I've read most of the posts on this book review and seen many defenses of Rand, objectivism, libertariansim and so on. They say generally the same thing: freedom and rights are the most important values and the "liberal" government is bent on denying them.

But here's a simple question: what is it that you want to do that you can't do now (in America)? What exactly are the mean liberals and the evil government denying you? How is your lifestyle cramped from what you want it to be?

I like living in America, I got the vast majority of the rights I want. I can read and study any subject. I can worship (or not) as I please. I can befriend who I desire. I can travel freely. I can open whatever business I've a mind to. And so on. Oh, things are not perfect certainly, but they are pretty good. The government does a good job of securing those rights, no bullies have prevented me from enjoying them.

These objectivists and libertarians doth protest too much. Meanwhile they speak nothing of compassion, love of fellow human beings, the "social contract" the commonwealth, self-sacrifice, courtesy and in general just being nice. It's just all about them and getting what they want non-stop.

-Doughdee222

"Will conservatives ever tire of being wrong all the time?"

Dear Doughdee222, Might I just thank you for this healthy dose of reality? What irritates me -- indeed, frightens me -- so much about the Ayn Rand fanatics is their obstinate lack of interest in confronting the complexities of the real world, a world in which, as you point out, we enjoy a relatively high degree of personal freedom. Any sane person should be able to recognize that human nature is marked by both egoistical and altruistic impulses, and that a healthy, functioning, safe, prosperous, stabile society requires a political order that takes both into consideration. It is here that the real work should begin: how and to what degree do we balance the need for individual liberty with the equally real need for that liberty to be occasionally subordinated to the common good? Rand abstracts (that is, "lifts out") one dimension of the problem and tries to absolutize it. As Jennifer Burns points out in her quite good biography of Rand, she lived as much in the abstract, one-dimensional world of her novels as she did in the world the rest of us inhabit. Philosophically, Rand is basically a zero. She's not taken seriously by academics because she's a crude and simplistic thinker, enshrining a principle of extreme self-interest that every toddler is aware of and trying to build a coherent worldview around it. Ambiguity, nuance, uncertainty, and complexity have no place in her thought. It's just not a very serious body of work. As a novelist, I personally think Rand is terrible. I tried reading 'Atlas Shrugged' when I was sixteen and gave up after a hundred pages. It's almost unreadable, at least to anyone familiar with the pleasures of real literature. Self-interest is the basic tenet of a capitalist economy. But we don't just live in an economy. We also live in a polity, a society, and a culture in which maximizing one's wealth and economic opportunity conflict with other values. There are plenty of things a Randian libertarian can't do -- evade paying taxes, own a bazooka, treat employees as a commodity only, pee on my car -- and if they feel these restrictions are serious infringements on their personal liberty, that's fine by me. But it tells us far more about their stunted personalities than it does about the nature of liberty. If we want to talk about liberty, let's start with Locke, Mill, Rawls, the Federalist Papers, and other serious works of political theory. By comparison, Rand is a child who can't even see over the grownups' table.

I don't see this as a "liberal" vs. "conservative" issue, since both sides seem bent on imposing more and more restrictions on our personal freedoms. Just because you have the "vast majority" of "rights" that YOU want, you are content? Here are some actions I could be enjoying right now, were it not for governmental restrictions: - leaving my home without my burqa -- oh, I mean SHIRT, so different -- on - getting a safe, legal, abortion when I choose to - growing a few marijuana plants in my yard - going for a walk or run without identification - choosing not to wear a seatbelt - feeling secure and confident that if I break no laws that I will not be incarcerated indefinitely, never being accused of a crime, never being given the opportunity to prove my innocence - choosing to marry someone of my own gender, right in my own state Just because your personal choices are consistent with what is permitted does not make the right to choose meaningless for others. I'll bet even you don't want to be locked up indefinitely, though. Just because it hasn't happened to you yet does not make living with that degree of risk acceptable.

I think this is a perfectly fair point. That I feel some "infringements" less than others surely has to do with my own beliefs and desires, to say nothing of my race and gender. To be honest, I share many of the sentiments you listed. Seatbelt laws don't bother me much, but I suppose that's because I choose to wear a seatbelt anyway. If you're talking about being able to go around topless, then I have to say that seems a bit extreme. At some point community standards do legitimately come into play (which is why there are nudist resorts). I would legalize pot in a heartbeat, even though I don't use it. I consider restrictions on gay marriage to be one of the biggest civil rights issues of my generation (i.e., I'm in favor of gay marriage). My only point is this: the line between personal liberty and the common good is always problematic, and it's always being re-negotiated. In a complex, pluralistic, open society such issues will always be a source of contention. And that's perfectly fine. But it also means that nobody is likely to feel that what is socially and legally permissible is fully in line with what they want to do anyway. That's just the price of living in society, from which we do, after all, receive corresponding advantages. We surely don't live in a perfectly free society, nor, I would argue, do we even live in the most free society. But in relative terms it is, on the whole, quite free, and I'm happy it is. Good luck shedding that burqa....

Why would my toplessness be "extreme" because I am a female? While laws vary from locality to locality, in mine, it is specifically the female nipples that may not be exposed -- the part men have too! Unlike male nipples, ours may actually serve a purpose, but even more bizarrely, it is while we are actually using them to feed a child that we may get a pass and display them! This is inconsistent and wrong, and no different from the oppression we rail against in other cultures. If everyone had to wear shirts, then fine, but why should women be oppressed in this day and age just because no one questions this particular status quo?

You're clearly correct that there is something of a double standard here. If it irritates you, that is understandable. Like most cultural conventions, this one is pretty arbitrary. But you're wrong to think that the injunction "Thou Shallt Cover Thy Nipples" only applies to women. Were I to walk shirtless into a department store, a restaurant, a classroom, an office building, a wedding ceremony, or into virtually anyone's home, I would received at minimum incredulous stares. At worst, I would be asked to cover up or forced to leave. To be sure, a woman who did so would likely also face some kind of legal action ("indecent exposure"?). But the social pressure to dress appropriately is far more similar than you let on. In any case, I don't see this as an assault on personal liberty comparable in magnitude to, say, warrantless searches and seizures, censoring the press, prohibiting peaceful assemblies, or disenfranchising minorities. Every community has "community standards," and while there's plenty of room for debate, in general I don't see the enforcement of certain of those standards as too problematic. I can't walk down the street naked any more than you can, and I don't feel I'm violated in my deepest integrity by being prohibited from doing so. Do you? By the way, how dare you say my nipples are useless! They alert me to changes in temperature, are a necessary adornment to my chest if I'm to avoid stares at those times when I am permitted to show them, and can be very erogenous. We've suffered too long under the female power structure that disparages the male nipple!

Sorry, AnaMen, it seems I didn't really answer your question. I only meant it is a bit extreme to focus on the matter of public exposure as the touchstone of true personal liberty. It's not that you don't have a point. I just think it's relatively minor in light of other liberties we do have. Plus, restrictions on public exposure do apply to men.

I believe libertarians aren't allowed the smug satisfaction of watching other people starve in the streets or the delicious feeling of enslaving some of the more attractive ones. It's all about power and they want it. They resent having to share power with the rest of society.

A list is probably as good a way as any to answer the original question. People should be allowed to:

1. Economic autonomy

A. Succeed as far as their talents and luck will take them

1. Yes, even all the way

B. Fall as low as their mistakes and luck will take them

1. Yes, even all the way

C. Keep what they earn rather than have it taken from away and given to someone else

1. Free to give charity in whatever form to whomever you choose, but

2. What is yours is yours and no one has a moral claim to take it

D. Contract with others without government setting the terms

E. Freedom of Association

2. Social autonomy

A. Ingest whatever substances they wish

B. Do whatever they want with their bodies

1. Prostitution

2. Contract to sell organs or other body parts

3. Right to die

4. Right to life (some say)

5. Freedom to choose abortion (some say)

6. Tatoos, piercings, etc.

C. Freedom of Association

3. Equal rights before the law

A. Yes gay marriage should be legal, but Government shouldn't be regulating marriage or discriminating for or against married people

B. Government should only be focused on achieving its limited goals and not on discriminating on irrelevant grounds (for or against popular or unpopular groups)

A. Succeed as far as their talents and luck will take them

1. Yes, even all the way

B. Fall as low as their mistakes and luck will take them

1. Yes, even all the way

So successful people should be allowed to hold other people as slaves and eat roast baby as long as their talents and luck will take them there. And if people happen to fail, let them die in plain sight of our homes and let them rot on the roads like dead deer.

After all, you said 'even all the way.' I don't know what else that means except that you want no limit on success and failure.

If there are to be no limits on success and failure, then you're saying that people are to have no rights at all, except what rights they can gain by conquering and dominating others.

If people are to have rights, then you are putting limits on success and failure. Successful people won't be allowed to conquer the world and do as they please, if rights (such as voting rights) are to be respected. And people who fail won't be allowed to die as nature would have it, because welfare would exist.

Eating babies, slavery and people dropping dead in sight of our homes... How in the world did humanity ever rise to the point where we could afford today's welfare state if we were all busy dying, eating babies and minding or being slaves? The original question was what rights libertarians want that we don't have already. The question assumes the traditional rights framework.

The traditional rights framework is enforced by the government and doesn't exist without it. And rights limit what you can do, hence rights limit liberty. For example, I have a right to free speech, that limits your liberty to shut me up. And I and other people have a right to vote for government that levies taxes and imposes social programs. Hence that limits on your liberty to do whatever you want with what you think is 'your money.' Libertarianism and rights don't coexist. They are in conflict.

So now that that's cleared up, why don't you tell us, you little dipshit, exactly what you meant by 'yes, even all the way.' If you didn't mean people dieing on the streets, starving to death, what did you mean?