Reprint of Skittering Horror. Not an exciting card to go out on, true. As it stands, Innistrad has some better options, maybe, than this staple from 2000. Maybe I should take another look at that file and update this card? Anyhow, this bugger helps create alternate draft strategies in uncommon, which I like. I'd also like to give it one more point of toughness nowadays... but, what can I do?

That's very political/real-world flavor text. I'm not sure if it's appropriate for a Magic card.

Hah! You know, I wasn't sure where it came from, so I Googled it. It turns out this particular line is from Ayn Rand. I think it struck me as 'very black philosophically' and put it on the card, but then didn't attribute the author, because I didn't want to advocate the author.

This, of course, is keeping in mind that I never intended to publish the card on the internet... only to print up some copies and draft some times with some friends. Had I ever thought it would have ended up here, it would have had attribution, or the flavor text wouldn't be used at all.

That being said, I think the line's a load of bull, but I do like how it encapsulates black's sense of selfishness, and it's willingness to do anything to protect its interests. Since Magic (and this set) sometimes uses real world quotes, do you think that quotes that can offend some people, or have been used as a form of hate speech, have no basis in the game? Does it strike too close to home?

I have no qualms about pulling the flavor, you understand. I'm keeping it up, temporarily, because I find the subject of moderation and self-censorship to be interesting, and this particular piece of flavor text does walks that very fine line. After all, it argues for the sacredness of individual freedom... it does it, however, at the expense of the freedom of minorities.

I didn't realize this was an actual quote. Other than the fact that it doesn't seem appropriate for a card called Skittering Horror, I guess it's fine on a Magic card. It is very black, you're correct. I don't see how this is offensive, but if it is, it shouldn't be included; this is a game, after all.

Reading the quote out of context, I'm not sure how you reached your analysis in the last paragraph. Could you explain?

Rand is being taken out of context here... that's one of the intriguing things about flavor text. By it's very nature, it is out of context.

In Rand's next paragraph, she happens to say "the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)"

All of this sounds self-evident. Rand is setting up 'The True is the Whole', a postulation put forth by Hegel that says (loosely) "First myself, then my family, then my community, then my country". Except in this case Rand is saying "If I have individual freedom, then my minority group has freedom, then my country experiences freedom".

There's nothing wrong with that in theory. The problem is when someone tries to abuse that line of thinking. You could postulate off that and say "Minority group X has a freedom. I don't have that freedom. Therefore Minority group X should have that freedom taken away from them until each individual is allowed such a freedom. No one can be free until everyone is free."

A real world example would be how Jews used to be allowed to perform business transactions on Sunday in mostly Christian Europe. Jews had a freedom that Christians did not. The correct thing to do would be to allow Christians to practice business on Sundays if they so wished. Unfortunately, that would be a very difficult law to pass. Instead many Christians believed that, since they weren't individually free, then neither should the Jewish population, and they often took matters in their own hands.

I want to stress again that this is A). Not my philosophy and, B). I think that's putting words into Rand's mouth. I could see how this quote could offend someone, though, it does take quite a bit of extrapolation and imagination to get to that point. For those that have done the extrapolating, though, I assume they would think it self-evident. It's more "Something to intentionally get yourself upset over".

Very interesting. I think it's fine.