By coincidence, just yesterday I discovered Ayn Rand Answers (referenced below by Mr. Tucker) at the library and checked it out.
So far, I’ve been surprised at how much I like Rand on so many things. I had become so used to ignoring some of her warmongering and libertarian-hating followers that I had forgotten how good she can be when she is good.
Still, she said some odd things (or maybe she didn’t say them, as Dr. Reisman suggests). Consider these questions and answers on gun control:
What is your opinion on gun control laws?
I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it’s not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, noncriminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It’s not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical.
What is your attitude toward gun control?It’s a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people–they are not carried for hunting animals–and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.
So much for the right to one’s own life! The thinking here appears to be so confused that I hope the editor somehow mangled what she actually said.
Rand is also confusing (at least in this book) on the value to be given potential human life. On page 4, she says retarded people don’t have rights because they are “unable to function rationally.” Nonetheless, she says, such people are “entitled to protection” because “they may improve and become partly able to stand on their own.” Just thirteen pages later, however, Rand says abortion is an absolute right because we must “never confuse an actuality with a potentiality.”
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WRT religion Roy said: “I decided to “fall for it” of my own volition, after serious examination and an honest search for the truth.”
Roy, this means you took the volitional decision to accept a life of religious belief. From time to time you are likely to find certain religious beliefs contradict aspects of reality. The test is what you do when this happens. Do you accept reality or reject it so that the belief can be maintained intact? In other words, do you reject reality in favour of belief or faith? That would have to be one of THE most difficult decisions a religious person is ever likely to be required to make. Very difficult.
Talofa
Sione
Roy, this means you took the volitional decision to accept a life of religious belief.
Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. The lifestyle I live is a result (a side-effect, you might say) of beliefs I have accepted based on evidence.
From time to time you are likely to find certain religious beliefs contradict aspects of reality.
Certainly. Undeniable facts have forced me to reject some of my ill-considered (religious) beliefs on various occasions.
Roy
In my last post substitute the word “faith” for “belief.”
That corresponds more closely with what I was attempting to convey.
Sione
Ayn Rand accepted a need for government. She was not a Libertarian. She pointed out that American democracy was the first instance in which a government had been created as a servant of the people, not its ruler.
She granted that government should be the protector of property rights and this includes the right to one’s own life. As such, the government has the power granted to it by the people to defend America and its citizens against its enemies.
Government would have the power to possess nuclear weapons of mass destruction as needed to deter and defend the rights of its citizens.
Citizens must still have the power to own and bear arms to defend their rights (and life), and also against the individuals who misuse government to violate one’s rights.
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