Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.

Ayn Rand
“The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made,” Philosophy: Who Needs It (The Ayn Rand Library)
Via Atlas Shrugged Movie
[Those that initiate force against you are not properly identified as human and force may be required. Only in extremely rare circumstances is persuasion a good option with these animals.

Government is force. Government is an extremely inefficient, and hence impractical, means of dealing with a set of rational people. It is only when your set of people are not rational and are approximating a herd of animals that government/force is appropriate. The case can be made that our government is creating, perhaps with malice aforethought, a class of people that are best dealt with as if they were an animal herd. This makes more and larger government seem like the appropriate solution to societal issues.

Perhaps growing up on a farm makes me more aware of this but the owner of the herd does not have the best interest of the herd in mind as they care for it. Yes, the herd gets food, water, shelter, and free health care as needed. But it also gets sheared, neutered, dehorned, selectively bred, and those which will be expensive or impossible to be made productive are killed.

I highly recommend Rand’s book. Rand makes the case that whether we think about it or not we each have a philosophy that guides our life. The only question is what type of philosophy. Will it be rational, conscious, and therefore practical; or contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal? One can make the case that failure to teach philosophy at an early age is extremely harmful to both the individual and society.

The inconsistencies of those supporting the current administration are a case in point.—Joe]

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3 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

  1. I read Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as a youth, at which point I was a Goldwater conservative, and ran a YAF PAC at Portland State University. I am 48 years older now, and see the one failing of Rand. Her one fault is that she refuses to consider the power of emotion in the ordinary voter’s decision-making, whereas today, we have example piled on example of elections being decided by nothing but emotion. Facts and Randian logic get in the way of emotion. We may not like this sorry pass the electorate’s come to, but it’s here, and we’d better deal WITH it and IN it or we will be relegated to history. Yes, the correct use of logic is the true measure of intellect, but the correct use of all the tools to get elected is the hallmark of a true politician. We fail to get elected when we give up the emotional side of things to the Left. Hasn’t it hurt enough? Time to get back in the game. Win, and THEN we can bend the system back towards a Randian style.

  2. Those that initiate force against you are not properly identified as human and force may be required.

    There’s a term for this: dehumanization. It’s a useful preparation murder, warfare, and genocide.

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