son of a missionary discovering pornography, Nozick apparently became fascinated with rent control. "I was up there showing the apartment to some brokers at one point," says Ken Edelman, a New York attorney who was soon representing Segal. "There was a copy of the Cambridge Rent Control Ordinance sitting on the coffee table." Nozick decided the situation was more grave than even the rent control board had suspected. In Cambridge, rent increases are allowed only through occasional citywide raises, or through individual exceptions granted to petitioning landlords. The law says it is the rent at which the apartment was let when the ordinance first went into effect. Multifamily unit housing was regulated in 1970 and owner-occupied condominiums were brought under the law as of March 31, 1976. If an apartment was not being rented at the time, the first rent at which it was let becomes the base rent. All subsequent raises are figured by a complicated formula only the Cambridge Rent Control Board seems to understand. Segal had rented out the apartment several times before to friends and acquaintances. After some investigating, Nozick turned up a couple in the building who house-sat the apartment for six months in 1976, without a lease, paying only $675 a month. Even though he had no contractual right to stay in Segal's apartment, he did not want to move out. Under Cambridge's rent control ordinance, even a tenant without a lease is evictable only if the owner himself wanted to move into the apartment. Not only did Nozick stay put, but a month later he filed suit against Segal in Cambridge District Court. Nozick argued the rent --based on the $675 base figure-- should now be only about $800. He demanded a $25,000 refund for two years of "overpayment" --plus triple damages. In May 1986 the Cambridge Rent Control Board issued a new ruling. Basing the rent on a 1977 lease where the tenant had paid $1,000, the board decided the final, legal, maximum rent should be $1,303. Nozick agreed to move out of the apartment on September 15, and Segal agreed to pay his tenant $31,000. "We thought it was a pretty good settlement," said Edelman, Segal's attorney. "Cambridge's rent control ordinance is one of the strictest in the country. Based on the $1,303 figure, however, the refund for the entire three-year "overcharge" should have been about $21,000. "With Nozick in there, the apartment was virtually unmarketable. No one, not even a philosopher, is morally obligated to live as if the world were the way he wishes it were. Robert Nozick pays taxes and is entitled to enjoy the government benefits they finance --even benefits he thinks should not exist. Perhaps the libertarian philosopher should not be expected to opt out of rent control voluntarily. But should he be pursuing his landlord through the maze of rent control regulations like a man possessed? And should he be using his ability to make a nuisance of himself under these regulations for simple, if lawful, cash extortion? If you're looking for someone to manipulate a rent control ordinance, find an advocate of the free market. |
| www.newamericancentury.org The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational orga nization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American lead ership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral pr inciple; and that too few political leaders today are making the case fo r global leadership. The Project for the New American Century intends, through issue briefs, r esearch papers, advocacy journalism, conferences, and seminars, to expla in what American world leadership entails. It will also strive to rally support for a vigorous and principled policy of American international i nvolvement and to stimulate useful public debate on foreign and defense policy and America's role in the world. |