Lounge Daddy Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 [img]http://michellemalkin.cachefly.net/michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/42106846v1_150x150_front.jpg[/img][url="http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=22647"]For good reason[/url], I think. [url="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html"]A WSJ op-ed[/url] points out that we are living in a real life Atlas Shrugged. [indent]For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism. In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that? [img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3575/3287898143_82ac000d62.jpg[/img] These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.[/indent] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Atlas Shrugged is SO WEIRD... I'm pretty right wing, but I just despise Ayn Rand's characters. I got through We The Living, but Atlas Shrugged takes it to the nth degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lounge Daddy Posted February 28, 2009 Author Share Posted February 28, 2009 Oh really? I haven't read it. It's just too huge and, really, I'd rather spend that kind of time on other things. However I did read [i]Anthem[/i], and that one was was pretty cool. Quite odd in a good, original sci-fi kinda' way; and it made its point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 [quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1792961' date='Feb 27 2009, 08:59 PM']Oh really? I haven't read it. It's just too huge and, really, I'd rather spend that kind of time on other things. However I did read [i]Anthem[/i], and that one was was pretty cool. Quite odd in a good, original sci-fi kinda' way; and it made its point.[/quote] Probably similar in a lot of ways. Atlas Shrugged is generally considered to be her defining work, so obviously I was interested... I'm still not through it. It's 'on hiatus' because I can't empathize with any character. In fact I just want them all to die in a tragic accident. I hate every single one of them. I only have an interest in Ayn Rand because of Terry Goodkind, who is my favourite fiction author despite his wacky philosophy and atheism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lounge Daddy Posted February 28, 2009 Author Share Posted February 28, 2009 (edited) [quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1792967' date='Feb 27 2009, 11:03 PM']... Terry Goodkind, who is my favourite fiction author despite his wacky philosophy and atheism.[/quote] Ya, I don't mind the atheists that are not like today's so-called "fundamentalist atheists." (Just so no one misunderstands, I do mind atheism.) I agree with most of Rynd's philosophy, and that one fiction that I read of her's was good. I doubt I'll read [i]Atlas[/i]. But I've never read Goodkind. Where would you recommend I begin? Edited February 28, 2009 by Lounge Daddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesus_lol Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 yeah Goodkind has a lot of Rands theories and style in his books. except his characters are actually likeable. he is one of my favourite writers as well, start with "wizards first rule" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Read Anthem. Remember enjoying it okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 I actually don't have a problem with a lot of Goodkind's version of Objectivism. It's very much rooted in human dignity and more obviously human freedom. Only trouble is that he takes human freedom to mean freedom *from* everything, and he rejects God on that basis. Takes it to a flawed but understandable conclusion. He's very 'moral' though. It's very interesting to disect. His first book is Wizard's First Rule. Definitely start of my favourite series of books. I have all of them, plus a second signed copy of Confessor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenchild17 Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 I'm reading (very slowly and not very intensely) Atlas and Anthem. I agree with a lot of her points, but I think she goes overboard. Don't really have time to get into why, but if you want you can check out this link: [url="http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/critics/personal.html"]http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/critics/personal.html[/url] that has some critiques of her stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachael Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 always loved her books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akalyte Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Ayn rand is one of the architects of the culture of death..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dairygirl4u2c Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 she's the sort of person you should read as a young person. it's the first degree of understanding. then you eventualy have to branch off from her, into the exceptions. per economics. the government is not always bad, per social justice, or even per what's the most efficient or effective solution-- and this is what's to be understood, the why's etc. she's also a prpoonent of abortion. anyone who claims to be objective is laughable. as long as she means she's pursuing it and not preaching it-- i always got the sense she thought the latter per se. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lounge Daddy Posted March 1, 2009 Author Share Posted March 1, 2009 [quote name='Akalyte' post='1793549' date='Feb 28 2009, 11:55 AM']Ayn rand is one of the architects of the culture of death.....[/quote] According to the book, [i]Architects of the Culture of Death[/i], I guess a few authors think so. She got her own chapter in that book. But I disagree with the author for including Ayn Rand alongside people like Marx and Sanger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Are there any quotes or sources regarding her stance on abortion, etc.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenchild17 Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 [quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1794154' date='Mar 1 2009, 12:22 AM']Are there any quotes or sources regarding her stance on abortion, etc.?[/quote] I found a few. Visit this site for her views on these and many other topics: [url="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sex.html"]http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sex.html[/url] (I haven't the time to actually check the original of all these sources to confirm if these statements are accurate and valid representations of her views, but I don't see the site having any particular reason to make it up) - [quote]An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn). Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body? “Of Living Death,” The Objectivist, Oct. 1968, 6d[/quote] [quote]Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable . . . . Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives. The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone’s benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings. “A Last Survey,” The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3[/quote] [quote]If any among you are confused or taken in by the argument that the cells of an embryo are living human cells, remember that so are all the cells of your body, including the cells of your skin, your tonsils, or your ruptured appendix—and that cutting them is murder, according to the notions of that proposed law. Remember also that a potentiality is not the equivalent of an actuality—and that a human being’s life begins at birth. The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse. I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women’s intensity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today’s intellectual field, they call themselves “pro-life.” By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices? “The Age of Mediocrity,” The Objectivist Forum, June 1981, 3[/quote] [quote]A proper, philosophically valid definition of man as “a rational animal,” would not permit anyone to ascribe the status of “person” to a few human cells. “The Age of Mediocrity,” The Objectivist Forum, June 1981, 2[/quote] [quote]The capacity to procreate is merely a potential which man is not obligated to actualize. The choice to have children or not is morally optional. Nature endows man with a variety of potentials—and it is his mind that must decide which capacities he chooses to exercise, according to his own hierarchy of rational goals and values. The mere fact that man has the capacity to kill, does not mean that it is his duty to become a murderer; in the same way, the mere fact that man has the capacity to procreate, does not mean that it is his duty to commit spiritual suicide by making procreation his primary goal and turning himself into a stud-farm animal &hellip. To an animal, the rearing of its young is a matter of temporary cycles. To man, it is a lifelong responsibility—a grave responsibility that must not be undertaken causelessly, thoughtlessly or accidentally. In regard to the moral aspects of birth control, the primary right involved is not the “right” of an unborn child, nor of the family, nor of society, nor of God. The primary right is one which—in today’s public clamor on the subject—few, if any, voices have had the courage to uphold: the right of man and woman to their own life and happiness—the right not to be regarded as the means to any end. “Of Living Death,” The Objectivist, Oct. 1968, 3[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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