What's Happening?

[George H. Smith]

George wrote:

How is it morally possible for a contract to bind any but the parties who agreed to that contract? Can you and I sign a contract now that binds future generations? No way.

End quote

Is there a different status to a Political Document signed off on or ratified, by all thirteen former Colonies, the signers being people elected or nominated to represent those district’s individual’s interests? Those representatives were also standing in for children alive at that time and for their children born next year, and for the other children who are born later, who will later have children of their own, on into the future . . .

This is not the way that the Founding Fathers justified the political obligations created by the Constitution. The notion that one generation could bind future generations was anathema to them. Thomas Paine's remarks (in Part One of Rights of Man) are typical:

"There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered."

Thus, according to Paine, you are defending "the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies."

George are you suggesting, as you did in a previous post, that the reason for the Convention and ratification was to allow the Federal Government to tax? That may have been a necessary step, but to suggest that was their dark motive is implausible. I don’t doubt it was on their minds as one of the most contentious issues.

There wasn't anything "dark" about this. Madison, Hamilton, and other "nationalists" (the contemporary label for advocates of a strong federal government) publicly discussed this issue extensively prior to the Constitutional Convention, and they identified the lack of a taxing power in the Confederation Congress as its chief defect -- a defect that the Convention was supposed to remedy.

Madison also made this clear during the Convention itself. On June 29th, 1787, he said to his fellow delegates:

"According to the views of every member, the General Government [i.e., Federal Government] will have powers far beyond those exercised by the British Parliament, when the States were part of the British Empire. It will in particular have the power, without the consent of the State Legislatures, to levy money directly on the people themselves...."

To call for a central government with powers far greater than the British Parliament would have shocked most Americans, since the American Revolution had been largely precipitated by the belief that parliamentary powers were so excessive as to constitute "tyranny." But the delegates didn't have to worry about such candid remarks, because the Convention was conducted in complete secrecy (something that Jefferson, then in France, vehemently objected to), and delegates agreed not to reveal details of the proceedings until 50 years had passed. Most delegates would be dead by then and would thus escape public condemnation.

"Their main thrust was to secure liberty. That is what it was about, not a nefarious scheme to stealthily rule with the first step being taxation."

This is not how Antifederalists (opponents of the Constitution) saw the matter. Many of them regarded the Constitution as a power grab engineered by elites to consolidate and expand their own power. (I don't agree entirely with this charge, but there was some justice to it.)

As for securing liberty, how do you explain the various pro-slavery clauses in the Constitution? In The Federalist Papers, Madison described the Constitution as a "bundle of compromises." Those compromises included sanctioning the African slave trade for another 20 years (prohibiting domestic slavery was suggested during the Convention but never seriously considered), a clause demanding the return of runaway slaves, and the famous three-fifths clause. The latter gave the Southern States an excessive power in the House of Representatives that made slavery politically untouchable for many decades thereafter.

The slavery clauses are what led the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to denounce the Constitution as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell."

In brief, the Constitution has some good features and some bad features. But to say that it was created principally to secure individual rights is really stretching the point. The 13 states already had their own constitutions, and these tended to be more libertarian than the U.S. Constitution. Most, for example, contained something comparable to a Bill of Rights, whereas Hamilton, Madison (at that time; he changed his mind later), and many other delegates expressly opposed including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. The fact that a Bill of Rights was later added was largely owing to pressure exerted by Antifederalists.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

But for the present day, divine endowment of rights is the crack where religious politicians drive a truck through.

I didn't quite understand your point before -- I've been reading and responding to a lot of posts today. But I do now, and I agree with you.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

There are a host of other problems as well. For example, Rand surely cannot mean that individuals must delegate to government their right of "physical self-defense" in all cases, for this would mean that we could not morally defend ourselves when attacked by a violent thug. This extreme interpretation would also rule out the rights of resistance and revolution against an oppressive government -- the selfsame rights that Thomas Jefferson defended in the "Declaration of Independence," which Rand quotes in the same article that I have referenced here.

George,

Worth noting in this connection is Rand's ambivalence about gun control. She commented on it twice at the Ford Hall Forum; the 1971 answer is on the Rewrite Squad thread at

http://www.objectivi...indpost&p=84157

There is another answer from 1973, which I haven't been able to hear on a recording. Mayhew's rendition can be seen on p. 19 of his book.

In the 1971 answer, she seems to be more supportive of resistance to tyranny than of self-defense against criminals.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

(3) In her discussion of anarchy and anarchism in "The Nature of Government," Rand draws an interesting but little-noticed distinction. In one oft-quoted passage, she writes:

Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction: for all the reasons discussed above, a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare.

But now consider what Rand says when she turns to "a recent variant" of anarchist theory, which she mistakenly calls a theory of "competing governments":

One cannot call this theory a contradiction in terms, since it is obviously devoid of any understanding of the terms "competition" and "government." Nor can one call it a floating abstraction, since it is devoid of any contact with or reference to reality and cannot be concretized at all, not even roughly or approximately. (My italics.)

If Leonard Peikoff had been writing this passage, he wouldn't have hesitated to call the notion of "competing governments" (really, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism) arbitrary. After all, it is allegedly "devoid of any contact with or reference to reality." Imputations that positive claims about anarcho-capitalism are meaningless would have quickly followed, along with firm conclusions that anyone who advocates a system of "competing governments" instantly makes himself dumber than a parrot.

So here is yet another passage in her published works where Rand, had she been following the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, would have used the A-word ... but she didn't.

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

George,

Worth noting in this connection is Rand's ambivalence about gun control. She commented on it twice at the Ford Hall Forum; the 1971 answer is on the Rewrite Squad thread at

http://www.objectivi...indpost&p=84157

There is another answer from 1973, which I haven't been able to hear on a recording. Mayhew's rendition can be seen on p. 19 of his book.

In the 1971 answer, she seems to be more supportive of resistance to tyranny than of self-defense against criminals.

Robert Campbell

Interesting...and a little disturbing. I'm surprised that Rand wasn't a more avid defender of Second Amendment rights.

In her 1973 answer (ARA, p. 19), Rand says: "It's a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law."

To which I say: No, it's not. It's a fundamental constitutional right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. It is no more complex or technical than freedom of speech and press.

I occasionally resorted to a similar tactic when I lectured on natural rights for IHS. When a student would ask an awkward question, I would sometimes say that this was a complex and difficult subject that I could not possibly answer in the available time. I would then recommend some book, figuring that the student would never read it.

Works like a charm.

What really troubles me is the final sentence of the 1973 answer: "I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."

Huh?

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

If Leonard Peikoff had been writing this passage, he wouldn't have hesitated to call the notion of "competing governments" (really, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism) arbitrary. After all, it is allegedly "devoid of any contact with or reference to reality." Imputations that positive claims about anarcho-capitalism are meaningless would have quickly followed, along with firm conclusions that anyone who advocates a system of "competing governments" instantly makes himself dumber than a parrot.

So here is yet another passage in her published works where Rand, had she been following the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, would have used the A-word ... but she didn't.

Robert Campbell

I've met some anarchists and Objectivists who are devoid of any contact with reality, but I wouldn't say that about their ideas.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I'm well grounded. My ideas are fantastical.

I actually think that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away--STAR WARS!!!

--Brant

Edited February 18, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Alfonso Jones]

If Leonard Peikoff had been writing this passage, he wouldn't have hesitated to call the notion of "competing governments" (really, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism) arbitrary. After all, it is allegedly "devoid of any contact with or reference to reality." Imputations that positive claims about anarcho-capitalism are meaningless would have quickly followed, along with firm conclusions that anyone who advocates a system of "competing governments" instantly makes himself dumber than a parrot.

So here is yet another passage in her published works where Rand, had she been following the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, would have used the A-word ... but she didn't.

Robert Campbell

I've met some anarchists and Objectivists who are devoid of any contact with reality, but I wouldn't say that about their ideas.

Ghs

Still another reason I'm glad you're posting on OL, George.

Bill P

[Robert Campbell]

What really troubles me is the final sentence of the 1973 answer: "I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."

Huh?

George,

Keep in mind that you're reading Bob Mayhew, not Ayn Rand.

On at least one occasion (Ford Hall Forum 1978, comments on the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois), Mayhew inserted the phrase "at whim" when Rand didn't say it.

Still, assuming that Mayhew didn't write a whole new sentence (which he's also done, on more than one occasion), the meaning is a bit disturbing.

Robert Campbell

[George H. Smith]

What really troubles me is the final sentence of the 1973 answer: "I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."

Huh?

George,

Keep in mind that you're reading Bob Mayhew, not Ayn Rand.

On at least one occasion (Ford Hall Forum 1978, comments on the Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois), Mayhew inserted the phrase "at whim" when Rand didn't say it.

Still, assuming that Mayhew didn't write a whole new sentence (which he's also done, on more than one occasion), the meaning is a bit disturbing.

Robert Campbell

Hasn't Mayhew ever heard of brackets? That's the proper way to insert material not in the original. Brackets permit readers to decide for themselves if what a person actually said is consistent with the editor's interpretation.

It is my understanding that stealth editing and rewriting has been used in other ARI projects as well. (I am basing this on some things that Chris Sciabarra wrote years ago.) All this accomplishes in the long run is to make serious scholars distrustful of the material.

I eagerly await a volume titled The Prophecies of Ayn Rand, edited and channeled by Robert Mayhew.

Ghs

[Peter]

George H. Smith wrote:

But to say that it (The Constitution) was created principally to secure individual rights is really stretching the point. The 13 states already had their own constitutions, and these tended to be more libertarian than the U.S. Constitution.

End quote

If the States already had their “more libertarian” state’s constitutions, weren’t those documents meant to last, past the time the signers died, onwards until their children died, and their children died? Weren‘t they meant to secure individual rights? It is well and good to say what you think they meant, and it is proper to quote what they said in public (and in private diaries) at that time. But look at the documents!

I can only think that the Founders of the 13 States Constitutions, and the Founders of the United States Constitution were not creating documents to last until they died, or until their kids took over the reins of government. They would have been foolish to not act for posterity. Did they create something wonderful as if they would die tomorrow, or did they create a wondrous thing as if they (and their children’s children) were going to live forever?

You quoted Thomas Paine:

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it . . . It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered."

end quote

Paine is persuasive. But, isn’t he speaking about the right of each generation to fight tyranny? But what were the majority of the signer’s intents? Didn’t they *intend* to write a document to AVOID tyranny, so that they and their posterity would live in freedom? This wasn’t a contract to build a house. It was a contract to build a country.

When Paine says the deceased signer of the Constitution, “has no longer any authority in directing,” the living, I say he is defending the right for people to always fight any future tyranny! Those were cautionary words. *Multigenerational Contracts,* *Ownership,* and one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite causes, *Inheritance* were all hundreds of year old common law, and UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED CONCEPTS during that era. They did not live in the moment!

No, I must disagree with Paine. They set no time limit within the Constitution. It did NOT have a sunset clause. They created something to last longer than their own life times.

Look at every painted picture of the Signers. The artists tried to capture that sacred moment. Let me quote the meaning of *Sacred* from the Ayn Rand Lexicon:

I will ask you to project the look on a child’s face when he grasps the answer to some problem he has been striving to understand. It is a radiant look of joy, of liberation, almost of triumph, which is unself-conscious, yet self-assertive, and its radiance seems to spread in two directions: outward, as an illumination of the world—inward, as the first spark of what is to become the fire of an earned pride. If you have seen this look, or experienced it, you know that if there is such a concept as “sacred”—meaning: the best, the highest possible to man—this look is the sacred, the not-to-be-betrayed, the not-to-be-sacrificed for anything or anyone.

End quote

Mr. Paine, The founding Fathers did not build a house of cards.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

William Lloyd Garrison

“With reasonable men I will reason. With humane men I will plead. But to tyrants, I give no quarter.”

And Thomas Paine and I second the motion.

[Selene]

Gentlemen:

We are, right now, in a state of non-consent of the governed. Taking these numbers which no margin of error can possibly change, we are in a state of revolution.

What say thee gentlemen?

National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters

Conducted February 15-16, 2010

By Rasmussen Reports

1* Does the Democratic Party have a plan for where it wants to take the nation?

44% Yes

31% No

24% Not sure

2* Does the Republican Party have a plan for where it wants to take the nation?

35% Yes

39% No

26% Not sure

3* Would you describe the Democratic Party leadership as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative or very conservative?

46% Very liberal

29% Somewhat liberal

20% Moderate

2% Somewhat conservative

0% Very conservative

3% Not sure

4* Would you describe the Republican Party leadership as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative or very conservative?

6% Very liberal

7% Somewhat liberal

24% Moderate

37% Somewhat conservative

24% Very conservative

3% Not sure

5* The Declaration of Independence says that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed. Does the federal government today have the consent of the governed?

21% Yes

61% No

18% Not sure

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

http://www.rasmussen...uary_13_14_2010

Adam

Post Script:

Is waiting for Peter to give a direct answer to a direct question like waiting for Godot?

Edited February 18, 2010 by Selene

[Xray]

MSK:

Quoting Rand:

There is only one basic principle to which an individual must consent if he wishes to live in a free, civilized society: the principle of renouncing the use of physical force and delegating to the government his right of physical self-defense, for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement. [AR]

This is perhaps the most ambiguous passage in all of Rand's writings on political theory. Especially troubling is what she means by "must." Does she mean that rational people should delegate their right of self-defense as a matter of self-interest? Or does she mean that people can legitimately be compelled to "delegate" that right, whether they deem this to be in their self-interest or not?

George,

That has been one of the passages that has most bothered me in Rand's writing (there are several others). I have written about this several times.

How can you "delegate" something if you are forced to give it up? And how can you "renounce" or "delegate" anything as a newborn? If you don't do this stuff at birth, when do you do it? At 10 years old? At 18?

Ghs: Especially troubling is what she means by "must." Does she mean that rational people should delegate their right of self-defense as a matter of self-interest?

Rand definitely states the individual "must" consent.

So what happens in case someone decides she/she wants no part of it, and refuses? Is force then initiated by "the government" against this person? If yes, then there is not much difference to what other governments do.

Where is there room left for individual choice when one is confronted with the mandatory "must"?

Jmpo, but when it comes to actual power, one gets nowhere with a mere "ought to". For it is too weak, and won't be taken seriously because it is a mere 'recommendation', althought it presumes to make choices for others.

"The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between "is" and "ought."(Rand)

There exists no "ought to" from an "is". In nature, a hungry gorilla "ought not" to eat, it must eat for survival; when it comes to political power - how many would pay taxes if they only "ought to" pay them? And so on.

As to philosophy, I'm convinced that if "ought to-philosophers" were in a position of executive political power enabling them to put their ideas in practice, these "ought to's" would quickly change to "musts" ...

Frankly, I'm glad that many of these thinkers in philosophical history did not have this political power.

This led me to believe that the "Pledge of Allegiance" we all had to do in school was a sneaky way of gradually getting such "delegation."

I think the "Pledge of Allegiance" is a pretty open way of indoctrinating children.

Edited February 18, 2010 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

I can only think that the Founders of the 13 States Constitutions, and the Founders of the United States Constitution were not creating documents to last until they died, or until their kids took over the reins of government. They would have been foolish to not act for posterity.

I never said that the framers of constitutions, whether state or federal, did not expect them to last beyond their own lifetimes. I said that they did not justify the political authority of their constitutions by claiming that one generation can bind future generations. If framers had accepted that doctrine, Americans would still have owed allegiance to the British government, and they would have been traitors for repudiating the British government and setting up their own governments.

(Expect a liberal use of italics in my response, since Peter doesn't seem willing to read my posts carefully enough to understand some basic points.)

Paine is persuasive. But, isn’t he speaking about the right of each generation to fight tyranny?

AAARRRGGGHHH!

Now that I have gotten that out of my system, let’s proceed…

When Paine says the deceased signer of the Constitution, “has no longer any authority in directing,” the living, I say he is defending the right for people to always fight any future tyranny!

And I say that Paine is defending the right of mimes to perform on public sidewalks. I guess we will need to take another look at the passage if we wish to determine which of our interpretations is correct. This time I will add some italics to help focus our attention.

"There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered."

Damn, Peter, it looks like both of us were wrong. Paine is not writing about the right of people to fight tyranny or the right of mimes to perform on public sidewalks. He seems to be writing about something else.

Too bad Paine is so vague -- the poor guy never could write clearly -- or else we might be able to figure out what he meant to say.

*Multigenerational Contracts,* *Ownership,* and one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite causes, *Inheritance* were all hundreds of year old common law, and UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED CONCEPTS during that era. They did not live in the moment!

You haven’t read much Jefferson, have you? He was actually very critical of the common law tradition.

As for the ability of one generation to bind future generations, Jefferson’s view on this matter was precisely the same as Paine’s. He repudiated the notion unequivocally. As Jefferson wrote to Madison (Sept. 6, 1789):

“[N]o society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. ndividuals are masters…of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please.” (My italics.)

And again, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval (July 12, 1816):

“Each generation is as independent of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness….”

No, I must disagree with Paine.

Why? According to you, Paine was merely affirming “the right for people to always fight any future tyranny!” You agree with that, don’t you? Or, while writing your post, did you change your mind and decide that Paine meant something else?

They set no time limit within the Constitution. It did NOT have a sunset clause.

Paine didn’t say this, or anything like this.

Look at every painted picture of the Signers. The artists tried to capture that sacred moment. Let me quote the meaning of *Sacred* from the Ayn Rand Lexicon:

I will ask you to project the look on a child’s face when he grasps the answer to some problem he has been striving to understand. It is a radiant look of joy, of liberation, almost of triumph, which is unself-conscious, yet self-assertive, and its radiance seems to spread in two directions: outward, as an illumination of the world—inward, as the first spark of what is to become the fire of an earned pride. If you have seen this look, or experienced it, you know that if there is such a concept as “sacred”—meaning: the best, the highest possible to man—this look is the sacred, the not-to-be-betrayed, the not-to-be-sacrificed for anything or anyone.

My, but that certainly clinches your argument.

Mr. Paine, The founding Fathers did not build a house of cards.

Mr. Taylor, your arrogance is beyond belief. First you misunderstand what Paine said, then you presume to lecture him. Would you also like to chastise Jefferson, Madison, and other Founding Fathers, virtually all of whom agreed with Paine on this matter?

Again -- and read my words very carefully so I don't have to go through this again -- the Founding Fathers rejected the notion that one generation can bind future generations. This does not mean that they framed constitutions only for their own generation. They had another explanation for how the political obligations generated by constitutions can apply to future generations. For now, I will leave it to you to figure out what that explanation was.

Ghs

[Selene]

Doze" founder people wuz a bunch a damn bomb trowin anarchists!

Dey shoudda been hunged!

Specially dat Paine guy!"

I figured I would sum up Peter's arguments is words he can understand.

Adam

Damn it is hard to spell colloquial words!

Post script:

Now there is a real message in this article!

Snowstorms Reduced City Crime, Stats Show

Baltimore Went 9 Days Without Slayings

POSTED: 4:42 pm EST February 16, 2010UPDATED: 7:11 pm EST February 16, 2010BALTIMORE -- One big upside of the back-to-back snowstorms was their impact on crime.With the weather so nasty, police have needed no other help.As the storms gripped the city, crime plummeted. Comparing last week to the same week in 2009, the most serious crimes were down 71 percent, according to city statistics.The fatal shooting early Tuesday morning of a man in the Park Heights neighborhood ended a nine-day stretch in Baltimore that was free of killing. That stretch put the yearly homicide total at 18 -- significantly less than the 32 homicides recorded year-to-date in 2009.Statistics showed arrests also took a snowstorm hiatus. There were only 23 arrests in the city last week -- 79 percent fewer than the 109 arrests logged in the city for the same week in 2009.Prosecutors said the numbers all lend credibility to an academic theory about how to succeed in crime reduction."If we can keep the offender indoors, it tends to reduce crime. At one time, there was a strategy that involved trying to get offenders pushed indoors so if there was a crime scene, you have a better opportunity to interview witnesses, preserve evidence and build a better case," said Margaret Burns of the city state's attorney's office.Courts were open on Tuesday for the first time since Feb. 5.

[Peter]

George wrote:

Mr. Taylor, your arrogance is beyond belief. First you misunderstand what Paine said, then you presume to lecture him. Would you also like to chastise Jefferson, Madison, and other Founding Fathers, virtually all of whom agreed with Paine on this matter?

End quote

Friend, I would rather chastise you. Now isn’t that odd? I think of George as my friend. As Gene Hackman on the Lowe’s commercial says, “Let’s build something together.”

I have been wondering about people who adopt radical ideas, and then go on to defend them. Some ideas may be easy to defend rationally, but opposition persists. The two, hard to defend ideas, that I will talk about are Atheism and Anarchism.

A defense of Atheism is hard to “personally” present because of the prevailing cultural *absolutes,* accepted by a majority. “Everyone must believe in something,” is the prevailing notion of around sixty percent of the people in America. They don’t trust you unless you believe in something mystical even if it is UFO’s, reincarnation, or zombies. If you say you are an Atheist they will get angry with you.

From The Ayn Rand Lexicon:

Psycho-epistemology is the study of man’s cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious. “Psycho-epistemology,” a term coined by Ayn Rand, pertains not to the content of a man’s ideas, but to his method of awareness, i.e., the method by which his mind habitually deals with its content.

End quote

So one aspect of that current sixty percent majority’s method of being aware of the content of their minds is the habitually unquestioning belief that God exists. If you say, “No, God does not exist,” or “There is no evidence for him,” then metaphorically, like Donald Duck the religionists will get red and spout steam from their ears: “You Atheist, what the hell is wrong with you!”

Yet, rationally thinking people, and even that sixty percent majority easily discount the existence of Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Thor, and Odin.

But when we list the more modern Gods most people hesitate before they deny the existence of Buddha, Allah, Christ, Joseph Smith, or God, simply because we try to be polite and tolerant, or we fear the wrath of the humans who believe such nonsense.

Get these theists into a group of similarly true believers and they will gleefully trash the other “modern” religions. That fat Buddha just slept all day. Was he on opium? Can you believe what those moron Muslims are arguing about? Did Mohammed climb out of a tree or up out of a well? Christ came back from the dead? It was a hoax along all with his other easily duplicated magical tricks. The Amazing Randy could spot his “con” in a minute. Mormons! Oh Lordy!. Have you been watching those Polygamists on “Big Love?” Bills got three wives and now he wants four.

But don’t you dare trash their religion!

The opposition to Atheism is gradually lessening, because it is a valid doctrine. The facts are on the Atheist’s side. None of the above deities have any scientific proof of their existence. If I am wrong may God strike me dead!

Now we come to Anarchism. What is it? It is the free association of people within a certain geographical area, with the lack of a Government. There are anarchist societies that spring up whenever governments fail or if new territories are settled. They usually last for an interim period of time until a government is established.

Then there is Philosophical Anarchism.

Anarchist Scholar George H. Smith wrote in, IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM:

“Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State (or government) . . . I call this rational anarchism, because it is grounded in the belief that we are fully capable, through reason, of discerning the principles of justice; and that we are capable, through rational persuasion and voluntary agreement, of establishing whatever institutions are necessary for the preservation and enforcement of justice.”

And now the same process of denial that occurred with Atheism, occurs with Philosophical Anarchism in (I’m guessing) about ninety-five percent of Americans.

So one aspect of that current ninety five percent majority’s method of being aware of the content of their mind is the habitually unquestioning belief that: America is my country. If you say, “No it should not exist,” or “There is evidence that we would be freer without The Constitution,” then metaphorically, like Nathan Hale the Patriots will get red and spout steam from their ears: “You Crazy Anarchist, what the hell is wrong with you! Are you a Commie too!”

But here is where the similarity between the two cases ends. I say that America’s limited Constitutional Government is easily defended. I can point to it. I can fix it’s flaws. You can’t point to Philosophical Anarchism and yet George H. Smith says it has no flaws. In fact he won’t even show *it* to us, as proof. He starts by saying, “I call this rational anarchism, because it is grounded in the belief . . .” Aha. Rational anarchism is grounded in *belief*.

George H. Smith on Atlantis wrote in a thread called Truth vs. Belief and The Facts of Reality on Sat, 19 May 2001 19:28:14 -0500:

To say that "all human statements pertaining to human knowledge of existence . . . belong in the category of epistemology" is to say that *all* concepts and propositions, by definition, are epistemological and *none* are, or can be, metaphysical -- since all concepts and propositions "pertain" to human knowledge in some way. This kind of ambiguity will take you headlong into a representationalist theory of knowledge (such as we find in Descartes and Locke), wherein knowledge is conceived as a correspondence between abstract ideas, rather than as a correspondence between epistemological propositions and metaphysical facts . . . The point is: To what does a concept *refer*? As Prof. B put it in a statement with which Rand expressed her full agreement, "It's not that the fact refers to the knowledge; it refers to the reality known, or possibly known."

End quote

My point, using George’s line of reasoning, is that concepts like Philosophical Anarchism refer to his knowledge and belief, but he has not proven it exists in Reality. A rational Objectivist would agree with me when I say, Philosophical Anarchism does not currently refer to reality known, since a hypothetical, and functioning Philosophical Anarchistic Society does not currently exist, nor has any civilization ever arisen from Philosophical Anarchism. However, at some point Philosophical Anarchism COULD BECOME KNOWN. It is not impossible given the context of infinity. But at this time the concept has no referent in reality.

So in this sense, we have True Believers who believe in God and we have True Believers who believe in Philosophical Anarchism. Since neither exists, the theist cannot point to God nor can the Anarchist point to Utopia.

The interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious in The True Believer is the method by which his mind habitually deals with its content. It is the True Believers method of awareness.

They start with a pre-conceived notion and then look for facts to support this notion. I can say the Philosophical Anarchist does not deal with reality because scientifically he has no model. He has no referent to its actuality.

HE CANNOT PROVE THIS NON-EXISTENT, SO HE HABITUALLY LOOKS FOR WAYS TO PROVE HIS *BELIEF* THAT GOVERNMENT IS BAD.

He has no where else to go.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

Peter:

I do not know George other than through this forum which is the same way I know you.

This campaign that you seem to be imbued with against what George writes about the founders is, frankly, bizarre at best, but to the observer, it is tedious and frankly inept, unfunny and completely off any point of reference to the founders.

You should give it a rest.

Adam

[George H. Smith]

George wrote:

Mr. Taylor, your arrogance is beyond belief. First you misunderstand what Paine said, then you presume to lecture him. Would you also like to chastise Jefferson, Madison, and other Founding Fathers, virtually all of whom agreed with Paine on this matter?

End quote

Friend, I would rather chastise you....

After continuing with assertions and quotations that popped out of Peter's mind like ping pong balls out of a lottery machine, Peter concludes:

I can say the Philosophical Anarchist does not deal with reality because scientifically he has no model. He has no referent to its actuality.

HE CANNOT PROVE THIS NON-EXISTENT, SO HE HABITUALLY LOOKS FOR WAYS TO PROVE HIS *BELIEF* THAT GOVERNMENT IS BAD.

In case there was any doubt about the matter, this is why it is a waste of time to deal with Peter on a serious level. Pull his string with an inconvenient point and he will respond like a Chatty Cathy doll. Correct Peter on a mathematical error and he will respond, "The philosophical anarchist does not deal with reality."

I've had orgasms that have lasted longer than my truce with Peter. (Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. )

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

You seem to have jumped the rails, Peter. The only value George could have to you is as a political-philosophical historical expert or a whipping boy because he says he's an anarcho-capitalist. One is left to conclude you are only interested in the latter.

In any case the Constitution cannot be fixed no matter how much you modify it. That's because the wrong brains sit in the Federal Court system including the SCOTUS.

--Brant

[Selene]

You seem to have jumped the rails, Peter. The only value George could have to you is as a political-philosophical historical expert or a whipping boy because he says he's an anarcho-capitalist. One is left to conclude you are only interested in the latter.

In any case the Constitution cannot be fixed no matter how much you modify it. That's because the wrong brains sit in the Federal Court system including the SCOTUS.

--Brant

Excellent conclusion about the judiciary Brant:

The current judicial mindset is chilling and terrifying to me because the federal system has unelected life time appointments. With the activist anti-originalist occupants in the Federal judicial system from the district courts to SCOTUS we must all be alert because these folks are real serious about control by any means necessary.

Adam

[Peter]

George wrote:

I never said that the framers of constitutions, whether state or federal, did not expect them to last beyond their own lifetimes. I said that they did not justify the political authority of their constitutions by claiming that one generation can bind future generations.

End quote

Is any Government legitimate? Could a Constitution be morally enforceable then, until a certain tipping point is reached? Is there any moral justification for continuing with a legitimate Constitutional Government, in your thinking? Was the Constitution legitimate when it was created? Was it legitimate the day after it’s creation? Up until the Civil War? Until the Big Government of FDR. Until . . . when?

George wrote:

(Expect a liberal use of italics in my response, since Peter doesn't seem willing to read my posts carefully enough to understand some basic points.)

Many times, I don’t respond to a section of your posts because you did not respond in a reasoned manner to what I wrote. You ignore some of my better points, in my opinion.

I wrote:

When Paine says the deceased signer of the Constitution, “has no longer any authority in directing,” the living, I say he is defending the right for people to always fight any future tyranny!

George responded:

And I say that Paine is defending the right of mimes to perform on public sidewalks.

End quote

George, why didn’t Paine leave? Do you truly think he did not see the longevity in the document? People were cheering in the streets. They cheer every 4th of July after that! They fire off fireworks! You must need a hearing aid.

Ok. Under the Msk rules of retaliatory use of force I get to zing you back now.

Once upon a time there was an Anarchist Region called Georgeikawa, located in North America. Some anthropologists and theorists suggest the wandering tribes of Judaism were predominantly these people, while others say Amerinds were also present.

These Anarchistic people built a fantastic civilization, around the time Plato wrote of Atlantis. Could they be the same? They had a thriving Capitalist society, railroads and robber barons, the electric light, competing defense organizations, grain elevators, and all without a Government.

You can read about them in the Encyclopedia Britannica, history books, or visit their current reservation today in Oklahoma. Bring plenty of cash, because the roulette wheels are spinning. Friday, Barry Manilow will be appearing at the Saint George’s Casino, named after their most famous author, “George – a – haunt - us.”

Ghs re-quoted Paine:

"There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," . . .

end quote

The italics never came across, George. I need to copy the text to my Wizard of Oz size screen, to be able to avoid eye strain, so I will imagine italic bugs creeping around everywhere.

From what era are your quotes coming? From the time of the founding of our country. These men had just risked their families, their fortunes, their lives, and their Sacred Honor to found our country. Within the lifetimes of the readers of Objectivist Living, we have only one slightly comparable event: The attack on 911.

Do you remember the mood of the country back then? Were we radicalized. Did we seek retribution? Were we outraged. Did we say, “Never Again!” I think the mood before and after the Revolutionary War was that times ten. Do I think Thomas Paine meant it? Sure he did, but I think it was leavened with a bit of clear headed calculation. “This Constitution may last, and I hope it does, because I am so damn tired. But in twenty years, don’t you be treading on me!”

You quote Jefferson as agreeing with Paine when he wrote:

“Each generation is as independent of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness….”

End quote

So . . . George, why then, are you against a Constitutional Convention? You ridiculed me for that, yet your don’t have the stomach for it? I agree that we keep the form of Government we have until a tipping point is reached, and then a revolt, if not a violent uprising may occur. Until that point is reached we have the amendment process, Tea Party voting, a Constitutional Convention, The Supreme Court . . .AND RIGHT ON OUR SIDE. Reread, that Jeffersonian quote. Does he exclude these less drastic measures, or did he create a system of Government that embraces these measures?

I wrote:

Look at every painted picture of the Signers. The artists tried to capture that sacred moment . . .

You responded to my quote of the definition of *Sacred*:

My, but that certainly clinches your argument.

End quote

Yes. It intuitively does. If they were dragged there against their will, forced to sign a treasonous document, condemning themselves and their posterity to eventual hell, they would have expressions like the POW’s at the Hanoi Hilton. And every artist who painted their portrait would be aware of the sick deception. No one is aware of it but you, George.

George wrote:

Again -- and read my words very carefully so I don't have to go through this again -- the Founding Fathers rejected the notion that one generation can bind future generations. This does not mean that they framed constitutions only for their own generation. They had another explanation for how the political obligations generated by constitutions can apply to future generations. For now, I will leave it to you to figure out what that explanation was.

end quote

It is intriguing when you say: “They had another explanation for how the political obligations generated by constitutions can apply to future generations.”

I can’t wait to hear your version. I have given mine and it is called a Flawed but wonderful Constitution.

George, your evidence, consists of quotes from your historical files. Have you been collecting corroborating evidence about the evil called *Government*, since before you wrote ATCAG? That’s nearly a half century ago, Old Timer. I have not. I won’t go digging for pro-government propaganda now. I will use my reason, and quite honestly my memory of political theory, much of which consists of college courses, things I make up (scratch that, things I create) and quotes from Ayn 8-)

You’ve spent fifty years disproving what you see as an evil but all you have creatively produced is your definition: “Anarchism is a theory of the good society . . .”

The end. We are going to Grotto’s Pizza for exquisite Italian cooking and Yuengling beer. Wish you were here.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Robert Campbell]

Hasn't Mayhew ever heard of brackets? That's the proper way to insert material not in the original. Brackets permit readers to decide for themselves if what a person actually said is consistent with the editor's interpretation.

George,

Bob Mayhew uses brackets once in a while in Ayn Rand Answers. When he does this, he is usually inserting a formal reference to an article that Rand published.

The vast majority of his editorial changes go unsignalled, with brackets or with any other device.

It is my understanding that stealth editing and rewriting has been used in other ARI projects as well. (I am basing this on some things that Chris Sciabarra wrote years ago.) All this accomplishes in the long run is to make serious scholars distrustful of the material.

Chris's points have now been considerably amplified by Jennifer Burns, in Goddess of the Market and in comments on her website. She says that the published Journals of Ayn Rand have been subjected to major tampering, as have the lectures on fiction and nonfiction writing, and the excerpts from her recorded interviews.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ok. Under the Msk rules of retaliatory use of force I get to zing you back now.

Peter,

I don't have these rules. I just try to keep the peace.

I'm curious.

Why are you so fixated on George?

It's obvious you will not convince him of your arguments or interpretations.

It's also obvious you will not discredit him.

And, although he has not stated it, I don't think you will convince anyone he hates the USA and that seems to be a subtext in your posts.

So what do you hope to accomplish by goading him all the time?

Anything productive?

(I'm aware that he goads back.)

Michael

[George H. Smith]

George, why didn’t Paine leave? Do you truly think he did not see the longevity in the document? People were cheering in the streets. They cheer every 4th of July after that! They fire off fireworks! You must need a hearing aid.

What on earth are you talking about? Paine wasn't specifically thinking of the U.S. Constitution in the passage I quoted. The first part of Rights of Man, written in England (where Paine hoped to sell a bridge he had designed) and published in 1791, was a response to Edmund's Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke had defended the notion that one generation can bind future generations -- a standard doctrine of conservative opponents of the right of revolution -- so Paine took him to task, as any supporter of the right of revolution would have done, especially one who had played such a major role in the American Revolution.

I'm not willing any longer to lead you by the hand through the basic ideas of the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution, especially since you are unable to stay on point. Read some history, for crying out loud. There is no such thing as a priori history. You cannot make stuff up as you go along and then assume that that's the way things happened.

Jefferson ridiculed people who "look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence." Ring a bell?

It is intriguing when you say: “They had another explanation for how the political obligations generated by constitutions can apply to future generations.”

I can’t wait to hear your version. I have given mine and it is called a Flawed but wonderful Constitution.

Incredible, absolutely incredible.

Go bug someone else, Peter.

Ghs

[Martin Radwin]

Hasn't Mayhew ever heard of brackets? That's the proper way to insert material not in the original. Brackets permit readers to decide for themselves if what a person actually said is consistent with the editor's interpretation.

George,

Bob Mayhew uses brackets once in a while in Ayn Rand Answers. When he does this, he is usually inserting a formal reference to an article that Rand published.

The vast majority of his editorial changes go unsignalled, with brackets or with any other device.

It is my understanding that stealth editing and rewriting has been used in other ARI projects as well. (I am basing this on some things that Chris Sciabarra wrote years ago.) All this accomplishes in the long run is to make serious scholars distrustful of the material.

Chris's points have now been considerably amplified by Jennifer Burns, in Goddess of the Market and in comments on her website. She says that the published Journals of Ayn Rand have been subjected to major tampering, as have the lectures on fiction and nonfiction writing, and the excerpts from her recorded interviews.

Robert Campbell

I wonder if, had Ayn Rand known that her work was going to be altered by these scumbags after her death, she would have left her estate to Peikoff, who has permitted this to go on. These people truly are scumbags. They claim to be defending the legacy of Ayn Rand, while altering her words without attribution and pretending that Rand spoke these altered words. They have also kept the originals under lock and key in the archives so that the altered words cannot be checked against her actual words. They ought to reread Rand's words about "faking reality".

Martin