From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner
Newsgroups: net.politics
Title: Re: The Roots of Socialism are rotted - (nf)
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.732
Posted: Mon Feb 28 18:29:21 1983
Received: Tue Mar  1 06:55:54 1983

#R:houti:-21400:ucbesvax:7100006:000:1971
ucbesvax!turner    Feb 26 00:28:00 1983



	As someone who knows "those views" all too well, I don't accept
    your apology.  As for the "far less flawed" -- let us say perfect,
    shall we? -- vision of Ayn Rand, I beg to differ.

	The main difference that I see is that Ayn Rand writes a hell of
    a lot better than you.  So much so, that I was completely taken in
    for many years.

	Tom, life is not as axiomatic as all this.  Nor are you as
    rigorous axiomatic as you think you are.  When you asked what it
    was "that without it, one would be better off dead?", I had to laugh.
    I'm sorry, but I did.  Ayn Rand had the guts to admit mortality into
    the discussion -- doesn't one of her characters in "Atlas Shrugged"
    define his value system in terms of his own death?  (Ellis Wyatt,
    I think.)  But what is mortality to you?  Just another value (albeit
    negative) among many to "freely choose from"?

	What it came down for Ayn Rand, I think, is that death scared her
    into silence.  She got older, lost her looks; too many cigarettes,
    perhaps, not getting enough writing done.  Not able to milk any more
    life out of her "axiomatic" approach to it all.  I was a fervid
    Objectivist for more years than I care to count, but when she died
    recently, I thought: there goes one big coward.  She never could
    admit to be wrong on any point, on the need to review and start
    over on something.  Some philosopher!

	What it comes down to for me is that I want to live for awhile
    (until I get sick of it, anyway) and see what happens.  A Socialist
    Tyranny could put a damper on my plans, but I don't think that a
    revocation of property rights in itself would send me weeping off the
    local skyscraper.

	Being better off dead is an interesting concept, but I have
    trouble carrying it very far.  Perhaps you could make a contribution
    to net.philosophy on this point?  Or net.suicide?

	Another Altruist-Collectivist Pig,
	    Michael Turner