64 Replies to “Profiled”

  2. Kate:
    Help me out with this one ” The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many” It seems to me that that statement pretty much sums up the ME, ME, ME First generation of (Liberal)Boomers, who in my opinion have everything to do with what is wrong with Canada today. Why would you want to spread this philosophy?? Would not the opposite be healthier to a society overall?

  3. Kate:
    Well said, all. And I do LOVE the “three dinner guests”! Yowza! Long live rock!!

  4. It says “the needs of the one”, Ward, not “the needs of this one”. Collectives should always be subordinate to individuals, just like robots should always have an off switch.

  5. Far be it for me to speak for Kate, so I’ll speak just for me. One of the major thrusts of Canadian politics and jurisprudence over the last thirty years has been towards “collective rights”.
    It’s not the right of an individual shopkeeper in Montreal to have a sign in Cantonese, it’s the right of the collectivity to determine her sign must be in French.
    It’s not the right of an individual to own a legally registered firearm; it’s the right of the governmental firearms registry to siphon off billions of dollars from taxpayers and lose the owner’s registry, forcing him to run the risk of going to jail through no fault of his own.
    It’s not the right of the individual gay man to live with dignity and not be gay-bashed, it’s a collective “gay rights” that incorporates nebulous thought and hate crimes.
    It’s not the right of an individual to have freedom of association (which surely implies freedom of non-association!); it’s the right of the collectivity to determine that the Rand formula applies, and she must pay for the iraqi “insurgents” via her forced union dues. (No such example yet, but there were those forced to subsidize the Sandinistas in the 80’s; I suspect it’s only a matter of time).
    It’s not the right of a stupid person with dumb ideas (read: holocaust denier) to be laughed at and have their speech exposed to the clear light of day; it’s the right of the collectivity to subsidize terrorist groups to firebomb their homes and businesses, shout them down and jail them. (Make no mistake: Holocaust deniers are an odious sort, but martyring them and firebombing them seems neither wise nor productive nor something remotely resembling freedom).
    It’s Canada. The collectivity determines what we can think and what we should say.
    Kate’s blog (and many others) are a refreshing counter to that.
    For me alone, that’s what her comment on “needs of the one” means.
    Holmwood.

  6. Here are two quotes, Ward, that may put some meat on the the bones of the one versus the many.
    “Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good.” –John Stuart Mill
    “Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” –Thomas Jefferson

  7. “The needs of the one outweight the needs of the many.” Is the reverse of Mr. Spocks proclaimation reflecting the philosophy of his home world Vulcan.
    I don’t think Vulcun is a sodiety that you would enjoy. It’s the dark robed sullen faced socialist eutopia that seems to have worked for them since they are emotionless. I’ll the whackiness freedom and insecurity of the Objectivest world anytime.
    There is great virtue in selfishness.. If you could think, you would understand it.

  9. Yup. Rand wrote “The Virtue of Selfishness”, not “The Virtue of Greed”. Scratch a collectivist and you’ll find greed. Scratch an individualist and you’ll find responsibility.

  10. Kate, what a refreshing interview.
    Eat you heart out Antonia Zerbisias.
    I am glad you are on OUR side Kate!!
    Is it any wonder Mark Steyn visits SDA blog?

  12. The pet Schnauzer of a very wealthy woman becomes sick, so she takes it to the vet. The vet examines the dog and tells her: “This dog is physically okay, but his long hair is causing him to suffer in this heatwave- get him trimmed.”
    The woman replies: “What- he’s a Schnauzer! His hair is suppossed to be long.” The vet replies: “Okay- the next time you go to the beauty parlour, ask them for some hair-remover. Apply this to your dog, and it will thin out his coat but he will still look right.
    So, the next time she goes to the beauty parlour, she asks them for some hair-remover? The beautician replies: “Yes Modom-use this one-quarter strength for your arms, and half-strength for your legs.” The woman replies: “It is not for my arms or my legs, it is for my Schnauzer.”
    The beautician replies: “Yes, Modom- in that case, use it full-strength- and don’t ride a bicycle for the next two days.”

  13. If God posts off topic all the time in other people’s web logs, then he is beeing greedy, not responsible.
    Theology for Maz2

  14. Kate
    Loved that last line – Ted Nugent helping to beat the crap out of PET – what a great visual to start the week-end with. Actually except for the comment about Golf being a waste of time…

  15. Golf can be a reasonable passtime for the truly bored and for those who have little else to live for … and maybe the odd old hockey player with the reminents of a once great slap shot but no knees left to skate on. :0)

  17. Golf can be good for whom-ever likes golf, as long as they are responsible enough to pay their own tab. What next, the anti-golf collectivists? I know, why don’t you have an argument between the ale collectivists and the lager collectivists?
    Why does everyone have to have a collectivist opinion on everyone else’s individual volitional behaviour? Doesn’t freedom imply everyone giving everyone else their space, not everyone taking everyone else’s space?

  18. Interesting read Ms Mac.
    No surprises on the objectivist stuff, you have referenced it before. Everyone elses point about selfishness vs greed and more importantly the JSM quotes on Liberty are well worth it.
    I am most offended by the golf slur :-> Clearly KM is engaging in her “well known” slurs against games of celtic origin (is there a level of self hate here? :-> :-> )
    Anyway, just confirms what we already knew, an articulate broad minded blogger.
    You deserve all the Kudos you receive.

  19. Tony, Holmwood, Duke:
    Thanks for your feedback. Duke, re whether I can think – I like to think I can. Each of the response posts offered some good clarification of the meaning of the statement.
    I was veiwing it from the perspective that while (selective)collective rights are indeed being rammed down our throats, it seems that today many individuals feel that their “rights” superscede the “rights” of others. If the rights of each individual supercede those of all others, then no one has any rights. “It’s my right” is becoming something of a bastartized statement.
    Some collective (societal) rights are good and should not be outweighed by the individuals rights.

  20. For the record – golf IS the sport for individualists! I’m not a team player … There is no better way to spend an afternoon than the self absorption than is golf!

  21. I’m still not in, Ward. I agree that some behaviours are better for the commons than other, but I don’t see how a collective, or any other abstraction, can have rights. Only concrete individuals can have rights.
    I also agree that the greedy have taken over the concept of rights, turning the original notion of negative rights into a grab bag of acquisitional positive rights. But I don’t see how your notion of collective rights does anything but make matters worse.

  22. Sigh. Now we have the individualists are not team players meme, and the individualists are self absorbed meme. That’s silly, individualists are just not in favour of being forced to be a member of a team by an authoritarian collective.
    Next someone will suggest that individualists are loners. I guess that’s why the Samizdata folks never have any bashes.

  23. Gwen–
    I have to say that I would agree with the sign foreman. If I’d worked overtime specifically to get something gone, and my efforts were wasted through the dilatoriness of someone else, I’d be mad too. My second favorite virtue: punctuality. Losing time and effort through someone else’s malfeasance/ineptitude may not be a huge event from the objective/cosmic perspective, but it’s damned annoying all the same. But I do agree that most things don’t matter much, and it’s best not to get worked up about them. 🙂

  24. Hey Kate! Before you settle on Montana have a good look at the Palouse Country of eastern Washington and northern Idaho. We’ve even been in National Geographic, for cripes’ sake!

  25. Know this, “a handful of might is worth a bagfull of right” Be a strong indivudual, be self reliant, demand the best for you not you and a bunch of other people. If I might use this analogy, take care of the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves. That is to say, if the individual is a healthy happy productive element in a society, then the society will be the same.
    It is common in “normal type” warfare to shoot to wound because that ties up three. One down and two to carry the one. This is is what a socialist nanny state society becomes, .. half or fewer of the people carrying the ever growing number of the lazy, useless, stupid or clever. This is not the route to happiness and progress.
    Collectivism calls the weak and the meek. Frank Zappa said it best … “If the meek inherit with world, they won’t keep for long.”
    It was the free motivated individual that built the greatest society this planet has ever seen.
    The collective only makes a decision after they are entirely certain that all members have had equal input, none of them will be made to look silly or have their feelings harmed in anyway, and that nothing too radical will come of any decision , lest there be criticisms or that someone affected will be uncomfortable with a decision. It’s just insane and if you have ever had the misfortune of sitting on a committee or board of any kind, you will know what I mean. I only did it once, but know many who have done it too. I cannot associate with anyone who does it alot, because they are defective in most ways.

  26. “Scratch a collectivist and you’ll find greed. Scratch an individualist and you’ll find responsibility.” Well said Tony. And you will often find laziness.

  27. I’m a bit more ambivalent on the lazy thing, John, in the sense that I think that an individual can certainly be lazy if they want to, as long as they are responsible and not greedy about it.
    For example, if I’m already earning more than I spend, and I consider my rate of saving to be adequate for reasonable long-term risk management, then I may choose to be a bit lazy rather than work solely for the purpose of avarice.
    It’s the laziness of collectivists who believe that extortion is an appropriate solution to their personal battle with laziness on the one hand, and jelousy and envy on the other, that is the problem.

  28. I just enjoyed the interview and got a very good laugh. Kates answers to the questions show just how comfortable Kate is with herself.
    Strong, independent , opinionated and articulate.
    Humble and respectful. The dinner guests just made my day!
    Thanks Kate.

  29. Tony
    It’s about golf not me … Though it does fit … Golf is a game with very specific rules and very few of them involve anyone else or anything else but your own ability to self police. It’s a game of honor. Sorry, I should have chosen my words more carefully.

  30. I don’t think it’s a priori bad that “The collective only makes a decision after they are […]” (to the degree that’s true), Duke, for volitional collectives can be a good thing indeed. Think of families and small businesses, for example.
    The problem is, as Den Beste noted, that “Collectives don’t scale”. The bigger they get, the less well they work. And that’s why the enemy is people who believe the many trump the one.
    It’s not collectives that are the problem, it’s collectivismists.

  31. T,
    Small families and small businesses work best when ONE person makes the decisions. The smallness of these units mean that the overseer, dad or boss knows the needs of those involved and therefore doesn’t need to spend much time thinking about what will work best.
    If a platoon in a war situation had to consult with the troops for each command, they are all dead meat.
    What do you think about how long it takes the feds to make a decision about anything .. unless it’s something Paul Marlin (slippery fish)wants or Jean Cretien (slimy reptile) then it is simply decreed. IE same sex lunacy.

  32. I don’t agree on the one decision maker argument Duke, families and small businesses work best when everyone makes individual decisions keeping in mind their volitional role and attendent responsibility in the collective.
    You are correct regarding the context dependency of the optimum size of a collective. Certain sizes of projects require certain sizes of teamwork to get the job done. I shouldn’t have quoted Den Beste, that was a paraphrase, and a bad one at that. Mea culpa. A more accurate paraphrase would be that collectives don’t scale well past a fairly small size, although the value of that size is problem dependent.
    They key to the discussion though is your comment on collectives decreeing, in your last sentance. Whenever any collective becomes powerful enough to start decreeing edicts to those who are not volitional members, you’ve found an enemy.

  33. Thankyou for the compliments, and for doing such a good job of explaining that quote – (which was from Star Trek).

  34. The spirit of this blog is, to me, seen within something Abraham Lincoln wrote, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” Thanks to Kate, and others, for helping keep that spirit alive and prospering.

  35. Excellent. An example of old Abe being more platitudinous than me 😉
    The battle is over the difference between the collectivist’s definition of duty and the individualist’s definition of duty, and in particular the ability of powerful collectives to impose their definition of duty upon non-subscribing individuals.

  36. (insert something cutesy using "Enterprise" or "beam me up" here: )

    I'm not a "Star Trek" fan -- never watched the show, and only caught one or two of movies (I suspect I'm not the only one still having frightfully vivid dreams of a glistening, bare-chested Ricardo Montelban) -&#…

  37. I’m on the West edge of Canada and so tend to come in late on these fun to read threads.
    Norm’s questions were good and the answers very interesting, yet reading Kate over time here has made the nature of Kate as fimiliar as an old friend.
    Don’t worry about not remembering names too easily. I have the same thing and I think it’s a trait of better artists.
    73s TG

  38. Funny, I always thought good art was the trait of good artists; the can’t remember names correlation seems to have escaped me. ‘Course, I’ve been wrong before.
    I don’t know about the better and implied best judgement calls though, TonyGuitar. As Voltaire said, the best is the enemy of the good.
    I think this links back to the general theme: collectivists tend to gravitate to abstract utopian “best”s, while individualists tend to gravitate to concrete pragmatic “good”s. The former is false economy, the latter is all one can afford.

  39. After reading the blasphemy about our Dear Leader, PET, it appears that Kate (aka: Julia) may require a little visit to room 101.
    And who doesn’t like shellfish?!?! If more people were like Kate, fishermen (or fishers for those at the CBC) here in NS would have to draw pogey 52 weeks a year instead of 42.
    (PET a Socialist Prime Minister? But he was a Liberal!)

  41. Selfish fishermen changed professions or downsized their expectations.
    Greedy fishermen extort payment for their non-fishing from others.
    By the way, I don’t like shellfish, I like sausages.

  42. Someone had to remind me of the V-Raptor. I’d nearly cleared it from my mind.
    If anyone is going to Italy and has a few K to skim off their fat wallet before they come home….

  44. Re my position that sometimes the rights of many should outwiegh the rights of the few.
    If all members of any given soceity are respectful and responsible, the rights of the few over the many is fine, for all would respect each others rights. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way.
    Broader society, the many, may decide that it is not ok for the individual to take personal and private property without consent. So society makes laws to protect the many from the few.
    At their basic, laws if supported by the majority, are a form of collectivism that limit the “rights” of the few.
    Thats not to say they are all good, or that we aren’t over legislated, or that this is not a slippery slope, but when society agrees that certain behaviors are abhorent and dangerous to the many and passes laws to limit that behavior, that would seem to me to be a good form of collectivism.

  45. Mr. Spock actually said:
    “The needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the few or the one”.
    I believe that’s direct, or almost so.
    Kate, I enjoyed the interview. It’s nice to know a little more about you. And in truth, I can now relate a bit better to you. I saw some parallels between you and myself.
    BTW, Tony, you said:
    “By the way, I don’t like shellfish, I like sausages.”
    Think about that for a little while. Think about the interpretation in terms of symbolism. Perhaps you may wish to set the record “straight” (if that’s what you want)…
    😉

  46. I find, Stephen, that for my prefrences in meat texture and flavourings, sausages provide the optimum way for me to maximize the consumption of the entire animal without any unnecessary waste.
    Sure I appreciate a little tenderloin for a special occasion, but it seems to me that to consume it regularly with out appreciation is some how greedy. Besides, after a time, or a few times anyway, tenderloin gets boring, but sausage doesn’t. Or brisket, for that matter.
    As for the symbolism, I can’t imagine what you mean. Perhaps, though, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in high school. Although it is true that I’m good at drafting a straight line without a ruler, if that’s what you meant, honey.

  47. The needs of the many, few, and one is a very complicated concept to ponder.
    The needs of each category change wrt the others with each different situation.
    It does no good to come to a be-all and end-all declaration, be it the many or the few or the one having supreme importance over the other two.
    What has to be done is that each situation must be carefully examined and the relative needs weighed for each category. Perhaps Mr. Spock was actually referring to a specific situation or situations or he was simply being purely logical, in the Vulcan tradition.
    BTW, I’m not a hardcore Trekkie in any way whatsoever, although I did find the various series to be quite entertaining over the years as well as thought-provoking, even though there were socialistic undertones, what with money having been abolished, etc.
    BTW, I’ve lately been thinking that Kate reminds me of Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Voyager. There’s even some resemblance, I think. In a way, Kate IS the captain of SDA and is leading us in the long journey home, after being hurled so far into the uncharted, dangerous areas by the Liborg, to the Canada we know will finally be the home we want.
    RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE. WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER. WE WILL NEVER BE ASSIMILATED INTO THE COLLECTIVE. OH, THINK YOU CAN DESTROY US, LIBORG? TRY. YOU WILL FAIL.

  48. Uh, oh, I think I may have stepped into a pile of steaming Liberalism there, Tony. That was funny, though.
    Anyway, if you look at a shellfish like a clam and then at a sausage, then the clam, back to the sausage and on and on… ah, come on, man! I know you get it! Perhaps I could compare the shellfish to something similar, like a taco, or perhaps some kind of tropical flower…

  49. Just to set the record straight, I like tacos the best. Shellfish are great, too. Especially buttery shellfish… Sausages are not for me. I don’t want to have a heart attack. Of course, lots of people like sausages, but if they don’t mind clogged arteries… that’s none of my business anyway.

  50. A seafood sausage, with some tropical flowers, in a taco holder would be fine, Stephen, as long as it doesn’t smell like fish in Alberta on a hot summer’s day. Scallops are right out (for me). but a little sour cream would be nice.
    Like I said, I’m interested in avoiding waste by eating the whole animal. I’m not interested in food textures that fight back when you bite them.
    I don’t like gelatin either. Eww. All wrong for me. But like I said, give each his room. If I’m off to the buffet and you ask me to bring you some wierdly textured (to me) foodstuff, I’ll do so with a smile and a hearty heave to lad.
    That’s what tolerant individualism is about: leaving each other alone. It’s neither about banning sausages, nor is it about banning slippery / slimey mouth feel.
    And for the record, it turns out somewhat to my surprise that my operating system doesn’t collect cholesterol or fat, so for me it’s a good dietary source of calories (when taken in a balanced fashion), not some foodismist evil.
    That’s what responsible individualism is all about. Find your sweet-spot in life, and then some how, some way, do something useful.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation