israel

Thats not self defense, that is revenge. Here is an idea. Why not continue peace, talks. If this doesn't work, afford compromises. If nobody wants to compromise, threaten the use of a much less lethal force. If this doesn't work than destroy the factories that produce threatening materials. If this doesn't work than proceed to systematically assassinate important political leaders that are in favor of using force against us. Then we can give initial power to a western-educated person of a majority (i.e. a Muslim, or an Iraqi or something) Then allow them to slip into a political system of their own choice. In fact, the greatest rational for people saying we need to stay in he middle east (aside from oil, but I'm talking about morally and ethically) is that lives will be lost, as American occupation is the only thing holding the area together. I think we should completely pull out and allow them to fight amongst themselves. We can assassinate, bribe, or remove those that would keep us from purchasing oil (it most certainly wouldn't be beneath us) and assuming the soviet union doesn't rise from the dead, the revolution there would eventually lead to some sort of a representative democracy. And even then, who cares about the political stability of the area. You cannot say we have any moral reasons for keeping the peace, it's all about the money. Chaos there makes for more expensive and hard to get oil, and thats the only reason we need to keep some stability in the area. Why not devote our powers and forces to assuring our ability to purchase oil at reasonable prices. I don't approve of intentional destruction of innocent lives, but I could give a shit about Ahmad the Turban seller becoming collateral damage. If you live in an area as unstable as that, it's advisable to purchase firearms to protect yourself. Revolution is the only form of violence (other than pride fighting and self defense) that I personally approve of.

See, your going in circles. Do you understand the value of a life? The fact that someone in Tehran who's spent the past 15 years supporting their family just to see there kids go to college have their lives comepletly destroyed. What about all the fucking children there for Christ's sake? The only americans dying their are soildier fighting a fool's war for foolish causes. Why dont you them in ways that dont lose lives, or at least not as many. Military outposts, nation treasure (maybe some... I dont know national park or something) Nuke the outskirts of a town just to show them that you could.

Something I was thinking about just now: How can someone create a 'monopoly?' By buying out companies right? That's is the only way for a monopoly to exist. BUT! In a free market absolutely everything would be privately owned, and lack of taxes would diminish IPOs. Not only that but even if a company were to go public, it would still be up to the shareholder's whether or not to sell you a percentage of a company. And I know if I ever saw a company that was buying up all other competition I would make the conscious effort to keep my company from being bought by them. The only other way they could gain a monopoly is if they were to lower prices enough so that I would go out of business... which does present a problem. But even once a monopoly has been set up, and prices have been raised, boycotts could easily take out those large companies in a matter of months. Actually even if a large company with loads of capital could manage to lower their prices enough to run me out of business, I do believe that most people would much rather spend the extra amount of money on the small company with the higher prices and greater quality. People distrust corporate schemers, and small companies have the homey feel.

This sounds so much like the way they handled the whole Afghanistan/Irag situation.

What about 10 other countries that have more 100,000 nukes? Why don't we threaten them? Oh, cause we can't do anything about it. Whatever, if they become a serious threat, I understand, but there is nothing wrong with compromise. Let's hope the heads of state feel the same way!

I absolutely need to find some clubs or something in my area. I live in Orange County, and being a high school student, it is so ridiculously hard to find anyone of intellectual merit. I'm not being pretentious here, but its hard not to consider your peers dumb, when they chose to vote for a new president based on the color of their skin or the genitals between their legs or (even worse) shit they hear on the goddamn Colbert Report. I'm not even kidding. I will adjourn to the locals forum!

double post ):

I think this is exactly what it is. While I've gained a further grasp of a free market under objectivism, and while it is extremely appealing to me, it completely demolishes the standards I've been raised with. I pride myself on being open minded and willing to accept new ideas, but if somethings strange, than somethings strange. A=A lol (:

I'm really trying hard to understand this. You feel justified in eliminating eleven million (11,000,000) lives in retaliation (okay, "self defense") for an act committed by a terrorist group (which has no affiliation with said eleven MILLION innocent people) that happened seven years ago? Am I the only one this doesn't make sense to? It has nothing to do with political correctness, and everything to do with morals. It is NOT right to take innocent lives. He only justification is a direct, viable, adn current threat against YOUR life (i.e. a knife fight) or the defense of your family. I'm sorry but i just don't find 11 million middle easterners trying to live their lives to be a threat. It's the same thing if Japan today decided to nuke a hundred of our largest cities for every city that was nuked in WWII. Thats two hundred cities, hundreds of millions of lives, trillions of dollars in damage, all this wiped off the map. I just really don't get it.

Give me a car and I'll go to Barnes and Nobel right now. Unfortunately the world does not revolve around the wants OR needs of us all.

Actually I think he has a valid point. Marx isn't the only one with a say in what communism truly is. Marx was german, and Lenin was russian. Obviously they'd apply similar philosophies to different situations. The reason communism(at least russian communism) should be considered 'mixed' is because it was used as a vehicle to further the agenda of a single man (corruption) not the philosophies agenda. It's like if in a capitalist society one man rises to power (somehow, someway) and uses what would otherwise be advantages to all people, to his personal benefit. Say he abuses the free market in order to fatten his wallet, or slowly absolves what military we have (which wouldn't be as noticeable under night watchman state) in order to let someone else take over. I'm just validating his point, this is all purely hypothetical.

Well I don't currently own any Objectivist literature, so I was just using what was viable at the time. That being said, I completely agree with the statement pertaining to questions about objectivism. If I have a solid foundation of understand from which to project my questions, my questions themselves will be further specified to situations that need human input. (I hope that sentence made sense. ) Basically read some Rand. So I guess someone should close this thread? Or does somebody here wanna casually counter my points regardlessly? I'd be more than willing to entertain your thoughts! (:

EDIT: Disregard this statement here, I need to read some Rand before I continure posting like this. "Kevin, this question IS related to objectivism but it is not ABOUT objectivism. Perhaps you missed my meaning, but I was asking this question ethically, as in: What is your personal take on the matter? I was only asking because I was reading about selfishness on a lexicon, and I'd come to understand that: So couldn't this be left up to the person in question? I meant it as a discussion piece, not as a question about objectivism, or an attack on objectivist views."

Yeah, I really do need to get my hands on some of Rand's works. Regardless would you mind trying your best to answer these questions for the sake of argument? If not I completely understand, as I too w reiterate ould deem it annoying to have to my own ideas over and over again. On the other hand I'm asking these questions from a compeltly un-biased persepctive, as your are right, I have a very limited understanding (this is me being humble ) of objectivism, other than what I've learned through internet sources and this forum. So perhaps it might be worth the time to debate something like this with someone like me? I'm not trying to push anything, I just like to argue...

Can you really trust peopel to do whats best for them? Granted over time with more liberal changes in our culture and government people would come to learn responsibility, so I guess that makes this point moot. I'm sorry but drugs do contribute to the crime rate, and legalization and government regulation is nearly the only way to reduce this short of permanent destruction of all such substances. (which is not only impossible but would lead to the coveting of other substances and items) This can still lead to corruption, as well as no way of assuring the legitimacy of these operations. Kosher foods are defined by religious law, and normal food and medicinal products are defined by government defined laws. You cannot trust a privately owned company to decide on which products are faulty and which are not. This would immediately lead to the bribing of 'officials' within these companies in order to further the reputation of their own products. Reputable products make money. But what about the economy? If car companies were to realize that they can make more money exporting quality cars to other countries, while importing cars that are not of the same standard to sell here, we'd have the transpirational technologies of Soviet Russia. Once again, the lust of money is apparent, and these advantages WILL be abused. While it may be your right, and while as an objectivist you may feel the need to serve yourself only, I don't think it would be 'rational' for you not to stimulate your countries economy, even though this would be 'serving another man.' Would you not consider City Board members a collective of individuals who have been elected to allow the consent of the public use of such properties? I personally appreciate my ability to go to school for free, to take my sister to the zoo and study my lessons in libraries, all of wich are afforded by taxes that in this case I am willing to pay. This is one of the few things I may be adamant on, but if you are able to provide a strong argument against such services, I would glady think them through! Even if you were able to tell why we have no need of these things, you can't possibly say that you've never used any of them. And if you truly don't believe in public property than you woudln't support their existence by enjoying them. Where does it say that we are not allowed the right to collectively own property? Can you really say that for a fact? Is it really the nature of peopel today to give things away? I've foudn in my lifetime that the truly generous are a select few. On the other hand we would be able to use that tax money to afford to go to private schools, so I can compromise here. I absolutely plan to! It may seem like I'm overly critical of Objectivism, or that I may just not prescribe to objectivist ideals, but I really do appreciate Rand's ideas. I too believe in the right to own and use property as I please, in a night watchman sate, and the legal debatability of most taxes. (especially the Federal Income Tax)