Black Wolf
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Posts
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Status Updates posted by Black Wolf
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I saw Peter Schiff tonight at the Webster Hall in NYC. He predicts that the real recession has yet to begin! That doesn't sound good..
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"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction." — Christopher Hitchens
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Mathematical proof that god does not exist.
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"Science and mathematics were to be removed from the hands of the merchants and the artisans. This tendency found its most effective advocate in a follower of Pythagoras named Plato." and: "He (Plato) believed that ideas were far more real than the natural world. He advised the astronomers not to waste their time observing the stars and planets. It was better, he believed, just to think about them. Plato expressed hostility to observation and experiment. He taught contempt for the...
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~ Carl Sagan
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After I just got done shoveling snow off of my driveway ramp, the snowplower pushes it right back on. If I push snow into the street, I get a fine. Fuck
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Yesterday, my teacher sarcastically implied that African tribe (or "nation") Mandinka is more civilzed than we are, because they had a clear cut answer to "when did you become a man". So, my American Lit professor believes civility is determined by how prompt your response is to a philosophical question, and he seems to believe your culture is more civiliezd if other people decide maturation for you.
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Why do we have a quote in the random quote generator where a guy says that human beings are no better than slugs?
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The DEA wants to hire an Ebonics linguist. What a waste of money! Just shout on a college campus "We need an intern for the DEA". You don't even have to ask for someone who understands Ebonics!
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corrections:
(eg. 1 pres. 1 vp. 535 congress and 9 judges vs. 300 million +)
overwhelm the* people
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The jailors are relatively few, and the jailed are relatively the great many. (eg. 1 pres. 1 vp. 535 congress and 9 judges) The jailed must be convinced to stay in their cells, otherwise they would just overwhelm to people forcing them, no?
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They cannot execute their activities without in turn relying on the voluntary support given to their actions by an even larger number of family, friends, neighbors, and bystanders, who in turn rely on their family, friends, neighbors, and bystanders, etc.
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If they passively accept it as default, then in my view it is their fault. The cooperation cannot be forced because the number of people involved is too great eg. there is one dictator, his cabinet, and millions of citizens.
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Yeah, but the cooperation is usually forced.
Even if most citizens (keyword: most) passively accept the dictatorship, it's shouldn't be their fault. When people are under duress, of course they will accept things that they normally wouldn't.
Vietnam is the only case in which I would consider it a consensual dictatorship, not taking into account the people that ...
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(I don't know if the post worked, but as continued) Look @ the Shah regime in Iran or the USSR, soldiers were literally given the orders to shoot and kill, but the orders just went ignored. As soon as a majority of the public considers the dictator's orders illegitimate, the regime will fall. They rely on the voluntary cooperation of countless numbers of people.
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See my thread here:
http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=19583
for more details. AR expounded on this idea in, (if I remember correctly) FNI. But you can find Étienne de La Boétie discovering this truth in "The Politics of Obedience" in the 16th century. Even a dictatorship needs the at least passive legitimization of its people to stay in power (look @ the S...
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Think of it as for example a marketplace of ideas. If the people have low taste in literature for example, then low brow junk will dominate the market and high quality writers will be on the margin. If they change to demand high quality stuff, then the market will be filled with great publications and the filth will be relegated to the margins. It works the same with governments and politicians.
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To your second question, my answer would be "no" because your only concern is stopping his aggression against you. You are not responsible for the rights of citizens he controls, especially if he is sending them against you. In anyway, it is the citizens that are responsible morally for their government, as their acceptance and public opinion keeps them in power, even in dictatorships.
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No, I am not convinced that the establishment of a military base is per se an initiation of force. IoF requires an aggressor and a victim, specific individuals who are under the threat of violence. I don't know the particulars of Beirut, I don't think having these bases is a good idea, but it is not a rights-violation (per se) of specific individuals (until taxing comes into the picture.)
