Ayn and the Indians

Many have written me about the news that Sarah Palin is going to work for Faux Nooz™, kind of hoping for my take on it. Alas: Not only is everyone ELSE in the blogosphere and blogosmear™ already doing so quite adequately, but Palin going to work for Faux is kind of as surprising as a bear shitting in the woods. (Same kind of smell, too, come to think of it.) So, instead, the path less taken …

It never fails that should I attempt to criticize Saint Ayn of The Most Holy Sepulchre of Me-Ness, some self-anointed worshipper at the altar of MINE! MINE! MINE! will squall. Such was the case with “Something for the Eloi” (30 Dec 2009).

And that’s fine. The Ayndroid™ in question posts links to a site containing the Randian equivalent of Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Four Spiritual Laws” pamphlet. This last, I speculate, was generated in the late ’50s or early ’60s as a ripoff of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, which were making inroads via the writings of Lafcadio Hearn, Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki, through the Beat poets and artists and thence into hippiedom.*

[* OK: I just wanted to be completely fair, so we have Christianity and Buddhism, "religions," AND Ayn Randomness** and Buddhism, both "atheist" philosophies. Can't get fairer than that. And, it's a short column, so I'm padding.]

[** As opposed to Ayn Randiness, which is covered here.]

But what matters about a philosophy is how it’s applied to “real life.”

So, as I continue to hear about the Japanese internment in World War II, I think it’s instructive to listen to Ayn Rand talking about the practical application of her philosophy on the Native American populations in North and South America. (Or, to use Russell Means’ preferred term, “American Indian” or, to use author Russell Bates‘ preferred term, “Novamundian” [from latin "novus" = new, and "mundus" = world])

She’s speaking to the cadets at West Point, on March 6, 1974:

I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country.

I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you are a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not.

Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights – they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal ‘cultures’ – they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It’s wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you’re an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a ‘country’ does not protect rights – if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief – why should you respect the ‘rights’ that they don’t have or respect?

The same is true for a dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country; and no individual or country can have its cake and eat it too – that is, you can’t claim one should respect the ‘rights’ of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights.

But let’s suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages – which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their ‘right’ to keep a part of the earth untouched – to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen?

Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it’s great that some of them did.

[...]

As a principle, one should respect the sanctity of a contract among individuals. But I oppose applying contract law to American Indians. When a group of people or a nation does not respect individual rights, it cannot claim any rights whatsoever. The Indians were savages, with ghastly tribal rules and rituals, including the famous “Indian Torture.” Such tribes have no rights. Anyone had the right to come here and take whatever they could, because they would be dealing with savages as Indians dealt with each other – that is, by force. We owe nothing to Indians, except the memory of monstrous evils done by them. (pp. 103-104)

~ Q & A after a speech given to the Corps of Cadets March 6, 1974, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY

(The question Ayn was answering was, “When you consider the cultural genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of blacks, and the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War Two, how can you have such a positive view of America?”)

There’s your practical application of those “free market” principles being extolled without ever being QUESTIONED from every phosphor dot head stippling the pixels of our land.

Or, formerly, THEIR land.

Whoops.

(English ONLY! Make it the OFFICIAL language. It’s the only language spoken here, you doggoned furriners!)

Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it’s great that some of them did.

Courage.

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