Proposition: America Could Not Have Been Founded By Objectivists

Posted by deleted 11 years, 4 months ago to History
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Check out the Founding Fathers... the *sacrifices* they made way outside the reward they got. Many of them were financially ruined. Many had their health ruined. Many never lived to see the rewards which their sacrifices wrought.

George Washington could have been king; had he been an objectivist, he might well have become king, or been the cause of another becoming king.

Here he argues the men of the military into sacrificing value-for-value.
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/was...

" "Gentlemen," said Washington, "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country."

In that single moment of sheer vulnerability, Washington's men were deeply moved, even shamed, and many were quickly in tears, now looking with great affection at this aging man who had led them through so much. Washington read the remainder of the letter, then left without saying another word, realizing their sentiments."

John Galt would never manipulate his men so. Then again, he'd never have "his men". Except in Rand's fictional world where she can induce the emotion of undeserved loyalty from the aether.


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  • Posted by Zenphamy 11 years, 4 months ago
    I don't think I could disagree more strongly with that idea or description of an Objectivist.
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  • Posted by $ stargeezer 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Adams and Jefferson HATED each other. You can't use the words of one about the other with any assurance of od objectivity. The reason Jefferson did a "rewrite" (use that word carefully here) was his opposition to American reliance on British Church documents. Most especially grating to Jefferson was the King James annotation in the front of the bible. With Jefferson's Objectivist ideals he could not simply delete the cover pages and introduction from bibles printed in America since that would have been a violation of copyright laws. Hardly a thing he could do. By rewriting and making a few changes he was able to publish "The American Standard Bible". I own a Jefferson version and while it is different in some passages from the KJB, it is not as significant as the changes you would find in the "New American Standard Bible" ca1903, which was edited with certain questionable greek texts.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Although he did not sign the Declaration of Independence, without the pamphlet Common Sense, do you really think the seeds of revolution would have planted and grown and kept flourishing.
    "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." John Adams

    "When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing." Galt's Speech
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  • Posted by rlewellen 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Jefferson was remodeling the bible the way he thought it should be. He didn't rewrite it. He still believed in God. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense that doesn't make him a founding father, it made him a great writer who did use some objectivist principles.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people." James Madison
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    3."I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." Thomas Jefferson
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    yea, Jefferson really loved the Bible. so much so, he re-wrote it.
    “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
    ― John Adams
    "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, t renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter." Thomas Paine
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  • Posted by Snoogoo 11 years, 4 months ago
    I'm going to state a fact here, this proposition needs some serious supporting statements because the only ones presented contain either contradictions or extremely subjective opinions not substantiated by any level of detailed analysis.
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  • Posted by $ sjatkins 11 years, 4 months ago
    On the contrary. They so valued the idea of freedom and self-determination without rule from the above that the damages and dangers from following the course were judged worth it by them. This is a very rational decision and full of deepest integrity. In short that certainly did not consider it a sacrifice of a greater value for a lesser one. Saying how one sees things and what one is willing to do to make them so is a call for others to do what they can as well. It is not some kind of evil manipulation.
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  • -1
    Posted by rlewellen 11 years, 4 months ago
    Their Declaration of Independence would only say I want to keep my money, get out of my way.
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  • -3
    Posted by rlewellen 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Objectivists would protect monopolies that would create a king over a product.
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  • Posted by ShruginArgentina 11 years, 4 months ago
    "George Washington could have been king; had he been an objectivist, he might well have become king, or been the cause of another becoming king."

    This assertion misepesents the pinciples of Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand).

    No individual who is an "Objectivist" (or lives by "Objectivist" principles) would be willing to become the King of anything, or want anyone else to be King, either.


    I would like to know from whom "in Rand's fictional world" John Galt sought "undeserved loyality."
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