Galt's Gulch
13

"The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists." - Ayn Rand

Posted by GaltsGulch 7 years, 2 months ago to The Gulch: General
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"The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists." - Ayn Rand

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
    Financing my own antagonists is something that every private university professor deals with daily.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
      What do you mean by "financing" them? Aren't you on the receiving end of a salary? Are you bringing in research money that is being misused?
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
        I am a private university professor not receiving government subsidies in any way. Most of my salary comes from teaching students who are getting value for value (although some of them are being financed by their governments). My research money is coming from private sources, where I also exchange value for value. I know I am an oddity when it comes to universities, but that is truly a sacrifice (in the Rand sense) that is worth making. I will not compromise my values to take government money anymore, although I did earlier in life before reading Atlas Shrugged.

        I finance my competition through the taxes I pay.
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        • Posted by minesayn 7 years, 2 months ago
          You sound like Quentin Daniels. Good for you.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
            The biggest difference between me and Quentin Daniels is that my university has thrived precisely because of the fact that others have become politically correct. Perhaps that is a temporary thing en route to a total collapse of society, but I doubt it. We actually have had a few financial issues at Florida Tech since the recent move toward Trumpism. While much of the economy has had a slight uptick, because FIT has a much higher percentage of international students than most universities, we are struggling a little with the "extreme vetting". While I am not opposed to "extreme vetting", it isn't good for my business.
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        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
          Since you are paying taxes for it and morally oppose the subsidies, you are one of the few who has a right to it to get some of it back.

          They pay it out of a fixed budget allocation and your accepting it would not increase the spending and taxes. Every dollar used for government subsidies is several dollars less (subsidy plus 'handling fee') in the private economy that would otherwise be available.

          Why should you be taxed for it and get nothing back in a suppressed private economy while those who advocate it are exploiting it to take from you? You have to live in the system as its imposed and have no obligation to be a martyr and sacrifice yourself. Government interference in the economy is not a reason to abandon or hobble a legitimate and personally valuable career. Oppose it where you can but don't sacrifice yourself.

          But if you do try to get some of the money back you still have to be careful not to let it gradually pull you into acquiescence for government influence on what you want to research. There are subtle and not so subtle pressures of all kinds in the system as it is imposed, whether or not you try to get some of your own money back. Beyond a certain point it may not be worth it, psychologically or otherwise, to try to retrieve some of your taxes -- for the same reason that some people caught in statist circumstances particularly affecting their lives simply withdraw completely and do something else. That is something that each one of us must decide for our self.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
            "Government interference in the economy is not a reason to abandon or hobble a legitimate and personally valuable career. Oppose it where you can but don't sacrifice yourself." You are certainly right. Yes, I could have more prestige than I do, and it does hurt a little that I am handicapping myself compared to my mooching colleagues. Nonetheless, I have a position that I am VERY happy with. I am not sure that even John Galt could make my life miserable enough to convince me to resign my position. I like it that much, as do my fellow faculty at my university.

            I had my own way of "retrieving taxes". When itemizing taxes made sense because of the home mortgage interest deduction, I would sometimes buy used lab equipment for my research group's benefit and then officially donate it to my university for the tax writeoff. Now that I have paid my house off, I don't donate significantly anymore.
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            • Posted by Maritimus 7 years, 2 months ago
              Hello J,

              I like very much your ways of thinking and doing. Unfortunately, I am too old to implement them.

              Good luck!

              Sincerely,
              Maritimus
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              • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
                Thanks, Maritimus. I know of no place else to work that would permit me to work in the unconventional way that I do, but everyone is happy with the way that we add value for each other. So it's all good. This is the time to come down here to paradise. The last couple of days have reached 80 degrees. Tomorrow it will be a little less humid and reach only 73. I haven't worn a jacket all winter.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 2 months ago
                  With that kind of evil globulwarming the melted snow must be very deep.
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                  • Posted by $ jbrenner 7 years, 2 months ago
                    It has snowed for all of 2 minutes since I moved to Florida. I was anchoring gas cylinders in a shed at the time along with a real-life John Galt named Albin Czernichowski. Dr. Czernichowski invented a plasma arc reactor similar to Mr. Fusion from the Back to the Future movies that converted any hydrocarbon source into fuel, energy, or chemicals (preferably the last) in the late 1950s in Poland (behind the Iron Curtain). My job was to develop the feedstock prepurification and the post-reaction conversion of the resulting syngas (CO + H2) into something salable. He and I didn't make money off of it until 2007-2008 when he was 72! When Obama won the election in 2008 and favored solar energy over our purely private biofuels, our entire company decided to shrug, and sold the company to another company. One of our partners, whose 2-story garage was the company's location, encouraged us to read Atlas Shrugged. After having made some money off of the guilty consciences of environmentalists, we read AS, and we shrugged.
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  • Posted by chad 7 years, 2 months ago
    Saying we have the right to not finance one's antagonists is correct however irrelevant in the face of the certain use of violence if one refuses to 'contribute' to ones own destruction. It merely ensures the destruction will happen sooner rather than later.
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    • Posted by Seer 7 years, 2 months ago
      But don't you think, chad, it gives justification to those who wish to change the law? And I'm assuming you are referring to the "power of the sword".
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