QUORA: ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

 QUORA* : ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

I posted this answer:

To be rationally selfish is to think carefully about the values likely to contribute to your happiness and flourishing within consideration for the full, long term context of your life. To be rationally selfish likewise impells you to consciously place your values in a hierarchy of importance to your life, and to act accordingly. Certainly, there can be charitable causes that can fit into your hierarchy of values and to which you deem worthy of your donation. To donate to such causes would therefore be a rationally selfish thing to do, not as a duty or a sacrifice but as a reflection of your values. The only “rule” would be that you should never, as a rationally selfish person, sacrifice a higher value for something you value less. So your donations should be made as and when you can afford it, to causes you value, but not at the expense of giving up something you value more highly, such as the welfare of your children or your next mortgage or rent payment.

Related Reading:

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

QUORA: ‘What do people misunderstand about Ayn Rand's ideas?’

The Pravda-ization of the American Press

A little-discussed piece of the Democrats’ statist legislative agenda is among the most dangerous to liberty long term; the schemes to subsidize private news and media organizations through tax favoritism. Under a federal proposal, “newspapers, digital news outlets and radio and television stations could claim a payroll tax credit for employing eligible local journalists,” according to the Associated Press. On the New Jersey state level, subscribers to local journalism companies would get a tax deduction, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

It’s true that all kinds of government favors are dished out to private businesses. But subsidizing media companies carries a special danger, because media companies exist at the intersection of economics and freedom of the press.

In Help save local news: Give subscribers a tax break, the New Jersey Editorial Board (SLEB) writes on NJ’s proposal;

A New Jersey lawmaker is trying to bolster local journalism after more than a decade of layoffs, with some help from the government: A tax deduction for subscribers.

Under Assemblyman Roy Freiman’s bill, you’d get a $250 deduction on your state income taxes if you subscribe to a New Jersey paper or digital publication. For most families, it would be a small savings. But every bit helps.

The obvious objection is, if private citizens don’t choose to patronize these journals, why should they be forced, through the back door of tax favors for subscribers, to pay to support these journals? If the market doesn’t support these local media companies, why should the government be bailing them out? Anticipating this line of dissent, the SLEB asks;

Why, you might ask, should newspapers get a subsidy from the government? Well, other businesses do. 

This point was inevitable. Once precedents are set, they tend to grow. And government subsidies to businesses have grown like malignant cancer. Of course, the proper response to the SLEB’s question is, Why should any business that can’t succeed in the market get a government subsidy, directly or through tax favors? The answer, of course, is that they shouldn’t. *

But there’s a much larger danger lurking than merely the economic objection. In an amazing paragraph, the SLEB seems to be pointing straight at the danger involved, without even realizing it:

[The local media] have a better-informed opinion of Joe Biden or Phil Murphy than their state assemblyman, or a massive local economic development project like the $400 million Wind Port in Salem County. “I felt that I lost my voice at the Statehouse,” Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) lamented, citing the lack of quality, in-depth coverage of South Jersey.

So what Burzichelli and Freiman are doing, essentially, is looking to buy, with taxpayer money, more “quality” reporting in support of their agendas; but quality, defined by whom? What kind of editorial or news content will local newspapers, which apparently includes statewide newspapers like the Star-Ledger in the “local” category, be able to maintain when politicians they depend on for financial support are counting precisely on the local news outlet to be their “voice?” What independence will be left to them when the likes of Assemblyman John Burzichelli have legislative control over the economic lifeblood of the publication? Will an editorial board of a newspaper that is at least partially dependent on tax favors be as ready to criticize politicians or their programs—politicians who have the power to rescind the tax favors? How will a news outlet respond when Burzichelli and his ilk complain about the “quality” of some “in-depth coverage” put out by the outlet?

As I’ve said, the press is not like other businesses. With the press, as I’ve said, you’re dealing with the direct intersection of economics and First Amendment liberties. The SLEB seems to get, on some level, the inherent danger:

Because this tax break is going to the subscriber, it has the advantage of not running aid to news organizations directly, avoiding the issue of the government picking winners and losers. 

Well, how is the government indirectly “picking winners and losers” any different? Direct or indirect, it’s a distinction without a difference. President Biden’s federal bill would direct the tax break directly to the company, not the subscribers. Presumably, the SLEB is against that bill, as its stated premise indicates. But, either way, press outlets would become dependent, at least in part, on politicians for their survival.

Independence from any government interference is vital to a free press. But with media companies tethered to government for economic support, their independence would be, of necessity, at the very least compromised. 

I don’t want to get too apocalyptic here. Pravda was an organ of the ruling Communist Party of the old Soviet Union under a state that controlled the flow of information across the board.** Under the federal and NJ bills, any news outlet would be free not to take the federal tax credit to preserve their integrity, although the Jersey deduction is more problematic given that it applies to subscribers. On the surface, nothing about these bills includes any direct government requirements in regard to content. 

But we can’t minimize the danger, either. The mere fact of government financial support has got to figure into the thinking of the editors in regard to content, sooner or later. This would be especially true of economically marginal media enterprises who may feel they can’t survive without the tax favors. This government lurch into the economics of the free press is a direct assault on press independence, and by logical extension on press freedom. It is, in my view, a violation of the First Amendment’s unequivocal ban on the government abridging freedom of the press. It will, in the end, through practice and precedent, be the end of the independent press if they are not nipped in the bud. “Freedom of the press” would become a hollow slogan. 

For New Jersey, it’s bill is a continuation of the Democrats’ assault on Press freedom under Governor Phil Murphy. Now it is spreading to the Federal level. These bills set America on the road to the Pravda-ization of the American press. 

* [I have often pointed out that a tax credit or wrote-off is not a subsidy, and that’s true. But unlike education tax credits or the home mortgage interest deduction, which applies to all parents of school-age children or all homelowners without discrimination, a credit or write-off narrowly tailored to specific private entities while excluding other private entities—in this instance, “local” media but not national media—it is government favoritism, and has the same effect as a subsidy. So, in this article, I will treat tax credits, write-offs, and subsidies as essentially the same thing.]   

** [Pravda was subsequently sold off, and eventually split up, after the fall of the Soviet Union.]

Related Reading:

New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s Immoral Taxpayer Grab

Keep the press free from the academics and the politicians by Paul Mulshine

NJ Government Takes First Step to Becoming ‘the Sole Arbiter of Truth’

N.J. just became the first state to help revive local news By Susan K. Livio -- NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Comments and Replies to QUORA: ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’

The Small Brain posted a comment under my answer to ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’.  I thought it worth replying to. Here is Small Brain’s comment, followed by my reply:

Communism isn’t collectivist, although it often is. I am a Communist, and I agree with your perception of society, just look up Ego-Communism, that simple. Communists don’t believe society to be some ‘God’. Also, Communism can’t descend into tyranny, Socialism can, and often does. Those nations you mentioned were State Socialist, North Korea even claims it’s not trying to become Communist, not since 1992. For example, I’m a Anarcho-Communist, meaning I support the abolition of the government, state, wage labor, and private property, that can’t descend into tyranny, because there is no tyrannical force to use tyranny as a weapon against the masses. When you say those nations are ‘Communist’, they are really Socialist, and not Communist. Communism abolishes all forms of a government, it is the embodiment of individual freedom at its greatest extent.

I posted this reply to Small Brain:

Anarchy is logically unworkable—Anarcho-Communist, Anarcho-Capitalist, whatever—and there is plenty of historical evidence to back this up. The closest humanity has come to anarchy was the pre-state tribal hunter-gatherer existence, and it was racked with such unspeakable levels of violence as to shock modern people into utter disbelief. Other examples of life without a state are the American frontier (the “Wild West” before government) and today’s organized criminal underworld, both of which were/are exceptionally violent anarchies. (See Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)

But pretending your Anarcho-Communist utopia is possible, let’s put your claims to the test. If, as you say, you favor abolishing wage labor and private property, while also advocating “individual freedom at its greatest extent,” then you’d be advocating voluntary communism like what has existed in the U.S. (See Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States; Harmony, Oneida, the Shakers, and Others, and John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms)*. 

If you mean what you say, people who don’t share your communist ideals would be free to go about their lives unmolested and uncoerced. An entrepreneur would be free to start a business and hire workers for wages to help him achieve his business mission, people would be free to work for wages, and both would be free to privately keep whatever property they earn through their work and voluntary trade. If you are sincere, you and other like-minded people would establish your communist associations by voluntary consent, renounce wages and personal property by mutual agreement among yourselves, and leave others who prefer a “capitalist” lifestyle free to pursue their values, including wage labor and private property—just as America’s Communistic Societies lived in peaceful coexistence and harmony with their surrounding capitalistic neighbors. Any other approach but voluntary consent to establishing communism is tyrannical and must necessarily lead to Soviet Russia, Red China, Cuba, North Korea, et al.

Of course, your group’s freedom to live out their communist ideals would still require a constitutionally limited government to protect your right to do so, just as America’s communist/socialist societies depended on the U.S. government and constitution to peacefully live out their creed. Freedom without individual rights, and a government of objective laws to secure them, means the freedom to do as you please without regard for others, including to rape, rob, murder. “Individual freedom at its greatest extent” is no freedom at all. For more, see my essay Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society.

* [Like it or not, communism is subsumed under the broader concept socialism. Historically, many communists have used the two terms interchangeably, with good reason.]

Related Reading:

Moral Rights and Political Freedom by Tara Smith

QUORA *: ‘Why do people find communism so terrifying as an idea?’

Nazism, Communism, Atheism, and the Enlightenment

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Does Freedom Equal "The Wild West"?

On the Barber/Binswanger Debate: ‘Freedom: For Whom and from What?’

The Unsung Heroes of the "Vaccine Thanks" that the Jersey Journal Forgot

The Jersey Journal ran a refreshing editorial titled Vaccine thanks -- for those who make ‘em, take ‘em and give ‘em out. The Journal opines:

What a difference a year makes.

Last Thanksgiving, most of us were hunkered down with just the members of our immediate household while phone calls, text messages, emails, FaceTime and Zoom helped us count our blessings with extended family and friends without risking a COVID super-spreader event.

Within weeks, vaccines started to get into arms and each month more and more people became eligible and rolled up their sleeves – and for that we are very, very thankful today.

The Journal offers Thanksgiving thanks to: 

• The scientists who developed the vaccines and who continue to develop increasingly effective treatments against COVID-19.

• The Trump and Biden administrations for fast-tracking vaccine production and distribution.

• The healthcare and administrative workers who get the shots into our arms.

• And each and every person who has been vaccinated.

What’s missing from this list? The elephant in the room—the pharmaceutical companies.

Business corporations are the institutions that organize the factors of production, make the crucial decisions, do the planning, provide the industrial facilities, and figure out how to get products into the hands of consumers. Business is the crucial link between the laboratories of the scientists and inventors and the useful products available to the end users in the market. The thinking, planning, and decision-making work of the management, and the investors who put up the financial capital, are crucial to the vaccine success story. In a time when the most overused word in the English language is “hero”, the Pharmaceutical companies are the unsung genuine heroes that the Jersey Journal’s vaunted thankfulness overlooks. 

“Big Pharma” should be prominently second on the list getting thanks. Profit-seeking business corporations are the unsung heroes not just of the pandemic but of the standards of living we enjoy, from the food we consume to the ability to make phone calls, text messages, emails, FaceTime and Zoom that we depended so much upon before the vaccines came along. It’s not that these others on the Journal’s list are not important to the productive process. It’s that without the commercialization services that business provides, there would be no one else to thank. Without these innovators, specifically the pharmaceutical companies—which, by the way, employ over 300,000 people in NJ—there would have been nothing for Trump and Biden to “fast-track” (relax obstructive government regulations of), and the vaccines would never have left the scientists’ labs, been produced by the hundreds of millions of doses, and gotten into the hands of the healthcare and administrative workers, let alone “our arms.” Imagine the $trillions of dollars in economic activity that would never have happened, the countless jobs that would not have come back, and the millions more who would have died, without Big Pharma.

So let me complete the Jersey Journal’s thank-you list. Thanksgiving thanks to the unsung heroes of the vaccine success story, the pharmaceutical companies who continue to make it possible to fight the pandemic.

Related Reading:

Menendez opposes fellow N.J. Democrat Pallone’s plan to lower drug prices By Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Pfizer Will Earn Billions in Profits from the Vaccines. It Should Be Much, Much More. by Scott Lincicome for The Dispatch

Without “Big Pharma,” Government Research Would Be Useless

Pharma Shouldn’t Apologize to Useless Do Gooders for their Life-Saving Vaccines

Basic Cancer Research Funding: Don’t Forget Pharma

A Thanksgiving Message

 [This year I want to express my thankfulness for the "climate deniers." These unjustly smeared climate thinkers are addressing climate change from a humanist perspective. They actually consider the facts, consider them rationally, and draw logical conclusions about climate and human fourishing. They have assembled a monumental body of fact-oriented work showing that the climate catastrophe scenario peddled by leading politicians, crony businesses, Environmentalists, and much of the media is fraud. The basis of the catastrophe movement is that any human impact on the raw nature is by that very fact immoral, including man's impact on the climate, regardless of the benefits to human well-being.

[The "demiers" hold a different perspective that prioritizes human well-being—humanism—at the moral center. And it yields different logical conclusions. This view is backed up by extensive research, including much of the same source material that the catastrophists use (and misuse). But the "deniers"—dissenters from the mainstream dogma—read the data to show that, from a human, rather than Environmentalist, perspective, that climate change has both positive and negative influences, is mild and manageable, and has coincided with the best climate for human life ever. True, the dissenters acknowledge, climate change can cause serious problems in the future. 

[But it is here that the principle "First, do no harm" must be honored. The catastrophists' moral premises demand immediate cutbacks  and elimination of reliable energy, industrial development, technological innovation, freedom of markets to avoid the chimera of a climate "crisis"—a cognitively useless phrase if there ever was one. To the catastrophists, human impact is not causing the crisis; human impact is the crisis, and must e stopped at all costs to man, however bad. To deal with any negatives resulting from man's impact on the climate, the dissenters want to preserve man's access to reliable energy, industrial development, technological innovation, freedom of markets, adapt where necessary, mitigate where possible, and be sure not to damage human progress in quality of life.

[To any followers of the climate catastrophist hustlers, ask yourself , Why do your leaders demonize dissenters as deniers. Why do they want to discourage you from familiarizing yourselves with the pro-human view? What are the deniers saying that the catastrophist thought leaders don't want you to know? Here is a list of some of the "deniers" and energy experts, whose thoughts any objective person must consider:   

Richard Lindzen, Naomi Seibt, Bjorn Lomborg, Michael Shellenberger (On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare), Judith Curry, Patrick Moore (ex-Greenpeace founder), Willam Happer, Roger Pielke Jr., Ronald Bailey, Steven E.Koonin, Ross McKittrick, Paul C. Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels,  Robert Balling Jr., Alex Epstein (Fossil Future), Freeman Dyson, John Christy, and many others.]

To these "climate deniers"—Thank you for your tireless effort to counter the climate catastrophist religion with honesty, realism, and humanism.  

---------------------------------------------------------

That said, reprinted below are two thanksgiving messages that I think captures the true essence of Thanksgiving, a holiday practiced only in America. Regardless of how one believes he came into existence (God or nature), the reality is that man is a being of self-generated wealth based on reason who requires certain social conditions for his survival. America was the first country founded explicitly on those conditions; i.e., a country where every individual owns his own life and possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and to the pursuit of his own happiness, coupled inextricably with the obligation to accept the reality that all people are equally endowed with these rights and to treat them accordingly.

It is thus that America, born of the Enlightenment ideas of reason, individualism, reason, free markets, and republican government, achieved in the span of a mere two hundred-plus years (following centuries of stagnation) its spectacular standard of living. The ensuing excerpts are from two essays that I believe correctly recognize where the credit for America's material plenty belongs: to any man or woman, on whatever level of ability or accomplishment, who contributed in a great or small way to American greatness by doing an honest and productive day's work in pursuit of his or her own well-being.

Thanksgiving: A Most Selfish Holiday by Debi Ghate

Ah, Thanksgiving. To most of us, the word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping weekend of the year. We're taught that Thanksgiving came about when pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. We vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head and the loved ones around us. We casually think about how lucky we are and how much better our lives are than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday.

What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving?

Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as "a typically American holiday . . . its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." She was right.

What is today's version of the "bountiful harvest"? It's the affluence and success we've gained. It's the cars, houses and vacations we enjoy. It's the life-saving medicines we rely on, the stock portfolios we build, the beautiful clothes we buy and the safe, clean streets we live on. It's the good life.

How did we get this "bountiful harvest"? Ask any hard-working American; it sure wasn't by the "grace of God." It didn't grow on a fabled "money tree." We created it by working hard, by desiring the best money can buy and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our stockbrokers, hairdressers and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday.

So, on Thanksgiving, why don't we thank ourselves and those producers who make the good life possible?

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to recognize what we are truly grateful for, to appreciate and celebrate the fruits of our labor: our wealth, health, relationships and material things--all the values we most selfishly cherish. We should thank researchers who have made certain cancers beatable, gourmet chefs at our favorite restaurants, authors whose books made us rethink our lives, financiers who developed revolutionary investment strategies and entrepreneurs who created fabulous online stores. We should thank ourselves and those individuals who make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable--those who help us live the much-coveted American dream.

As you sit down to your decadent Thanksgiving dinner served on your best china, think of all the talented individuals whose innovation and inventiveness made possible the products you are enjoying. As you look around at who you've chosen to spend your day with--those you've chosen to love--thank yourself for everything you have done to make this moment possible. It's a time to selfishly and proudly say: "I earned this."

Debi Ghate is associated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

This Thanksgiving, Don't Say Grace, Say Justice by Craig Biddle

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally--according to what they say, do, and produce--and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due--and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people--whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself--are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. ... Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they're through. It's the right thing to do.

Craig Biddle is the Editor of The Objective Standard.

I couldn't have said it better myself. These truths are obvious. A simple rudimentary knowledge of history, coupled with basic observation and logic, are all that's required to realize it. Thank you Debi Ghate and Craig Biddle!

Have a joyous, and well earned, Thanksgiving.

Related Reading:

The Star-Ledger's Thanksgiving Tantrum

Why Can’t Tom Moran Acknowledge the Common Collectivist Base of Affirmative Action and 20th Century Atrocities?

A recent op-ed posted by New Jersey Star-Ledger editor Tom Moran rightfully praised Princeton University for inviting a speaker who was “canceled” by another major university. In At Princeton, an inspiring defense of free speech, Moran writes:

Princeton University just came to the rescue of free speech by inviting a conservative speaker to campus after he was cancelled at MIT by progressives who couldn’t stand his views on affirmative action. 

MIT’s canceled speaker is University of Chicago Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot. It’s very inspiring to see slow but growing pushback against “cancel culture,” including by Leftists (or “progressives,” as Moran would probably prefer). It’s inspiring to see prominent intellectuals who understand that cancel culture is more than rude -- it’s a major threat to free speech. But I want to focus on an equally important sidebar, Moran’s view of the speaker’s take on Affirmative Action. Moran continues:

The story starts when MIT invited an expert on climate change from the University of Chicago, Assistant Prof. Dorian Abbot, to speak at an event sponsored by MIT and open to the public in Boston. Abbot, as it happens, is an aggressive opponent of affirmative action and has spoken and written about the damage he believes it’s causing to academia.

Americans believe, by a 3-1 margin, that race and ethnicity should play no role in hiring and promotions, and last year even blue California voted against affirmative action by a whopping 12-point margin. So his views are well within the mainstream, at least outside college campuses.

But Abbot expresses them in caustic language that seems intended to provoke. Here’s how he described affirmative action in an article he co-authored in Newsweek in August:

“It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant, ‘I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group.’”

To be clear, I think that’s nuts. You can make a reasonable argument against affirmative action, but that’s not it. Like it or not, affirmative action is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege. Hitler and Stalin had something entirely different in mind.

In fact, Abbot is spot-on, and we ignore his point at our, and America’s, peril. Abbot is referring, of course, to collectivism, the premise that the focus of moral, political, and cultural concern is the group, rather than the individual. Given that America’s foundation is built on collectivism’s opposite, individualism, why can’t Tom Moran acknowledge the common collectivist base that affirmative action and 20th century atrocities obviously share?

True, Hitler and Stalin (and other 20th Century monsters) didn’t have increased educational opportunities for members of minority groups in mind. But Hitler’s racist fascist imperialist dictatorship and Stalin’s imperialistic communist “workers paradise” couldn’t have happened without collectivist rationalizations. And neither could Affirmative Action. 

Moran claims the collectivist argument is not “a reasonable argument against affirmative action.” Apparently, he thinks it’s fine to ignore individual merits and qualifications in order to favor one racial group over another. I think that’s unreasonable -- and immoral. I think Affirmative Action’s racist orientation toward individuals’ immutable group characteristics (skin pigmentation) is grossly unfair. I believe it’s monstrous to penalize today’s non-racial minority students for injustices perpetrated by their racial ancestors against the ancestors of the intended racial minority beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. None of today’s college-aspiring students are either guilty of or victims of historical injustices. To paraphrase the great Thomas Sowell, no one is born with pre-packaged guilt or pre-packaged grievances. To say otherwise is to embrace collectivism.

Moran never explains why he believes Abbot’s argument is “nuts”. But the very next sentence tells it all. Affirmative Action, he says, “is an effort to crack open the doors to a more diverse group, a recognition that they have been closed for too long by racism and privilege [my emphasis].” Closed to whom? To a collection of ancestors, that’s who. That is the exact collectivist justification advanced by Hitler against the Jews—that individual living Jews are guilty because the Jews as a group have always been a plague on humanity. Stalin advanced a similar argument against the bourgeoisie to justify their extermination.

Yes, there are strong reasonable arguments against affirmative action, like its practical failures. But moral fundamentals trump the practical arguments, because bad morals lead to bad practical results. Affirmative Action programs fail because they ignore individual merits and qualifications and focus on group identity—or at least prioritize group identities. That’s the common denominator uniting “the atrocities of the 20th century” and Affirmative Action. Note that Moran places racial diversity over individual merit.

Why can’t Moran see the obvious? Because to acknowledge the evil of collectivism would explode the collectivist essence of his diversity worldview. 

Judging people as members of a group. That’s precisely what Affirmative Action does. And that’s exactly what Hitler and Stalin did. True, as degrees of evil, the Nazis and the Communists were far worse than Affirmative Action, and I don’t believe Abbot intended to say Affirmative Action and its advocates are modern day 20th Century monsters. But ideas are the primary drivers of history. Affirmative Action rests on a philosophical premise that travels a road that, in the distant future, ends with the Hitlers and Stalins of the world.

Philosophy is the engine of history. America was Founded on the individualist philosophic ideals of The Enlightenment. With that beacon of justice shining forward, we got the abolition of slavery, the equality of property rights for women, the end of marriage inequality, the universal voting rights for woman and blacks, the end of Jim crow and legalized segregation, and the receding of racism in America, the reactionary efforts of the neo-racists of the woke “anti-racist” movement notwithstanding. Collectivism is the ideology of and for savages, and the collectivist group diversity movements, like Affirmative Action, is indeed to “repeat the [philosophic] mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century.” Collectivism is always dangerous whenever and wherever it surfaces. Given its terrible track record, it should be called out. Kudos to Abbot for his moral courage in calling out these dangerous ideas. Moran is wrong to poo-poo Abbot’s brilliant observations. It’s his revulsion at Abbot that’s nuts.

Related Reading:

MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me. Let’s make sure my cancellation is the last. That begins by standing up and saying no to the mob.By Darian Abott

Politics 2012: Can “American Individualism” Save the GOP – and America?

Individualism vs. Collectivism and the Neglected False Moral Dichotomy

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

E.J. Dionne Answers the Call With Assault on "Extreme Individualism"

Pope Francis’ Critics Fail to Appreciate the Fundamental Motives Behind His Anti-Individualism

Collectivism Generates Irrational Hatred

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Related Viewing:

Individualism vs Collectivism - Dr. Yaron Brook