“When someone says both sides, its obvious they have not been watching the actions of the political parties. Lets look how they vote.” - /u/armored_cat
Really annoys me when I read apathetic people saying that Dems and Reps are the same. Yes, there’s a lot of crony corpos in the Dems side but they are in no way even close to the same. There’s a lot of stuff the Dems have done that I’m not a fan of, but are still not even close to being the same as Reps.
This is a great comment that outlines the stark differences on voting records that I archived so it wasn’t lost.
They are not the same, make sure you vote to keep the fascists out. Also vote in the primaries so we can get more progressive/populist representatives as candidates. Voting is not the only answer to salvage the future but it’s definitely a part of the answer.
Ad hominem and a complete mischaracterization of Rand and her books? At this point I don’t know if we’re talking about the same person.
Yes, Objecticism is founded on ethical egoism, but altruistic values are emphasized when they are consequences of basic virtues. There isno emphasis on failing to help others, but instead encouragement to do so only when one truly wishes to, free of guilt for what one has earned.
Also, Rand lived a rather generous life herself i many ways, especially for an egoist. Also, claiming her system of ethics is bad because she is a bad person is circular and useless. ;)
If she exemplified her system of ethics, and also was a bad person, then yes, the system is bad. If she failed to exemplify her system of ethics, it doesn’t tell us much one way or the other about the quality of that system regardless of her behavior. It’s not an ad hominem when we are directly talking about systems of ethics, to discuss a person’s behavior.
I don’t see all the wealthy people running away from paying taxes for the common good to be much of an example of altruism. Charity, as a system of dealing with social issues, does not work. Assistance needs to be spread out evenhandedly, not as a system of rewards and punishments for doing whatever the wealthy find pleasing. I’m not sure how someone could make a stand that that’s not just pushing people to be performing animals for treats, which is gross.
Is there a specific single book on her philosophy that covers it all that you’d suggest I read? I do want to be evenhanded about this, and it has been some time since I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, at the insistence of a business major friend of mine who thought I was too altruistic and needed some tempering.