The Nature of Individual Rights: Short Notes

Posted on July 28, 2019 by Sword of Apollo

Bill of Rights - First Ten Amendments to the US Constitution Some short notes about the nature of genuine human rights. I start by clearing up some common misconceptions about rights, then discuss what rights actually are.

What Rights Are Not

Rights do not come from religious texts, like the Bible. Biblical Commandments like “Thou shalt not murder,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” don’t provide an answer to what killing counts as murder, or what taking counts as stealing. In the Biblical book of Exodus, priests and leaders may kill those in their community who are not attacking them, and it is apparently not considered murder. (See: Exodus 32:27-29) Also, many early Christians eschewed private property and lived a communal lifestyle, with all things held in common. (Acts 2:42-45) The Judeo-Christian tradition relies on the arbitrary dictates of the Biblical God and does not provide a solid basis for rights to life, liberty and property.
Rights are not moral duties or “side constraints” on purposeful action, as many academic libertarians believe. They don’t have their basis in some vague concept of “inherent human dignity.”
Rights are not means to “general utility”–i.e. the “collective pleasure” of everyone in society–as John Stuart Mill thought.
Rights do not protect need-based claims to goods or services to be provided by other people, such as food, shelter, healthcare, etc. Contra Bernie Sanders, healthcare is not a right.

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Video: Why Socialism is Always Oppressive, Dictatorial and Corrupt

Posted on September 9, 2018 by Sword of Apollo

I just published a video version of my essay, “Why Socialism is Always Oppressive, Dictatorial and Corrupt.” In it, I explain why socialism, when implemented to a high degree in the real world, results in dictatorship, oppression, rampant corruption, and personality cults.

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A List of Voluntary Ways to Fund a Government

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Sword of Apollo

Here’s a list of possible ways I’ve thought of or heard to fund government, without the government initiating force to collect taxes:

Fees for government enforcement of contracts. This was Ayn Rand’s idea.
A lottery.
If a court finds a party at fault in a civil judgment, it collects a small fee from that party to help pay court costs.
Courts impose fines on those who are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies.
Imprisoned convicts work and help maintain prisons in order to receive food and luxuries above a bare minimum to keep them alive. The best-behaved might work on/maintain other government buildings.
A small annual fee might be required for someone to maintain citizenship. Non-citizens would still be protected by the government in its jurisdiction, but would not be able to vote for government officials, and wouldn’t receive US government protection when traveling internationally.

These are, of course, in addition to any straight donations, which Yaron Brook discusses in this video:

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Feel free to leave any other ideas in the comments.

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Related Posts:

How to Show That Taxation is Robbery

Wealth is Created by Action Based on Rational Thought

An Objectivist Refutation of Anarcho-Capitalism (Market Anarchy)

Why Moral Theory is Needed in the Fight for Liberty, Not Just Economics and the Non-Aggression Principle

Socialism and Welfare vs. Justice: Why Inalienable Private Property Rights are Required for Justice

What BioShock Gets Wrong About Ayn Rand’s Objectivism

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Sword of Apollo

The bust of Andrew Ryan at the start of BioShock: "No gods or kings. Only Man." The original BioShock was a game released in 2007 by 2K Games. The main antagonist was Andrew Ryan, a “business magnate” who founded an underwater city, called Rapture. He was supposed to be guided by the same philosophy that Ayn Rand advocated in her novels and non-fiction books. Ayn Rand called this philosophy “Objectivism.”

I have played through the original BioShock and found all the recordings in the game that tell the backstory. I have also studied Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism for over 15 years, so I’m well qualified to comment on how accurately the game represents the philosophy.

The remastered version of the BioShock series was recently released, so I decided to take this moment to comment.

I find that BioShock seriously misrepresents Objectivism. One way it gets Objectivism wrong is in Andrew Ryan’s attitude toward morality. In his introductory speech in the game, Andrew Ryan says,

I chose… Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small!

Here Ryan dismisses morality as petty and insignificant. This was most definitely not Ayn Rand’s attitude toward morality. She was very concerned with morality, and morality is a central part of Objectivism as a philosophy. Any person who seriously agrees with her philosophy also takes morality very seriously, because it’s an extremely important guide to life. Objectivism has a whole code of values and virtues that it says people need to follow to achieve a good life and genuine happiness. (You can find out more about Ayn Rand’s ethics starting here and here.)

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What I’d Like to See Gary Johnson Say to Bernie Sanders Supporters

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Sword of Apollo

What I want to see presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, say to those who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary:

So Bernie Sanders and I mostly agree on what are generally called “social issues.” We both support gay marriage, drug decriminalization, the right of a woman to choose abortion, etc. Where we differ is in what is generally called “economic policy.” Bernie wants more taxes and regulations on “millionaires and billionaires.” He says that large gaps in income and wealth are “wrong, immoral, and not what America should be about.” But why? When someone makes more money than I do, and he does it honestly, without stealing and without government favoritism, I say “Good for him” or “Good for her,” not “How dare that person be rich; I’m gonna cut that bastard down to size with taxes and regulations.”

But high inequality is inherently bad economically, you say? It contributes to stagnation? There’s no good reason to think so.

Studies that supposedly show that higher inequality reduces growth generally find tentative results that are very susceptible to the authors’ biases. They generally tend to ignore the fact that there are different kinds of economic inequality that there is strong theoretical reason to believe have very different impacts on growth. For example, there is the sort of inequality that results from government favoritism, as in the Saudi royal family and the Russian “oligarchs,” and the sort of inequality that results from free and voluntary trade, as in the case of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

When we look at the big picture, we find that many countries that have high wealth inequality also have high GDP per capita and high economic growth. If we look at West Germany and East Germany in the 1970s and ’80s, we see two very culturally and geographically similar societies. West Germany was a relatively free market with relatively high wealth inequality, while East Germany was a society where the government tried to enforce wealth equality. West Germany was clearly better off than East Germany, economically.

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Bernie Sanders and the Injustice of “Democratic Socialism”

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Sword of Apollo

This essay is Part 3 of a three-part series on socialism:

Bernie Sanders

In the first essay of this series, I took socialism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, and showed why it is immoral (unjust) in theory and in its “purest” practice. Then, in the second essay, I explained why, in the real world, attempts to approach pure socialism have always resulted in oppressive, dictatorial governments with high degrees of corruption. (Again, as explained in the second essay, worker-owned cooperatives cannot generally be called “socialism.”)

In this essay, I’ll discuss partial socialism, as it presents itself in the Scandinavian countries of Europe, (like Sweden,) in the US, and in the 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. Some people will say that pure socialism is impractical and/or inconsistent with human nature, but still think that there should be a “balanced” mixture of socialism and capitalism. Capitalism, they think, mustn’t be “unfettered,” but rather must be reined in by government regulation and welfare programs. This they will often call “democratic socialism” or “social democracy.”

I’ll explain why partial socialism and welfare programs are unjust and destructive of people’s well-being.

Socialism Lite

Once again, from the Oxford English Dictionary, socialism is defined as:

A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

But “the community as a whole” is not a single entity, and does not think with a single mind. There is not even a single, definite organization encompassing “the community as a whole.” So it can’t really do anything or own anything. In socialist practice, “the community as a whole” is taken to be represented by government. (And as I explained in Part 2, the logic of socialism means that this government doesn’t even have to be “democratic,” in the way that term is often understood. At least in the Marxist version, it can also be represented by an informal government, consisting of organized gangs of proletarian thugs with guns–this is Marx’s “revolutionary terror.”)

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What is Individualism? What is Collectivism?

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Sword of Apollo

Modern political debates, from the 18th Century up until today, are full of appeals to the ideas of individualism and collectivism, whether open or merely implied. People speak of “the common good” or “public goods” or “obligations to society” on one hand, and of “individual rights” or “individual freedom” on the other.

The late novelist and philosopher, Ayn Rand, is well known today for being an arch individualist who was very opposed to any form of collectivism. But what does it really mean to be an individualist or collectivist? Are the two views mutually exclusive? Is one or the other right, or is the reality a mixture of both? Here I will discuss what individualism and collectivism mean, which one or mixture represents the truth, and what the major implications of each of the views are for today’s moral and political debates.

Life is the Active Pursuit of Self-Sustaining Goals

The issue of individualism versus collectivism does not arise out of thin air. It arises out of the observation–whether explicitly stated or implicitly understood–that life consists of organisms that pursue goals that keep them alive. Lions find watering holes and hunt gazelles, eagles catch rabbits or fish, termites dig and build mounds for shelter, etc. The ultimate goal of this activity for any given organism is its continued life as the type of organism it is. (The origin of organisms in evolution has ensured that reproduction is a natural part of the life-pattern of each nonhuman species–i.e. reproductive behavior is part of an individual organism being the type of organism it is.)

The question of individualism versus collectivism is the question of what the living unit is for human beings–that is, what is the human organism that acts toward self-sustaining goals: is it the individual, or some group?

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Ayn Rand’s Philosophy vs. Abortion Bans: Why a Fetus Doesn’t Have Rights

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Sword of Apollo

Fetal rights and abortion meme. A fetus and a doll both look like babies. Pro-choice is pro-life. Embryos don't have rights.

I hope none of my readers operate on this intellectual level when it comes to the issue of abortion and fetal rights.

[Note: I consider the basic ideas used in this essay to be Ayn Rand’s, but the content of the entire essay is mine. Also, a summary follows this essay.]

The author and philosopher of Objectivism, Ayn Rand, was a champion of capitalism and a staunch advocate for the principle of individual rights. Yet, unlike most of today’s conservatives and Tea Party supporters, Ayn Rand supported the right of a woman to abortion. (She was “pro-choice.”) This post will argue that Rand was right about abortion, and that any conservative who wants to be reasonable in his or her advocacy of human rights should advocate for the right to abort a pregnancy.

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Should it be illegal to slaughter cattle for meat? Do the emotions of sympathy that some activists have for animals mean that cattle have rights, and thereby mean that killing cattle for food should be illegal? If someone shows you a picture of a freshly slaughtered cow, and you say “Oh, how awful,” does that mean the cow’s killer should be given a jail term?

No, sympathetic emotions and graphic pictures are not enough to establish that animals have rights, the violation of which should be punished by the government. So it is with human beings, fetuses, embryos and human kidneys. Our emotional reactions are not enough to establish that any of these entities has rights. We must look at what the entity is and identify facts about it to establish whether or not it has rights that should be protected by the government. If, instead of going through this process, I claimed that Zeus told me through my emotions that trees have a right to life, you would have good reason to say that I was being irrational.

If a doctor performs surgery on you, will he find a body part called a “right to life”? If someone analyzes your DNA, will he find a gene that encodes for human rights? Obviously not.

Does a right to life serve as a physical barrier to harm? If you tell a ravening tiger or a Nazi soldier that you have a right to life, will that stop him from killing you? No?

What about the Bible? Are rights violations the criteria by which Christ separates the righteous from the wicked? That’s not what I remember Jesus saying about salvation. What about the Old Testament? Do rights come from the Commandments? Well, the Israelites practice slavery and participate in a tremendous amount of non-defensive killing, with the Old-Testament God’s approval, after the Commandments are given. (See: Ex. 32:27-29, Lev. 24:10-23, 1 Sam. 15:2-11, Jos. 6:1-21.) Further, Yahweh’s laws for the Israelites violate the US Founding Fathers’ notion of individual rights in countless ways. (No freedom of religious speech; no right to a fair trial, etc.) In the New Testament, Jesus, Paul and Peter encourage followers not to defend their rights against others, or exercise their personal property rights. (See: Mt. 5:38-42, Mt. 16:23-25, Mt. 19:21, Acts 2:42-45, 1 Cor. 4:10-13, 1 Pet. 2:18-25.)

In fact, the “rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” on which the US was founded are not mentioned once in the entire Bible. What then are “rights” and where do they come from?

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Student suspended for questioning CT Governor on Gun Legislation

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Sword of Apollo

First, government officials come after your Second Amendment rights. Then, when you peacefully question them about it and tell them that they’re destroying your business, government officials violate your First Amendment rights to shut you up! (Note that Asnuntuck Community College is a public/government institution.) All hail the coming police state!

Two Heads are Better Than One

If you’re one of the many folks upset about Connecticut’s new gun laws, that state’s governor has a message for you: Shut Up.

Courtesy of the Daily Caller:

“…student Nicholas Saucier tried to get (Democratic Governor Dannel ) Malloy to answer questions about his support for gun control legislation, which has put Saucier’s ammunition manufacturing business in jeopardy. Saucier followed Malloy to his car after the governor finished speaking at a public forum at Asnuntuck Community College.

The exchange took place in October of last year, and was captured on video…”

Sounds relatively harmless so far, right?

Now here’s the video:

View original post 563 more words

Capitalism: Individual Rights vs. “The Common Good” — Full Version

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Sword of Apollo

Note: This is an expanded version of my entry for the “What is Capitalism?” essay contest on Ayn Rand Institute Campus. The essay prompt was: “Why does Ayn Rand argue that the moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the claim that it is the best way to achieve the ‘common good’?” The maximum length for the essay was a mere 800 words, so I had to heavily edit my original draft for submission, (already brief at just over 1,000 words.) Here, I’m able post the essay without that length constraint. For the 799-word version, click here.

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Adam Smith

Ever since the Enlightenment, there have been many attempts to justify capitalism–or a quasi-capitalist mixed economy—on the basis of its being the best way to achieve “the common good,” or “the public good.” For example, Adam Smith wrote that “By pursuing his own interest [a man] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.” Thus he implied that the public good is a valid concept and consideration. (1) According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Jeremy Bentham thought that “[Rights] ought to be made because of their conduciveness to ‘the general mass of felicity,’ and correlatively, when their abolition would be to the advantage of society, rights ought to be abolished.”

More common among modern conservatives and the moderate left, is the statement that regulated quasi-capitalism is “practical.” This statement is generally made without answers to the question: Practical for whom and to what end? The implied answer seems to be: For everyone and to any end. So this claim of practicality can be taken as an implied appeal to “the common good” as justification.

Ayn Rand

But Ayn Rand justified pure, laissez-faire capitalism on different grounds. She rejected “the common good” as an invalid, collectivist notion, and instead held that capitalism rests upon the principle of individual rights. This principle, in turn, rests upon the morality of rational egoism, which rests on the nature of man. Thus, the justification for capitalism as the proper governmental system for man starts with the nature of man as a living organism.

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