Death of a Libertarian
I thought this was a really good article, and it effectively sums up the biggest issue I have with Ayn Rand's philosophy.
READ ARTICLE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tann...
READ ARTICLE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brynn-tann...
Well said.
O.A.
Living in any modern society frequently requires one to deal with and interact with people who do not share one's own views, including people who hold views one considers to be irrational. The only way to avoid interacting with such people so would be to remove oneself from society entirely and live the life of a hermit. A hermit is not living in a free society, but rather outside of society entirely.
The fact is it motivates a manager to hire the one they do not have to create a book about if they do not hire them. It creates huge amounts of waste and it interferes with the best candidate for the job getting the job.
However if I really want to discriminate against some minority group I can always find something about the person that has nothing to do with race that makes them a lessor fit. Document it well and be on my way.
That law does not prevent, or even slow a person who is prejudice from exercising there prejudices. It just makes them have to probe enough into a person to disqualify them from the job for some other reason and then document it.
Under Anti-discrimination law the racist need only take some care to hide the true reason under a false one. Without anti-discrimination law hiring the best qualified person who fits the job and company would be the only driving force for any good manager or business operator. Anything else would result in a less than optimal operation and who wants that?
While a bigot could potentially find a probable reason for not hiring a particular person because of prejudice, finding a probable cause for not serving a customer is next to impossible.
Also, your argument about how having to do more paperwork if you chose not to hire a minority or a woman doesn't seem to make sense. How does doing more paperwork if you DON'T hire someone make you LESS likely to hire that person? It seems more logical that you would want to hire them to avoid the paperwork.
I wish they could trash all non-discrimination laws. Then we could stop debating which groups merit inclusion.
**I really wish the gov't not taking action was not seen as tantamount to gov't endorsing it.** Drugs, gambling, selling sex, saying you don't hire certain races could all be decriminalized with no one construing that to mean those things are okay. Even as it is now, many stupid things you can do in life are legal. I'd like to expand the right to do all kinds of stupid things.
Also, eliminating non-discrimination laws would not eliminate debates about which groups should and should not be included in things, and I honestly don't see why you would think it would.
Regarding ending debates, I mean it would end political debate. For example, it would end the debate about whether sexual orientation should be protected the same way as age, race, marital status, and sex are; none would be protected.
I realize this would legalize one more form of stupid behavior in the marketplace, but a) I don't see that as a big deal and b) I'm not convinced you really can outlaw stupid behavior like this. There's a whole world of people out there wanting to design, test, and assemble electronics. There's a whole world of OEMs and startups that need electronics. Both of them occasionally do stupid things. I don't see the law coming in and making us any smarter in our decisions.
Also, I find business so difficult that I can't imagine pushing a political agenda. I guess it happens, but I can't imagine being so good that I could pick and choose clients and employees based on race or politics and still feel confident I'm the best choice for customers. Even if I were Flextronics' CEO instead of one guy with a few PT employees, my mind would be consumed with keeping layers of people around the world excited about being the best choice for OEMs, not about race and politics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQ3yOGdZ...
http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/11/19/...
Non-discrimination laws should apply equally to all business, including privately owned business and businesses owned by religious organizations. There should be no exceptions.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/68kxdvhotlxs6p...
Two wrongs do not make a right. The problem is the egregious application of a law, the difference between a speed limit and a speed trap. Again, as Objectivism is a personal philosophy and Libertarianism is a political agenda, the essential questions all come back to the individual. In other words, regarding speeding, given that the limits exist for physical reasons, and in any case are posted clearly for all to see, and come with known consequences for violations, what judgment does the rational person hold for the habitual speeder caught (again) in a speed trap?
The photographers do have a political right to be idiots. But how do we judge their prejudice?
People have a right to be idiots, sure, but they do not have the right to discriminate.
Personally, I would have filed a lawsuit and then gone to a different photography company anyway, but I can understand if this couple wanted to set an example.
your remedy is punitive. the antithesis of capitalism
I do not want a member of al Qaeda as my nanny. If I am a bigot, you do not want my produce. get it?!
And punitive action is not the antithesis of capitalism, just of laissez faire capitalism.
History has clearly shown us that communism and socialism don't work, and that capitalism is the only viable economic system. But that doesn't mean laissez faire capitalism is the only viable form of capitalism. Of all the different forms of capitalism which exist, why should we immediately jump to the conclusion that only laissez faire is viable, or even that laissez faire is viable at all, especially when a true laissez faire system has never existed anywhere? I can readily agree with any economist who promotes capitalism, though I have many suspicious and reservations about laissez faire. I believe regulations are necessary to ensure health and safety, and also to promote equality and fairness.
(By the way, hiring a nanny isn't the same as running a business, so laws against discrimination don't apply there. Remember the distinction between the private and public spheres.)
": a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group)" - merriam-webster definition of "Bigot".
"
bigotry
Use Bigotry in a sentence
bigotry
[big-uh-tree]
noun, plural bigotries.
1.
stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.
2.
the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot." - dictionary.com definition of "Bigotry".
Not at all?
Okay, children, listen up, here's a lesson for you that you WILL NOT LEARN:
EVERYBODY is prejudiced. Everybody.
Of course we are. It saves time in most situations.
I prefer to make a buck if possible. My feeling is that if I can look at myself in the morning when I shave. If I can say I've done good, I'm happy.
Whenever I hear someone say they have the right to discriminate, their arguments sound about as valid as that of a slave owner insisting that he has the right to own slaves.
And there is to a right to discriminate (screw whatever law you're going to bring up)...it saves lives if you're smart enough to not ignore it. Ted Bundy's would-be victims come to mind...the ones that said, "Hmmm something's not right here, you're creeping me out with that icky smile." And got away. Good thing they weren't concerned with offending him or hurting his feelings... (like maybe his victims were afraid to do when they're discriminatory radar went off.) You need a new word..."discriminate" isn't working. And neither does "racist" so throw that one out too.
To be clear, the private sphere is your personal life, such as your home, your friends, your family, and so forth, while the public sphere is any institution which is a business, a school, or part of the government. You can discriminate all you like in your own private life, but to discriminate in the public sphere is to violate other people's rights.
(By the way, your reference to Ted Bundy was a really, really bad example, and demonstrates that you don't actually understand what discrimination is or how it works.)
disˈkriməˌnāt/
verb
verb: discriminate; 3rd person present: discriminates; past tense: discriminated; past participle: discriminated; gerund or present participle: discriminating
1.
recognize a distinction; differentiate.
"babies can discriminate between different facial expressions of emotion"
synonyms: differentiate, distinguish, draw a distinction, tell the difference, tell apart;
Fixed it for you.
THAT sums up, in my opinion, a large part of what's wrong with the U.S. today.
When you are at home, feel free to dance around in your underwear. When you are in public... dress and behave appropriately!
I'm tired of seeing these human cattle wallowing into Walmart in a hoodie, pajama bottoms and flip-flips in 30 degree weather.
I'm tired of people behaving as though they are either in their home, or we are all family, in public. Yes, I poop too; doesn't mean I want any knowledge of your evacuation habits.
I lust for a return to Victorian days, where you didn't even go out the front door without a hat and proper dress. Or even just back to the 50s-60s where mom wouldn't let you go out to school unless your jeans were whole and clean, your shirt was button-down and tucked in, and your hair was combed, even if that included mom-spit holding the cowlick down (if you were a boy; if you were a girl, it was a (clean! whole!) dress or blouse-and-skirt so that boys knew you were one of the people they're not allowed to roughhouse with).
Sigh... how did what I say get twisted into inappropriate attire for public... I was strictly talking about principles....I don't leave the house without them.
Everything else you just said...I agree with. Get dressed for God's sake! (Stop picking up, or dropping off, your kids at school in your striped flannel pajama pants and comb that rat's nest of a knotted mess on your head too.)
http://www.netplaces.com/philosophy/util...
I can be more effective fighting for what I believe in with a roof over my head and food in my belly than by taking a principled stand against Walmart/Target/Best Buy.YouNameTheBigEmployer.
Hank Rearden had the *luxury* of having already become a billionaire before fighting the powers that be. When Dagny had had enough, she had her family's cabin in the woods (which they used apparently to "rough it" pretending to live as poor people did, for a few weeks at a time). She didn't have to worry about where her next meal was going to come from.
As for me, the only type of people I can't stand are jerks and assholes. Luckily, disruptive and abusive behavior are not legally protected statuses, so if I owned a business, I could kick out anyone who was causing mayhem or being otherwise disruptive. ;)
The important point to remember here is the distinction between a person's BEHAVIOR and a person's IDENTITY. While a business owner is fully entitled to refuse service to anyone because of the former, they cannot refuse service to someone because of the latter.
All statuses are protected. But some statuses are more protected than others, apparently.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 defined the first five legally protected statuses, which are race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, and gender.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 created certain protections for the disabled.
In recent years, many cities have also added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected statuses, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 (ENDA), which would enact nationwide employment protection for the LGBT community, recently passed in the Senate with a vote of 64 to 32, and is currently awaiting a vote in the House.
And obviously it wouldn't be respectful to wear a shirt like what you described anywhere, let alone in public, but I can't think of any way to allow business owners to prohibit such attire within their premises without also allowing bigoted business owners to prohibit supportive attire with the opposite message. So I figure it's better to just allow customers to wear whatever they want, though businesses may impose the condition that a customer's attire not be revealing (refusing to serve customers who aren't wearing shirts and/or shoes is perfectly acceptable).
I don't think I'm on the list, but I don't feel like I'm being treating equally or fairly. Yet I don't want to be on a whiny list and I don't want to frequent a business that doesn't align itself with my beliefs either. And I certainly do NOT want to FORCE anyone to comply with having to make me feel welcome. Everyone should run their business whatever way they want to..it's THEIRS. I can go there or can go somewhere else...they owe me nothing.
Sorry... you reminded me of that... idiocy.
let ME tell YOU about MY rights that have been violated
"Make everyone like me! MAKE THEM!"
That's why I strongly support the 2nd amendment to the constitution.
What makes up "general public"? Giraffes?
Maphesdus:"...it effectively sums up the biggest issue I have with Ayn Rand's philosophy."
A libertarian says that you have an absolute political right be a heroin addict, to buy sex from prostitutes, to gamble on horse races, and attend the church of your choice to worship God according to your faith. An Objectivist does none of those -- and can explain to you why you should not, either. Libertarians claim that you have a right to be a racist. If you think that is a rational choice, then consider Ayn Rand's famous essay, "Racism."
Ayn Rand also understood her own limitations. She passed over many issues where people sought absolute answers. For example, she said that she did not consider gun control an important issue and had no answer to balance your right to defend yourself against the monopoly on retalitatory force held by the police. She let it go at that. Darwinian evolution was another. She also said that she found homosexuality disgusting. She was never asked about transgendered, etc., having died in 1982.
That said, gays are a significant fraction of the "Objectivish" fandom. As with Ayn Rand's opinion of the midi-skirt and a woman president, you have to differentiate philosophical Objectivism from the personal opinions of Ayn Rand.
Philosophical Objectivism holds that if you refuse to associate with African-Americans or homosexuals just because they are black or gay, then you need to have your head examined ... or at least examine your own head, i.e, check your premises.
See for instance: "Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra at "Rebirth of Reason" here.
http://rebirthofreason.com/Store/Ayn_Ran...
See also this open discussion on the "Objectivist Living" board:
http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/...
The basic question is whether you consider Objectivism to be an "open" or "closed" system. Those who find it "closed" look to the published works of Ayn Rand for their answers. The "open" scholars take the non-contradictory body of thought and move forward from there.
Lets Shrug quoted Ayn Rand: "“In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.”
That is true. The question for an Objectivist is how do you judge those who freely choose to avoid the rational, the productive, the creative, the inventive, because of a non-essential (ascribed) attribute such as "race" or "gender."
Maphesdus rejoined: "Living in any modern society frequently requires one to deal with and interact with people who do not share one's own views, including people who hold views one considers to be irrational. ... "
Indeed, it does; and no easy Absolute Answer exists. You have to decide when you are sanctioning your destroyers and when you are just putting up with idiocy... or silliness. A long time ago, one of my Marxist professors asked me: "You think that a business has a right to discriminate because a man's home is his castle." I agreed. He replied that, leaving aside the medievalism of that for now, the Welcome mat in front of a store is an open contract with the public. The same argument came up in early computer hacking court cases when the defense pointed out that anyone who accessed a certain computer was greeted first with WELCOME before they were asked for a username and password, so guessing credentials like guest/guest and visitor/visitor was perfectly all right.
Argue that as you will, my point is that it is arguable and requires analysis beyond a ten-word Absolute.
Rozar issued a challenge: "For all of your hatred of discrimination you're forcing people who hate each other to interact and it results in violence. Libertarian ideas still protect individual rights to be your self. Stop making people get along at the point of a gun."
Back before the WWW when all we had was networks like FidoNet and Usenet, the "Rules of 'Netiquette" said: "Do not offend and do not take offense." You have to learn to get along with people you might not like. That is life.
The hatred of one person for another speaks to a problem within those who hate. Political Libertarianism finds a solution in an "archipelago" society. As a philosophy for individual happiness (the eudaimonia of Aristotle) Objectivism includes a "biocentric" psychology of self-esteem. People with self-esteem do not hate others for non-essential ascribed attributes such as "race" or "gender." Someone who does hate others is likewise to be avoided by rational, benevolent persons.
Therein lies a deeper problem: getting along with others in a complex urban milieu.
Of course it's a rational choice; and even if it's an irrational choice, it's still your right.
I will not eat liver. I do not like liver, I do not like the idea of liver, the smell of liver cooking makes me nauseous.
I love eating steak, however, and the smell of a cooking steak makes my mouth water.
I choose to discriminate between steak and liver in steak's favor. I have a right to like what I like, to dislike what I dislike, based upon whatever criteria I choose.
Likewise, I can prefer redheaded women to other women, if that's my taste. Nothing rational about it, but it's still my right, and you have no moral right to dictate to me what kind of women I'm attracted to. Or to demand that I be equally attracted to all women. Maybe I'm repelled by women with blonde hair; again, my right.
Imagine if one had to marry every person who wanted to marry you...
"The hatred of one person for another speaks to a problem within those who hate."
Yeah, all those people who hated Hitler, there's a problem with them. All the American soldiers who hated "Japs" had "a problem", it wasn't that the Japanese were worthy of hatred.
Let's have the flipside: The love of one person for another speaks to a problem within those who love.
Hate is as natural and normal an emotion as love. It can be misdirected, but so can love.
"To love a thing is to know and love its nature."
To hate a thing is also to know and hate its nature.
The rationology of Objectivism or the expansive natural rights of a Libertarian may well provide the answers and guidelines for the individual and that's where it ought to remain.
KYFHO
Maphesdus is wrong. Modern society doesn't REQUIRE us to deal with irrational, but we inevitably do. One is FREE to avoid, not always capable of avoiding the irrational. The existence of this blog shows one can live in society that includes the irrational. If you run a store, why do you care if an irrational person buys your product or not? Irrational covers a lot of territory, from the practically irrelevant to the very serious. Of course you're not going to sign a contract with a known dishonest person and you can easily avoid such a person. Anf you can voluntarily cease watching "Elementary" because the main character says followers of Rand are "morally bankrupt." Most of our interactions are between people who don't know if the other is irrational or not.
Although I first enrolled as a freshman in 1967, I completed my bachelor's in 2008 (MA 2010), and unlike the first five times, I just read past the stupid parts of everything and got to the parts that I could benefit from.
Huffington Post publishes Objectivists, also.
I can find popcorn in a dumpster. That doesn't mean I'm going to eat it.
This morning I walked up to a couple vendors I'm friendly with at Walmart, and said, "This equality stuff is BS". They both looked at me expectantly.
A female customer with beautiful blue eyes had, very very politely, come up and asked where to find the candy.
I was off-duty, but I had her follow me and began guiding her. She thanked me, and I said that employees are supposed to *take* customers to what they're looking for, not just point. And she asked, "Even if they're off duty?"
To which I glibly replied, "Ah, well, I'm just a nice guy."
Now, I've posted enough around here for people to know that I'd have responded that way had she been a 72 year old guy using a walker. I was fed a straight line, I didn't consider the source.
But, then I have a sense of priority. First I'd get your hypothetical decolletage-encrusted female the directions, THEN I'd take the time to flirt with her...
I don't know about "libertarian theory" but Ayn Rand certainly didn't care about equality of opportunity. The essential political goal of her philosophy is *freedom*. Why? Because living as a man, rather than as a slave of other men, *requires* freedom.
It's not about achieving a certain statistical distribution of income. It's about people getting to keep what they earn -- and that's it.
Now before you say that such might mean people starving in the streets, I'll say that if a rich man is allowed to keep his income, he's not going to stuff it under a mattress, but instead he'll *invest it*. Such will create jobs for less wealthy men.
Otherwise, run your business as you choose.
M. Thanks for discussing. Some things I find quite disgusting such as racial and similar discrimination but also rampant do-goodism by bullies.
A "right" to not be offended is the end of freedom of opinion. A "right" to not be "discriminated" (whatever that word means) is the end of freedom of association.
The top wage earners love taxes and government regulations. Who do you think put them there?
They will always find ways to get out of paying taxes. The regulations are there to stop average people from pursuing the same dream.If one only could succeed by their own merits there would be a much nobler group of top wage earners. This is what Atlas Shrugged is all about.
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Let's also not forget that after the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, huge swaths of racist Democrats left the party and became Republicans.
Familiarity *does* sometimes breed contempt.
Enforced audience is also a form of oppression. You want to pretend your sexual hang up is normal and healthy, do so by yourself, don't inflict your irrationality on me.
The nutty homeless guy wandering around the vestibule of Walmart is free to express his schizophrenia while talking to himself, but he tries to make a captive audience of me and security gets called.