Saturday, November 16, 2002

The Times and Rand: Which said something more unlikely?

Arthur Silber has this wonderful summary of an old editorial from the Times.
"But the question must be not whether a group recognizable in color, features or culture has its rights as a group. No, the question is whether any American individual, regardless of color, features or culture, is deprived of his rights as an American. If the individual has all the rights and privileges due him under the laws and the Constitution, we need not worry about groups and masses--those do not, in fact, exist, except as figures of speech."
Wish that was today; instead it's from Aug. 4, 1963. Silber links this to Rand's commentary from The Virtue of Selfishness
"Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to 'society,' to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force--and statism has always been the political corollary of collectivism."
Those two quotes from two different philosophies are telling. I think the Times would be unlikely to state their editorial again in the same way; Rand would have.

Bedtime, y'all.

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