oso

Maybe you could attempt to build a theory or reasoning behind your idea. The best I could say about it is, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. I think any half-decent person will either recognize goodness, or at least be persuaded by an air of good will, and treat a good person well, but there are also people who are immune to any good will or decency. Also, I have to take issue with this comment: "There is talk that Capitalism has failed, when it is only the failure of people who don't live up to the ethical code of behavior which is absolutely necessary for Capitalism to work." Capitalism hasn't failed, not because people under a capitalist system weren't good enough, but because capitalism doesn't exist. If your statement was correct, it would imply that capitalism is not the right system for the American people, who are too flawed to make it work. It reminds me of Atlas Shrugged, where the 20th Century Motor Company owners proclaim their disaster a noble experiment but that people were too corrupt to make it work.

Does it bother you that a country of cowards would be conquered by foreign invaders without a draft or that a country of moochers would descend into anarchy without a mandatory tax?

The reason an employer is allowed to create a job is not to provide opportunity to the collective, it is because he has a right to the pursuit of happiness. The role of government is not to ensure equality of opportunity, which is just as corrupt as any other form of egaltaranism, it is to protect individual rights. Equal opportunity still demands the violation of rights in order to force people into distributing the opportunity they create equally and in order to bring down anybody with above average opportunity. It still requires bashing the brains of any genius child in order to equalize his opportunity with any moron child. Gay people, or any other individual or group of people have no claim on the opportunities created by another human being. Those opportunities are his to distribute however he chooses, regardless of whether he happens to make unjust and immoral choices because it's his pusuit of happiness, not the government dictated path to happiness. If you are allowed to violate his rights, you're not just forcing him into not putting up homophobic adverts and forcing him into not being rude, you're also blasting the entire concept of individual rights, which, in fact, are the very source of all opportunity. Maybe you're right that unchecked rudeness can have dire consequences. The point at which an objective government would put a check on it is when the rudeness turns to force.

Psycho-epistemological issues do not entail metaphysical impossibility. You're mentally sick if you gain psychological pleasure from physical pain but that doesn't mean having such an illness is impossible. You even seem to be conceeding this now, but you weren't in your earlier posts. The poster you replied to had stated that gaining pleasure from pain is a disorder. You responded to him by implying that gaining pleasure from pain is entirely impossible, that it would entail a metaphysical contradiction. You obviously weren't talking about contradictions held within one's consciousness, which can exist, because then you wouldn't have been making any sense by accusing him of not knowing what contradictions are since he had never mentioned contradictions and you were the one to bring them up. You were implying that, as a poster on an Objectivist site, he knew that contradictions couldn't exist but doesn't "understand the meaning of... a contradiction" because his interpretation of maschoism was contradictory.

I think you've made your lack of objectivity very clear by referring to Obama as an advocate of a mixed economy while calling Romney a fascist.

You're wrong about the Greece part. We're exactly like them but worse. There are only three major differences. The world has not yet realized that our debt is junk, our debt and inability to repay it is far worse and we have a gun pointed at our own heads in the form of a printing press.

I once had a thought that if Obama won, I could take solace in knowing that at least Obama will probably get the blame for the coming economic collapse instead of Romney. I feel no such solace. I see this election as nothing less than a devastating defeat.

I tried it once. One thing I noticed is that it did not affect affect my thoughts. They were still completely clear, I was aware of all of the effects and I didn't experience any of those "deep thoughts" pot-heads love to talk about. Nevertheless, I did feel some very powerful effects, most of which were pretty horrible. The worst was nausea which lasted for hours and I'm pretty certain was caused by the drug and not the smoke. Also, my sight was distorted and my sense of space and direction were heavily impaired. Driving or even finding my way around a Wal-Mart would have been impossible. I also couldn't speak at full capacity, even though my thoughts were clear and I realized that phrases weren't coming out normally. The only potentially pleasent effect was that it made music feel very vivid and embodied.

I'm fully aware. In fact, I was in Hiroshima this year during the anniversary and visited the museum on the bombing. To put it simply, the killing of Japanese innocents was justified because the choice was between Japanese innocence or American innocence. It was the Japanese who created this stituation by initiating force against America. The innocent Japanese who were killed, were not the victims of America, which acted in self-defense, but of their own Emperialist regime as well as any complicit citizen who failed to oppose their regime and it's agression, even if only within their own minds.

What is the precedent for nominating a failed VP candidate as the Presidential candidate? Another thing to consdier is that if Romney wins this election and the next, Ryan will very likely be the 2020 nominee.

Why would no country use them after Hiroshima? The bombing of Japan was not only a spectacular strategic success, it was the most moral action in the history of warfare. If nuclear weapons are never used again, it won't be beause of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it will because of the taboo created by the Cold War during which any nuclear strikes would have likely lead to annihalation but which isn't the case when striking non-nuclear countries anymore. And disputes over the technicals of the military defense of a country is probably one of the worst reasons to demand independence. It's not even a concern over the violation of individual rights, it is concern over how to best protect individual rights.

I'm a Canadian, so I can't vote, but if I was an American, I would vote for Romney.

If it's about aggression, where on Earth has the United States been aggressive? And Ayn Rand didn't just say that action against the Soviet-Bloc would be acceptable as an action of self-defense, she said that it is the right (but not obligation) of any free nation to attack any slave state, regardless of the issue of self-defense. Of course, much of the Islamic world is waging Jihad against the West, so not only is it our moral right to attack them, it is our moral obligation.

It depends what you mean by perfected. If you mean moral perfection, I think Atlas Shrugged does suggest that that is something humans can achieve and that it's not only reserved for Rand's heroes, but for any ordinary person who chooses reason as his sole guide.

By my evaluation, there are no logical fallacies, only false premises. Those premises are, that altruism can possibly include rational self-interest, that theft, rape and murder are selfish, and that values exist independent of human life and pursuit of happiness. To clarify the third point, he is referring to reproduction as if it is some sort of ultimate value regardless of whether reproduction is what makes us happy and serves our lives. He thinks that because it is a goal that drives evolution, that it is somehow an inherent goal in human life. Listen to this for some more clarity: http://www.peikoff.com/2008/06/02/isnt-reproduction-a-source-of-values-in-its-own-right-just-as-your-individual-life/

Really? I would think that in order for something to be horrifying it would either have to be a terrible surprise, or something completely beyond the pale. This debate was both predictable and the status quo of what we've been seeing for years. I couldn't imagine how an Objectivist would find it horrifying.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR3MgIPxb38&feature=plcp Here on three more scenes on Youtube. I find myself thoroughly unimpressed, especially with the scene involving Dagny and Jeff Allen.

Insurance as a condition for driving is not a state-intervention made necessary by state control of the roads. In a private system, the road owners would set things like speed limits, seat-belt rules and whether you need insurance to drive on their roads. Since, there aren't private owners to make these decisions, the government needs to do it to keep the roads usable.

I'm not good at judging these things, as I thought it was pretty much a tie last time, but it seems things are not going Romney's way. He especially failed to take the Libya situation to Obama.

It seems you don't understand the meaning of a contradiction as there is nothing contradictory about gaining pleasure from pain. If he said something like "sadomasochists realize that pain is pleasure", then that would be a contradiction but gaining one thing from something which seems opposite is not a contradiction. There is nothing in the definition of pain that says that it can not cause pleasure or vice versa.

“The left dismisses Ayn Rand,” he says. “The version of her that they attack is childish, it’s a cartoon.” But he understands why.” I wish she didn’t say ‘selfishness’ as she did. That she was for ‘selfishness.’ She was human, and probably meant that in a rhetorical way. But if she was on this earth again, maybe she’d put it another way.” -John Aglialoro at http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/09/creators_of_the_new_atlas_shrugged_ii_film_believe_it_speaks_to_mitt_romney_s_critique_of_47_percent_of_americans_.single.html I hope this kind of position doesn't reflect the direction of the rewritings of the major speeches.

Yes, by the government for the purpose of exacting justice.

I don't think you're going to find many (any?) like minded people on this site.

This is the kind of things which leads directly to bank bail outs and stimulus. If you don't stimulate, or bail the banks out, you have a big recession, but in return, you avoid delaying the recession to the future where it will be more severe and let the economy restructure so that you can get on the track of a real recovery. Just imagine if any President tried to whether a recession without taking action. He would be voted out in a week and the new guy would immediately gain support as the markets react positively to his stimulus and bailouts. The only thing that could avert this is a population of really good ideas but any mixture between good and bad ideas will lead to the bad, whim of the moment, ideas taking over government.

Looking back, I can see how Romney out did Obama but while watching the debate I didn't even realize it as it was overshadowed by Romney's lack of principles, inability to attack Obama for what he really is and the similarity of the two's rhetoric. Overall, I'm happy that the debate went Romney's way.