re: #12 vidugavia

Speaking of “first principles” shows a rather shallow understanding of how ideas are formed.

You’re a charmer.

All ideas are formed as some kind of reaction to our our surroundings. The history of ideas are a long discussion where different concepts compete, evolve and inspire. No one gets to have “first principles”.

It’s a well-known philosophical term.
en.wikipedia.org

Did you seriously not know that?

Would you describe Thomas Paine as a inverse monarchist?

No, mainly because ‘monarchist’ isn’t really much of a category. George III was not anywhere close to an absolute monarch; the British Empire was a constitutional monarchy. In creating our nation, we modeled many things on British law.

What is being said is that Ayn Rand’s ideas are all reactions to Marxism, and wind up oddly mirroring it with the heavy emphasis on a ‘correct’ interpretation of language, the idea that human nature is perfectible through an economic system, etc. etc.