What’s So Curious About Ayn Rand?

In the August 18, 2012, issue of the TimesDaily newspaper was a commentary by Cynthia Tucker entitled “Rand is curious choice for veneration.” In this article, Ms. Tucker wonders how Rep. Paul Ryan, VP nominee for the Republican Party, could be a fan of Ayn Rand. After all, Rand was an atheist and a big proponent of using reason rather than faith to obtain truth. Ryan is a Catholic. How do these two jive? Well, I believe it is just as Ryan claims: he rejects Rand’s atheism, but embraces her view of government.

I personally became a fan of Ayn Rand when I read her book The Voice of Reason back in the 1980’s. When I read this book I suddenly realized that Rand was saying the things I believed but had not been able to express verbally. It was an epiphany. I went on to read many more of Rand’s writings, including some of her novels. I eventually began calling myself an Objectivist, although I have backed off that to some degree. There are a number of aspects of Rand’s philosophy that I disagree with, such as her inexplicable belief that a woman should never serve as the President of the United States. But if you think about it, it is very rare that any two people have EXACTLY the same beliefs about EVERY single topic. Everyone has his own ISM running about in his own mind.

Rand predicted many years ago that if the country kept following the path of governmental altruism and cronyism, the country would eventually reach a crisis point. She even predicted that the people in power would not even realize that it was their policies that brought on the crisis. Well, that is exactly what has happened. Is it possible for an atheist to be a prophet? In this instance, apparently so. The USA has attempted to provide everyone with anything that they want and at the same time regulate until they strangulate. This is a recipe for fiscal disaster. Why wouldn’t Rep. Ryan be a fan of Ayn Rand’s ideas on these matters?

While I agree with Ms. Tucker that Ayn Rand was not a perfect person—who is?—she gets one thing wrong about her philosophy. It’s a point that many people get wrong. In her commentary she says, “What’s more, Rand was an atheist and libertine whose private life was testament to her fierce belief that individuals should be free to do whatever they please, no matter the consequences to others.” Uh, WRONG! Here is what Rand really believed about how individuals should live their lives.

“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

The essence of this quote is that no person is another person’s slave. Don’t expect me to sacrifice for you, and I will not expect you to sacrifice for me. We will live our lives by voluntary exchange. So, was Rand opposed to charity? No, not when it came to individuals supporting causes they deemed worthy of support. What Rand did find anathema was the idea of governmental charity. Why? Because that requires our leaders to extract by force the wealth of some citizens to give to others. This can work both ways. It can be the forced extraction of money from the wealthy to give to the poor, which is called welfare. Or it can be the forced extraction of money from the poor to give to the rich, which is called corporate welfare. Rand believed both types of welfare to be immoral since it required the force of government, thus making some people the slaves of others. However, she would have no problem with an individual voluntarily turning his money over to another person or organization. As Thomas Sowell once said, “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”

So, it is true that Ayn Rand was a flawed human being. I do not believe that she even followed her own philosophy 100% of the time. Yet, her core beliefs remain sound. Everyone should be free to pursue his or her own interests and not be made a slave, even to a small degree, of others. Can anyone really argue against that?

A Review of "Man on the Moon"

This movie review was written for an Objectivist publication back in 2000; however, it was never published.

A Review of “Man on the Moon”
by Randy C. Finch

The magician waves his hands stealthily over the limp body of his beautiful female assistant. Suddenly, the magician’s hands change their motion as if they are lifting an invisible entity into the air. Telekinetically, the female assistant begins floating upward, suspended on nothing but air. She continues to move upward until her prone body is above the magician’s head. The magician gracefully slides large hoops around the floating assistant to show that no wires are attached. A look of wonderment floods the faces of the audience. Deep down they know it is an illusion, but what technique is being used? In the recesses of many minds, the possibility that the assistant is really floating is considered, as no other explanation is forthcoming.

Just as the magician makes the unreal appear to be real, so did Andy Kaufman the comedian and entertainer. But in addition, Andy sometimes made the real appear to be unreal. In the movie “Man on the Moon”, Jim Carrey does a masterful job of portraying the late Andy Kaufman. A few years ago, Mr. Carrey played the role of E. Nygma (a.k.a. The Riddler) in “Batman Forever”. In this offering, he plays a real-life enigma. He was brilliant in both roles, perhaps because he is a bit of an enigma himself.

If anyone could make Ayn Rand turn over in her grave, I believe Andy Kaufman could. His life was an infusion of the real and the unreal. This was true both on stage and off. As his girlfriend says to him in the movie, “There is no real you.” Not only did he have his fans confused about who he really was, he also had his own friends and family confused. When he announced to the people closest to him that he had cancer, no one believed him. They thought it was just another antic he was about to perpetrate on the public like his wrestling with women. Keeping his fans on their toes wondering what he would do next and then being puzzled as to whether he was for real or not was the apparent goal of Andy Kaufman.

However, even as Ms. Rand is turning over, she must also recognize many of the same traits in Andy Kaufman that she wrote into her fictional character, Howard Roark. Andy was fiercely independent, wanting to entertain his way without regard to what other people thought. When presented with the opportunity to portray Latka in the TV series “Taxi”, he was uninterested as it would require him to perform from a script that was not his own. He only relented when ABC agreed to his terms, which included several TV specials where he had artistic license. At one point in the movie, George Shapiro (Andy’s agent) asks Andy what the purpose behind his entertainment was, to make the audience laugh or to make himself laugh. It was obvious throughout the movie that the latter was the case.

You have most likely known of a practical joker that hated having practical jokes played on himself. Apparently, Andy Kaufman was not one of those people. When he traveled to the Philippines in a last ditch effort to be cured of his cancer, he was expecting a miracle. The healers there were burying their hands in the bodies of the sick and pulling out the offending matter without surgery. As Andy lay on the table, he noticed that the offending matter was already in the healer’s hand before the procedure began. He is then shown laughing his head off as he realizes that this healer had duped him just as he had duped people throughout his career. Yet, in the throes of death, he found the ability to make the unreal real to be extremely funny, even when perpetrated by others.

Yes, Andy Kaufman was an enigma. People typically either hated him or loved him. If you are one of the former, you will probably find this movie stupid or boring or both. However, if you are one of the latter, as I am, you will be spellbound by it. In either case, the movie is a good study in how people view that which is real and that which is unreal, and how it can be difficult at times distinguishing the two, especially when an accomplished artist is purposefully confusing them.

Finally, be aware that the movie was produced in a style that would have been pleasing to Andy. Although it answered many questions about what was real and unreal in his life, it left many unanswered and even presented new ones for the audience’s consideration. In fact, as the movie ended, I was questioning whether or not Andy was even dead or not. It would be his style to fake his death and remain in character for 16 years. Consider this. Most people know how great Andy was at imitating Elvis Presley. What if all those Elvis sightings are the “late” Andy Kaufman messing with our minds as only he could. It’s a thought.

Thinkyoovedymuch.


Randy Finch is an engineer living and working in Alabama. He earned his BS and MS from the University of Louisville. He enjoys creating computer software and writing articles about computer programming. He has had over 60 articles published in magazines, journals, newsletters, and conference proceedings. He also enjoys reading, writing, and discussing philosophy, particularly Objectivism. Interestingly, Randy was born on February 2, 1955, exactly 50 years to the day after Ayn Rand was born. Also, notice that the name Ayn Rand can be created with just the letters in his first name (if the “a” and “n” are used twice). If anyone knows of any significance to these coincidences, please let him know.

The Unknown God

A few weeks ago a friend of mine at church loaned me some audio tapes of a three part sermon by John MacArthur entitled "Getting to Know the Unknown God." This sermon series was recorded late 1973 so I am not sure if MacArthur still agrees with everything he said back then, but for the purposes of this post I will assume he does.

The sermon was centered around Acts 17 where Paul enters Athens and sees the altar to the unknown god. He then preaches a sermon declaring Jehovah to be the god that they did not know. John MacArthur's sermon is quite good. He is an interesting speaker. However, there were a few things he said that I take exception with.

MacArthur claims that the only purpose of humans is to know God. He says that people who do not know God have no purpose and no meaning and their lives are not worth living. These people, like Judas Iscariot, would have been better off to not have been born. That is a pretty bold statement. How can he so confidently state such a thing without knowing the inner person of every human on the face of the Earth? What does MacArthur mean when he says a person's life is meaningless and purposeless? Isn't the meaning and purpose of one's life something that is a part of one's own consciousness that can only be determined by each individual for his own self? I know and have seen many people that MacArthur would probably claim do not know God that believe they have much meaning and purpose in their lives. They know people and engage in activities that are very important to them. Other people love them and believe them to be essential elements of their own lives. But apparently this does not matter to MacArthur. For him, the only thing that conveys meaning and purpose onto a person's life is the knowledge of God.

MacArthur goes on to say that there are two types of people: those that know God and those that don't know God.  Of the latter there are two groups: those that know they don't know God and those that don't know they don't know God. The latter group believe they know God, but in actuality they do not. In other words they are deceived.

So what does it take for a person to truly know God. According to MacArthur God can only be known through Jesus Christ. By studying about Jesus and coming to know him better, we can get to know God himself. This is based on John 14:6-8. So anyone who believes they know God through any other means than Jesus is deceived and really does not know God. The thing that has always interested me about such statements is that once a person admits that it is possible to believe something wrongly, they must admit that they themselves could be among that group. In other words, it could be that MacArthur himself is one of the deluded, thinking he knows the true God, but not knowing him in reality.

Another interesting aspect of MacArthur's sermon was that he quoted many times from the book of Jeremiah and other OT books where the writers describe the nature of Jehovah. But how could these OT writers know God? If the only way to truly know God is through the knowledge, teaching, and person of Jesus Christ, how could the OT writers have known anything about God? They knew nothing of Jesus Christ. They may have believed in a coming Messiah, but that was just general information, not a true knowledge of the actual person of Jesus. I say that if the only way to know God is to know Jesus, then we can just chunk the OT because those guys did not know Jesus.

I believe that we cannot with certainty even know whether there is a god or not, let alone know for sure what his attributes are. We all exist on a huge ball in space which is just an infinitesimal speck in the expanse of the cosmos. Humans have the ability to use their senses to assimilate information about the cosmos and draw conclusions via rational thought. However, when it comes to the ultimate questions of "How did the Universe get here?", "Where did we all come from?", and "What is my purpose for being here?", we are all still in the dark just like the thousands of generations that preceded us. This can be a hard pill to swallow, but it is one we must swallow nonetheless. Basically, every person must discover what has meaning and purpose to himself and go about achieving those things.

The Perfect Health Care Plan

The national health care debate at the US Congressional level and across the United States of America has reached fever pitch. People are surrounding this issue from all directions just like a tribe of Native Americans circling a wagon train of pioneers. Well, I don't know about you, but I like the plan outlined by several Representatives and Senators that has these features:

No denials based on preexisting conditions
No cap on medical expenditures each year
No rationing of care
Patients get to pick their providers
A cap on cost of premiums

What I'm hoping for is a really low cap on the premiums, say no more than $5.00 per month. But, if it's more than this I will probably not take any insurance and just jump in whenever I develop a condition expensive enough to justify having the insurance. After all, if I can't be denied coverage based on any preexisting conditions, I should be able to do this. But wait, perhaps there will be some sort of waiting period after signup before the benefits kick in. Oh, it doesn't matter anyway. I just remembered that President Obama said that everyone would be required to have health insurance whether or not they want it or can afford it. I suppose there will be help for those who can't afford it. Although if they can keep the premiums down to $5.00 a month, there shouldn't be too many needing the help.

But wait just a minute! I just had an epiphany. How can the government possibly provide or expect insurance companies to provide unlimited health care with no preexisting conditions exemptions and no rationing using premiums that are capped. I am having a hard time seeing how that will work without changing the laws of mathematics. If Congress could just make $2 plus $2 equal $1,000,000, I believe their plan just might work. But I don't know how to make those numbers work. I know they don't work at the casinos. But perhaps our noble politicians have a trick up their sleeves.

One trick I've heard is to fund some of the health care plan by cutting fraud out of Medicare. Nice! But if it is possible to cut X number of dollars of fraud from the Medicare system at a cost of less than X number of dollars, why haven't they already done this? Is cutting wasteful spending out of the budget only important when we're in an economic crisis or we're wanting to start another spending plan? Also, I have heard that Medicare is drowning in debt, having trillions of dollars in unfunded future obligations. Won't all the fraud savings have to be put towards those obligations to help keep Medicare afloat? And won't that still not be enough to salvage it?

It's beginning to look like the only way to make ends meet with the proposed health care plan is to simply limit the payout to doctors and drug companies to the amount that is taken in from premiums. But if the premiums are too low, the payouts will be too low, and there will not be much incentive for these people, especially the doctors, to put themselves through 8-10 years of college and intern hell and accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. That means fewer doctors, which means more patients per doctor, which means the average visit time will have to drop from about 10 minutes per patient to perhaps 5 minutes. There's already people complaining that 10 minutes is insufficient time to consult with a doctor. They'll be yelling if it drops to 5. Oh well, I guess we can always get the government to force the doctors to work 24/7 under threat of imprisonment. I'm not sure who will treat them when they keel over from exhaustion.

I don't think there is any decent person who wants to see another human being go without needed health care. I certainly don't. But the harsh reality of this cold, uncaring Universe is that some things are just impossible. This may be one of those things. One thing seems certain to me. The only way we have any hope of paying for unlimited health care for everyone is to unfetter economic activity and allow productivity to increase tremendously. The increase in wealth, and the resulting increase in tax revenue may just be able to fund unlimited health care, although I am still skeptical. Feel free to comment if you believe I am missing something.

Lying to the Dying

Several days ago I was watching an old episode of The Rifleman ("The Prodigal") on TV. In this episode a criminal is at Lucas McCain's house with his mother who was oblivious to her son's nefarious activities. While there, the mother has an attack and is only given a short time to live by the doctor. The criminal is about to confess to his mother that he was a wanted criminal. However, just before he is able to, Lucas jumps into the conversation and confesses to being the criminal instead. He later tells the criminal that he didn't do that for him, implying it was the sake of his dying mother.

I have seen many shows and movies where something similar happens with a dying person being told a lie. It's usually done because they want the person to die happy rather than sad. While I can understand the motive behind this, I have always been uncomfortable with it. After examining why I felt this way, I realized what my concerns were.

If a person simply dies, never to be alive again in an afterlife, then it really doesn't matter if the person is told a terrible truth. Once they are dead, they will never be able to fret over it anyway. On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, then the recipient of the lie will most likely discover the deception as soon as they cross over and may be disappointed in, or even angry at, the liar. So, it seems to me there is no good reason for lying to the dying to spare their feelings. It will either do absolutely no good or bring harm to a relationship.

Wild River

I found the 1960 movie Wild River to be intriguing. The movie is about an employee of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) who is tasked with arranging the purchase of various tracts of privately owned land that would be flooded once a dam was built on the Tennessee River. While performing his duties, he encounters an elderly lady who is intent on thwarting TVA’s plan to obtain her property.

One of my favorite parts of the movie is when the TVA man shows up at the elderly property owner's house. The old woman begins asking one of the farm hands how much he wants for his dog. He responds by saying that he didn’t want to sell his dog. She tells him that she wasn’t asking if he wanted to sell, she was telling him he had to sell. She just needed to know how much he wanted. The banter continues until the man tells her she doesn't have the right to make him sell his dog. She then relents and says he is correct. And just like she didn't have the right to make him sell his dog, the government didn't have the right to make her sell her property, even though they were going to give her “fair” compensation.

The conflict between the private and the public realm of civilized life is a longstanding one. This was made clear to me while watching the first episode of Ken Burns: National Parks - America's Best Idea. Back when the National Park system was just beginning, there was great debate concerning whether it was within the authority of the US Congress to take control of large tracts of land for the purpose of preserving it for all people, present and future. Many believed that the senators and representatives were overstepping their bounds and hampering American entrepreneurship and business. Others felt that without the protection of government, greed would drive individuals to exploit some of the most scenic spots in the country. They pointed to Niagara Falls (as it was mid-19th century) as an example.

Wow! This is one of those tough issues for me. When I think about it, I can feel my inner self being torn apart. It’s as though some of the most liberal and some of the most conservative congresspersons have become body snatchers and have picked me as their victim. I am a very strong advocate of free enterprise where people are allowed to build businesses and compete in the open marketplace for customers without interference from the government. Free enterprise is what has elevated the common man in many countries to a standard of living only kings could have dreamed about 500 years ago. If a regular ole Joe from that era could come back and see how millions upon millions of people live today, he would be overwhelmed and probably quite envious.

Yet I have visited many of the US National Parks and am totally enthralled with them. I can identify with the words of John Muir when I saw Yosemite Valley: “No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite... The grandest of all special temples of Nature.” Who could want this place, thought by many to be the most beautiful place on earth, to be denuded by a few people for their own gain? Yet I, like Ayn Rand, also see the beauty of the manmade. I look in awe at the Empire State Building just as I look in awe at Half Dome.

It would seem that there must be some sort of balance between the public and the private when it comes to land. I just find it extremely hard to put my finger on where the dividing line is. I will talk about this further in future posts.

Whatever Floats Your Boat

You have probably heard someone use the expression in the title of this post: "Whatever Floats Your Boat." It is usually said in response to someone expressing his or her personal beliefs or personal likes and dislikes. The responder, by saying the aforementioned words, is expressing an opinion that basically says, "You can believe or like whatever you want as long as it makes you happy or fulfills your life, even if the same does not apply to me." This is obviously true when it comes to subjective matters such as what hobbies a person likes or what a person's favorite colors are. However, should it apply to matters that are factual in nature?

For instance, if a person decides that, for him, four plus four would henceforth be equal to nine, would it be appropriate to say, "Whatever floats your boat?" I don't think so. I dare say that most people would challenge this statement, saying that it is false for everyone. Yet, when it comes to certain philosophical or religious beliefs, many people are hesitant to challenge the truthfulness of the beliefs regardless of how irrational or contradictory they are. They, in essence, respond, "Whatever floats your boat."

Many years ago when I was a member of the Church of Christ, a fellow believer and I were at a local hobby store. We discovered that the owner was an acquaintance of mine. We began talking about various topics and eventually got around to discussing religious beliefs. The acquaintance told us he was a member of some denomination, I believe Baptist. My friend and I began expressing some of the differences between his denominations' beliefs and those of the Church of Christ. With every statement we made, he would respond something like this: "That's great that you believe that way. If it works for you, that is good. I will believe what works for me." In essence, he was saying, "Whatever floats your boat."

Of course, when it comes to beliefs concerning the supernatural realm, no one knows what the absolute truth is. They may think they do, but they don't. In reality, we don't even know for sure if the supernatural exists. So, "Whatever floats your boat" seems to be the appropriate mentality.

But what about the case where a person knows the truth about something, yet chooses to believe something different because it makes them feel good? Or how about people who withhold the truth from a friend or family member because they sincerely believe the person would become overly distraught. What is more important, believing a disturbing truth or a feel-good falsehood? This has always been an intriguing question to me.

I personally prefer the truth to a feel-good lie. I just don't like the idea of believing something false. As those Hulu aliens say, that's the way I roll. In many cases, believing something false can lead to all kinds of trouble or conflict, particularly when the untruth concerns other people. Yet I know there are people who, as Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) said in A Few Good Men, can't handle the truth. To them I say, "Whatever floats your boat!"

Disturbing Things: Awards and Healthcare

Did you watch the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13? Even if you didn't, you have probably heard about Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video to announce that Beyoncé had made one of the best videos of all times. Yes, that was disturbing to a lot of people. West later apologized to Swift, and Beyoncé graciously allowed Swift to finish her speech during her acceptance for Video of the Year. I guess West was correct about Beyoncé having one of the best videos of all time. He just wasn’t willing to wait and see if she won the big one.

Equally disturbing was a statement made by that British chap, Russell Brand, who hosted the show. He implied that the US leaves people on the streets to die. He said that Britain did not do that since they had free healthcare. FREE healthcare?!? How can this be? Does the motherland have healthcare growing wild on trees in such abundance that there is plenty for everyone. I can visualize the barker near the grove yelling, “Get your free healthcare here. You pick it; you keep it.” I say we need to introduce that tree variety here in the US. Perhaps it can replace all those American Chestnut trees lost to blight in the Smoky Mountains. But wait! I have always heard that money doesn’t grow on trees. So, since healthcare has a certain equivalent monetary value, perhaps it doesn’t grow on trees either. I know! It’s probably a root plant like potatoes and carrots. Everyone knows that that’s how money grows since everyone is always saying that money is the root of all evil. (Actually, the Bible says it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, but what’s a couple of extra words between friends.)

Before I go further, let me clarify something. There may be a few Brits getting free healthcare. For those whose income is such that they never pay taxes, healthcare, for them, is free. But still, the cost of the care has to be paid. It’s just that other people pay for it. So, while a few are getting their healthcare at no cost to them, others end up paying many times over what their own healthcare would have cost. Those in the middle may end up paying about the same as what their care would have cost. But in the end, the healthcare must be paid for. You’ve heard it said that There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (pronounced TANSTAAFL for all you acronymic types out there). Well, There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Healthcare (TANSTAFH).

Government may have the power to do a lot of things, but as yet they have not been able to rescind the laws of physics or the laws of economics. But not to worry, they are working on it!

My Food, the Market, and Unknown People

As I was eating dinner last night I began to think about what all had to transpire for the food I was eating to make it to my plate. People had to grow the potatoes, raise the cows, and harvest the macaroni ( macaroni is a plant isn't it? 8>) ). All these things had to be sold at a market, then transported to a factory, then sent out to a distributor who in turn most likely transported it to a regional distribution warehouse. Delivery trucks then had to take these goods to the local store whereupon I purchased them. Then I had to transport them home, blend ingredients together, and cook them. In the end, my cost for the meal was most likely less than $10.00 for my family of three. This sounds nearly impossible, but that's the nature of a free market. Businesses keep coming up with better ways to grow, obtain, and distribute goods such that costs keep getting lower. Of course, all of this is only possible when there is a large market for the same items. If only one person in New York wanted potatoes from Idaho, it would be prohibitively expensive to obtain them. But since thousands, perhaps millions, of New Yorkers want those potatoes, the cost can be lowered to a very affordable amount. Additionally, having a free market economy helps because when businesses have to compete against other businesses, they can't afford to be wasteful.

Another interesting aspect of the food I ate last night is that I don't personally know anyone involved in the chain of events leading from the farm to my home. Isn't it nice that all those people were so concerned with my culinary well being that they all chipped in to get me the food I wanted? Yeah, right! In actuality, they each did their part out of self-interest. They were doing their job to earn money to support self and family. Isn't it interesting how the world works. People who perform honest work strictly for their own interest end up helping many, many people eat a meal on the cheap.

Hey guys, keep up the good work of working for yourself!