"Galt actively works to withdraw those men he believes are needed for a functioning economy, thus deliberately bringing it down and ensuring the deaths of millions. His cronies, like the pirate and Francisco, use piracy and the destruction of property on a massive scale ..."
Galt et al are the victims of parasites dragging their physical and spiritual equity (the virtue of productivity) in life toward zero. They withdrew solely to stop the flow of their life's blood to them. The parasites had finally reduced them to the point at which flipping burgers was more productive than running corporations being confiscated. So they withdrew their ideas, their actions, and all that had been created by their ideas and actions that was still their property from the reach of the parasites. They owed no one anything. The parasites were free to sustain their lives by any means they chose. If they failed to and died, it was their fault. No man has any moral claim to the service of any other man.
--------------------
"Hang on. You're making one hell of an unproven assumption. Namely, that because your volition can only be influenced by physical force, the rest of us are like that, too."
I did not say "influenced", I said "interefered with". Influence can be ignored. Physical force cannot. Physical force is the only enemy of freedom (volition).
---------------------
"Francisco destroys access to most of the world's supply of culture, on the grounds that he owns the mines. Since he didn't create the copper, how does he then claim to own it?"
Objects such as land or raw materials that are not man-made may not be owned by anyone. Human beings own only the product of their own mind and the actions of their own body and anything that they acquire by exchanging those products with others. But when that product constitutes a value added to an unowned object, one has the moral right to control the object as the inseparable receptacle of the value added. This does not diminish any value owned by anyone else, so long as there is no value in the object contributed by anyone else that was not paid for. The same principle is operative whether the value added is an enabling idea or actual physical labor, whether the object is land or the object is currency.
Francisco owned the mines and destroying them diminished no value owned by others.
-----------------------
"Er, Francisco? Ragnar? Galt's gang didn't just go on strike, the engaged in one hell of a lot of vandalism, too."
Vandalism is the destruction of a value owned by someone else. I know of no such instance in the book.
-----------------------
"You already agreed that feelings are not knowledge.
I don't think I did. Certainly I didn't intend to. I explained that that was what Rand believed."
You did that here:
"That she further goes on to dismiss feeling as a legitimate form of knowing the world also appeals to a materialist like myself."
------------------------
Part II:continued from above:
So when you cited that list of fuzzy-feeling human practices as an argument I reminded you that feelings are not knowledge, and the significance of that list can first be accessed in determining which are valid, and which not.
You then here add:
"Again, I was not arguing validity, but existence."
But the mere existence of those practices that do not seem to make sense has no value until one validates or invalidates them. Observing existence is only step 1. The product of that step cannot provide you with a standard by which you can make your life choices without step 2, the evaluation of the existence you observe. .
Re: Two-Parter A-Comin'
Galt et al are the victims of parasites dragging their physical and spiritual equity (the virtue of productivity) in life toward zero. They withdrew solely to stop the flow of their life's blood to them. The parasites had finally reduced them to the point at which flipping burgers was more productive than running corporations being confiscated. So they withdrew their ideas, their actions, and all that had been created by their ideas and actions that was still their property from the reach of the parasites. They owed no one anything. The parasites were free to sustain their lives by any means they chose. If they failed to and died, it was their fault. No man has any moral claim to the service of any other man.
--------------------
"Hang on. You're making one hell of an unproven assumption. Namely, that because your volition can only be influenced by physical force, the rest of us are like that, too."
I did not say "influenced", I said "interefered with". Influence can be ignored. Physical force cannot. Physical force is the only enemy of freedom (volition).
---------------------
"Francisco destroys access to most of the world's supply of culture, on the grounds that he owns the mines. Since he didn't create the copper, how does he then claim to own it?"
Objects such as land or raw materials that are not man-made may not be owned by anyone. Human beings own only the product of their own mind and the actions of their own body and anything that they acquire by exchanging those products with others. But when that product constitutes a value added to an unowned object, one has the moral right to control the object as the inseparable receptacle of the value added. This does not diminish any value owned by anyone else, so long as there is no value in the object contributed by anyone else that was not paid for. The same principle is operative whether the value added is an enabling idea or actual physical labor, whether the object is land or the object is currency.
Francisco owned the mines and destroying them diminished no value owned by others.
-----------------------
"Er, Francisco? Ragnar? Galt's gang didn't just go on strike, the engaged in one hell of a lot of vandalism, too."
Vandalism is the destruction of a value owned by someone else. I know of no such instance in the book.
-----------------------
"You already agreed that feelings are not knowledge.
I don't think I did. Certainly I didn't intend to. I explained that that was what Rand believed."
You did that here:
"That she further goes on to dismiss feeling as a legitimate form of knowing the world also appeals to a materialist like myself."
------------------------
Part II:continued from above:
So when you cited that list of fuzzy-feeling human practices as an argument I reminded you that feelings are not knowledge, and the significance of that list can first be accessed in determining which are valid, and which not.
You then here add:
"Again, I was not arguing validity, but existence."
But the mere existence of those practices that do not seem to make sense has no value until one validates or invalidates them. Observing existence is only step 1. The product of that step cannot provide you with a standard by which you can make your life choices without step 2, the evaluation of the existence you observe.
.