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Showing posts with label Individualism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Individualism. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2016

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MEANING OF A VALUED AND PRINCIPLED SOVEREIGN NATION



Tony Newbill Left a comment to my “It’s Time to PREVENT a Dem from POTUS” on the NCCR Blog. The same post at SlantRight 2.0 garnered 1918 views as of today. The essence of that post is that I am Cruzer but we Conservatives should unite under the Trump aegis to make sure crooked Hillary the closet Alinsky-Marxist is not elected to perpetuate the third term of the America-destroying Obama. Between Facebook Groups and Google+ Communities I was quite astonished that there so much Conservative venom against Trump that many said they would write-in Ted Cruz or simply not vote. By the way that sort of anti-Trump venom ensures crooked Hillary is elected POTUS making difficult to impossible for the USA to retrieve American Exceptionalism.

Tony Newbill takes an entirely different tact for encouraging a Trump vote. This quote provides an insight that Conservative purists at all costs should consider:

Trump is NOT a Globalist like the RINO/Liberal Commies that want to Globally Enslave us all together in a one Class society. He will Retool our Nation so we can self-supply ourselves once again and be free from the Globalist Controlling Oligarchy of Overpopulation Control Ideologues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JRH 5/7/16
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WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MEANING OF A VALUED AND PRINCIPLED SOVEREIGN NATION

Tony Newbill (as n3angus)

Here is why we the Individual Citizens have been pillaged of our affordable living standards and are seeking a politician that wants to correct this demise of the people.

Globalist peril vs. The Individual
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrixclick here.)

First, the Globalist peril.

“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” –David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2003

The man who wrote those words represents a family that has dominated banking, oil, modern medicine, behind-the-scenes politics, and powerhouses of Globalism (e.g., the Council on Foreign Relations) for a century.

Globalism asserts that no nation can be independent from “the family” of other nations, as if it were a matter of fact beyond dispute. A nation claiming its sovereignty thus becomes a lunatic traitor to the natural order of things.

What really binds nations to one another is propaganda, and treaties which are based on the same propaganda, resulting in engorged super-profits for mega-corporations.

Globalism is a secular piece of messianic hype. A Disneyesque altruism is the prow of the ship. Spend 10 minutes educating any street hustler on Globalist principles, and he would recognize it as a standard long con.

Obama’s recent warning to the Brits, that their withdrawing from the Globalist European Union would put them at the back of the line in negotiating a separate trade treaty with the United States, was sheer fiction.

Britain, or any nation, that has goods to sell and a desire to buy will find trade partners. An agreement could READ THE REST (Globalist peril vs. The Individual; By Jon Rappoport; Jon Rappoport’s Blog; 5/4/16)

Donald Trump is rallying together a Coalition that wants this correction to our standard of living that’s been attacked by the Globalist Ideologues like the Bill and Hillary Clinton fascism that has been allowed to exist now for as long as we the people have been ON DECLINE!!!!!

Clinton Cash - Official Trailer


Posted by Drake
Published on Apr 28, 2016

Clinton Cash - Official Trailer
Hillary Clinton documentary 2016

IT’S OVER Bill and HILLARY CLINTON and all your little CRONYS on both SIDES of the Political Aisle!!!!!!!!!!

Trump is NOT a Globalist like the RINO/Liberal Commies that want to Globally Enslave us all together in a one Class society. He will Retool our Nation so we can self-supply ourselves once again and be free from the Globalist Controlling Oligarchy of Overpopulation Control Ideologues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See all this Globalization is designed to bring a society of like-Minded supporters and a Crisis to open the door to destabilization and then Government Control to solve the problem THEY ARE CREATING!!!!!!!! You remember what Rahm Emanuel said don't you?????


Trump: Muslim Migration “Destroying Europe, I’m Not Gonna Let that Happen to the U.S.”
Fresh off his massive victory in Indiana, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today that he would stick by his controversial policy on Muslim immigration because the migrant crisis is “destroying Europe”.

Trump’s proposal to place a temporary halt on Muslim immigration to the United States was perhaps his most incendiary of the campaign, but the New York billionaire shows no signs of walking it back.

Asked if he still believed “Muslims should be banned from entering the country until we can figure out what’s going on,” Trump said that he didn’t care if the policy hurt his chances in a general election.

“Look at what’s happening. It’s terrible what they have done to some of these countries of they are going to destroy — they are destroying Europe. I’m not going to let that happen to the United States,” said Trump, chiding Obama for refusing to even use the term “radical Islamic terrorism”.



Posted by MSNBC
Published on May 4, 2016

Republican presidential candidate and likely GOP nominee, Donald Trump, joins Morning Joe the morning after his big Indiana win to discuss everything from why George Will is a 'major loser' to what kind of person he may want for a VP pick.


Heralding the fact that “a civilian in the truest sense got the nomination of a major party,” Trump asserted he had been guided by “common sense” and that he would continue to follow that path.

“We have to be READ THE REST (Trump: Muslim Migration “Destroying Europe, I’m Not Gonna Let that Happen to the U.S.”; By Paul Joseph Watson; D.C. Clothesline; 5/4/16)

All these Conservative guys run around thinking all you gotta do is return to the Values and Principles of the Conservative Platform and all will be fine, but on a Global scale you are wrong. From a Sovereign nation basis, you are right, but both cannot exist anymore on the same platform!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that reason is Supply and Demand and who’s producing more than they demand and today we have a world that’s in the near future Predicting demand out pacing more than it can produce!!!!! From a Sovereign basis we the people in the USA have first a sustainable population growth and abundances of resources. So the question becomes what do you want? To continue with the current globalization of your abundance or a Return to self-reliance and domestically supplied abundant USA that can support your Values and Principles of the Conservative Platform?????

Trump has Reason to push back on the 2-big-2-fail Fascist Establishment .... as they have always been at the root of Economic Repression and Depression causing everyone's standard of Living demise!!!!! And they do these things for a reason .... control!!!!!!!!!!
Guess who is complaining that condominiums in Donald Trump’s latest big project are ridiculously overpriced.

Donald Trump is.

But he isn’t cutting the prices. He says the banks won’t let him.

The project is the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which is to be the second-tallest building in that city (after the Sears Tower). By Mr. Trump’s account, sales were going great until “the real estate market in Chicago suffered a severe downturn” and the bankers made it worse by “creating the current financial crisis.”

Those assertions are made in a fascinating lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump, the real estate developer, television personality and best-selling author, in an effort to avoid paying $40 million that he personally guaranteed on a construction loan that Deutsche Bank says is due and payable.

Rather than have to pay the $40 million, Mr. Trump thinks the bank should pay him $3 billion for undermining the project and damaging his reputation.

He points to a “force majeure” clause in the lending agreement READ THE REST (Trump Sees Act of God in Recession; By FLOYD NORRIS; NY Times; 12/4/08)

Here is why we see the 2-big-2-fail Establishment Fascists CAUSE Economic REPRESSION during times like Election Cycles to generate Fear within the electorate that gives way to the Voters voting for more Government instead of Less:


Commentary: 2,000 scientists focus on the wrong problem, not world’s biggest

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Warning: Mother “Earth didn’t replace the dinosaurs after they died” in the last great species extinction, reports Nobel physicist Robert Laughlin. She “just moved on and became something different.” But so what, you say, that was 65 million years ago. Right?

Wrong. Today humans are the new dinosaurs, the next species slated for extinction, warn 2,000 United Nations scientists. Soon. We’re also causing the extinction, even accelerating a new timetable. Signing our own death warrant. Not millions of years in the future, but this century. Thanks to our secret love of climate change. Yes, we’re all closet science deniers.

Laughlin put it: “Humans have already triggered the sixth great period of species extinction in Earth’s history.” Get it? We’re to blame. We are the engine driving a new species extermination. The human race is in a suicidal run to self-destruction. We can’t blame it on the great American conspiracy of climate-science deniers, Big Oil, the Koch Bros, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Congress. It’s us.

We just keep buying gas guzzlers, keep investing retirement money in Exxon Mobil, keep making more and more babies, forever in denial of the widening gap between perpetual economic growth and more babies living on a planet of rapidly diminishing resources.

Humans are the new dinosaurs ... even scheduled our own extinction


But they’re solving the wrong problems. As problem solvers, the U.N.’s army of 2,000 climate scientists aren’t much different than ExxonMobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson. He admits climate change is real. But he believes it’s just an “engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution.” Same at the U.N. Tillerson also doesn’t trust those “climate models to predict the magnitude of the impact.” Like the U.N. scientific models. Instead, Tillerson has faith that humans will “adapt to a sea-level rise.” After all, humans “have spent our entire existence adapting. We’ll adapt.”


Earth’s real problem, too many babies ... but we can’t admit the truth

What’s wrong? Everybody on Earth is in denial about our biggest problem ... population growth. Too many new babies, a net of 75 million a year. And we’re all closet deniers — leaders, investors, billionaires, the 99%, everybody. Yes, even Bill McKibben’s 350.org global team. The U.N.’s 2,000 scientists know overpopulation is Earth’s only real problem.

Get it? Earth has only one real problem, there’s the one main dependent variable in the scientific equation. But we refuse to focus on it. So, yes, even scientists are science deniers too. They know population growth is the killer issue, but are avoiding it too. …


But how? Bill Gates says let’s cap global population at 8.3 billion, even as his vaccine and contraceptive plans extend life expectancy. Columbia University’s Earth Institute Director Jeff Sachs says even 5 billion is unsustainable. To stop adding more is tough enough. But how do eliminate two billion from today’s seven billion total? Voluntary? Remember China’s one-child plan didn’t work.

Everybody knows, but we fear world’s biggest problem has no solution!

Worst-case scenario: There is no solution. Overpopulation is going to drive us off a cliff. Even worse, seems READ ENTIRETY (World’s top problem is overpopulation, not climate; By Paul B. Farrell; Market Watch; 10/14/13 7:27 a.m. ET)

And when you talk about returning the USA to a more Valued and Principled Conservative Platform you cannot accomplish this when you have this kind of Globalism controlling the international message to effect the masses with fear at the moment because we have NO Industrial ability left to be a stand-alone nation. You need to REBUILD our Industrial Ability First to Give the Value and Principle concept of Conservatism MEANING. This is why you lose the message when the Market Crashers of the Oligarchy take your message away from you every time they want to at the critical Voting stage, because everyone’s self-reliance from a Domestic Market based Industrial economic structure is GONE. And has been replaced with a Government handout. And you speak about Values and Principles inside an EMPTY Machine SHOP that was gutted and sent to a Foreign producer so your Values and Principles mean nothing right then to the Voter.

I believe we will see another created market Crash again like we saw in 2008 when it looked like McCain was pulling ahead of Obama, and here’s what they will use to say is the problem:



Seen the other way around, the dollar is losing its value against all of them [i.e. Yes and Euro]. The NBF Economics and Strategy team in a note to clients:

After hitting a 13-year high in January, the trade-weighted US dollar has subsequently lost steam, hammered by soft US economic data and hence diminished odds of Fed rate hikes. Speculators have reinforced the greenback’s decline by taking their net long positions to the lowest since 2014.

So they ask:

Can the mighty greenback bounce back? Considering markets are currently pricing in almost zero rate hikes this year, the big dollar could indeed rally if the Fed unexpectedly changes its tone and adopts a more hawkish stance.

But over the short term, they see a “persistence of USD weakness.”

So folks are dumping the dollar, and last week they were dumping stocks too, and they’re chasing after the opportunity to profit from risk. They’re betting on a spike in fear and on a calamity in the markets. 

“If things don’t make common sense, sooner or later, they come home to roost.” That’s how John Thornton, who’d retired as president of Goldman Sachs in 2003 and who’s now a prof at Tsinghua University in Beijing, explained it to Yahoo Finance:

“So I feel as though we’re sitting in 2016 with many of the same problems that we’ve had for the last eight or 10 years, they haven’t been addressed very forcefully, we’re living on borrowed time. And sooner or later, that ends in tears.”


But that “uneasy” feeling, as he called it, isn’t unique, nor is his fear that the global economy is “living on borrowed time,” or that the whole package will “end in tears.” We have felt that way for a while.

So people are once again fleeing into gold, silver, and READ ENTIRETY (What the Heck is Going on With the Dollar and “Fear?” By Wolf Richter; Wolf Street; 5/1/16)

And this will Play out again soon so Hillary can reboot the message of hope with More Government to stabilize the Markets. It will be at that Point that if we stand a chance to keep the USA a Sovereign Nation our only rebuttal will be a choice to Retool our Industrial and Mining Interests with a New Domestic Resource Economic plan. OR otherwise we will see the full force of a One World Order Emerge from this Oligarchy that’s taken over our Nations Government and Corporate faculties!!!!!!!!!

It’s going to take SHEAR WILL of a LEADER to stand up against these Ideologues who want a Globalized Control over everyone’s LIVES and that’s going to take a Retooling of our Industrial abilities or we will soon Officially become SERFs (means Controlled rate of Consumption) to a Global Oligarchy that will be the End Times we Fear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hilary and Bill Clinton and the RINO Establishment are why they exist:

Washington (CNN)Hillary Clinton's coziness with Wall Street has long given progressives pause on her potential presidential candidacy. But her family's foundation's ties to banks that have been under investigation for everything from interest rate manipulation scandals to breaking Iran sanctions could further deepen the trust gap between the Democratic front-runner and those who think banks would have too much say over her policies.

A CNN review of public event listings for the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting found partnerships with at least six banks that were under investigation, involved in litigation or had been fined by government agencies and regulators at the time of the meeting.

In every case, the bank in question was listed as a sponsor of the event even after the investigations were widely reported in the media.


Of the array of sponsors, a few banks were perennial supporters, including British bank Standard Chartered, Goldman Sachs and Germany's Deutsche Bank, all of which were listed as mid-level backers of the event every year from 2009 on. French bank Credit Agricole was a supporter of the event from 2009-2012.


Banks violated Iran sanctions

In August of 2010, the Justice Department announced Barclays would pay nearly $300 million in fines for breaking sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Sudan and others. The next month, it was — for the first time — a "strategic partner" for that year's annual event.

In 2012, the CGI annual event featured three major banking partners that were also facing penalties and investigations for breaking Iran sanctions.

Standard Chartered paid a total $667 million, when all was said and done, to various regulators to settle allegations it violated Iran sanctions. The READ ENTIRETY (Foundation's ties to troubled banks; By Alexandra Jaffe; CNN; 3/3/15 Updated 6:03 AM ET)

Panama Papers - Hillary connection to Deutsche Bank
Concerning the Panama Papers scandal, let's start putting two and two together.

1. Hillary Clinton lobbied for the Panama-United States Trade Promotion Agreement, and WAS WARNED it would make money laundering and tax evasion easier for rich folks and bad guys.  http://www.ibtimes.com/panama-papers-obama-clinton-pushed-trade-deal-amid-warnings-it-would-make-money-2348076

2. Deutsche Bank is up to its eyeballs in this s**t [Blog Editor: Yup, I edited the profanity]http://www.dw.com/en/german-banks-enmeshed-in-panama-papers-leak/a-19163105  

3. After resigning as SoS, Hillary Clinton personally made $485,000 speaking to - don't hold your breath, you know where I'm going with this - Deutsche Bank. https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-speeches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/

No nuance. It’s really simple. Hillary Clinton did Deutche [sic] Bank a big lucrative solid, and they returned the favor when it was legally permissible.

PS — I edited the headline to correct the spelling of Deutsche Bank. And I’d like to thank everyone — including the flaggers and the haters — for the lively discussion here. (Panama Papers - Hillary connection to Deutsche Bank; By michaelheister; Daily Kos [Left Wing Online Rag]; 4/5/16 10:10 AM CDT)

Trump being a Victim of the 2-big-2-fail Fascist Establishment is the only one that can Push Back on the Crony Corrupt Oligarchy!!!!!!

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MEANING OF A VALUED AND PRINCIPLED SOVEREIGN NATION!!!!!!!!!!
_______________________
Edited by John R. Houk
All text enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.


© Tony Newbill

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ayn Rand: An Inspiration and a Criticism



John R. Houk
© January 24, 2010


Ayn Rand’s demise had come and gone before her writings became part of my transformation from a lackadaisical Liberal to a Christian Right Conservative (indeed an evolving NeoConservative).

Now I say “lackadaisical Liberal” for I was never really virulent in spreading slanted Left Liberalism. What I felt was a combination of my parents and grandparents love of the Democratic Party due to action that appeared to end The Great Depression and a slight rebellious Baby Boomer affinity for anything anti-establishment. Clearly though I was never a radical believer of Leftist Liberalism. I guess I can compare my political affiliation to a great majority of Muslims that are devoted to Islam but are either ignorant or refuse to follow the violent tenets that are central to the Islamic Quran, Hadith and Sira. Those that the West would call or term “radical” Muslims are the ones that embrace the entire core of the Islamic Theo-Political ideology whether it is peaceful or violent depending of the need to spread Islam to a willing or unwilling people.

Jimmy Carter began my wake-up call concerning the Democrats and hence via progression Leftist Liberalism. In 1980 I was not completely sold on the Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan because of my background in anti-establishment Baby Boomerism. Hence my political votes were more of a protest against Democrats and Republicans. I voted Libertarian Party in the great State of Washington. In my mind in 1980 President Reagan was a nuke button pushing enthusiast willing to blow up the world to stop Communism. Take note that the craziness of Islam had not yet entered my mind even though American Embassy workers had been interned under the brutal conditions of the threat of death by Islamic Shi’ite Iranian Revolutionaries that for all intents and purposes gained control of Iran because of President Carter’s abandonment of American ally Shah Reza Pahlavi.

In my state of political flux, all things Libertarian in those days placed Ayn Rand on a pedestal. After reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead I became a devoted fan of Rand. Rand’s Individualism and Objectivist philosophy (ARI explanation) ringed in my mind like a revelatory epiphany. It was like: “Eureka” I have found the gold to sustain me in this life.

The thing is Rand did me a favor by allowing my mind to examine myself introspectively. This introspectiveness led me to the true epiphany of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the dark world to bring all who believe into the Light of His Glorious Kingdom. First in the inner man followed by full redemption (spirit, soul and body) when the Christ Returns to establish His Kingdom on Earth. This will be the moment that a new Earth and a new Heaven will become one as Christ is one with all who believe and as Christ is One in the Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The thing also is Rand’s philosophy is totally antagonistic toward religious faith. Randian Objectivism is Humanistic at its core. Hence I admire Randian philosophy especially in individualism yet I definitely do not embrace the Objectivist anti-faith portions. It is one reason today’s Libertarians can be fiscally Conservative yet socially and morally Leftist.

The inspiration for this walk down memory lane comes from Michael Huemer writing for CATO Unbound. Huemer posits both admiration and philosophical criticism for Ayn Rand’s thoughts which are totally different from my criticism. The one thing that caught my eye with Huemer’s essay is the observation that Ayn Rand’s writings seem to have a continuing cyclical peek of interest. I surmise the reason for this is that young people begin to have a political awakening about the political environment they coexist in. The emerging political mind which hopes to influence and to make a mark on that environment is drawn to Ayn Rand. This experience if political disaffection is what drew me to Rand.

Huemer believes people are continually drawn to Rand because she is remarkably readable as compare to other writers that espouse similar political philosophical thoughts in writing.

Regardless if you are a fan, critic or a bit of both of Ayn Rand, Michael Huemer’s essay will be of interest to you.

JRH 1/24/10
**********************************
Why Ayn Rand? Some Alternate Answers

By Michael Huemer
Reaction Essay
CATO Unbound
January 22nd, 2010


What accounts for the continuing and increasing interest in the work of Ayn Rand? Clearly, the attraction of her ideas has much to do with it. This is true despite the fact that most people, even in America, are probably hostile to most of her philosophy. In a capitalist society, one need not please a majority in order to be successful; one need only find a market niche. There are enough individualists and libertarians in America to provide a strong market for Rand’s message.

Recent political developments have clearly contributed to interest in her political philosophy. But recent events do not change the actual relevance of Rand’s ideas, political or otherwise. The election of Barack Obama, for instance, changes little. There have been left-wing democrats for a long time, and there have been calls to socialize medicine for decades. The principles of individual rights are exactly as true as they have been throughout human history, and the nature of the opposition to those principles has changed little in the past few decades.

Contrary to the impression one might get from listening to “tea party” enthusiasts, things are probably getting better, from an individualist’s standpoint, in the medium to long term (on the scale of decades and centuries). A few centuries ago, “the divine right of kings” was taken seriously as a theory of political authority, and slavery was widely practiced. A century ago, half of the adult population of the United States could not vote. Half a century ago, that same half of the population was effectively barred, by collectivist cultural biases, from most professions, while individuals of African ancestry were segregated, both by law and by custom, from the white population. Ayn Rand characterized racism as “the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.”[1] This crudest form of collectivism was not long ago embraced, explicitly and shamelessly, throughout American society. Of course, it is hardly gone today (new forms have arisen lately, such as that of ascribing collective guilt to light-skinned individuals), but who could deny that racism has passed its peak? And just a quarter century ago, the human race was still threatened by the Soviet Union, which sought to spread Marxist communism across the globe. Like racism, communism has not disappeared from the Earth entirely, but it has certainly had its time. All of this suggests to me that the perennial interest in Ayn Rand’s work has more to do with a trend toward individualism than with a reaction to collectivist trends.

This does not answer the question, which Professor Rasmussen has raised, of why Rand attracts more attention than other defenders of liberty, such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, or Frederic Bastiat. Here I must differ with Rasmussen. I don’t believe Bastiat, or any other of the well-known defenders of liberty, is nearly as accessible to a modern reader as Rand. Rand, I believe, is the most compelling writer of the group. More importantly, Rand was not only a philosopher, but a compelling novelist.

Some followers of Rand may scoff at this explanation. “No, it is all down to her philosophical ideas,” they may say. “Rand’s works outsell those of von Mises because she has a coherent, comprehensive philosophy!” I think Rasmussen’s suggestion is somewhere in this region as well—that Rand’s greater popularity is due to her connecting libertarian political philosophy with comprehensive ethical and meta-ethical theories. Let us consider the evidence. Atlas Shrugged outsells Human Action by a wide margin. As of this writing, the Amazon sales ranks are 101 and 16,331, respectively.[2] (Admittedly a limited measure, but still interesting.) But Atlas also outsells Rand’s own non-fiction books, by similarly wide margins. The Virtue of Selfishness trails at 11,993, with Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology all the way down at 120,117.[3] If the greater market success of Rand as compared with von Mises were due to Rand’s broader philosophy, wouldn’t we see this reflected in sales of Rand’s non-fiction works, in which she explicitly develops that philosophy?

The data fit another hypothesis: that the novel is a far more accessible and popular vehicle for communicating ideas than the monograph. The lesson for defenders of freedom seems clear. We need more novelists, screenwriters, and other artists.

But let us leave aside the matter of Rand’s literary success. What is the best way to defend freedom intellectually? Is it, as Rand believed, to connect the philosophy of individual rights to a version of ethical egoism, which in turn derives from the metaethical theory presented by Rand in “The Objectivist Ethics”?[4] I don’t think so. Objectivists seem to find that essay completely convincing. But hardly anyone else finds it at all convincing.

This is not a trivial observation—one often finds that people who do not accept a whole philosophical system nevertheless find certain parts of it plausible. And one often finds that people who are not ultimately persuaded by an argument nevertheless see some plausibility in it. But neither of these things is true of the argument of “The Objectivist Ethics”—hardly anyone finds that argument even slightly plausible, unless they also buy into virtually all of Ayn Rand’s views. This is not true of most of her other views: one would not be surprised to find a non-Objectivist who nevertheless thinks Rand’s political views are reasonable, or her epistemological views, or her aesthetic theories. The explanation is simple: the theory of “The Objectivist Ethics” is simultaneously the most distinctive and the least plausible, worst defended of all of Rand’s major ideas. (Here is a nicer way to say that: all of Rand’s other major theories are more plausible and better defended than that one.) I do not have space to detail the flaws in the article here; they require more lengthy discussion.[5] For now, just take as a sociological observation that few find the theory of that article plausible, even after reading the article.

There are two major reasons why the best hope for political freedom is not to connect it ideologically with Rand’s ethical and metaethical theories. The first is that those theories are utterly unconvincing to almost everyone—even less convincing than libertarianism. Connecting the two together serves only to discredit the cause of freedom and individual rights. It plays into the hands of those who say that the only opposition to socialism derives from greed and selfishness.

The second major reason is that ethical egoism does not support the philosophy of individual rights in the first place. Quite the opposite. Take Rasmussen’s statement of the basic individualist premise: “Each individual human being is an end in him or herself … not merely a means to the ends of others.” This is a very common idea in classical liberal writings. Nearly identical statements appear in Rand, in Nozick, and of course in Kant.[6] It is also, pace Rand, directly and obviously contrary to ethical egoism. For ethical egoism posits that the only thing that ought to matter intrinsically to me is my own welfare—for me, my own welfare or happiness is the only end in itself. It follows from this that I ought not to regard other individuals as ends in themselves; rather, I should see them only as means to my happiness—just as I see everything else in the world. This is a very simple and straightforward implication of the theory. I cannot hold my own well-being as the only end in itself, and simultaneously say that I recognize other persons as ends in themselves too.

One might say that each person is an end in himself only for himself—maybe the statement “Every individual is an end in himself, not a mere means to the ends of others” means only that each person should treat himself (but not anyone else) as an end in himself, and that no one should see himself as a means to the ends of others (but one should see everyone else as a means to one’s own ends). But this bizarre interpretation of the principle not only robs it of any intuitive plausibility; it also renders obscure its use in defending individual rights. The more straightforward interpretation of the individualist premise is that I must recognize other individuals as ends in themselves, not mere means to my ends. The straightforward argument for respecting individual rights is that when one violates another person’s rights, one uses that person without his consent, and one thus treats that person as if he were a mere means to one’s own ends. That argument, of course, could not be advanced by a true egoist, who must hold that it is obligatory to treat other persons (and everything else) as mere means to one’s own welfare.

At this point, most Objectivists fall back on the contention that, luckily, it is impossible for rational people’s interests to conflict. More particularly, that although it would be praiseworthy to use others for one’s own advantage if one should get the chance, opportunities are peculiarly scarce, so much so that there has never (or almost never) been a case in which anyone would have benefited by violating another person’s rights (for instance, by initiating the use of force against another). It would be truly wonderful if this could be proven. But actual arguments for this claim are unsurprisingly hard to come by, and it remains unclear why anyone would accept the claim, apart from a drive to reconcile Rand’s ethics with her politics. This issue has, of course, been discussed at great length among supporters and critics of Rand, and I have nothing especially new to add. I shall simply record my judgment that defenders of liberty are far more likely to convince others of the need to respect individual rights through the straightforward “persons are ends in themselves” argument mentioned above, than through an argument that relies upon (a) first convincing the audience that the right action is always the most selfish action, and (b) then convincing the audience that it is impossible to benefit from violating someone else’s rights.

It should be clear from this what I think remains alive in Rand’s political and moral thought, and what I think must be discarded. Her key insight is the principle of individual rights, that persons exist as ends in themselves, not mere resources for others to use, and that because of this, individuals may not initiate the use of force or fraud against one another. Rand saw clearly that this entails that capitalism is the only just economic system. Where she went wrong was in thinking that these crucial insights rested on an egoistic foundation.
_______________________________
NOTES:


[1] The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964), paperback ed., p. 126.

2] Source: www.amazon.com, January 14, 2010. Statistics are for the paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged (Plume, 1999), and the paperback edition of Human Action (Liberty Fund, 2010)—the most popular editions of each book. Amazon sales rank statistics vary widely from day to day. Nevertheless, the qualitative points here are fairly stable.

[3] From www.amazon.com, January 14, 2010. Statistics are for the Signet 1964 paperback edition of Virtue of Selfishness and the Plume 1990 paperback edition of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (again, the most popular editions of these books).

[4] pp. 13-35 in The Virtue of Selfishness, op. cit.

[5] See my “Is Benevolent Egoism Coherent?”, Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 3 (2002): 259-88; “Why I Am Not an Objectivist,” especially section 5 ; and especially “Critique of ‘The Objectivist Ethics’”, . One caveat: based on my experience, committed Objectivists will not find any of this at all convincing. But just about everyone else will.

[6] Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, op. cit., p. 27; Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 30-31; Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, , section 2.

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Ayn Rand: An Inspiration and a Criticism
John R. Houk
© January 24, 2010
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Why Ayn Rand? Some Alternate Answers

Michael Huemer is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and author of Ethical Intuitionism.

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