Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (8750)	12/5/2010 12:33:18 AM
From: average joe	1 Recommendation Respond to of 10087

That is the philosophy of the hunter who makes a kill in a hard winter and does not want to share it with the tribe who protects him and who is him! "It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value—they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against “selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders—the theoreticians of altruism—know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy. Today, we are seeing a ghastly spectacle: a magnificent scientific civilization dominated by the morality of prehistorical savagery." “Selfishness Without a Self,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ayn Rand

To: koan who wrote (8750)	12/5/2010 4:34:17 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

That is the philosophy of the hunter who makes a kill in a hard winter and does not want to share it with the tribe Nonsense. I'm supporting charity, supporting such sharing. I'm arguing against taking, which is a very different thing from sharing. Compassion and voluntary sharing are good things which I totally support, theft by force not so much either on practical or moral grounds. --------------------- “From a libertarian perspective, your generosity is reflected in what you do with your own money, not in what you do with other people’s money.” - Arnold Kling "There are, though, many especially those greedy for renown and glory, who steal from one group the very money they lavish upon another. They think that they will appear beneficent towards their friends if they enrich them by any method whatsoever. But that is so far from being a duty that in fact nothing could be more opposed to duty. We should therefore see that the liberality we exercise in assisting our friends does not harm anyone. Consequently, the transference of money by Lucius Sulla and Gaius Caesar from its lawful owners to others ought not to be seen as liberal: nothing is liberal if it is not also just." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, ON DUTIES, Bk.1. XIV. 43 "The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State." -- Bertrand de Jouvenel, French philosopher and co-founder of the Mont Pelerin Society. "The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity." -Henry Hazlitt "The alleged goal of reducing economic inequality is trumpeted by people who want to strengthen inequality of political power." - Gordon Wood, "Empire of Liberty"