RichyRich

I guess I think that Objectivism qua philosophy is neutral when it comes to the political parties. But qua philosophy that is interpreted by most American Objectivists, it becomes right wing.

What I'm on about is that Obama is not the worst president in history as the title of the thread asks. From an Objectivist perspective he's about the same as Bush.

You're missing the point of this thread. Bush did exactly the same as Obama. Financing something with debt without raising taxes to pay for it just means that Bush will raise taxes by more in the future (since interest costs will increase). Yet Obama gets more flack than Bush from the Objectivist community even though their policies are essentially the same from an Objectivist perspective. I'd say that is because the Objectivist community is part of the American rightwing, and has all the biases that this entails.

Can you post your chart that you're looking at please? I'm pretty sure it'll look the same as Krugman's:

This thread is an example of why I maintain that Objectivism is a right wing philosophy. How can you for one second even contemplate that Obama is worse than Bush? It's completely outrageous. I think you guys have been watching too much Fox News. Obama is increasing deficit financed government spending at the same rate as Bush did. The only difference is that Obama is proposing tax increases to pay for that spending. Wow he actually wants to pay for spending, that's evil!

If your philosophical system is open and encompasses the possibility that truth is not fixed then I don't think the above applies. It seems it's systems like Christianity (or O'ism), which require 100% adherence it's system, that your comment applies to. Saying this, I think most Christians (and O'ists) are tolerant of disagreement. Don't you think that it's ridiculous if Objectivism allows no intelligent moral disagreement? Yes, this is the question I meant, apologies for the confusion. I agree. I agree. I disagree. I guess I started this thread because I knew that some Objectivists believe anyone who disagrees with them either doesn't understand O'ism fully, is being immoral, or being stupid. I hope most Objectivists do not believe this. I agree with this. I agree, most people do not understand Objectivism and attack a strawman. Edit: I have to put a caveat on some of my agreements above. To the extent that you guys are saying "unless you fully understand Objectivism, then it's immoral to disagree" I do not support you. But if you are saying that one can fully understand Oism, and morally disagree, then I support your argument.

Do you think it is possible for someone to read and fully understand Ayn Rand, yet disagree with her, AND not be immoral?

I've not been to any rock concerts, just a couple of rock clubs where people were "moshing". I don't think dancing is mindless, quite the opposite, especially dance forms like this: As I said earlier, I think "moshing" is anti-dance. It is completely mindless: I typed in "moshing" into Google images to get that pic and it was the second one; I haven't cherry picked a bad picture, there were far worse.

You realise that "moshing" is about as mindless an activity that could be invented? I'm not sure how it could be a moral thing to do (from an Objectivist perspective) unless one was intoxicated and had their judgement impaired. Again, sorry to be harsh about this, but if you want to run around in circles play baseball! This will involve developing skills and is most certainly not mindless fun.

Some of the American rightwing have come out in support of his performance because they like that he has brought the "Hollywood elite" down a few pegs. However a lot of people are saying he crossed the line of civility etc and that it was awkward and unfunny. What do you guys think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDh0z_ZeZ60

I wouldn't say it's a good thing to do. People have died in mosh pits by being trampled. Injury is common. Aesthetically I'd describe moshing as anti-dancing. Sorry for being harsh about something you obviously enjoy. I was in a mosh pit once as a teenager and enjoyed it mainly because of being intoxicated at the same time, but I can't really see the appeal to a sober person!

I hope you don't think I "sighed". That was Krugman in my quote box. With the graph you posted I would say that is indeed the typical relationship between increasing debt and debt as a % of gdp. I think most Keynesians would agree. Krugman (as far as I've seen) argues for stimulus only when in a liquidity trap in a depressed economy. I'm not advocating Keynesianism here. I just contributed because I think that people weren't addressing the actual arguments just strawmen. I've been reading this source for the past ten minutes and it seems interesting but biased. It only mentions the Keynesian's strongest point (WWII) in the last paragraph and only briefly. I'm going to read this WWII point again tomorrow as I've actually typed this sentence last and it's getting late. With regards to the ECB historical points in the mises article, I think Krugman's reply is good. He summarises with: Mises.org replies to this by saying: They never actually get round to commenting on why Krugman was wrong in his explanation. For the Rogoff paper, again Krugman posts his reply with what I think are reasonable explanations. Mises.org replies with: Again they never explain WHY Krugman is wrong when he gives reasons for why Keynesianism didn't work in each of the cases.

I don't think he's using "useless" as a word to judge the decision to enter WWII. Rather he's saying that we should spend the same as we spent during WWII today, but since we are not in a world war, we can spend it on "useful" things such as bridges and hospitals, instead of fighter planes and tanks.

Marc, I think your post is well reasoned. Here is how I understand part of your argument, please say if I have mischaracterised or misunderstood your argument: You believe it is just to mutilate in order to scare the enemy enabling information extraction from others who witness the mutilation. You believe it is just to mutilate to enact justice against an aggressor by avenging deaths. If this is your argument then I disagree. The film should have shown Jews efficiently killing Nazis without stooping to the Nazis level by using barbarism. For example, in the baseball bat scene, in order to get the information they should have threatened to shoot the captain and if necessary done so with an efficient bullet to the head. In the fire scene, they should have rigged the fire and the bombs but should not have sprayed bullets into the crowd or sprayed bullets repeatedly into Hitler's body. This is barbarism. If the movie did things like I have just suggested then it would have rejected pacifism without promoting barbarism.

Paul Krugman, the celebrated Keynesian economist, has addressed this exact topic in his blog: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/a-far-away-country-of-which-we-know-nothing/