aleph_1

Glen Beck is a Mormon, and they have a long history of survivalism, as well as separatism. This planned society would enshrine irrationality as its philosophical base.

The trillion dollar coin, introduced as a way to avoid the debt ceiling, is a perfect illustration of how the US dollar has become a floating abstraction. We can just mint a coin worth, maybe, $1,500, and then declare that it is worth a trillion dollars. Why not a quadrillion dollars, or maybe a googolplex? The bond is broke. The social contract is lying in shreds on the floor of the White House.

Even if the statistics you claim are true, laws that apply to some and not to others is a classic violation of a principle called the Rule of Law. The lack of the rule of law in America is a modern de-evolution of our system of government. Most people cannot even distinguish between Law and Order and the Rule of Law since our civics classes are in such a shabby state. What is more, every regulation involves the pointing of a gun (or in GB the pointing of a billy club.) Since the unique power of government is the lawful weilding of force against the populace, laws necessarily involve the use of force. With every tax or ban (drugs, alcohol, guns, cigarettes), organized crime grows stronger because only those willing to meet force with force gain by these laws. What we need is freedom and a discovery of true morality.

I would not presume that the kid in CT had poor medical treatment. Nor would I presume that his mother was negligent in any way. My son had full-blown psychosis for several months before I realized it. It is difficult for a rational mind to comprehend the completely irrational. What is needed is information and awareness. Concerning the availability of extremely deadly weapons, yes, sticks and stones have been available since the stone age are aren't likely to be banned anytime soon. For three-thousand years, people have been trying to put little pieces of metal into each other. In fact, this is an apt description of what history is a recond of. What is needed here is a morality of life and not of evasion and death. C'mon, really? Fox News? Surely our arguments can be a little more elevated. The Chicken Little fairy tale exists because to some extent the "prepper" mentality has existed for millennia. I have witnessed a number of phony scares since my youth, such as global cooling and the looming man-caused ice-age. If people want to prep for the breakdown of society, then let them build Atlantis. It is harmless. Finally, you should be aware that in 3.6 years the debt to GDP ratio of the US will reach that of Greece. There will be riots in the streets. Buy gold. Have a nice day!

Moralist, I can attest from experience that you are absolutely wrong concerning drugs related to mental illness. My son, who is sweet by nature, inherited a mental illness from his mother--the existence of which I was unaware until my son started hearing voices. The voices he heard told him to commit suicide. His psychosis is treatable, though it took some time to get the dosage right. I would say that the drugs he has taken have restored the sweet son I knew. He is happy, gregarious, and has a lot of friends. It is sad that the kid in Connecticut didn't realize that by being committed to a mental hospital and getting the appropriate drugs, he may have become a happy and well-adjusted man someday. Identifying the mentally ill and administering the appropriate medicines should be the lesson of this tragedy. Gun control is wrong, futile, and completely misses the mark.

I thought that you would appreciate this monument since "moralist" is your moniker. Public monuments are often artistic representations of values or virtues. This monument illustrates how little was learned by the American public from WW1. I have to confess that I do not understand at all your comment about the "job on Germany" being done right. Can you elaborate?

There are two great monuments to virtue in Kansas City that I can name, and Liberty Memorial is not one of them. The first is One Kansas City Place. This was built in the 1980's at the cost of about $1/4 billion. This structure still has a productive purpose. The second is Union Station (doesn't every state have one?). It was built in 1914 by a consortium of 11 railroads at a cost in today's dollars of $1 billion. At its peak, it served 500,000 passengers per year, and with 95 foot high vaulted ceilings, it is a modern cathedral to the productive capacity of the railroads in the early 20th century. Today it serves about 15,000 Amtrak passengers per year and does not generate enough wealth to support its own maintenance. It is an anachronism. The reason I do not think Liberty Memorial is a monument to virtue is specifically the message it was designed to impart. We are to believe that one of the great lessons of WW1 is patriotism. I would say that an extreme form of patriotism, i.e., nationalism, is partly what led to WW1--a worthless waste of human life that accomplished nothing. Another lesson it purports to represent is sacrifice. Sacrifice that accomplishes nothing is not a virtue. It is a vice. So far, Liberty Memorial is a monument to our vices. Courage is supposed to be a lesson we bring home from WW1, as portrayed on this monument. If a virtue is an action that achieves a value, and if values are what we wish to obtain or to keep, then courage may be a virtue. In the context of WW1, I fail to see the value achieved. Military courage that accomplishes nothing of value is not a virtue. Honor means having a good public name. In the context of WW1, we can take this in two possible ways. First, we may consider military honors. I do not see how this could be virtuous in the context of WW1 for these military honors obtained nothing of value. The second is to honor the fallen. This is the only conceivable sense in which I think that this monument represents virtue. Other than that, it is an Egyptian Revival style monument to our moral vices in the form of a phallic symbol on the plains. It is inconceivable to me how in the immediate aftermath of WW1 these four symbols could have been chosen as the great lessons of WW1. The monument cost, in today’s dollars, about $1.25 billion. It is a building that serves no productive purpose and serves only for the contemplation of the morality of death that pervades "civilization". While it derives from the hodgepodge that is morality to most people, I am glad to have seen it, if only as an object lesson as to what morality should not serve.

Moralist, Reading Atlas Shrugged has changed the course of my life too. The motor as a metaphor for moral values really struck me. The book illustrates the logical consequences of value choices, both good and bad. That this is based on Ayn Rand's own experience in both Tsarist and communist Russia gives it some credibility. I also appreciate the idea that our values should serve our life-interests, and that this is the purpose of a moral value system. You should see the national World War 1 Monument in Kansas City Missouri, called Liberty Memorial. There is a monument to the values of death,featuring four angels representing sacrifice, courage, patriotism and honor. It is interesting to evaluate these in reference to WW1. In any case, cheers.

Hello Moralist, Nice choice of names for someone who likes Atlas Shrugged.

I am not addressing that issue at all. The issue in question is the abortion of a viable full-term "fetus" having cute little pinkie toes and lovely puffy cheeks. Using labels that dehumanize that "potential" human is just as inhuman as using labels to dehumanize other classes of human beings.

So if you kill them before you cut the cord it's okay, and if you kill them after you cut the cord it's murder. When do you cut exactly? You are exactly trying to find an acceptable liquidation point, and hence human value is a floating abstraction that you haven't come to grips with. Your are working very hard to justify an arbitrary point in time. A land that accepts arbitrary "dis-valuations" (to coin a word) of classes of human beings is doomed to repeat history.

As you well know, there is no god at all-ah. Yours is a weak diversionary tactic common from those who support abortion. You are the only one inserting god into this issue. That abstraction has no validity at all. I said of value to "you". It is your values that are at issue. The presence of the child in the womb is measurable and not an abstraction. It's value is the only question that remains.

If you are having trouble defining when a "fetus" becomes an "individual", it is because you are dealing with a floating abstraction. It is common to use words to define classes of humans out of the human race so that it is acceptable to liquidate them. An unborn human is a human and has entered the life-cycle in the same way as all mammals. If it is alive and human, the only question left is, "When does it gain value?" If you are in the business of defining some humans as having no value, I don't want to live in your neighborhood.

I would prefer to pay directly for the use of roads and other "public amenities" so that the leaches around me would have no expectation that I owe them anything. I would very much prefer to exchange value for value--the Trader Principle being essential for my morality. In answer to the questions in the original post, yes, I did go to a private secondary school, and yes, I did work to pay the entire amount of my tuition. I worked full-time during the summer and part-time during the school year from the age of 13. I suspect that this will be considered irrelevant to one who believes that I owe him something. The debt will never be repaid to the teeming leeches. At least, the value that I received from reading Ayn Rand's books was fully paid at the bookstore.