Ye Olde Libertarian Pub

[Nilloc]

I started reading Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness. I don't want to comment too much until I read the whole thing, but there's one thing she said at the end of the first chapter that I just couldn't wait on:

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man--or group or society or government--has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. (emphasis in original.)
​

It just amazes me that someone who said that could have hated libertarianism and its view on war.

 

[Lux Aeterna]

Perhaps she had a flexible definition of retaliation?

 

[MacFall]

Perhaps she had a flexible definition of retaliation?

She had an odd definition of property rights. She was not a Lockean (one of the reasons for her falling out with Murray Rothbard later on). She believed, as far as I can tell, that property rights are created when someone comes up with an idea, rather than when they bring their idea into physical being - hence the Objectivist tendency to support intellectual property.

As for war, she seems to have believed that a society not civilized enough to have written the Constitution didn't actually HAVE property rights. For example, she considered the Arabs and African tribes to have so thoroughly rejected the concept culturally that they literally did not own anything - which meant it was okay for the US to occupy those regions to protect our interests in their natural resources.

But she wasn't very consistent on this, either, having at other times denounced the very sort of collectivism in which she was engaging there, and denouncing the military itself as a socialist organization. So... she was too full of herself to see her own inconsistencies, is the best explanation I can come up with.

 

[Nilloc]

So people don't have rights unless they have a constitutional republic? Makes rights dependent on government. Very dangerous.

I've talked with a few of the Objectivists from the party on Facebook. Apparently only one of them is a big Objectivist; he's philosophy major. He told me the rest are more Objectivist sympathizers. And he said that I've probably read more Rand than anyone else on there by just having read one chapter of her book. Weird.

 

[MacFall]

So people don't have rights unless they have a constitutional republic? Makes rights dependent on government. Very dangerous.

More like, a constitutional government is basic proof that a culture recognizes property rights. Which isn't much better, in my opinion.

I've talked with a few of the Objectivists from the party on Facebook. Apparently only one of them is a big Objectivist; he's philosophy major. He told me the rest are more Objectivist sympathizers. And he said that I've probably read more Rand than anyone else on there by just having read one chapter of her book. Weird.

Yeah... very weird. :/

 

[Nilloc]

From what the girl told me before, she hasn't read a lot in the political and economic fields. She said much of her education on these matters comes from talking with people at the Laissez-Faire Syndicate. I can understand that somewhat. I was convinced of libertarianism mostly by watching YouTube videos of Ron Paul and John Stossel, and reading things on message boards. I just find it strange that someone that involved in a community that focuses on these things hasn't read more, but maybe that's the bookworm in me talking.

I noticed a number of similarities between the first chapter of Rand's book and the first few chapters of The Ethics of Liberty. Didn't Rothbard credit Rand with convincing him of natural rights/law? It's interesting as well to see the distinction between this approach and Molyneux's UPB to reach the NAP.

 

[zoink]

Just came across this video. Seems to be on subject.

IDOAR #11: Damned to Repeat It, Pt. 1 - Libertarianism - YouTube

 

[Nilloc]

I watched the video (I'll watch the other two soon) and I suppose I'll just say what I think so far of the book. I'm 70 pages in and I've found most of it to be utter nonsense. While I obviously appreciate the non-aggression principle, the way she gets to it I find ridiculous. If I recall, Rothbard used similar reasoning in The Ethics of Liberty. She basically assumes that preserving one's own life is the ultimate goal of ethics (or something along those lines). All the rest is worked out from that. Now if she just said that that was her axiom and had no proof for it, then fine, but that's not what she does. She claims her only axiom is reason and that and only that is sufficient to get one to the preservation of human life is the goal of ethics. The rest of the book then views anything that she interprets as harming one's life as irrational and unethical, even if the individual him/herself personally likes/enjoys it.

 

[Calvinist Dark Lord]

I watched the video (I'll watch the other two soon) and I suppose I'll just say what I think so far of the book. I'm 70 pages in and I've found most of it to be utter nonsense. While I obviously appreciate the non-aggression principle, the way she gets to it I find ridiculous. If I recall, Rothbard used similar reasoning in The Ethics of Liberty. She basically assumes that preserving one's own life is the ultimate goal of ethics (or something along those lines). All the rest is worked out from that. Now if she just said that that was her axiom and had no proof for it, then fine, but that's not what she does. She claims her only axiom is reason and that and only that is sufficient to get one to the preservation of human life is the goal of ethics. The rest of the book then views anything that she interprets as harming one's life as irrational and unethical, even if the individual him/herself personally likes/enjoys it.

The majour difficulty i had with Rand was that, practically speaking...if one did not agree with her 100% of the time on 100% of the issues --even when she changed her mind-- then that person was her enemy.

Logically speaking, i have difficulty trying to reconcile the very concept of 'rights' with her atheism.

i simply cannot see how rights exist in such a system, unless one presupposes them, which begs the question of why they would exist at all.

 

[Nilloc]

The majour difficulty i had with Rand was that, practically speaking...if one did not agree with her 100% of the time on 100% of the issues --even when she changed her mind-- then that person was her enemy.

Ah yes. I'm aware of Rand's arrogance (I can detect it by just reading the book).

Logically speaking, i have difficulty trying to reconcile the very concept of 'rights' with her atheism.

i simply cannot see how rights exist in such a system, unless one presupposes them, which begs the question of why they would exist at all.

I agree. I generally don't make religious arguments for the NAP or libertarianism in general, but I could if I wanted to. I do have secular arguments, but unlike Ayn Rand and Stefan Molyneux, I don't pretend you'll get to the NAP by just assuming reason. I have other axioms that I readily acknowledge I can't prove. I can maybe offer some evidence, but not proof. And most of these axioms are not to controversial to most people, I think, which is why I find it so much easier to argue for my position going that route rather than making up all this stuff up and calling it rational.

Edit: I watched McKeever's video on anarchism. No surprisingly he abandons the NAP immediately (he even admits it) and goes on to one of Rand's other principles as a justification. He says that libertarianism focus to much on NAP and ignores these other principles. But if you have to ignore the logical ends of one principle and use another in its place, that ought to be a good indication that at least of the principles is wrong.

 

[Nilloc]

Stephan Kinsella was kind enough to tell me a few of his thoughts on Objectivism on Facebook today:

In the early days of the movement, Rand was a breath of fresh air to some people and a good antidote to the prevailing liberalism in the culture. Nowadyas, with a larger and more vibrant libertarian movement, and with many more thinkers and sources of information, she is less .. necessary.

BTW the Fountainhead, I just don't like anymore; the whole story is one of IP terrorism--Roark blowing up someone else's property based on quasi-IP reasons. She was badly off on the issue of IP, and also on minarchy vs. anarchy. Her stuff on altruism and selfishness is too much. She should have just stuck to politics, instead of pretending to have a whole philosophy of life (though I do like her realistic epistemology).

I always thought it was impressive that she liked Mises; but it's hard to understand why she did, given her antipathy to his entire neo-Kantian methodology and framework. If you reject Mises's praxeology ... then what else is there to like about him (in economics)?
​

 

[zoink]

He needs to focus on more stuff like that and less stuff like this:



Getting circulated in some anti-libertarian groups.

 

[Nilloc]

He needs to focus on more stuff like that and less stuff like this:



Getting circulated in some anti-libertarian groups.

I do remember him posting that link, but didn't pay much attention. Geez, what's he thinking?

 

[zoink]

I do remember him posting that link, but didn't pay much attention. Geez, what's he thinking?

One, I don't think he was thinking. Two, it's Stephan, he's a hot head. Three, he was probably being too collectivist in his language and was grouping all socialists as statist socialists.

He says quite a few rather uncouth things. It can be an unfortunate side affect of being smart.

This was a response from a libertarian on the subject that I feel gives insight into what Stephen was probably thinking:

The problem with using the word "socialist" in any kind of non-colloquial setting is that it's massively ambiguous.
I think the word "state socialist" or simply "statist" would be a far better -- and less ambiguous substitute.
I don't disagree with this message given this substitution. State socialists have as their goal a totalitarian deprivation of life, liberty, and property. Why should those who tell us that at the first opportunity they'll use violence to bend us to their will be idly abided?
I think this ties into a deeper problem I have though with the "liberty movement" -- the whole movement seems wrapped up in this blanked of appeasing and apologizing. Appeasing authority, apologizing for it. Everything is blamed on some amorphous "government" or "state" rather than squarely on the shoulders of those who choose individually to participate in dishing out the violence that creates the abstraction we call "government".
Every police officer dragging an innocent drug user to a cop cruiser is guilty. Every jury that finds that innocent drug user guilty is guilty. Every bureaucrat writing a regulation, every politician declaring a new law. Why are they so easily excused by the "liberty movement"? A desire not to be "radical"?
What are we really against? "Government" doesn't exist. It's not a separate entity that has thoughts and makes choices. It's a gestalt of people acting individually in what they believe is their own best interests by using violence against other people.
They choose to live by the sword, why is it considered controversial -- especially within this movement where we've all taken the red pill -- when someone says they should die by the sword?

It's not an invalid point just one that doesn't need to be made on our facebook pages. Some points just don't pass the consequentialist test. It's like discussing "race realism." Even if it is true you only hurt the cause by discussing it.

 

[MacFall]

A lot of my friends are socialists of the non-statist variety. But even if they were statists (and not my friends), I don't see how shooting them would be a proportional response to the sort of aggression they would support. That just really doesn't make sense.

 

[Nilloc]

As we're on the subject of libertarian dirty laundry and Ayn Rand: I've been reading articles on this site over the past few days (I really enjoy the guy's writing style). These well-documented works describe, well, pretty much anything bad about Stefan Molyneux and FDR. Mostly though he talks about whether or not FDR should be considered a cult. I'd heard a number of things, but not before this did I see so many examples that really do make FDR look like a cult. The way he encourages people to leave their families and uses them as guinea pigs for his unproven psychological views is particularly disturbing.

I still enjoy many of his YouTube videos and debates, but I don't think I can look at Molyneux quite the same way again.

 

[MacFall]

Yeah, someone earlier in this thread linked me to that site. He sort of echoed what I was already thinking from my own exposure to FDR, and that of acquaintances who had been following Molyneux for longer than I had.

 

[Nilloc]

He's also strongly against Molyneux's UPB. I haven't read the book and only know about UPB from what he's said in his videos and some articles, but do you guys find UPB arguments convincing?

Edit:

So I posted an article by Rothbard on the free market on the Laissez-Faire Syndicate Facebook page, and the big Objectivist guy--who was nice and friendly at the party and on FB--explodes at me for daring to post something by Rothbard. He says that he takes back any hospitality he showed, that no honest person could believe what Rothbard said, that he hates Libertarians more than Communists, and that Rothbard was one of the worst enemies of capitalism ever. He said he won't read the article, but whatever is it in is probably BS. Seriously, what the hell's wrong with this guy?

 

[MacFall]

He's also strongly against Molyneux's UPB. I haven't read the book and only know about UPB from what he's said in his videos and some articles, but do you guys find UPB arguments convincing?

They aren't anything new, philosophically speaking. They are like an attempt to prove a Kantian secular ethic around non-violence. As the author said, Molyneux thinks that he did in a few years and couple hundred pages what every moral philosopher ever has failed to do in thousands of years and hundreds of volumes. He didn't.

All that UPB proves is that if you want to be moral, you should act according to moral principles. It doesn't prove that anyone should want to be moral.

Edit:

So I posted an article by Rothbard on the free market on the Laissez-Faire Syndicate Facebook page, and the big Objectivist guy--who was nice and friendly at the party and on FB--explodes at me for daring to post something by Rothbard. He says that he takes back any hospitality he showed, that no honest person could believe what Rothbard said, that he hates Libertarians more than Communists, and that Rothbard was one of the worst enemies of capitalism ever. He said he won't read the article, but whatever is it in is probably BS. Seriously, what the hell's wrong with this guy?

Rothbard is apostate to Randroids. You're not allowed even to talk about him, unless it's to slander him.

 

[Nilloc]

They aren't anything new, philosophically speaking. They are like an attempt to prove a Kantian secular ethic around non-violence. As the author said, Molyneux thinks that he did in a few years and couple hundred pages what every moral philosopher ever has failed to do in thousands of years and hundreds of volumes. He didn't.

All that UPB proves is that if you want to be moral, you should act according to moral principles. It doesn't prove that anyone should want to be moral.

I'd had some interest in UPB latley given David's Gordon's review of the book ( I haven't read the review either). Also this guy's video (if you haven't watched his stuff, do so. He's a Christian AnCap):

The Reason for the Molyneux Problem - YouTube

So, do you think there is any good secular arguments for the NAP? Do you find Rothbard and Rand's arguments (which I think are the same as Jefferson and Locke's) convincing?

Rothbard is apostate to Randroids. You're not allowed even to talk about him, unless it's to slander him.

This is the article I posted: What Is the Free Market? by Murray N. Rothbard Just a nice simple summary of the market. The Randroid has said I have a fair point that he can't criticize it without reading it, so he plans to do so, but still expects it to be BS. I honestly don't know what he could disagree with in the article, but I'm sure he'll nit pick.

Why do they hate Rothbard? Just because Rand did? Rothbard pretty much hated Rand too, but most libertarians like her. Guess because we don't take Rothbard's opinion as God.

And I thank God I didn't wear my Rothbard shirt to the party now. Otherwise I really would have been in Keith Hackley's position (I doubt most there would've cared, but he would have made a scene, given the way he's acting now). Now he actually took sometime I said to him as a joke a few days ago and said I meant it seriously. All's fair in love, war, and arguing against Rothbardians.