Godless Capitalist

I'm sorry; I don't understand your question.

FC: I don't think I'm missing the point; I'm just arguing a different one than you are. See below. I agree with this. The key word here (for me at least) is "support." If someone is unwillingly contributing to the war effort against me, it is justifiable to kill them. But the responsibility for that person's death lies with those who coerced him, not with the individual because he did not attempt to rebel.

Inspector: The difference is that I do not think it is moral to consider all civilians "the enemy" regardless of whether they pose a military threat or not. Please give the relevant Ayn Rand quote. I believe Yaron Brook and Leonard Peikoff are going further than she ever did. I think its debatable whether dropping of the atomic bombs was really the main reason Japan surrendered. Previous conventional firebombings of Japanese (and German) cities killed more people and did more damage than the atomic bombings, yet did not cause Japan (or Germany) to surrender.

stephen_speicher: The reason I wrote "the two supporters" was simply that it was easier than typing or copying both of your names. The reason I have been ignoring you is because of your arrogant and accusatory attitude. I'm interested in rational discussion, not personal attacks. I don't care what you think of me, so you can save yourself some time and effort and not bother with your tirades against me. I only took you off my "ignore list" for the purpose of this thread and I am putting you back on it immediately. I have no objection to including moral tolerationism and libertarianism; I just think there should be some explanation and/or definition so people know what these mean. Since stephen_speicher has indicated his unwillingness to do so, perhaps you could.

No, that's not true. Macroevolution occurs by the same processes as microevolution--primarily natural selection, although there are other mechanisms. It just occurs on a much longer timescale and thus has never been directly observed the way microevolution has. The main evidence for macroevolution is the fossil record, homologous structures, and DNA and protein sequences. Any introductory college biology textbook should have a good explanation of evolution. You can also read some of the articles here: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html

The above I believe qualifies as a post with no intellectual content, which I believe is prohibited by the existing rules. This is not the first time stephen_speicher has done this, either. I think a warning is in order. NIJamesHughes: Thank you; I agree.

Where did you get the idea that I was arging that the US was an oppressive fascist regime or that assassinating politicians was justified? I think Praxus has a good point, though. The US government today is far more oppressive than the British were in the prerevolutionary colonies.

Recognizing that people cannot easily flee dictatorships does change the thrust of the thread. Your whole argument rests on the idea that people can freely oppose or escape a dictatorship with little risk. This is simply not true. No, the American Revolution was not irrational. But the pre-revolutionary colonies were hardly a Stalinist dictatorship, and the chances of a successful rebellion were quite good. I agree that "people are responsible to suffer the consequences of their government’s actions." The fault, though, lies with their governments, not with themselves. Again, it is moral to do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves. If mass attacks on civilians would accomplish that, I would agree with it. But I do not think they would.

If the choice was between complying with the demands and making an attempt at resistance that had a 90% chance of getting me killed, it would be rational to comply until my odds approved. But lets look at the wider issue. Let's say the police find out about this situation and are trying to figure out how to deal with it. Do they say "GC is not fighting back against the criminal, therefore he must be supporting him, therefore we should arrest both of them"? Of course not. They would recognize that I was being held against my will and try to free me from the criminal. Now I know a war is not the same since it is not our responsibility to free victims of dictatorships. And if they are killed accidentally as a result of our defending ourselves that is not our fault. But that is not the same as saying they are all the enemy.

(Marc K, I hope this will also answer some of your points. Also, as has been said there is no rule requiring me to respond to every post addressed to me. I have been very busy with work lately and simply do not have time to keep going over the same arguments.) Elle, your argument is valid is a country like the US that allows dissent. But in a dictatorship such dissent can get you killed. So you do not have a free choice between slavery and freedom as Marc K says; you have a choice between slavery and a probably suicidal attempt at freedom. Failing to make that attempt is not a sanction. About the issue of being able to flee a dictatorship, perhaps it would be a good idea for some people to read or reread the ending of "We the Living."

E.E. Cummings wrote a lot of poems that used only lowercase letters. It's understandable for someone who is learning English to mistakenly write "objectivism." But most of the time here it's just carelessness.

I'm still waiting for those definitions. Based on the current form of the wiki, the following need to be defined: "David Kelley's philosophy," “libertarian," "tolerationist." Even people who are fairly familiar with Objectivism may not be aware of these "heresies," so some further explanation is needed. Better yet, just stick with the original rules. Just skimming through the thread, I see only two people in favor of change, with most supporting the existing rules.

I don't have a good formal definition, but this may help: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSes...ws_iv_ctrl=1021 I wouldn't consider it proper for government to punish someone for that, no. Moore has a right to express his opinion, however wrong it may be.

I think the situation is a little worse than DavidOdden suggests. While 3rd parties are not banned outright, there are significant legal barriers to them getting on ballots. The McCain-Feingold Act (aka "campaign finance reform") significantly and directly restricts the freedom of political expression. As for habeus corpus, there have been a number of cases recently of terrorism suspects (including US citizens) being held without bail or access to lawyers and not given speedy trials.

I looked at the Wiki. My main objection to the proposed new rules is vagueness. Rather than try to edit the vague passages myself, I would ask the rules' supporters to clarify what is meant by the following terms (ie I would like formal definitions): "David Kelley's philosophy," "promote," "libertarianism," "disrespect." To give an example, if someone encourages voting for Libertarian Party candidates, is that considered to be "promoting libertarianism"? I'm not sure, but I think you will still be able to read quoted passages from people you are ignoring.

I have another suggestion, based on several recent threads: there should be a notice somewhere asking people to do a search before posting new threads. That way we won't have to keep going over the same topics repeatedly. Also, this site has an "ignore list" function. For those who find another user offensive, you can just put that user on your ignore list and you won't see their posts.

Why would one want to think about it at all? (I am not trying to criticise you, just pointing out that some things are not worth even considering for more than the time it takes to discard them.)

Just fyi there is already an extremely long and exhaustive thread on this topic.

Sorry; I was unclear. I did not mean that Greedy_Capitalist had no interest in ever changing the rules. I just meant that similar issues to those discussed in this thread have already been discussed in previous threads and no significant changes were made.

No, and its not a formal violation of the rules. However, the moderators can and have insisted that people use polite netiquette, as is requested on the rules page. ( http://ObjectivismOnline.com/content/view/13/25/ ) I'm just suggesting they do so a little more often. Those rules by the way say "this website should not be used to spread ideas contrary or unrelated to Objectivism." That's a little vague but seems sufficient to me provided the moderators exercise rational judgement, which so far they have. I'd also like to reiterate a suggestion I made in the "what to do about libertarians" thread: confine new members to the "basic questions" forum until they have shown themselves capable of rational discourse. That way the remaining forums can be kept reasonably free of blatantly irrational ideas.

I see no need for any change in the existing rules. Based on the existing threads on dealing with communists and libertarians, it does not seem that GreedyCapitalist does either. If he indicates some interest in changing the rules, I will comment further. I would, however, like to suggest a crackdown on people who make posts whose only purpose is to denigrate other members.

Did he actually say that? Does he think every Muslim on Earth should be shot on sight, including presumably US citizens? Are fundamentalist Christians next? After all, they share many beliefs.

I don't agree with his argument about who is innocent. But I have explained that elsewhere so I am not going to go through it all again. I also have serious doubts about both the practicality and ethics of attacking civilians in order to "break the will of the enemy." It is especially dubious when used against a dictatorship in which the people targeted do not support their government anyway. If anything, it would make them more likely to support their government in fighting against the outside attacker. Ayn Rand said that "The source of the government's authority is 'the consent of the governed.' This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens; it means that the government as such has no rights except the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific purpose." (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 332, italics omitted) A dictatorship does not have this authority and thus is not an agent or representative of the people it rules. Now once again it is legitimate for us to defend ourselves against dictatorships, even if it means innocent civilians are accidentally killed. The fault for that lies with the dictatorship, not us. But that is a separate issue from deliberately targeting civilians.

I find the attacks on me by stephen_speicher rather sad. I actually agree with much of what he says about libertarianism. If he would bother to try to understand what I am saying and have a rational discussion with me perhaps he would see that and be able to persuade me all the way over to his position. These are not easy issues, and the correct positions are not as obvious as some people seem to think. But unfortunately he prefers personal attacks to rational argument. I think this one of the main reasons why the Objectivist movement has not been as successful as it could have been.

AR supported tax credits as an interim step. The idea is discussed here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSes...ws_iv_ctrl=1254 AR's essay "Tax Credits for Education" is in The Voice of Reason. I think that is what he is doing, yes. I can certainly see some advantages of replacing the income tax with a sales tax, but there are also big disadvantages. The rate would have to be about 30% to replace current tax revenues. That would severely affect consumption and encourage a black market and smuggling. Also, think about the effect on taxing home sales 30%. I suspect the housing market would collapse and we would become a nation of mostly renters. I also find it odd that ARI would support this sort of intermediate step rather than just promote the correct principle of no taxes whatsoever. Perhaps doing so is seen as more practical, but there is a grave risk of muddying the message ARI is trying to promote.