The Health Care Debate: Splitting Families Down the Middle

This is an exchange between me and my sister. I've posted it here because I feel it represents clearly the split in the nation on healthcare. Also due to the way she has handled our differences and her choice to cut all ties and continue to denounce me in forums where I cannot defend myself and behind my back, I have decided to end all connection with her.

I'd like you to note the tone of contempt with which she starts out and then notice as she gradually becomes more and more blatantly abusive the more I try to debate the points she brings up. She accuses me of not being civil, but I maintain that all I have done is restate exactly what she has claimed. The exchange ended with her defriending me and severing all contact, which I assume gives me full license to reproduce this conversation on my page so that she doesn't have free-reign to distort the issue any further. If you're interested, please feel free to read this and comment freely. I would be interested in other perspectives on the exchange. You be the judge--who was being rational? Who was flying off the handle with vague accusations?

[Further note: she decided this was hilarious enough to repost this on her page as a note with the heading: "Call me a liberal, but I thought this conversation was fun enough to share...", that was right before I responded with "Well, at least you're being a little more honest now" Let's just say she lost her sense of humor soon after that.]

[Names have been removed to protect the identity of those involved--a courtesy she did not extend to me.]

AmericanAntitheist joined the group WE THE PEOPLE will NOT COMPLY with SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE!

Sis

Some of us people want socialized healthcare.

AmericanAntitheist

Also you've never lived in a country with socialized healthcare :S

Sis

True, but there should be a public option because it is the only way to actually control costs. Today, a given portion of the population is not covered by insurance, these are the same people who both lack preventable care, and will wait until they are sicker before going to the ER and hence need more treatment and more expensive treatment. The hospital can try to bill them, but may not suceed, causing the hospital to absorb costs. The hospital in turn raises thier fees, which causes the insurance to raise thier premiums. Fact is, we are already paying for the uninsured's treatment, just ineffectively.

AmericanAntitheist

Cost control doesn't work. It just drives down quality. You're ignoring the fact that one of the major reasons insurance and health care expenses are so high is because of the confused nature of and depth of government presence in the health care industry already. Inconsistency in application of malpractice law has driven malpractice insurance through the roof. In the absence of any transparent and explicit guidelines, doctors often feel they have to assign extra tests just to cover their liabilities. This drives up the premium of general diagnostic care. Other hidden costs associated with corporate and small business taxation drive up the cost of employment so that more and more companies shoulder less and less of the benefit cost. Add to this that federal law prohibits insurance companies from competing across state lines and thus eliminates the possibility of developing an economy of scale. Also, one more thought...if socialism worked so great, then wouldn't soviet doctors have been the best in the world? Oh, that's right, most of them risked life and limb to get out. Over regulating the medical industry creates the very serious risk of driving skilled professionals out of medicine and into other fields, or of creating "bubbles" of certain kinds of practitioners. Japan is constantly dealing with these problems. Not enough maternity specialists, so pregnant women die in the ambulance as it runs round in circles for hours trying to find an open maternity ward. Not to mention the complete lack of preventative care. Doctors can only claim a certain amount from the national insurance per visit, so they have to drag out your care as long as possible. I had to go to the dentist 5 times before one would actually pull my wisdom tooth. I get back to the US and my dentist takes care of everything in a couple months. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.


Sis

They call it an option because it is optional - you can still get regular insurance if you want it. And nobody's saying cold-war Russia was better (tell me you aren't a tea-bagger, please tell me that). But, one way or another, we the people are still shouldering the cost. Do you really think that the insurance companies aren't also driving the MDs out of their fields with pre-authorization clauses and deny-first policies and endless phone trees just to get paid for a single office visit? Why do office visits cost a 120$? Because you see the doctor for 15 minutes, and it takes an additional 1.5 hours of work to get the claim paid. And, it's almost always for profit. So every dime the insurance company can take and not pay out, goes into a golden bucket for the CEOs, whose greed is usually limitless and guilt-free. It is therefore not in their own best interest to pay your claims, it is in their best interest to cancel your policy if you are *too* sick. Once you are retroactively canceled on a technicality, you are well and truly screwed, because your hospital stay was twenty thousand dollars and since you weren't technically insured to begin with, now a pre-existing clause applies on any new policy you try to purchase - meaning they will not cover any future expenses for your illness. Now, you must claim bankruptcy, assuming you are alive, and the burden of that cost goes back to the hospital who passes it on in a never game of hot potato. All I'm saying is that since we are shouldering the cost anyway, and since it isn't truly a free market, but is instead nearing a monopoly, we may as well have it regulated and standardized. Besides, there is medicare and social security and the ER but if you are not old enough and neither sick enough nor poor enough, you fall between the cracks because these programs do not cover everyone. I'm looking out for my own best interests, when I say let's get a public option in place before the potato lands on me.


AmericanAntitheist

I'm not a tea bagger in that I've never been to one of the tea parties, but I am an Objectivist, which means that I hold that the responsibility of the government is to protect individual liberty and little else. The notion that somehow the government has the ability to magic health care to every body at no cost is ridiculous. Health care is not a right. Insurance is not a right. We cannot be entitled to services which require a living being to bestow them. We can only negotiate terms to mutual advantage. The notion that somehow we will be saving money by having the government handle it for us ignores the reality that every single government entitlement program adds a the burden of running a new bureaucracy to the real cost of all the services involved. It also ignores that evry single government move into the provate sector has had negative repurcutions across the economy. Is the current system corrupt? Yes. But the reason is not the unfettered greed of private corporations, the reason is the stinking cronyism of corporations propped up by government bailouts who are endorsed and subsidized into continuing unprofitable activities and who then pass that loss onto the consumer. Just as public education drives up the cost of private education and provides a mediocre product, you can expect the presence of a public insurance program to drive up the costs of private insurance even more and to manifest itself in all sorts of hidden taxes (i.e. the value of our currency, inflation, and the other possibilities I stated previously.) Is reform needed? Certainly. But the reform we need is to move away from the statism socialist society into which we seem to be slipping and back towards our laissez-faire roots.

Sis

I'm not going to go into the objectivism thing with you, I already know that you vehemently believe whatever you believe.

It is not by virtue of it being government run that makes the public option magic. It is by virtue of having the burden of the sick, which I firmly believe we are already paying for indirectly, spread more evenly across the population. All insurance is by nature already socialist - it's just socialist on a per company scale. Short version is that as a healthy worker you are likely to pay more into the insurance program via premiums per year than you are to withdraw via claims (and the employer often subsidizes this to help keep it affordable). But, if an employee has a severely ill child, they are likely to take out more than they put in, and if it's a small company, may take out more than the entire company puts in. If at any time insuring a company is costing more than they are bringing in, then the insurance simply says - pay a higher premium or cut your benefits. Paying a higher premium just distributes the costs across everyone, however, if a company cannot afford to do that, then they may just cut benefits. Cutting the benefits is great because in addition to the $2400 premium each year, a healthy worker now cannot see any payout until they've met the $1000 deductible. If you are relatively healthy, you may not meet the deductible at all. Meaning, that you are paying into a system which does not benefit you one dime on a yearly basis - but we all do it because we fear being the one who is sick. Where the burden of one sick child can astronomically increase the cost of insurance for a small company, larger companies are able to shoulder this burden better because they have more people paying in to the system. A larger base to draw from, means a lower expense to everyone. If said system were nationwide, the base to draw from would be much larger. Hence, why a public option would help small businesses (and sick children with little puppies). The current system is already socialist, it's just uneven in it's distribution, placing a higher cost on small business and a lower cost to conglomerates. Bureaucratic costs will always exist - the question is, do the costs outweigh the benefits of having a public option? No, I don't think they do.

AmericanAntitheist

It's curious to suggest that more of a bad thing will somehow make it better. As for the nationwide economy of scale, that could be realized through free-market principles as well, were it not made illegal by the very same government that you suppose will make it all work out. I am well aware of how insurance works. Insurance is not socialist by definition. There are free-market solutions to these problems. I don't see how you can support further government control of these systems when you already concede that the system (which is already heavily government controlled) is contradictory and wasteful. I have never seen a government organization which was not so. Do you seriously think that an insurance company simply run under the government's name will be more respectable, trustworthy and less prone to abuse and "unfettered greed" than a private company? If you haven't noticed, the government doesn't seem to have a lot of money left to fund these things. Perhaps you didn' notice that the very greed mongers that you berate are those companies propped up by the government already. Remember AIG? How much money did we sink into floating that organization and for what?


Sis

Now, now, don't get angry just because I'm challenging your assumptions. I'm only discussing a public option, not whatever other stupid things the government has been doing lately. I'm expecting you to counter me with logic. Try to educate me as to why your path is better, rather than just saying blanket statements that a free market would solve everything and that the government is evil.

Insurance is socialist on a small scale because it is a system where a bunch of people pay into it and only those who need it withdraw out.

A free-market does not work in this instance because it is not in the insurance industry's best interest to insure everyone on thier own, even if they did compete accross state lines.

You are very quick to try to shoot down the public option, but haven't told me your solution. I mean, a practical solution that could get through Congress and make improvements in the lives of the uninsured or underinsured. Obviously you aren't going to overthrow our existing governmental system any time soon, so what solution do you support? Keeping the devil you know vs the devil you don't?

AmericanAntitheist

Well, I did say. Withdraw governmental controls on the insurance and banking industry, stop bailing out failing businesses and financial institutions, allow insurance companies to market across state lines thus developing the same economy of scale, dismantle the FED and return interest rates and currency to a real standard rather than arbitrary political manipulation. (For starters...) All of these things have been changes mandated by government which created the problems we are now experiencing. It is just as simple to unmandate them.

Insurance is a VOLUNTARY enterprise. This is not socialist. Socialism is by definition "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."

Insurance companies are private businesses which set the terms of coverage and collect premiums to fund that coverage in the event it is needed. It is funded by voluntary contributions to the whole and is paid out along the terms mandated in the insurance contract. If insurance companies are not meeting the terms of those contracts, then it is within the province of governmental authority to hold those companies accountable to the terms of their contract under existing fraud laws. Insurance prices are driven by the risk and reward generated by market, legal, and political conditions. It is the presence of government guarantees to failing megacorporations which incentivizes unprofitable activities. It is the support of those corporations which pass the costs onto the taxpayers.

A socialist insurance system would be one where the insurance is owned and managed by the government, where it is funded or at least partially supported by government through taxes on the people and the government establishes the terms of payment. Interestingly enough, social security and medicare were intended to be socialist insurance paradigms and they're going bankrupt. I wonder what is to keep this new mandate from following the same path? It seems very noble to suggest that a socialized insurance option will somehow make healthcare available and affordable to all, but it doesn't explain how it will be paid for, and it fails to make an accounting of the numerous side-effects that the introduction of such a program will have on the cost of health-care and private insurance.

Also, since the government is in the business of enforcing contracts, it seems like a conflict of interest to have the government so tightly entwined with the insurance industry. The reason being is that if the government decided to change the terms of the coverage due to fiscal insolvency or political maneuvering, who will enforce the contract? It will be exactly like social security where the government can shift the terms at will with impunity, after of course it has already collected all the payments and spent the funds. When an insurance company goes bankrupt, there are legal procedures in place to dissolve the assets and pay back the investors (as well as the aforementioned legal procedures for determining fraud). At least that was until Obama decided that bondholders don't have any rights and that the taxpayers should be burdened with propping up zombie corporations.

It is not the business of insurance companies to ensure 100% of the people. They offer insurance on the terms of risk they are willing to accept. It is unprofitable to insure high risk cases, just as it is unprofitable to make loans to high risk clients. Incidentally it was exactly for this reason that the housing crisis occurred which started this whole mess. A complex tangle of government regulation mandated that banks lend to high risk borrowers. Obviously they couldn't pay back and it sparked a chain-reaction throughout the financial system. The same thing happens when you insure regardless of risk, too many inevitable payouts and before you know it the system is bankrupt. You may think that worrying about how we are supposed to pay for this is incidental but I insist that it is fundamental.

Inevitably, those who produce more, who have less need of insurance will be burdened with maintaining the depleted reservoirs of the needy. The disincentive to productivity this will incur is profoundly socialist and flies in the face of everything a society based on individual choice and responsibility stands for.

You seem very quick to shoot down the free-market option, and yet you have not explained how this public option will be maintained. You also seem to resist the challenging of your assumptions. I have explained that I do not assume that it is the obligation of insurance companies to insure everyone regardless of risk and in spite of taking a loss. And yet you seem to assert that the public option will guarantee coverage of everyone regardless of risk. I think that makes it incumbent upon you to explain how this principle can be maintained in reality. You are after all supporting a large fiscal commitment on the part of the government, which btw is an imposition on all of us who pay taxes. I am simply advocating that people pay their own way.

Sis

Your "free market option" isn't an option at all. It doesn't insure everyone, which is what we're discussing, and no amount of deregulation and free competition would make them. So, your way of insuring everyone, is to... not. It costs too much.

I think healthcare IS a right. Surely "life" is one of our unalienable rights. What you fail to understand is that no man is an island, we all live within a community of people, not all of whom can afford healthcare. The bus boy(/self employed designer/ recent college graduate/ homeless person in the bus/ fast food worker/ etc)'s health is very much my own issue if only because of physical proximity. One sneeze and I get swine-flu.

I refuse to believe the money doesn't already exist - we all know about government pork, which could be eliminated to pay for healthcare. Even if not, I wouldn't mind paying a little more on taxes if I felt I was getting a tangible benefit from it, like healthcare for all (of course adding a commuter train system locally would also be nice). I definitely wouldn't mind a tax on those earning over 250,000 a year to pay for it - even if some day I earn that much.

"It takes a neighbor to raise a barn", no one is completely self-sufficient, and no matter how much you'd like to believe otherwise, we are all in this together. The common good doesn't just benefit someone else, if benefits me, too. Someone who is in good health is less likely to burden other programs which already exist (welfare) and is more likely to work for a living - a better life for them, means more income into the program. I fail to see how healthcare for all does not benefit us all.

American Anitheist

(I'm copying my reply to this last bit here just in the interest of keeping this fair)

[Note: At this point she had decided to repost this discussion as a note where she would have the ability to delete the entire conversation at her sole discretion]

AmericanAntitheist

Well, at least you're being a little more honest now. You DO advocate a socialist state then. You think it is fine to appropriate the labor and productivity of all to give to a few. You see doctors,bankers. insurance providers, not as humans with the right to the fruits of their own productivity but as reservoirs to be tapped to fulfill your wishes... See More. I am interested to see how you would feel, were someone lower on the food chain to propose that your freedoms should be sacrificed to provide them with more. But at least I think we understand each other. Don't pretend to want to live in a free society and then suggest that "other" people are resources to be stolen from at will (taking without consent is stealing) and distributed as you wish. I maintain that social rights cannot exist in the absence of individual rights--a society is simply a group of individuals, if individuals have no rights to their earnings, then the society doesn't either. And that is socialism.

This is why it is impossible to debate this without getting into the deeper moral issues--and that would mean getting much deeper into Objectivist morality. If you are sincerely interested in learning more about it, then I would be glad to talk with you on it. If not, then there's not much more to be said. I believe that socialism is immoral. We could get into a deeper discussion on why if you're game, but it would require a sincere interest in reading some of Ayn Rand's philosophical work to get a full and honest picture.

PS: The fact that you wouldn't mind pitching in to help others is not the point at issue. The problem is that you're taking that as moral vindication to steal from others to support your goals. How do you justify stealing from people? You claim the greater good as your justification. So did Stalin, so did Hitler. How is this any different?

Sis

Who is stealing? If we voted Obama in on a platform of healthcare reform, that means that most of us want it. If we are consenting, then how is it stealing? We all knew what we were getting in for during the election, and I'm sorry, but one side has to loose. If you don't like the electoral process as created by the framers, leave. Go somewhere where your ideals are being upheld. Where everyone must work for every single service they have and any random chance accident or illness could mean failure, starvation, and death. Let's call it Isla de You, current population 1.

Thankyou for your kind remarks upon my character, they were perfectly logical and not incendiary at all. Why I sure hope the cops aren't coming for me! You don't seem to understand that a person can be both free and conscientous. Just as you don't understand that a person can be moral and disagree with you. You are an extremeist, yes, every bit as extreme as the far right, the anti-abortionists or the al Quaeda. There is no middle ground for you. And because of that... Have you ever gotten a book from the Library? Surely a free and public library would not exist in your philosophy since there is no financial incentive to running a service like that. Have you gotten a free and public education? It may have been mediocre, but at least you got an education adequate enough to get you elsewhere. Have you driven on a public highway or ridden on a public transit system? Have you been to a public park? Have you received mail? When you retire, if social security is still available, will you take that money and live off it? Will you take medicare, too? For all of these things that you have recieved by your own definition, you, yourself, are a theif for you took them from the pool of available socialist resources, and then you went to Isla De You from whence there is no return.

Yes there is government waste, yes there are problems with our current government, and yes, I do want a free society. I think perhaps our definitions of freedom may differ. You seem to like a sheriff-less laissez-faire (from the french meaning do nothing) wild west town where everyone can be free to exploit each other at will. You see I'd like to be free to do what I want within the law (which I currently can) and not live in fear of loosing my insurance (which I currently cannot). The way I see it, we are being held hostage by the insurance companies, because there is no alternative to them. It's either insurance or steep debt. Isn't the public option in that sense providing much needed competition into the market? If the insurance companies then go under, wouldn't that be because they failed to offer a better product at a better price?

You have found an excellent way of writing off all personal responsibility towards your friends, neighbors, colleages, and yes, strangers. But luckily you live in a place where your freedom to be an ass is protected. So quit whining about stalin and hitler - there is simply no comparison there. Adding healthcare to the list of currently available services would free people from the unrelenting weight of private insurance coverage. It would not turn the country into a fascist regieme. Or is Canada fascist now? It's so hard to tell.

And, finally, you know you have a problem when you find yourself on the side of Glen Beck.

AmericanAntitheist

I didn't vote for Obama, a lot of people didn't either. Simply having a majority of people decide to steal from a few isn't rule of law, and isn't consent. Unfettered democracy was not intended by the framers of the constitution. They understood it leads to exactly one thing...mob rule. That is why we are a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy.

Why were my remarks incendiary? If you believe that socialized healthcare should be enacted regardless of opposition because you have the "might" to make "right" then I don't see my remarks as anything other than stating the facts of your viewpoint as you present them. You ARE advocating stealing from people. You simply don't want to use just those words. You are entitled to your belief, but at least let's be honest about what socialism in any form means.

I do not advocate for socialism. I am not asking for socialist programs. Simply because they force them on me does not make me an active participant in their realization. That is why I actively oppose these programs (including public education, public welfare, public ownership of property), because I realize that if I were actively involved in creating these programs then I would be morally responsible for their effects on other human beings. You ARE actively advocating for these programs so you ARE morally responsible for their outcomes.

Some things do not have a middle ground...like mathematics. Like life and death. When we are talking about life and death it is a very black and white issue. Any amount of death injected into the social system is bad. Period. Every penny that the government takes from people makes it that much harder for those very same people to improve their lives. The government is less efficient than the market at providing services for an appropriate cost. But beyond that, the government (i.e. any mass of people) does not have the moral right to take by force the earned product of a person's labor.

I do not advocate anarchy. And I am not a fan of Glenn Beck (he is far too religious). I advocate the terms of a Constitutional republic wherein are guaranteed the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the right to life is not a guarantee of life itself and cannot exist without the right to liberty and property. By surrendering the latter you do, indeed, surrender the former. They are inseparable.

And no, I do not write-off helping people who need it, whom I am within my power to help and who I deem worthy of such help. But it is MY choice who to support with my labor, not yours. It is MY choice how much to give and when and under what conditions. If you presume to suggest that you have any right to dictate by force of government how any other person should dispose of their assets then you ARE in point of fact and by DEFINITION advocating thievery. The responsibility of social reformers in a free society is that of argument, of convincing people to donate their assets to a given cause. It does not entitle anyone to just take them by force or fiat.

If you are upset with the label, then perhaps you are the one who should reassess their values more closely. You haven't demonstrated at all how my assertions are in error. If you remember, YOU were the one who started attacking my beliefs in this matter. I have shown just what the systems you support lead to. If any of this is in error, please address the point in question. And no, Stalin and Hitler are very much still relevant. They ruled on the basis of imposing government controls and appropriating private assets for the "greater good". Simply because that is what statists assert will happen, it doesn't make it so. You tell me how I am supposed to trust our government with the same powers and ill-fated philosophy of those other regimes. If the philosophy is different, then tell me where. Are you suggesting "it can't happen here?" I would remind you that Hitler was elected. The suggestion that America must be free by definition is naive in the extreme. People can be legislated into slavery just as surely as they can be conquered into it. Are you suggesting that "but this time it'll be different?"

Sis

Sorry, are you still talking? cause I stopped listening once you called me a thief. Sorry, not even gonna read your post, nope. Don't care, you're an ass. Your opinion is meaningless because you can't even discuss it with civility. So, bite me.

[An interesting addendum, is that Sis couldn't calmly defend her views in our discussion, had an emotional fit, and then severed all contact...only to then write a scathing bit of character assassination on her personal blog where I presume any defense of mine will also be ignored. It's interesting that she accuses me of refusing to see things from anyone else's standpoint, but I am actually the one trying to explain my views and asking her to defend hers. She's the one who has cut off contact so that she can villify me with impunity. I'd link to her blog entry, but she also doesn't have the courtesy to anonymize personal conflicts in public. In the interest of protecting my family from potential wackos who may take umbrage at my anti-theist views I cannot publish my identity openly like that. Too bad, it's some really one-sided stuff, published in a venue where I cannot debate or defend myself. It's just like I've always said, it's very difficult for liberals not to resort to ad hominem and character assassination, because they really don't have a logical, rational argument to support their stance.]

You Tube update: Anne Wortham video back online & cool science-music videos

Dr. Anne Wortham's video is back up on YouTube. You can check it out here and the conversation that ensued last time I brought it up.

Also I ran across these science-themed movie videos which I thought were rather cool and inspiring. Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

Happy Galt Day!!

November 22nd is the day when John Galt made his speech to the world. A good way to celebrate it may be to watch XCowboy2's "This is John Galt" video series. He has the first version mostly completed and is halfway through revamping his second version. As an added salute to XCowboy2 (Richard Gleaves) and his efforts to spread the word on objectivism and Ayn Rand, I recommend you read his short story "Dinner at the White House". Happy Galt Day!

Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest 2009

Just got the word that I didn't place in this year's Atlas Shrugged essay contest. I look forward to reading the winning essays when they're posted on ARI's website. Anyways, here's my entry from this year. Hope you enjoy reading it. -- American Anti-theist

BUSINESS & PLEASURE: Vice and virtue in the life of Hank Rearden

Hank Rearden runs his business with ruthless efficiency. The standard of value by which every aspect of his foundry is decided is one simple principle: What’s best for making metal? The wage of every worker he employs is balanced against the cost that wage adds to the production process and the necessity of that worker’s labor to the creation of product. The prices of materials are balanced against the market price of steel. The market price of steel is driven up by customer demand for his steel and down by the prices offered by his competitors. The only way to survive, the only way to prosper, is to minimize costs, to increase quality, to honor contracts, to expand his production so that he can further minimize costs, increase quality, and so on. In order to accomplish this he must pay his employees wages commensurate with their value. He needs quality workers to create quality product. He must buy quality materials. He cannot satisfy his customers with defective product. He must constantly refine his production process. He must condemn waste. He must reward efficiency. The highest value, the benchmark of all these other contributing elements, is simply the extent to which it enables him to produce better, faster, cheaper steel in greater quantities and make the greatest profit while doing so. This profit is his reward for organizing the resources of his business in such a way as to generate surplus. It is his reward for creating that which would not exist were he not to have created it. In business, this reward takes the form of money, a measure of the value he has added to the lives of all those with whom he does business.

If Rearden were to live as he ran his business, he would deal with all the people around him privately the same as he would deal with them professionally. Every emotional investment would be balanced by an emotional gain. If every process and function of his professional life is to render him a greater producer of steel, then every process and function of his personal life would be geared to render him a greater producer of his life’s highest values. The virtues of business are to minimize costs, to increase quality, to honor contracts, and to expand production. The virtues of his life would thus be frugality, integrity, honesty, and ambition. Just as he cannot settle for hiring just any worker for any job at any wage, so too he cannot afford to accept just any stranger into any given role in his life as only justified by their just having shown up. Friends, lovers, wives, and even family relationships cannot be based solely on chance, on the arbitrary advent of circumstantial proximity. They must be evaluated in terms of the value they offer and the price they demand. If they demand too high a cost for the value they offer, then they are not worthy of the role. On the contrary, the significance of the meaning of the words ‘friend’, ‘lover’, ‘wife’, and ‘family’ rests on the value that the people who fill those roles contribute to one’s life. A businessman cannot afford to promote an employee to a position of importance in his organization which outweighs that employee’s worth to the company. So, too, no man can afford to promote a chance acquaintance to a disproportionate position of importance within his own life. The objective measure of the success of his business is monetary profit, the value created by the practical implementation of his business philosophy. The objective measure of the success of his personal life is happiness, the value created by the practical implementation of his personal philosophy.

Rearden does not, however, initially adhere to parallel philosophies in his business and private life. Instead, Rearden follows a diametrically opposed moral code in his private affairs. His brother Philip, his wife Lillian, his mother, his “friend” Paul Larkin…these characters all represent the philosophical opposites of who should fill those roles were Rearden’s values applied consistently in both modes of his life.

Philip is devoid of ambition and produces nothing. He lives only to beg resources off others for the sake of others. He is an empty vessel, a conduit to be used by other men. He takes no pleasure in his existence nor deserves it. He has so little integrity that he has the audacity to undermine the brother who has supported him without complaint, to accept his money but condemn his character. Rearden would not even consider him for the job of a cinder sweeper, yet he considers him worthy of the title “brother”. Rearden would not even let him inside his mills, yet he allows him into his home and supports his every endeavor.

Lillian taunts Rearden with her sex. She uses it as a weapon to disarm him and to break him with guilt. Rearden is tortured by his own sense of guilt and hypocrisy every time he succumbs to her wiles. Yet he does not recognize that the source of the guilt is not the act of sex itself, but the act of sex with someone so completely devoid of any of the values he holds dear. His relationship with Dagny is the one truly worthy of the title “wife” but he does not recognize this inversion for what it is—that he has made the whore his “wife” and the woman who should be his wife into a whore.

His mother, completely dependent on her son for subsistence can do nothing but condemn him for the virtues which enable him to support her. His childhood “friend”, Paul, is simply someone he happened to know as a child and now is still somehow a friend despite the fact that there is nothing Rearden can conceivably respect him for and that he actively works against Rearden’s interests. Among these characters who hold the highest titles of honor in his life—friend, wife, mother, brother—not a single one is deserving of any respect. If his highest ideals are indeed frugality, integrity, honesty, and ambition, then Dagny should be his wife and Francisco D’Anconia should be his best friend. Yet those who scorn everything he believes in are his most valued relationships and he must view with contempt those who most closely reflect his own values.

Rearden is guilty of a terrible sin, a gross error of judgment. As Francisco tried to warn, "You're guilty of a great sin, Mr. Rearden, much guiltier than they tell you, but not in the way they preach. The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt—and that is what you have been doing all your life. You have been paying blackmail, not for your vices, but for your virtues. You have been willing to carry the load of an unearned punishment—and to let it grow the heavier the greater the virtues you practiced” (421). Rearden’s willing acceptance of blame for pursuing his highest values has chained him to a philosophical system which will mean his destruction. He has accepted that the values that make him an excellent businessman, an inventor, and an entrepreneur are values which also make him a vile and loathsome human being. He has accepted a false dichotomy which states that productive activity which supports and enriches your existence is evil and that the only good is to support the lives of others. He has accepted the rule which condemns the fulfillment of one’s own desires but praises the fulfillment of the desires held by others. To the exact proportion that Rearden excels in his work, he is evil in his life. This is Rearden’s central error, the one that turns his life upside-down, that tortures him throughout his marriage, that tortures him throughout his affair with the only woman he has ever truly loved, and that eventually forces him to turn over his life’s work and greatest achievement, Rearden Metal, to a thankless mob of thugs as impudent as they are undeserving.

Then, Rearden realizes the weakness of his enemies. That weakness is that they have no power over him except what he has conceded. His sanction is necessary for them to continue their deception. His validation of their moral code is essential to enable them to brand him immoral. Once Rearden withdraws his sanction and aligns his personal moral code with his professional one, he removes the only device by which he could be chained, his own sense of guilt. Guilt is only possible to someone who has virtues, who feels that they have betrayed those virtues and sacrificed a greater value to a lesser one. By removing his acceptance of the slanders against him, he removed the ability of his enemies to pressure him with the guilt he had willingly accepted. By refusing to allow his virtues to be branded as vice, he was at last set free to feel his full worth, to embrace the self-esteem which had been rightfully his to claim from the very first. He was free to embrace his ethical peers as friends and to truly love them selfishly. With that simple realization, he was also set free of the world of decay. For him, the doors of Atlantis were at last opened and his place in the world of the future secured. That simple realization was that one’s virtues really are virtues and that it doesn’t matter who says differently. The only true measure is in one’s own happiness, the profit of a virtuous life.

Going Galt on Easter? or Trying to Have One's Cake and Eat it Too...

There is a reason that the Tea Parties will not amount to much. There is a reason why the Libertarian Party will continue to receive only minimal support. There is a reason and it's been staring us in the face for over fifty years. The reason is that we are facing a philosophical crisis, and only a coherent philosophical response will negate our opponents.

Why is the notion of laissez-faire capitalism viewed as a fringe crackpot obsession? It's because the so-called defenders of capitalism are logically incoherent. Greenspan preached free markets while going at them with a pair of pliers and a scalpel. Then, when the patient's dying on the table, he declares that the patient was to blame for being butchered. John McCain, like "W" before him, preached free markets out of one side of his mouth, while running around trying to curry favor with every right-wing Christian messianic institution who could offer to grease his shiny white noggin with. Freedom and theocracy don't mix. Period.

The people who are going to the Tea Parties and bearing signs accusing Obama of being a Muslim are also missing the point entirely. It doesn't matter what religion Obama holds in the confines of his own head. Hell, he could even be an atheist for all we know. The problem with what he is doing is that it is predicated on the assumption that political and economic power should be conjoined. The truth is that combining the two is the fast track to fascism. Perhaps he isn't even fully aware of that. Maybe he is. But it is certainly not an idea started or even driven by Obama. On the contrary, it is an idea that has been espoused by many people both Democrat and Republican and for a very long time. Ultimately, Obama couldn't be able to do what he has been doing unless the people of the country put him there to do it. Bush couldn't have started what Obama is finishing if the people of this country hadn't put him there to do it. So why? Why don't people turn to the Libertarian Party, the only one supposedly advocating freedom? The fundamental reason, as Ayn Rand pointed out a long time ago, was and is that it is philosophically incoherent.

The Libertarian Party stands against government, but what does it stand for? Is a vote for the libertarians a vote for anarchy? Or is it a vote for Objectivism? Is it a vote for an economic policy? But economics is just one province of politics. What can the Libertarian Party be expected to advocate? How can those who advocate armed revolution for the sake of abolishing government entirely stand side by side with those who want to secure the framework of a capitalist society and thus preserve the structure of what civilization has accomplished? The Libertarian Party needs to establish a philosophically coherent alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. There can be no allowance for god in government, just as there can be no allowance for politics in economics. The Republicans fail on the first count. The Democrats fail on the second. But the reason why the Democrats have such power right now is because theirs is the essentially more consistent philosophical stance, whereas the opposition is fractured and inconsistent. Neither is fully coherent, but in this age of "have-it-your-way" ideology, consistency is enough to make a philosophy seem coherent. But a fully coherent, internally consistent political platform would blow away even Obama's cocky smile.

The Democrats fully accept the altruistic doctrine that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. They fully accept that the state, i.e. the body politic, has the full right to dictate the lives of its individual constituents, because they fully accept that people do not have individual rights. They view rights as a social privilege to be removed or altered at whim. So, they offer a fully consistent front when attacked on those issues.

The Republicans have presented only the most convoluted and tired excuses for capitalism. The reason is because they, too, want to cling to the old moral premises of altruism. However the Democratic ideology is more consistent with altruistic premises then capitalism. Capitalism is fundamentally opposite to altruism in every conceivable way. Therefore, to try and justify capitalism on altruistic grounds is destined only to make advocates of capitalism look foolish, irrational, and illogical.

The Libertarians present a good economic argument for capitalism based largely on the work of Mises and some libertarians even credit Rand. However, the Libertarian Party still does not have a lucid image of what government should be. They only have an image, albeit an accurate one, of what it should not be. And while their arguments against intrusive government are convincing, arguments for total anarchy are fundamentally flawed. As long as there is a significant anarchistic/nihilistic influence in the Libertarian Party it cannot present a coherent alternative to either of the others.

It is time for the champions of liberty to recognize that Objectivism is the only philosophical system which both secures human rights, provides a rationale for freedom and capitalism, and delineates the proper constraints of government influence in a coherent, fully consistent model. Stop apologizing for Rand, we need to embrace her ideas. We need to embrace her arguments. We need to embrace her morality, the only morality which declares that "your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it." You cannot have capitalism and Pat Robertson. You cannot have McVeigh and freedom. You cannot have anarchy and prosperity. Until we have accepted and embraced a unifying, cohesive, and fully functional philosophical moral standard behind which to campaign we will not be able to stand up to a unified front of gentle, smiling socialists. We will continue to be internally divided and discredited by our own hypocrisy.

However Objectivism is not a philosophy that can be taken piecemeal. The whole point is that for political actions to be morally validated that they must be integrated into the whole of our objective knowledge of the universe. Of what it means to live, and to die. Of what truly is the nature of human beings. How do they come to know things? And what does such knowledge mean for their survival. A contradiction cannot be allowed, it is sufficient to invalidate any moral claim, or political initiative. Under Objectivist thought, unless a law can be demonstrated to be coherently integrated with human knowledge and the morality that knowledge entails, then that law should not be adopted. Conversely, if a law can be shown to be inconsistent with our knowledge of the human condition, or immoral in light of what we know, then that law should be removed. Taxation, global policing, government involvement in private lives...these are all things which are inconsistent with what we already know about the nature of human freedom and which systems optimize human happiness. This is why the enemies of freedom wish to pervert the meaning of the words freedom, human rights, and liberty. They want to coopt freedom to mean freedom to claim the property of others to establish equality. They want to distort human rights to mean an unqualififed claim to a doctor's or a teacher's labor. They want to claim that liberty means mob rule.

These stances are rife with contradictions, but until and unless we call their bluff and declare that the emperor has no clothes, until we do this, they will maintain the appearance of holding the high ground. Especially to the college professors responsible for training our teachers who are responsible for educating our children. Along this chain it ultimately starts in the colleges. And unilateral cries for freedom for freedom's sake will be powerless to stand against a consistent logical set of views.　The highly educated demand that there be at least a seemingly logically consistent philosophy behind their political agendas, and they devote a great deal of time and effort in picking holes in rival theories. Unfortunately the libertarian movement is so varied that it is relatively easy to demonstrate the lack of cohesive thought. And as long as we try to attack them for acting on principles explicitly which we continue to hold implicitly, we are bound to make them look like they are on the firmer ideological ground. If we want to be free, we must be prepared to demonstrate how and why freedom is superior. We cannot state that it just is.

The notion of going Galt, as an intentional withdrawal of sanction from the current social system, in our present age is premature and a practical impossibility. There are several reasons for this. One is that the government claims the legal right to tax almost everything, property, interest, etc. This means that to go off the grid, so to speak would be impossible. One could withdraw all their assets, buy gold and go live somewhere. But unless they continued to pay taxes on the capital gains of those assetts, taxes on the very land they live, and sales taxes for what they purchase the government would eventually come to collect. And as long as they have to pay those taxes to keep the guns off their porch, then they're supporting the current government. This is the fundamental immorality of any involuntary tax system. Namely, that it forces us to support those we oppose. Of course, cooperation under coercion cannot be said to mean sanction. We can be confident that we are morally pure in this, because the government has left us no alternative. Pay or die. Sacrifice your whole life, or pay a percentage. A choice made at the end of a gun is not a free choice.　But regardless of guilt, the end result is the same...the government is still supported by our labor.

The other alternative would be to simply stop doing anything, dismantle and dispose of all one's assets and go on the social dole. However this would have a psychological consequence on those who would attempt this. Not to mention, I think it wouldn't take the governement long to notice if people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were all applying for welfare. No, that won't work either. There's a reason why in Atlas Shrugged, there had to be a place for people to go to where government couldn't find them. It's because without such a place, they couldn't effectively withdraw. We can't withdraw if we have no place to go. As long as we are forced to be active participants in the system, the only tangible net effect of our withdrawing from social life, is to remove what little resistance we offered to begin with.

No, the only alternative is to increase our activity. To target it. To forge our resistance into a blade of reason--honed with our arguments and tempered by our convictions. We must take the leadership roles in the industries in which we work. Or we must support the most capable and efficient in those roles. We must become skilled debaters. We must actively seek out discussions where our views are freely under attack and we must defeat our opponents using polished rational arguments that leave them no where to stand but to resort to petty insults. We must drive the statists out of the public discourse, not by force, but with the inherent superiority of our policies. But just as impurities in the metal will cause a sword to break, so will inconsistencies and contradictions in the philosophical basis of our resitance cause us to falter when our mettle is tested.

Yes, we must organize. Yes, we must demonstrate our unified resolve. But until our resolve is in fact unified, all we demonstrate by organizing is how much lack of unity there really is. The unifying philosophical element is Objectivism. It is the only philosophy to organize the current social crisis into a coherent and comprehensible framework of ideas while still advocating the very things we claim to be pursuing. What we need to stand up to the politics of Obama and the politics of McCain is not a party against government in general, but a party for an Objectivist government, organized under objective priniciples, and motivated by the Objectivist ethics.

It's Your Life

Your life is your property. It's not mine. It's not your neighbor's or your spouse's. It's not your God's, your preacher's or your governor's. It does not belong to Barack Obama any more than it belongs to Kim Jong Il. And if it doesn't belong to Obama, it surely doesn't belong to Sarkozy or Brown or Medvedev or any of the other supposed leaders of this world who keep yapping at our heels to give more and more, to sacrifice ourselves to the lowest common denominator, to abandon our independence and enslave ourselves to a self-proclaimed new world order which seeks only to compound the problems of today by magnifying them tomorrow.

The argument has always gone that we haven't done enough. What if we've already been doing too much? What if the smug certainty of our politicians is actually misplaced? After all, are they economists? Are they historians? Are they philosophers? How deeply have they thought about the current crisis? Or are they simply parroting what their economics advisors, steeped in Keynesnianism have told them? Are they simply parroting what their philosophy teachers steeped in Kant have told them? Are they simply parroting what their law professors steeped in moral relativism have told them?

The root issue, the key, the crux upon which the entire scope of the major problems in the world today hinge is one pivotal issue: Do you have the right to your own life? Ask any proponent of central banking. Ask any advocate of public education. Ask any idealogue who advocates any social program where the fundamental and underlying premise is that your life belongs not to you, but to the state and that the state has the right to your life, that they have the right to do anything they want to you as long as they have the blessed "mandate of governance". Ask these people, "Do you have the right to your own life?" Ask them. And they will evade and dodge, and badger, and become indignant. But if you can actually get them to answer that question straight out, the answer will be "No". I've seen this many times, the desperate scramble to evade answering a simple yes or no question. Also, the horror of that single-syllable answer.

Because what does it mean if you do not have the right to your own life? It means that noone does. It means that anyone can be dealt with by others in any way. It means, in effect, that there is no objective standard by which to conceive of justice. It means, in effect, that there is no objective standard by which to conceive of morality.

But there is an objective standard of morality: your own life. What makes it harder to survive as is befitting a human being--this is the evil. What makes it easier to survive as is befitting a human being--this is the good. Life and Death are the simplest moral choices at the base of one's morality. Do you want to live? Or, do you want to die? If you decided to live, then all the things which make that life worth living become values to you. Your children, your family, clean air, and water, working hard to reap the products of that work to gain food and clothes for your family, so that they can live and generate life and so on. Life is an end in itself. Happiness is the consequence of a moral life in that the moral life optimizes one's realization of life. As one philosopher put it, "Happiness is enough to make life desirable and lacking in nothing." But the same philosopher also said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Happiness is not achieved by range of the moment actions, based simply on the arbitrary desires of the moment. Happiness is only attainable by examining the consequences of a plan of action over the span of one's entire life. It does not mean a state of prolonged and constant euphoria. It means self-esteem, self-respect, and the contentment that comes from honest living.

But implicit in the realization of happiness is that you are free to decide how your life shall be lived. Implicit in the realization of morality is that you be free to be moral. If you are not free to decide what ideas to support, to dispose of the fruits of your labor as would best suit your personal self-interests, if, in short, you are not free to work for your own good, then you are not free. If you are not free, you cannot be happy. If you are not free, you cannot be moral or immoral. If you are not free, then you are only a slave. If you do not have a right to your own life, then you are only a slave. If nobody has a right to their own lives, then everybody is a slave to the majority opinion holder of the moment and everyone must live in fear that the next majority wave of opinion will target them as the scapegoat to be sacrificed to the mob.

The founders of the United States of America understood this interconnectedness of happiness, freedom, morality, economy, and politics. The one failing was that they compromised on the moral principles and sought to justify the American system on altruistic grounds, on the principle that the justification for such a system is the good of the many. The true justification of the American system is that it rests not on the good of the many, but on the good of the one--you and what is good for you, yourself. Human rights cannot be held by any collective, because any collective is simply a group of individual human beings. If individual human beings do not have rights, then the group also has no rights. Human rights are inalienable, they are independent of the will of the mob, or of individual power holders. Thus, in the American system, political power holders must subordinate their actions within the limits proscribed by the doctrine of human rights. Conversely, American citizens should be free to do whatever they like unless it is expressly prohibited by a doctrine of human rights.

To adhere to a doctrine of human rights is to constrain the politicians and to liberate mankind. To reverse this is to turn politicians into Gods and humanity into slaves.

Your life is your property. If there are no property rights, there is no right to life. If you surrender your right to life, it is the same as committing suicide, a long slow suicide where the killing stroke will come at an arbitrary time and an arbitrary place. If you surrender your right to life, you surrender all the values that come with it. Justice, Freedom, Security....you cannot have one without the others.

Don't surrender your right to life any longer. Demand that the government commit to a doctrine based on the rights of the individual as opposed to the right of mob rule. Instead of forming increasingly expansive world governmental organizations, demand that the governments at home recognize individual rights and act to preserve them. There is too much lip service to rights, and too much sacrifice of them on the altar of a vague and unspecified "good" which we will never see, and our children are expected to slave to pay for. Enough of the political expediency of cake today, and poverty tomorrow. Enough of the sacrifice of the generations to come for some unseen benefit today. Demand your freedom and your rights. Demand the right to hold property, to dispose of it as you will. Demand the right for you to run your own life. Demand that your life is your own and noone else's to arbitrarily dictate to. Demand your right to yourself.

And if you hold that you do not have the right to your own life....kill yourself, and get out of the way of those who want to live.

Pope a Hypocrite: Hoards Gold and Condemns Greed

Today's case study in what is wrong with the world is drawn from this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25754069/

The headline reads: "Pope urges young to spurn the 'spiritual desert' : He challenges crowd of 200,000 to help world turn away from materialism"

Aside from the many many philosophical problems I have with attacks on materialism, greed, and selfishness. And aside from the many many problems I have with those who promote altruism over rational egoism. Aside from these things, is there anything more hypocritical than the figurehead of the Catholic church berating people for enjoying personal comfort that they have at least done something to earn? Has anyone out there even seen the amount of gold that decks out the Vatican? If not, here's some pics:


If they're so earnest about sacrifice, why don't they lead by example and distribute church wealth to the needy rather than trying to make us feel guilty for spending the money that we earned with our labor? I mean, after all, who deserves their money more? Some guy who works his ass off every day of his life? Or some fat and indolent preacher-boy who's never done anything but sit in a high chair and rattle off how worthless people are? I'd bet on the worker over the preacher any day.

And, hell. While we're on the topic of greed and materialism anyway, why don't we look into this "spiritual desert" and see what's really going on there.

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," the pope is quoted as saying. He blames this on greed and materialism and people turning away from faith. I would argue that this despair, this fear is spreading as a direct result of the faithful. And if not directly through religion than indirectly through secular altruism.

How can a person have self-esteem, if the more successful they are at their job (and therefore more successful monetarily)--How can they have self-esteem if the better they are, the more guilty they are supposed to feel? How come excellence and the demand of greater rewards for greater excellence is condemned as a sin? If someone is good, then, dammit, they deserve more. We NEED good teachers, we NEED good doctors, we NEED good engineers. But how do we expect to find people who can fulfill these needs? Should we expect them to appear magically and just perform these functions because that is their nature? Or do we have to assure that they have an equitable return on their efforts, so that they are self-motivated to perform these functions in society? Yet oddly enough, we turn around and condemn the people who are doing exactly what we are paying them to do, we condemn them for being TOO good.

Has anyone who has sat down and blindly condemned people for greed actually fully thought this through? As we progressively enact more laws, and the religious organizations gather more followers, and the secular humanists jump on the band wagon and berate rampant selfishness and the profit motive, has anyone noticed the corresponding erosion of the economy, rampant inflation and critical shortages of teachers, nurses, mathematicians, and engineers? Perhaps the faithful are hoping that they can merely pray and have God magically deliver the trained professionals who will keep the engine of global civilization running. Or perhaps they think that those who are capable of providing those services should do so simply for the sake of all those who can't, and should serve humbly, apologetically, and with head bowed in shame for the epic force of will and dedication of mind necessary to accomplish such feats of creation as has never been known to the leaders of the religious front.

What insights have popes or cardinals or imams given us as to the structure of the universe or the fate of humanity? None. Not a thing. All they have done is preached how near disaster we are, and how we should abandon reason, when reason is needed most. Can the pope build a railroad? Can he erect a building that will not fall? Can he conjure more food from the ground or purify our water? Can he answer the dual needs of protecting the environment while not stifling economic prosperity? Can he do any of these things? NO.

All the pope can do is pray, and berate and cajole and beg. And for what? Why is he doing all this needling? Is it for the good of humanity, as he would claim? Or is it so that he can take advantage of the poor, the ignorant, and the ashamed? He'll casually accept money from the poor, and claim that it is going to help those in need. As he wears gold crowns and lives in a gold bedecked palace. He'll gleefully accept the donations of the guilty rich who, ashamed of their own prowess, seek to assuage the moral conflict that rages inside them by hoping to buy their way into paradise. And the ignorant, the church will gratefully embrace the ignorant, because to embrace God requires no discipline of the mind, it requires no rigor of thought, no effort of will. All it takes is the effort of release, of everything.

If you release your mind, your body, your will, your judgment, your soul, your self-esteem, and your pride, then you will be beloved of god. If you destroy everything there is that makes you who you are, if you destroy anything and everything that makes life good and worth living, then you will be saved by god. God wants to destroy you. The religious want nothing less than the spiritual destruction of humanity. That is why the absolute sacrifice is the symbol of their faith. The absolute of death is sacrosanct in every major religion.

Death is the ideal. A noble death is a noble goal in every major religion. No religion abhors death and reveres life to the extent that they would say, "Live your life to the best of your ability and enjoy those fruits of that ability for they are the mark of your best nature." No, instead they claim that the very qualities that enable you to survive are the qualities that you must apologize for. They claim that the more able you are to live, the more guilty you should feel. That is because, in faith, we are all expected to want to die, but not being able to, should feel guilt for our life.

How perverted and despicable a promise to humankind! Such a miserable and filthy demand! To demand that all should die to fulfill the warped philosophy of the incompetent. To demand that the worthy apologize to the unworthy, that the able apologize endlessly to the inept.

Wouldn't it be a better world, if we all stood as equals--not in the sense of some guarantee--but in the sense of having equal rights to the fruits of our own labor? That we could stand shoulder to shoulder with giants and thank them for all that they have given us in the terms of an easier, safer, healthier life. We could thank them, and allow them the freedom to enjoy the fruits of that inestimable boon they have granted us. Without guilt. Without shame. Proud and radiant as human beings, all of us. Proud that we have done the work that we were best able to do, no matter what work that is. Proud of what we have attained, and created, and managed to preserve around us.

Would it matter if we all cannot be a Vanderbilt, or an Einstein, or even an Elvis? We do what we can. We build what we can. Does anyone have the right to begrudge another the results of their own work, whatever work that may be?

I say NO! I say ENOUGH! The time has come to stay this madness. Reject religion. Reject the secular altruists who preach freedom on one side, and berate the use of it on the other. Reject all those who would offer you a collar in exchange for your self-esteem. Do not be seduced by the prospect of harvesting the wealth of those you envy--for all that road promises is that you will be sacrificed to those who envy yours.

Defend your freedom. And do it not for the good of others. Do it not for the good of generations to come, or for the protracted and unseeable future. Do it for yourself! Do it for the now! Reject all forms of statism, nationalism, religion--all forms of spiritual and physical sacrifice. Claim your birthright, claim that which is yours, not because I say so, but because you earned it. Reject the claims of all those who savor the unearned, who would make you a slave and expect you to be grateful for it. Fight them, do what you can. Speak, blog, vote, protest. We cannot afford to surrender. To surrender is to embrace death.

Religion: Laugh Your Ass Off

I've been thinking lately. Maybe the reason that religion gets to cling on to it's social respectability despite all the vicious, maniacal, and just plain ludicrous stuff it tries to get away with--maybe the reason is that we all take it so seriously. I mean what would happen, if we just laughed our asses off whenever somebody said they believed in God? What would happen if we just doubled over with tears streaming out of our eyes whenever somebody even mentioned heaven, hell, Satan, Jesus, Mohammad or Buddha? I guess it makes it harder to laugh at people who are really intent on enslaving and/or killing you (though not necessarily in that order). Anyways, a world were we could just laugh those silly freaks away and not have to worry about them anymore, is a world worth working for. Until then, here's a taste of what it might feel like to be able to laugh them all away:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope-1Zb5t-k

Pope John Paul II was an Atheist! -- Breaking News of a Startling Analysis

Yes, here it is. A brilliant piece of deductive reasoning using the deceased Pope's very own words to expose what must have been the ideology driving them. After watching this, there should be no doubt that the Pope, the figurehead of Catholicism was, indeed, an atheist. It's so rare to actually catch out one of the religious figureheads in giving away the game. I highly recommend this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29YD5Yz6yk

Hitchens Takes One for Reason

This blog entry is about an article by Christopher Hitchens here:

Believe Me, It’s Torture

I've talked at length in the past about my disdain for Sam Harris' cavalier advocacy of torture as some kind of intellectual common sense. So, I have to say that I have a lot of respect for someone who is willing to put themselves through something like this in order to make a point. I couldn't imagine Harris putting himself on the line for his ideas. And the point that Hitchens makes is a very important one. Namely, that if we surrender our dedication to human rights, and to our concept of humanity, then we are surrendering what makes us Americans. There are numerous strategic justifications for the use of torture, but the best argument against it is one of principle. Do we really wish to be a nation known for the use of torture? Do we really want our enemies to gain credence as the ones telling the truth? What exactly do we have to gain? And more terrifying....what do we have to lose?

And here is video footage of his experience:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y3raoKpfiM

Happy Science: Religious Cults in Supposedly Atheist Japan

It is not uncommon to hear Japan come up as an example of a predominantly atheistic nation which seems to do just fine by itself. Although as a long-time resident of Japan, one thing that has always disturbed me is the widespread proliferation of superstitions, lucky charms, and that which feeds on such things: cults.

The nefarious Aum Shinrikyo cult which was responsible for the sarin nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. It amazingly still had about 1500 to 2000 members as of 2004 and has regrouped itself under the name Aleph. At it's height, it had approximately 40,000 members worldwide. This is, of course, small by the standards of the great blood-thirsty world religions. But they ended up killing 12 and injuring an estimated 5000 commuters as a result of their madness.It just goes to show that small fanatical organizations can be just as dangerous as the big ones. It's all a matter of will and timing.

Well, what got me online today, was that my wife found a promotional pamphlet in our mailbox today, and we almost died laughing when we started looking through it. It's for a new brand of religious quackery called, get this, Happy Science. It was founded by Ryuho Okawa (大川隆法) a former student of law and finance who got it into his head to make a religion and call himself a god. He claims to be "El Cantare" the reincarnation of Buddha and that he can offer the road to eternal peace. They offer seminars in appreciating your role as a "Civil Servant of the Universe" (宇宙公務員) and even give you a badge stating such that you can wear with pride (embarassment?) for having attended. (And of course shelled out a nice lump of cash to boot.) Their literature has all the standard earmarks of religious cult propaganda ala The Jehovah's Witnesses, The Door Christian Fellowship, or any other average ordinary everyday bilking mill for loonies. If you're lucky enough to live in Japan then you can even take advantage of their "Satory Land" virtual fun park accessible by cell phone. For those who don't speak Japanese "satori" means "enlightenment", so calling the site "Satory Land" is a bit like calling it "Calvary Camp" or "Salvation Fun Park". My personal favorite translation would be "The Happy Buddha's Enlightenment Funland".

What surprised me was that it seems like they're making forays into the international arena as well, with temples in Hawaii, San Francisco, and Brazil. Their site is also available in English and Chinese. Here's the link:

http://www.happy-science.org/en/

I recommend checking it out for a good laugh. Or at least it would be, if it didn't seem to be so successful. It's absolutely amazing to me that enough people are willing to support as obvious a business ploy as this and to the extent that they can have 24 temples in Japan proper and ones internationally as well. This guy's books are supposedly best-sellers. Here is a guy practically claiming to be the reincarnation of god and people are giving him money hand over fist. Of course people have a soft spot for people like the Dhalai Lhama who claim that they're a reincarnation of some ancient whatchamacallit or whatnot. But seriously, how could someone spend money on this and look themselves in the mirror. Guess Ayn Rand was pretty close to the mark when she said that the choice to believe in God is like murdering your mind.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this nonsense is that they actively are recruiting parents to indoctrinate their children with it. If you take a look at the membership page, they explicitly state how they are recruiting "Angel Members", children from 0-6 years old who can be initiated via a special "Infant Entrance Ceremony". I wouldn't say that it's big enough to be too dangerous yet. But it's never good to be complacent about such organizations. The Nazis started out as a fringe organization that polarized an entire nation. And it wasn't so long ago that the entire nation of Japan worshipped their emperor as a divine sun-god for whom they would passionately lay down every last life in a nightmare of self-immolation. (And there are still plenty of those out there. If you don't believe me, look into the controversy over the film, Yasukuni)

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of rational, even-minded, concrete Japanese out there. But there are also a lot of collectivists, fanatics, and spiritualists as well. Especially, of late, the media seems saturated with tales of the paranormal, miracles, and the terrors of modern science. Then again, their economy is set to take the fall again amidst a lumbering and suicidal welfare system and an addiction to social programs. Will reason triumph in Japan? Or will it be quacks like Okawa who end up having the last laugh?

A Decisive Argument Against Religion

This is a video posted by YouTube objectivist Nelapidae. He presents a stunningly clear, precise and cutting argument against faith. Enjoy:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQefreiEQOA

Ayn Rand: Atheist and Advocate of Reason

Here's a nice little collage of clips of interviews where Ayn Rand expresses her views on religion. I wish there were more guests like her on talk shows today.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS6vxb4H3M

City of the Living

Here's a political art piece depicting the spiritual and concrete consequences of certain philosophical beliefs. I think I've been able to achieve a higher level of subtlety in this one as opposed to my earlier videos. I hope you like it.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WavGf6NYul0

Election 2008: Socialism or Capitalism, Which Shall it Be?

Okay, well, we KNOW that McCain can't be trusted any further than we could throw him, so for me he's not even a contender. Like I said, I admire Obama's stance on religious influence in government and his respect for rational discourse in the political process. Unfortunately, he's a rank socialist, who ignores basic economics in favor of generating a populist appeal. Of course, this has long been a staple of the "democratic" party. It's so accepted that he doesn't even try to sugar-coat it. Here it is:

SOCIALISM IN ACTION



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-yopgPHbw

So, what else is there to do? Is it really a choice between Socialism and Theocracy? NO. It isn't. Of course, the power-hungry influence peddlers would love for you to think that. They want you to choose between the mixed-values of economically conservative religious extremists and socially liberal communist ideologues. What they want you to ignore is that there is a third option. That option is economic conservatism and social freedom. The price is increased personal responsibility. The price is that we can no longer run crying to Big Daddy Government to save us from our own decisions whether they go awry from ignorance or accident. So what should we do this election? Vote Libertarian. Vote Bob Barr.

He won't hand us over to the Christian zealots. And he won't hand us over to the Collectivists either. Freedom is a principle worth fighting and dying for. Don't allow the Democrats and Republicans to convince you that some are more important than others and that they should be traded like some kind of commodity of influence. Rights are an absolute of human ethics. They cannot be compromised, or else they have no meaning and offer no assurance at all. To preserve our rights is to preserve freedom. And the government cannot force freedom. The bigger government is, the less freedom we have. The less freedom we have, the less able we are to turn our ideas into businesses, to do business with our fellow human beings and in the end, the harder it is to live. If you love freedom and life, vote against both those who would sacrifice us to religion and those who would sacrifice us to society. Vote for freedom. Vote Bob Barr.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkPMJRDBuo

Election 2008: McCain and Obama on Religion

Well, what should I say? I dislike Obama because he's a socialist. I dislike McCain because he kisses up to the religious right. But after watching these two videos, there's no way I'm voting for McCain. I guess it depends on how the Libertarian candidate presents himself. But McCain is off my list. If the Libertarian doesn't impress me, then I'm voting for Obama.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9izhjnaLa3M



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg8lCLumByw

The Morality of Fairness: Objectivism and Christianity

This is a continuation of the ongoing debate I'm having with a friend of mine. To catch up on where we started from please see my blog entry here:

A Discussion of American Culture

As before, I have edited out personal references and names. I'll keep the same color coding. T is blue and American Antitheist is green.

T: I actually just finished reading a philosopher discussing "what is philosophy," and he was saying how many believe philosophy to begin with doubt. He believes, instead, that it begins, and in fact encompasses, wonder. To see the world and be caught off-guard is truly the first step of coming to understand some of it. Of course, though, in the end, the word "philosophy" itself means "love of wisdom," and not "wisdom," and so we must find our way towards something that cannot be achieved, if we take the etymology of philosophy to hold any sway at all (which I do). To hold loyalty to the truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher. Or at least that's how I see it. Regardless, thanks, and know that I see you in the same light. I once described your views to a Catholic friend of mine, and he asked, "You two are friends?" I laughed, and responded, "Yes, of course! We never run out of things to talk about."

I agree with what you said about my diatribe on an ad's use of the word "goddess." Of course, language changes, and the natural phenomenon of such is something that should not be regretted. Mostly. The north eastern American culture (the only one with which I am in contact at the moment) is not exactly, in my opinion, a healthy culture. It seems that for the most part reverence is given to oneself. I understand your views on the individual (or at least I think I do, correct me if I'm wrong), but "oneself" and "the individual" are two very different things. One who reveres "the individual" can look past themselves to others; a person who reveres "oneself" cannot. One of the most unfortunate effects of the growing dissatisfaction with religion in this part of the country is that very few people know how to revere anything.

I'll definitely look into Ayn Rand, regardless of her atheism or her feelings towards altruism. I've read Anthem and loved it, though Atlas Shrugged, with it's size, makes me feel like Atlas himself, haha. Has she written philosophy other than her fiction? I wouldn't mind reading what she has to say without her trying to say it in a story (though, the story is one of the best ways to get one's opinion across).

Though I agree with you on morality, I disagree that religions focus away from the "why" towards the "what." There is a rather large difference between the way in which some religious leaders act and the way that person's religion is meant to be. I will admit that there are many Christians who wish for people to "follow the rules" cause God said so. It's unfortunate in my mind that Christianity encompasses these people and ideas, but, well, humanity encompasses short sighted folks every generation, and we can't argue with a system that, in the end, does not encourage such an opinion for stupidity. I think you will probably respond to this with: "But does Christianity not support the general idea that, because a higher power demands things to be this way, then they ought to be this way?" In one way, yeah, it does, but more along the ways of "because I'm a human being I shouldn't go around acting like a dog." Religion represents in many ways the human predilection of thinking "this can't be all there is!" and directing that feeling, that hope, towards a view of humanity that is larger than the single person. Humans are animals, and we need to be fed, taken care of, etc. Yet if one only focuses on meeting one's physical needs, a person can grow rather focused on "oneself" (again, different than "individual"). Religions developed from the feeling humans have that physical needs are not all there is about life, not all there is about being a true human being. We are not beings locked in the mere environments that surround us. Most religions I've heard of understand this, and they try to remind those who listen of that fact.

I've gotten off track, haha, sorry. Back to the why as opposed to the what. I again can only speak of Christianity, but I believe religions explain more about the why than rational morality does. One can say that "to do good to your fellow man" is an important piece of morality because it solidifies society and prevents squabbling over resources (or whatever the problem might be). But one might ask, "Why is that important?" The answer would then be, "Because we don't want to get everyone in a state of fear of their neighbors, so that we can live in a somewhat peaceful fashion and not get killed." But, then again, why is peace important? Why is life important? Why is protecting one's family important. In the end, a person (any person) has to stop and say "because it is." What religion does is answers the "why" of that statement. Why is it important? What makes it important? Where does importance come from? Or rather, religions allow a person to begin to understand the answer to these questions. In the end, God is quite the mystery, and I can't think of many religions where God, The Great Cause, etc. is anything but a quest (not even in a religion that believes that Being came down and became one with our corporeal reality).

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean in your paragraph on "fairness," but I'll see if I can say a few things about it. Any story taken out of context is rather worthless, really, whether it is used for finding happiness in one's life or a bit of laughter. Taking a story from a religious text and forgetting what comes before and after, or, really, what the very words meant to those who wrote them, is rather foolish (one of the reasons people got so upset about translating the Bible). The difficulty comes in, though, with what you're saying about where any story really comes from, or, rather, any general feeling that something is innate. Is the sense that things ought to be fair innate? I could say yes and you could say no and we could sit here with unhappy red faces, and that's unfortunately what a lot of people do, haha. I suppose, for me, my reasons come from plausibility. I ask myself what is more plausible: humanity understands innately that they will be dealt with fairly in a spiritual sense and, due to their having both a body and a soul, confuse the spiritual fairness with a physical fairness that does not exist, or do people learn it as "a function of values encoded in our society," to use your words. Well, where do those values come from? I suppose you might answer "from cultural evolution." Yet they had to have begun somewhere. I suppose they might come from a desire to retain life, to stay alive: basically from a sense of survival. Survival is an instinct, but I was already wondering in my last email about how instinct isn't an ought, it's a suggestion. I've probably dug myself a rather nice hole of supposition here, so I'll leave off this paragraph for now.

Your friend's comment on the big three monotheistic religions confuses me, though again I can only speak from a Christian perspective. I don't think Christianity is xenophobic or that it promotes violence against non-believers. In the end, yes, the Old Testament is rather xenophobic, but the message Jesus (the center of the New Testament and of Christianity as a whole) is one that breaks down barriers that had been set up by society. One of his big messages was that religious leaders are not the sole possessors of religious knowledge and that the "kingdom" that Judaism was waiting for was not a kingdom won by battle or that was to be lorded over by a high king above everyone else, but that Jesus, a poor man, was to bring everyone (and that means everyone in the world who follows the path of the spirit) into a spiritual kingdom where all are equal. This thought, developed during the middle ages (as well as before and after) split people's minds from the view that worldly power can conquer all as well as from the ethnocentric viewpoint that most cultures held. Unfortunately that process is still going on, but that is not due to any work of Christians, but the works of men who use religions to hold sway over people.

What a way to end a letter there! I can only say that I don't think his "demands" are that horrible. And I dunno about siding with Satan in Paradise Lost: though his descriptions of heaven weren't as interesting as those of hell, I certainly would rather be quite far from the petty squabbling and hierarchy of the place. And anyway, "serving" and "rule" are just outdated terminology that should be done away with. There's not much serving going on with living in tune, completely, with reality.


American Antitheist: I appreciate the anecdote about your friend's bewilderment at our friendship. I think it's because we only really differ at the very base of our assumptions, the main difference probably being reducible to your belief in religion and the religious moral structure and my non-belief in religion and my belief in an objective moral system derivable from a common reality. But even then, I'm not sure how much we differ there. Like you said, "To hold loyalty to truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher." This implies that we both hold that there is a common reality, an existence which exists regardless of our perception of it and about which we can investigate and determine its properties and nature. To us, therefore the major difference comes from the God premise. A universe that includes an all-powerful God has to be fundamentally different from a universe where there is none. So, the difference in this premise unavoidably alters our subsequent judgments of what is or is not possible in this testable universe. Primarily, that difference being that our standards of evidence must be somehow different.


For me to believe in something I require proof of existence. Now that proof can take various forms. Of course the most certainty comes from directly observable and repeatable experience. But obviously one can't be bothered to recreate every single experiment that has ever been done to have a secure basis for knowledge. That is why there are certain checks and balances in the world of scientific discourse which make it very hard for an idea to be adopted and make it very easy for an idea to be discarded. Theories, as such, come and go. But the basis behind that is simple. It only takes one counter-example to disprove a theory. But conversely, if a theory can provide no predictive value, or there is a lack of supporting evidence then it is equally dubious. In order for an idea to be accepted by the scientific community it must run the gauntlet of the double-blind peer review process. It must face criticism and attack from all directions. It must be able to stand on the merits of its rational discourse. And if it cannot, then it is discarded or modified as necessary until it can face such criticism. Everyone's career is at stake. From purely selfish motives, the inestimable benefit of scientific progress is distributed to all humanity to use as they wish. And having been vetted through that process, the reliability of science in our current era is greater than knowledge from any other source. This is the basis of belief from rational argument based on the scientific method.


However, I think, that to believe in God, one must put faith at a higher level than reason. That the existence is presupposed to the evidence, as there is none. Believing without evidence is a presumption that one is somehow directly privy to that which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It means, in short, that at some stage one has to know first and then search for evidence to bolster that belief. Whereas the scientific method is to suspend belief until after one has found sufficient evidence, or to form beliefs that explain the evidence at hand. I think this is why scientific "beliefs" are prone to change more readily than religious ones. This is because the basis of belief is different. If the basis of science is fact, then beliefs must change to accommodate that which we have learned. If the basis of religion is faith, then we must hold our beliefs, despite the evidence. In short, science encourages the humility of self-correction, whereas at some level religion encourages a kind of metaphysical obstinacy.


I'm sorry for going on a tangent of sorts, but I still think it has some relevance to our current discussion, which is why I indulged myself a little to address it. I agree that morality is a code of values for humans. It has to take into account that we are not dogs. It has to recognize the nature of a human being, in all respects. It has to take into consideration, emotions, psychology, genetics, family bonds, loyalty, betrayal, desire, ambition, genius, and incompetence and so on. The problem is, does religion adequately do so? I agree that focusing purely on one's physical needs is insufficient. That, again, would be ignoring human nature, the qualities that make human beings unique, or at least unique as we understand them to be.


I disagree slightly with your distinction between "individual" and "oneself" or perhaps I'm just not clear on what that distinction is. The way I see it, the ability to look past themselves is not necessarily a good thing. One needs to include oneself in all decisions. That does not mean to turn a blind eye to the people around you. That would instead be an evasion of reality, an intentional obfuscation of the necessary facts upon which a rational moral code must be based. Objective reality is quite simply everything that is around you, everything you act upon or that tries to act upon you. To ignore oneself for the sake of others, or to ignore others for the sake of oneself are simply both sides of the same coin, they entail some level of intentional evasion of reality. A truly integrated appreciation of human social existence must take into account that neither side is something to be sacrificed for the other. The individual self is not something which should be sacrificed to others. Likewise, others are not something which should be sacrifice to oneself. The only moral basis for the interaction for people is therefore a mutually agreed exchange of values. One in which there is no coercion or threat of violence of any kind. One in which people are free to decide who they will deal with and on what terms. This is the morality of objectivism. It comes from the recognition that this IS all there is. That there is no rational basis for believing otherwise. That to believe that "this can't be all there is" is to actively suppress everything that your senses tell you, everything that the standard rules of logic and nature tell us about existence. A rational system of morality cannot spring from a source which is decidedly arbitrary in its origins.


If God is not arbitrary, if there is indeed such a being, then naturally we would have to base our moral decisions on its existence. But then the question becomes which god is the one to which we should adhere? How do we make the distinction? Are they all right? How could that be? For me it's hard enough to find a religion that is internally consistent much less one that is consistent with all other religions as well. In fact, they are as diverse as human cultures are, and as varied as language and ideology. So then, how do we know which is the truly moral path? If our decisions for morality must be based on and come from religion must we then assume that those who follow other religions are inherently evil because they follow a moral system that differs from ours? Or must we retire completely from moral judgements and say that they are all equally moral despite their differences? But if we do that, then don't we surrender the concept of morality entirely? After all if all moral systems no matter how different can be regarded as moral, doesn't the concept of morality become meaningless? Clearly, neither of us believes this. So, what then are we basing our moral judgements? What then are we deciding that this religion is moral, or that action is wrong? I am not in the least bit religious and yet I would bet that we would find similar things to be immoral.


Child molestation, murder, theft, rape, fraud, extortion....these are things which are objectively wrong. And the reason they are wrong to us, is because we recognize at some level that they are anathema to life and to the generation of life. They are facets of destruction, they kill life, ebb its luster, and threaten to darken the horizons of the future if unchecked. They attack life. They rob people of the choice to live in freedom. They rob people of the choice to decide how best they should live their own lives. They represent an imposition of an external power upon the life of the individual. No matter what one's personal religious beliefs, acts of this nature are clearly wrong. But why? Not because god says so. They are wrong because they work against everything that is held to be of value to someone who values life. They are wrong because they work against everything that it means to be a human being, to be a man among men, a woman among women. This is the why of morality, and one that I don't think is adequately explained by religion.


I'm sure that you know that there are parts of the bible which at times either condemn or extoll rape. There are parts that promote or admonish against slavery. There are areas which even condone incest and the sacrifice of children, whereas other areas would punish such things. Where then is the explanation as to why it was moral for Lot to conceive children by his daughters, or Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son? And yet Lot's wife is condemned merely for the sin of curiosity? Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden for the same sin, and yet the Bible states that before they ate the apple they did not know good from evil. So, how then could they have known that it was wrong to eat the apple in the first place? This is one of the things I refer to when I speak of the irrational demands of God upon his creation. If God is a rational, benevolent being, why would he place demands on mankind that we cannot meet by the very nature of our creation? To say it more simply, if we were created with a certain faculty for discerning reality and then we are judged based on principles which are outside the scope of that faculty, how then is this standard of judgement fair or even rational? If I were to put a steak on the ground and tell the dog not to eat it, would it make sense for me to have the dog put to sleep because it didn't understand what I was saying? The answer is no. Either I would have to be irrational or malevolent. In either case, there would be something wrong with me and not the dog. This is the reason why I say that even were there to be a god, I would still oppose him. I cannot revere that which is either malevolent or irrational. And this is also a fundamental reason why I reject the notion of religion as inherently moral or as the source of our modern morality or even our sense of fairness. Fairness is of course intricately intertwined with our notions of morality.


Which finally brings me back to fairness. What we perceive to be "fair" ultimately depends on our concept of reality and our notions of causality. It is natural to expect that if we do good things then we will have good results. The dog expects a reward for doing a trick. The child expects praise for accomplishment. Adults expect a raise for doing good work. The student expects good grades if they study properly for the test. But this is only in relation to the action that we have performed. The results of our labor directly equal the reward of that labor. What, then if we divorce the two from each other? Should the student expect good grades for helping an old lady across the street? Should a man expect a raise because he is a good father? Should a woman expect to have a successful career because she gives to charity? The problem is obvious. The problem is causation. If a person's concept of "fair" divorces the relation between ends and means, if they are perceived as isolated and unrelated events, then saying that "doing good things bring good results" means that we may expect that if we are a good person than we shouldn't get caught in earthquakes, that good people shouldn't get cancer, or that good people should all have happy joyous lives devoid of tragedy or loss. However this would be distinctly unrealistic. Unfortunately, I think this is the root of why the "conventional wisdom" is that life is unfair. The reason is that quite a lot of people hold exactly this metaphysical view. Cause and Effect are dissociated. People don't see the ramifications of their beliefs, and very often they don't see the ramifications of their actions. They think that ideals can never be attained, that perfection is impossible, that compromise with one's morals is the only way to survive. They think that if the world was fair, that people should get benefits from some unspecified benefactor for the very reason that they consider themselves to be a good person. But if this judgement is made divorced of any kind of objective measure, then who is to say that one person is good or another person is bad? In short, it means that all such judgments must be subjective and naturally from any given subjective perspective where a person simply "thinks" that they are better than the next, that person always thinks that they deserve more.


From an objectivist standpoint, however, life is fair. Eminently and unavoidably so. Of course people will still get caught in natural disasters or swept up in events beyond their control, but this has nothing to do with an objective concept of fairness. Fairness can only be conceived in a situation where "good things" and "good actions" have some causal connection. If there is no causal connection then no expectation of results is rational. For any given occurence, situation, or happenstance to be "fair" it has to have a causal relationship to something within a person's volitional control. If there is no causal relationship, then it cannot be fair or unfair, it simply is. Likewise, if there is a causal, volitional relationship and the results do not equal the actions, then we can say that the situation is unfair. But this would ultimately have to be based on our own evaluations of our work, or efforts and the results we are getting for them. Here too it is essential to be rational, otherwise such estimations become meaningless. And ultimately we must decide the terms of our interactions with other people based on our integrated concepts of fairness and value.


And once again the difference in our views of the fundamentals of the universe has led to our difference in a concept so removed as that of fairness. When you refer to the "innate" sense of fairness, or to "instinct" you are assuming that human beings are somehow pre-programmed with a moral compass of some kind. From a cosmological perspective based on God, this is completely acceptable. If we were created by God in god's image, then it isn't too far of a stretch to assume that he granted us some "sense" of right and wrong. But if we don't accept god as a given, then this begs a very serious question. I do not hold that we are programmed with morality through instinct or innate knowledge in any way. On the contrary, I think that human beings have to learn how to be moral creatures. I don't think that we are innately programmed with much of anything beyond our basic conceptual hardware. If we were programmed with morality from birth as an innate function of our existence, then the only way to explain people like Stalin or Hitler would be to chalk it up to a birth defect. And by so supposing, would it then be possible to genetically engineer out of existence immorality?I don't think so, and I would bet you would balk at that idea as well. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, where there is no capacity for choice, the concept of morality once again loses meaning. Good or evil only has meaning where there is choice. If everything is pre-determined or outside of one's control then there can be no conceivable good or evil in one's actions. It just simply is. But if you have the choice between two options, then one must usually be better than the other. In order to get from this simple decision to a whole code of morality requires quite a few steps of logical connection. However the necessary premises are only two.


1) That our perceptual hardware presents to us an image of reality as it truly is for all intensive purposes. A is A. The law of identity.


2) That we value our lives.


From this all else follows. If we value life, then death is something to be avoided. If we value life, then things which sustain and enrich that life are good. Conversely, things which diminsih or threaten that life are evil.


Why is peace important? Because if we all value our own lives, then we don't want to die. But also, if we value our own lives we may find a situation where we are forced to fight to defend that very same life.


Why is family important? It is important in that we value those people in the family. Their existence enriches ours. We value them as people. If we didn't would they then still be important? And what would it say about us if they are are decent people deserving of our respect? But conversely, what about a family which is abusive, perhaps even incestuous? Should we value the family then? Or is it more important to once again look at the individual and how that family interacts with the individual life? If we hold the life of the individual as the ultimate value, then the rest of these questions resolve with crystal clarity. A family is not a value in and of itself. Its value is dependent on the quality of people who form that family and their relationship with the individual. If they are viscious repressive and cruel, then I would say to the individual, "Flee! and never look back!" If they are, instead, supportive nurturing and in essence good, then I would say "Value that bond, and cherish those people". But the distinction is not one of need or absolute value. The family should be valued because the people who make it up represent something worth valuing to a person. But this is a value which is earned and substantiated over a long period of time. It can be just as easily lost. The mother cares for her child not because the child needs care. The mother cares for her child because she values the child. If she did not value her child and truly only cared for it because of its need, what kind of mother would she be? What kind of person? And could we truly call that good?


You see, I don't have to stop and say "just because it is". I can say "it is because I value my life. It is my ultimate value. And all the other values in that life are derivative of that ultimate value." I value people to the extent that they enrich my experience of this life. And such people I call good. To the extent that people diminish or threaten that life, they are evil. And all the others with which I have not interaction whatsoever are simply neutral, they are not either good or evil until their chosen paths of action coincide with mine for good or ill or that their choices and influence affect my life, and at such time I make the moral distinction.


This is another reason why I regard God's demands as horrible. It is because that moral decisions do not have to be an arbitrary guessing game where we try to get into God's head and think of what Jesus would do. It can make sense, and purely based on the observable facts of our existence. The supernatural is extraneous. I know what is right and wrong. And that knowledge is not based on somebody else's assertion. It is based on my knowledge of the world. If that knowledge is in error, then I must modify my knowledge, reassess the moral ramifications, whenever that knowledge must be corrected.


And finally, I feel I should address the concept of Jesus as a moral figure. I'm sorry if I may happen to offend you here, because I realize that this is getting very close to your spiritual center. Unfortunately there's no way that I can avoid the issue as it does lay right at the hub of the problem.


Jesus claimed that all people are equal in heaven. Yet, the Christian notion of equality is one that is debateable. "Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to eneter heaven" seems to be equality of a decidedly communist bent. The richer you are, the more evil. Rich and poor are not equal spiritually. And even then, what does it mean to be spiritually equal? Does it mean we are all the same? Are we all equally good? Equally bad? If so, then once again what does morality mean in a world where all are essentially of equal goodness? Perhaps it refers to the concept that we should "do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves." But is this really an adequate moral principle? What it implies is that we should treat other people in a way such as the open expectation of which is that they will treat us well. The moral principle here is that we should be good to people in the hopes that they will be good to us. That we should surrender our desires to the expectation of some kind of fair return. What then is the evil in working directly for that fair return by refusing to sell one's values short, by refusing to compromise on the open-ended expectation that people will treat you fairly. What is wrong with demanding fair treatment from the outset? What is wrong with holding one's rights as inalienable and demanding that people respect them in their dealings with you?


Why is "turning the other cheek" considered a moral principle? Doesn't this leave us at the mercy of any bully who would come to extort the fruits of our labors? Doesn't this leave us open to any kind of abuse simply for the sake of pacifism as an absolute value? Ghandi is often revered as the most devout practitioner of this tenet. Would it surprise you then to hear that Gandhi advocated that the Jews should have comitted mass suicide so as to deter the Germans from their murderous campaign and that war should have been avoided at all costs? What price in human blood and misery would such a course of action actually have entailed? What was Gandhi valuing in that instance, if not human life? The answer is rather dark. The answer is that these philosophies do not hold life as the ultimate value. They recommend that we abdicate the responsibility for our lives to an external power, they advocate that we value obedience over existence. They advocate our status in death as superior to our status in life. They advocate a successive chain of sacrifices to other men, to God, to anyone but oneself. Even to help others with an eye to helping yourself is considered bad in a way. The purest act is to do something where you have absolutely no vested interest in doing so whatsoever. That is the act of purest nobility from a christian standpoint. And to crown it all, they have selected a symbol of death and torture as the symbol of spiritual enlightenment, the cross. This is why the christian ideal is unattainable in life. This is why perfection from a christian standpoint is impossible. The reason is that we are only able to live in this life to the extent by which we contradict the ultimate extension of that code of ethics, which is death. We are immoral to the extent to which we live and live well, And we are moral to the extent to which we sacrifice ourselves to the benefit of others. Needless to say, under such a code of morality, we can only ever find ourselves in some kind of grayish middle region where we can never live up to our ideals and live well at the same time. To be perfectly moral is to be in a state of perfect sacrifice and that means death. Why are martyrs revered above the people who worked to do good things, without dying? Why is death in the service of good considered a higher value, regardless of the good done? Who actually saved more lives? Louis Pasteur? Jonas Salk? Or Mother Teresa? Who actually did more good?


And yet Christianity does not enshrine the pioneers of the germ theory of illness as the spiritual benefactors of mankind. Who is enshrined in their place? Those who sacrificed everything in their lives, even to the point of death, in the pursuit of the Christian "moral ideal". No, I do not regard Jesus as a moral figure. I regard him as a prophet of death. And I'm sorry if my words seem offensive. Please know that it is not my intent to offend you. This is truly what I think and feel. It is only through the perversion of concepts of morality, good, evil, sacrifice, charity, selfishness, and so on that our world has come to the state it is today. If you're still with me here and I haven't thoroughly turned you off by now, I would like to recommend just two sources that you may find of interest if you want to understand my way of thinking better.


One is "The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand. In it she discusses the fundamental principles of objectivism. Especially the essay "The Objectivist Ethics".


The second is a series of YouTube videos that presents the main philosophical soliloquy from Atlas Shrugged. The videos are skillfully done, and may be easier to digest then in writing.


I've included a link here: "This is John Galt speaking..."



Hope to hear from you. I'm interested in what you would have to say.