Should Ann Rayndian Libertarians have families by thie own definitions?

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

I will not be as eloquant as the smart people nor will I be as smart as the eloquant people.

I have often heard Rayndian Libertarians exclaim the evils of collectivism.

How collectivism is all about helping those around you.

But isn't a family in its most basic of form collectivism?

I mean you marry a husband/wife. You or him/her or both work to provide for one another?

If you and your husband/wife have children do you not work to provide for them?

Now I bet I will hear the argument that that is voluntary you do that because you want to.

Church in it's unadulterated is the same thing you do it because you want to, not because you have to.

So by the same token that church is collectivism and is bad and something one should not be involved in, so to family bad because it is micro colectivism and something that one shouldn't be involved in.

 

[seXieleXie]

i'll try to answer this based on my understanding of Objectivism and Rand's epistimology (i know... i can't spell... sue me). this isn't my opinion, but i think it is how she has explained it in her books. of course UncleBill could answer this much better than i, but i'll give it a shot anyway.

you have to understand the Objectivist (that's the name of Rand's philosophy) definition of a sacrifice to understand how this isn't a contradiction in ideology.

to an Objectivist, the only thing that is truely a sacrifice is trading a value for a non-value. trading a dollar for a penny is a sacrifice. however, family is a value, indeed a very high value. therefore, a mother giving up a bottle of milk for her starving child isn't a sacrifice. her child is more valuable than her own well being. just the same, if an o'ist woman was to take a bullet for her husband, it would not be a sacrifice if she did it because she couldn't stand the thought of living without him.

the church is not the same kind of collectivism. the church is collectivism because "god" said so.

 

[Thumper]

HUH?

I thought a sacrifice was bunting a runner to second base.

 

[on_the_verge]

Lexicon from A to Z

I have three books by and about Ayn Rand. I was pulled by "The Fountainhead" as well as a book of her lexicons.

Marriage. I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives with—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically be certain. One is the certain that one's choice is final, when marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship is based on les than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or marriage depends on the knowledge abd the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either moral, provided only both parties take the relationship seriously and that is based on values.

["Playboy's Interview with Ayn Rand]

 

[Unclebill]

Excellent, seXieleXie, well put.

From my electronic dictionary, the pertinent definition of sacrifice in the context of your statement:

2. a. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
The American Heritage Dictionary, third edition

Todd, to clarify a bit, collectivism as a governmental/societal organization is immoral and evil. It is the coercive nature of it that is the basis for this judgement. Government by its very definition is an instrument of force. It is the only entity in a society authorized the use of force and that is legitimate only in reprisal against those in society who initiate the use of force, the criminals. The force authorized to a legitimate government's use is the right possessed by each citizen to self-defense and that government is granted the authority to exercise that right on the citizen's behalf does not in any manner intrude on the individual's right to defend himself.

In other words, if you are attacked, it is not required that you submit and contact the police after the fact. You have every right to defend yourself.

Throughout their lives, men in a free society routinely incur obligations of a voluntary nature. Buy a car, you incur an obligation to pay for it IAW the finance contract (unless of course you pay cash). Same with a home. Various other things may be financed, voluntarily incurred obligations.

Pledging a donation to a charity is an obligation incurred voluntarily.

All of these are obligations one decides to accept and all are moral obligations to satisfy the terms of the obligation.

What Objectivism and most (all?) libertarians reject is the idea of an innate obligation, an obligation you incur by nature of being alive. This is the collectivist basis for taking your earnings and property to give to those who have not earned it; the philosophy is altruism.

Marriage is a voluntarily incurred obligation as is producing children. And the latter obligation carries a moral bond to satisfy the obligation by supporting your offspring until they are capable of supporting themselves.

In a free society, if some people choose to live their lives in a collective societal group as a subset of the society at large, I have no objection to that either. As an example, if a group of people wish to pool their resources and live in a commune style setting, they have that right. The only prohibition is that they must allow members to leave whenever they choose.

And this is where the governmental collectivist establishment is unacceptable; it does not permit withdrawal for those who dissent. And by prohibiting the individual's withdrawal from the coercive contributory system, they are practicing slavery.

And as to religion, it is likewise collectivism. But it is of the voluntary associative nature. One can leave a religion whenever one chooses (except of course the fanatic cults). And thus I respect a man's right to choose and pursue it.

My objection to religion is not the collectivist aspect per se (that is voluntary), it is the subordination of one's intellect to emotion and the concept of original sin, that one is born guilty of some indefinable evil. That one is required to accept on faith, i. e., a baseless declaration, that for which there is no objectively demonstrable reason to believe.

 

[SINthysist]

My objection to religion

Is that you must be insane.


Like those little cocksuckers who cut off thier balls to buy passage onto the comet [kehoutec ? sp? (and many other ambiguities owed to drink and the devil?)]!