Ariana Binetta

North Korea really is a type of madhouse. I think they're capable of anything. They do things that no other horrid dictatorship in the history of the world has done--this includes communist Albania. Still, I think you're right. The really sick thing is Iran might easily transfer its nukes to Al Queda before we even know they have them. How hard, really, would it be to sneak a bomb into New York, DC, LA or London? Bush seems rather amoral and "morally equivalent." I think he probably would hinder Israel. This is unfortunate because Israel's fight is our fight. And the PLO is little different from Al Queda. Both should be destroyed, if possible. Unfortunately I think the Gaza surrender has made the Israelis soft in the head. They seem as appeasment-oriented as they've ever been in their whole history. Really ominous. Maybe someone will sneak a nuke into Tel Aviv too.

This is an OUTSTANDING movie. It's powerful, moving, tragic, memorable, and definitely makes you think. You also have to see it twice to really get it. And watch out for any idiot friends who want to give you "spoilers!" (Made in 2000 starring Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss.)

Iran is run by true fanatics, IMHO. So is North Korea. If either gets the bomb the world situation will get very interesting very fast. I hope President Bush is on top of this. But he seems rather unintelligent and disengaged, so we could be in some real trouble here.

I think there should have been an option for "Yes, in virtually every respect, although there may be a few small points I take exception to or don't fully understand."

The physical evidence in favor of God, as far as I know, is flat zero. And "God," as all the monotheists and polytheists that I'm aware of conceive of Him, seems to violate a great many known laws of the universe. So there's no evidence for, and a lot of evidence against. And yet--maybe if we all look deep enough into our hearts and souls there may be a small place where He could exist, and even needs to fill up...! Maybe a very superior God exists in some strange and remote physical or metaphysical part of the universe unknown to our five senses and limited human reasoning processes/power. Maybe we need to directly harness the power of computers to our brains so we see the world in a much more rounded, deep, 3-D, and multi-dimensional sense?

Can God exist? She can do anything she wants---she's God!!

You're not alone. OPAR was very heavy sledding for me. A real chore. I think it's just clunky and poorly written. Maybe Leonard was intimidated by the topic with its importance and "officialness." This is interesting too because Peikoff's other book (Ominous Parallels) was rather wonderful, stylistically. And his Ford Hall Forum lectures are similarly easy to follow and pellucid (look it up, guys! ). Rand's ITOE is also hard to follow...but maybe that's just the complexity and subtlety of the material? Usually you can get it if you just go over it a few times, but with OPAR maybe not.

Very thoughtful comments, Synthlord! A pleasure to read. And, yes, Rhea was very annoying. But George Clooney was an absolute doll! :-) His effort to understand McElhone was nothing but valliant. Love makes you do these things... What I took away from the film is that life is potentially much more rich than people realize. The possibilities with science, and new environments and species, is great. How wonderful is it to get a chance to recreate life and get a second chance?! I think the mistake everyone made was not to realize that once a new life was created, it instantly became independent and new. All should have treated it as such. Rhea and Kelvin both errored here. But a wonderfully photographed movie with a full heart--and terrific food for thought!

Outstanding movie! Eerie, atmospheric, and beautiful. It does feature murder and suicide, but maybe if the various characters had had an Objectivist sense of self-discipline and rationality they could have handled the various strange goings-on better. The existential reward at the end, you know, was potentially great. A brilliant and thought-provoking film!

I hope I'm not missing Dan's point but...Aren't drugs everywhere? Haven't drugs and art--whether creating or appreciating--gone together since time immemorial? Isn't the whole human body itself a vast and powerful drug manufacturer? From tiredness to sleepiness to day-dreaming to meditation to exercise to song-and-dance to sex--Don't people experience altered consciousness constantly? It keeps life new and fresh! I think the impact of hormones, chemicals, and altered consciousness is continuous. So, yes, drug-takers--within certain limits, obviously--can make and appreciate fine art.

I know neither one of these items of destruction are actually "books" but how about all that utterly limitless verbiage about relgion and socialism which chokes our world? So so much of it seems like pitiful propaganda of very low quality which can't influence or hurt anybody--but what quantity! All these endless volumes of Jesus and Marx (and company) seem to hit us high and low, direct and indirect, obvious and subtle, friendly and mean, etc. The harmfulness of this numbing, pulverizing, insidious, unending stream of intellectual trash seems almost beyond compare and is almost two ultra-powerful "books" in themselves.

I wrote yesterday: Greedy Capitalist replied: That is not the only sentiment I express. Anyone who reads my occasional posts can see that. In fact, that wasn't even the only sentiment I expressed yesterday--even those this whole thread is devoted to "forum atmosphere." My goal here is to discuss Objectivism with an informed, intelligent, worthwhile audience in a way which can benefit my life. But it's a real value in discussing things to be able to really express one's true self and thoughts. This is where the intimidation factor and "Warn %" ratings and REPORT! button on every post comes in. The Valliant book mentioned above is hugely worth discussing in an open, honest and critical manner. But it helps if people could do so without having their motivation questioned.

The original post from Felipe was: I always feel a little intimidated here. It's clear dissent and original thinking isn't much tolerated. This is why I mostly "lurk," not post. Recently a new book came out by James Valliant which did much to set the record straight and give the other side of the story--but which was the essence of tendentious. Not impartial or objectively truth-seeking at all. But do I feel comfortable expressing that sentiment here? No, I do not.

SoftwareNerd asks: No, but somehow this appears to be a different a situation. For America to be an open fraud seems damaging. Keeping international agreements and maintaining a reputation for honesty seem important even when dealing with horrific miscreants. But no one seems to be picking up on my main point: these North Koreans--who admittedly bear some responsibility for their sorry state--are suffering worse than any other large group in the history of man. Every time I study this closely I just want to cry. It isn't "altruism" to acknowledge their unprecedented agony and is an evasion to completely ignor it. How many people does Kim Jong-Il have to starve before America does something here?

The bargain was completely corrupt. They implicitly threatened to go nuclear, and indirectly threatened to nuke America after they did. To forestall this America gave in to blackmail and gave them a massive bribe in order to save our hyde. But the deal was even worse than that because the American nation was not negotiating with the North Korean nation but rather their evil "leader" slave-masters. Thus the bargain was: You monsters who hideously violate the rights of 23 million can go ahead with our blessing provided you don't hideously violate our rights. What you demons do with "your" people is not our concern -- so torture away, boys!

Punk points out that the US brazenly violated Bill Clinton's 1994 agreement to give them light-water nuclear reactors. Inspector asks if we need honor such foolishness. And others note that the North Koreans have violated all of their agreements. But I think America has to be true to its word or we lose moral authority and give the bad guys moral fuel. It's important we not give the dictators anything legit to complain about or to be honestly indignant over: this is a kind of wind underneath their wings without which they crash and burn IMHO. What makes this problem so hard is South Korea and Japan are very determined appeasers. And at the six-part talks China, and even Russian, are very happy to use North Korea as a sharp stick in our side. Thus at the six-country talks the US has about five enemies. Nice, eh?

What does everybody think of the new deal with North Korea? Evidently the six-part talks have an agreement "in principle" for America to semi-recognize the sovereignty of the North Korean dictatorship and not to invade it. We also have to give them massive amounts of energy and some financial aid right away. The dictatorship, in turn, vaguely agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons program sometime in the future with verification processes and timetables very obscure and still to be negotiated. Personally, I think this is the hardest diplomatic problem in the world. But that won't stop me from criticizing it! The US seems to be bribing a terrible tyrant and giving in to sheer blackmail. We also seem to be wantonly abandoning the 23 million semi-innocents of North Korea who are suffering beyond all description.

Moose, at some point this issue is kinda easy: The fight between the Jews and Arabs is EXACTLY like the fight between the West and Islamdom. It's VERY easy to tell who is good and who is evil here. Let's not make excuses for these guys. They pretty much want us all forcibly converted, conquered, or killed.

People refer to this by the classic term "Jewish self-hatred." But it really seems to be WESTERN self-hatred. The Jews have very high principles which they're very loyal to. Too bad so many of these ideals are suicidal and wrong.

Israel was created to be a Jewish State. When will this happen? Jews are, of course, their own worst enemy here. They appease Muslim evil almost to infinity. Please note that nationalism isn't racism or ethnic cleansing. It's normal and rational. India was partitioned into 3 states in 1947. The basis was Muslim vs. Hindu. Palestine should have experienced something similar, also in 1947. Italy and Germany were created based on 1800s nationalism. Let's be careful with our terms here. People of similar race, language, religion, history, culture, etc. seem to belong together. As for REAL racism, ethnic cleansing, collectivism, imperialism, etc.--well, that was what the ARABS did in 1947. They did so with considerable cruelty too. And this doesn't even consider the background of the Holocaust--which the Arabs loved.

How isn't it? Only maybe Turkey, parts of Lebanon, and Kurdistan are "moderate" of the Islamic states. Eqypt is home to the father of the jihadi groups: The Muslim Brotherhood--as well as many other major radical Islamic scholars and organizations. Jews and Christians walk the streets at their peril.

Jews number about 5 million and make up about 2.5% of the population of the Middle East. Arabs are about 200 million and 97.5%. Considering the never-ending evil visited upon them by the Arabs for 60 (or more) years straight, the Jews deserve maybe 5 or 10% of the land in compensation (which they can make far better use of anyway). But despite having 1/40th of the Semetic population, Jews only have 1/600th of the Semetic land. When they surrender Gaza and the West Bank, they'll have just 1/800th. What could be more stunningly injust than this? It's high time the Jews create a proper and Jewish state. Israel needs to recapture at a minimum Gaza, the West Bank, Sinai, the East Bank (Jordan), and parts of Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Then it needs to KICK THE ARABS OUT. We would have peace in the Middle East overnight. We'd also have morality and justice.

Eqypt isn't our ally. Nor is Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Bush is lying and betraying us. These 3 are radical islamic and socialist dictatorships. Everyone inside them hates their leaders and these tyrants, in turn, divert revolt by stirring up HUGE anti-Americanism. Thus America should declare itself any ENEMY of these 3 governments while expressing solidarity with and support for the semi-innocent citizens of these 3 evil states. We should champion the people (at least to the extent that they want freedom) while excoriating and morally condemning the dictatorial leaders. The US should only deal with these evil anti-American tyrants on an ad hoc basis and we should advertise loudly that we will BETRAY them the instant a decent pro-freedom movement emerges to overthrow and kill them. Ironically, this stance would make those peoples and governments much less anti-American and much more true, honest allies.

There's a lot to consider on this thread. One quick point is that I do not know Nathaniel Branden in any serious way -- I've just chatted with him a few times and read some of his books (plus all his Objectivist essays). Same with Brook, Binswanger, Hull and a few others. As for all the works cited by AisA--this list is long and I really had no idea.

All these replies are daunting. I'm just going to try to answer the main points: Absent alternative biographies from the ARI crew, the two Branden books stand as the definitive works on The Life Of Rand. History will conclude thus. The silence of Peikoff, Schwartz, Binswanger and others who knew Rand is deafening and intolerable. Silence here is assent. History will look very poorly on their "It's all lies," and "We're not biographers," statements. This despite the fact that Nathaniel and Barbara both absurdly paint themselves as saints. Talk about payback time! These two only err when they think they made a mistake and fail to appreciate their own infinite greatness. We do indeed need to hear the other side of the story. Valliant's book is rather helpful--but not nearly enough. The silence of Peikoff et al.--and the implication that we should take their painfully brief counter-claims as gospel--is shameful. At a minimum these guys need to read the two bios and then list their twenty or so strongest disputes. How hard can this be? Let someone at least interview these busy busy people to reveal at least a summary of what they say is false and evil in the 2 lengthy bios on record. I remind everybody--Nathaniel and Barbara spent YEARS of their valuable lives on recording this stuff. Does anyone really think it's all a calculated insult and fraud? Let Peikoff and crew also have the humanity and integrity to also explain what is true and insightful and helpful in the work of the Brandens. Otherwise, no one will believe them, and maybe no one should. The ultimate truth here is that Rand was an utter GIANT but somewhat flawed as well. Nathaniel was a semi-giant (and still is). Given his youth and looks, he was a worthy lover. Barbara, in turn, was a bit of a mediocrity. Still--Barbara broke the ice and opened up the gates to a lot of truth. She probably inspired and forced Nathaniel to vastly improve his Rand bio. This includes the quality of his self-serving lies. The current ARI stance on biography is deeply anti-social, and an insult and affront to all. They ask us to defer to their magnificent authority and take it all on faith. But no one will. For me the issue is very simple: No more excuses! At the very least, Peikoff and others should give us 10 or 20 hours of oral history on The Life Of Rand. Hit the tape recorders, guys!