Tuesday, June 24, 2014

"Common Sense" From The Other Side Of The World

[John Smith is a blogger resident of Sydney, Australia.  His blog can be found at http://www.objectivistblogger.com .  He hasn't posted anything to it in over a year but he has put some valuable referrals there so I would still recommend it.  His point here is especially relevant to the debate as to what role the government should play in healthcare.

It offers up the specific subject of supposed healthcare rights as an example of what I would call the lie of the greater good and how such things lead unavoidably to tyranny.]

Phantom rights are those �rights� that do not exist in Objectivism, it is a phrase I made up, as a phantom can be thought of as a ghost: no matter how much you wish it to be true, it does not exist in this reality. This post builds upon what was written earlier, Man's Rights in Objectivism, and I recommend reading that post before proceeding to this one.

Man's rights are individualistic, no more, no less. You have a right of dissenting speech, a right to keep the profit of your labor. These rights do not affect or infringe upon the rights of anyone else. A phantom right then is that category of �rights� that many people today confuse, or purposely mix up, with the fundamental individual rights of a man.

A common phantom right being tossed around these days is the �right to healthcare.� Note, healthcare, as in the service and products a person consumes in order to maintain health. There is an individual right to maintain one's own health by one's own means, but not to healthcare. To see how this is not a right, think about the questions below:

* Is healthcare available without first being produced by others?

* Is healthcare free or does it cost money and resources?

* What about the doctors and nurses, are they to provide their services for free?

* How is healthcare going to be guaranteed to people, if it has to be produced?

The first question answers the others, healthcare is not something we possess individually, it must first be produced. Hospitals must be built, medicines assembled, doctors and nurses trained in the practice. So it does cost money and resources. How can doctor's provide their services for free if it costs resources? Are they to be forced to serve? As a product, healthcare is limited, and as such, how is it to be given to all?

Phantom rights run into many problems, including monetary. To quote Ayn Rand �Paid for by whom?� �Blank out.� The notion that a product is a right means some people must produce this object or service, and thus someone must be forced to provide this service with a gun in his back by the government.

Some people will say, �Oh, but someone will do it out of their own good will!� Making a product and giving it away at no cost to the consumer is a private choice, one that no person can demand from them. To make it a right is to condemn a person to slavery, to work in order to provide for others, no matter what cost it is to him.


Those who proclaim a right to a service or product are mistaken in thinking everyone can have such a thing for a right with no economic consequences. They advocate the use of force, the power of a gun, to enslave fellow men into providing for them. Man's rights are individualistic, as in they never demand from others or violate the rights of fellow men. Phantom rights simply do not exist.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

My Words Are Few Today

Today I'm just not sure where to begin describing current events.  People in Central America are being deceived into thinking entry into the United States is suddenly free and easy, that new laws have been passed to accommodate them.  When the truth is that no new law exists and they are not accounted for.  Some of these people are likely to die in our care because we aren't equipped to deal with the human needs involved.

Some may suspect a great incompetence is responsible for this disaster in the making, but I suspect something closer to evil.  People are being tricked into becoming pawns by people who are more than willing to risk those pawns' lives.

While I'm not certain who these manipulators are, I can be pretty sure they are people who have little to no respect for the individuals they claim to to try and help.  They are almost assuredly amongst the believers in the "greatest common good" that I have just last week explained is no good at all, but a destroyer of real good.

We should all beware whenever we see someone advancing an argument along the lines of philosopher Jeremy Bentham's words, "It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong."  These seemingly reasonable words are morally bereft in a number of ways I wont touch all of here.  But most to the current point the good of the many does not outweigh and can never outweigh the good of the individual.  For we are all individuals and anything that treats one individual's good goals as rubbish to be pushed aside for the sake of the many diminishes not just that single individual but all of us.

And so too can be said of anything that abuses the ambitions of individuals to achieve some collective  good.

People, mostly children, are in danger today.  May those who manipulated things so as to put them in this danger be exposed and punished.

And no, this is not a threat.  My wish is that legal justice catch up with them.  My only call to civilians is to stop trusting any source that has led you or your friends into this.

May God be with you.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

There Is No Greater Good Than To Admit There Is No Greater Good

People all around the political spectrum love to look at the other side and point out tyrants.  The right points to the likes of Stalin and Castro while the left to Franco and Pinochet and both point out Hitler and try to claim he's on whatever side the spectrum they're not.  The thing about individual tyrants though is that their tyranny doesn't outlive them.  Franco and Pinochet left free nations in their wakes and to be fair we don't yet know what Castro will leave behind.  We do know what Stalin left behind.  Russia continued to be tyrannized for several decades after his death, and that leads me to my point.

No, it's not to say communism is bad, though anyone who knows me knows I believe that.  It's something much more generally useful than that to identify, and something very relevant as to why current scandals in the United States government are so very important.  Something I call "institutionalized tyranny".  yourdictionary.com defines tyranny as "a government or ruler with total power".  Institutionalized tyranny is when a government and not just one person has total power.  This is what Soviet Russia suffered under, and it made it such that the tyrants could not simply be waited out.  There were institutions in place guaranteeing the tyranny would continue no matter who was in charge.

The reason this point is so much bigger than saying "communism is bad" is because institutionalized tyranny threatens all of our modern forms of government.  Everyone all around the political spectrum and all around the "free world" must be on watch to prevent it from taking hold wherever we live.  We must be able to recognize it when we see it, both when it's forming and when it's already here to some degree.

Tyranny's Champion


The easiest and most useful sign of institutionalized tyranny is the use of the term "greater good".  e.g. "So you're forced to do something you don't want, it's for the greater good."  The "greater good"'s more legitimate but also dangerous cousin is the "lesser evil".  The "lesser evil" unfortunately exists at times like in war for example, but the "greater good" doesn't ever, at least not in a civil context. 

The greater good is simply a lie, or in some cases a dangerous delusion.  It's premise is that some great objective is so good that other competing goods should be forced aside.  The problem with this is that the greatness of a good is not an objectively measurable quality.  It's a subjective thing, and more dangerously it can be manipulated.

Get enough people to believe there is such a thing as a greater good and we have just made the first big step towards institutionalized tyranny.  The second  and near final step is to convince them that some cause championed by their government is that greater good.  Now their government can do anything it wants as long as it can in some way be made to seem as though it's doing it for this greater good.

So the threat of the most lasting tyranny doesn't come from out of control generals or dictatorial thugs, for these people don't inherently have the power to convince nations of people that there is some greater good, and without doing that they're ability to tyrannize is limited by both their immediate resources and the lengths of their lives.

Beware the academics and media people who tell you there is such a thing as the greater good.  We must remember that once we allow ourselves to believe in such a thing, whoever has the power to decide what that is will have total power.  And they will not only be tyrants but their ideas will become institutionalized and their tyranny will be able live on after they die.  

A Slightly More Subtle Route To Tyranny


All government is based on the sound assumption that we must give up something in return for some civil stability.  "Good government" is the lesser of evils between itself and civil disorder.  A better term for this would be "best government" as there really isn't such a thing as "good government" as government requires that we give up some of our freedoms and resources.  Even the communist utopia would do away with government once everything was essentially perfect.  That's because even the creators of communism agree that government is at best a necessary or lesser evil.  

But there are some who believe government can be good or "cool" as President Obama termed it when he was first running for president in 2008, and we should beware of people like this.  Believing that government can be "cool" or good is yet another big step towards institutionalized tyranny.  For once the lesser evil of government is seen as good, all the good things we currently give up or may later be asked to give up for the things government provides us will by necessity be defined as lesser goods and government's good goals the greater good.  Once we get to that point the vehicle of tyranny will have been assembled, warmed up, and waiting in the driveway for someone to take for a spin.

There is no way government can be good.  To believe it can is to have a mindset that enables tyranny, and only human perfection could make that tyranny avoidable.

So in the battle for individual liberty verses tyranny it is essential that we reject the ideas of a greater good and good government.  They are amongst the most dangerous of lies and they lead quickly to tyranny.  Necessary and lesser evils do exist and best government is one of those things, but there is no such thing as good government and most especially no such thing as the greater good.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Things That Make Me Wonder

I am a bit baffled by some recent events and the recent prisoner exchange between the United States and the Taliban has pushed me over the edge of my silence.  I'm going to just start thinking out loud, or in print as it were.

Here are some things the people involved have to be thinking.  Unless they're really stupid or dense in some other way, some things must be assumed to be true.

If the Taliban is even reasonably smart you have to believe they will try to keep Mohammed Nabl, Mullah Noruliah Noorl, Abdul Haq Waslq, Khairullah Khalrkhwa, and Mohammad Fazi well away from anything or anybody important to them.

One shouldn't have to think too much about this prisoner exchange to wonder if something isn't going on that isn't being seen.  There are a number of possibilities that could explain why the White House would want to trade these guys for just one guy of no extra special value.  And most of these you have to believe are weighing heavily on Taliban minds.

One possibility is that one or more of these guys could have been turned into double-agents.

Another is that they have had undetectable spying and tracking devices placed on them.  There are technologies just coming to the fore that would make it possible to plant such a device internally without the subject even knowing.  They could have ingested a device planted in their food.  Yes, they can make them that small now.

There are at least a few other ways these five guys could now be very much damaged goods, and considering where the United States is in our election cycles, if I were the Taliban I'd keep these guys well away from important things at least until after November elections in the United States.  The Obama team could be looking to pull what we have come to call an "October surprise" where an impressive display of military force is used to bolster domestic political support.

The idea of tiny ingested tracking devices brings up another thing that makes me wonder.  I've read papers and attended tech conferences where the potential military and spying application of nano-technology was heavily discussed.  That is until recently.  In looking for a paper or two to reference military and spying applications of nano-bots, I found this information has suddenly been driven to obscurity.

This is very reminiscent of the late 80's and what one would have to go through to find papers supporting the feasibility of things like stealth technology and weaponized lasers.  All in spite of such papers being relatively easy to find just a few years earlier.

A nano-bot or something not quite that small could attach itself to a person shortly after being ingested and, if made of something like titanium, the host body may never notice its presence.

Now some readers at this point may be wondering why I'd seemingly go out of my way to give the Taliban a heads up, and the answer is that I'm not.  Unlike my typical reader, certain members of the Taliban think about this sort of stuff all the time.  If I'm wondering what's up here, you can be sure that they are too.  After all, they have access to the internet.

Bottom line is that these five guys are damaged goods even if the White House was so incompetent as to have traded them strait up.  Unless the Taliban are fools these five will not be used for anything important or allowed near anyone important, at least until the United States makes a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan.  At least that's what should be assumed.

Now if raids and/or drone strikes follow these guys before the November elections we will know there are some really stupid people out there and also that the current occupants of the White House insultingly think the American people are stupid too.  The former would surprise me more than the latter.