Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In 1780, John Adams succinctly defined the principle of the Rule of Law in the Massachusetts Constitution by seeking to establish “a government of laws and not of men”. This reflects the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution’s preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The very foundation of our legal system says that the law should work for us all, not just a select few.
This raises the question of what is a good law that serves the majority of society and what is a bad law that doesn’t serve the majority of society?
This idea is further bolstered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The latter addition of the 14th Amendment as well as the Preamble of the Constitution both reflect the spirit in which this country was founded as set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Clearly, the pursuit of the Rule of Law under the Constitution as informed by the Declaration is a pursuit of the Utilitarian concept of the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action; what is in the best interest of greatest numbers of We the People is in the best interests of the country.
Utilitarianism is a quantitative and reductionist philosophical form. Utilitarianism, however, is not a unified philosophical view. It comes in different flavors with the two primary flavors being Rule Utilitarianism and Act Utilitarianism. Strong Rule Utilitarianism is an absolutist philosophical view and rules may never be broken. Like any absolutist view does not take into account that reality occasionally presents situations where breaking a rule results in the greater good. For example, the strong reductionist rule that murder is bad is countered by the exceptional example of murder is not bad if performed in self-defense or the defense of others. This result of practical application is reflected in what John Stuart Mill called Weak Rule Utilitarianism. It becomes apparent that since not all rules are absolutely enforceable when seeking the common good and exceptional circumstances require flexibility in the law, that the Utilitarian pursuit of the Rule of Law must be in Mill’s Weak Rule formulation of Utilitarianism. But is considering the greater good and circumstantial reasons for breaking or modifying rules the best way to judge whether a law is good or bad?
If one considers Kant’s Categorical Imperative – “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – then any law not universally applicable should not be a maxim worthy of being recognized as universal. This is contrary to Utilitarianism in general as well as Weak Rule Utilitarianism specifically, but while Kant’s view takes subjectivity into account when dealing with circumstances it does not take into account that there can be objective differences in circumstances as well. It is part of the judiciaries role as a trier of fact to consider not only subjective differences but objective differences in circumstances in formulating the most equitable and just solution to a case at bar. In seeking to be universally applicable in defining maxims, Kant is an absolutist as surely as Strong Rule Utilitarians are absolutists. As a consequence of reality not being neatly binary in nature and thus not often compatible to absolutists approaches to formulating laws for practical application, what can be done to keep Weak Rule Utilitarianism from degenerating into Act Utilitarianism where actors will seek the greatest personal pleasure when presented with a choice rather than the greater good? Utilitarianism conflicting with the Categorical Imperative? Is there a unitary philosophical approach to evaluating whether a law is good or bad?
The answer seems to be no. If there is no single view, absolutist or otherwise, that leads to a practical system for evaluating whether a law is good or bad, then there is only one option for building a framework for evaluation. That option is synthesis.
Consider that absolutist systems as they are not applicable in reality should be confined to being considered theoretical boundaries rather than practical boundaries. This does not negate the value of considering systems like Strong Rule Utilitarianism or Kant’s Categorical Imperative, but rather puts them in the place of aspirational goals rather than practically attainable goals in every circumstance. Given that Mill’s Weak Rule Utilitarianism can degrade into Act Utilitarianism and that degeneration can be compounded by the number of exceptions there are to a rule, are there ways to minimize the defects of using only Weak Rule Utilitarianism to determine the societal value of a law? What supplements can be made to that framework?
I submit that one such supplement is found in the form of Negative Utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism is exactly what it sounds like; the inverse function of Utilitarianism. Whereas Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that the right course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good consequences of an action, Negative Utilitarianism is the basic proposition that requires us to promote the least amount of evil or harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest number. If one takes both into account in evaluation of the social value of a law (a synthetic approach), the test becomes a balancing act. On one side of the scale is the societal value of overall good consequences, on the other side is the societal value of preventing overall harm. This proposition suggests the following framework for evaluation of whether a law is good or bad.
- How many people benefit from the good consequences of a law?
- How many people benefit from the reduction of harm as consequences of a law?
- Does the benefits from promoting good consequences outweigh the costs of reduction of harm?
- Does the benefits from reducing harm outweigh the costs to the greater good in taking no action?
- Are the net consequences of a law perfectly knowable from either perspective or does the possibility of unforeseeable consequences exist? Can the unforeseeable risks be minimized either by construction of the law(s) to allow for contingencies or by regulating other risks or contributing factors?
- Do solutions from either perspective negatively impact human and/or civil rights? Do those negative impacts outweigh the positive effects to the greater human and/or civil rights of all?
This is but one way to evaluate whether a law is good or bad for society. What are other methods? Are there ways to improve this method? What do you think?
You should really learn to not conflate religion and economics.
For that matter, you should learn not to conflate a woman who was demonstrably a sociopath with people who may or may not have suffered from mental illness. The issue isn’t “close to Rand”. It’s Objectivism. Rand’s baby you two clowns have insisted upon defending as a rational basis for law and justice.
Your emotional and conflated reaction is just as sure a knee-jerk reflex designed to protect your self-image by rationalization as Grossman’s steadfast denials that he’s been proven wrong time and again.
I also hate to break this to you Bron, but my contention that Rand is a sociopath has nothing to do with progressivism and everything to do with science. At this point, I’m going to let the words of Buddha Is Laughing previously posted to this forum on another thread that was properly about Rand address the issue of whether Rand was a sociopath or not.
“‘I just looked at the profiles for sociopaths and psychopaths, she doesn’t fit them at least based on her writings (I did not know her personally).’ [ed. note: quoting a commentator named “Roco”]
Then you should have read more about her the person is all I can tell you.
Here’s just one excerpt about her life:
“Alisa Rosenbaum (her original name) was born in the icy winter of czarism, not long after the failed 1905 revolution ripped through her home city of St. Petersburg. Her father was a self-made Jewish pharmacist, while her mother was an aristocratic dilettante who loathed her three daughters. She would tell them she never wanted children, and she kept them only out of duty. Alisa became a surly, friendless child. In elementary school, her class was asked to write an essay about why being a child was a joyous thing. She instead wrote ‘a scathing denunciation of childhood,’ headed with a quote from Pascal: ‘I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.’
But the Rosenbaums’ domestic tensions were dwarfed by the conflicts raging outside. The worst anti-Jewish violence since the Middle Ages was brewing, and the family was terrified of being killed by the mobs—but it was the Bolsheviks who struck at them first. After the 1917 revolutions, her father’s pharmacy was seized ‘in the name of the people.’ For Alisa, who had grown up surrounded by servants and nannies, the Communists seemed at last to be the face of the masses, a terrifying robbing horde. In a country where 5 million people died of starvation in just two years, the Rosenbaums went hungry. Her father tried to set up another business, but after it too was seized, he declared himself to be ‘on strike.’
The Rosenbaums knew their angry, outspoken daughter would not survive under the Bolsheviks for long, so they arranged to smuggle her out to their relatives in America. Just before her 21st birthday, she said goodbye to her country and her family for the last time. She was determined to live in the America she had seen in the silent movies—the America of skyscrapers and riches and freedom. She renamed herself Ayn Rand, a name she thought had the hardness and purity of a Hollywood starlet.
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She headed for Hollywood, where she set out to write stories that expressed her philosophy—a body of thought she said was the polar opposite of communism. She announced that the world was divided between a small minority of Supermen who are productive and ‘the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent’ who, like the Leninists, try to feed off them. He is ‘mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned.’ It is evil to show kindness to these “lice”: The ‘only virtue’ is ‘selfishness.’
She meant it. Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented ‘the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.’ She called him ‘a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy,’ shimmering with ‘immense, explicit egotism.’ Rand had only one regret: ‘A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough.’
It’s not hard to see this as a kind of political post-traumatic stress disorder. Rand believed the Bolshevik lie that they represented the people, so she wanted to strike back at them—through theft and murder. In a nasty irony, she was copying their tactics. She started to write her first novel, We the Living (1936), and in the early drafts her central character—a crude proxy for Rand herself—says to a Bolshevik: ‘I loathe your ideals. I admire your methods. If one believes one’s right, one shouldn’t wait to convince millions of fools, one might just as well force them.’
She poured these beliefs into a series of deeply odd novels. She takes the flabby staples of romantic fiction and peppers them with political ravings and rapes for the audience to cheer on. All have the same core message: Anything that pleases the Superman’s ego is good; anything that blocks it is bad. In The Fountainhead, published in 1943, a heroic architect called Howard Roark designs a housing project for the poor—not out of compassion but because he wants to build something mighty. When his plans are slightly altered, he blows up the housing project, saying the purity of his vision has been contaminated by evil government bureaucrats. He orders the jury to acquit him, saying: ‘The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!’
For her longest novel, Atlas Shrugged (1957), Rand returned to a moment from her childhood. Just as her father once went on strike to protest against Bolshevism, she imagined the super-rich in America going on strike against progressive taxation—and said the United States would swiftly regress to an apocalyptic hellhole if the Donald Trumps and Ted Turners ceased their toil. The abandoned masses are described variously as ‘savages,’ ‘refuse,’ ‘inanimate objects,’ and ‘imitations of living beings,’ picking through rubbish. One of the strikers deliberately causes a train crash, and Rand makes it clear she thinks the murder victims deserved it, describing in horror how they all supported the higher taxes that made the attack necessary.
Her heroes are a cocktail of extreme self-love and extreme self-pity: They insist they need no one, yet they spend all their time fuming that the masses don’t bow down before their manifest superiority.
As her books became mega-sellers, Rand surrounded herself with a tightly policed cult of young people who believed she had found the One Objective Truth about the world. They were required to memorize her novels and slapped down as ‘imbecilic’ and “anti-life” by Rand if they asked questions. One student said: ‘There was a right kind of music, a right kind of art, a right kind of interior design, a right kind of dancing. There were wrong books which we should not buy.’
Rand had become addicted to amphetamines while writing The Fountainhead, and her natural paranoia and aggression were becoming more extreme as they pumped though her veins. Anybody in her circle who disagreed with her was subjected to a show trial in front of the whole group in which they would be required to repent or face expulsion. Her secretary, Barbara Weiss, said: ‘I came to look on her as a killer of people.’ The workings of her cult exposed the hollowness of Rand’s claims to venerate free thinking and individualism. Her message was, think freely, as long as it leads you into total agreement with me.
In the end, Rand was destroyed by her own dogmas. She fell in love with a young follower called Nathaniel Branden and had a decades-long affair with him. He became the cult’s No. 2, and she named him as her “intellectual heir”—until he admitted he had fallen in love with a 23-year-old woman. As Burns explains, Rand’s philosophy ‘taught that sex was never physical; it was always inspired by a deeper recognition of shared values, a sense that the other embodied the highest human achievement.’ So to be sexually rejected by Branden meant he was rejecting her ideas, her philosophy, her entire person. She screamed: ‘You have rejected me? You have dared to reject me? Me, your highest value?’” (http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/)
It corresponds to the other materials I have read. If you want to know more? Do your own homework. Now that you have some background and cannot feign ignorance . . .
I’m not a trained mental health provider but there are two who post here who agree with me (although one is off on vacation, I know his stance from previous conversations). Why do I think she was a sociopath?
The WHO ICD-10 criteria for sociopathy (which they call dissocial personality disorder) lists:
1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy.
Rand? Check. To the core.
2. Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations.
Rand? Check. By her own admission she care nothing for social norms, rules and obligations.
3. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.
Rand? Check. See Buckley and stories of other persons who fell into her disfavor. It was always something “they” did.
4. Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
Rand? Check on the low tolerance to frustration. See Buckley and stories of other persons who fell into her disfavor. She treated them like exiles and pariahs or browbeat them into submission.
5. Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
Rand? Check. She had no empathy, so I really doubt she felt much if any guilt about doing others wrong.
6. Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.
Rand? Check. People don’t deserve love except for those who met her narrow criteria and it’s their fault.
7. Persistent irritability.
Rand? From what I’ve read and seen, she was an unpleasant bitch, check.
So on the WHO ICD-10 criteria? Scoring a perfect seven out of seven, Ayn Rand was a sociopath.
Of the DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder (of which sociopathy is a subset), she only meets two and a halves of the seven criteria and three are required for diagnosis:
1. failure to conform to social norms and although the DSM requires manifestations of violence and/or arrest, it can be argued (successfully I think) she engaged in emotional violence as a proxy (see her treatment of those who fell into disfavor) – since this point is debatable, I’m calling this is a half until OS or Mike S. weigh in on this point.
2. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults – again, it can be argued she engaged in emotional violence as a proxy – since this point is debatable, I’m calling this is a half until OS or Mike S. weigh in on this point.;
5. reckless disregard for safety of others – if they aren’t her ubermench, Ayn could give a damn about others as evidenced by her mischaracterization of altruism as evil and her hero worship of a serial killer for his inhuman personality traits;
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another – her entire “philosophy” is built around a lack of empathy rationalized away as “rational (i.e. enlightened) self-interest”.
Since two halves make a whole, I’m saying she meets the DSM-IV criteria of three of the seven traits. This, combined with her stunning sweep of the WHO ICD-10 criteria?
I’m going to stand by the statement Ayn Rand was a sociopath. It may have been a result of post traumatic stress or simply her disposition, but either way? She was effectively a sociopath. I’ll also standing by the statement that her ‘philosophy’ appeals only to the selfish, narcissists, and other borderline disorders up to and including true full blown sociopaths. You’re all engaging in the religion of “me, Me, ME! and fuck everyone else”.
Rationalizations for selfishness and greed, no matter how they are clothed, are still just rationalizations. Which brings us to another feature of mental illnesses. Those suffering them often do not or cannot acknowledge that they have a problem and will rationalize things away or blame them on others.
Just like Rand and her followers.”
As you can see, Buddha laid out a pretty persuasive case that Ayn Rand was a sociopath. Whether Smith or Aristotle or anyone else you care to quote is a sociopath does not change the fact that Rand more than meets the diagnostic criteria of being a sociopath. I’m assuming that the two mental health professional Buddha was referring to were Otteray Scribe and Mike Spindell so I encourage them to chime in on this issue.
Sorry. You should really learn to do some critical thinking instead of buying into the first snake oil sold to you by a mentally ill hack writer that happens to justify you being a selfish jerk. Then again, the psychological mechanism of rationalization as a self-defense for the ego isn’t really rational.
Gene H:
Is Adam Smith a sociopath? Is Frederic Bastiat a sociopath? Is Aristotle a sociopath?
Adam Smith said we owe our meat not to the butchers benevolence but to his rational self interest. Frederic Bastiat said that stimulus robs Peter to pay Paul. And this is what Aristotle thinks about a good life:
“At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess others goods as well—such goods as friends, wealth, and power. And one’s happiness is endangered if one is severely lacking in certain advantages—if, for example, one is extremely ugly, or has lost children or good friends through death (1099a31-b6). But why so? If one’s ultimate end should simply be virtuous activity, then why should it make any difference to one’s happiness whether one has or lacks these other types of good? Aristotle’s reply is that one’s virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of other goods (1153b17–19). Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues.”
Not too far from Rand.
So are those 3 sociopaths? And how would you even know since you never knew them?
Your views are based on the views of modern day progressives who know deep down that her ideas are a death knell for altruism in terms of sacrifice to the state or the society at large.
You should really learn to do some original thinking and quit parroting the party line.
Individuals have a right to pursue what is good for them, they have a right to their own life and to the benefits which accrue to them for their work and effort. This is an idea from John Locke.
And oh by the way, was John Locke a sociopath? Rand has very similar views to his.
Complete off the rails gibberish, Grossman.
Gene H
>deregulation of the securities industry
Hitler did not command mass murder while he was asleep so he was not a mass murderer. This is an evasion of the difference between partial and total deregulation and also between direct and indirect regulations. Since Progressive commies became influential, perhaps since the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, regulations have increased over the long run, regardless of temporary reverses and of those (decreasing) parts of the economy temporarily ignored by Progressive commies. Money and banking are owned and/or controlled by govt regardless of any temporary holes in that govt interventions. Money is produced by govt without backing by commodities tradable on a market. Thus the legal tender law which forces people to accept pieces of worthless paper (govt demands to surrender your property) instead of, eg, the gold and silver which financed the Industrial Revolution. Banking is directly and indirectly controlled and/or owned by the national socialist bank, the Fed. The Fed’s worthless money and bank credit allowed incompetents to create housing ,stock and dot.com bubbles that necessarily popped as their lack of productivity was recognized by the market, ie, voluntarily by productive people. Gene H implies that govt “failed” to create sufficiently big bubbles. See: Soviet Union. Gene H is a Pragmatist who evades connecting facts into a principle which explains those facts. Pragmatism is the claim that a concern with the complexity of out-of-context facts is a guide to thought and action, like a jigsaw puzzle never assembled. Pragmatists study each piece but oppose assembling them into a picture as impractical. Their statistical studies are primitive man’s concern with coincidences given a veneer of science by probability theory. But they evade causes.
Bullshit, Grossman. My judgement of Objectivism as a deficient pseudo-philosophy has no emotion involved in coming to that conclusion. I’m a trained critical thinker and analyst. I don’t let emotion get in the way of analysis. Indeed, I’m trained in multiple ways to recognize and eliminate such errors of analysis. I have no emotional investment in Objectivism either way. I never adopted its tenets as an operational principle. I don’t adopt any operational principle without detached critical analysis first. That is part and parcel of why I never adopted Objectivism in the first place. It didn’t pass analytical muster. It is, however, the objective truth of science (biology, psychology and sociology) and observation that tells me that the idea of selfishness as a virtue – the underpinning of your religion – is a faulty premise. The emotional analysis of Objectivism here is solely upon your part because being selfish, you have an emotional stake in rationalizing that being selfish is somehow a good thing. You want to be the hero of your own story. That kind of rationalization of bad acts is a well known psychological coping mechanism. Most sociopaths don’t think they are bad people. They just are. And the one’s that do think they are bad people simply don’t care. It’s the nature of the illness.
As to the rest of your gibberish, you once again mistake “created equal” for “equally created”. Ayn Rand was a crazy person. She was a sociopath according to the diagnostic criteria set forth in the DSM-IV and by the WHO. She wasn’t psychologically or morally let alone ethically capable of rendering sound judgement. Her mental illness precludes her being equally created, but it doesn’t preclude her ramblings attracting like minds.
Gene H
>Objectivism is founded in the idea of superior and lesser beings
Gene H’s subjectivism justifies his use of emotion instead of reason to judge Objectivism. Rationally, Objectivism is founded upon existence and man’s mind as guide to life. Commie equality is founded upon consciousness and emotion as guide to short-range action. Commies want to sacrifice economic and social elitism to equality of misery. Commies reject independent judgment and values for the momentary consensus of democratic lynch mobs. Having no moral values (as distinct from moral duty), they dont want to be judged as self-destructive cowards without values. So they demand a society of self-destructive cowards without moral judgment, as their basis, the Bible, demands in, “Judge not, less ye be judged. Rand says, “Judge and be prepared to be judged.” Judgment is an objective need of the individual in society. Man needs to know the moral character of the people who affect his survival. Should one deliberately evade the relative competences of doctors, politicians, mechanics, carpenters, lawyers, etc? This is the concrete meaning, which commies evade, of equality. And, of course, if equality in everything is one’s guide, then Rand is equal to other intellectuals.
deregulation of the securities industry
@Stephen: On the contrary, I have disproved selfishness, to the utter destruction of your argument, and I didn’t have to prove sacrifice, evolution did it for me in hundreds of species. You just cannot read, because you are selfish to the point of self-harm.
Speaking of which: My sympathies on your wasted life, sucker.
Grossman,
Logic is logic and that you’ve been repeatedly proven wrong in your Objectivist fantasy is without question. That you persist in your delusional denial of this does not speak to the invalidity of my methods, but it does speak to the depth of your break with reality in seeking to rationalize as good behavior that is manifestly bad. Proof and refutation cannot be split from objective reality and it is only by proof and empirical methodology that the universe can be tested on a repeatable basis and concrete principles and theories can be known. I am despite your protestations to the contrary a small “o” objectivist because I employ empiricism and the scientific method to interrogate the nature of reality instead of the psychologically invalid pseudo-philosophy of an insane hack fiction writer to underpin a quest for self-rationalization for being selfish. You are attempting to separate reality from proof and logic; in aggregate a form of the logical fallacy of mind projection and an appeal to (invalid) authority. You rely on your beliefs in Rand’s manifestly and repeated proven scientifically incorrect observations about human psychology and social dynamics. I rely upon logic and proof. I let the evidence and proofs of logic dictate the nature of reality, not any desire to prove a particular belief true. Your “arguments” are built on an array of logical fallacies that are devoid of actual proof but instead beg the question that Rand was correct and selfishness is a virtue contrary to all evidence to the contrary from the fields of biology, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Your position is one of religious devotion. Mine is one of scientific and rational thought. Your version of “enlightened rational self-interest” has been proven time and again on this thread to be neither enlightened or rational in the logical sense of the term, but rather simply rationalizing self-interest – egotism and the worship of self.
Sorry, but by rational evidentiary standards required by science and law, your religion is still a dismal failure and its principles dismal failures if and when acted upon in the real world.
Gene H
> Grossman didn’t. It was simply regurgitation of dismissed and discredited ideas he’s already floated. Petitio principii, argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad nauseam and argumentum verbosium as a matter of the skill of argumentation are his primary modes of operation. In short, his argumentation skills are limited and critically flawed. I know he’s your Objectivist hero because of his tenacity, but as a technical matter, his form and substance are bush league at best.
Note his subjectivist concern w/logic split from concrete reality, the base of his social subjectivist ethics. He cannot prove that sacrifice is rational and that selfishness is irrational. So he splits proof and refutation from concrete reality, as in Kant.
Tony C
>I have read enough to know you are incapable of anything but vitriol and reasserting your indefensible, counter-factual, completely unscientific fantasy,
Ie, you cannot refute selfishness and cant prove sacrifice. All you have left is a lust for power over people, to force them to sacrifice themselves to you, which you rationalize as (enforced) benevolence. This is the result to evading man’s volitional/conceptual consciousness for an animal’s perceptual associations. Without the mind that altruism demands as the primary sacrifice, you have nothing left but further sacrifice. Say hello to Hitler, who agreed with your damnation of man’s mind and values.
“Credit Default Swaps and other similar financial instruments are generated to help with risk management.”
Bullshit, Bron. They are “generated” to make a profit for those selling the instruments. It doesn’t have squat to do with risk management other than it’s a risk financial institutions wouldn’t have been able to take under Glass-Steagall. There used to be a wall between commercial banking and financial banking. The CDS debacle is what happens when that wall was removed. You’re right government created this problem though. They created it when they allowed lobbyists to buy the dismantling of Glass-Steagall which in turn allowed financial banks to leverage and package derivatives based on commercial loans. There is absolutely no comparison to shorting a stock. As to junk bonds? They are also integral in creating the CDO mess and junk bonds have less to do with a sound financial product than they do with outright gambling. Junk bonds are called junk for a reason.
Gene H:
Credit Default Swaps and other similar financial instruments are generated to help with risk management. At one point junk bonds sent Milken to prison and are now used regularly. I imagine the person who first shorted a stock was thought a criminal as well.
Government created this problem and the financial industry came up with a way of dealing with a problem. Maybe not a good way but they should not have needed to in the first place.
gENE h:
“As to your comments on Obama and jobs? I’m no fan of his, but the economy was driven into the ditch on the previous administration’s watch.”
I have no disagreement with that statement. Bush was a believer in government control as indicated by his use of the Federal Reserve system to keep interest rates artificially low so the economy could be expanded to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
No argument on that point.
Thanks, raff.
I plan on doing a victory lap around the block later today. 😀
Gene,
Congrats on 2,000!
Bron,
Yes, we passed the 911 threshold about 250 posts ago.
I will have to admit that it is quite satisfying from an author’s point of view, but all credit really goes to the essential nature of the subject matter. Even though the last third of the thread degenerated into the “Let’s Defend Ayn Rand Show”, the basis of fundamental question presented in the title is actually critical to not only understanding law, but understanding justice as well.
What you Objectivists fail to understand is that your beliefs inherently lead to injustice and the pursuit of justice is a primary function of government as formulated by the Founders. Objectivism is founded in the idea of superior and lesser beings and the Constitution was informed by the DOI which clearly states the proposition that all men are created equal, not that all men are equally created. Objectivism is intrinsically at odds with the principle foundations of this country as well as the concept of justice because in itself it rests on an inequitable core principle. No one person is more deserving of justice than another.
As to your comments on Obama and jobs? I’m no fan of his, but the economy was driven into the ditch on the previous administration’s watch. That Obama has been ineffective in addressing the issue has more to do with his catering to Wall Street in the same fashion as the previous administration than it does with him being on the left and/or progressive – for he is neither of those things in practice. There is no one on the left in our government or truly progressive with the possible exceptions of Al Franken, Dennis Kuchinich and Bernie Saunders. Obama is a center-right Republican in practice. However, if you want to place blame for the weak jobs market, it rightfully goes to the Bush administration for allowing their banker buddies to wreck the economy in the first place and the far right for pushing for deregulation of the securities industry for years and years. If you don’t see the economic tyranny in the whole CDS debacle, you’re simply blind to reality.
Tony C:
“Because if somebody challenges your weak premises you cannot defend them logically, so all you have left is insults. But I am unconvinced by insults, so I see no point in reading them.
My sympathies on your wasted life, sucker.”
Seems to me you engage in much more insult than Stephen does. And at least he has a point while all you have is progressive clap trap. Which is only right in the minds of a few hard core progressives. Information gleaned from the annals of progressives who have distorted history to fool people into believing the socialist line of bull shit you are promulgating.
What is like to base your life on superstition and ignorance? Your belief system is much like the ancient savages thinking that the wind was the result of gods.
Actually, no Bron, Grossman didn’t. It was simply regurgitation of dismissed and discredited ideas he’s already floated. Petitio principii, argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad nauseam and argumentum verbosium as a matter of the skill of argumentation are his primary modes of operation. In short, his argumentation skills are limited and critically flawed. I know he’s your Objectivist hero because of his tenacity, but as a technical matter, his form and substance are bush league at best.
BTW, congratulations on being the 2,000th poster to this thread (the most commented thread in blog history).
Gene H:
you just passed 2,000 comments on your thread.
An all time Turley record. I think you even beat the one where Bob and Slarti were arguing about 911.
Speech, Speech.
Gene H:
I have looked closely and the only thing I see is people on the streets looking for work because Obama knows as much about how to create jobs as does every other liberal/progressive type.