James Taranto to Forgo Entire Bank Account!

In an earlier post, I asked whether James Taranto would call Greg Ferrando an "idiotarian." Well, he did, but only after reiterating the same insult for the Ayn Rand Institute! Incredibly, he even sides with the U.N. in its criticism of the United States for not giving enough money away! This is what he derisively quotes from an ARI clarification of an earlier op-ed, which he incorrectly claims was a renunciation of the earlier statement.

The ugly hand of altruism--the moral view that need entitles a person to the values of others, whose corresponding duty is to sacrifice their values for that person's sake--did show itself in the petulant demands of U.N. and other officials that "stingy" countries must give more. On their view, the U.S. has no right to the wealth it has produced, because it has produced it; the helpless victims of the tsunami have a right to that wealth, because they desperately need it. This perverse view is not an expression of goodwill toward man. In generously providing aid, the U.S. government should repudiate all such altruistic demands and refuse to associate with the organizations that make them.

So let me get this straight. A huge wave kills hundreds of thousands and threatens many more, therefore we haven't the right to our own property? Why? And arguing for property rights is morally equivalent to some hippie describing a sandy graveyard as "pristine"? To an altruist, it is. Taranto is as bad as I said he was.

I have a new question for James Taranto. When are you going to lead by example and donate every last cent you have to your name to help the tsunami victims? The longer you sit in your cushy office and pontificate, the greater the stench of your hypocrisy. Oh! You don't say? So you plan to do that about the same time that all those PEST victims move to Canada? That's what I thought!

Still, I thank James Taranto. The more outrageous the statement, the more attention it gets. I first became interested in Objectivism when I read a snide comment by someone like Taranto in my college newspaper. The comment was, "How can an obscure philosophy that preaches atheism and selfishness be profound?" I was skeptical, but wanted to know what that was all about. Unlike Taranto, I knew a good thing when I saw it.

-- CAV

Updates

1-17-05: Added link to idiotarian BOTW entry, which has the following disclaimer: "Links were good at the time we posted this column, but they often go bad after a while. We make no guarantees."