Leaderboard

Debt as a percentage of GDP is not as high as Greece and we have more banking flexibility since we are not restricted to an outside Reserve System (aka EU centralized banking). Further, we are not at their level of mixed economy or entrenched looter class. I agree America is in rough shape and we are going there fast (as someone from Michigan I’m predicting riots in Detroit and Flint burning this decade) but it is not as bad as Greece. Yet. What is alarming is that we are heading that way. Obama's re-election is disappointing, no so much because he won but because his "victory" is forcing us to see the trends for what they are. Today is no different from last week. But life is good and the good is to live it so we should not lose perspective on the good even when we need to take stock of the bad, and when needed prepare rationally for the ugly.

The book is online at http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/books/familiar-exposition-constitution-united-states?library_node=71291 Very good read.

Dangit I had this idea first....

The portmanteau is a bit overused, but I kind of like it.

By that reasoning, any solution to the problem justifies itself. For example, another solution to the problem would be for the government to confiscate a thin strip of property from the owner of the surrounding land and give it to the owner of the surrounded land. Yet another solution would be for one party to kill the other party and seize his land. Grames' "justification" would apply to both: "What justifies the concepts of confiscation or the killing of one of the parties involved is the problem it solves." And both solutions would be as lacking in Objectivist philosophical justification as the solution of the owner of the surrounding property being forced to grant an easement to the owner of the surrounded property. In effect, Grames has offered nothing but a pragmatic solution in which the ends justify the means, but he has not offered an Objectivist philosophical justification. Basically: One party needs another's property to access his own, and he has the power of the initiatory force of government behind him, therefore his need and willingness to initiate force takes precedence over the other owner's property rights. I think a more rational approach to the issue would be to ask what type of punishment or restitution for trespassing is justified according to Objectivism. If I cross your property without your permission, and you take me to court for doing so, what is a just punishment? Probably a fine? If so, then the cost of my accessing my surrounded property is the amount of the fine. J

For the record, at least around here, CrowEpistemologist argued similar points you're pointing out, and I agreed with much of it even, personally. For me, the difference is marginal, but in general, I vote according to a position on abortion, that is, opposing anyone who would make abortion illegal if given the chance. In the long-run, I'd bet most people around here would say both Romney and Obama are more harm than good. Do you want to drive off a cliff or collide head on with a train? You're gonna crash either way.

The candidates' positions are secondary to the voting public's. (sheeple)

Right so there's a lot in there. Why don't we try to capsulate it further into a single point or two and see if we can untangle it and make things more clearer. To Rand, humans are not "perfectible" in the sense you mean, e.g. Christian ethics holding something impossible to reach as the standard, then condemning men for failing to live up to it. Rather, to her, morality is based on man's nature and thus a realistic ethics has to consist in behavior possible to man. Where no choice is even possible, morality cannot be said to apply. Thus to her, and most other virtue ethicists in history, perfection means something more like doing one's best to act virtuously. It is something more like "moral ambitiousness." Now that we've rescued Rand from the charge of moral utopianism, there is the political aspect that I think you also get wrong in a few crucial ways. You seem to think that the goal of political organization is to get man to act in accordance with objectivist ethics, that this would require substantial regulation, and thus, even if it's not utopian and impossible, it will be more than the minimal government that Rand envisioned. Well hold on. The goal of political organization is to allow man to act morally, not to turn him into an objectivist, or even to make him moral. But more crucially, this isn't possible through politics. Central to the objectivist conception of morality is independence and autonomy. In seeking one's values, something that was foisted upon you through coercion cannot be of benefit to you. This is why Galt refuses to become dictator of America. He knows it's pointless. Every person needs to pursue is his interests from his own point of view, and that is why the non-aggression principle of a capitalist society is designed to protect the marketplace of ideas, to allow people to pursue even conflicting values in search for what will benefit our lives. Since human nature is capable of both good and evil, a free society, by not establishing such a legitimated channel for theft and tyranny, discourages the criminal tendencies of human nature and encourages the peaceful and the voluntary. Thus liberty and the free market are necessary to discourage aggression and compulsion, and encourage the harmony and mutual benefit of voluntary interpersonal exchanges, economic, social, and cultural, etc. But now we come to the heart of what I believe is a pretty common conflationism, especially among those on the left. You speak of "'men of the mind' such as robber barons" and, as my previous post point out, you fear that Rand assumes the rich and powerful elite will act ethically instead of rapaciously. But I think this is mistaken because it treats those undesirable features of actually existing and historical capitalism as though they constituted an objection to the free market. This view relies on believing the free market and corporatism are in fact one in the same, whereas those features you point out actually follow from governmetal privilege and, in many cases, the exact regulatory and interventionist measures you yourself (and other leftish inclined people) advocate. The last point is in regards to your prescriptions. Since your goals seem to be somewhat appropriately anti-corporatist, rather than achieving them through free market means, you prefer to achieve them through broadly (though not what you consider an extreme or authoritarian) statist means. But if the corporate elite uses their wealth and influence to enhance their position in society, why would you expect increasing the power of government over society will do anything other than increase the ability of the wealthy and powerful elite that controls the government to increase their position of privilege. Isn't that truly a naive view? What if those very same "left" goals could be achieved only through market means? Would that make you support the free market instead? So how much legislation is necessary to ensure adherence to objectivist ethics? Well none, since that's not even possible. But how much legislation is necessary to enforce private property rights? My view is that legislative law itself is unnecessary to protect private property rights. Regulation certainly isn't necessary, and is designed for a different purpose. As far as regulatory agencies go, the FDA is a mass murdering organization that is responsible for countless deaths and should be dismantled completely (cf. Higgs). The EPA is useless, since the general law the protect private property is sufficient to combat pollution. But the EPA was designed not to do that, rather to protect large industries from pollution claims and smaller competition (cf. Coase, Rothbard, and Block.) In a similar vein, anti-trust was put over in the name of protecting the public against monopolistic firms, but actually was organized and passed through by these big businesses themselves, and used to smash each other with (cf. Kolko.) I implore you to look over some of the history of these things.

Why would one want to think long term? Take an example: you buy an item because it is cheap and seems to work just as well as an item that is twice the price. However, the item you buy breaks easily, and over the time that you want to use it, (say) you have to buy it three times as frequently as the better-quality one. In such a situation, thinking long-term means you probably buy the longer-lasting one (if you can manage paying the higher price today). Thinking long term is the way to maximize your own value, over your life time; and, that is all it means. Your life will ultimately stop: this is true whether you like it or not, whether it depresses you or not. Secondly, you should act taking into consideration the values flowing from your actions across your life time: in other words the values flowing to you, not just in the current moment, but tomorrow and next year. Thinking about the pain of getting an injection (!) "depresses" me, but thinking how it will rid me of my current illness elevates me. One does not deny the other. Your life will end when you die. If that depresses you and stops you from thinking long-term, maybe you need to work on that... but it won't change the reality that your life will end and that it is best lived by acting in the context of your whole life. Reflecting on something before life or after death is a meaningless bunch of words. If this is how you define "ultimate goal", then life has no ultimate goal.In reality, you set your own goals and strive to achieve them, and reflect on your achievements while you're alive. As RationalBiker asked: it is not at all clear that this is so?

Hah! Well, I can use all the inspiration you want to send my way... Sounds like a good exchange. I have never bought (even when I was an atheist) the idea that if one believed there was no life after death, that that somehow made meaningful actions meaningless. Hell, then why not just sit in a corner and die sooner than later? I wonder how much of that is really a mask for the unwillingness to exert oneself to meaningful, purposeful action.