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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (18808)	12/28/2011 4:21:34 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 69300

"Jefferson and Washington had slaves." And Ayn Rand smoked cigarettes and GK Chesterton was fat and Socrates had a big head and you're a pot head. "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." "The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead." "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." "We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country." Thomas Jefferson

To: koan who wrote (18808)	12/28/2011 5:26:24 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

"Jefferson and Washington had slaves." Yes. One wishes they were as moral as this: “What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion…The issue is not slavery for a ‘good’ cause versus slavery for a ‘bad’ cause; the issue is not dictatorship by a ‘good’ gang versus dictatorship by a ‘bad gang. The issue is freedom versus dictatorship…If one upholds freedom, one must uphold man’s individual rights; if one upholds man’s individual rights, one must uphold his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness…Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life…” "Socrates believed strongly in the social contract" Rand, too. Many political philosophies involve the idea of social contract where people are governed by their own consent (or NOT if you are a minority view). It is in the terms of that contract that all philosophies differ. "and thought her intelligencia (an oxymoron IMO) should run the world" Rand thought that people should be free to run their own world and that social contract should prevent them from using any force against others unless it were retaliatory. She believed that all should be governed by the rule of law. If everyone followed that philosophy, no human would hurt another human. I don't know what people find disgusting about that. As it is, all the tribes of man hurt one another both directly...and indirectly through collective force. They use their need, their desires, or simply their connections and power to violate the freedom and the property of other humans. I have yet to find anyone admitting to finding this praiseworthy unless they were the one with the gun or with a million guns at their back. Would you force someone to give you money? "Rand would not have come to the aid of the poor" Feel free to show me where her philosophy prevents people from choosing who to assist?? If we write a book about you, how many poor people shall we list whom you gave any substantial assistance to??