2046

All of those things are accurate, but not fully obviously. He grants all of the major Marxist-communist premises, and he clearly is a socialist. He isn't a Bolshevik however, he's more of a Menshevik/social democrat, but less of the communist variety, and more of the fascist pattern, but not out of any principled dedication to fascism, just out of mere pragmatism. He's an American Democrat. His parents were communists, he was surrounded by communists, his father-figure was a member of the Communist Party USA, and his mentor was a communist, he has communists in his cabinet. I would venture to say that the only things keeping the man from openly embracing communism is that he the political climate is one where communism has been discredited and out of the mainstream, and he is a pragmatist.

Some on the left wing are reacting to the passage, of course that it was not nearly radical enough a law. One left-socialist was criticizing Rep. Dingle for not doing enough for the People, and telling the truth for once, Rep. Dingle reassured his fellow statist that these things just take time and Obamacare will eventually "control the people." http://www.breitbart.tv/shocking-audio-rep...trol-the-people

Reconciliation is something else, you are thinking of conference committee (I think that's what it's called), where if the House and Senate pass two different but similar bills, they go to be merged into a final version. That final version then has to pass the House and Senate again before being signed by the President. However, I think what happened here is that the Senate passed a bill, then the House voted on the Senate bill instead of passing its own. That bill will be signed into law by the President. The House then passed a bunch of "fixes" to that bill, and then those fixes proceed to the Senate. Since those fixes are not considered "major" anymore, the Democrats plan to use reconciliation to bypass any GOP attempt at a filibuster. That's my understanding of it anyway.

So correct me if I'm wrong... did the House just pass the Senate bill or its own bill? Does this bill now go to conference to be made into a final version, or does it now to go the President's desk to be signed?

Youtube channel: WTF Japan Seriously!? Cheese commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40hrOZl6Qis Card bending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvHu4CJ_3fk Learning English: "I have a bad case of diarreha." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5hnk36J-Wc Learning English: "Take anything you want!" Johnny Depp meets ninja Hitler pirate children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aMWIVhR1s I have no idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LfW15F0IkQ Seal hat versus polar bear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVHoGI4B-e8 I have no idea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5g2G_ZXmvA I will give a dollar to anyone who can analyze any of these on any kind philosophic level, because my mind = raped. http://www.youtube.com/user/wtfjapanseriously

Think of it in terms of goods on a market. The politicians a country has is supplied by the kinds of politicians its citizens demand, even if through passivity. No dictatorship gets in, or stays in power simply by force alone.

Yes, and I meant that. You can't seperate morality out of politics and pretend there are no such things as nations, just individuals privately going to war with each other. If that were so, there would be no need for government at all, or as AR said, all the "governments" would be over here on one side doing things amongst themselves, and all the "people with rights" would be doing things amongs themselves over here, undisturbed. Talk about context dropping! When you go to war, you don't pull your punches so that your defense is "in proportion to the damage received." You go all out, or not at all. Anything less is not a war. Yes. Nuking Iran would be deliberately intended to destroy it. Permanently. Our rights to exist does not depend on "our allies'" consensus. You don't create martyrs by defending yourself. You kill them. The Iranian State obviously. I assumed you were a smart enough guy to know that we are talking about the Iranian regime and not go thinking I meant destroying museums was the goal of going to war. My bad I guess.

Yeah, that's exactly the reason why it does not adequately describe Objectivism's political branch. It isn't about the consensus of the term, but what the term means and term "minimal statism" is an incorrect view of a legitimate government. This does not get rid of the problem presented by the libertarian spectrum of statism-anarchism. Objectivism is not "one step away" from anarchism, niether are they "holding out" against anarchism, or its "logic." They are poles apart and simply incompatible. Just look at the OP in the thread, which was based on finding out where the limit was, or where he could seek out and discover the boundary line instead of asking more fundamental questions like "do animals have rights" and "what is the moral qualification for legitimate government action." In other words, it plays into a "quantitative view" of government versus a morality-based view of what is proper and what is not. Objectivism is not worried about "minimal duties," but with objectivity. Otherwise, if your goal is only the minimal duties necessary, then the obvious response is zero government, because that's as minimal as you can get, and that is why the more consistent version of libertarianism according to its own tenets is anarchy. Minarchism a confused, contradictory concept that belongs to libertarians, not Objectivists.

Obviously, nations do exist. A nation is the only thing that can put a country to war. Otherwise, what point would there even be in having a military? Civillians who are killed in a war are the moral responsibility of the government that initiated the conflict. Secondly, the people of a country are responsible for and deserve the government they have, even in dictatorships. The only policy a free country should have towards a country who is violently attacking its citizens is to eliminate it. Part of that means civillians will die, but that is the responsibility of the government who initiated the aggression, and their leaders should be held morally accountable for that. Also, a couple of days ago I was in a discussion where I found myself defending AR to a group of idiotic libertarians. (Waste of time, I know.) One of them actually said "If Ayn Rand had her way, there would be no Middle East, because she would have bombed every man, woman, and child in it." Now I read this guy on the Objectivist forums? Unbelievable.

It applies because there is a fatwa against being naked in some such way. It's the same with Mormons and some Christian sects. If a Muslim wants to fly and not have nude pics taken of him, and an airline wants to sell him a ticket and not take nude pics of him, that is their right. In forcing people to be scanned, that right is being violated by the federal government. In forcing him to submit to the scan, the government is prohibiting the Muslim from flying unless be does something against his conscience that does not otherwise involve preventing a rights violation. If that's not a violation of his First Amendment right, I don't know what is.

"Minarchism" implies a political spectrum in which statism is on one end, anarchy is on the other, with minarchism being on the extreme right, just one step away from anarchy. The logically consistent libertarian view is anarchism. Obviously, Objectivists view libertarianism and anarchy as a form of statism, so they deny this whole "just one step away from anarchy" spectrum and instead view it as collectivism/statism on one side and individualism/capitalism on the other (capitalism by definition requiring a limited government.) Thus, generally speaking, Objectivists do not call themselves "minarchists."

It has everything to do with government and hence the First Amendment due to the fact that the federal government nationalized airport security in 2001, which is what the TSA is. The airlines have no say in it and thus cannot offer services accordingly.

Don't know if it's true, and I would like to know where the author got that information from, but according to the neocon rag Human Events, the TSA assured the Council on American-Islamic Relations (which, btw, has ties to terrorist groups like Hamas) that Muslims would not be required to go through the new full body scanners that Michael Chertoff's company so successfully lobbied for. Of course, that would no longer "profile" Muslims, but obviously "profile" everyone else for being non-Muslim. Wtf? "The TSA, when confronted by CAIR in this regard, immediately capitulated, thus giving in in the face of yet another Islamic threat. Simultaneously, the TSA agreed to instruct its security staff, in enforcing the same tortuous security measures for everyone but Muslims, to ‘pat down’ Muslim men and women, with the proviso, of course, that only same gender ‘pat downs’ would be permitted for our Muslim brethren." http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35806

And another thing, just watching CNN for 5 minutes is hilarious, this was supposed to be "National Coffee Party Day" (stop laughing) so they are running interviews with Park and talking about "The Coffee Party Response!" throwing her softball questions and brushing off the fact that she worked for Obama "but now she's non-partisan!" After they were criticized for Susan Rosgen's interview with those Tea Party people and not covering it, now they're saying "we're covering it now," "the real grassroots movement," "new grassroots movement wants to just stop all the partisan bickering," "everybody agrees we have a broken government," "the people are fed up," "why can't we stop arguing and come together? Here's the Coffee Party to tell us how," see we're covering both sides now, we're just being objective! Thanks CNN for giving me my "two minutes hate" just like in "1984."

Just in case anyone didn't know already, the Coffee Party founder Annabel Park is an Obama campaign operative, she worked for Obama for America (which became Organizing for America) and she ran Obama's Official YT channel "United for Obama." So when the Coffee Party website says... “No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a culture of civic engagement that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented.” "Coffee Party USA is made up of people acting independently of political parties, of corporations, and of political lobbying networks. To this point, all products created and hours logged for Coffee Party have been carried out in the spirit of volunteerism. In the coming months and years, we hope to transform our disappointment in our current political system into a force that will return our nation to a course of popular governance, of the People by the People for the People." ...you know that it's a lie, and this is a part of the Obama perpetual campaign, and any media outlet that tells you otherwise is a shill for the Obama campaign too. “The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.” "We demand a government that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices."

Saw this when I logged on to Youtube today: "Want lower prices and access to broadband? The FCC is taking your questions. Vote now." http://www.youtube.com/citizentube The Internet in America: Your Interview with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski This is your chance to have a conversation about the future of the Internet with the Chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski. Next Tuesday, March 16th, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will release the National Broadband Plan – its strategy for connecting all Americans to fast, affordable, high speed Internet. You can learn more about the plan at Broadband.gov, and submit your questions for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who will sit down for a special YouTube Interview just after the plan is released. Some of the questions: "Opponents of net neutrality have framed their argument as "don't let government regulate the web!" With "anti- big gov" sentiments rising, how will the FCC better communicate to consumers that regulation in this instance is actually good for them?" Aaron, California "Do you believe that the phone companies should have more influence over the FCC than the nearly two million Americans who have declared their support for strong Net Neutrality protections?"" MobilizeUs.com, Boulder "Lobbyists say that Net Neutrality will kill investment in broadband build out, but haven't produced evidence to support this claim. Do you think we need to sacrifice the Internet's openness in order to connect people who don't now have broadband?" PhilDampier, Rochester, NY "Dear Mr. Genachowsky, as the head of a major federal administrative agency, do you see the role of the FCC as the protector of industry profits and monopoly, or as the protector of public health, safety and welfare from the abuses of industry?" Lefty, Miami "Why didn't youtube ask President Obama any of the questions involving marijuana??????????????????" hecticdad, michigan Wow. We're fucked. Then there's this: http://www.broadband.gov/ The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law on February 17, 2009. The Broadband Initiatives funded in the Act are intended to accelerate broadband deployment across the United States. The Recovery Act authorizes the FCC to create a National Broadband Plan, that “shall seek to ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal.” The broadband networks of the 21st century frequently depend upon the policies that government has for infrastructure that is decidedly 20th century—wooden utility poles, conduits underneath bridges, and easements alongside America’s roads and highways. Because government controls and regulates many of these infrastructure inputs, there is a tremendous opportunity for enlightened public policy to spur and accelerate broadband deployment. Then there's this: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html Not that they need a law for that, if you've seen CNN's "Cyber Shockwave" starring former government employees from Homeland Security, NSA, FBI, and other cabinet departments, they have already confirmed that all they need to nationalize (their words, not mine) the internet (and all other communications) is to declare an "emergency," they will go to the ISPs and force them to cooperate (their words, not mine) and if the Attorney General doesn't have authority to do it, then he will "find" the authority (their words again.)

Clinton State Department Working With 'Advocacy Groups' to Prepare 'Human Rights' Report on U.S. to Give to U.N. By Penny Starr http://cnsnews.com/news/article/62698 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the State Department is soliciting comments from citizens, advocacy groups and other non-governmental organizations on the human rights record of the United States. “Human rights are universal, but their experience is local. This is why we are committed to holding everyone to the same standard, including ourselves,” Clinton told a press briefing at the State Department, where she unveiled the “2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” Clinton said the U.S. is now gathering facts on its own record because – as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council – it is participating in the UNHRC’s “universal periodic review” process. [...] The Human Rights Council has been criticized for disproportionately criticizing Israel at the expense of other situations around the world. In this March 2, 2009 photo, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki used the HRC as a platform to condemn the “illegitimate Zionist regime” and call for Israeli leaders to be indicted for crimes against humanity. [...] Posner said the State Department is holding a series of meetings around the country to gather information it will use for the 20-page report it plans to submit to the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council in November. “We’re not doing it in a formulaic way,” Posner said. “We’re doing these sessions, these public sessions, we’re inviting in advocacy groups from around the country – we had one in New Orleans, we had one in New York, we had one here is Washington. [...] “We’re going to hear them,” Posner said. “We’re going to incorporate their thoughts and suggestions into a report to the U.N. And then we’re going to show up at the end of the year and present that report and get comments from other countries.” [...] “I would hope that on their listening tour, the State Department will listen to social conservatives about the rights of the unborn child being violated,” Ruse said. “We shall see if the State Department is interested in the proper understanding of human rights.” In addition to the United States, 15 countries will undergo UPR by the U.N. Human Rights Council this year: They include Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Lebanon, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Andorra, Bulgaria and Croatia. What do you guys suppose will make the list? Think the Waco Siege will be on there?

This isn't really relevant to the rest of the thread, but what about the economics of beauty. Is it moral that a model or otherwise untalented actress, (say a porn star for example) is paid to appear at an event solely on the basis that they are present and have good looks and are good at posing for the camera? Is there any merit to the claim, perhaps from some type of "women's liberation" or whatever type of group that this is a vice, "objectifying" women or a "degrading" practice that one should seek to profit from a model's looks and also a vice that the patrons or customers of this event would seek satisfaction and enjoyment from oogling the models?

They are saying that these are among the few philosophers have been great influences to stand against the tide of irrationality, to reject intrinsicism, subjectivism, dualism, altruism, etc. in some ways, but because they lacked a proper basis, they failed to develop their ideas totally consistently. That's where Rand comes along and shuts out the negative and incorrect elements she saw and developed the legitimate and rational parts. "Because of the influence of religion, the code of sacrifice has always dominated the field of morality, as far back as historical evidence goes. A handful of Western thinkers did reject this code. The two with the best and fullest ethical systems were Aristotle and Spinoza, each of whom sought in his own way to uphold the value of life, the virtue of rationality, and the principle of egoism. But even these rare dissenters were influenced, both in method and content, by Platonic and by subjectivist elements. Although men in the West, roused by such dissent, did occasionally rebel against the moral creed of the religionists, there was no solid intellectual base to support their rebellion. As a result, it was always partial, compromised, and short-lived. The fresh new start petered out each time, defeated by its own unwitting deficiencies, contradictions, and moral concessions." Peikoff, OPAR oops Snerd beat me to it. lol.

When asked recently what he thought he could do to accomplish his goals in the Senate, Peter had an interesting response: "I know what I'm going to do when I get there. I'm not going to try to get re-elected, I'm not going to raise any money. I've just got to educate enough people to give them the confidence to do what they need to do. I could use the filibuster. I could speak on CSPAN every day. If you guys think I can speak here, just wait until you see me in the Senate. I could do this for hours! ... I will get these guys one at a time and convince them what they need to do, and do it." He says he believes the economy is going to take a severe turn for the worse in the next Senate term and wants to be there when it happens. If Schiff actually gets elected and filibusters the Senate with Austrian economics, that would be something else. Thus far the only criticism raised of him by the Republicans are that he is "soft" on illegal immigration (one article actually quoted some Republican who said he wouldn't support Schiff because "We should lock our friggin' borders"), he's pro-choice, he doesn't believe we have "an obligation" to die for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan as Mrs. McMahon seems to think, and Simmons was the first of his two opponents to attack him recently by saying he was essentially kooky because he tells people to buy gold and keep it from the US government and leveled an ad hominem attack regarding his father Irwin Schiff, who is in federal prison for refusing to pay taxes. Of course, taxation = patriotism. You hate America if you don't want to pay. http://www.ctmirror.org/story/schiff-serve...on-and-politics

There is an interesting article in the American Thinker by Jack Cashill about a poem called "Pop" published in a student literary journal in 1981 under then 19-year old Barack Obama's name and similarities to Frank Marshall Davis, one of Obama's communist mentors and father figue, and the author's conclusions about Obama's past, which the media has all but ignored. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/wha...obamas_pop.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/world/eu...;pagewanted=all Poland Looks Inward After Film Puts ‘Mall Girl’ Culture on View Adam Lach for The International Herald Tribune Teenage girls loitering near a washroom at a club in Warsaw. A movie that tells the story of young prostitutes has provoked a national discussion on moral decadence. WARSAW — They loiter at the mall for hours, young teenage girls selling their bodies in return for designer jeans, Nokia cell phones, even a pair of socks. Katarzyna Roslaniec, a former film student, first spotted a cluster of mall girls three years ago, decked out in thigh-high latex boots. She followed them and chatted them up over cigarettes. Over the next six months, the teens told her about their sex lives, about the men they called “sponsors,” about their lust for expensive labels, their absent parents, their premature pregnancies, their broken dreams. Ms. Roslaniec, 29, scribbled their secrets in her notepad, memorizing the way they peppered their speech with words like “frajer” — “loser” in English. She gossiped with them on Grono.net, the Polish equivalent of Facebook. Soon, she had a large network of mall girls. The result is the darkly devastating fictional film, “Galerianki,” or Mall Girls, which premiered in Poland in the autumn and has provoked an ongoing national debate about moral decadence in this conservative, predominantly Catholic country, 20 years after the fall of Communism. The film tells the story of four teenage girls who turn tricks in the restrooms of shopping malls to support their clothing addiction. It has attained such cult status that parents across the country say they are confiscating DVDs of the film for fear it provides a lurid instruction manual. The revelation that Catholic girls, some from middle-class families, are prostituting themselves for a Chanel scarf or an expensive sushi dinner is causing many here to question whether materialism is polluting the nation’s soul. In the film, the character Milena, the knowing and vampish queen of the mall girls, explains to Ala, her innocent protégé, how to target an affluent sponsor: “Look at a guy’s shoes, his watch, and his phone and you can tell if it’s expensive. It’s a start, right?” she explains. Love doesn’t exist, she adds, what matters is what you can get for sex. The real-life mall girls say that after choosing a benefactor, they follow him into a shop, and seduce him by trying on clothes. Sex is exchanged only for an agreed item like a blouse, never for cash. It usually takes place in the stalls of bathrooms at the mall or in a car in the parking lot — a fact that has prompted intensified security at malls and forced the mall girls to seek out alternate venues. On a recent night at Space, a former train station-turned-dance club that is a favorite of mall girls, dozens of teens in body-hugging black outfits gyrated to Polish hip-hop, flanked by much older men, buying them €10, or $13, cocktails. “Life is expensive in Warsaw,” said Sylwia, a jobless 18-year-old, as she caressed the leg of a 31-year-old man she had just met. “I need to find someone to help pay the rent.” Ms. Roslaniec called mall girls the daughters of capitalism. “Parents have lost themselves in the race after a new washing machine or car and are rarely home. A 14-year-old girl needs a system of values that can’t be shaped without the guidance of parents. The result is that these girls live in a world where there are no feelings, just cold calculation.” Some cultural critics here agree that mall girls are a symptom of a post-Communist society, while others contend that the filmmaker has exaggerated the phenomenon. But Ms. Roslaniec noted that the trend was not limited to Poland. At screenings of the film, from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv to Toronto, she said, she was amazed by the number of teens who came up to her and told her about mall girls at their own schools. “The only country where teens seemed genuinely surprised by the film was in Finland,” she noted — a wealthy welfare state. According to a recent study commissioned by the Ombudsman for Children in Poland, 20 percent of teenage prostitutes in Poland sell their bodies in order to earn money for designer clothes, fancy gadgets or concert tickets. Girls on average enter the sex trade at age 15; boys at 14. Some critics complain that the film offers an idealized, glamorized version of the sex business. Monika Siuchta, a social worker who works with teenagers, noted that real-life teen prostitutes were often abused and looked disheveled and neglected, with incongruous gold accessories. Adam Bogoryja-Zakrzewski, a journalist who made a documentary about mall girls, said the phenomenon had laid bare the extent to which the powerful Polish Catholic church — anti abortion, anti-gay and anti-contraception — was out of touch with the younger generation, for whom sex, alcohol and consumerism held more appeal. “The shopping mall has become the new cathedral in Poland,” he said. So fearful is the church of losing souls to department stores that a few years ago one church in the southern Polish city of Katowice installed a confessional booth in a shopping center, offering shoppers absolution between their Christmas purchases. For others, the mall girl trend reflects how the social egalitarianism of the past is vanishing. “Our mothers were happy to have one doll to play with that their mothers sewed,” said Dagmara Krasowska, 20, who plays Milena. “My generation got Barbies, which we tired of in five minutes. Under Communism, our mothers all wore the same school uniforms. Today, teens want the latest designer outfits and are never satisfied.” Whatever the meaning behind the trend, social workers and parents say they fear that teenagers are looking to mall girls as role models. Marcin Drewniak, who counsels teenagers in Krakow, noted that malls had become the new community centers in Poland, providing teens with both refuge and temptation. “They can go to the mall and they don’t have to worry about bad weather or interfering adults,” he said. “They can try on clothes and perfume without having to spend any money. The mall has become a sort of fairy tale land. All this would have been unimaginable during Communism.” He said the typical mall girl was between 14 and 16 and came from a family with a single parent. They often abused drugs or alcohol, and sold their bodies in a search for self-esteem. He said the girls did not accept money and called their clients “boyfriends” or “losers” to preserve the illusion that they are not prostitutes. Many teens here said that mall girls were to be pitied, not emulated. At Zlote Tarasy, a sprawling mall in central Warsaw, Nina Chmielewska, 15, an aspiring actress chomping on a Big Mac in the food court, said she knew some mall girls at school. She said they disgusted her, but acknowledged the pressures. “If you want to be cool and accepted at school, you need to have a good cellphone, designer shoes and a boyfriend. You are judged by how you look,” she said. “For sure, I don’t want to end up with a sweaty ugly guy.”

Torturing a dog for sadistic pleasure for weeks would be utterly depraved. What possible value could that be to a virtuous man? Dogs, however, do not have rights and the only question that remains is whose property the dog is. If the other guy wants to try to convince the torturer, buy the dog, or protest the dog-hater, or call an animal protection company to come to see if they can reason with him and take the dog, or publish his information and anyone who cares about the torture of animals can blacklist the guy and refuse to deal with him. You can't, however, assault him or invade his property in any manner.

No, that's not at all what I was saying. If I constructed that sentence wrong, that's my bad, but the point is either the person accepts reason as a precondition for any argumentation or he can't be reasoned with. He's basically saying "why can't I be irrational? But I want to be irrational! It gives me good utility! I demand you give me a rational reason why I should be rational and accept reason!"

No, I'm sure there are plenty of people who think they are being completely rational, if they just accept God and heaven and hell and angels and demons and original sin and altruism etc. on faith and tell themselves they will be completely rational on everything else. (Coincidentally AS discusses that.) In comes the blank-out. No, there's just people who choose to reason and people who choose not to. The later can't be reasoned with. So if you want to help the person, start with the basics or tell them to read AS or whatever, but unless they choose reality over un-reality, then that "all-loving" cosmic dictator and his ultimatim of submission or eternal torment is always going to be there, hanging over whatever it is you throw at him, and he will continue to pretend to have "self-esteem in submission to God" because:"No man can survive the moment of pronouncing himself irredeemably evil; should he do it, his next moment is insanity or suicide." So of course this pretend kind of self-esteem in religion has incredible utility for them!