Irrational: The Root of All Evil,
or:
Ayn Rand Was a Mean, Stupid Hypocrite Who Said Mean, Stupid Things That Everyone Should Stop Taking Seriously,
or:
What Lies in the Guts of the Philosophies of the Fiscal Conservative
FROM CHAPTER ONE: AYN RAND IS A HYPOCRITE AND NOT BECAUSE SHE TOOK SOCIAL SECURITY
“The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others." -Ayn Rand.
Let's start small, shall we? This is a statement on the lips and in the hearts of every proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophy.
It is also a very simple, absolutist statement, meaning it says a lot in very few words, and in order for it to be True, in every instance it must work. Every last situation. You can't have one or two exceptions. It's clear and absolute. You can't secure the rights of anyone by violating the rights of others. You can not.
It took me a while to cook up a situation in which this massively respected philosopher's statement does not ring true, but I think I have it. How about this: A woman walking to her car after work, a man walks up to her and pulls out a knife, not knowing there is a police officer nearby who pulls out a gun and tells him to drop the knife and put his hands behind his head, which he does. The man is later put in jail for attempted murder.
The police officer and the government of the state has violated the rights of the man in order to secure the rights of the woman. The man has no choice, and was put into forced confinement by gunpoint. His right to live his life as he chooses, not in jail, has been violated. This concept is truly not that complicated. We can weigh up our options, and then look at the outcome, and decide thusly. The woman can live her life as she chooses, her rights secured by the infringement of another's, because in this situation the greater good is upheld and the world is a better place. And this is not just one example, this is how any society runs everyday.
Somebody murders a bunch of people, we remove them from society and violate their rights in order to prevent them from doing it again. A murderer's right to living life as he chooses is less important than the rights of his possible victims to not be murdered. -And even simpler, we violate the right of somebody to drive fifty miles per hour on the sidewalk in order to prevent them from hitting people. We violate the right of every citizen to keep every cent they have in order to pay for the police and fire departments, and preserve more important rights that the police and fire departments exist because of. Nobody loses any sleep over this.
I'm sure Ayn Rand never lost a night of sleep over this simple concept, but that is just speculation. Perhaps she had countless sleepless nights, lamenting upon the woes of these countless individuals whose rights have been violated in order to secure the rights of people to their property and lives and basic rights to not be violated, raped, or harmed violently. She said some nasty, truly heartless things that showed very little insight and empathy on her part, and we'll get to that later, but I truly do hope that she was just a hypocrite and did not live her life truly and to the t by that absolutist statement that she said.
I suppose the import of the question: "Why can't they?" in direct response to the statement at the top of this page arises after all of that. I certainly don't understand why they cannot. Someone who believes in the rational as the guiding force of your existence, as the quote at the start of this book implies Ayn Rand believes herself to be, must take in the actuality of events that have occurred in order to assess if they are right or wrong. Objectivism denies this, and favors the apparently already decided inherent morality existing inside of all actions, context and what follows the actions be damned.
Of course, the ends don't always justify the means, they do when they do, and they don't when they don't. The situations described above could easily be switched in a bizarro universe that honors the rights of murderers over their victims, and in those situations, the ends have not justified the means. Hell, I don't think it's that wacky to believe that there is not a government that exists today that has not done acts that are unjustified because of the results in the end.
But if you truly believe that NEVER EVER EVER do the ends justify the means, then you do not care about what transpires in reality. What happens in the ends, and what happens as a result of an action is incidental and your line of questioning ends with the action in itself. Rights can not be violated to uphold rights. Either live with that to the t and speak not of just of taxation of the rich, but of defunding of the police as well. No more picking and choosing. Ayn Rand drew the line in the sand with this statement.
Either live in reality with us, who care about making the world better, or live in theoretical reality with her, ending your questions not with the big picture of what has happened as a result of the actions you have already decided are right or wrong. Pick her side, and let me just say personally that that sounds exactly like taking the world in through irrational eyes to me. If it isn't, please dear god tell me why it is not, because I have read so much. Every page of this woman's books I can stomach, interpretations and similar words from people inspired by her, and have not found an answer to why this isn't as irrational as you can get.
But just you wait. I'm only getting started with her and everyone with Objectivist blood pumping up to their Atlas shrugging brains. Ends never justify the means? That's easy. It's high time to take off the kid gloves. Time to start really tearing into this fucking psycho.
-Chapter One, Pages 8-12
