An AnarchObjectivist's Guide to Atlas Shrugged


JamesShrugged

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Also, allow me to suggest that how a community of "Objectivists" or "libertarians" or "capitalists" might look, we need only look at our own discussion boards. Are we not the people of Ayn Rand's novels? Based on what you have seen on discussion boards, what would happen in a society without authority, or without limits on authority?

The anarchist does not say there should be no limits on authority. The anarchist simply questions how an institution with a monopoly on force, a institution which sits as a judge in its own case, can be trusted to limit its own authority.

As to what an intentional community of contributors to Objectivist Living would look like on the ground: you'd have to walk a long way before you found a food stamp, a welfare check, a gun permit, or an income tax return.

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Boy did she (if it is a she and if Anya is really her name). Just look at her profile. Her email is now fuck@you.com. :smile:

At least she's good for a chuckle.

People like that don't want discussion.

They want compliance.

And if they can't get it, they get pissed.

OL is not a good venue for preachers looking for a flock or followers seeking a master.

:smile:

(I intend to keep it that way. Call me an asshole. :smile: )

Michael

I thought she was extremely well educated and smart for her age (20). I was comparatively ignorant nearly 50 years ago; everybody was, however. Is the Internet responsible--aside from the person?

She didn't write on subjects that interested me very much. It seems as soon as she got into political discussion she fulminated into a one-man band. I only believe her age for it's common to mix up morality and righteousness respecting the state when young, unleavened by knowledge acquired by experience over time, for it's not whether we'll have or have not a government qua state, which is where libertarian anarchists get hung up, for we have and will have government which will always be the beast we have to fight against to maintain and expand freedom. Necessary evil, but not necessary because it was chosen, as opposed to an anarchial society, but because there it is. Anarchy is one person alone. Add in the family unit and you have Dad telling everyone else what to do. Then you get the tribe. It's psychological and practical dominance and a division of labor. This evil within--or its potential--mirrors the evil without. One wants to live in one's strongest tribe or one smart enough to ally itself with another tribe making both dominant enough for self-protection--or aggression. The potential for evil within oneself--free will--can result in evil even the evil so monstrous as a totalitarian, genocidal state. If there were no free will and all those possible choices from free will and conceptual thinking, speech and the opposable thumb, there would be no state nor the need for one--nor would our species have over 6 billion people living on every continent on earth. The moral purity of advocating libertarian anarchy means one need only be concerned with one's own integrity and white hat. The simple fact that state-caused evil abounds is highly supportive of this state of grace. Theorectical minarchists, however, make the same mistake of imagining the perfect society and perfect world by positing such easily refutable nonsense as "voluntary taxation," thus getting their clocks argumentively wiped by left-libertarians and, I think, pissing off Rand who kissed them off.

--Brant

"Asshole!" (you asked me to; I only do what I'm told--please be careful what you say around me)

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As to what an intentional community of contributors to Objectivist Living would look like on the ground: you'd have to walk a long way before you found a food stamp, a welfare check, a gun permit, or an income tax return.

Francisco, now that is a well turned phrase.

How do you think that that community would deal with a sixteen (16) year old runaway?

A...

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How do you think that that community would deal with a sixteen (16) year old runaway?

A...

The question of exactly when the age of majority and thus legal independence begins is something that societies with minimal governments would have to deal with too. This is not a state vs. anarchy issue.

Having said that, my preference is to let any child at any age who desires so to declare his independence. He may then live with any household who will have him.

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How do you think that that community would deal with a sixteen (16) year old runaway?

A...

The question of exactly when the age of majority and thus legal independence begins is something that societies with minimal governments would have to deal with too. This is not a state vs. anarchy issue.

Having said that, my preference is to let any child at any age who desires so to declare his independence. He may then live with any household who will have him.

Correct. We agree.

Additionally, I assume you mean the generic "him," as I made no reference to the sex of the runaway.

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The moral purity of advocating libertarian anarchy means one need only be concerned with one's own integrity and white hat. The simple fact that state-caused evil abounds is highly supportive of this state of grace.

Brant,

Sort of. I would paraphrase that to read: "The moralizing purity of advocating libertarian anarchy means one need only be concerned with scapegoating a bogeyman while giving passing dogmatic lip service to one's own integrity and white hat. The simple fact that state-caused evil abounds is highly supportive of this state of us-against-them grace."

I agree with your bash of "theoretical minarchists"--and all others who propose a utopia for that matter. They are almost always premised on an assumption that man is perfectible according to their own image. (Notice that they are never the ones needing perfecting. :smile: )

Michael

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How do you think that that community would deal with a sixteen (16) year old runaway?

A...

The question of exactly when the age of majority and thus legal independence begins is something that societies with minimal governments would have to deal with too. This is not a state vs. anarchy issue.

Having said that, my preference is to let any child at any age who desires so to declare his independence. He may then live with any household who will have him.

Sounds like 19th C. Tahiti.

--Brant

they usually come back home on their own--the old running away thing

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The moral purity of advocating libertarian anarchy means one need only be concerned with one's own integrity and white hat. The simple fact that state-caused evil abounds is highly supportive of this state of grace.

Brant,

Sort of. I would paraphrase that to read: "The moralizing purity of advocating libertarian anarchy means one need only be concerned with scapegoating a bogeyman while giving passing dogmatic lip service to one's own integrity and white hat. The simple fact that state-caused evil abounds is highly supportive of this state of us-against-them grace."

I agree with your bash of "theoretical minarchists"--and all others who propose a utopia for that matter. They are almost always premised on an assumption that man is perfectible according to their own image. (Notice that they are never the ones needing perfecting. :smile: )

Michael

You dare improve on the Master?

--Brant

~sheese!~

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Pinker and that other fellow at TED are surely appealing.

I'm a bit dubious, though.

Less strife? (Hm, first response is "tell that to the Syrians", and all the other deadly flash points in the past few decades, and potential ones in future.) But let's grant him the fact- and I ask how much is reduced warfare a result of the West giving up a lot of personal liberty for a little more societal security?

In other words, is progressivism to thank? Restrict, regulate, and placate the public with safety nets, and you can buy peace - in the short term.

More abundance? OK, whatever the circumstances, there will be men and women who will be energetic, creative and innovative - and interested in profit. Technology accelerates, but I'm not sure if quicker and larger access to data always changes men for the better. It is more principled thought needed, not only more information.

Very generally, quality and quantity of life has improved across the board - the question now is: what are people going to do with it?

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I thought she was extremely well educated and smart for her age (20).

The user profile said 28 - which would make the vocabulary less impressive. Nathaniel Branden was giving his first lecture courses on Objectivism at 28.

As I said, I'd only read a few of her posts. I wondered if she understood some of the terms she was flinging around. They didn't go together quite right in the posts I read.

I missed the turn to anar-cap fanaticism. A number of young people have shown up on various lists who were fanatic about that and impatient of any disagreement. Might be a modern-day parallel to earlier generations' Communism enthusiasm.

Ellen

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I thought it said 20.

--Brant

I wouldn't bet on it knowing my track record--I almost accidentally blew up a building in Vietnam firing white phosphorus for range from an 81mm mortar by over-estimating the distance; fortunately I changed the line of sight after the commo man said I was wrong, but I kept the range so it exploded 30 meters to the left

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I thought it also said 28 when I first noticed her blitz of topics and effete posts.

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The anarchist does not say there should be no limits on authority. The anarchist simply questions how an institution with a monopoly on force, a institution which sits as a judge in its own case, can be trusted to limit its own authority.

As to what an intentional community of contributors to Objectivist Living would look like on the ground: you'd have to walk a long way before you found a food stamp, a welfare check, a gun permit, or an income tax return.

You would not have to look too far to find online dictators and online lynch mobs. Online we are greatly limited, of course, but also just as greatly empowered. In unmoderated boards like the old Usenet lists, you would get trolls, and not much could be done. Then, with BBSes, the sysop could use the power of property rights to filter them out. They might come back, but usually they would go elsewhere. But then we got other rules.

Computer Undeground Digest

Date: Thu, 11 Feb 93 20:17 EST

From: "Michael E. Marotta" mercury@lcc.edu

Subject: File 5--Censorship in Cyberspace Excerpts from "Censorship in Cyberspace" © 1993 by Michael E. Marotta the complete text (2000 words) appears in the ($5) 1993 Retail Catalog of Loompanics, P. O. Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Founded in 1974, Loompanics, publishers of unusual books, features about 300 titles on privacy, underground income, self-defense, etc. +++++

As Ayn Rand noted, when people abandon money, their only alternative when dealing with each other is to use guns. Yet, the anti-capitalist mentality permeates cyberspace. Most public systems and networks actually forbid commercial messages. So, computer sysops and network moderators are reduced to cavalier enforcement of their personal quirks.

When Tom Jennings created Fidonet, Omni magazine called him an "online anarchist." Since then, Fidonet has developed a governing council and lost Jennings. Over the last two years, I have been banished from these Fidonet echoes:

* Stock Market for saying that Ivan Boesky is a political prisoner

* Virus for saying that viruses could be useful

* Communications for saying that telephone service should not be regulated by the government

* International Chat for asking "How are you" in Hebrew and Japanese.

Kennita Watson, whom I met on Libernet, told me this story:

When I was at Pyramid, I came in one day and "fortune" had been disabled. I complained to Operations, and ended up in a personal meeting with the manager. He showed me a letter from the NAACP written to Pyramid threatening to sue if they didn't stop selling racist material on their machines. They cited a black woman who had found the "...there were those whose skins were black... and their portion was niggardly.... 'Let my people go to the front of the bus'..." fortune, and complained to the NAACP. I suspect that she (and the NAACP) were clueless as to the meaning of the term "niggardly". I (as a black woman) was embarrassed and outraged. Because of the stupidity of a bunch of paranoid people, I couldn't read my fortune when I logged out any more. "

It is important to bear in mind that to the censor, censorship, like all evils, is always an unpleasant but necessary means to achieve a good result. Robert Warren is a sysop who replied to an article of mine on Computer Underground Digest. He said: ... People have a right to say what they want in public, but some don't care about the responsibility that comes with it. So you zap 'em." Now, there is no argument with his basic premise: Since he owns the equipment, he has the final say in its use. This is his right. Likewise, the administrators of publicly-funded university computers also engage in censorship under a mandate to serve the people who pay taxes. "All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," the historian John E. E. Acton said. It is no surprise that this applies in cyberspace.

Political and social freedom have little to do with constitutions or elections. Congress could choose a new prime minister every day or the people could elect the secretary of state to a three year term. The details are unimportant. Some places are free and some places are controlled because the people in those places need freedom or accept oppression. It always comes back to the individual.

Dehnbase Emerald BBS is home to libertarian and objectivist discussions and is a vital link in Libernet. The number is (303) 972-6575. Joseph Dehn is not interested in enforcing rules. Albert Gore and George Bush agreed on the need for a "data superhighway." The Electronic Frontier Foundation has recommended that this national network be open to commercial enterprises. This is good. An open market is the best protection against power and corruption.

That was 1993. In fact, backl then, we had a numismatic Bitnet maillist which eventually became first the Usenet group, then the Google group, rec.collecting.coins. When I joined it, we had to create a special sub-list by subscription for buying and selling because commercial messages were forbidden.

In our time and space, SOLO Passion is like Back to the Future 2 where Biff runs the town. But every Objectivist board is like the underground city in A Boy and His Dog to some extent: an artificial community. Even MSK has limits to his patience. After all, it is his property and he manages it for his own benefit as a commercial enterprise. That said, if you know the communities, then you know the dictators and you have seen the lynch mobs. If not, just spend more time online.

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Perhaps you are right. Among people who seem to share an agreement with the non-aggression principle, there may be Hitlers and Mussolinis lurking.

I may regret it later, but when the ship of state starts sinking, I'd rather be in an enclave with Objectivists and libertarians than with a cross-section of the population that gave us the Clintons, the Bushes and Obama.

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I won't.

Life without passion has nothing to offer me I could possibly care about.

Boredom is not an option in my world.

Michael

Never thought about it like that. With neighbors like Dagny, Ragnar, Francisco, Hank and Johnny, life would have less passion than a bowl of cold oatmeal.

Get me back my red-blooded American politic with its envy-driven progressives, theocratic Republicans, gun-hating soccer moms, and bomb 'em first nationalists.

Soccer moms. Watch out for that group.

Soccer mom with a license to conceal carry weighing in here.... indeed, you should watch out! LOL (And I don't read Kant, at least not in many many years.)

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DDL, keep up the good soccermom work. It helps a parent immeasurably through the adolescent years when the child is active in a sport he likes, away from the computer and the fridge for set hours each week!

Better not read anymore Kant.. you might get drawn into arguments and as recent events in Russia show, he is a combustible subject!

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Soccer mom with a license to conceal carry weighing in here.... indeed, you should watch out! LOL (And I don't read Kant, at least not in many many years.)

Ahh, I am in love!

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Okay, I suppose technically that I am no longer a soccer mom since my son decided not to play this year after 4 seasons. Unfortunately, one of those coaches you mention, Carol, played a big part in driving the love of the game out of him. Ah well, he was a dismal player (my son, not the coach haha). My son has taken up tennis instead, and he's quite good at it. Apparently ambidexterity is quite an advantage in tennis? Also, I happen to enjoy tennis a good deal myself, so we're taking lessons together.

Incidentally, I leave my gun at home. :wink:

Oh, and Adam, I am quite fond of you, too. :laugh:

Sorry all. Hijack over.

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Thought drift is not hijacking, it is creative conversation! Enjoy your tennis, ambidextry never helped me much as I was dismal with both hands, dislike having to move fast, and this was before I realized I needed glasses.

Have the courts sanctioned two (2) ambidextrous people being allowed to marry?

And do they have to prove that they are ambidextrous?

I have hiden my ambidextrousness for decades, is it safe to come out of the closet yet?

Also, which hand should I use on the knob?

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