2046

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/20/baby.mystery/index.html So basically, here we have a woman who cut a fetus/baby (not sure what to call it) from a pregnant woman's womb. The Pregnant woman died, and the murderer was charged with homicide (which includes murder and voluntary manslaughter and kidnapping) of the pregnant woman. If the fetus/baby died as well, should the murderer be charged additionally? Does it depend where the fetus/baby died - in the womb or outside? If the baby lives (which it did in the case) should the killer be charged with addtional assault? As a seperate, unrelated question, if someone kills a pregnant woman and causes her fetus to die, (but doesn't cut it out of her body) should they be charged with two murders? How does this work?

Okay, I have some actual ideas to discuss. What is the proper course of action, in terms of actual practical actions, that the US should take right now in terms of foreign policy? Would you withdraw totally from Iraq and Afghanistan, and why? Would you declare war on Iran, and why? Would you send troops into Iran, or bombard it from the sky with everything it took to get an unconditional surrender, and why? Would you occupy Iran afterwards, or engage in any nation-building? What would you do? Would you withdraw all American troops from all or some foriegn countries? What do you think of the old, classical liberal, "America First" foreign policy such as in the first 100 years of US history? What does the phrase "Perpetual war for perpetual peace" mean to you and how does it apply to the mainstream political establishment of today, in respect to the current foreign policy?

Okay, thanks for the responses, I am getting the feeling that this term is a bit more vague and generalized thatn I thought. I understand why it is associated with all sorts of nonsensical ideas and people who discuss it tend to be immediately out of the mainstream or just immediately maligned as "You're a kook!" but I have found mentions of it in many mainstream sources. So it kind of seems like a contradiction, you take the words directly out of Obama, or Clinton, or any of these assorted European politico's mouths, and then someone tells you you're crazy and it doesn't exist. I understand some people are so emotionally attatched to certain conspiracy theories qua conspiracy theories ("chemtrails" comes to mind) but I mean, there is the information in plain sight, the words come out of their own mouths, and you can look and see the schemes they are calling for and moving towards putting in place and then someone will just tell you it doesn't exist and you're crazy. So I am trying to get some more Objectivists to comment on what they think about this specific "new world order" concept, because it is really difficult to come by some rational analysis. What do some of you think about this: There are three organizations which are usually attributed in some of these conspiracy theories about the NWO. Bilderberg Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group Trilateral Commission http://www.trilateral.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission Council on Foriegn Relations http://www.cfr.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations These are private groups, which meet regularly consist of hundreds of members from the US, EU, and Asia. They can be described as extremely secretive, (CFR less than the other two,) insisting everything be off the record and their members are not allowed to discuss the details with the media or public. They do make some things public, CFR makes pretty open advocacy to global governance through its website, as it calls itself a "foreign policy think tank." http://www.cfr.org/publication/18985/#/Oce...erview%20Video/ http://www.cfr.org/project/1369/internatio...governance.html International Institutions and Global Governance: World Order in the 21st Century As Reuters reports, the Obama Administration has promised to cooperate with the UN and international community on the same points as CFR. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN12189461 Of course the president of CFR, Richard Haass, is Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor, as well has having several other CFR members in his cabinet. Here is a cursory list of other CFR members: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_th...reign_Relations Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama advisor, National Security Advisor Carter Admin. Richard Holbrooke, special foreign policy envoy Obama admin. Dennis Ross, special foreign policy envoy Obama admin. John McCain Madeleine Albright, 64th United States Secretary of State Sandy Berger (United States National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton) Michael R. Bloomberg (Current Mayor of New York City) Tom Brokaw Rick Warren, pastor Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Bill Clinton Hillary Rodham Clinton Robert M. Gates (United States Secretary of Defense, former Director of Central Intelligence) Alan Greenspan John Kerry Henry Kissinger Paul R. Krugman Paula Zahn - news media, formerly an anchor on CNN fareed Zakaria, anchor CNN John D. Negroponte (United States Deputy Secretary of State, former Director of National Intelligence, former U.S. ambassador to Honduras) Stan O'Neal (Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Merrill Lynch) Henry Paulson (United States Treasury Secretary) Thomas Friedman (journalist, The New York Times) Ethan Bronner (deputy foreign editor of The New York Times) Colin Powell (former United States Secretary of State, former National Security Advisor, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Charles Prince (chief executive officer of Citigroup) Condoleezza Rice, 66th United States Secretary of State David Rockefeller, Jr. John D. Rockefeller, IV Charlie Rose Fred Thompson (Actor, former Senator from Tennessee, Presidential candidate) Paul Volcker (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve) Barbara Walters George Soros George Shultz (former United States Secretary of State, former United States Secretary of the Treasury, former United States Secretary of Labor) James D. Wolfensohn (former president of the World Bank) Paul Wolfowitz (former president of the World Bank, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense) James Woolsey (former Director of Central Intelligence and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency) Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank) Nelson Rockefeller John D. Rockefeller 3rd Gerald Ford Trilateral Commission makes its member lists public, has press releases of its agenda, but does not allow anything else public. It was formed in 1973 by former CFR chairman David Rockefeller (who in the OP openly calls for global governance for population control.) http://www.trilateral.org/moreinfo/faqs.htm Oh well that explains everything, then! I suppose Senator Barry Goldwater was misinformed when he wrote in his 1979 book With No Apologies: "In my view, the Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future." Here is a cursory list of Trilateral Commission members: http://www.trilateral.org/MEMB.HTM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission In the Obama Admin: * Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner * Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice * National Security Advisor, Gen. James L. Jones * Deputy National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon * Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker * Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair * Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell * Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg * State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass * State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross * State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke (Noticing a trend here?) Zbigniew Brzezinsk, Obama advisor, 10th National Security Advisor Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy Planning, U. S. Department of State James B. Steinberg, U.S. Deputy Secretary-designate of State Lawrence H. Summers, Director, U.S National Economic Council Gen. James L. Jones, U.S. National Security Advisor Adm. Dennis B. Blair, U.S. Director-designate of National Intelligence David Rockefeller William Jefferson Clinton George H.W. Bush Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Alan Greenspan Henry Kissinger Paul Volker Warren Christopher: former Secretary of State under Clinton and Deputy Secretary of State under Carter Henry Cisneros: HUD Secretary under Clinton[32] Joe Clark: former Canadian Prime Minister Raymond Barre: former French Prime Minister Lloyd Bentsen: former US Senator and Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Federal Minister of Economics, Germany Kiichi Miyazawa, former Prime Minister of Japan Akio Morita, co-founder Sony Corp. Takeshi Watanabe, president Asian Development Bank François Bujon de l'Estang, Ambassadeur de France; Chairman, Citigroup France, Paris; former Ambassador to the United States Georges Berthoin, International Honorary Chairman, European Movement [10]; Honorary Chairman, The Jean Monnet Association; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission Toyoo Gyohten, President, The Institute for International Monetary Affairs [15]; Senior Advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, UFJ, Ltd. Tom Bradley (politician): former Mayor of Los Angeles John H. Bryan: former CEO of Sara Lee bakeries, affiliated with the World Economic Forum and a director on the Boards of Sara Lee, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, British Petroleum and Bank One. Rona Ambrose: Member of Parliament, Canada John B. Anderson: former US Congressman Bruce Babbitt: Interior Secretary under Clinton Daniel J. Evans: former Governor of Washington Gaston Eyskens: former Prime Minister of Belgium Dianne Feinstein: Democratic U.S. Senator, former Mayor of San Francisco, member of the Council on Foreign Relations; chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. Alexander Haig: former Secretary of State under Reagan Sirkka Hämäläinen: Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank, Frankfurt-am-Main; former Governor, Bank of Finland Edward Heath: former British Prime Minister Mugur Isărescu: Governor of the National Bank of Romania Horst Köhler: President of Germany Lucas Papademos: European Central Bank Vice President Martha Piper: Former Chancellor of UBC Lee Raymond: Former CEO and Chairman, ExxonMobil, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Enterprise Institute, director of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., director and member of the Executive Committee and Policy Committee of the American Petroleum Institute Anthony M. Solomon: former President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Ted Sorensen: former special adviser to President Kennedy[3] Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa: Leader of the Social Democratic Party (Portugal) Robert Zoellick: President of the World Bank, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz: Former President of the World Bank, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bilderberg Goup has no website, insists on a total media blackout, aside from where its annual meetings are held, and who attends them. It was formed in 1954 by a group consisting of Denis Healey (UK Secretary of Defence, Chancellor of the Exchequer), Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Josef Retinger (Polish politician, founder of the European Movement and European Union), Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, Paul Rijkens (head of Unilever), Walter Bedell Smith (head of the CIA), and President Eisenhower (although he did not attend the meeting) in the Netherlands and named for the Hotel de Bilderberg where they met for the first time. According to a Times Article (Caroline Moorehead (18 April 1977). "An exclusive club, perhaps without power, but certainly with influence: The Bilderberg group". The Times) the steering committee does not publish a list of attendees, though some participants have publicly discussed their attendance. The delegates meet in secret annually for three days, but nothing they discuss is allowed to be made public. About the goal of the Bilderberg Group? Founding member Denis Healey stated in an interview with a British journalist, Jon Ronson from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/10/extract1 "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing." Here is a list of Bilderberg attendees: (Note every name has a citation to a source on wikipedia:) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_participants Royalty: Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (1997, 2000)[1][2] Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1954, 1975)[3][4] Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, United Kingdom (1986)[5][6] Juan Carlos I of Spain, King of Spain (2004)[7] Prince Philippe, Prince of Belgium (2007)[8] Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (1965, 1967)[9][10] Queen Sofía of Spain[11] US politics: George W. Ball (1954, 1993),[12][13] Under Secretary of State 1961-1968, Ambassador to U.N. 1968 Sandy Berger (1999),[14] National Security Advisor, 1997-2001 Hillary Rodham Clinton,[15] 67th United States Secretary of State Douglas Feith (2004),[16] U.S. Under-secretary of Defense Timothy Geithner,[17] Treasury Secretary Richard N. Haass (1991, 2003, 2004),[16][18] president, Council on Foreign Relations Lee H. Hamilton (1997),[1] former US Congressman Christian Herter,[19] (1961, 1963, 1964, 1966), 53rd United States Secretary of State Charles Douglas Jackson (1957, 1958, 1960),[20] Special Assistant to the President Joseph E. Johnson[21] (1954), President Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Henry Kissinger[18] (1957, 1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 2008),[22] 56th United States Secretary of State Jessica T. Mathews (2004),[16] president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Colin Powell (1997),[1] 65th United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,[15] 66th United States Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith (1954-1957),[23][24] former White House Chief of Staff, Director of the CIA, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Lawrence Summers,[17] Director of the National Economic Council Paul Volcker,[17] Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board Presidents: Bill Clinton (1991),[25][26] President 1993-2001 Gerald Ford (1964, 1966),[3][27] President 1974-1977 Barack Obama? The 2008 Bilderberg meeting took place in Chantilly, VA just outside of Washington DC on June 5-8. If you remember the story during the campaign was that Obama had "tricked" the press into getting on his campaign airplane on June 5 with the promise that he would join them and they would all fly to Chicago for a rally. The press boarded Obama's plane, the doors were shut, but Obama was not present, the annoyed press were told by Mr. Gibbs that he "decided to meet with some people" and couldn't comment further. The Bilderberg Group was meeting in the Westfield Marriott hotel a mere 20 minute drive from Dulles Airport. It was rumored that Obama as a "secret meeting" with Hillary, at her house, but then it was revealed that they weren't at Hillary's house, then Dianne Finestein (Bilderberg Attendee, and Trilateral Commission member) said that they met in her house in DC, but that she wasn't present at the meeting. ABC: "Obama, Clinton Ditch Press for Secret Meeting" http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story?i...2995&page=1 ABC: "Clinton Sneaks Out to Meet Obama in Washington" http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/20...-ditches-p.html CNN: "Behind the Scenes: Obama press 'hijacked' during Clinton meeting" http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/06/bts...ch.obama.press/ Fox News: "News Outlets Complain to Obama Campaign About Secret Meeting" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/...secret-meeting/ CNN: "Obama, Clinton hold talks in Feinstein's living room" http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/06/cli...wrap/index.html Politico: "Clinton and Obama hold secret meeting" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/...secret-meeting/ Senators: Tom Daschle,[15] Senator from South Dakota 1987-2005 John Edwards (2004),[16][28][29] Senator from North Carolina 1999-2005 Dianne Feinstein (1991),[12] Senator 1992-current, Mayor of San Francisco 1978-1988 Chuck Hagel (1999, 2000),[30] Senator from Nebraska 1997-2009 Sam Nunn (1996, 1997),[1] Senator from Georgia 1972-1997 Governors: Jon Corzine (1995 - 1997,[1] 1999, 2003, 2004),[16] Senator 2001-2006, Governor of New Jersey 2006-current Rick Perry (2007),[31] Governor of Texas 2000-current Mark Sanford (2008),[32] Governor of South Carolina Douglas Wilder (1991),[12] Governor of Virginia UK Prime Ministers: Prime Ministers Tony Blair (1993),[25][36] Prime Minister 1997-2007 Gordon Brown (1991),[26] Prime Minister 2007-current Edward Heath,[3] Prime Minister 1970-1974 Alec Douglas-Home (1977-1980),[55] Chairman of the Bilderberg Group, Prime Minister 1963-1964 Margaret Thatcher (1975),[56] Prime Minister 1979-1990 There are also heads of state from Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Iceland, etc. Banking and Finance: Ben Bernanke (2008,[32] 2009),[47]Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve Wim Duisenberg, former European Central Bank President [58] Timothy Geithner, (2004),[16]) president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Gordon Richardson,[82](1966, 1975) former Governor of the Bank of England William J McDonough (1997),[1] former President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Jean-Claude Trichet (2009),[83] President of the European Central Bank 2003-current Paul Volcker (1982, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1992, 1997),[1] former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Siegmund Warburg (1977)[82] Peter Weinberg (2004),[16] CEO of Goldman Sachs International James Wolfensohn (2004),[16] president of the World Bank Media: Nicolas Beytout, (French)[84] Editor of Le Figaro (France) Conrad Black (1981, 1983, 1985-1996)[48](1997),[89] columnist and publisher, now in prison William F. Buckley, Jr. (1996),[90] columnist and founder of National Review Will Hutton[25] (1997), former CEO of The Work Foundation and editor-in-chief for The Observer Andrew Knight (1996),[35][48] journalist, editor, and media baron George Stephanopoulos (1996, 1997),[48] Former Communications Director of the Clinton Administration (1993-1996), now ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent If you've noticed the trend, yes, many of these people are members of two or all three groups, Bilderberg, CFR, and Trilateral Commission. So, Objectivists, talk me down here! Why would there be heads of state, major politicians, leaders of governments, royalty, leaders of major corporations, leaders of financial institutions and banking, and members of the media all belonging to these groups, and a lot of them openly call for one world government and some like to subtly hint at it in between the lines of their collectivist-altruist ramblings? How does these meetings not contradict the Logan Act of 1799, at the very least ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act ) which forbids as a felony any unathorized citizens and/or government officials from negotiating with foreign governments or conduct any foreign relations without authority? How is any of these activities not in direct violation of that? Come, on help me out people. What do Objectivists think of this?

What about letters of marque and reprisal? Would it be proper for the US government to use those to combat Al-Qaeda instead of what it is currently doing?

/facepalm So basically, freedom fails because some people buy HD-DVDs instead of Blu-Ray?

I have an issue with your definition of "utopian." If utopian is requires people to be better than they've ever been before, then a lot of things are utopian, and thus impossible to you. Practically everyone, specializing in and field, any industry, any sport, and profession in a division of labor society is required at some point to be better than they've ever been before. So what do you mean by "better?" More rational? More moral? More productive? These kind of questions are epistemologically flawed and basically boiled down to: "Why should I support Objectivism/egoism/capitalism when it's all going to fail and there's nothing you can do about it?!" Inherent in the premise of the question is, "is the society rational enough to support capitalism?" If you're saying "I don't think capitalism will last because people won't or can't be rational enough to support it," then that's kind of a circular logic and there's no anwer anyone can provide because you've already decided it won't last in your question. I think an Objectivist society kind of presupposes a quite rational society, or else the system would not have been implimented in the first place. If you follow Rand's logic for this, she explains how any country deserves the government it has. The ideas the dominate the culture will be a key factor in its political system, which you can observe all around us today. Either a society will be rational enough to support capitalism, or it won't. Why do you think Objectivists consider ideas so important? As far as within an established capitalist government, there is always "the marketplace of ideas" which doesn't require anything from the government, except that free speech is protected. But if by "better" you mean that Objectivism seeks to accomplish some kind of truly magical mental evolution of all mankind where no one seeks to every break any laws, and no one ever acts irrationally, and no one ever acts immorally, and everyone is perfect, then you are just mistaken about what Objectivism expects or demands. If that were the case, what would be the point of capitalism, or morality, or anything in Objectivism? In this respect, Objectivism is an extension of the logic James Madison employed in Federalist 51: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. That is the point of an Objectivist government. As for your comments about a "police state," that certainly doesn't describe capitalism, nor do I agree with your description of a police state. A capitalist government is based on the concept of objective law, a proceedural framework which necessitates the seperation of force from whim, which I will leave to someone more experienced in it than me to describe here, but what you are talking about is a system in which the state exercises totally arbitrary power. That sounds more like any mixed-economy, or socialist sewer. I might suggest that you read this page to perhaps increase your understanding of this concept: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/law--obj...-objective.html The essay "The Nature of Government" is quite helpful in this regard: Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted. What can I say? A lot of people are illogical and immoral. I can't attest to what some other person said in a debate. I'm only responsible for myself. I would just suggest you listen to the ideas being presented and make your own judgement on them. I don't know what you mean by mental illness, though. Mental illness isn't someone being rude in a debate or someone refusing to hear another side, or someone so sure of their position that they are ruthless towards others. There seems to be a slight bit of confusion here. Rand and Peikoff never had a split. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, not Leonard Peikoff or anyone else. The substance of Objectivism consists of the works of Ayn Rand and the works that she approved as consistent with Objectivism. Anything else has to be judged independently for what it is. As for splits, you might be thinking of the disagreement between Peikoff and Kelley.You can read about that yourself starting in "On Sanctioning the Sanctioners" by Schwartz, followed by "A Question of Sanction" by Kelley, followed by "Fact and Value" by Peikoff. (Kelley wrote a response to "Fact and Value," but imo Peikoff nailed him.) There are other disagreements, such as the Brandens vs Rand, various Libertarians and anarchists vs Rand, Alan Greenspan vs Peikoff, Alan Greenspan vs Alan Greenspan. I mean, people are individuals with their own ideas and even totally rational people have disagreements about things. Judge for yourself is all I can say. I don't get what you are saying about mercenaries in there. What's to stop a bunch of mercenaries killing you? I don't know, you tell me? Kill them back? Or what's to stop the police from going around killing people? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I would refer you back to a conept called "the rule of law." If your problem is that you are living in some Objectivist society and no one obeys the law, then you aren't living under freedom or capitalism then are you? You are living in anarchy or a dictatorship. As far as Objectivism being a "knee-jerk" to various things, I can say this is definitely not so. Objectivism is kind of neo-Aristotelianism and these concepts of the law of identity, noncontradiction, reason, morality, private property can all be traced back to Aristotle and his champions and other various, though sparse, advocates of reality, reason, and rights throughout history. So unless Aristotle is a knee-jerk to Jesus or the Democratic party, then I can't agree with you there. Well now there is nothing Objectivist about this. Nothing. When Rand talks about voluntary associations and private contracts, she is certainly not talking about any of these things. For one, in order for a contract to be valid, certain confitions must be met: valid offer and acceptance, by which one party extends an offer and the other party has an opportunity to freely accept or refuse to accept, consideration, usually understood to mean that there is an exchange of value for value, but at the very least an exchange of wills in accordance with valid offer and acceptance, legal intent, that is, the contract may not oblige parties to do anything which is illegal capacity, that is, the parties are both of mind sound enough to give valid consent and agreement None of the things you mentioned were voluntary or contracts.

It's the name of the country. United States of America. America for short. When we say someone from Canada isn't an American, we mean he isn't from the United States of America, but he is a North American. Why does this vex you so? If anything, you should be asking people who say "I'm not an American! I'm from Canada!" why don't they consider the fact that they are North American, instead of asuming people who use "American" for United States citizens are somehow treating everyone as if they are from "some strange, unidentified piece of land" when you know full well it means United States of America and not a reference to North America. As far as Europe is concerned, if there were some place called The United States of Europe, they might colloquially become known as Europeans and someone from non USE would be called Estonian or whatever to avoid confusion. Notice how people from the United Kindom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are simply called British or Britons. You wouldn't call them United Kingdomians and you wouldn't call Americans United Statesians. Honestly, why does this confuse you? You do seem a bit annoyed that non-US North Americans are somehow getting the shaft because they don't have the word "America" in their name.

Wow.

I am becoming increasingly doubtful that we have received the full story from the government about 9-11, or many other events, including the recent attempted "underwear bombing" on Christmas. It's not that I think the WTC was destroyed by virtue of any "magic trick" or plotted by George W Bush, or demolition charges were somehow secretly planted inside when no one was looking, or that one of the more silly stories that one of the planes launched a missile or something like that. I find it very hard to believe the government carried out the attack, I do think it was jihadists acting on their own, with support from KSM and OBL, I just think the government is lying about the full story, or the real story, or that behind the scenes, there is something more to it, if nothing else, just negligence. It is documented that the government was involved with these jihadists throughout the 80's and 90's, knew who they were, knew what they were trying to do, and I think the plausibility here is that they let this happen, at worst by specific design, or at best by criminal negligence in order to engage in false-flag propaganda and expand police state power in the name of "security." That they have the American people cowering in fear over the ever-continuing threat of these evildoers out there which provides the necessary excuse to demand that people sacrifice their liberties to be safe. Just turn on Fox or CNN or any other mainstream outlet and you can't go 5 minutes without hearing about how we must all sacrifice our freedoms in order to achieve some sort of perceived "balance between liberty and security." "Sure there's an invasive scan here and a warrantless search there, but hey, there are hobgoblins out there!" That we must all submit to new security measures, that we must all submit to being scanned, that we must stand still whilst dog handlers allow their bomb-sniffing dogs to search us, that we must submit to more invasive warrantless searches, everybody likes the new searches, don't you dare complain, all true patriots love the new searches, we have to prohibit people from being able to go to the bathroom on planes, because of course if you're a suicide bomber going to blow up a plane, not going to the bathroom is going to stop you, we have to interrogate people with brilliant questions like "did you pack your own bags?!" becuase of course terrorists never pack their own bags, and the are totally incapable of saying "yes" to that question, that is definitely how you catch them, that we must now have El Al-style security and be interrogated by federal agents before being allowed to fly, where are you going, why are you going there, where did you come from, what are you doing, what is your business, no don't ask why, we're asking the questions here, and god forbid you try to go anywhere without your papers. And now there are already calls that we must bomb Yemen, now we need to give billions of looted tax-dollars to the Yemeni government, who suddenly really loves America, so that they can take care of these bad people out there, so pay your taxes and support perpetual war for perpetual peace, or you're not patriotic. And of course the terrorists start with wanting to blow up the highly secured areas like airports and airplanes. If they were real smart, why wouldn't they blow up a shopping mall or a packed building? Why try to go through airport security? Well, god forbid they ever do attempt to blow up some other place, because then we have to accept those zones being federalized with more security. It starts at the airports, then you have to consent to being searched and interrogated and put through security elsewhere in public places. Of course, there is no constitutional reason to allow any of this, it started at the airports that way, as the Supreme Court pretty much said the Constitution doesn't apply at the borders, and airports = borders, and anyone who flies consents to being searched by the federal government. Why not immunized as well? If vaccines are given out at some airports, why not require manditory immunization for anyone who wants to fly due to a "pandemic" being declared and at some point in the future it turns into being "consenting" to be immunized just because you fly. And so we fail to catch the actually guilty people, but just collectively punish everyone else. A terrorist with a shoe-bomb? Take off your shoes. A terrorist with toothpaste? Hand over your Crest with whitening. A terrorist with a goin-grenade? Now you must submit to being felt-up by our gropers and scanned by our ooglers. God forbid a terrorist tries to kamikaze a plane with a rectal grenade, then what? All passengers proceed to gate 6A for your pre-flight proctology exam and rectal cavity search. When does it end? Of course, according to leaked TSA documents, Heads of State and top government officials are exempt from many of these measures. The looting and enslaving class is always exempt from the looting and enslaving. I recently read a book called "Liberty In Eclipse: The Rise of the Homeland Security State" by author William Norman Grigg, and there is some fascinating things in here that I never knew, or would never have known about this country. For example, I never knew there were a set of executive orders which allow the president to seize control of all media outlets, and all that is necessary is the president declare "emergency, emergency!" There is also the declassified "Operation Northwoods," a Dept of Defense memorandum outlining the government's plan for massive, breathtaking deception, staging false-flag terror attacks against American targets in order to justify war with Cuba. (This has been declassified and released, you can see it on the National Archives' own website here: 1 2 3 4 5.) There is also the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in which it was revealed that some of the participants were members of Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, and bin Laden's Afghan Mujahadeen, as well as paid CIA operatives, FBI informants, and Egyptian Secret Service: Abdel-Rahman, the so-called "blind sheikh" who worked as a CIA asset in Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood, which were on the CIA payroll, (he was allowed into the US in 1990 despite being on a "terror watchlist" because the man at the Sudanese consulate who was issuing visas was on lunch break and the man who had taken over for him was a CIA operative,) former Special Forces Captain Ali A. Mohammed, who was a member of Islamic Jihad and trained bin Laden's men in Afghanistan, and Egyptian Intelligence agent / paid FBI informant Emad Salem, who secretly recorded hours of phone conversations with his FBI handlers, and was told to go ahead with the WTC bombing because the FBI promised him they would render the bomb inert before it would go off. He testified for the government about WTC and also about Abdel-Rahman's plot to hijack 12 airplanes and fly them into buildings in New York and was placed in the witness relocation program. As for the bomb, of course, it did go off and Ali Mohammed pleaded guilty for "considerations" regarding the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and promplty disappeared. The US is protecting him to this day. He describes several different events including 9/11, many of which we may never know the full truth about, but we can learn from observing the responses and government involvement and he calls it "security theater" which is basically the same false-flag episodes over and over. I don't see why you should blow your head off, Jake. It isn't about being magical, I believe these events are real terrorism, I believe these events are huge disasters, I believe 9/11 was fully carried out by Muslim fanatical fascists, really horrendusly evil religious zealots quite intent on killing and destroying Americans, I believe there are some real evil people that need to be dealt with by our government, and that appeasing them or trying to make peace with them would be a mistake. But I am beginning to understand the curious patterns of behavior, time and again, that some or most in our government display at inciting preventable catastrophes, and then capitalizing on them to enhance their power to do exactly the same things that resulted in disaster. Don't you think there is something to this whole cycle of attacks, calls for war, expanding of arbitrary state power, calls for less liberty in the name of "security," it's almost as if the automatic response is freedom-reduction as a form of grieving... over and over again thurought recent history? False-flag terrorism is one of the oldest intelligence tricks in the book. If the same government that is so invested in so many other lies, including AGW, I can't possibly believe that some of these people actually believe in "free health care," or Keynesian financial "stimulus," or an altruistic social policies, or altruistic interventionist foreign policy, or climate change, or central banking, or a myriad of other things, but just use it as a pretext to consolidate power and loot wealth.

If you want to divide the continent into geopolitical subregions based on whatever criteria you want, go ahead, but I'm speaking about the actual continent. Those are a list of countries in the North American continent. Central America and the Greater Antilles are not continents but are a part of North America. France, Netherlands, Denmark, and the UK are countries in the North American continent. Their territories include Anguilla (UK), Aruba (Netherlands), Bermuda (UK), British Virgin Islands (UK), Cayman Islands (UK), Clipperton Island (France), Greenland (Denmark), Guadeloupe (France), Martinique (France), Montserrat (UK), Saint Barthélemy (France), Saint Martin (France), Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France), Turks and Caicos Islands (UK).

Of course it's a legitimate debate to claim someone has stupid, ie misguided, heedless, thoughtless ideas. If no one thought your ideas were wrong, what would there be to debate? What would be the point of having a debate? What would we be debating over and who would be doing the debating? You have no idea what ad hominem is. Ad hominem is the fallacy of linking the validity of an idea to an irrelevant characteristic of the person. Example: Person A proposes X. Person B ignores X and calls Person A stupid. Person B concludes that X is wrong. This may be "blunt" or even rude, but this is not ad hominem: Person A proposes X. Person B claims X is stupid and offers argument Y against it. Person B concludes that because of Y, X is wrong. The fact that we are having to argue about debate tactics is because you are the one who brought it up! You are using it as an evasion tactic to justify your non-response to any of the arguments proposed to you: Person A proposes X. Person B ignores X and claims Person A cannot write disciplined enough, is emotional, and is making ad hominems and thus will ignore Person A. Person B then concludes that his arguments have won this debate. Lol, seriously Chris? How about you actually answer the substance of any of these posts: 43, 37, 24, 13 and 9 (the reasons why the following ideas you proposed are wrong: not phasing out government interventions, firing all government employees simply because they are government employees, giving 30-60 day's notice to just end programs, and the reason why Objectivism says nothing about how to accomplish the ending of welfare programs, which renders the entire OP of this thread claiming that certain ideas of ending certain welfare programs in certain ways would be non-Objectivist false.) Can you do that, or will this all just be ad hominem too?

Actually North America = Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, and USA.

Did you just turn an accusation of imaginary ad hominem into an actual ad hominem to conclude that I am wrong and to justify your non-response? Hilarious.

That isn't ad hominem. No one has suggested there is anything questionable about you or attacked your personal character, I said you've been told why those ideas (not phasing out government interventions, firing all government employees simply because they are government employees, giving 30-60 day's notice to just end programs) are bad ideas, and you can refer to those posts which explained why (because that was besides the point I was making, which Jake just summarized in the first paragraph of the preceeding post.) But this is your evasion tactic, isn't it? Instead of responding, now I have to explain what ad hominem is to you because you like to imagine things in posts which arent there. You've done it in just about every one of your posts. Are you just unwilling to pay attention, or is it just an inability to respond?

Objectivism does not tell you how to go about dismantling welfare programs, so continuing to say that Objectivism tells you not to phase out programs, or that all government employees should be fired immediately, or that programs are ended in 30-60 days is false. You have already been told why these would be stupid ideas. Objectivism gives you principles on which a free society is founded. Objectivism is not a philosophy that engages in the specifics of government planning or utopia-bulding or a philosophy that tells you how to go about the privatization of the post office or how best to dismantle Social Security, or what new departments or agencies should be created or phased out in which manner. You can keep claiming that it does, but that would be a lie. You can keep saying that people are claiming to support welfare programs, but that would be a lie. You can keep saying that people on here are calling for slavery, or justifying plunder, but that would be a lie. Are you a liar? Now, if you want something more specific on how to dismantle some welfare programs, or privatize some government monopoliies there are some economic books on the matter that I can suggest to you, but this an academic issue and isn't a part of Objectivism. As far as what principles Objectivism would state, which have clear applications on this subject, contrary to what you have falsely accused, there would be no tacit support for any current socialist programs. Your time would be better spent figuring out a system of rational transitional measures that accomplish the abolition of the welfare state while being consistent with debt obligations, fostering just privatization conductive to competition, and providing for welfare recipients whose savings have been made impossible by punitive tax regimes and whose incomes have been stolen and reduced to below-subsistence levels by taxes and government-induced inflation and unemployment. As an idea, for example, the government could purchase annuities for the severely disabled and for low-income retirees by liquidating and selling off government assets.

It's hard to say in exact terms how free the economy is without something to compare it to, or a specific set of information to look at, but here's the Heritage Foundation's "Index of Economic Freedom" which lists Hong Kong as number 1, and PROC as number 132. http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx

Anyone remember in the Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World, where the government uses a fictional drug called "Soma" to pacify the population? Well, some Japanese researchers are taking inspiration from water flouridation which already is mandated in the US and Western Europe and suggesting that lithium be added to the water supply to "change the mood, in a positive way" with the goal of "reducing suicides." A reporter from a Minneapolis Fox affiliate reports on this "very interesting idea:" http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/buzz/ge...ecember-16-2009

First let me state that I am not interested in rightwing populist conspiracy theories about secret societies or a conspiracy being orchestrated by a small group of people to take over the world, or Christian prophecy, or Jews, or aliens, or occultists or whatever. I want to examine this in a more general sense of what the broad concept of a "new world order" means, and what this concept consists of. Is there a rational basis for this, in any way? It seems I am hearing a lot more about politicians, from President Obama, to Gordon Brown, to the Pope, to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy (newly elected full-time President of the EU) mention a new world order, actually using those words in recent speeches. If we examine the history of the phrase, it has roots all the way back to Woodrow Wilson's post World War I policies, and was focused on creating worldwide alliances and governing bodies to "make the world safe for democracy." Perhaps significant is the 1940 HG Wells book called New World Order in which Wells argued in favor of an ideal world without war, in which peace and order would be kept by a global governing body. In the post WW2 era, the phrase became more nebulous and could mean anything from German reunification to global Communism to a world without nuclear weapons. It has been used by everyone from Soviet leaders, to American presidents, and ideological intellectuals. I suppose today it is most associated with a vague generalized concept of a fascist or collectivist one-world government which would subject, erode, or eventually preplace the sovereign states that currently exist through enacting global controls, or legislation by organizations like the IMF, UN, NATO, and so on. We all known about the Copenhagen conference which is basically calling for global thermometer governance in the name of climate control to control businesses, we have heard of Hillary Clinton, the Pope, Timothy Geithner, Nicholas Sarkosy, Gordon Brown, and others call for global financial regulations and global currency, here is a video of David Rockefeller at the UN Ambassador's diner calling on one world government for population control, (eugenics or forced breeding depending on if you are pushing over or under population threats,) religious control, mass surveillance, religious oppression, corporatism, and and array of other social or economic controls are said to be the goal of this new world order. From my limited reading of Ayn Rand, I know that she was against the United Nations, against international organizations in general, and very much supported federalism and a localized government which checks against the larger levels from local, state, and federal. I have noticed at the Objectivist-leaning Capitalism Magazine it is mentioned under the FAQ for taxation: Only if one wants to turn government into an engine of the welfare state/new world-order ('one country, with one big leash tied around its neck', with the untouchable bureaucrats of the 'United Nations' holding the leash), do voluntary methods fail to work. Other than that, I have never heard very many Objectivists talking about the NWO or the many calls for world government. So what do Objectivists think of this concept? What does "new world order" mean to you? Do you ascribe any significance to it? Is this a threat? What is the proper response to the subject?

She definitely was on record hating the 1944 propaganda film "Song of Russia."

Meaningless smear term meant to evoke some kind of ad captandum reaction total devoid of actual content.

Ayn Rand disagreed with you: The source of this kind of statement is the idea that nations do not exist, only individuals, and if some poor, noncommunist blob in Soviet Russia doesn't want an invasion, we mustn't hurt him. But who permits governments to go to war? Only a government can put a country into war, and the citizens of that country keep their government in power.... This is why they should be interested in politics and careful about not having the wrong kind of government. If in this context one could make a distinction between the actions of a government and the actions of individual citizens, why would we need politics at all? All governments would be on one side, doing something among themselves, while we private citizens would go along in happy, idyllic tribalism. But that picture is false. We are responsible for the government we have, and that is why it is important to take the science of politics very seriously. Do you disagree with that? If so, why? Are you seriously equivocating a sequence of nucleotides in someone's DNA with someone's choice to become a member in al Qaeda? I nominate that for the biggest non sequitur use of an Ayn Rand quotation of the year. In any event, yes you damn well should evaluate Mohammed's individual character based on his membership of al Qaeda and that evaluation would lead me to want to defend myself against this invidivual.

Peter Schiff speaks about national defense and his foreign policy views at a recent meeting with supporters in Woodbury, CT: He starts at around 2:00. "I might have gone into Afghanistan to get bin Laden, but I would not have occupied the country." “If [the Iranians] are really building nuclear weapons... If we really think that, we tell the Iranians, this is where we think these weapons are... if they don't let [our inspectors] in, then we just blow the place up... We don't have to send all these ground troops in there. We don't have to occupy these countries."

Here is an interesting take on the "hockey stick" graph trend as compared to ice core samples.

I don't know if it's relevant to the point, but can I just say, what the hell is this: http://freedomainradio.com/traffic_jams/fdr_meditation.mp3

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/...global-warming/ Of course, only "fundamentalists" and people who oppose birth control are against the omnipotent government controling the population. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the principle that people have a right to control their own lives and bodies. Thus far, out of 37 comments I am the only person to answer with "No." This "unsustainable population" or "overpopulation" seems to be a popular belief. What do you think its metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical roots are and why is this such a commonly held premise that humans are going to deplete all of "our resources" and kill ourselves out of stupidity unless the government is given the power to control us? One guy actually states that humans, like H1N1, are a virus, and if we don't start reducing the population "Mother Nature" will vaccinate all of us. Another guy states: Why has it taken so long for the issue of the human infestation to be brought up? Absolutely mandatory population control should be undertaken at the global level, as well as a replacement of the United Nations with a global governing council combined with the world court elected by a majority of nations to help implement a saner, more earth friendly age. This can't be serious??