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I agree with that logic, too. And I agree that it may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. (to mix metaphors) I think it would be a good thing to have it all come crashing down. People don't seem to get that communism doesn't work, socialism doesn't work, socialism-lite doesn't work, a mixed economy doesn't work, and crony capitalism doesn't work. They need to be slapped in the face with consequences of their choices. The faster it falls apart, the quicker we can get to rebuilding it.

Before asking a new question, please see if someone has already provided an answer. Also feel free to reply to any of these threads with more specific questions. If you do not find your question here, please use the forum's Search function to see if it has already been asked. Or, you can try using Google to search this forum. Metaphysics What is meant by "Existence exists"? Isn't that just a tautology? Epistemology Is free will an illusion? If we are made up of particles, how can we make choices? How does one validate volition? (threads: 1, 2, 3, 4) (keywords: volition, determinism) Is induction a valid means to knowledge? (threads: 1, 2) How does the choice to focus occur? What is a law of nature? Ethics How can you derive an ought from an is? Why not steal if you can get away with it? (prudent predator, threads 1 2) Politics Do babies have rights? Is forced taxation wrong? How would government function without forced taxation? (threads: 1, 2, 3) How would the Constitution be rewritten from an Objectivist perspective? How would roads be handled if all land is privately owned? How would a water supply be handled if not by a city government? How could lakes and seas be privatized? How should criminals and punishment be handled by a proper government? How would prisons work in a free society? Is intellectual property actually property? Is preemptive war justified? (interventionism) What is wrong with anarchy/competing governments? Science Does quantum mechanics violate identity or causality? (1, 2, 3) What is space, and in what sense does it exist? Is global warming or "climate change" really occurring? What effect are humans having on global temperature? (see also: One Minute Case Against Climate Alarmism) Economics Are we moving towards greater inflation, hyperinflation, deflation, or something else? (1, 2, 3) What effect will the "quantitative easing" of the Federal Reserve have on the economy? If anyone would like to add to this list, or if there are better topics to link the above questions to, please leave a reply.

Just throwing out a couple of suggestions: 1. Most people do not engage in detailed critical analysis of political philosophy. Concepts like "the free market," "capitalism," "rights," and so forth are floating abstractions to the average person. That is, they are concepts taken from, or learned from, other people without having grounded them upon a foundation first-hand. They come associated with various context clues, emotional connotations, tones, and packaged with other concepts, but the person hasn't actually asked what facts in reality give rise to the need for these concepts. And so it's actually not all that "obvious" that we have a mixed-economy as differentiated from the free market, or a purely capitalist society. I remember there was some poll where people were asked for their opinions on capitalism, including what it means, and the majority defined it as something like "whatever that system America has is called." So I don't think it's that they just are totally blind to the facts, but that they see certain things going on that they don't like: they see people being pushed around that they want to protect them, they see massive corporations with seemingly unaccountable power, they see massive economic problems, massive amounts of oppression and abuse from an unaccountable and privileged plutocracy, groups being victimized, etc. Couple this together with massive jumbles of fallacies from a long line of statists throughout the centuries and their use of floating abstractions, it's not hard to see why they come to some of the conclusions that they do against capitalism. Of course, this generally applies to the sort of leftist that might be classified as "anti-authoritarian" in some sense, and not the kind of leftist that genuinely has a blueprint for utopia and is willing to pile up a mountain of skulls to make it happen. Those people, I think, just actually hate the idea of freedom, or conceive of freedom in such a way as to mean obedience to doing what they want you to do. This might also serve to explain why it is that conservatives are so bad. From what I can see, there seems to be a certain range of "acceptable opinion" for conservatives, and that they claim freedom and liberty as merely slogans disconnected from any rigorous meaning. Which brings us to the next point: 2. Given the above, there is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance involved. Kuhn cites an example of a study done on people perceiving what they expect to perceive, based on accepted notions of things. "[A] mind accustomed to functioning within a certain conceptual framework will have trouble recognizing deviations from the categories of such a framework... even if contrary evidence is detected, it will be dismissed as inessential." In an experiment, people were shown various flash cards that had like a red ace of spades and a black 2 of hearts or whatever, and most of the people didn't even register or notice this. So if we transfix this on this context, it doesn't matter if Republicans support various statist measures indistinguishable from Obama's policies, or if Democrats support various corporatist and plutocratic measures, various wars, and champion the police state. If one expects Republicans to be "against big government" and Democrats to be "against war, big business, and pro-civil liberties" that is what one will see because to see otherwise would go against vital notions of things and force one to rethink a whole lot of crap, basically. Even if they recognize some of the same facts as anyone else, they will interpret it vastly differently so as to fit in their framework. People will tend not to see a government decision as what it is. Obama will be called a "Marxist" even though he does some of the same exact things that Bush Republicans were doing, and "that was different, we were in a crisis, we were told it would be done right, it was necessary," etc. Most people are against violence and beating people. If I would ask a lot of leftists if they would think it to be okay to go hit someone on the head, they would probably say "no of course not." They just won't see the government as hitting people over the head then, they will interpret it differently. They would simply not recognize the government hitting someone on the head and doing the same exact thing that would otherwise violate widely accepted moral principles, because having government do this is necessary. Which brings us to the next point: 3. Largely the opposite of floating abstractions, there is also what Rand called the concrete-bound mentality (also in PWNI.) The case for liberty and capitalism depends entirely upon one's ability to see beyond the immediate particulars and abstract out to the principles involved. Bastiat and Hazlitt also made this distinction in the context of economics between the "seen" and the "unseen." A lot of things we have to point to are "unseen" and require long chains of reasoning and abstracting from abstractions. You see the glazier hard at work thanks to the spending injected in the economy due to the broken window, but it takes an act of abstraction and counterfactual reasoning to see the things that the baker cannot now do with the resources that he otherwise would have had. You don't want the government to do X? Then you must be against X. The government does Y. If the government would not do this, then we will not have Y. Roderick Long wrote a paper and gave a talk at the Austrian Scholars Conference earlier this year on this type of thing, though maybe not dealing with exactly with the question at hand, but it's interesting nonetheless: paper: Invisible Hands and Incantations: The Mystification of State Power talk: see also: and see our very own Eiuol: The Process Of Deliberation and getting others to change their mind

If I were going to take time out of my busy day to multi quote for a person who simply doesn't pay attention carefully to what I'm saying, I would have already done it. No one is forcing you to read it, so either read it or don't. You say that I need to provide evidence for my CLAIMS? I did not claim anything that isn't already obvious, such as that the existance of mental illnesses have not been proven yet. I suppose you would have to disagree with Rand on that one. My opinions do not have to have evidence, because they are just my opinions and I would never state an opinion of mine (or of anyone else's for that matter) like it was a fact. If you want to investigate my thoughts on a particular subject, YOU NEED TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. There is no law against making claims without evidence anyway. I can tell you I have not said anything out of thin air that I didn't have some kind of specific, factual reason for saying. You ask me how I can be an objectivist and make claims without evidence but how can you possibly be an objectivist and believe that insanity is proven to be a sickness in the body? A good example of careless diagnosing of patients is in a documentary called "The Medicated Child." You can look it up on youtube. There are some examples of it in there, but not all are particularely careless. IMO, the psychiatric method of diagnosing a person is in itself devoid of rationality for many reasons, but mostly because it closes people up. If you don't understand the causes for something, you can't possibly know whether what you are doing to a person is helpful or hurtful. For example, if a supposed "schizophrenic" hears voices in their head that tell them negative things about themselves and they were actually just hearing their own thoughts, telling them they are schizophrenic and that they can't help it might actually reinforce the problem.

I have read all of Ayn Rand's novels.. She stops short in most of them, She doesn't reach her own point. Ayn Rand proclaims herself to be an Atheist. That is what Saves Rand from True Godlessness. IF YOU CAN FIND THE ABSOLUTE UTTER LACK OF GOD IN RAND'S WORKS. A PERSONS WHO HAS TRULY COME TO A CONCEPT OF "UTTER LACK OF GOD." WILL ANSWER THE QUESTION , "Are you an Athiest?", By replying , "NO!" Because you see, If you come to an Utter Lack of God, then there is no such thing as Athiesm, it ceases to exist as a concept. Many Objectivists have turned to trying to find GOD in Rand's Work, why?? Because of the flaw that Ayn Rand introduced by proclaiming herself to be an Athiest. If Rand had gotten to TRUE GODLESSNESS, She would have also proclaimed that she wasn't an Athiest also. Ayn Rand was an Athiest. She had God in that tiniest sense. Both the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have God in them, in the barest essence in their Atheism. Which is why there for a time Objectivists started trying to Integrate a Notion of God into Objectivism. Well it is there in Rand's Athiesm itself. Rand's Mere Athiesm is one step short of TRUE GODLESSNESS. The opposite attempt is to Rid Objectivism of God altogether by comming to an "UTTER LACK OF GOD" which will destroy Atheism itself. Objectivism has God in it, in the narrowest sense, in the smallest amount. And that is as far as Rand could go philosophically. If she had gone further she would have found herself stairing at the Ultimate Question. Ayn Rand in her Athiesm doesn't deny God's existence at all. Which is what has objectivists seeking an integrated notion of Objectivism and God. Which is what will ultimately save Objectivism itself. Objectivism cannot survive without God.... It is interesting that it takes a flaw in Objectivism to keep it viable to people as a system of thinking. Christ puts no stipulation on the socio-economic model that man lives in. Which is why also that man can live with Communism for 80+ years also. Christ will allow man to exist in a purely Capitalistic Society as much as he will allow man to exist in a Purely Communist Society. To abandon God because you want Capitalism is erroneous thinking also. To abandon God because some men will not let you have a purely Capitalistic Society, is flawed thinking as well. You think that people would abandon those people and not Abandon God, but nope.. That guy over their voted me into Socialism, I think I will abandon God in retaliation, Just doesn't make any sense. So Rand's fit started about Communists and rightfully so, she was powerless about that and chose atheism instead. But Christ is left Scratching his head because Jesus Christ never told Ayn Rand that she wasn't allowed to make any money or to Own Property, ie, That Trading powerhouse, The House of Hurr. So perhaps it is possible to live in a Capitalist world and not abandon God also, seems possible to myself. Just as it is possible, to feed the homeless around here without a Communist's Makorov Pistol to your head also.