John Stossel Fox Business 01-07-10 Atlas Shrugged 3 of 6

John Stossel on Fox Business Channel. Thurs, Jan 7, 2010. Atlas Shrugged Special.

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[CollectivePreference]

iss figewing ow sehfish behavur

[TangoAlphaDelta]

@Formobject I do not ignore the question of rights notwithstanding that I reject the non-aggression principle as overly simplistic. Objective morality is dependent upon the outcomes achieved. As Rand put it, moral terms like "you must" are conditional.. the formula for realistic necessity is "you must, if" and the if stands for mans choice: "if you want to achieve a certain goal". The non-aggression principle does not achieve what its proponents believe.

[TangoAlphaDelta]

@Formobject I agree with you the poor enjoy relative prosperity by historical standards. This is true in all modern western countries therefore it is untenable to argue this phenomena is a consequence of the founding fathers. Rather it is a consequence of social services which have drastically reduced things like infant mortality over the last 100 years. Indeed the United States failure to keep pace with many countries is because it lags behind in providing those services.

[Formobject]

@TangoAlphaDelta If you'd stopped your list after "the police" you'd be in good shape--the rest is poppycock. Most importantly, your whole approach ignores the question of rights and takes for granted that it's okay for the government to harm some to (allegedly) benefit others. The (relatively) poor in America are lavishly rich by historical standards because the founders did not ignore that question.

[Formobject]

@TangoAlphaDelta Remember that a government devoted only to the functions laid out by Rand as proper would cost a meager fraction of what government costs today. She wrote an article on this topic in the Virtue of Selfishness. Anyway, this is a relatively unimportant question in political philosophy and it would have been highly innappropriate for these commentators to digress to such a nonessential issue in this situation. So it's a credit to them that that question "was not really answered."

[TangoAlphaDelta]

@TimeWarp66 - The judiciary, the military, the police, emergency services and emergency health care, educating the poor, feeding the poor, providing health care to the poor, public infrastructure, roads, environmental protection etc.

[TangoAlphaDelta]

@HomelessOnline - I have read the book. Ayn Rand was against the governments right to, and I quote, "expropriate a citizen's money". She held that government would be funded voluntarily because anything else would be the initiation of force of one man against another. Not one of her better ideas.

[TimeWarp66]

@TangoAlphaDelta

What "few things" does it do better exactly?

[icognito01]

wodger wabbit

[Judy101101]

try phoning the institute - talk about closed minded people yet saying they are objective? to be human is to be biased which is objectiveness lol so no matter how far you go to get ride of your biases YOU CAN'T but you are insane if you think you are - that is why our justice systems can't find true justice - they are all biased and only let in evidence THEY feel is relevant according to their bias's. following this concept is to heightened your insanity lol