Nicky

Yeah, but the moral and the psychological are connected. Emotions stem from moral premises (beliefs you hold or held). However, a person can change his premises a lot easier than he can his psychology, emotions, and patterns of behavior. If you are raised with faulty premises, the effects will linger. Reconsidering your premises, and finding ways to apply them consistently, is a way to change that. It's not easy though (the second part, I mean, of applying newfound rational premises consistently). The field of psychiatry should be dedicated to developing proven methods for doing that. Unfortunately, it rarely is. If you're interested, I think there are still some well informed members around to point you in the right direction, when it comes to self-help materials or even therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy, not the "let's sit on a couch and talk about our daily adventures" kind). Unfortunately I'm not one of them.

No writing system fits all languages, anyway. There tends to be a very good reason why there are so many different writing systems, and why to this day Eastern nations have stuck to their own writing while abandoning pretty much all other tradition in favor of western values and culture. There wouldn't be any point in replacing the alphabet with a syllabary for English, for instance. There are way too many different sounds, you'd need many hundreds of symbols. Japanese isn't suited for romanization (which was actually suggested, after WW2) or the exclusive use of a syllabary either (it's too reliant on the nuances it gains from Kanji - in the case of Japanese, the Kanji doesn't just serve the purpose of codifying the spoken content in written form; the writing itself, the specific symbols chosen to write a word, often give it extra meaning, to the point where spoken communication sometimes involves communicating, through gestures, drawing on one's palm, etc., the writing of a word being used). But a carefully designed, phonetically simple and fluid (meaning that it avoids both the grouping of consonants and word ending consonants) language that can be fully expressed with sounds alone should use a distinct symbol for every syllable. An alphabet (which gives "t" a symbol, even though t is not a sound we ever use when talking - the actual sound is te, ta, to, etc, but also gives "o" a symbol, even though it is a sound) is a complication that's only useful if there are too many different sounds to give them each symbols (like in English), an ideographic script is only useful if a significant percentage of spoken words are either homonyms or have subtly different meanings depending on their writing (Japanese), and a pictographic script is only useful if the text written in it is supposed to be able to be read in several (very) different languages, by groups of people who couldn't communicate at all by talking, but understand each other perfectly if you give them a pen (Chinese).

This has been blissfully ignored on this board for long enough. Time to talk about it. I guess I gave away where I stand He was just released on bail (US$1 million) but he's still on trial for murder. And he really doesn't belong on trial for murder, it's a shameful witch hunt by a political appointee. Alan Dershowitz has been very vocal in his criticism of the prosecution. Here's a small portion of what he had to say: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-05-18/news/31753417_1_defense-lawyer-evidence-fatal-shooting

P.S. Just to back up my argument in favor of a syllabary (not Chinese writing) over an alphabet: Compared to any other writing of any other language I know of, be it English, Latin, Italian, Kanji, Hanzi, Russian, Hebrew, etc., spelling Japanese using the Hiragana alone is ridiculously easy to learn. I mean many magnitudes easier. Learning (from scratch, with the ability to speak but not write Japanese) to spell Japanese using Hiragana more accurately than most college professors spell English would take 48 hours or less. Learning to spell it more accurately than the average high-school graduate spells English would take six hours or less.

I spell English fairly well, but have never once paid attention to any principles. There are obviously patterns (many, many patterns), which I identified subconsciously after memorizing the spelling of a bunch of similar words, but as far as consciously paying attention to spelling rules or even heuristics, I know none of them. I don't think most people do. And the Hanzi/Kanji has patterns too, it's not just thousands of unrelated symbols that you have to memorize. And those patterns are a lot easier to associate with vivid visual anchors than the order of letters of the alphabet. I don't know enough about Chinese writing, but I don't think it's any harder or more memory-intensive to learn to write high school level Japanese than it is to write English (that is also evidenced by Japan's higher literacy rates compared to North American and European nations). It does get a little more complicated past high school, because as the vocabulary expands, the writing system (including new patterns) expand with it. That's not the case with English, where, past a certain point, spelling gets relatively easy. But that point is well past fluency, so the difference is not as significant as one might think.

You shouldn't love someone who is immoral and abusive to you the same way you love someone who is moral and kind to you. The first thing you need to do is recognize the proper source of love: values. Love your father for the things you do admire about him (and be grateful for the help he has given you), but don't love him out of duty. It's fine to love him less, if there is a good reason for it. You're not committing any kind of sin against either God or family by doing so (even though I'm sure you've been taught all your life that you do, and that you should love everyone in your family equally, irrespective of who they are and what they do to you).

Local governments are structured exactly the same way the federal government is: they're based on majority rule and forced taxation. Objectivism has exactly the same amount to say about them that it has to say about the federal government. Stop posting nonsense.

The main improvement on the English language would be a phonetic orthography, yes. But that would of course only be possible if you removed most of the sounds (I think there are a thousand or so different sounds in English). Japanese, for instance, only has about 100 distinct syllables, and the language is a combination of them. You would have to go a little higher than that (about 120-130), to avoid too many homonyms (Japanese has them, but in their case it's not a big deal due to their writing system). Next, you'd have to pick a writing. Personally, I would not go with the Latin alphabet at all. I would probably go with something similar to the syllabary called the Hiragana (the collection of 100 symbols which can be used to spell any Japanese word - though it isn't actually used for that purpose, the Japanese prefer to use Chinese symbols for most of their writing). In a phonetically simple language the more intuitive way to spell things would be with a syllabary, not an alphabet. While it has a few more symbols, it does not require any kind of rules for how the combination of those symbols is read, because each symbol is pronounced the exact same way each time. The other important consideration would be the ability to type the language in a straight forward way. As long as you limit yourself to 120-130 symbols, they can be devised in a way that allows for easy typing (check out keyboards meant for typing hiragana, to see how it would work).

False.

If emotions and reason are at odds, you should make the rational choice rather than the one guided by emotion. Morality is not just an intellectual exercise. It has to be integrated with one's values, psychology, emotions. If a person lives his entire life with his rational faculty and emotions connected into an integrated whole, then making rational choices won't be an impossible task. Yes. Family (the right kind of family) can be an objective value (something that furthers your life). Then again, the wrong kind of family might not be a value. I'm guessing your family fits into the former category. What do you mean by "spiritual"? Based in values? If yes, then your love is spiritual, it is based in the value you place on your family. I'm assuming your family has been a positive influence in your life. Why wouldn't you value them then?

Are these countries closer or further to Laissez-faire Capitalism than the rich western countries?

You're right about the first question, I was being facetious to make a point (that point being that having a hard time handling something emotionally beats being dead). I actually have a pretty good idea what effects accidentally shooting and killing a good person would have on me. It would make me quite sad, depressed even (because I would be intimately connected to the death of someone I would inevitably get to know after their death). But sad things happened to me before (as they have to most people over the age of 25 or so), so I'm confident I would be able to cope with this too. As for your question about what morality is for, it's not for establishing how your mind would handle various unpleasant things (and fear of the psychological effects of those things isn't the rational basis of Ethics). If I really did have no idea about that, it still wouldn't mean that I'm somehow amoral. It would only mean that I'm inexperienced and don't quite have a grasp on my own psychology.

It is stolen property, obviously. Where else would the government get it from, except steal it? It's not like it produces anything. But it's not as simple as saying that the government is the thief, and taxpayers are the victims. The perpetrators of the criminal enterprise known as the welfare state are all the people who vote and advocate for it, and the victims are all the people who are against it but have it forced on them anyway. If you are against it, rest assured, you are a victim of it. And not just through your parents, who are taxpayers. I'm sure you already know that the money being benevolently handed out to all comers hasn't yet been collected from taxpayers. It is borrowed money, and what is leveraged against that debt is the future earnings of everyone in your generation. So, if you are planning to use your education to earn a living, you are either a victim or a willing participant in this borrowing scheme meant to fund your education (among other things). Either way, there is no moral/practical (they're the same thing) justification for refusing the money: it will be spent either way, and you will be paying it back either way. The immoral act would be to take the money and waste it (go to college, but don't bother learning anything useful). Not so much because it would hurt the system (I don't believe it would either help or hurt the system: at this point the system wastes as much as it is available to it, no matter how much that is), but because it would hurt you.

I don't know. But if the scenario ever comes up, I plan on giving it a shot, no pun intended. Then I'll be able to let you know.

Well, there's nothing in Objectivism to suggest that accepting money from the government of your country, for your education (money anyone in your position could receive, by law), would be wrong on principle. Beyond that, it would be difficult for me to prove a negative. I'd have to guess why you're asking the question. Tell me what about Objectivism made you think it would be unjustified to do that, and then we can discuss specifics.

No, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be wrong even if he wasn't a veteran. Withholding the benefits of a socialist scheme from yourself, while being subject to all its negative effects is not something Ethical Egoism would require of you. Objectivism is in favor of Capitalism (the political system), not in favor of Objectivists who are forced to live in semi-socialist countries acting as if they're living in Capitalism.

DonAthos, the guiding principle is that of self-defense. The person acting in self defense has the right to place his own life above those of bystanders, and the moral responsibility for the consequences lies with the attacker. To answer your machine gun question, no, that doesn't mean that the victim is free to do anything, including deliberately mow down bystanders. Firing up a machine gun and mowing down a crowd would not be an act of self defense, when someone's trying to rob you. The very fact that the victim had a machine gun installed in his store, instead of something more suited for self defense against a robber, is proof that his intention, all along, was to use the machine gun rather than defend himself. Just to make sure everyone is clear on what I'm talking about, I'll illustrate. This is NOT a machine gun: This is a machine gun:

This is the Objectivist view on taxation (from The Virtue of Selfishness). It's very clear, I don't think there's any need for further explanation. As for the OP's questions, the answer is "No" to all of the ones which are factual claims disguised as questions. No, a no-taxation system wasn't tried and failed at the start of this country, no, health-care prices wouldn't go through the roof in a capitalist system, no, everybody doesn't benefit from forced taxation, etc.

What if he did use force responsibly, and shot a bystander anyway? Who's fault is it then?

No, but still: you shouldn't call it initiation of force, the way you did.

Wrongdoings by what standard? Just because you declare that something is wrong, doesn't make it so. Do you have a reason why self sacrifice and violating someone's rights are wrong, or are you just another mystic expecting me to believe you without any arguments?

No, someone who draws a weapon in retaliation to being threatened with a weapon could not legitimately be seen as the initiator of force.

The thief. Well, no, it doesn't imply that. If someone initiates the use of force, he is responsible for the potential consequences, including the consequences of any justified retaliation. But that doesn't mean someone is responsible for the reaction to any action. The actions has to be initiation of force. And voting is not initiation of force, so the voters are not responsible for what politicians decide to do once they're in power, just because they had help from the voters. If the voters know ahead of time about the crimes politicians are planning to commit, then they are of course responsible. But that's not a logical consequence of the previous issue.

You don't. First, you need to develop a method by which you asses reality. And even before that, you need to acknowledge the existence of reality. Then, you can apply your method to formulate some principles for men to adhere to, if they wish to live and prosper (in the real world, which is where we all live). As for the specifics of how all that was done by Ayn Rand, your best starting point is a book called Objecitivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, written by Leonard Peikoff. Then, to further your understanding, you can read Ayn Rand's early works, her journals, etc. Then you can follow up by studying the life and work of the people she mentions influenced her (as well as various philosophers you yourself determine she must've been influenced by). If you do all that, you will have your answer on how an Ethics based on nothing but reason can come about. On the other hand, if you're only interested in the results of that life-long process, Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness sums up Objectivist Ethics.

You should re-read your original post, Hotua. In it, you state that a government may not govern over a piece of land, because they don't own it. That clearly implies that, without ownership, there is no right to govern a territory. Do you stand by that? Are you still claiming that the right to govern is linked to ownership of the land (the one thing in all your posts that makes no sense to me), or have you revised your position? If you have revised it, say so, so we can stop arguing. P.S. I am thinking that you may have revised your position, because in your latest post, you allude to the notion that the government that takes over should be whichever is closest to protecting individual rights. That clearly contradicts your previous contention, that the government should be whichever the people who own the land decide to invite to take over. Which is the moral method of picking a government: picking whichever is closest to being good (and using force to make sure it stays the government, if need be), or gathering every land owner up and letting them pick one at will (and using force to make sure that government stays the government, if need be)?