I just read an intelligent essay that I will pass on

[Imalittleteapot]

to everyone in my email address book. Go read it, if you haven't already. It's the first entry under "Recent Articles" on the DU front page, or go directly here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/027_ep.html

Ernest Partridge's "Randville, Rawlsburg, and New Orleans" explains the disturbing role of government in Bush's world, a simple explanation of its failure to respond to Katrina.

He opens with these two quotes:

Since there is no such entity as "the public" – since the public is merely a number of individuals – any claimed or implied conflict of the "public interest" with private interests means that the interests of some men must be sacrificed to the interests of and wishes of others.

- Ayn Rand

A society is a cooperative venture for mutual advantage... Social cooperation makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts.

- John Rawls

[Autonomy]

1. Libertarianism is a discredited religion

that believes that Smith's almighty Invisible Hand is God. It's stuck in 18th Century economic theory and teleological utilitarianism of Mills, and disregards any more sophisticated developments, such as Keynes, Rawls, and game theory, developed since. It does not even account for cooperative scenarios, complexity, attractors, and mixed strategy games.

Good essay, and it obviously and rightly prefers a Rawlsian outlook.

[applegrove]

2. Ayn Rand like the idea of rape too!