Don Watkins on a Roll

Two good pieces by Don:

Ryan, Rand and rights

I really like this paragraph:

According to Rand, rights are moral principles that are designed to restrain society from interfering with an individual’s moral action. Morality helps an individual decide what he ought to do — rights tell society not to stop him from doing what he ought to do. Since morality, in Rand’s egoistic conception, tells an individual he should support his own life, act on his own independent judgment, produce the wealth he needs to survive, and seek out his own happiness, then a political system should enshrine the individual’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

And  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: a paean to American liberty

Check out the comments to this second piece to get a sense of the state of mind of a good portion of Europeans.