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Rhodesia was fighting a communist guerrilla insurgy. Your implication that I am somehow a racist is ridiculous. I made no mention of race, but commented on the impossibility, from a military standpoint, of your ability to defend yourself from invasion and destruction, using the example of a well trained military force in the region that failed. You have to plan and prepare for the worst case scenario. You are operating on the idea that everything will simply fall into place because you have good intentions. The old saying is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. You do what you want, it's your choice, your funeral.

The "cosmological argument" or "argument from First Cause" is exactly one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God. It is an argument that Aristotle used, which Aquinas repeated in 4 variations in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Your accusations of straw man serves as a straw man for you to pretend "no serious theologian" ever used any of the arguments we've responded to because we do not accept their premises and conclusions, or that any given response doesn't directly respond to every theist argument ever advanced. Keep deluding yourself, but someone will be there to point it out.

I would say no, that a thing's behavior is not its identity, though it can be used that way to differentiate one thing from another -- for example cats meow, but dogs bark. However, the identity is what something IS while it's causative identity is WHAT IT DOES. For dogs and cats, they are perceptually different, even before they make a noise or run. But for things like the sub-atomic particles, these are usually differentiated in how they act -- like how they behave in a given electric field, for example. However, their masses are different, and as far as we know now, this is not due to an identifiable action. And sub-atomic particles are generally not "at rest" in a given frame of reference (except for its own). Epistemologically, everything we know about something gets put into the concept of that something, so typical and identifiable actions are included in the concept. Still, there is a difference between what something is and what it does, which is more easily discernible on the perceptual level. That is, a tree is a tree even if it is not swaying in the breeze at a given moment of observation.

You are assuming that everyone here took your claim that this project is a realistic effort to create liberty for granted, to the point that you are using "create liberty" and "this project" interchangeably, and accusing everyone who is disagreeing with your claims with being anti-liberty. That's a fundamental mistake that is making any further communication in this thread impossible. The question at hand isn't whether creating liberty is a good thing, and whether people who are doing that should be supported or shouted down. That is not what so many people are "malevolent" about, that is not what you need to prove to us. The question is whether your project will, realistically, create liberty. The only reason why anyone not affiliated with your project would believe that it will is your word. There is absolutely no other reason whatsoever that I have seen. Refusing to take your word for granted doesn't make people "malevolent" towards liberty, it makes them malevolent towards taking strangers' word for granted. Sorry, but I just can't do that. You'll have to give me some actual, verifiable information that you have done more than just start a website and a few threads on various forums, before I start believing in your project. And, after that initial step of establishing that you're actually in business, you will, like aquelsalsa said, still have to respond to huge amounts of criticism. If your only rebuttal to people pointing out that the continent you're trying to do this on is an uncivilized, war torn, tribal mess is "You're racist", no one will take you seriously.

A simple and short refutation of this libertarian view of contracting from A Non-Libertarian FAQ. 7. Social Contract? I never signed no steenking social contract. That argument and some of the following libertarian arguments are commonly quoted from Lysander Spooner. The constitution and the laws are our written contracts with the government. There are several explicit means by which people make the social contract with government. The commonest is when your parents choose your residency and/or citizenship after your birth. In that case, your parents or guardians are contracting for you, exercising their power of custody. No further explicit action is required on your part to continue the agreement, and you may end it at any time by departing and renouncing your citizenship. Immigrants, residents, and visitors contract through the oath of citizenship (swearing to uphold the laws and constitution), residency permits, and visas. Citizens reaffirm it in whole or part when they take political office, join the armed forces, etc. This contract has a fairly common form: once entered into, it is implicitly continued until explicitly revoked. Many other contracts have this form: some leases, most utility services (such as phone and electricity), etc. Some libertarians make a big deal about needing to actually sign a contract. Take them to a restaurant and see if they think it ethical to walk out without paying because they didn't sign anything. Even if it is a restaurant with a minimum charge and they haven't ordered anything. The restaurant gets to set the price and the method of contract so that even your presence creates a debt. What is a libertarian going to do about that? Create a regulation?

First comes the epistemological argument. The political concept of individual rights is logically prior to the making of contracts, so it is logically fallacious for any version of a social contract to have authority that overrides individual rights, or that claims rights are negated or surrendered in the act of living in society under a government. The ethical argument is that it is unjust for the state to initiate force against anyone. The political argument is to identify the denial of individual rights as the essence of tyranny, and that once the principle of tyranny is admitted it will grow to consume the entire government as a variety of factions struggle to capture the definition of the "public good". It is important to understand what is force and the distinction between using force and initiating force. Using force can be proper and even necessary in defense of rights, but initiating force is never proper. Initiations of force are defined by the lack of consent on the part of the victim. Force used in self-defense or by an ethical government in defense of others is not an initiation of force despite an aggressor's not consenting to be interfered with because consent and rights are only to be respected when they are reciprocal, meaning rights and mutual respect of consent are subject to the trader principle. The trader principle is the only version of an informal social contract in ethics having any validity. Government can be constructed as a formal contract but it is imperative that it be strictly subordinated to rights or it will over time grow to be more tyrannical. A proper government is a political or civic contract constrained in its possible powers and scope of action by the conclusions of ethics.

I do not know of ANY Theistic Philosopher who argued that "existence" as such requires a cause. I certainly have not. I do not know of any Theist who has argued that God was non-existent and created existence. I do not know of any sophisticated Theologian who ever claimed that "everything" requires a cause. I haven't read much of Aristotle first hand, but I would venture to guess that he didn't posit the ridiculous positions that are set up as strawmen among Objectivists. I know that Aquinas did not posit such ridiculous positions. And I know that I have not posited such ridiculous positions. Branden's argument there (and the major Objectivist responses in this forum) are perfect in response to anyone who would like to posit that God is a non-existent being who caused existence as such based on the fact that existence as such and everything requires a causes. Unfortunately, that position has NOT been presented here, or by any major Theistic philosopher in history. So I have NO clue who Objectivists are arguing against on that issue. I will not answer this objection again until the objector can accurately repeat back to me MY position: that every action requires a cause and that a volitional actor is required to begin the chain of causation - NOT TO BEGIN EXISTENCE, but action/causation. If you do not care to accurately understand my position, then don't bother responding to it.