"You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value... " - Ayn Rand

Posted by awebb 9 years, 4 months ago to Pics
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Quote of the day:

"You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value - you have now established an unselfish society where they trade extortion for extortion. Your system is a legal civil war, where men gang up on one another and struggle for possession of the law, which they use as a club over rivals, till another gang wrests it from their clutch and clubs them with it in their turn, all of them clamoring protestations of service to an unnamed public's unspecified good." - Ayn Rand


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  • Posted by broskjold22 9 years, 4 months ago
    What is the club to which Rand refers? If we look at the recent laws regarding ACA, Scalia has referred to the answer in clear form: popular advantage. That's the club. We should respect property rights, they say, for mine, but not for another's (theft). We should respect civil rights, they say, for groups but not for individuals. We should respect equal rights for all, but not for minorities, and no, definitely not for the individual. It's a system of clamoring hands.

    Those who proclaim their right to loot from others point to what "differentiates" them from a "group" of the opposite characteristic. This is opposed to the individual who proclaims his right to produce. His rational choices and efforts set him apart - in spite of personal disadvantages. That is what distinguishes the producer from the looter.
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