Galt's Gulch

Guess who said this?

Posted by dbhalling 12 years ago to Philosophy
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"The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights."

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  • Posted by dbhalling 12 years ago
    Thanks for playing along. Rich got it right. I ran across this quote from Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries of the Laws of England, which was basis for US law at its founding, and was struck by the similarities. What do you think?


    In his Commentaries Sir William Blackstone opined that "The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights."


    There is no such thing as “the public interest” except as the sum of the interests of individual men. And the basic, common interest of all men—all rational men—is freedom. Freedom is the first requirement of “the public interest”—not what men do when they are free, but that they are free. All their achievements rest on that foundation—and cannot exist without it.
    The Fascist New Frontier,”
    The Ayn Rand Column, 111
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    • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 12 years ago
      Hello dbhalling,
      Excellent quotes. I would call them truisms. A truism being,'so self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning." But then again, many people nowadays seem not to think of them at all since they think so little... We must remind people to contemplate that which they have neglected for too long. "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty." Quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but is in dispute...
      Regards,
      O.A.
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      • Posted by dbhalling 12 years ago
        What I have been struck with is the similarity between this quote and Rand's quotes on point.

        "Since there is no such entity as “the public,” since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of “the public interest” with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others."

        I have also found similarity of quotes between Rand and Locke, even though she never gave him much credit.
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        • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 12 years ago
          They all had great ability to get to basic fundamentals... to cut to the chase, if you will. I do not understand why Locke was not more prominent in Rand's work, except that it may have been because of his *A Letter concerning Toleration* regarding religion...
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          • Posted by dbhalling 12 years ago
            Interesting - I was not familiar with it. It is possible that Rand believed Locke was religious, but you have to remember he was writing in a time in which you could lose your head for saying the wrong thing.

            Locke attempted to create a system of ethics, but his effort deteriorated into hedonism, so he created the truncated ethical system of Natural Rights. One of Rand's genius was extending Locke's ethics so that it covered both internal and external ethics and was based on an observation rather than an axiom - in my opinion.
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            • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 12 years ago
              Locke and his time... absolutely. One cannot know exactly what Locke believed as far as God goes, but one can be sure of what he feared in his time. Without observation that empirically provides evidence, what is an axiom? Locke was after all an empiricist. Rand's extension... A most worthy opinion.. IMHO.
              O.A.
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