Re: Our Responsibility to Those in Need

From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Jul 29 2001 - 01:53:08 MDT


> > Mike Lorrey:
> > > Disobey Acton's Law at your own peril. Government is only interested
in
> > > doing good for itself. If anyone else benefits, that is simple
> > > serendipity, or a means to an end.

Olga: > >
> > Let's see. Government, not an amorphous being, but people = doing good
for
> > themselves (with the result that sometimes other people [other than
> > government employees] benefit).
> > v.
> > No government. Each man, woman and child left to fend for themselves.
> > Serendipity for the genetic celebrities. "Collateral damage" for
others.
> > Too bad. That's life. Ta ta. Disobey Olinka's Law at your own peril.

Mike:
> Olinka's Law?

That's my pet Russian name. Hehehe ...

> I, and many others think the second option is pluperfectly wonderful. We
> don't automatically distrust other individuals (or themselves) who are
> not shielded by the mantle of the state from responsibility for their
> actions. Collateral damage only exists for those who insist on
> parasitizing on others without permission.

Oh, dear, I was afraid you'd say something like that. Even Ayn Rand was
afraid of anarchism because, she said (words to this effect) "I can't trust
other people the way I trust myself." Parasitizing, ouch!

> It always seems to me that those who think the worst of others are
> merely projecting their own darkest fantasies about what 'they would do'
> if free to act, automatically assuming not only that everyone else has
> similar fanatasies, but that they are similarly unable to restrain them
> in virtue. They thus demand the authority and power to restrain others
> when it is they who need the most restraining, especially once they
> attain any power greater than the responsibility of the individual for
> themselves.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the parasites bite ...
Olga



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