I’ve got a summer flu thanks to a pig at the library. He came in and immediately sneezed over the room last Saturday. So typical of the peasant classes. It can take me weeks and months to get over this type of infection. I had to spend the morning nursing a sore throat, so I read more Rand. Some of the essays were written after I was in school (university), hence I would not have read them. Once you leave school, you find there are very few people in the world who understand philosophy, not to be confused with “philosophizing”. I read [Ayn's essays] to see if I’d missed anything. Not really, since Rand and I agree on most topics, but I sure do like some of the flowery language, that's one thing journalism school is good for, at least some of the time. She loves big words. That was the style of the 60s. That, and bell-bottoms.
Her comments on smaller topics are amusing. She’ll be making a big point and give a small example. My favorite is her attitude toward folk art, that it is “excruciatingly boring; once you’ve seen one set of people clapping while jumping up and down, you’ve seen them all”. She is also right about altruism, a word that has fallen out of use. It is the term for the belief that man’s proper duty is to serve others, to sacrifice his life for the tribe if commanded to do so, whether or not he personally believes that is right.
My take on altruism is simple. If we are put here to help others, what are others put here for?
We have an interesting parallel where she talks about democracy as majority rule. I agree, but only on the really big issues. For example, while Americans should not be able to vote on where a given immigrant should be deported, they should be able to vote on whether or not they, as Americans, want immigration in the first place. Rand barely mentions this difference although it is a concept most people get exactly wrong. I know first hand what it is like to have majority rule while I was growing up, particularly the while-your-back-is-turned majority rule.
That’s also where I learned the necessity of privacy. I noticed that the majority only "vote" to divide up your property after they find out you have any. Hence, the best method of keeping anything of value was not a high fence. Stupid people hate fences. Ergo, privacy. Those people need an inventory of your assets before they can covet the things they don't have That same principle is why I am against income tax. You can't take income tax without knowing too much about the other man's affairs. There are also other reasons I dislike, not all tax, but income tax.
I looked at some motor scooters. The smaller 49cc models, what you might call a pizza delivery scooter. The shop up the road here is selling them brand new for $899. I have an aversion to buying new vehicles, but that price is so low I’m certain he’s barely making money. The top speed is just over 50 mph, more than enough for any street in this town, but still pretty gutless. I’m shopping for a used unit in the $300 range. Something that gets me to bingo and downtown, an operation that takes a half-hour on the bicycle. Each way.
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