Blue Collar Muse

Only a few pages behind you, apparently… Though this is my first time reading through (I know, I know), and I have to admit, it has been an amazingly eye-opening experience. The parallels are simply too distinct to ignore.

@N.S Allen -

You have utterly and completely missed the point of both the post and Atlas Shrugged. And you have misunderstood the nature of reality.

Rand’s book, and the point of the post, is not that virtue is to be equated with success in the free market. Virtue is found in being responsible for yourself and doing the best you can with the talents that you have. That is Rand’s point. It is to produce something with your life so that you have something valuable to offer to another person who has done the same. It is in this manner that you provide for yourself.

If you do not, then your only options for providing from yourself are declaring that another individual should give you his production because you need it (mooching) or taking what you need/want from another individual because you can (looting). If you have another way for one man to get from another man what he needs and has not or cannot produce for himself, I’m open to hearing what it is.

There is nothing in Rand’s views that I have found that argues one should not be willing to assist those who are working hard to better themselves. Nor does it turn a blind eye to those who cannot better themselves. It is wholly opposed to those who have the ability to improve their lot (or maintain what they have if they have reached a place of fulfillment) but who will not exercise it.

Your examples of the student or the single mom are both misapplied since they are not excluded from the virtuous by Rand’s philosophy and because your use of them in the way you did demonstrates that you are trying to get me to buy into the Moocher philosophy. You want me to feel sorry for them, to respond to them based on their need.

I don’t feel sorry for them. I regret they find themselves in what is an admittedly bad situation. Who among us has not found ourselves in that place? What makes me willing to assist them or be willing to allow them to remain in their current state is THEIR attitude towards themselves, not my attitude toward them.

If they value themselves enough to try to get out of their bad situation, they will find a myriad people willing to help. Likewise, if they do not value themselves enough to escape their situation, they will find myriads willing to help them remain entrenched in squalor and poverty.

One need only look at the reality that the Left’s adoption of The Great Society and its War on Poverty to see the truth of what I say. Making life easier for those who might escape their problems simply makes it more likely they will choose to remain chained and dependent. Again, if you have any other explanation for generational poverty and dependence in this country, I’m listening.

The people who escape such lifestyles don’t do so on the basis of Government education or Welfare or any other such thing. They do so because they look at their situation and decide they want something better and they work hard for it. Do some of them use Welfare and the other programs available to them? Certainly. But if they didn’t exist, those who choose to be responsible for themselves would still find a way. Look at the facts. It has always been that way.

To believe otherwise is to claim that doing for another what he can and should do for himself is a moral act. It is not. It is immoral in that it robs him of skills and the opportunity to learn how to better himself. It makes him dependent on the one doing the doing and does so for as long as the the first man allows it. We have created millions of people who believe it is the duty of others to take care of them. And we have created millions who believe they are moral for doing so. And we are destroying our country in the process.

People like me cater to men’s dreams of what they can be and encourage them to look up and to fly. Perhaps they don’t rise as far as they could or should, but we leave them higher than we found them. And some succeed beyond anyone’s imaginings.

People like you cater to men’s fears of what might happen if they try and fail. You talk them out of effort, attempt and industry. If they fail, there are no lessons learned or penalty paid. Soon enough they learn to be content with the pittance you hand out as opposed to the riches of their dreams. Few fall through the cracks in your world. But virtually no one rises to achieve anything unless they repudiate your views to whatever extent they can.

Because, as a wise man once said to me, “You can’t feed starving people from an empty plate!” To feed the starving, to educate the student you reference, to assist the single mom you reference takes production. If it did not, Government would not take so much of the fruits of the productive to “help” those people. But therein lies the ultimate proof of the fallacy of your reasoning. People like you want what successful people have and want it so that everyone is successful. But they attempt to accomplish that success by ignoring what actually made the successful successful in the first place. And once they succeed in destroying the successful, then who will they take from to help the masses?

There must be production from self-responsible men and women if the world is to continue. How is it that you do not understand this basic truth? Heap scorn on reality all you like. But it pays you no mind.