In their own words: Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, and Others

[_EAllusion]

when you look at the worst cases of oppression in this country over the last century, the perpetrators are nearly always private parties and businesses and the relief nearly always brought by some branch of government.

How many people were drafted and died or were physically or psychologically damaged in the Vietnam War? WW I? Etc. When you get that number, please give me an example of businesses doing something comparable. Heck, I'd be interested in hearing how they could even hypothetically do something similar without the answering being a variation of "gain control of the government and have it do it for them."

[_EAllusion]

I wonder, when people assert China is disrespecting human rights by, say, executing people for political dissent, does Kevin chime in and point out that no rights are being violated because Chinese citizens' rights only exist if China's government says they do?

[_Kevin Graham]

No. You have rights because that is how people, even when they collectively form a government, are ethically obligated to treat you. If a government fails to respect them, then your rights don't go away.

You're going to have to be more specific here. Which rights? Which freedoms? I'm ethically obligated to respect someone's right to own a machinegun across the street from me? This sounds more like a statement of faith, in which case you can claim to have all sorts of rights in principle, even if you're unable to exercise them in practice. In what sense do you have them if you can't exercise them? The government decides whether you can exercise them, hence, whether you really have them. At least that's how I see it.

If you're so worried about anti-government paranoia, I think maybe you should learn to stop caring about who is in charge of the government. After all, if the government is so safely benign, who cares who is in charge of it?

Because if the anti-government nutjobs are in charge of what the despise, they'll gladly see it crumble and let corporate powers take over. Droopy has admitted that to some extent, saying his philosophy says we should literally starve government of all funding so it has no power. That leaves us with a plutocracy or anarchy, and I'm against both. And yes, I believe the US government is quite benign, given the restraints placed upon it by the Constitution. No elected official in his right mind would try to overthrow the contents of the Bill of RIghts, and if he/she did, I'm confident we'd be talking about a one term politician at best. Also, my hope is that one day the US government will be able to provide more rights than it already does, particularly the "Second Bill of Rights" proposed by Roosevelt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

Heh. All of a sudden you are hardcore in favor of absolute respect for individual property rights when the subject of abortion comes up?

It isn't all of the sudden. It has been years since I argued against abortion rights. As you've probably noticed, my views have changed over the years.

Why doesn't that extend to other subjects? Suppose we accept that a woman has a certain sort of sovereignty over her own body, such that it is permissible for her to remove intruders, persons or not, and a fetus is such an intruder. If a person's rights over how their own body gets used is that powerful, why doesn't that extend to whether the government can tax the fruits of my bodily labor?

Because no one has the right not to be taxed. I don't see the two as parallel. I see nothing wrong with taxing labor and that is something the US government has done for more than two centuries. It is one of the consequences of living in society.

What with me being a libertarian and all, I normally take a stronger view of one's property rights - including bodily property rights - than your average person. For instance, part of the reason I favor drug legalization is because I think your ownership of your body entails allowing you to make choices about what to put in it, even if it causes you harm.

I agree with this as well.

I'm not saying that's what you are doing here Kevin, but I am saying that you can favor some relatively strict ideas about respect for property rights without that extending into a position where a mother can expel a fetus (assuming for sake of argument that a fetus is a person) because she has total control over who and when her kidneys will be used. One can go far without going that far.

Fair enough.

[_Kevin Graham]

Heck, I'd be interested in hearing how they could even hypothetically do something similar without the answering being a variation of "gain control of the government and have it do it for them."

That's pretty much the same thing though. Using government as their military arm. Corporate appeals to Congress in the late 90's is probably the reason we ever had a "national" interest in overthrowing governments in the Mid-East. BUt you really have to watch this clip from the documentary "The Corporation." A military General was approached by wealthy Americans who wanted to overthrow the government. No crap!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQoBAc95tnw

[_Kevin Graham]

I wonder, when people assert China is disrespecting human rights by, say, executing people for political dissent, does Kevin chime in and point out that no rights are being violated because Chinese citizens' rights only exist if China's government says they do?

Sadly, this proves my point that they really don't have those rights in China. I don't support the Chinese government because I believe they should have those rights.

Likewise, in Arabic countries people should have the right not to be killed for simply deconverting from Islam. But such is not the case.

[_EAllusion]

You're going to have to be more specific here. Which rights? Which freedoms?

That's complicated. Or, rather, it's easy to state some blanket rights in principle, but they are filled with caveats and circumstantial exceptions. For example, people have the right to hold any opinion they want and share it a will. But I, like most people, do not think that applies to masterminding criminal acts. There are other widely accepted caveats I'm sure you could bring up. But the core concept being expressed there still is getting at a right - a limitation on what others can do to you.

I'm ethically obligated to respect someone's right to own a machinegun across the street from me?

Depends.

This sounds more like a statement of faith,

I think any statement about rights people possess has to be backed up by sound moral justification.

That leaves us with a plutocracy or anarchy, and I'm against both.

Plutocracy is a form of government. I don't think anarchy can actually exist. Governments naturally form in all circumstances, even if they are roving biker gangs. Regardless, all this tells me is that you respect the frightening power of government and therefore want to tame it from certain ends. So you aren't so different after all.

No elected official in his right mind would try to overthrow the contents of the Bill of RIghts,

The 4th amendment is weakened to the point that it barely exists. And some of the key reasons for that have come during our lifetime and with substantial public support across party lines. If the government asserts a matter related to national security, there is no forth amendment. And there is no meaningful system in place to prevent the government from asserting any matter as being an issue of national security. You yourself probably have been searched in warrant-less data mining programs. So it's not that simple. And, moreover, the who reason for the bill of rights is because of recognizing the truth of the Rand quote that this conversation is about.

Because no one has the right not to be taxed.

Uh, I don't think you got my point. What if someone retorted, "because no women has a right to have abortions." Would you have been satisfied with that answer? Suppose you justify being pro-choice by saying a person as total authority over how they decide their body is used. But taxation is a related example of the government telling a person how they may use their property, even their body. If I say I will build widgets for Mr. X for 5 dollars an hour, and the government says, "Hold on buddy. You can do that, but only if you give me 1 dollar of the action" that's also a form of interference over bodily ownership. Telling a person how they may use a significant chunk of the product of their labor for a long time is quite serious. What I'm speaking to is the tension between radical respecting of individual property rights in the former case, but not the latter. And I'm talking about that tension to show how one can draw lines about property rights that aren't all or nothing.

[_EAllusion]

That's pretty much the same thing though. Using government as their military arm.

Right. It's the government that possesses the actual power in this equation because it is the government who holds the monopoly of force to be used at will against those who lack it. So where's the disagreement with Rand on that one particular quote? Rand's oeuvre is about corrupt corporate powers using the government as their military arm to strangle their more brilliant competitors. Have you read Atlas Shrugged?

[_EAllusion]

... should...

An assertion of natural rights already is a statement about how people people should be treated. If I say you have a natural right to a trial to be decided by a jury of your peers, I'm saying that this should be the case, regardless of whether it is. That's what a right is. So you are being redundant when you say they should have those rights. The very concept of asserting a right already expresses that "oughtness." I think this has simply reduced into semantic confusion.

[_EAllusion]

For those not familiar with Rand, she wanted government to be weak and uninvolved in much of people's day to day affairs. But she wasn't an anarcho-capitalist. She was critical of (what would become) that view. Like many minarchists she thought that would simply result in even uglier warring mafia governments filling the void. She supported a laissez-faire society with limited government that provided security, enforcement of contracts, etc. as the practical means to achieve maximum liberty. Not terribly different than Robert Nozick in terms of desired outcome. It's "anti-government" in the sense of wanting to drastically reduce the scope and power of the current US government. It's "anti-government" in wanting to keep a short leash on the government to constrain it from accruing more scope and power. But it's not "anti-government" in the sense of wanting no government at all.

Ayn Rand is different than your standard libertarian rights theorist in that she uses ethical egoism to justify her project. Her attempts badly crash and burn on serious philosophical analysis, but such is life. Once she gets herself to libertarian rights theory, she isn't all that different from your run of the mill natural rights wing of the libertarian thinkers. Like Kevin G, she was worried about corrupt corporations using the government as its military wing, and like many libertarians, myself included, an important answer to this worry for her was to not let the government be that powerful of a tool if we can at all help it.

There are many faults one can point to in Rand and her followers. For example, her entire philosophical basis for her views sucks and her domineering arrogance doesn't come off well in that light. Her followers are almost cult-like in their approach. Her prose is chloroform in print. Rape. But not everything she thought or said can be quickly scoffed at. That's why I pointed out the OP going after a perfectly defensible quote from her and another case of flat quotemining her. Don't stoop to worldnetdaily levels here folks.