I guess this means we are doomed.

Jesus and Ayn Rand

A friend of mine sent out a group email about Ayn Rand a few days ago.  The recipients were mostly church members.  Here’s the gist of it…..

A few days ago, (spouse) and I watched a documentary about the life and work of Ayn Rand.  She summed up her philosophy in two words:  objective reality.  Even though her parents were Jewish, at about age 10, she confided to her diary that she was an atheist.   Possibly she used objective reality because, leaving The Soviet Union in 1926, she saw how propaganda and coercion could create false reality and control people.  She abhorred altruism, the idea on which Communism and Nazism were able to function by convincing people that the individual is unimportant, that only the group, the nation is worthy of dedication.  She believed each person should pursue self interest openly without deception.

Is it possible that, when we do something good or charitable, we do so in order to feel better about ourselves, to earn approval of our peer group or, in some cases,  to earn a reward after death?  If true, it would mean the person doing good is acting on enlightened self interest. 

I realize you may consider this silly and unworthy of thought or comment, but if you have any thoughts on Rand's work or this  subject, I would be glad to receive them.   Possibly you will share your thoughts with this group of addressees.

I sent back the following, from Rand’s 1964 Playboy interview:

“My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.

It is altruism that has corrupted and perverted human benevolence by regarding the giver as an object of immolation, and the receiver as a helplessly miserable object of pity who holds a mortgage on the lives of others—a doctrine which is extremely offensive to both parties, leaving men no choice but the roles of sacrificial victim or moral cannibal . . . .

To view the question in its proper perspective, one must begin by rejecting altruism’s terms and all of its ugly emotional aftertaste—then take a fresh look at human relationships. It is morally proper to accept help, when it is offered, not as a moral duty, but as an act of good will and generosity, when the giver can afford it (i.e., when it does not involve self-sacrifice on his part), and when it is offered in response to the receiver’s virtues, not in response to his flaws, weaknesses or moral failures, and not on the ground of his need as such.”

This prompted a few emails about Rand’s atheism, and the vast philosophical chasm that separates Ayn Rand and Jesus.  Here’s a sample, from a guy I genuinely admire:

Ayn Rand was very clear that her personal philosophy is the antithesis of the Christian teaching on selfless love.  She disagreed with Jesus in a fundamental way and made no bones about it.  It follows, therefore, that if Christians are attracted to her philosophy they are either confused, they think Rand seriously misread Jesus, or they see Christianity as a private matter with few moral implications.  I think Rand was right on the money.  The two philosophies are antithetical.  Jesus has my vote.

It went on for a while longer.  Most of the people copied on the email were good church people, all of whom I respect and admire.  I like to think that these are the people who would come to my aid if my family were to get into serious trouble.  I like to think that I would help them out in similar circumstances.  But I started thinking about what Rand said and what Jesus said.  NOT how they’ve both been interpreted, but what they actually said. 
Jesus supposedly said the following, in Matthew 6.  The additional italics are mine, for emphasis:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (money).

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?
 
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his height?

And why do you worry about clothing?   Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow; they don't work, neither do they spin fabric for themselves:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these flowers.

Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, How shall we be clothed?

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

That's kinda intense. 
Don't worry about what you're going to eat or drink. 
Look at the birds.  They don't grow crops, but God cares about them and provides for them.  Aren't you better than they are? 
Consider the flowers.  They don't work.  They don't make fabric, or anything else, yet they're more beautiful than Solomon! 
 

Here’s Matthew 5:40 – 42:  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. And if someone forces you to carry his load for a mile, go with him for two miles. Give to him that asks upi, and from him that would borrow of you, turn not him away”.

Translated: If the damn lawyers take away your jacket, let 'em have your overcoat also.  If someone forces you to carry their load for a mile, go ahead and put in two miles.  GIVE to anyone who wants what you have, and if someone wants to borrow from you DO NOT turn them away. 

Luke 14:12-14: “Then said he also to him that asked him, When you make a dinner or a supper, call not your friends, nor your brethren, neither your kinsmen, nor your rich neighbors; lest they also ask tyou again, and a recompense be made thee. But when you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and you shall be blessed; for they cannot recompense you: for you shall be paid back at the resurrection of the just”
 
Don't have family over for dinner.  Ever.  Never, ever, ever.  Always feed the street people first. 
 
Now.... Compare Ayn Rand's statements on charity with those of Jesus.  I only know of one Christian who lives his life according to the statements of Christ quoted above, and most people think the guy is stark raving mad.  Maybe he is. 
 
Everyone that I know, and I mean everyone, Christian or not, tries to maintain health and life insurance, and keep up their house payments.  They try to get educations so they can provide for themselves and their families.  I've never seen anyone go into debt so they can feed more strangers, and I've never seen a robin drop worms into every nest in the forest. 
 
The average yearly income on this planet is $6,000 per person.  I've never known any follower of Christ to give away his stuff until he had less than that.  Ayn Rand advocated giving to people you feel like giving to, but only if it's not going to put you at risk.  Jesus taught that we should sacrifice ourselves, our stuff, and our security. 
 
In short, there has been an ongoing battle in the Christian church between the philosophy of Ayn Rand and the philosophy of Jesus. 
 
Ayn Rand has won it. 

There's no way to rule innocent men

There's been a lot of rejoicing amongst my pot-smoking friends because of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to enforce some of the existing marijuana possession laws. 

I take an opposite view. 

The best way to get rid of bad laws is to enforce the hell out of them. Create some outrage.  Giving prosecutors the authority to pick and choose which laws to enforce gives them the authority to pick and choose which groups to favor, and that is a bad, bad thing. 

"Prosecutorial Discretion" works like this: You want to build a warehouse.  The government inspector in charge of plumbing finds that your contractor has violated some bullshit rule about plumbing.  The inspector agrees that it's a bullshit rule, and he ok's pouring a bunch of concrete on top of the pipes and drains that make up the plumbing system.  But he always, always, always makes a note that your plumbing broke the law. 

At that point, he owns you.  If you raise hell with City Hall about anything for the rest of your life, or if you contribute to the mayor's opponent, or if you want to simply fight some other ridiculous law,the plumbing inspector can waltz in and insist that your rip up the concrete in your warehouse and repair the plumbing that isn't up to code.

The same thing happens with those possessing marijuana.  They let you slide with small amounts, but they make note of it.  You have broken the law.  You think that you're ok with The Man, but you aren't.  Not even close.  The next time you try to fight a zoning ordinance, protest a war too loudly, or run for office, they've got you.  You were found to be in possession of an illegal amount of marijuana. 

They own you !! 

Here's one of Ayn Rand's villains in "Atlas Shrugged" explaining the concept:

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

 There's no way to rule innocent men. 

 

Ayn Rand, John Galt, and Original Sin

I just finished reading the John Galt "radio speech" from "Atlas Shrugged".
Parts of the early section are tiresome; the last half is some of the greatest stuff I've ever read.

The short section on "Original Sin" jumped out at me. For those of you who weren't raised in the Bible Belt, Original Sin is a St. Paul/St. Augustine invention which states that ever since Eve ate the forbidden fruit, we've been cursed (pre-birth) as sinners.
In the eyes of God, we're guilty as soon as the doctor cuts the cord. Here's some context from Genesis:

The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring^[a] and hers;
he will crush^[b] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

²⁰ Adam^[c] named his wife Eve,^[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

For most of my life, I've tried to reconcile my somewhat fundamentalist religious upbringing with the reality that I saw around me. 
I've seen that Knowledge is a good thing, as opposed to being something that is the consequence of a curse. 
I believe that Knowledge keeps us warm, fed, healthy, and happy.  
I believe that people are fundamentally good, and will help each other without being forced to do so at gunpoint. 
I've noticed that a lot of kids who weren't raised in any particular religious rigmarole seem to have fewer problems than some of those who were. 
And, of course, I've noticed that people who don't believe that most foreigners are going to go to hell....well, they get along better with foreigners. 
Here's the section on Original Sin, from John Galt's infamous "radio speech" near the end of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". 

"Damnation is the start of your morality, destruction is its purpose, means and end. Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice. It demands, as his first proof of virtue, that he accepts his own depravity without proof. It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself, by means of which he is then to define the good: the good is that which he is not.


It does not matter who then becomes the profiteer on his renounced glory and tormented soul, a mystic God with some incomprehensible design or any passer-by whose rotting sores are held as some explicable claim upon him - it does not matter, the good is not for him to understand, his duty is to crawl through years of penance, atoning for the guilt of his existence to any stray collector of unintelligible debts, his only concept of a value is a zero: the good is that which is non-man.

The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin. A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code.

Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.

What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge - he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor - he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire - he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was - that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man.

Man's fall, according to your teachers, was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His evil, they charge, is that he's man. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives. They call it a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man."

Damn. 
This book, which was the Gateway Drug into Libertarianism for a lot of people, is slowly making my head explode. 
I've read plenty of excerpts, and skimmed it a few times in the past, but reading all 1200 pages cover-to-cover has been one amazing experience. 
I think I'm going to read Paul Krugman's "The Conscience Of A Liberal", just to cleanse the palate, and then read "Atlas Shrugged" again.  This time with a highlighter. 
We have a lot of problems in the U.S.   According to some, honest accounting would prove that we have more unemployed workers in 2012 than during the Great Depression.  Team Red and Team Blue are putting on Performance Art about an idiotic "Fiscal Cliff" deal.  We're 17 trillion in debt.  Obama is sending drones to kill children, and, incidentally, create more terrorists. 

This could be improved if every industrialist, business owner, and creator were to send John Galt's message to Washington:

"Get The Hell Out Of My Way." 

Which of King Herod's programs would Jesus support?

From the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 21, verses 9-18: 

And Jesus turned to his disciples, saying 'Blessed is he who sees his brother in pain, or naked, or hungry, and says unto his brother, "Fear not, for I shall get Caesar involved.  Otherwise, I might be personally inconvenienced." 

And the disciples said unto Jesus, "Master, Master, did not you ask us to forsake our homes, our nets, our boats, and our families so that we could help the least of all these?" 

And Jesus mocked them, saying, "Yea, verily, I say unto you, in my Father's house are many mansions.  And the greatest of these shall go to those who are really tight with King Herod." 

Go here for the latest example of the church saying "Let's get Caesar involved".   As if Jesus would really support the Department Of Health And Human Services money pit. 

On Greed

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce.

I’ve had this "money speech" from Atlas Shrugged on the bulletin board over my desk for about a year now.  It's great, and I hope you'll hit the link and read all of it. 

There are three ways to get money:

1) Steal it.
2) Win it/Inherit it/Find it.
3) Swap something of value for it.

On the other hand, there are three things you can do with money:

1) Have it stolen from you/Lose it to taxes.
2) Give it away.
3) Swap something of value for it.

When we say that someone is greedy, we usually mean that he hangs on to more of his money or more of his “stuff” than we think a normal person would. He doesn’t give away much of it or swap much of it for other stuff.

But if the greedy man came by his money honestly, through methods #2 or #3, that means he either swapped something of value for the money, or someone else did (probably a parent) who wanted him to have the proceeds.

Webster defines “Greed” as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed”. Whether the following people have that selfish and excessive desire isn’t really known, but they do have far more than is needed. They lead off the Fortune 400 list of richest Americans. Here are the Top Ten:

10. Alice Walton | Worth: $20.9 billion (Wal-Mart)
9. Jim Walton | Worth: $21.1 billion (Wal-Mart)
8. Sheldon Adelson | Worth: $21.5 billion (Casinos)
7. George Soros | Worth: 22 billion (Hedge Funds)
6. Christy Walton | $24.5 billion (Wal-Mart)
4. David Koch | Worth: $25 billion (diversified)
4. Charles Koch | Worth: $25 billion (diversified)
3. Larry Ellison | Worth: $33 billion (Oracle)
2. Warren Buffet | Worth: $39 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)
1. Bill Gates | Worth: $59 billion (Microsoft)

I’m writing this on a computer that uses Microsoft programs, I just finished shipping four truckloads of display equipment to Wal-Mart, the facility I’m working in has leased 30,000 square feet of space to TTI (owned by Warren Buffett), and I read websites partially sponsored by the Koch brothers every week. (The Agitator, Cato, etc.) I have no idea what Larry Ellison does, but I’m sure that this laptop is a better machine as a result. George Soros is the only outlier, in that I can’t quite determine how he’s made my life better, other than donating vast sums of money for drug policy reform in the U.S.

Some of these people give away vast sums of their money. Others don’t.  But they didn't have to give away their money to enrich my life. 

By Webster’s definition, though, all of them still have enough money to be considered “greedy”. They’ve wound up with far, far more than anyone needs.

How did they do this happen? Did they steal it? No. Did they find it? No. Did the government give it to them after taking it from someone else? No.

They, or someone in their family, provided goods and services that were worth more than money. You and I voluntarily gave the Waltons, Bill Gates, and the Koch brothers some vast sums of money in exchange for stuff they provided – garden hoses, underwear, or groceries (in the case of the Waltons) software (in the case of Gates) or oil (in the case of Charles and David Koch).

They Ellisons, Gateses, Waltons and Kochs don’t need or want all of the stuff that their money will now buy. And they don’t want to sell their companies.

Bill Gates wrote computer programs that I’ve purchased. Millions of other people have swapped their money for his computer software.  But dammit, I can’t think of a single thing I could create that Bill Gates would want to buy from me.

I want what he’s got, and I want it badly. Bill Gates doesn’t want anything that I have.

Which one of us is greedy?  And which one of us does the world need more of? 

Howard Roark's Trial Speech, Barack Obama's "You Didn't Build That", and Elizabeth Warren's "Roads" speech

I finished Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead this morning.  Good book. It's the story of an architect named Howard Roark who struggles to turn his vision into reality while being opposed by parasites, second-handers, and public opinion.  He agrees to design a housing project called The Cortland Homes as a favor for a friend, and for the joy of seeing the thing built.  He has one stipulation.  No one can change his design.  
Government parasites change his design, just for the hell of it, and to prove that they did something that day.  

Roark dynamites the housing project.  

Throughout the book, I couldn't help but think of the vast armies of regulators, busybodies, nannies, Family Values Republicans, Patronage Democrats, compassion democrats and their ilk who would be lined up for miles to keep Howard Roark from getting his buildings off the ground. 

Here's the speech from Roark's trial.  I've inserted quotes from a few contemporary politicians just to draw some contrasts.  See the italics. 

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.


“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

There are a lot of wealthy succesful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. - Barack Obama

“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.

“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.

“But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. - Barack Obama

“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.


“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.

“The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

“Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you, But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did." - Elizabeth Warren

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

“The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

“Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." - Elizabeth Warren

“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.


“Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

“Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

“The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

“A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

“Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

“But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.

“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

“The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

“The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.

“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!

“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.

“I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

“Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.

“I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

“I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.

“It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.

“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.

“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

"You didn't build that" - Barack Obama 

Liberty Book Discussion Group - "Anthem" by Ayn Rand

Thursday, April 26th at 7:30 p.m., we're going to get together at the Downtown Cowtown Barnes & Noble (401 Commerce Street) to discuss Ayn Rand's "Anthem", a mini-masterpiece about one man's struggle against a collectivist state. No struggle on your part, though, as you can easily finish the book in one sitting, and the complete text is available on numerous websites.  You still have time. 

I'll deliver a brief history and summary of the book, followed by discussion time. Before we wrap up the conversation, we'll vote on which book to read and discuss in June, and elect someone to lead that discussion. We intend to hold these book discussion events every other month, so "Capitalism And Freedom", "Atlas Shrugged", "Economics In One Lesson", "The Rational Optimist", "The Fountainhead", "The Revolution: A Manifesto", "The Road To Serfdom", and "Eat The Rich" all await us.

If things go as they usually do, we'll probably wander across the street to The Flying Saucer to continue the discussion, but more loudly. 

Hope to see you there, and when you're reading "Anthem" be grateful for your light bulbs. (That's a joke. If you don't get it, you will after you read the book.

Speaking of light bulbs, now that I've re-read "Anthem", I see something even more sinister about these damn things.....

Stuff Libertarians Say !!!

John Galt has left California

My employer, Jukt Micronics, recently opened a west coast warehouse to serve our customers in that region. 
 
Where did we go - L.A.?  Long Beach?  San Diego?  San Fran? 
Nope. 
We opened our west coast warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona.  That's a long way from the coast, where the shipping containers come in, but it's worth the drive.   

No one in his right mind will open anything in California.  The place is a regulatory hell.  The taxes are ridiculous. 

Here's something from Bloomberg News:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.


Tax returns with adjusted gross incomes topping $500,000 fell to 98,610 in 2009, the latest year available, from a recent peak of 146,221 two years earlier, according to data from the Franchise Tax Board, the state agency that collects income and corporate taxes.

Once again, here's the good part:

California (STOCA1) Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009.

It's called Going Galt.  May the trend continue until Jerry Brown changes his ways. 

The d'Anconia Copper T-Shirt

I know what I'm getting my friend Mike Coyne for Christmas this year !!  (Inside joke)

Go here for the text of the famous d'Anconia money speech from "Atlas Shrugged". 
Go here to purchase the shirt. 
For devotees of Big Government who have difficulty reading, here's a recording. 



"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

The Libertarian Night Before Christmas

I found this on Libertarian Reddit.  (I'm finding LOTS of stuff this morning, waiting on the family to wake up!)
Ten years ago, I wouldn't have understood half of it.  It's funny what blind panic and fear for your country will make you learn ! 
Once again, Merry Christmas !!!

Twas the night before Christmas, and all over the net

Libertarian infighting, as good as it gets.

The young cats and rookies, the intellectual debtors

watch left and right scrum over racist news letters.


Should anarchists vote? Or is it a crock?

'Wendy's a statist!' Exclaimed Walter Block.

Anarchists, minarchists, a matter of degrees?

You min-mins are fascists! Awaiting kings decrees!


Atheist, Christian, Muslim or Jew

We don't fight over faith, like statists do.

We prefer to fight over who should be ruling.

And private vs public vs un-or-homeschooling.


Taxation is theft, and all war is murder.

Further consensus? Good luck, cat herder.

Even semantics are points for a schism,

Call it free-markets, or capitalism?


Austria or Chicago? Friedman or Mises?

Is Peikoff the pope, if Ayn Rand is Jesus?

Konkin or Rothbard? What's on your shelves?

Ah hell, what's the difference, Ron Paul twenty-twelve!


So on Hayek and Murray, on Ron and on Ayn.

On Ludwig and Milton! on Bastiat and Heinlein.

Let's call a truce, friends, for just this one night.

Then on the 26th... libertarians.... FIGHT!

The Rand Album Cover came from here. 

Ayn Rand and Jesus and wanting to have your cake and eat it too

From Rational Public Radio comes an interesting essay about the two factions within the Republican Party - the Ayn Rand faction and the Jesus faction:

This may surprise you but I'm about to agree, in very large part, with the left wing Christian group American Values Network. They recently wrote an essay claiming that Jesus and Ayn Rand were incompatible. That you couldn't hold the values of both simultaneously.


On the surface, that shouldn't be a very controversial position. After all Rand was a notoriously militant atheist philosopher. With the rise of the Tea Parties, Rand's influence has been growing. Rand Paul R-KY assigns some of her work as required reading for his staffers. The Solicitor General, arguing before the eleventh circuit court that Obamacare violated the "constitution of Ayn Rand", but not the constitution of the United States.

After long decades of violent rejection of Rand, the GOP is starting to accept some of her ideas. Slowly, and incompletely no doubt. However, Just as the Republicans of old despised Rand for her atheism (see National Review's slanderous review of Atlas Shrugged) the left hates her for her unflinching support of Capitalism and Free markets.

Rand has risen high enough on the collective radar of the collectivists that they feel the need to counter her influence. American Values Network has released a startlingly honest and accurate attack on her.

"GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible."



Don't get me wrong, they couldn't be more mistaken in their evaluation of the moral status of Rand and Jesus. However, they couldn't be more right about the conflict between the two. On one hand, there is the mystical altruism commanded by the Bible. The purest political implementation of Altruism is Communism.

Hit the link to read the rest. 

Atlas Shrugged - They didn't screw it up.

I went to the local premiere of the Atlas Shrugged movie last night in Southlake. 

Southlake is having an arts festival in the same shopping center as the theatre, and I decided to grab something to eat and check out the artists before the movie started.  I found a great Steak-K-Bob, paid for it, and then decided to step into the beer booth for a Bud Lite. 

Beer Lady: Do you have coupons? 

Me: What?

Beer Lady: You know how it is, sorry for the hassle, but we have to ask you to purchase some coupons at the next table, and then you can redeem the coupons for beer. 

Me: Huh? 

Beer Lady: You know how it is, it's one of the rules of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.  We're not allowed to sell beer, but we can exchange beer for coupons that were purchased elsewhere. 

So I took four steps to the left, bought four dollars worth of coupons from the Coupon Lady, took another four steps back to the right, and exchanged my coupons with the Beer Lady for a Bud Lite. 

This ritual didn't help anybody, it added unnecessary costs to the transaction, no one would've been harmed if the Beer Lady had been allowed to take my money.  But we can't allow Bud Lite Beer Ladies to simply sell Bud Lite without the State's blessings, can we? 

No.   

This puts one into a fine frame of mind for watching Atlas Shrugged.  Sorry for the digression. 

I hung out with numerous libertarian-types after the movie, and our most common comment was....they didn't screw it up.  Thank God they didn't screw it up. 

The screenplay isn't particularly good, the acting is nothing special, the Reardon Metal tracks and John Galt trains employ special effects that look like early 1980's.  The editing is kinda sloppy.  I was sitting by my friend Michael Coyne, a fine guitarist, and he shared my opinion that some of the background music was good, and some of it seemed borrowed from another movie.  But at least they didn't screw it up !!!

I once spent two years of my life doing metal price quotes.  When pricing metal, there are a lot of factors you have to take into account, and that's just for building fruitstands.  In this movie, Hank Reardon instantly commits to about half a dozen massive metal deals without even calculating the expenses on the back of a napkin.  Granted, he was trying to bed his customer, but one of those deals was for a bridge that rivals anything in North America.  I almost broke out in giggles.  But they didn't screw it up !!!!

I spent last weekend with my daughter at a two-day beer and music event called "Chilifest".  There were people at Chilifest who had an alcoholic beverage in hand for 48 hours.  That was nothing compared to the cast of Atlas Shrugged.  Those actors drank like Prohibition was just around the corner.  I stayed for the end credits, just to see if "Turning Leaf" had paid a product placement fee.  But at least they didn't screw it up !!!

Another problem....Rand's novel is set in an imaginary future.  Since this was a very low-budget production, there wasn't much money for funding any whiz-bang future.  So the future looks like....now, but with lots of trains.  There wasn't much money for the set designer to come up with any elaborate CEO offices, or a corporate Valhalla for the Taggart board meetings.  And the dress that Dagny wears to the Reardon anniversary party?  I think I've seen it before.  On a bridesmaid.  But the bridesmaid's version didn't need ironing.  The filmakers made some mistakes in the movie adaptation of this novel, but at least they didn't totally screw it up !!!

I'll purchase the DVD to this thing because it reflects reality.  Washington crusaders are shown to be the calculating parasites that they are.  Entrepreneurs are shown working longer hours than the people that they support.  This is a movie about a business and corporations, but the CEO's of these corporations are not in an underground lair, plotting to kill all their customers from deep inside a hollowed-out volcano, just so they can increase their margins.  You start thinking....what would happen if the a-holes that run my company went on strike? 

There was a very libertarian audience on hand for the showing in Southlake, so Dagny Taggart's line about "I'll let you and your Washington friends solve that problem" got a massive laugh.  One sequence of headlines and magazine covers had the guys sitting behind me saying things like "saw it today", "now", and "General Electric". 

The audience cheered loudly when the title flashed on the screen, something I think I've only seen done for the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter movies. 

They cheered just as loudly when the movie ended, mostly because....they didn't totally screw it up !!!

When the book was released in the late 1950's, mainstream critics ripped it all to pieces, but it has gone on to be one of the bestselling novels of all time, and one of the most influential.  I hope this first installment will earn enough to justify some upgrades on the next two. 

Overall, just because of the subject matter, I'd give it a 6 or 7 on the 10 scale.  It's nowhere near as good as the book, but with only a 20 million dollar budget, it's far superior to the Barack Obama Community Theatre version that has cost us trillions.  Now THAT version is screwed up. 

Rand Paul's reading list

I've got high hopes for newly elected Senator Rand Paul, despite his unfortunate alignment with the Boehner Boehlout Roehpublicans. 
Every time I've heard him speak or read his interviews, I come across familiar, comforting phrases and concepts. 
I think the guy is libertarian to the core. 

I just picked up a copy of his new book, The Tea Party Goes To Washington. 
The "suggestions for further reading" in the back look like they were written by someone trying to get more Karma for his Libertarian Reddit account. 
Seriously.  Nobody's reading list is this perfect.  Well, there are a few outliers....

If you're looking for a good place to start learning about the libertarian philosophy and movement, you could do a lot worse than this list.  Man, can you imagine discussing this stuff with Dr. Ron Paul around the dinner table every night? 
Here's what he lists under "Must-read classics in the cause of liberty":

• The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich A. Hayek
• The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
• Human Action, Ludwig von Mises
• Conceived in Liberty, Murray N. Rothbard
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Some of you might quibble with the inclusion of Barry Goldwater, but I think Goldwater gains admission to the pantheon of great libertarians because of his firm stance against the theocrats of the religious right.  His quip that "Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass" was some sound advice that fell on deaf ears. 

Rand Paul's next reading category proves that he is, after all, his daddy's boy:

• The Revolution: A Manifesto, Ron Paul
• End the Fed, Ron Paul
• A Foreign Policy Of Freedom, Ron Paul

The Foreign Policy title is almost unknown, but I wish more Libertarians would check it out.  It took some guts to write that thing at the time Dr. Paul wrote it.  His advice that the U.S. should mind its own business wasn't and isn't popular among Republicans, Democrats, Defense Contractors, or anyone else whose wealth depends on us periodically going overseas to blow up brown people. 

Next, he lists some economics titles:

• Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, Thomas E. Woods Jr.
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, Robert P. Murphy
• Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure, Glenn Beck
• Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt

Why do Libertarians concern themselves so much with economics?  Because they know that debt restricts freedom.  They know that taking money from productive people and giving it to political parasites restricts freedom.  And Libertarians don't like restrictions. 
A brief aside about Glenn Beck and his inclusion....I can't watch his TV program without dosing off, although he often quotes many of the writers listed here.  His "weepiness in front of the chalkboard schtick" exhausts me.  His books look like they are formatted by the same people who produce middle school Social Studies textbooks, and that format makes my eyes hurt.  But I've browsed his "Broke" a couple of times, and can't find anything in there to disagree with.  Even a blind hog can sometimes find an acorn. 

Next are some titles about how the Constitution relates to the Tea Party, and vice-versa:

• Who Killed The Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush, Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R.C. Gutzman
• The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land, Andrew P. Napolitano
• Red State Uprising: How to Take America Back, Erick Erickson and Lewis K. Uhler
• The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise, Joe Scarborough

If you've never set up a Libertarian Party Booth at a Tea Party rally and discussed the constitutionality of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, well, you've missed a controversial afternoon.  If memory serves, the Woods and Napolitano titles deal with this issue, but I'm not familiar with the other two.  Let's just say that there are a lot of people who call themselves economic conservatives who think Jefferson, Madison and Monroe woulda loved the idea of an entrenched welfare state. 

Here are Rand Paul's suggestions for Foreign Policy reading:

• The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Andrew J. Bacevich
• Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, Chalmers Johnson
• Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror, Michael Scheuer
• Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, Patrick J. Buchanan
• Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914, Stanley Weintraub

I've only read Blowback, by the late Chalmers Johson, Silent Night, and the Pat Buchanan title.  Blowback is greatness.  Buchanan is good on the evils of an American Empire, IMAO, but he wants to turn us into something like Feudal China when it comes to foreign trade. 
My little brother, the history prof, turned me onto the Silent Night book a while back.  If you aren't familiar with the Xmas Truce of 1914, it's a beautiful story.  The troops on both sides of the trenches said "screw this", played soccer, made toasts, swapped a few presents, and just generally hung out and wondered why they were trying to kill each other.  The next day, the mindless slaughter resumed.   

Ok, here are some of Rand Paul's suggested Websites and Organizations:

• Cato Institute
• The Heritage Foundation
• Campaign for Liberty
• Young Americans for Liberty
• The Ludwig von Mises Institute
• and several others

I don't have time to look up links all night, but you can Google them.  The Cato and von Mises folks make me look like Harry Reid.  Hard-core libertarian to the core. 
And finally, Paul lists several other people, thanking them for permission to quote from their original material.  Included are:

• Peter Schiff
• Matt Welch (of Reason magazine)

When it comes to freedom and liberty, those two guys are greatness. 

So....I think we can safely say that Senator Rand Paul is a Libertarian.  That's a great reading list, and I hope you'll check out some of the books he listed.  Good, good stuff.