>I kindly advise you not cut off previous messages. In this particular case it's allowed you to distort the point of the discussion, and I don't think that you did it inadvertently. The starting message meant that it's Ok when individuals suffer for the sake of common good. This is clear connection point to Lenin/Stalin and it makes Franklin allusion totally ridiculuos.
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>OK.
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>Tamar: Or we might say that we disagree with those ideas. The greatest and most important thing individuals can (and ought to) do is strive to make the world a better place for all, even if their own self-interest suffers for it.
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>"Even if" indicates firmness of commitment to "making the world a better place" as the greatest and most important thing a human being can do. It's an obvious reference to and juxtaposition with what went before. You chose to connect that to Lenin, something you might like to justify if you want to accuse others of distortion.
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>JR: Benjamin Franklin started every day by asking ""What good shall I do this day?" One day he decided to establish the first Public library to which generations of Americans were subsequently "forced" to contribute. He also said this: "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
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>The first quotation seems consistent with tamar's view on the most important topic. Perhaps you wil agree that Franklin was not asking "how shall I satisfy my own desires today." As for the second quotation: is "freely and generously" more compatible with Tamar's view including her reference to self interest, or the one to which she responded? Seems perfectly obvious to me- though I have no doubt that some people will be able to come up with a contrivance to the contrary.

Hopefully, you just don't get certain things, so I will try to explain. Most likely, you know something about Russian history, but I am still obliged to remind you few peculiar moments. At the time of the Revolution (1917) there was sizable group of people truly believing that they will build new, better world for all, and if some individual self-interests are going to suffer on the way then it is still perfectly Ok, because making the world better place has priority over any other considerations. Please, note that I am not talking here about fanatics, professional murderers, etc.. They were 'good people', friendly and nice looking folk, firmly believing in greatly looking ideas. 20 years later most of them ended up in Stalin's Gulag. Does it make them any better?
There is a big difference between voluntary donation and generosity (Franklin) and societal necessity to sacrifice self-interest (Lenin) though this difference can get blurred in some minds, i.e. when societal necessity is just proclaimed as some temporary means, certainly for the sake of common good. When/if this difference gets blurred in political reality then next Stalin is just around the corner.