TOC: Peddling the Sanction of the Victim

I've opened this thread to answer Robert Bidinotto's question:

Are you... saying that the only people who should be invited to share public platforms are those who agree with you 100% on all aspects of issues? If not, then why the criticism of TOC in this case?

Let me say that in condemning TOC's public association with one of the Capitol's most repulsive troglodytes, I am simply acting in my self-interest: It is contrary to my self-interest to have Ayn Rand's public reputation tainted by association with bigots. I would write the same thing if TOC invited a rapist to proclaim from a TOC forum how much Ayn Rand inspired him. The fact that a Christianist mystic-of-muscle is invited to proclaim his "debt" to Ayn Rand is an obscene scandal. The public is being told, by TOC in action, that admirers of Ayn Rand are proud of her being such an inspiration for rapists and Conservatives.

One of Ayn Rand's insights - apparently both dismissed and exploited by the TOC crowd - is that every criminal values the sanction of the victim. The power freaks who are busy destroying our freedoms from Capitol Hill are buying, and TOC has just moved its business - peddling the sanction of the victim - to Washington, to be closer to its customers.

For this reason, I find it in my moral interest to dissociate myself, as unequivocally as possible, from TOC and those whom it services. In today's context, every admirer of Ayn Rand who legitimizes the Christianist war on individual rights by honoring the perpetrators, does a job on Ayn Rand's memory that could not be surpassed by a hundred screaming mystics.
(Edited by Adam Reed
on 4/02, 1:19am)

Post 1

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 4:51am

Adam wrote:

The fact that a Christianist mystic-of-muscle is invited to proclaim his "debt" to Ayn Rand is an obscene scandal.

Sorry, I must have missed the other thread that mentioned this. Exactly who is this mystic?

I would like to see this issue discussed thoroughly since I have encouraged SOLO Local Club Coordinators to list their clubs in TOC's Club Database.

Post 2

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 8:44am

Luther,

Exactly who is this mystic-of-muscle?

Congressman Ed Royce. Just think about how Ayn Rand would have evaluated his voting record.

Post 3

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 9:12am

Adam, there are two major things wrong with your view regarding not inviting these Christian Republicans to speak.

In pattern, they are the same mistakes made in the "don't sanction evil" arguments against TOC over a decade ago with regard to speaking to a libertarian supper club or dealing with classical liberals:

1) Mischaracterization / Oversimplification: Then it was the assumption that a libertarian who has criticized Ayn Rand or argues against an integrated philosophical approach and is eclectic or opposed to Objectivism is therefore an enemy who shouldn't be sanctioned lest we assist him or people associate us with him.

And now this is the -same- mistake when you apply the argument against Christians or religious conservatives.

The people who made the "don't sanction libertarians argument" have oversimplified who libertarians were, assuming they knew the motives of specific ones, using the over-simplified term "nihilists" as a substitute for delving into and exploring all their actual views and the cases where they were on our side. It was armchair character attack, failure of a complete analysis of -all- of someone's views, position, or character.

You use emotive, oversimplified terms like "troglodyte", "bigot", "mystic-of-muscle" as if they were a total characterization of the person and his views on every issue. (Instead of saying the person is a mystic on issue X but not on Y, on abortion but not on freedom of speech, property rights, gun ownership.)

2) Abuse of the "Sanction Principle":

There -are- people beyond the reach of reason, haters of everything we stand for that one should not sanction. I would not speak to a convention of Skinheads, neo-nazis who go out bashing non-whites. It's not a position one can reach innocently, it's so anti-intellectual you can't talk to them. And it implies you grant them civilized status.

Here, your association -does- rub off on you or your organization.

But for libertarians, classical liberals, religious conservatives, Christian fundamentalists, social and cultural conservatives, economic conservatives, moderates, liberal Democrats ... they are of *mixed premises* in key ideas, motives, philosophy, virtue.

The proper use of the "sanction principle" for non-evil but severely mistaken people was best articulated by Ronald Reagan when he ran for governor of California. He was asked to repudiate the support of the John Birch society and all its members (a bunch of harmless but ideologically brainwashed, cultish, or poorly educated people who believed fluoridation would kill you & the Eisenhower administration had been infiltrated by communists).

His answer: If they listen to me or I ask for their support it is *them* buying my views and policies, not *my* buying theirs.

In other words, there is no sanction or respect implied.

The same applies to having someone speak at a kind of event honoring Ayn Rand which does not imply they agree with Objectivism or you agree with their total ideology.

No one is going to assume more agreement than admiration of Ayn Rand. Moreover, the admiration for her and the courage of a politician to say so despite the horror of many religious people among their constituency -tells- you they are not evil people and something about their character.

They are probably among the -best- people in Congress on this score.

Another kind of event which would not imply agreement would be a debate on their ideas.

Would you say -that- would imply sanction and should not be done?

--Philip Coates
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/02, 9:24am)

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/02, 9:31am)

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/02, 9:35am)

Post 4

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 10:05am

Philip,

The issue is not the mere ideas of Congress-reptile Ed Royce - although I do consider his bigotry just as far outside civilized discourse as the ideas of a Communist or a racist - but the fact that he has personally, and by objective criteria criminally, abrogated my individual rights, the rights of my child, and the individual rights of all Americans through his votes in Congress. If you draw the boundaries of sanction wide enough to include him, you will also include all others who rape, murder and torture - who violate individual rights - to enforce their supernatural beliefs. Theocrats, even majoritarian "democratic" theocrats like Ed Royce, are today's number one enemy of human happiness on Earth. To feature Ed Royce in the "Navigator" is treason to every idea that Ayn Rand stood for.

No one is going to assume more agreement than admiration of Ayn Rand. Moreover, the admiration for her and the courage of a politician to say so despite the horror of many religious people among their constituency -tells- you they are not evil people and something about their character. They are probably among the -best- people in Congress on this score.

I find Ayn Rand's explanation of this phenomenon more convincing than yours. At some semi-conscious layer of their reptilian brain, theocratic Congresscritters who violate the rights of secular Americans are aware of the reprehensibility of their actions - and seek relief of their guilty conscience in the sanction of their victims. Their lip service to individual rights or to Ayn Rand, is part of what they pay for that relief of conscience - and they thank their shitty god for having given them, in the form of the so-called "Objectivist Center," some secular shills who are willing to sell them that sanction. TOC is in the business of selling secular indulgences to the likes of Ed Royce, and is rapidly moving to make this their only business.
(Edited by Adam Reed
on 4/02, 10:59am)

Post 5

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 10:33am

Adam, just out of curiosity, is there any elected official who merits publication in Navigator?

Post 6

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 10:57am

Luther,

Adam, just out of curiosity, is there any elected official who merits publication in Navigator?

The one who comes to mind most readily is New York's Mayor Bloomberg. Perhaps also Governor Schwarzenegger of California. There could be others, less famous, who would also be acceptable.

Post 7

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 11:01am

Adam, you finally got around to responding to Luke's question, but not mine. I infer this means you believe that there ARE people with whom you don't agree on everything, but whom you'd invite to participate in or share a public platform.

So now a follow-up: By what standard do you distinguish those with whom you'll associate, from those with whom you won't?

(Edited by Robert Bidinotto
on 4/02, 11:05am)

Post 8

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 11:13am

Adam & Robert: There is a huge difference between mere association with someone and asking them to come speak to your group.

Post 9

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 12:23pm

What is that difference, Shayne?

I'm still looking for that apparently elusive standard that might distinguish those whom we invite to speak at an event from those we won't.

Now I'm looking for a standard to distinguish those with whom we willingly associate from those whom we invite to speak.

Doesn't the context matter decisively in the pronouncement of moral judgments? Just a thought...

Post 10

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 12:35pm

Robert:

By what standard do you distinguish those with whom you'll associate, from those with whom you won't?

By the standard of rational, long-term self interest. This standard excludes:

Those who have violated my rights, or the rights of my family members, or of my friends. For example, Ed Royce voted for legislation that abrogated the right of Lesbian couples living in DC to form a stable family by adopting each other's children. This means that if my daughter lived there at some point in the future and fell in love, she would be denied the right to bring up my future grandchildren in a normal two-parent family. Even if he had done nothing else, this alone should have put Ed Royce out of bounds.

Those who are seeking association with me to obtain what Ayn Rand called the sanction of the victim. I will not be the token Atheist to absolve the conscience of a theocrat, the token Jew to absolve the conscience of an anti-Semite etc.

Those who could use the association to create a fraudulent semblance of credibility, or legitimacy, or "debatability" for ideas that objectively deserve none of these.

There are no doubt other criteria as well, but the above should suffice for this context.
(Edited by Adam Reed
on 4/02, 12:48pm)

Post 11

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 1:12pm

Adam suggested:

Those who have violated my rights, or the rights of my family members, or of my friends.

I wonder about my fellow voters who relentlessly vote against my better interests. I work with them. I exchange various values with them.

I like what an ARI donor told me: The higher the person's level of influence, the higher the standard to which you hold that person.

Under that standard, purchasing a product from a local store owner that proves most cost effective would be acceptable even though he voted -- along with millions of others -- to curtail my rights via a ballot initiative such as the Florida "maximum classroom size" that passed last term. However, inviting the originator of that initiative to speak to SOLO in Florida at Merritt Island would be unacceptable because such an initiative flies in the face of Objectivist political theory and thus deserves no audience.

Does this concrete exemplify your abstraction, Adam?

Post 12

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 1:44pm

Luke,

Yes, context matters. I am not going to deprive myself of the benefit of doing business with someone, who happened to contribute one-millionth of the vote for this or that nefarious initiative. But I do condemn to high hell a man who takes my money for "protecting" my rights - and then goes and does the criminal opposite.

Post 13

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 2:16pm

Adam,

Thank you for responding to my request for a standard for distinguishing whom you will and won't associate with. Now we get down to the nitty-gritty: applying the very general standard of "rational, long-term self-interest" to specific cases.

I looked at the link you provided to Cong. Royce's voting record (http://activote.ontheissues.org/AVA/House/Ed_Royce.htm) and found it to be loaded with characterizations of his positions clearly from a leftist frame of reference, often with few details. Samples:

"Rated 10% by the LCV [League of Conservation Voters], indicating anti-environment votes. (Dec 2003)" (Note the equation of anti-environmentalISM with "anti-environment.") Similarly: "Rated 11% by APHA, indicating a anti-public health voting record. (Dec 2003)." And: " Rated 7% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-labor voting record. (Dec 2003)" (I. e., anti-UNION = "anti-labor.") Or how about this: "Rated 11% by the ARA, indicating an anti-senior voting record. (Dec 2003)"

So, according to this "ActiVote" group, Royce is against the environment, public health, workers and old people. Is this a source one can rely upon for a fair and accurate summary of his voting record?

The second thing that can be said about one-sentence characterizations of votes is that they lack context, and the reasons someone votes as he does.

Take the very first vote mentioned: "Voted YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. (Feb 2004)" A pro-choice person, like myself, might instantly recoil. But what was this bill actually about? The recognition of a crime against the fetus? Or the recognition that a crime occurs against prospective parents when a fetus is harmed?

One can even vote for a mixed or largely bad bill because an even WORSE bill is the likely alternative. One can be counted as voting "for" a bad piece of legislation because it's attached as a "rider" on a larger, more important piece of legislation one wants to support -- and one can vote "against" a good measure because it's attached to a bad piece of legislation.

This said, it's clear that Cong. Royce is a Catholic; he obviously opposes abortion, gay marriages and adoptions, doctor-assisted suicide and human cloning, and supports school prayer. He also voted for the Bush-inspired prescription drug benefit under Medicare. You cite, as evidence to support your invective against Royce, one specific issue only: a vote he took denying the right of Lesbians in DC to adopt a child.

Let's concede that all of this is bad. Let's also concede that the one issue you cite may, in your case, be particularly odious.

But weighed against this, we also find (from the same source you cited) that Royce cast MANY votes that I would applaud: against affirmative action, in favor of stronger criminal sanctions and against the anti-incarceration movement (that's freeing convicted sex offenders to murder little girls), AGAINST subjecting federal employees to random drug tests (!), AGAINST the Bush-Cheney national energy policy and the Kyoto Treaty and raising CAFE standards, FOR oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve, FOR reducing the Marriage Tax, FOR most other tax cuts, generally FOR expanded free trade and AGAINST protectionism, AGAINST farm price supports, AGAINST campaign finance reform and its speech restrictions on issue ads, FOR establishing private medical savings accounts, for limits (rational award caps and time limits) on medical lawsuits, FOR Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, and AGAINST illegal immigration.

We also must factor in Royce's expressed philosophical convictions, as you yourself linked:

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/navigator/articles/nav+honoring-ayn-rand.asp

At worst, this indicates to me a mixed record, born of a measure of philosophical confusion -- that Royce is good on many philosophic premises and political issues, bad on some others (especially in the "social" issues).

But this raises the matter of proportion in your moral judgments -- in two respects.

First, does a mixed record like this merit your characterization of Royce (Post #0) as "one of the Capitol's most repulsive troglodytes," " a Christianist mystic-of-muscle," a "Congress-reptile" -- your comparisons of him to "a rapist," to a "reptile," a "criminal" who "values the sanction of the victim" -- your lumping him with "bigots," "power freaks" whose "bigotry just as far outside civilized discourse as the ideas of a Communist or a racist" and who represents the "number one enemy of human happiness on Earth"?

Number one???

No truly objective evaluation of Royce's statements or public voting record would suggest that this vituperation was anything but completely disproportionate and -- yes -- grossly unjust. This is not "moral evaluation" at all: it's an hysterical emotional reaction.

Second, you make a further leap in applying your "standard." That is: Anyone who dares to disagree with Adam Reed's myopic view of this congressman is "peddling the sanction of the victim" -- that they are "secular shills who are willing to sell them that sanction" and "in the business of selling secular indulgences to the likes of Ed Royce, and... rapidly moving to make this their only business." You've said worse about TOC, and I won't repeat it here, because it entails vicious psychologizing unworthy of any response but identification as such.

Adam, I've lived long enough to know that you and I aren't going to convince anybody of much of anything in these debates; we are likely only to provide red meat for those who already agree with us. But in the off chance that there are a few open minds lurking on these threads, I post this in the hope that they don't ever confuse your sort of indiscriminate, disproportionate raving with what Ayn Rand meant by the term "passing moral judgment."

Post 14

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 2:28pm

Robert,

As an Objectivist, I am proud of grounding my moral evaluation of actions and people in the standard of how they affect my life. When this standard is called "myopic," we are not in Objectivism any more...

Post 15

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 4:31pm

Adam, may I ask why on earth you would choose Mayor Bloomberg? He has made a mess of New York. There are now more laws on the books than I've ever seen -- you can get a ticket for just about anything. He is literally a fining machine.

New Yorkers can't wait to get him out of office.

Post 16

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 5:16pm

Robert: Association is a very broad relative to inviting someone to speak. Merely being associated with someone means little; asking them over to tell you what they think means a lot. You ask for a standard to determine when it's OK to associate with someone vs. invite them to speak. Does that mean you can't see any difference between the two situations? That would be hard to believe. Really I think that you do see a big difference, and are just being evasive.

If you want to stop being evasive and have a conversation about the difference between different kinds of dealings with people, OK, but I see no point in me having the conversation with you if you refuse to recognize - on your own and without my help - the basic distinctions that are relevant here.

Post 17

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 5:25pm

Jennifer,

I was uninformed about the petty stuff, fines etc. Still, I've read that in New York City there is less imposition of government diktat in family life, less censorship than anywhere else in the country, and much less economic redistribution than before Bloomberg became Mayor. He was a successful businessman in a tough market - business media - and his combination of free-market policies with an anti-theocratic agenda is something I consider highly desirable. He is less consistent than an Objectivist would have been, but I just don't see any of the issues on which he is wrong as either a big deal, or a symptom of fundamental contradictions. But I don't live there, and you may know things I don't. What would you consider the most objectionable thing about Bloomberg?

Post 18

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 6:14pm

Adam,

It is possible that my myopia on these little things is clouding the larger accomplishments of Bloomberg. When he was first elected, I thought, "Finally! A CEO!"

What I don't like is his tendency to generate revenue by making new laws, and his subsequent hypocritical observation of them. For example, he made NYC smoke free, purportedly under the auspices of health, so smokers were forced out to the edge of the sidewalks, and fined if they did not comply. This I can understand. But then the Mayor held a party a few days after the law went into effect, and people were lighting up all over the banquet room. When a reporter asked him about it, his PR person gave a vague, evasive response. (I cannot remember the exact response.)

When bars started going out of business because of the new law, there was suddenly a "special exemption" available for those who could prove they were being financially hurt by the law. I'm sure there was a cost involved there for some sort of permission slip. Since I am in the restaurant industry I saw the people whose coffers were empty because patrons just didn't want to hang around anymore. The veil of concern for "public health" didn't do much for business health.

I realize that he was saddled with a huge burden from 9/11, and he did slash budgets all over the place -- much like a businessman. But while property taxes have skyrocketed to cover the deficits, he is pushing for a new sports stadium on the West Side that I see as nothing but potential chaos -- a project the city cannot afford at this time, and one that seems ludicrous to me given the city's financial state. Others are pushing for the construction of residential properties to help ease the tax burden and provide more living space in Manhattan, so it seems the Mayor's priorities are a bit skewed.

Granted, these are only a few examples, and very local issues, but they leave a bitter taste.

Post 19

Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 6:15pm