https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/culture-and-society/more/Racism
The growth of racism in a "mixed economy" keeps step with the growth of government controls. A "mixed economy" disintegrates a country into an institutionalized civil war of pressure groups, each fighting for legislative favors and special privileges at the expense of one another.
— Ayn Rand, from her 1963 essay 'Racism', included in her book 'The Virtue Of Selfishness'
https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/culture-and-society/education--multiculturalism/Global-Balkanization
When a country begins to use such expressions as "seeking a bigger share of the pie," it is accepting a tenet of pure collectivism: the notion that the goods produced in a country do not belong to the producers, but belong to everybody, and that the government is the distributor. If so, what chance does an individual have of getting a slice of that pie? No chance at all, not even a few crumbs. An individual becomes "fair game" for every sort of organized predator. Thus people are pushed to surrender their independence in exchange for tribal protection.
— Ayn Rand, from her lecture 'Global Balkanization', which she delivered in April 1977
https://fee.org/articles/the-nature-of-government-by-ayn-rand/
If men are to live together in a peaceful, productive, rational society and deal with one another to mutual benefit, they must accept the basic social principle without which no moral or civilized society is possible: the principle of individual rights.
To recognize individual rights means to recognize and accept the conditions required by man’s nature for his proper survival.
Man’s rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.
The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships—thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.
The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.
— Ayn Rand, from her 1963 essay 'The Nature of Government', included in her book 'The Virtue Of Selfishness'
http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/the-objectivist-ethics.html
The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force.
The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence—to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
— Ayn Rand, from her 1961 essay 'The Objectivist Ethics', included in her book 'The Virtue Of Selfishness'
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/socialism.html
Fifty years ago, there might have been some excuse (though not justification) for the widespread belief that socialism is a political theory motivated by benevolence and aimed at the achievement of men’s well-being. Today, that belief can no longer be regarded as an innocent error. Socialism has been tried on every continent of the globe. In the light of its results, it is time to question the motives of socialism’s advocates.
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights; under socialism, the right to property (which is the right of use and disposal) is vested in “society as a whole,” i.e., in the collective, with production and distribution controlled by the state, i.e., by the government.
Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in Russia—or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.
The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure—terrifying, that is, if one’s motive is men’s welfare.
Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and/or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly.
— Ayn Rand, from her 1962 essay 'The Monument Builders', included in her book 'The Virtue Of Selfishness'
https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights/Mans-Rights
http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-works/the-virtue-of-selfishness.html
http://www.aynrand.org/novels/virtue-of-selfishness
If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.
Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.
No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as “the right to enslave.”
— Ayn Rand, from her 1963 essay 'Man's Rights', included in her book 'The Virtue Of Selfishness'
Notice the dates on the Ayn Rand quotes included above. Even Rand's essay 'Global Balkanization' is over 30 years old, and the rest of the Rand quotes included above are over 50 years old. Sadly, Rand's denunciations of socialism are just as pertinent today as they were when Rand wrote them back in the early 1960's — if not more so.
Even 50 years ago the destructive results of socialism as a social and economic system were so well established that no honest person could ignore them. All socialist countries have been dramatic demonstrations of the abject failure of the ability of government to achieve human well-being — the former East Bloc countries, especially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and East Germany, being well known examples of the pattern, just as North Korea and Cuba are today. Just as Rand stated way back in 1962, socialism created disaster to the degree that it was practiced — the greater the government control (as in North Korea), the greater the failure.
Keep the Rand quotes above in mind, as well as socialism's abysmal record of misery, as you watch this video of Sarah Silverman explaining why she supports Bernie Sanders --
Here is a partial transcript of Sarah Silverman's statements from the video above —
...
"It's important that you treat your vote as something valuable, because it is, it's so valuable. Candidates literally spend billions of dollars trying to get your vote.
"Hillary had always been my choice, I'm a feminist. Democratic woman president? Yes, please.
"But she takes a lot of money from big corporations and banks, the very people she says she is going to stand up to. And look, I accepted it, because I saw it as a necessary evil, as the way it is. Every politician takes money from big money.
...
"I'm not against Hillary, I just ... I met someone I have more in common with, and his name is Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is this senator from Vermont, who miraculously has not, and will not, take money from super PACs. Where all the other candidates are getting gigantic sums of money from billionaires, in an unspoken, but inevitable exchange for favors and influence over policy, Bernie is not for sale.
"This man is running for president on a platform that is just a giant fuck you to the above the law billionaire class, who have been controlling government policy with their money, and not paying a nickel in taxes through government loopholes they secure with said money. Bernie is running on a platform of overturning Citizens United and making the untouchably rich accountable for their fair share of taxes. You know, so like, all of America's children can have good education and health care, not just the rich. Education and health, as a right, not a privilege, not charity — as every American citizen's right.
"So this is where you scream 'but he's a socialist!' Yeah, he is a socialist democrat. Now let me explain what that is. He's a democrat. He just believes that people who don't have the same advantages as you and me, should be given the same advantages as you and me. Good lord, don't worry, under President Sanders you can still become a super-rich asshole, it's just that your fellow hard working citizens don't have to feed their children cat food in order for you to do it. Do you like firefighters, is that something you like to have around? That's socialism, that's a socialized program. It's a program that the government pays for so that everyone can have it. It's not anti-American, in fact it's wildly American."
...
Now whose description of the proper moral function of government is more convincing — Ayn Rand's or Sarah Silverman's ?
Listed below are a number of bulleted questions for those who side with Sarah Silverman in supporting Bernie Sanders. Note that I do not assume that Sarah is ever lying in her video above — I believe her — but some of her statements are so ignorant, I find it difficult to believe that she fully believes what she is saying. I mean, does Sarah really believe that some people are eating cat food, as a consequence of, say, someone like Steve Jobs becoming rich because a huge number of people bought Apple products over the years — or, say, because Warren Buffet became rich because he was able to select many profitable businesses to invest in over the years? (etc. etc., most anyone could list numerous examples of lawfully and morally acquired wealth). Well, Sarah Silverman insists that if you have acquired unusual wealth, someone is forced to survive on cat food as a result, so I have to believe she believes it, despite being blatantly absurd.
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that Bernie Sanders does not take money from super PACs?
It has been reported that Bernie Sanders, unlike other candidates, has not sanctioned any super PACs to work on his behalf. The problem is, it was also reported back in January of 2016 (long before Sarah Silverman published her video above), that Bernie Sanders had received more outside money from super PACs than his Democratic rivals. So even while denouncing the 'Citizens United v. FEC' Supreme Court ruling, Bernie Sanders has been one of its biggest beneficiaries — in direct contradiction to Sarah Silverman's statements in the video above —
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/.../bernie-sanders-is-democrats-top-beneficiary-of-outside-spending-like-it-or-not.html
http://archive.is/vTRCO
Here is an article from 'The Washington Post' (certainly no Republican bastion) which also points out the support Bernie Sanders has received from the nurses union 'National Nurses United for Patient Protection'. But still, the author concludes that this union super PAC is not allied with Sanders, because he did not participate in establishing it, and is not specifically affiliated with it. The author of the article states —
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/11/sanderss-claim-that-he-does-not-have-a-super-pac/
http://archive.is/3IeQZ
Sanders has not exploited the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but is still reaping its benefits. There’s not much Sanders could do to stop outside groups, but he hasn’t actively denounced their help, either. He would be much more precise if he said: “I do not have a super PAC allied with me.”But even the language the author suggested in the final quoted statement is false. Because you have not established, endorsed, or are specifically affiliated with a particular organization in no way implies that organization is not allied with you. Of course, the 'National Nurses United for Patient Protection' is allied with Sanders — why else would a group spend over $1 million dollars supporting someone, if they did not see that person as an ally?
The only thing Bernie Sanders can honestly say about super PACs, is: "Yes I do benefit from their spending, but I would still prefer to eliminate them completely from politics — even though I would also lose contributors as a result."
In short, no honest candidate can claim to be the only one who is not participating in, as Sarah Silverman puts it, 'an unspoken, but inevitable exchange for favors and influence over policy', while simultaneously receiving 'gigantic sums of money' via the same mechanisms of every other candidate.
Sorry beautiful, but if benefiting from super PAC spending is being for sale, then Bernie is for sale.
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that the 'billionaire class' controls the government with their money, when Democratic supporters from the middle class (mainly unions) are the biggest political contributors?
If you check the 'Center for Responsive Politics' at http://www.opensecrets.org/ from time to time you will see that unions are the top political contributors.
The 'Center for Responsive Politics' shows the top political contributions by organization at the link below, including all contributions made since 1989. For example, notice that since that time, the 'Service Employees International Union' has contributed over 7 times as much to Democrats, as the much maligned 'Koch Industries' has contributed to Republicans ($224,273,550 for the SEIU, vs. $29,519,116 for Koch Industries, as of May 2016).
So why didn't Sarah Silverman mention union contributions, given that she seems so concerned about money in politics?
Sorry beautiful, if money controls politics, it isn't the 'billionaire class' that is doing the controlling —
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that the rich do not pay any taxes, when the rich pay dramatically more than those who earn less?
I reviewed the 2011 IRS numbers on federal income tax shares in a previous post. Notice that in 2011 the top 1% (those with incomes above $388,905 (not exactly billionaire money)) paid not 3 or 4, or even 10 times more, but over 76 times more on average than those in the 25-50% group (those with incomes between $34,823 and $70,492 ).
That is, individuals in the top 1% paid $267,610 per taxpayer on average, whereas individuals in the the 25-50% group paid $3,509 per taxpayer on average. See the details on those numbers here —
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/paul-krugman-defining-pandering.html
It is really a tragic farce how often this 'tax-free-rich-guy' nonsense gets repeated. If you are even vaguely familiar with the numbers regarding the U.S. Federal budget and U.S. income tax receipts, you know immediately that under the current U.S. tax system the U.S. Government could not possibly run at all, if it were true that the 'billionaire class' pays no taxes.
For example, in the 2011 tax year the U.S. Federal budget contained about $3.83 trillion dollars in total spending —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_federal_budget
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html
And in that year, the bottom 50% (all those earning less than $34,823, which includes over 68 million tax returns), paid less than 3% of the total federal income taxes collected by the U.S. Treasury, of about $1.042571 trillion dollars. That is, the bottom 50% paid a total of $30.109 billion in income taxes, or 2.89% of that $1.042571 trillion, while the top 50% paid the rest. And also notice that the top 5% paid well over 1/2 of the total U.S. income tax revenue collected in 2011, or 56.5%.
In short, it does not take much digging to prove that there is certainly no such thing as a 'tax-free billionaire class'.
Sorry beautiful, the rich pay taxes, lots of taxes.
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that a government — any government — can give advantages?
If, for example, one group of individuals were miraculously born with wings and could fly, those individuals would have an enormous advantage over others. How could a government give the same advantage to others, to supposedly improve equality? Obviously, this would be impossible. The only way for a government to restore equality, with respect to this hypothetical ability to fly, would be to cripple those individuals with wings. How is this different from any other real human ability?
Notice that Sarah Silverman specifically mentioned the only moral government course of action with regard to poverty, which is leaving it to the free choices of concerned individuals to address — that is, charity. But Silverman dismisses charity, as if the initiation of government force on innocent victims is more compassionate.
Notice that in a previous post I pointed out that there is no valid way to criticize North Korea (or any other bloody dictatorship), if you accept the notion that the labor of some is owed to others by right. This notion effectively destroys the concept of individual rights, since it is a modified version of slavery. If you believe that human beings can possibly have economic rights, then you must support the enforcement of such rights, and such enforcement is a bloody mess, since the initiation of force is required when voluntary interaction is eliminated as a possibility. The North Korean government understands this (just as all the bloody dictatorships before them), it is a pity so many others do not —
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2015/12/bernie-sanders-glaring-symptom-of-american-dishonesty.html
Obviously, a government can take money or resources from one person by force, and give them to another, and in the short term, this will be a benefit to the person who receives such 'a gift' — but at what cost? As was pointed out previously, and so many times over the decades, the abysmal record of misery in socialist countries has always been directly proportional to the degree to which they practiced such supposed 'compassion'.
If you believe it is moral to force strangers to pay for your food, or your medical care, or your education, etc., because you cannot afford to yourself, then by all mean make that case — that is, explain how it is moral to initiate force against others based on some need, without consideration for the needs and interests of those others. But at least have the decency not to lie about what you are advocating — that is, stop hiding behind idiotic euphemistic statements, like 'education should be free' or 'medical care should be free', when you are advocating forcing some to purchase these things for others.
Sorry beautiful, government enforced charity is not compassionate.
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that if some individuals are highly successful at selling goods and services to a willing public (the 'billionaire class'), that those successful individuals somehow caused someone else to live in poverty and eat cat food?
This statement is so ridiculous, it is not even worthy of being addressed. But since some version of it is repeated so often, it is clear that yet again the obvious needs to be restated.
Anyone who is not attempting to survive by theft (or any other crime that exploits or harms the productivity of others), has no responsibility for the poverty of any other individual.
Let's take the case of the infamous hedge fund manager to make this point especially clear. A hedge fund manager (or any other investment manager, or business owner) can only be successful to the degree that they can retain customers — i.e. other individuals who pay that manager to invest their savings (or buy their products).
Regardless of the character of the investment manager, the only financial impact he can create is on those individuals who invested with him — i.e. purchased his product.
Even the notorious Bernie Madoff, in committing his crime, only affected his investors, and if any of those former investors now have to eat cat food as a result, then Bernie Madoff is the only responsible and guilty party, and not the entire 'billionaire class' mentioned by Sarah Silverman (or any class, however you define it).
At this point, many people would go off about government subsidies to corporations (infamous corporate welfare), which of course should be stopped. But as was demonstrated by the numbers cited from the IRS on the U.S. income tax above, people who are eating cat food (or on the verge of it) are not paying any income taxes.
Sorry beautiful, but individuals that become extraordinarily wealthy from free trade in voluntary transactions with others, can only do so by providing value to those individuals, and as such it is impossible to defend the notion that such wealth has the necessary byproduct of some eating cat food.
• Do you pretend (or lie) like Sarah, and insist that a long standing term like socialism now has a new definition, and that a government that provides any public service (like firefighters) is socialist, when the term socialism has always meant complete government control of the means of production (as in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)?
This wordplay regarding the meaning of the word socialism is another tragic farce surrounding Bernie Sanders and his campaign. Most Democratic politicians, including Bernie Sanders, are more closely aligned with fascism than with socialism. If you understand that the critical point in the definition of socialism has always been government ownership of the means of production, then you know Bernie Sanders (and no other popular Democratic politician) can properly be called a socialist. Whereas fascism has always been defined as an authoritarian government, with extensive controls on business, just without government ownership, which is consistent with the Democratic position. And Republicans do not have much of an advantage in this regard, but at least some Republicans have an understanding and appreciation of free markets.
Back in 2012, Thomas Sowell pointed out the problem with the attempts to label Barack Obama a 'socialist', and the same issues apply to Bernie Sanders. The label 'socialist' is very convenient for politicians, since it now has popular appeal, while having lost the key ingredient of socialism (government ownership of industry), comfortably protecting politicians from the direct responsibility of the failures of their policies which control business. Now that is something most people will get behind (never mind dishonest politicians) — avoiding responsibility —
https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/06/12/socialist-or-fascist
https://web.archive.org/web/20170115121708/https://www.creators.com/...
Here is Thomas Sowell commenting on the 'free stuff' appeal of this so-called socialist rhetoric, despite the dismal track records of all the countries who have actually practiced real socialism —
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431459/bernie-sanders-socialism-attracts-economic-illiterates
https://web.archive.org/web/20180406210412/https://www.nationalreview.com/...
So yes beautiful, Bernie is a Democrat — though it is clear that you do not know what the word socialist means.
Here is an opinion piece from the editorial board of 'The Washington Post' (again, no Republican bastion) criticizing the campaign platform of Bernie Sanders —
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-fiction-filled-campaign/2016/01/27/...bcc8_story.html
http://archive.is/HG8C6
Here is an article by Robert Samuelson, again from 'The Washington Post', criticizing Bernie Sanders's single payer health care plan —
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-false-charms-of-bernie-sanderss-single-payer-plan/...02c9_story.html
http://archive.is/63Z5Z
Here is more analysis of the Bernie Sanders single payer health care plan, including disagreements regarding the increase to the U.S. debt that the plan would create (shocker). It should come as no surprise that the Sanders campaign would give the lowest estimate for the added debt that his plan would create (as if the U.S. needs any more debt) —
http://fiscalfactcheck.crfb.org/analysis-of-the-sanders-single-payer-offsets/
http://archive.is/J67Kx
Here is a woman commenting on the Thomas Sowell article regarding the allure of socialism referenced above — it is comforting to see a woman who does not share Sarah Silverman's ignorance (I know there are more out there, but this knowledge seems less common among women) —
http://iwf.org/blog/2799381/Thomas-Sowell-on-Bernie-Sanders-and-the-High-Price-of-%22Free%22
http://archive.is/zKmFZ
To those who support Bernie Sanders like Sarah Silverman, you are going to have to work a lot harder to convince large numbers of people that they should follow your lead. From what I've heard and read, I doubt that there are any good reasons to vote for Sanders. And if Sarah Silverman's video above is any indication, she does not have a single good reason to vote for Bernie Sanders either, since other than her statement regarding her 'full bush', and that Bernie Sanders is a Democrat, everything Silverman said is obviously false. Sorry beautiful.
