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From: sts@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stanley T Shebs)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: flaming watchbands, batman! (no fire though)
Message-ID: <488@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Sep-83 16:33:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.488
Posted: Mon Sep  5 16:33:44 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Sep-83 05:01:57 EDT
References: <384@houca.UUCP>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 36

Read the last couple chapters in Atlas Shrugged again yesterday,
while unpacking...

In it, Dagny Taggart shoots a guard who was having trouble deciding
whether to let her pass - in fact she kills him.  It was later
approved by everybody as a rational act.

Now, I don't understand the necessity to kill him.  There seems to be
no suggestion that incapaciting him would be preferable - after all,
his gun wasn't drawn, and she had already been talking with him for
several minutes, so it wasn't a matter of "shoot or be shot".  About
all I could figure, going by the description, is that the guard was
so pathetic and irrational that it was an act of kindness to kill him.
If I recall correctly, Dagny felt less remorse at killing him than if
she had killed an animal.

Rand hints at this in other places.  It *is* logical.  If humanity
is defined as rationality, then persons who act irrationally are less
than human.  This is true whether or not they violate someone else's
rights by their acts.

This makes the passage in the book more interesting!  Dagny was trespassing,
came up and threatened the guard.  Apparently she had a *right* to do all
this, but it was less than clear where that right came from.  Government
property, therefore stolen, therefore ok to trespass?  Still doesn't give
her a right to threaten someone with a gun and basically challenge him to
a shooting match, does it? (read the passage, it's very intriguing; in one
of the last two chapters)

It reminded me of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, where the hero imagines
that he can do anything, as long as he has a rational justification for
it.  Of course, he later discovered that he was not actually an Objectivist
(or the Nietzsche superman :-) )

						stan the lep hack
						ssc-vax!sts (also utah-cs!shebs)