Please rationally support this decision

[Francisco Ferrer]

(9 x 7) + (9 x 10) = 153

∴ 9 x 17 = 153

[Brant Gaede]

Not quite what I was expecting--or talking about.

--Brant

but good enough for hand grenades or horseshoes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There has been no misrepresentation of Ayn Rand.

There has been plenty by you.

I never claimed that she endorses a prudent predator.

This is the kind of bullshit you constantly do.

Nobody I know of claims you claim Rand endorsed the prudent predator. So why treat it as if someone did? There's only one reason intelligent people do this bullshit. Misdirection. You're just throwing that out to misdirect attention from the real issue.

I never claimed the earth was square. So see? You're your criticism of me is wrong. -- That kind of bullshit.

All along my position has been that the rights-respecting conclusions she reaches (and that I concur with) do not follow seamlessly from her early premises.

This, for instance, is a misrepresentation of Rand. Not as stated here, which is an opinion that involves your own understanding or lack thereof ("my position"), so that's OK.

It's the drip drip drip dogma in constantly preaching how Rand was (supposedly) wrong about this, all the while ignoring the conceptual integration part people keep bringing up--that misrepresentation is my objection. Especially when accompanied by the misdirection bullshit I pointed to above.

One has to laugh (ergo the satire) because, idea-wise, this is not serious.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have never trivialized evil.

Heh.

Mao may well qualify as a psychopath. But assigning him to that category does not prove that he did not successfully pursue his self-interest.

Double heh.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I have never trivialized evil.

Heh.

Mao may well qualify as a psychopath. But assigning him to that category does not prove that he did not successfully pursue his self-interest.

Double heh.

Michael

If he can't evaluate Mao--stop. Something is wrong.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

I will answer the charge that I have misrepresented Ayn Rand's argument.

Rand's postulates an ethics of rational egoism. "The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival."

After establishing this self-interested standard, she warns us against any "attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud." But how does this follow from the premise? Because, she says,

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.

In short, force and fraud against others are not in one's self-interest.

If Rand's ethical theory is universalist (not relativist), it would apply to all mankind and not just to some members of the species. However, this is obviously not the case. History contains a long and bloody record of predators whose mass killing and looting did not bring about their destruction either in the short or long term. Too many lived out their lives without hanging from a noose or locked in a prison or lunatic asylum.

I will mention only a few examples:

• Oliver Cromwell's 1649–53 conquest of Ireland, fueled mainly by anti-Catholic fervor, caused the deaths of about 618,000 people, or about 40% of Ireland's prewar population. Cromwell died of natural causes at age 59, although Royalists later dug up his body to perform a posthumous execution.
• Among other crimes, the Qing Manchu Qianlong Emperor ordered the mass extermination of the Dzungar people as punishment for a rebellion against Qing rule. Between 480,000 and 600,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758. Hymns were sung to the murderous troops when they returned from the slaughter. The emperor, a poet, essayist and avid art collector, lived in lavish conditions and died of natural causes at the age of 87.
• Andrew Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress which led to the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee people from the Southeastern U.S. and an estimated death toll of 4,000 men, women and children. After his presidency Jackson lived comfortably on his 1,000 acre slave plantation until his death at the age of 78.
• King Leopold II of Belgian amassed a great personal fortune through the use of forced labor to extract rubber in the Congo Free State in the late 19th century. Estimates of deaths from his regime range from 5 to 22 million. Although the Belgian parliament eventually forced the king to cede the colony to the state, Leopold was never penalized for the murders or deprived of his ill-gotten gains. He died of natural causes in his 74th year.
• German General Lothar von Trotha was responsible for the deaths of between 24,000 and 100,000 members of the Herero tribe and about 10,000 Nama in German South-West Africa 1904-1907. His order was that "every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women or children, I will drive them back to their people [to die in the desert] or let them be shot at." The scorched earth campaign included poisoning wells. Lothar returned to Germany, served as an infantry general and died of natural causes at the age of 71.

So here is the hole in Rand's argument. Men, she says, "cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey." However, according to Aristotelian logic, an argument is invalid if it is contradicted by a counterexample. Thus, if there are men who do in fact survive beyond the range of a moment by preying on productive men, Rand's argument is false.

[anthony]

FF, To say it for you, you have always been honest. You really don't get it. You have spotted a self-contradiction (you think) and genuinely believe you're not misrepresenting Rand. Empirically-speaking, you are correct -- IF you take the "nature of man" the way you do, biologically and materialistically (and deterministically?) - and taking "rational selfishness" as superficial, short-term "self-interest".

To argue this through, it would be necessary to unpack your philosophical premise, which is clearly a philosophical skepticism, and contrast it with Objectivism that's not empirical nor skeptical.

For illustration, consider this: "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Before you make an instant rejection of this Biblical verse (for being Biblical), consider what a "soul" is. A consciousness, which contains all of a man's conceptual knowledge, morality, ethics, self-esteem, integrity, convictions, aspirations, emotions, memories and humanity. I.e., it's real, it is an existent. If you reject the verse out of hand, you are buying into its supernatural premises and tacitly accepting them, ironically.

As a secular statement, it's one of the wisest I've heard. I will bet, in fact, that Mark meant it as much about humans lusting after cruel power over others' lives or looters after others' property, as about 'an immortal soul'.

[Brant Gaede]

I will answer the charge that I have misrepresented Ayn Rand's argument.

Rand's postulates an ethics of rational egoism. "The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival."

After establishing this self-interested standard, she warns us against any "attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud." But how does this follow from the premise? Because, she says,

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.

In short, force and fraud against others are not in one's self-interest.

If Rand's ethical theory is universalist (not relativist), it would apply to all mankind and not just to some members of the species. However, this is obviously not the case. History contains a long and bloody record of predators whose mass killing and looting did not bring about their destruction either in the short or long term. Too many lived out their lives without hanging from a noose or locked in a prison or lunatic asylum.

I will mention only a few examples:

• Oliver Cromwell's 1649–53 conquest of Ireland, fueled mainly by anti-Catholic fervor, caused the deaths of about 618,000 people, or about 40% of Ireland's prewar population. Cromwell died of natural causes at age 59, although Royalists later dug up his body to perform a posthumous execution.
• Among other crimes, the Qing Manchu Qianlong Emperor ordered the mass extermination of the Dzungar people as punishment for a rebellion against Qing rule. Between 480,000 and 600,000 people, were killed between 1755 and 1758. Hymns were sung to the murderous troops when they returned from the slaughter. The emperor, a poet, an essayist and avid art collector, lived in lavish conditions and died of natural causes at the age of 87.
• Andrew Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress which led to the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee people from the Southeastern U.S. and an estimated death toll of 4,000 men, women and children. After his presidency Jackson lived comfortably on his 1,000 acre slave plantation until his death at the age of 78.
• King Leopold II of Belgian amassed a great personal fortune through the use of forced labor to extract rubber in the Congo Free State in the late 19th century. Estimates of deaths from his regime range from 5 to 22 million. Although the Belgian parliament eventually forced the king to cede the colony to the state, Leopold was never penalized for the murders or deprived of his ill-gotten gains. He died of natural causes in his 74th year.
• German General Lothar von Trotha was responsible for the deaths of between 24,000 and 100,000 members of the Herero tribe and about 10,000 Nama in German South-West Africa 1904-1907. His order was that "every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women or children, I will drive them back to their people [to die in the desert] or let them be shot at." The scorched earth campaign included poisoning wells. Lothar returned to Germany, served as an infantry general and died of natural causes at the age of 71.

So here is the hole in Rand's argument. Men, she says, "cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey." However, according to Aristotelian logic, an argument is invalid if it is contradicted by a counterexample. Thus, if there are men who do in fact survive beyond the range of a moment by preying on productive men, Rand's argument is false.

Well, let's take your rendition of Rand's argument as it is and mix in "should be." To optimize human existence, inside and out, people should be non-initiators of force. Since not all are or will be this should be--and for other reasons--we'll have rights' protecting governance in compensation. Etc. This way is the moral way to the legal way. Self interest has two basic components overlapping to different extents in different people--with no overlapping at all I'd imagine in some people: real and perceived. If one's perceived self interest is immoral, irrational, destructive and evil, you may end up hanging by your heels from a lamppost.

I do think Rand was after optimization and not just for oneself, but for those you interact with for the creation of positive feedback loops as in trade and love and human creation. In any case, there is no Rand without the morality--the morality of rational self interest. The God of the Machine philosophy is much too little though quite valuable, especially for thinking.

BTW, isn't there too much emphasis by you on the "self interest" of murdering tyrants as opposed to their victims? Consider this simplicity: Stalin's daughter had a serious boyfriend. Stalin sent him to Siberia. In this case wasn't Stalin's "self interest" the self interest of a rotten apple?

--Brant

Listen to the demons

How they yell,

They're cutting off Leopold's

Hands in hell!

[Francisco Ferrer]

FF, To say it for you, you have always been honest. You really don't get it. You have spotted a self-contradiction (you think) and genuinely believe you're not misrepresenting Rand. Empirically-speaking, you are correct -- IF you take the "nature of man" the way you do, biologically and materialistically (and deterministically?) - and taking "rational selfishness" as superficial, short-term "self-interest".

To argue this through, it would be necessary to unpack your philosophical premise, which is clearly a philosophical skepticism, and contrast it with Objectivism that's not empirical nor skeptical.

For illustration, consider this: "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Before you make an instant rejection of this Biblical verse (for being Biblical), consider what a "soul" is. A consciousness, which contains all of a man's conceptual knowledge, morality, ethics, self-esteem, integrity, convictions, aspirations, emotions, memories and humanity. I.e., it's real, it is an existent. If you reject the verse out of hand, you are buying into its supernatural premises and tacitly accepting them, ironically.

As a secular statement, it's one of the wisest I've heard. I will bet, in fact, that Mark meant it as much about humans lusting after cruel power over others' lives or looters after others' property, as about 'an immortal soul'.

I have not defined "self-interest" in exclusively biological or materialistic terms. The counterexamples I offered did not all act for purely biological or materialistic motives. Cromwell certainly did not.

Furthermore, Rand's ethics do not state that the ultimate value is non-biological or non-material. "The ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life."

Nor do my counterexamples include men who survived in a "superficial, short-term" way.

As for the soul, I have no doubt that Cromwell and many other practitioners of mass murder who read Mark and the other evangelists went to their graves satisfied that their souls had not been lost but assured safe passage to paradise.

[Brant Gaede]

FF, To say it for you, you have always been honest. You really don't get it. You have spotted a self-contradiction (you think) and genuinely believe you're not misrepresenting Rand. Empirically-speaking, you are correct -- IF you take the "nature of man" the way you do, biologically and materialistically (and deterministically?) - and taking "rational selfishness" as superficial, short-term "self-interest".

To argue this through, it would be necessary to unpack your philosophical premise, which is clearly a philosophical skepticism, and contrast it with Objectivism that's not empirical nor skeptical.

For illustration, consider this: "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Before you make an instant rejection of this Biblical verse (for being Biblical), consider what a "soul" is. A consciousness, which contains all of a man's conceptual knowledge, morality, ethics, self-esteem, integrity, convictions, aspirations, emotions, memories and humanity. I.e., it's real, it is an existent. If you reject the verse out of hand, you are buying into its supernatural premises and tacitly accepting them, ironically.

As a secular statement, it's one of the wisest I've heard. I will bet, in fact, that Mark meant it as much about humans lusting after cruel power over others' lives or looters after others' property, as about 'an immortal soul'.

I have not defined "self-interest" in exclusively biological or materialistic terms. The counterexamples I offered did not all act for purely biological or materialistic motives. Cromwell certainly did not.

Furthermore, Rand's ethics do not state that the ultimate value is non-biological or non-material. "The ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism’s life."

Nor do my counterexamples include men who survived in a "superficial, short-term" way.

As for the soul, I have no doubt that Cromwell and many other practitioners of mass murder who read Mark and the other evangelists went to their graves satisfied that their souls had not been lost but assured safe passage to paradise.

Are you gonna improve Rand or just displace/replace her?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

If Rand's ethical theory is universalist (not relativist), it would apply to all mankind and not just to some members of the species.

Rand implicitly and explicitly posits the ideal man and it's He she works off of. Therefore the "universalist" applies to Him. Her weaker claim that it applies to others is the "relativist." The universalist has to apply to general human commonality--the nature of the organism including all those aspects: nature before nurture because once the nuturing gets going a lot of the nature gets changed so you get incredible variety. Her philosophy needs this absolutist abstract moral insulation to protect her essential Nietzchean view of man from objective evaluation. Then, there is her own absolutism, necessary for her absolute Objectivist philosophical authority in the name of "reason." If Objectivism is not for you then it's because you are not an exemplar of Him so please (Peikoff) leave Objectivism alone; don't call yourself an Objectivist. This is all well and good; what isn't is Objectivism. This is like--if truth be told but it isn't--if you don't have cancer stop calling yourself a cancer patient.

--Brant

okay

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand never claimed thugs don't prosper. On the contrary, she fought against a world where thugs can prosper.

But it takes a mental act of integration--and a willingness to look without bias--to understand this.

Once understood, if someone like FF wished to try to refute her, fine. But he is refuting something that is in his head and not in her meaning.

It's galling when he attributes his misunderstanding to her.

This is misrepresentation.

And you know what he always says? "I'm not misrepresenting her."

As if saying so makes it go away.

He does that with every attempt to show him how to integrate the damn concept of man's life in Rand's essay--within the context she was discussing it.

"I did not..."

"I have not..."

"I am not..."

If I had a dollar for every time he says this as a kneejerk, rather than trying to understand what is being said, I would be able to buy a crapload of stuff.

Rand did not mean what FF says she meant.

He got it wrong.

Let's wait for it, because it's coming a surely as the sun will rise. FF (in the near future): "I did not get Rand's meaning wrong."

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

BTW, isn't there too much emphasis by you on the "self interest" of murdering tyrants as opposed to their victims?

Brant,

It's called trivializing evil.

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Rand never claimed thugs don't prosper. On the contrary, she fought against a world where thugs can prosper.

But it takes a mental act of integration--and a willingness to look without bias--to understand this.

Prosperous destruction or perhaps destructive prosperity.

Once understood, if someone like FF wished to try to refute her, fine. But he is refuting something that is in his head and not in her meaning.

It's galling when he attributes his misunderstanding to her.

This is misrepresentation.

And you know what he always says? "I'm not misrepresenting her."

As if saying so makes it go away.

Apparently, it is a misrepresentation to point to counterexamples. Thus the only method of criticism that avoids misrepresentation would be to omit counterexamples. Who was it that coined the term "blank out"?

He does that with every attempt to show him how to integrate the damn concept of man's life in Rand's essay--within the context she was discussing it.

"I did not..."

"I have not..."

"I am not..."

If I had a dollar for every time he says this as a kneejerk, rather than trying to understand what is being said, I would be able to buy a crapload of stuff.

Rand did not mean what FF says she meant.

He got it wrong.

Let's wait for it, because it's coming a surely as the sun will rise. FF (in the near future): "I did not get Rand's meaning wrong."

Michael

"Men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey."

"Survive":

1. to remain alive after the death of someone, the cessation of something, or the occurrence of some event; continue to live:

2. to remain or continue in existence or use:

3. to get along or remain healthy, happy, and unaffected in spite of some occurrence

In her essay Rand did not assign the word a special meaning apart from the standard definition. The counterexamples of those who survived by using "productive men to serve as their prey" thus stand.

[Brant Gaede]

Gee, I knew in the 1960s Rand needed elaboration if not padding. I sure wasn't ready to correct and object.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Apparently, it is a misrepresentation to point to counterexamples.

This is incorrect.

It is a misrepresentation to claim something is a counterexample when it does not deal with the core idea, but the person presenting the so-called counterexample claims it does.

And the claim in this quote is only apparent to the one quoted. In fact, this is an example of more bullshit through assigning wrong meanings. I could never believe a relevant counterexample is a misrepresentation. To allege I would is wrong. This poster knows that, too.

Assigning wrong meanings to people is a hard habit to break once you start doing it. One thing is for sure. It is a lot easier than thinking through an issue correctly. All you have to do is make shit up, then turn your brain off and get stubborn.

Michael

[moralist]

Brant writes:

If he can't evaluate Mao--stop. Something is wrong.

...and that's an understatement.

This is exactly what I've been pointing out. In Franks eyes, Mao is a gentleman.

He's sick.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's the logic if any reader has any doubt.

Sometimes Rand talked in universals and sometimes she talked in specifics. In her essay, when she says "man cannot survive," she is talking in universal terms. In other words, one man could survive by being a thug and parasite, but all could not. Especially the victims. If all men were thugs and parasites, pretty soon no one would be left.

Thus man would not survive.

From another angle, if one man survives as a thug and parasite, that means another does not. And that invalidates it as a universal.

The along comes FF and says, Thug/Parasite X, Y or Z survived and thrived by being a thug and parasite, so Rand did not prove her case. Where is her evidence?

This is what is called a concrete-bound mentality. FF is incapable (so far) of understanding that Rand was using a universal term. (Poorly expressed at times, granted, but still, her meaning was universal when she talked about man and survival.)

What's worse, even by his own standard, he ignores those who perish so that the bloody dictator examples he extols can survive. Thus, "man" for him does not include the victims, even when they are men. The term "man" only means those he can use to support his point.

He is certainly not talking in universal terms when he uses the word "man."

As he thinks only in concretes and not in principles, much less universal principles, he doesn't understand why people disagree with him. He only knows that he's right.

Talk about Plato's cave...

The shadows he sees are all.

Michael

[moralist]

The absence of evidence for a claim is not a subjective opinion.

Yes it is, Frank. For as a subjective being you can only agree or disagree with objective reality... but you can never be it.The evidence you deny is found in your own life. In your denial of the reality of what Mao became by doing evil, is your assertion that you can do evil without negative consequences. I've been in business over 35 years and have encountered people who share your same values. Because they cannot be trusted, I leave them to do business with their own kind as they deserve. Greg .

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'll even go further.

If one wanted to claim that a universal condition does not apply to all individuals for the human species to survive, thus Rand was wrong about the importance of universals for humans, I can see that argument.

I don't agree with it, but I can see it.

What I don't see is the claim that Rand did not talk in universal terms, thus an example of one real-life successful thug negates the logic of her reasoning.

Claiming that, insinuating it, strawmanning it, using it in any way is called misrepresentation.

Michael

[Nerian]

Your friend Peter is just stealing these tickets from his company and giving them to you. So it's just an example of theft. You know the tickets are stolen, so accepting them is as good as theft. Theft is not in your self interest. Theft is irrational. It will make you a parasite. And it's a contradiction (you assert your right to property and yet deny it to the company you are stealing from) You will not be creating the values you need to survive, but taking them. This will harm you in many ways, but the most important is your psychology. If you agree that theft is not in your self interest then I need not continue. You will not be surviving by the use of your own mind but defaulting on that responsibility and merely sucking off the values created by the minds of others making you depedendent, etc etc.

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

If he can't evaluate Mao--stop. Something is wrong.

...and that's an understatement.

This is exactly what I've been pointing out. In Franks eyes, Mao is a gentleman.

He's sick.

Greg

That's just your subjective opinion. Anyway, if Mao doesn't turn him off surely OL won't by anyone calling him "sick" or intellectual exclusionary moves. You two actually have a lot in common, but not the morality.

--Brant

cognitively challenged?

traumatic brain injury?

Mao is generally misunderstood by the rest of us?

[moralist]

Brant writes:

That's just your subjective opinion.

Of course it is Brant... and I have never referenced my view as anything else.

You two actually have a lot in common

Yes. We are both equally subjective. I've affirmed that truth more than once.

but not the morality.

Another understatement.

In the world in which I live, sick people like Frank who believe they can do evil without consequence are pariahs because they cannot be trusted.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

Apparently, it is a misrepresentation to point to counterexamples.

This is incorrect.

It is a misrepresentation to claim something is a counterexample when it does not deal with the core idea, but the person presenting the so-called counterexample claims it does.

And the claim in this quote is only apparent to the one quoted. In fact, this is an example of more bullshit through assigning wrong meanings. I could never believe a relevant counterexample is a misrepresentation. To allege I would is wrong. This poster knows that, too.

Assigning wrong meanings to people is a hard habit to break once you start doing it. One thing is for sure. It is a lot easier than thinking through an issue correctly. All you have to do is make shit up, then turn your brain off and get stubborn.

Michael

Let's consider Rand's meanings as carefully as possible.

Rand wrote, "Men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship."

Rand did not provide a special definition for "destruction" in her essay. Therefore, it would be appropriate to take "destruction" here in the standard usage of the word: "The action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired."

Per Rand, not only can men not survive ("continue to live or exist") by "counting on productive men to serve as their prey," but the "price" (price: "unwelcome experience, event, or action involved as a condition of achieving a desired end") of looting will be "the destruction of their victims and their own."

This, then, is the "core idea" that is being examined.

Since Rand does not qualify "men" with the words "some" or "many" or "in most cases," it would follow that she means all men. In support of the claim of destruction as the price of looting, she offers "any criminal or any dictatorship." Yet, dictator António de Oliveira Salazar was not destroyed for having ruled Portugal for 36 years. He died of natural causes at age 81. Nor did destruction fall upon Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who died of natural causes at 82 after ruling Spain for 35 years.

The truthfulness of a proposition about the world can be tested by looking for examples in the world. As I have pointed out previously in this thread, nearly 100,000 men and women are employed by a federal agency that is charged with the task of looting productive citizens: the Internal Revenue Service. Yet, based on what we can tell from news reports and personal observation, IRS employees do not have a particularly low survival rate.

Consequently, we are justified in saying that Rand's claim is false.

The along comes FF and says, Thug/Parasite X, Y or Z survived and thrived by being a thug and parasite, so Rand did not prove her case. Where is her evidence?

This is what is called a concrete-bound mentality. FF is incapable (so far) of understanding that Rand was using a universal term. (Poorly expressed at times, granted, but still, her meaning was universal when she talked about man and survival.)

If it is "concrete-bound" to look to the world for examples or counterexamples for what is clearly stated as a general proposition, then why did Rand herself introduce evidence?

"As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship." [my emphasis]

If Rand was dealing in universal terms, why did she herself engage in such a "concrete-bound" display of evidence production?

What's worse, even by his own standard, he ignores those who perish so that the bloody dictator examples he extols can survive. Thus, "man" for him does not include the victims, even when they are men. The term "man" only means those he can use to support his point.

The assertion that I have ignored those who perished is false. In my earlier post of five counterexamples, I specifically mentioned the number of victims killed.

No one on this thread has claimed that "man" does not include victims.

No one on this thread has extolled dictators. You are welcome to prove otherwise by citing an example. However, that might require some "concrete-bound" looking.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Since Rand does not qualify "men" with the words "some" or "many" or "in most cases," it would follow that she means all men.

You're starting to get it.

In support of the claim of destruction as the price of looting, she offers "any criminal or any dictatorship." Yet, dictator António de Oliveira Salazar was not destroyed for having ruled Portugal for 36 years. He died of natural causes at age 81. Nor did destruction fall upon Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who died of natural causes at 82 after ruling Spain for 35 years.

And here you leave out the victims in "all men" as a universal. For Salazar and Franco to prosper, others had to perish. There goes "all men" down the toilet for the standard in those particular dictatorships.

It's simple, really.

For you, Rand has to follow the standard of "all men" when you want to critique, but you do not have to use it.

Maybe you are not critiquing the universal, but then you would not be critiquing what Rand was talking about.

Which is exactly what I have been saying.

Once a principle means that some men have to be destroyed for it to work, that is no longer a standard that can apply to all men. The parasite principle needs some men to be sacrificed by definition. So the concept of "all men" does not exist in a bloody dictatorship for such a principle.

That universality is what gets destroyed along with the victims.

And this is true for all criminals and dictatorships.

A goal might be met for this or that individual, but no parasite principle (as a universal standard) can operate for all within an environment where it operates for one. By definition, a parasite needs hosts. Once you have a host for a parasite, you have destruction.

This only works logically as a standard if you leave out the victims in the concept of "all men." And then it becomes a contradiction, so it doesn't really work.

The assertion that I have ignored those who perished is false.

I just gave you a perfect example above. But then, we are talking in conceptual terms, not concrete-bound ones.

In your thirst to prove a proposition wrong, you missed Rand's meaning completely. Conceptually, you use double-standards. And that's OK for your position.

It's just a misrepresentation to attribute your double standards to Rand.

Michael