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Gary Fisher

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Hello Objectivist Living.

My name is Gary Fisher, and I'm from Texas. To start off, I'm not an Objectivist or a libertarian but I find a lot of commonalities between my own personal views and that of Ayn Rand. I wouldn't describe myself as either a liberal or a conservative. I'm on the left when it comes to social issues, to the right on economic issues, but against laissez-faire capitalism. I believe a certain amount of state regulation and intervention in the economy is necessary for, at the very least, national security, and sustainable economic growth and stability. I am also in favor of an active foreign policy, and believe that America should play a leading role in the world today. Philosophically, I consider myself an individualist (especially in ethics), a pragmatist (metaphysics and epistemology), and an atheist.

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Welcome to OL.

Can you provide us with examples of what you mean by "the left when it comes to social issues."

I see that phrase used quite loosely today.

A...

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Hello Objectivist Living. My name is Gary Fisher, and I'm from Texas. To start off, I'm not an Objectivist or a libertarian but I find a lot of commonalities between my own personal views and that of Ayn Rand. I wouldn't describe myself as either a liberal or a conservative. I'm on the left when it comes to social issues, to the right on economic issues, but against laissez-faire capitalism. I believe a certain amount of state regulation and intervention in the economy is necessary for, at the very least, national security, and sustainable economic growth and stability. I am also in favor of an active foreign policy, and believe that America should play a leading role in the world today. Philosophically, I consider myself an individualist (especially in ethics), a pragmatist (metaphysics and epistemology), and an atheist.

What does it mean to be "on the left" on "social issues."

If you are against laissez-faire capitalism you are against freedom. This is not the same as being for laissez-faire but with caveats.

I've never heard of pragmatism in metaphysics and epistemology; the first is water, the second two oil.

America plays a leading role in "the world today"--"should," like it has a choice, has nothing to do with it. What kind of role (is the question)?

You've come to a tough place.

Hello!

--Brant (The Merciless)

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Damn. You guys don't waste time do you? Gettin' right down to the bottom of things from the get go.

@Brant

1. It means that I'm not a conservative. I support gay marriage, abortion, pro-immigration, etc.

2. I am pro-capitalism but against completely de-regulated capitalism. I believe that private property should be respected as much as possible, and that is my understanding of the word "freedom".

3. America needs to protect her interests abroad, and foreign policy should reflect domestic concerns.

@Michael

I've read Atlas Shrugged as well as some other Objectivist materials I found on the internet including some youtube videos. I also ordered some books from Amazon recently.

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I believe that private property should be respected as much as possible, and that is my understanding of the word "freedom".

Gary,

The devil is in the details, but once you get more familiar with Rand's works, you will find she supports small government (to the eternal gall of ancaps :) ), so your view in this statement is not that far removed from normal Objectivism.

You might want to read Rand's essays on this page: Selected Full Essays, specifically "Man's Rights," "Collectivized Rights," "The Nature of Government," and "What is Capitalism?" Oddly enough, they are all on the same page, but the links to the different parts of the page are in a menu once you get there.

Michael

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Hello, Gary. Welcome to OL.



Hello Objectivist Living. My name is Gary Fisher, and I'm from Texas. To start off, I'm not an Objectivist or a libertarian but I find a lot of commonalities between my own personal views and that of Ayn Rand. I wouldn't describe myself as either a liberal or a conservative. I'm on the left when it comes to social issues, to the right on economic issues, but against laissez-faire capitalism. I believe a certain amount of state regulation and intervention in the economy is necessary for, at the very least, national security, and sustainable economic growth and stability. I am also in favor of an active foreign policy, and believe that America should play a leading role in the world today. Philosophically, I consider myself an individualist (especially in ethics), a pragmatist (metaphysics and epistemology), and an atheist.

. . .

I've never heard of pragmatism in metaphysics and epistemology. . . .

. . .

Brant, on the epistemology of pragmatism, the most famous theme is one you may recall: truth is fundamentally that which works. Pragmatists Peirce, James, and Dewey eschewed Kant’s thing-in-itself as well as Hegel’s idealism. Their relation to the realism that says truth is fundamentally correspondence to reality does not seem to be downright opposition, but a wariness of claimed knowledge not cashable in terms of possible human action.

Merlin wrote on Pragmatist theory of truth in 1993 here.

“Man was not made to turn his eye inward, was not made for himself alone, but for the sake of what he should do in the outward world.” – Peirce (1863)

“Our own reality, that sense of our own life which we at every moment possess, is the ultimate of ultimates for our belief.” – James (1869)

“In perception we live reality itself.” – Dewey (1912)

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There are two "what works", Stephen. The physical, which cannot be arbitrary, and the mental, which can be all over the map, unlike reality itself. There is no pragmatism in the metaphysical and if in the epistemological, it's a contradiction to combine the two. Epistemological pragmatism stands goofily alone imagining it's dancing with reality. Sometimes it coincidentally does, which re-enforces the nonsense.

--Brant

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@Michael Thanks for the reading material. It's precisely Rand's individualist ethics and defense of capitalism that I find to be the most valuable aspect of her philosophy.

Welcome Garry.

Allow me to recommend "The Fountainhead"... the book.

In addition to reading an exciting story, you will see the brick & mortar frame work of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism.

-Joe :smile:

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Gary Fisher,

I chose this comment you made to examine with something in mind: "I believe a certain amount of state regulation and intervention in the economy is necessary for, at the very least, national security, and sustainable economic growth and stability."

If you had read Ayn Rand's The Objectivist Newsletter, which is still in print, you would have come across book reviews including a book by Ludwig von Mises entitled Human Action. Mises was a student of Carl Menger, a 19th Century academic at a university in Austria, who set out to discover the laws of the marketplace. He wondered how the marketplace operated when the government did not intervene, rather just made sure that no one initiated force or fraud and that everyone abided by the contracts they entered into voluntarily. Rand recommended that her readers learn from others who were not Objectivists but who made sense in other fields such as the Austrian school of economics. Incidentally all of the writings of von Mises as well as other thinkers of the Austrian school can be found online at www.mises.org under literature, e.g. Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Hans Sennholz, Eugen von Bahm-Bawerk, Hayek, Bastiat, etc.

A crucial element of virtually every economic interaction is the use of "money" which also plays a role in the storage of value. In a free market gold and silver coins have proven their worth throughout the history of mankind although they have been abused by those in power. Fiat currencies have come and gone despite the appeal to those in power for a mystical source of revenue. The Founders of our country even resorted to a paper currency, the Continental, to pay those patriots who took up the rifle to fight the British Empire for their freedom. They had been promised that the paper would be redeemable for coins in the future but that promise was not kept.

So when the Founders came to write the Constitution the failure of irredeemable paper currency was fresh in their minds. Congress was granted the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to fix the standard of weights and measures. The Coinage Act of 1792 defined a dollar as a coin containing 371 grains and four sixteenth of a grain of silver, which was the average amount of silver in the Spanish milled dollar widely used in the Thirteen Colonies in that era. The Eagle and Double Eagle were likewise defined as coins containing a specific amount of gold.

States, referring to the now independent sovereign states which were former Colonies, were prohibited in Article 1 Section 10 from issuing bills of credit or from using anything other than gold or silver coins as tender for payment of debts.

If you read G. Edward Griffin's The Creature From Jekyll Island you will find that Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, approached George Washington, first President of the US, who also presided over the Continental Congress when the Constitution was being written, and told him "I believe we need a central bank!" to which GW replied "I don't believe we were granted that power" to which Hamilton said "Its an implied power." Jefferson was unfortunately not present to state that there are no implied powers only those powers stated explicitly in Article 1 Section 8.

Certain bankers in history sought control of the currency of countries and Murray ROthbard reviews the attempts by bankers to lay the foundation for a central bank in The Case Against The Fed among his many enlightening books also to be found at www.mises.org.

In Griffin's Creature book you will discover that a secret meeting was held at a property owned by J.P. Morgan on Jekyll Island in 1910 at which the Federal Reserve Act was written and subsequently passed into law in 1913. The purchasing power of the dollar has lost over 98% of its value since the creation of the Federal Reserve whose mission was the very stability in purchasing power of the dollar I think by your statement you entrust to the government.

You are quite mistaken on this point. Other books on this subject include one by Ayn Rand's attorney, Henry Mark Holzer, "The American Constitution and Ayn Rand's Inner Contradiction" and Richard Timberlake's "Constitutional Money: a Review of Supreme Court Monetary Decisions"

If you read the Crash Course at www.Peakprosperity.com by Martenson you will come across a graph of the cost of living starting in 1665 which remained flat for over two hundred years.

You have too much trust in government. It has grown beyond the bounds set in the Constitution causing the current bankruptcy and indebtedness.

gg

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