BlackSabbath

Do we need material possessions? Of course! Material possessions are good! Has anyone noticed that 1984 hasn't followed up his or her post?

This guy here thought it was communist propaganda: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadA...le.asp?ID=15063

Oh, my God! http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1605 The A Priori of Ownership: Kant on Property By Marcus Verhaegh [Posted September 9, 2004] Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is a highly significant resource for classical liberalism and libertarianism. Not only can one rely upon Kant's account of the foundations of morality to derive libertarian principles: Kant's own specifically political philosophy is written very much in a classical liberal vein that opposed paternalist government while emphasizing the centrality of the individual's property rights.

I have an ARI brochure, which just arrived yesterday, which has 'Human Action' for sale in audio book format. I've bought books by Von Mises before from Second Renaissance books, as they were. TOC is a rubbish organisation so it won't have anything worth buying. As for Lew Rockwell, I don't waste my time with Christian anarchists who will jump through hoops to paint America as the bad guy. http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1123 "Even so, perhaps it is worth examining the deeper historical and political issues. It is not true that supporting the Dixiecrats in 1948 necessarily reflected a racial bias against blacks. The real issue was not race; it was the place of freedom and federalism--concepts that are apparently not understood by the national press or by any of Lott's critics right and left--in the post-war period. Both parties were split on the direction they would take after long years of depression and war. The industrial planning of the New Deal was shocking enough, but the wartime planning of the Second World War was as bad as the fascist governments the US opposed on the battlefront. The crucial political question concerned the direction the country would take in the future--pushing headlong into the welfare-warfare state or returning to founding principles--just as the country faced this same question in 1989 at the end of the Cold War. In 1948, the key domestic question concerned the uses of federal power for purposes of social planning and redistribution. On the international front, the Marshall Plan had already been passed, shocking many in both parties who had a principled opposition to foreign aid and international management on this scale. And Truman and his advisers were already embroiling the US in a Cold War against Russia, a government that had been a close US ally only a few years earlier. "

What other system can 'work' if not laissez-faire capitalism?

Chavez is an anti-American who has forged close links with the Marxist dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro. This is relativist drivel. Socialism suits nobody. First of all, Communism is a form of socialism. Secondly, the Russians knew this and that is why the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics backed Castro so strongly. Thirdly, Socialism makes economic calculation impossible and must result in chaos. Fourth, Socialism is dictatorial in all it's forms such as National Socialism and Soviet Socialism. Fifth, it is Castro who dictates that the Cuban people should live in dire poverty. Sixth, Castro's socialism represents an economic embargo placed on his own people. This is the same with all forms of Socialism. The same embargo was placed on the Ukraine in the 1930's and millions starved in a country fertile enough to feed the entire world. And where is the Capitalism in Europe anyway? That is because it is a leftist lie. More leftist trolling. Cuban healthcare is free and well worth the price paid for it. The education system is an indoctrination in Marxist pig ignorance (a tautology, I know). Even if it were as good as it is made out, Castro controls who gets what employment. You certainly don't care about the fate of the Cuban people. You support the marxist dictatorship which crushes them. Negative aspects? Such as what? No counter-argument is required to refute gibberish. And the bit I quoted was indeed gibberish.

Castro is a communist dictator. As for Chavez, well I don't get Fox news anyway as I live in Britain. As for progressive, Castro is not. He is a marxist dictator. He was supported by the Soviet Union for decades. To pretend that he is progressive in any meaningful sense is dishonest evasion on your part. Marxism appeal is demagogic in nature. It is a system of looting rationalized as helping the poor. This is gibberish. Marxian is an excuse to be in favour of the cause but not in favour of the effect. Von Mises used the term 'Marxian' more than half a century ago and he did not mean it the way you have been using the term. Marxian and Marxist are interchangeable and your stated views are proof of that.

Postmodern secret police, postmodern gulags and postmodern collectivization. I can't wait!

You are not a Marxist, you just support people who are Marxist. What a load of rubbish. I read that post. You think that, because there aren't many Objectivists and there are many commies, that Objectivism is wrong. Metaphysics is the study of existence. You cannot reject it. Straw man. Rationality is not infallibility.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seen Maynard's posts elsewhere and I think you are being trolled.

I go to the gym twice a week. How about you?

When you were training to failure, how many sets per exercise and per workout did you do and how often did you train?

I got round this, over at Capmag, by making marxist arguments a warning offence and open declarations of communism/marxism an automatic banning offence. Then I delete, delete and delete! I love deleting posts!

Rubbish! So far, at Capitalist Paradise, the banning rate for commies is 100%. Every single one who has posted has been banned or asked not to post. All of this is after much sisyphean effort that makes Captain Scott's polar expeditions seem efficacious by comparison. Commies are irrationalists. If anyone has got far enough to believe that a totalitarian system is viable in any way then they are well past the point of rational discussion. Delete, delete, delete! You know it makes sense. I love deleting posts BTW.

I've seen Geist's post over at Capitalist Paradise and, through a link, at Che Lives. Geist is a Marxist revolutionary with social metaphysics. He is not a rational person. http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27927

The left here in Britain hate America and Israel. The pro-euro left hate Britain as well. I'd happily bet £1 million that Michael Moore fans hate America. Betsy is correct.

I based my point on John Lewis's Bush Vs Kerry article from the ARI. I assumed that Dr Peikoff agreed with it. Given Betsy's post below, I didn't make an ass of u and me. Sorry, but I love that emoticon.

Repeating what I wrote over at Capmag: http://capitalismforum.com:/phpBB2/viewtop...?t=872&start=25 Dr. Peikoff has lost his wits if he is serious about voting for Kerry. Kerry's record is to the left of Ted Kennedy. Both liberal and conservative associations have documented this. Kerry's entire campaign has been "Vote for me! I'm not George W. Bush. He's terrible." Peikoff has said, in effect, " Bush is terrible, I'll vote Kerry" Note that Richard Nixon's record between 1968 and 1972 was terrible but that Ayn Rand still voted for him because he was better than George McGovern. Note that Mrs Thatcher, between 1979 and 1983, had a terrible record on unemployment and the economy. That did not justify voting for Michael Foot's Labour party who campaigned on a left wing platform of tax-and-spend combined with unilateral nuclear disarmament. Foot's labour party would have destroyed Britain's economy. George W. Bush may well be too left wing. Voting for someone much further to the left of him with a pacifist foreign policy and a economic policy of tax-and-spend is not the answer. Kerry has a near 20 year record of voting to cut defence spending on top of that. George W. Bush is very inconsistent as many of us have noted. Kerry has almost always been consistently and evilly wrong." I took the oportunity to re-read the AR letter and found AR was decidely critical of Nixon's economic and foreign policies but still voted for him to keep McGovern out and I think Kerry is just a cleaned up version of him. As for the 1983 British election, that was one of the best examples of Bastiat's "What is seen and what is not seen" ever to happen.

A few years ago, I think it was Richard Salsman who did so, Greenspan was described as a Keynesian. This tripe from Meyer does nothing to disprove that. Given that Greenspan knows that inflation is an excessive issue of currency and is not a general rise in prices 'ignited' by economic growth, I think that we can conclude Greenspan sold out long ago. An ARI writer, could have Salsman again or Robert Tracinski, described Greenspan as a political chameleon which , in my view, would make him Robert Stadler with a touch of Alvah Scarrett.

Brilliant! It was only alluded to in the Mises article but that bit was written by someone old enough to know better. FB indeed.

Can I just add that, over at Capmag, the rise of the Nazis has been blamed on America's intervention in the first world war. This libertarian went ballistic when I suggested that the blame for Hitler lay squarely on the Germans. 100% so in fact. On another forum, the Pearl Harbour point was made and blamed on the fact that America had the effrontery to have allies. So America shouldn't bother with it's own foreign policy according to these people. I have read, from Lew Rockwell, an article critical of President Truman's policy towards a country which had previously been a key ally of America only a few years before. It was the U.S.S.R. under Josef Stalin. No more need be said.

You could have watched the Democrat's convention last week to see that. Wesley Mouch was there, you couldn't have missed him. He was an old boy with white hair and was a peanut farmer.

Once radical? The most radical thing that they ever supported was Scottish Independence. They used to be, at least the jibe said so anyway, 'Tartan Tories'. They moved to the left after that but have moved slowly back to the right since. What is 'right wing' about the Fascist BNP? The BNP would wreck the country's economy even if everyone was white and protestant as they are a hyper-protectionist party.

The economics of Mises.org are excellent but their political views are dire, especially in regard to foreign policy and the existence of a state. Every so often, they reprint some Von Mises article and the difference between Mises, with his limited state, and the rest of the anarchist piffle is highly refreshing.

I'm a member of the UK Objectivist yahoo group. Since I live in Central Scotland, being a member of an Objectivist group in London is not much use to me.