This is exactly the position of Ayn Rand, especially the part about not really caring if poor people get to have things like libraries or housing or food. To Ayn Rand, a "rational" homeless person would rather stave to death on the streets than accept the first crumb of unearned bread or a single night's sleep under an unearned roof. The only reason there's no conflict for Rand is because Rand doesn't recognize a legitimate interest in public goods, but only private goods gained through mutually beneficial transactions. To Rand, there's no rational interest in having a public library, so there is no rational conflict between the wealthy taxpayer and the impoverished library patron. Randroidism is one of the most brutal and shameful forms of libertarianism.
Rand doesn't recognize a legitimate interest in public goods,...
This is simply false. In Atlas Shrugged, she explicitly acknowledges that providing public goods is a legitimate function of government, and taxation is legitimate insofar as at it used to pay for public goods. If I remember correctly (it's been a long time), it was Hank Reardon who states this point.
I believe a (fair) judge was also allowed into Galt's Gulch, though I might be misremembering this point. As I said, it's been a long time since I read the book.
On the plus side, I don't think there are many hardline Randians. In technology, I would guess that libertarianism boils down to some mixture of: 1) being really annoyed about civil-liberties, EFF-type issues; 2) being moderately annoyed about regulations seen as unnecessary; and 3) being mildly-to-moderately annoyed about taxes.
Varies by person, but I think if you took a vote even restricted to people in Silicon Valley who actively called themselves "libertarian-leaning", over whether libraries should get some funding, the answer would probably still be "yes". Not too many people are actively against libraries; I think they get cut more because, unfortunately, their constituency isn't as powerful as other things that might be cut instead.
We're an odd bunch, and there are certainly plenty of technical folks who are logical-minded enough to get themselves into some hardline position or another, but hardline Randians are probably a minority of any group you could think of, except for the group of hardline Randians of course.
You're wrong and should stop hating people you're ignorant of.
I'll give brief examples in hopes you, recognizing you really were wrong about some basic facts, will either learn about the subject or stop making nasty, ignorant accusations in the future.
Ayn Rand did not have a policy of "never accept handouts", said so, and, for example, signed up for medicaid.
Ayn Rand's argument I cited does not consist of denying there are public goods. Whatever her position on public goods, if you read the chapter, public goods are simply not what she talks about, and your comments do not address the argument she did make.
Ayn Rand rejected and harshly criticized libertarianism. Calling her a libertarian is ignorant.
I was a fanatical Randroid myself in my younger years, and while she may not have gone as far as "never accept handouts", she did go as far as "never expect handouts", and in Rand's system there is explicitly no right or expectation to anything unearned.
Rand's opposition to "libertarians" was purely a personal dislike of the people in Rand's time who called themselves libertarians. Most sensible definitions of the word "libertarian", ranging anywhere from "an advocate for limited government" to "an advocate of the non-aggression principle" easily entail Rand's philosophy.
Finally, while I think Ayn Rand was irrational or just plain wrong in many aspects of her philosophy and in her personal and political dealings, and while I think her philosophy has frankly horrific consequences, I don't hate the woman. I actually have a degree of fondness for her, and her role in my intellectual development.
I'm in the same boat. I used to think that Rand had legitimate points and that hey, a society like that could work.
Of course, I was fifteen at the time. Finding the intellectual discipline necessary to realize that Rand's philosophy was predicated on nonsense and that I had been wrong was important to my intellectual development.
I was a "communist" when I was 15. Visiting the Soviet Union taught me just how wrong I was.
I'm gently worried that young people aren't allowed to make similar mistakes - reading the wrong websites or sending the wrong tweets can be really harmful to some people's lives.
"The parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die."
I think what Rothbard and Rand both illustrate is the flaw of letting logical consistency override every other consideration, including basic human decency and moral intuition, when developing one's moral sense.
Do you think you have the right to something that someone else has to work to produce? That's what Rand was against. You don't have a right to use force to cause someone else to work for your benefit.
There is a pretty clear logical flaw here. Nothing is produced in a vacuum. Your ability to create, to generate wealth, is heavily reliant on the infrastructure and services provided by your society (electricity, defense, roads, education, etc).
In other words, if Bill Gates had been born in Somalia, chances are he wouldn't be nearly as successful.
Taxation is how you repay your debt to the society that enabled your success.
Actually, Rand's view was that government wouldn't provide electricity, roads and education. These goods and services would be private and paid for by the people who wanted to use them.
Defense was a different matter, in that in her view, that was one of the legitimate functions of government -- protecting the individual rights of the citizens.
Rand acknowledged that every generation stands on the shoulders of the productive people who came before them.
Yes, if Bill Gates was born in Somalia he probably wouldn't have followed the path he did. If Somalia was a nation where individual rights were respected, as Rand advocated, everyone in Somalia would be much better off.
I don't think it's best to frame the question in terms of rights. If you're asking whether it's morally justified to tax millionaires in order to feed and house the homeless, my answer is yes.
