my langauge is inappropriate, unlike the frightening thinking going on in here

Aaaahhh...... ; )

K got in trouble in the Gulch today. :)

Well...allrighty then! I'm not sure that deserved a down-vote so here's my +1

When a person is born in a country that does not recognize individual liberties, that person can either a) accept their life as a slave, b) join an armed insurrection, or c) petition another country for permission (word chosen carefully) to enter. Ayn Rand petitioned for entry, but was duplicitous in doing so. See Shikha Dalmia's article from Reason in 2012:

https://reason.com/archives/2012/02/1...

Ayn Rand's case gives reason both for the case of unrestricted travel and against it.

As I wrote earlier, I miswrote that line.

I deserve it. You do not

See you on Monday my friend :)

Yes Dale; It seems to me that so much of this argument, that has gone on through multiple posts, centers on principles, definitions, and identities. Whether Rand talked specifically or not about an issue such as immigration control at the border--she did talk about, at great lengths, those principles, definitions, and identities that we can then apply and use to understand the issue from an Objectivist standpoint. I don't think Rand expected to have to discuss every topic or issue possible in the world, thinking that providing the essentials to us, we could then apply that thinking rationally, with reason, and logic on our own. I think she might have given us too much credit.

For myself it seems so straightforward, as you state, man owns himself, his mind, his life, and the products of and from that ownership. So what's the hang-up in understanding that? Maybe it's in understanding the concept of ownership as compared to altruistic obligations--in someway connected in thinking to the concept of self interested selfishness as compared to self centered selfishness. I know there's a lot of confusion generated in the comparisons of the AS Gulch vs a nation state, and the comparisons of inherent rights vs granted rights.

There's also a lot of conservative self aggrandizement issues as Americans vs non-Americans and group identity vs individual identity. Additionally, the concept of jurisdictional control vs ownership is getting confused and conflated.

I look forward eagerly to your post and let's see if we can move the discussions forward. Txs for the work.

The fact that you can say "when a country does not grant rights to citizens" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Rand and Natural Rights.

Hi Zen,

Yes I agree. I am working on one post that describes property rights in more detail related to immigration right now. However, the topic deserves a lot more discussion than I do in that post.

Strangely enough you will get into fights with Os about ownership of self. They will argue that Rand never said that and Piekoff calls the idea circular and nonsense. Actually Rand stated exactly this, not obviously as some sort of axiom, but derived from the nature of man.

Is man a sovereign individual who owns his person, his mind, his life and its products – or is he the property of the tribe …
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, What is Capitalism, p 10.


Most of people think that they know what property rights are, but their ideas are all skewed - confusing multiple different concepts. This includes Os. Rand did not discuss this topic much. The only two essays on point are from Capitalism:The Unknown Ideal. One is on patents and the other is on the airwaves.

What?

Objectivism does recognize that such a condition is wrong. That recognition, however, really doesn't change the situation. A person born in such a country has to either take up arms in conjunction with like-minded individuals or get very fortunate to be permitted (word chosen carefully), sometimes after the immigrant has deliberately deceived the country to which he/she is immigrating, to immigrate to a country that honors individual liberty such as Ayn Rand was.

The patient work you claim was undone was contrary to Rand's own words in The Virtue of Selfishness. You came to this conclusion on your own, and I commend you for that for having the intellectual integrity to stand against Objectivist orthodoxy.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/nat...

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

As I said last night, your disagreement on this topic is with Rand, not with me.

Rights are not granted in free nations. They are recognized. I should have been more careful in my wording. The emphasis in that statement was on "outlaw".

Hear,hear

hear,hear

Hear, hear

as I said, that radio show undid such patient work attained over two years.

Tech, I do agree with your statement about direct democracy. We have either had representative democracy or a Republic, or a dictatorship. Or a strange meld of them called democracy. But I also see that as a root cause for almost all of our problems, since power corrupts..etc. One reason I cannot really get behind any political party or person, and Ben Carson "seems" to be best, since he is the least painful part of an overwhelmingly distasteful group. One reason why a lot of people bug out and we are saddled with a minority who show up and force their will on us.

Rights are not granted by nations, they derive from existence and are only a part of the life of men.

Until you understand that basic principle and premise, you are at a loss in attempting to communicate with Objectivists.

j; Individual rights, all of them, are absolutes and Objectively determined from a foundational set of premises and principles. Those you're arguing for are subjective to the circumstances of the time or conditioned on certain happenstance. Ayn Rand never proposed any subjective or conditional rights and any reading that supposes such is in error.

Yes, as I expect, you get it. I think we do need to put another and more detailed post on property rights and their derivation from ownership of self. I'm not sure that those that don't understand it yet will get it with further discussion, but it might help a few on the fringes.

I have to admit that I don't find the concept that our ideal is that one person owns everything and determines the rules by which we rent from him. That solves the issue of government property by moving to the medieval system where the lord owned the land and you rented according to a contract.

Once multiple people start to own land on their own you wind up with having to have ways of them interacting other than one man rule.

And, actually, where does MIdas's property rights come from. Did the entity that he 'bought' the property from own it in the first place? At some point back in the chain of ownership a government seized the property by force.