AYN RAND'S PHILOSOPHY IN COSTA MESA'S GOVERNMENT?
(Is it good or bad for improvement?)
At last night's (5/14) no-Planning Commission meeting, new Costa Mesa resident and new no-Planning Commissioner Jim Righeimer encouraged Costa Mesans to attend a lecture on real property being put on by the Ayn Rand Institute tomorrow night (Wed. 5/16) in Costa Mesa.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=events_ari_events
Now, we at the CM PRESS are fiercely individualistic and freedom loving (read our books if you doubt it), but we believe that there is also a social contract that requires us to act not only in our personal best interests, but to also consider the rights and reasonable wishes of others who might be impacted by what we do on our real property. You've heard this before in other contexts. It's the Golden Rule.
The CM PRESS doesn't want Costa Mesa to become too nit-picky a city, but we think that neighbors do have a right to weigh in on the building of a major structure that will put their own property in a permanent twilight with no breezes and no view.
We're also long time believers in the notion that Costa Mesa should and can be as nice a place as our coastal neighboring cities, but that this will take a proper vision and real planning to make it a reality; not a philosophy that lets every property owner do whatever he or she wants on his or her property with no regard to its effects on others or on the city as a whole.
Those who want the maximum amount of freedom to do what they want on their property, might be better advised to find some land out in the middle of the desert away from others. Of course, they may have to give up some of the conveniences of living in a built out city--things like indoor plumbing, etc.
Here's a link to Rand's book The Virtue of Selfishness in which Rand discusses part of her philosophy in her own words: http://www.objectivismstore.com/pc-23-3-virtue-of-selfishness.aspx
In the closing sentence in Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Rand's character John Galt presents the credo of objectivists: "I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
In the appendix to Atlas Shrugged, Rand wrote "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Below is a link to the Wikipedia entry about Rand. There are also further links at Wikipedia about some well known individuals who, according to the Wikipedia entry, Rand is considered to have influenced; including such seemingly different individuals as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
While alive, Rand received some criticism for her comments, or alleged comments, about what some felt was Rand's stance toward Christianity.
Time magazine reported in 1960 that Rand, in a speech at Yale University, said "The cross is the symbol of torture; I prefer the dollar sign, the symbol of free trade, therefore of the free mind."
While the quote apparently isn't found in the published text of the speech, Rand later sent a letter to the editor of Time correcting some of what the magazine reported she had said, but she didn't correct the above quote.
However, later that year in an interview appearing in Playboy magazine, Rand denied that she had preferred the dollar sign to the cross, but she continued "Now you want me to speak about the cross. What is correct is that I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn't that what it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. [...] And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture."RAND'S PHILOSOPHY AND THE NO-PLANNING COMMISSION?
No-Planning Commissioner Jim Righeimer (see # 139)--the same Jim Righeimer who urged Costa Mesans to attend the Ayn Rand Institute lecture on real property--wrote in his column in the Daily Pilot on 5/12/07 that it is not a homeowner's responsibility "to protect a neighbor's view, sunlight or ocean breeze, or to make his or her house compatible with your 1972 'Brady Bunch special.'" http://www.dailypilot.com/
In other words, if we understand Righeimer's comments correctly, he seems to be saying that your next door neighbor can pretty much do what he or she wants with his or her property, no matter what you think.
Now, Righeimer is entitled to his opinions and his philosophy, but the problem here is that he's an unelected official on the no-Planning Commission and he's voting for things in your neighborhood at every meeting.
You say you bought your home because it was sunny? Tough. You liked those ocean breezes? Too bad. You moved into your neighborhood because it had a certain feel? Sorry. It's every man and woman for him or herself, apparently.
It gets worse. Councilmember Eric Bever wrote in a Daily Pilot blog on 5/13: "I also agree with Righeimer's property-rights positions. " http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/05/15/blogs_and_columns/rigonomics/dpt-rigonomics12.txt
So, dear readers. What do you think? Does your neighbor have a right to do whatever he or she wants with no regard to what you want? Apparently, Righeimer and Bever think so.
You might let the City Council and the no-Planning Commission know what you think about this before you lose the ambiance that you thought you were buying when you bought your home.
http://www.ci.costa-mesa.ca.us/contact/email.htm
# # #
Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
