Commonweal Quotes
This is one of the best short quotations about the conflict between freedom and equality or fairness. Economically, if large companies and monopolies are totally free and unregulated, they often prey upon the small companies and consumers and the community in general. Regulation restricts the freedom of the regulated entities and inhibits investment and growth.
Like many ideological political philosophers who developed a following, she tended to exaggerate many of her points and to ignore additional factors. While individual businessmen and politicians pursuing their self interests were certainly necessary for America’s great growth and success, they were not sufficient. Many of the founding fathers sacrificed their fortunes and in some cases their lives to gain American independence. And the sacrifice of millions was necessary in many conflicts were those who fought were rarely enlarging their own fortunes. And equally important factors of American success were the collective action of communities creating schools, roads, bridges, canals. The driver of the businessmen to move into critical areas was the government subsidizing the railroads, proving the telegraph useful, developing the national highway system and the Internet. Most of the great universities and research centers were created as government, charitable or religious institutions where personal profit was not a factor. It is that combination of private and public, self serving and communitarian drives, secular and religious that have created modern America. Many people in Rand’s ere did not credit the private, self serving contributions of many great men, and Rand led the movement to remind all of that critical factor. In the process of making her good point, she tended to ignore the other factors.
Those same qualities that Hearn extolled in 1895 which maintained the Japanese Empire against external forces, also were instrumental in the transition to militarism and expansionist aggression that Japan would develop on the 1930s and which led to WWII and the Japanese conquest of much of Asia and eventual defeat for the Japanese.
Roosevelt was running again for the presidency, however this time as a Third Party Candidate. He lost to Woodrow Wilson but outpolled the Republicans. This was the Third Party performance since Abraham Lincoln.
Rights belong to the individual according to Rawls, not to the community of subgroups. Justice demands that the rights of the individual may not be sacrificed for the supposed benefit of the community or entire society. Not all agree with this, but it tends to differentiate Western cultural values from most others in the world where group, community or national benefit
Although opposed to monarchy himself, Langdon argued that a people had a right to select monarchical government if they chose. See {634001} for Rev. Dan Foster’s similar argument at in that period.
This was a point of view of a character in the novel which happens to correspond with her point of view—that the motivation for any creator was not “serving his brothers” but his “truth” and his duty to him(her)self. However a large number of creative people have the contribution to the society and “his brothers” as their most important motivation. Her philosophy praises one and condemns the latter.
This law provided for Individual Indian ownership of land which was seen as an essential step to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society. For some it had that effect, but it also weakened the tribal community as the allotted land was then no longer controlled communality by the tribe and civil governance of the allotted lands were transferred to the state and local government and away from the traditional tribal government. In some cases traditional tribal government became impossible. Also, the Indians who were allotted the land could and often did sell it to whites. Land owned by Indians decreased from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million acres in 1934—a 65 percent reduction. This Act also imposed a patriarchal household onto many matrilineal Native societies, in which women had controlled property and descent, since under the sexist American law at that time all family property was owned and controlled by the husband. In 1934 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt supported the US Indian Reorganization Act. It ended allotment and created a "New Deal" for Indians, including renewing their rights to reorganize and form their own governments. Much of the damage of the Dawes Act had already been done however. See Senator Henry Moore Teller’s criticism of the Dawes Act {633120}.
