[Am-info] Ayn Rand Institute?

[Mitch Stone]

On Monday, March 18, 2002, at 05:07 PM, Eric M. Hopper wrote:

> On Mon, 2002-03-18 at 17:56, Erick Andrews wrote:
>> More like asking a Pragmatist what Objectivists and Libertarians
>> actually are.
>>
>> I'm losing this...where's MS's relationships here?
>
> People who consider themselves pure Objectivists (like the people at the
> Ayn Rand institute) feel that Microsoft has done nothing wrong as they
> have not forced people to use their product at gunpoint.

Yes, precisely. It's remarkable how often I hear those exact words in 
defense of Microsoft. Short of physical force, they could have done 
nothing wrong. This reasoning works for an amazingly large number of 
people. I personally suspect they have Ayn Rand poisoning, whether they 
know it or not -- they read her stuff at an impressionable age and never 
got over it. I'm glad I didn't read any of it until I was an adult.


   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com