Indian Resistance Day

Last Monday was "Columbus Day" or "Day of the Race", as called in Latin America. Since 2002, under the government of Hugo Chávez Frías, the name of this national holiday was changed to the "Indian Resistance Day".The celebration of the arrival of Columbus and the 
birth of the latin american culture and race was changed to a holiday of 
unnecessary guilt, rage and violence.
"Columbus Day" should be a celebration of the birth of our culture, the mix 
of the west, the Native-Americans and the Africans. Columbus brought 
with him the European culture and ideas that produced the end of immoral 
practices like slavery, which existed among Indians, 
in the continent and the acknowledgement of the rights of the individual.
So, shall we feel guilt? no, we have nothing to do with the Spanish invaders
that killed and oppressed Native-Americans.
Shall we destroy Columbus' statues, as adepts of Chavez's government 
did in 2004, with irrational rage? absolutely no! because his voyages 
(and the discovery of Venezuela in the 3rd one) are the reason of our 
culture, freedom and individual rights

Ayn Rand's Definition of Objectivism

At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows:

1. Metaphysics Objective Reality
2. Epistemology Reason
3. Ethics Self-interest
4. Politics Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his ownhappiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The governmentacts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

Ayn Rand

Copyright © 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.

The Venezuelan Reality Through The Lens of Objectivism

This blog is a tribute to the venzuelan individual...

Whose rights and liberties have been violated in the sake of a "common welfare" and a so called Bolivarian Revolution, identified with a "21st Century Socialism"; led by a corrupt and decadent government.

The purpose of this blog is to analyse and divulge the venezuelan reality and other subjects through the lens of Ayn Rand's objectivism.

"And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart The sacred word: EGO"-Ayn Rand, Anthem