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erik

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Everything posted by erik

  1. Thats true, a Welfare State can't have open immigration or all the moochers would move there and run the gov't out of money.
  2. Succession is not going to happen. The 2 biggest "Blue" states both elected Republican Governors so they have quite a few Republicans living there. I do wish all these people who say they are going to leave would actually leave. The average IQ level for people in the USA would go up instantly. Besides Canada and the UK are the Socialist Utopias they want to live in and they speak English. What's stopping them?
  3. I just had a boy and had a hard time with the name. Decided on Logan because its uncommon and a good strong masculine name. Used Erikson for the middle name.
  4. I figured I'd throw in my experience since you asked. I was not an objectivist when I joined and had never read Rand or anything like it. I took the ASVAB test in high school like many other people and got a 99. Its a pretty easy test so I didn't think much of it. After that I started getting calls from all branches of service, especially the Navy nucluar submarine people. They said with my scores I could get the best job and that would give me a great career. Well I kind of burned out my Senior year in HS and didn't pursue college as much as I should have. I wanted to do something to travel which I had never done and they offer all this money for college once you get out. So I figured I could do 4 years, get out, have an idea of what I liked, have money for school and everything is grand. At MEPS I met a guy who trying for NAVY seals. The AF has Para-Rescue which is sort of the same so I planned on trying for it and If I didn't make I could get a good job with my high test scores. So I enlist and here is the mistake. I was in such a hurry to see the world I told them to give me the 1st available job. Don't do this! I thought they would at least give me a job that fit my ability, WRONG! I got supply, Inventory Specialist. This has to be one of the most boring jobs but let me tell you about Basic Training 1st. Its tough! AF basic is one of the easier ones too but I had a former Special Forces guy who was a serious badass. The loudest walker of all time. The 1st night there he threw a whole bed across the room. Once you get settled in its not so bad, I even got picked to march in Clinton Inaguration in DC. They flew us out during basic. Just make sure no to mouth off to your squad leader even if they are an idiot. This guy could barely even make a run around the track and he was one of the dumbest people in the flight. These people will usualy end up giving the orders though so get used to listening to stupid people. Tech School was great. Its academics which I kill at and they start to give you more freedom. This was the best time for me. I had put in for overseas because I wantedto travel but they sent me to Beale AFB which is in northern Cali. Its really in the middle of nowhere and the nearest cities were rated the worst pace to live in North America when I was stationed there. So imagine a college atmosphere with little or nothing to do and no homework. Its party time. I tried to stay out of the party atmosphere for awhile but eventually gave in. I got running with a bad crowd which I admit was my fault but you can only read War and Peace so many times while your neighbors and roommates party until dawn. Being young and inexperienced I got curious and started partaking. At this point I had decided I hated my job and tried to et it changed. That didn't happen but I got a new LT fresh out of college. What a moron. She volunteered me for a month straight on a "Clean up the base for the General" detail that stretched the defintition of useless labor. At this point I viewed myself as nothing more than slave that was at the mercy of any idiot with a higher ranks whim. I really wanted out. I got out before I was in 2 years after trying almost everything. Looking back I think I could have handled things differently and I could have had a much better experience. A good job and a better attitude from me would have made it ok. I still may have a problem taking orders from an idiot though, but you have no control over that no matter what you do unless you have your own business or something.
  5. I will be getting Halo 2 for birthday or x-mas hopefully. I have a 3.5 month old boy so not much time for video games ( cherish your time! ) or I would be all about an Objectivist clan! Kind of have to plan a babysitter to do anything other than change diapers, feed, etc the boy. whats all this Halo hating. It kicks tail! The innovation is the graphics, the AI ( smart foes ), and the multiplayer. Nothing better than to roam around and kill all your friends in a tank! Or even better running up to to a friend in a tank and killing them with a pistol!
  6. There are now waiting lists for both healthy and other types of children at adoption agencies. Many people that want children can't have them naturally or choose not to for other reasons. The fraction of a percent of cases this thread is talking about just would not be a problem in a free society. Due to the nature of the cases the police are going to be involved. They could easily at little or no expense make the proper contacts to the people that would specialize in this type of thing. They would take over and the adopting party would pay a fee to adopt the child. End of problem. In most cases the child will have responsible parents and so would have money in a trust fund and a lawyer to protect them from those that would be after their money.
  7. Prae, The reason the argument is going nowhere is because you are trying to support assertions that are blatantly opposed to Objectivism. Since this is the Objectivist Forum it should come as no surprise that there will be an opposing position. Some have even gone out of their way to point out some reading material to show you the error you are making. That is about all we can do. Back to the topic........ I agree this is pretty disgusting. I wonder if the film may get some attention now to somewhat negate nastiness of the murder. Anyone know where to see this film?
  8. I'll address this in 2 parts. Abusive parents - the child should be taken from the parents and they would have to pay child support to an uninvloved organization. Family members may not be a good idea as they will have a hard time keeping the child safe from the parents. This way the government does not have to pay to raise somones child, they just protect the childs rights. Orphans - like someone else said most responsible people ( Capitalist Society people! ) will have insurance and or family members that can provide care for the child. In the very unlikely circumstance that neither happens there should be enough charity etc. to take care of this child. The government should not get involved in this situation other than to contact the charities and give emergency care. Maybe to avoid this there could be a law on the books that makes parents buy insurance for themselves BEFORE they have children so as not to burden society if they die before the child can take care of themselves. The policy could be cashed out when the child turns 21.
  9. Objectivists in the Blue states seem to be all touchy because they are surrounded by Liberals! I read somewhere Liberals in NY are so upset they want to physically fight a Bush supporter. Watch your back boys! It getting ugly.
  10. I can't argue with that but how does that conflict with anything I said.
  11. Hopefully under an aggresive President, Al Queda will be found and killed before they can attack us again. I live is Tennessee which is in the bible belt. I don't feel like religion is very in your face here. People here care about low taxes, the 2nd amendment, and UT football. Church is just an excuse to get together and BBQ. I think that Objectivism has the greatest chance of succeeding in the "Red" states. At least they belive in some sort of morality. That can easily be replaced by the proper objectivist morality. The "Blue" states are controlled by the amoral nihilists/socialists. Anything goes and give me free stuff. It will be much harder to turn them IMO.
  12. That stuff reads like bad sci-fi. I really don't understand how people can swallow any of that stuff, but I'm still voting for Bush.
  13. You need food more than health care, with that reasoning why not provide food for everyone too. You could call it "Food Security".
  14. Bush is against abortion we all know that. He has not banned stem cell research, he just won't provide Federal Funding for it. Big Difference! A Capitalist would not be for that either but for different reasons. As to the Faith-based organizations he just made it easier for religeous charities ( of which there are many ) to get government money. Not really the step down the road to Theocracy everyone makes it out to be but no worse than Welfare or any state run charity. As to Iran, we had a good excuse to take out Saddam and the troops were already in place. Now we are in position to take out Syria, Iran ( which is now surrounded duh! ) Eqypt or Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were kicking us out soon and we needed a base in that region. Its called Strategy, ever play RISK? While I agree Bush is no great hero of capitalism, he is a better choice than Kerry and since we have only 2 choices this year........
  15. This is what I don't understand. Communism/Socialism ala Kerry is what is portrayed is AS as the main threat to civilization. Not Theocracy. If you people think America is more religeous now than 50 years ago you are wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA#Religion Who is closer to Thompson in AS Kerry or Bush?
  16. I had an Australian Cattle Dog ( Blue Heeler ) when I was younger that would chase and try to bite anything that moved. Bird, Squirrel, Jogger it made no difference. He was raised on a farm where he could do whatever he wanted and then moved to the city. Blue Heelers are bred to chase and herd cattle in Australia so chasing things and nipping at heels comes naturally to them. Maybe if a certain line of Pit Bulls is bred to attack humans that makes them an unsafe animal to own, thats a good question. I don't think its legal to own "wild" animals in most cities.
  17. China's GDP is growing faster than the USA's by a little but they have a much larger population base. Over 1 Billion to 280 million roughly. So they could have a much higher GDP by being much poorer per capita and have a lower standard of living. The thing people forget is that once the Chinese population starts becoming more productive and accumulating wealth ( I should say if the Chinese gov't lets this happen ) they will then have money with which to buy things from other countries. The USA leadership knows this and they want to be a trading partner from the start with the thinking that once they have the money they will favor American products. I have my doubts of this approach as it could be a way for the Communist regime to get a bunch of free investment and money from the USA.
  18. From what I can tell on the Robert Bass article "Egoism, Rights and the Equal-Interests Argument" he uses the argument that for one individual to gain other individuals must suffer. In other words that wealth is static and that when one trades there is always a losing party or parties. Since this a false assumption everything based on that assumption must also be false.
  19. Where in Ayn Rands works does she say that Religion is a bigger threat than Socialism/Communism. Socialism/Communism is the destroyer of civilization from what I remember in Atlas Shrugged. The choice is between two religeous men. Bush is a crony-captitalist who wants to kick ass to protect America. Kerry is a socialist/communist who has a life long record of appeasement. I can't believe that objectivist would say European Socialism or Candian Socialism "wouldn't be so bad".
  20. Bush is religeous because he believes it is good and Kerry is religeous because it will get votes. Negative traits for either candidate. Now if you accept that and look at everything else Kerry is just plain horrible. Bush less so.
  21. I've had people try to use Quantum Theory to prove that Rands saying that "Reality is absolute" is invalid. They also tried to use Relativity, the Sound Doppler effect, and colorblindness to prove that Reality is not Absolute. I no longer speak to this person.
  22. Early voting has started so quit talking about it and go make your mark. No-ones mind is going to change, certainly not Kerry apologists. He has a plan!
  23. According to the poll in this section over 50% of the people on this forum plan to vote for GW as opposed to 15% for Kerry. From reading the posts here I might assume tht most of the people here are Objectivists or semi-objectivist. Just because you disagree with Piekoff on 1 issue doesn't make you a Conservative.
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