tadmjones

Now I see a major flaw here. You have an incorrect understanding of "defense" and "retaliation"

Retaliation is defined as paying kind for kind, seeking revenge, or to repay for a thing done.
If a man is in the process of assaulting me and I shoot him I am doing none of the above. I am taking an action against a real physical attack against my right to life that is in progress. That is what makes defense different from retaliation.

Retaliation would be if I seek out someone who assaulted me in the past and shot him. Or even if I shot him in the back as he was fleeing from an attempt to assault me.

You could say that if someone attacks me with violence and I respond with violence I am repaying kind for kind but this would still be inaccurate.. there is a vast real, moral and legal difference between the initiation of force (breaking into my house and assaulting me) and my use of force to counter that force (me refusing to be assaulted, using what tools I have at hand).

There is a world of difference in the meanings of these words.

A legally binding contract, if such were possible, would have had to be with the building's owners, not with Keating. He is in no position to make committments for his clients. Suing a government agency is notoriously difficult.
 
My informal but extensive study of architecture makes me skeptical that such a contract could even make sense. I can't help thinking that this is why nobody makes them. The architect sells a service. The notion that he can set the terms on which a paying client may accept this service is hard to credit, although we read in the closing pages of the novel that Roark is making such deals. Methinks it was wishful thinking left over from Rand's unfortunate experiences on Broadway a few years earlier.
 
The posters here have missed a lot by not sitting back and letting Rand's stories take them where the stories will.

Libertarian references to NIOF as an axiomatic principle

“The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the ‘nonaggression axiom.’ ‘Aggression’ is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else.”
For A New Liberty, Murray Rothbard, p 27 (second edition-1978)
Chapter entitled “The Nonaggression Axiom”

“No one has the right to initiate aggression against the person or property of anyone else. This is what libertarians call the nonaggression axiom, and it is a central principle of libertarianism.”
Libertarianism: A Primer, David Boaz, p. 74

From the wikipedia article on the Libertarian Party:

“Since the Libertarian Party's inception, individuals have been able to join the party as voting members by signing their agreement with the organization's membership pledge, which states, based on the Non-Aggression Principle, that the signer does not advocate the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals.”

from LewRockwell.com:

In Defense of Libertarian Purity, Anthony Gregory
“I consider myself a principled libertarian. Or a radical libertarian. I suppose there are many ways of saying it. Murray Rothbard called it "plumb-line libertarianism," and Walter Block has seen fit to embrace that terminology. I see it simply as the belief that initiating force is wrong.”

Evicting Libertarian Party Principles: The Portland Purge, by L.K. Samuels
[Objecting to the “LP Reform Caucus” in 2006]
“So what are some of the principles that they believe must go? First and foremost is the non-aggression principle, which is considered the main threat to an election-oriented populism. If Libertarians would simply throw away this ideal, explaining LP policies on taxation, the drug war, foreign policy and military intervention would no longer be a campaign embarrassment.”

From a libertarian blog (technoeudaimonia):
:
The Problem with Axiomatic Libertarianism
“Many libertarians, following in the tradition of Murray Rothbard, propose that liberty is an axiom; that is, liberty is a self-evident fact. They include such thinkers as Hans-Hermann Hoppe with his libertarian version of argumentation ethics, Stephan Kinsella with his conception of estoppel, and Stefan Molyneux with his "universably preferable behavior". Non-aggression is thus singled out and separated from the rest of ethics, which leads to a separation of what is "right" and what is "good"; this is evident, for example, in many of the writings of Walter Block.”

From a wikipedia entry on Hans-Hermann Hoppe:

“Argumentation ethics argues the non-aggression principle is a presupposition of argumentation and so cannot be rationally denied in discourse. Many modern libertarian scholars have accepted Hoppe's argument, among them Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, David Gordon and Stephan Kinsella."

I think the above might suggest that someone here is, indeed, "totally ignorant of the material they are referring to."

People don't like pain. To avoid it, they often act against what would otherwise be their self interest or a goal they're pursuing. For instance, people will often stop a physical activity they wanted to perform, because of pain. They will often avoid going to the dentist because it hurts. There are other examples.

Those examples, all by themselves, are proof that SOMETIMES pain works as an incentive. While that does not prove that the widespread use of torture against terror suspects would be effective, it does prove something: from that statement it directly follows that the statement "Pain never works to induce a behavior." is false.

So, without any further research, just on the basis of this one obvious observation, people who claim that "torture cannot work, ever" can be dismissed.

Couple that with the fact that any force is justified against mass murderers, and it also follows that torture should not be completely eliminated as a tool to fight terrorist organizations. The only part of this that takes actual research and intellectual effort to determine is the extent to which torture works compared to other tactics, as well as the extent to which it is dangerous to trust governmental agencies today with the power to torture. Personally, I'm not informed enough to make a definitive judgment, but I am very much open to anti-torture arguments along both those lines. Especially the first. Regarding the second, I think it would still be possible, at least in the case of the American government, to create a system of oversight that would ensure that the power to torture proven terrorists would not be abused. But it would have to be done openly (meaning that Congress and the American people would have to be aware of the practice, and it would have to be prescribed by law, rather than the way it was done under Bush: allowed by virtue of the absence of any laws regarding torture).

And His Noodliness said onto his disciple Nicky: "Pasta al Pommodoro is probably the best. Hmmm, actually, I think it's even better with bolognese sauce. And for fuck's sake, if you're gonna use cheese, make it Parmegiano."

One thing is a little weird though: His Noodliness the Spaghetti Monster seems to have the same exact tastes in Italian food I do. Is it possible that my quote is fake too?

Your faith in this system as well as the difficulty you have in seeing any validity on the other side stem from this mistaken belief that any macroeconomic systems are "empirically testable." By their nature, a controlled, let alone a blind or double blind study is completely impossible. At best you may draw conclusions from similar circumstances in similar countries and at worst you may draw your conclusions from computer simulations, but neither of those imparts anything close to the scientific certainty you pretend at or even attempt to answer for the massive opportunity cost lost in each signature on a US presidents desk.

You don't lack a 200 level economics class as much as a class on critical thinking or even a decent book. To make the claims about our current economic model(note the word model) as though it were facts that you are dealing out is to equate alchemy with chemistry and religion with philosophy. It's not in the same realm as science. At best it is an art that might one day lead to an actual scientific understanding of economics but it is certainly not that now. This is why Ayn Rand and Objectivists generally do not argue against your paradigm on empirical grounds but only on the moral terms.

The fact you consider food and energy costs as relavent to a consumer price index shows your covert conspiratoric nature, academic economists have it all figured out, just watch, ttsst .. doubter.( I used to be a denier, but now I'm like yeah it's gettin a little warmer in here)

No, Harry understands the difference between the possession of an inanimate object and an individual acting in a threatening manner. You don't, you conflate the possession of an object with a threat.

Possession alone is not a threat. Ever. Outlawing the possession of an object (any object) is never a logical response to a threat. What the government needs to do instead is treat American citizens as individuals, and only interfere with their freedom to act if it can prove that the person is acting in a manner that constitutes an objective threat.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that “our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress.”
In an official statement published on the group’s website, the current leader of Al Qaeda said that Congress’s conduct during the so-called “fiscal-cliff” showdown convinced the terrorists that they had been outdone.

“We’ve been working overtime trying to come up with ways to terrorize the American people and wreck their economy,” said the statement from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “But even we couldn’t come up with something like this.”
Mr. al-Zawhiri said that the idea of holding the entire nation hostage with a clock ticking down to the end of the year “is completely insane and worthy of a Bond villain.”
“As terrorists, every now and then you have to step back and admire when someone else has beaten you at your own game,” he said. “This is one of those times.”
The Al Qaeda leader was fulsome in his praise for congressional leaders, saying, “We have made many scary videos in our time but none of them were as terrifying as Mitch McConnell.”
As for the future of Al Qaeda, the statement said that it would no longer be a terror network but would become “more of a social network,” offering reviews of new music, movies and video games.
In its first movie review, Al Qaeda gave the film “Zero Dark Thirty” two thumbs down.

The New Yorker

Wouldn't it be great if Mythbusters offered a program similar to the Nascar camps? For a fee come and play around with our shit for like a week, let's see what we can blow up.

No, it shouldn't be, and it would be pointless to try to imagine it because it can't happen. All you have to do to realize it is to look at reality instead of imagining things that have no connection to it.

The answer is nothing. It also won't need Oxygen, or space, or food. Or anything else, because such a society is an impossibility outside your head. It's an arbitrary construct you just made up without drawing from reality in any way. And you're defending it, through this thread, without any reference to reality. All your "arguments" are references to either a blatantly out of context Rand quotes or, even worse, imaginary science that doesn't actually exist (like advanced medical science that cures mental illness, and advanced psycho-epistemological education that makes all people rational). Not an actual fact of reality or proven scientific observation to be had.

You might as well start a thread about how Heaven and the Garden of Eden should be governed, next.

P.S. That's not what Ayn Rand does, when she proposes a LFC government. A LFC government is a tangible idea, that could be implemented at any time if actual, living people wanted it. It doesn't take any miraculous curing of the mentally ill, or a magic wand that turns everyone rational, or a science fiction premise about a society without conflict. All it takes is a government that rejects the initiation of force on principle, and a group of people who support it on principle. It's something that came very close to happening before, and can happen again.

I am not deliberately ignoring you but am hoping you will look a bit deeper into the topic and its particulars so we aren't going back and forth in a tit-for-tat about the deatails of weapons, what regulations already exist, how they are used, and likely scenarios involving different kinds of weapons.

Lest it be unclear, my statement was not intended with disrepect, but your statement is rather like saying:
"if I have a right to a can of Raid (an air propelled poison intended to kill- ostensibly insects- but can be fatal to humans) why don't I have a right to release a cloud of poison gas over the entire greater Chicagoland areas?"

So I'd be willing to engage in the conversation if you back up to the particulars of things:
what is a gun
what is a nuclear weapon
how are they used
how do they function
what is the right to live and how does self defense work into that
we defer to the government the right to "retaliatory force" but is self defense really "retaliatory"
does "defer" mean to "give up all together"?

Quite easily. Ayn Rand strongly believed and argued that the ultimate driver of history is philosophy, not politics. No political system can survive for any extended period of time which is not supported by the intellectual, cultural, and philosophical trends of its people. Simply put, the prevailing philosophy of a populace leads, and politics follows. Capitalism cannot survive in a nation without a supporting philosophical base that is well-articulated and accepted as true by the people of that nation. This was precisely what she spent her life trying to create and promote. There is only one way to get a capitalist government in America, or any other country, and that starts with a cultural and intellectual acceptance of the foundations of capitalism, not a military coup.

You're making the same exact argument minimum wage advocates are making: the government knows better what's good for the "slaves" who would agree to work in inhumane conditions than they themselves know.

If fact, the definition of slavery is someone being held AGAINST their will. A slave is someone who wants to be free but can't. What you are describing (people who don't know enough to want what's good for them, and therefor the state should do their thinking for them) is a myth used by statists to justify rights violations.

Such people don't really exist. Mind control (brainwashing) is an urban legend, not a scientific fact. (except for Sgt. Brody in Homeland: he's totally the real deal, and don't anyone dare ruin the premise of that show for me)


And I think that allowing the government to engage in rights violating behavior would in fact achieve the opposite of securing fundamental liberty: it would secure fundamental bondage for everyone.

Automatic weapons are not necessarily indiscriminate. Police and military use sub-machine guns for operations such as hostage rescues. They use the automatic function to quickly put several rounds on targets, using short bursts of fire. They're really not much different than any semi-automatic weapon in function. One fact that will attest to that is that sub-machine guns have largely been replaced with compact assault rifles, which are used in semi-auto mode.
The reason people don't use the automatic function of assault rifles is actually the inability to discriminate. It's still possible to discriminate, but your ability is reduced, and that is always a bad thing, whether you are a criminal, a law abiding citizen or attempting mass murder. With firearms, the ability to discriminate is always desirable, because you only have limited rounds and you want to be able to discriminate between your target, and things like the ground and walls around your target. If you try using the automatic function of an assault rifle, you will probably waste rounds. It doesn't increase the effectiveness of the rifle in any scenario.

The only time automatic fire is used both effectively and indiscriminately is with true machine guns. These are weapons designed to cover large swaths of area in which there might be enemies, but you don't know exactly where the enemies are. If you knew exactly where the enemies were, you would be better off using semi-auto. The purpose of the machine gun in this scenario is to suppress the enemy's movement and ability to take aim as well as possibly hit the enemy by chance. This is not a purpose that I can see being useful in any criminal scenario short of raising a small army to fight against the government.

Overall, I think any special regulations against assault rifles is completely useless. Restricting sub-machine guns is not justified because they are not particularly dangerous, but do allow people to defend themselves slightly more effectively in certain scenarios. I could, however see regulation of machine guns being kept at current levels because they are not completely benign (when compared to semi-autos) and they don't have any real self-defensive purpose. Once you get into the realm of explosives, gas, bio-weapons, etc. regulation is justified by reasons including, their use at least posing an implicit threat to people in the area or the impossibility of using them for their intended purpose without violating rights as well as their mere storage posing an implicit threat to people in the area.

I find it very unlikely that she simply didn't value or like her life that much, and thought this would be a good opportunity to just throw it away for little or no reason.

I find it much more likely that she took her responsibility (her chosen responsibility) as a guardian of these kids very seriously, and was willing to pay the ultimate price to preserve the integrity of that responsibility.

I think, particularly if you have kids whose safety you entrust to others every single day, that calling her a hero isn't a misuse of the term at all.

Induction and Anarchism as an Ideal
By Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
06/02/2012

I’ve come to a realization recently after having discussions with several anarchists, and the realization is that some of them are not being rationalistic (thinking of principles divorced from the facts), but rather they are making an inductive generalization based upon their own experience of dealing with various governments who insist on getting in their way of leading their lives in a rational, independent, and productive manner. What generally happens is that they seek to do something – like opening up a business in a convenient location – and the government steps in and tells them they cannot do that without specific permission from the government (local, regional, or national). For example, I once had a boss who decided to move his picture framing gallery across the street to a smaller venue. No problem getting the lease and the business name and signage and all that stuff, but the trouble was that the venue did not have a rear entrance to be used in case of emergencies, so the local government would not let him move in until they had an investigation. Said investigation took over eight months to come up with a legal solution, so he lost revenue for all of that time. Fortunately for him, he had a second location that was doing OK, but can you imagine not getting paid for eight months due to a government technicality? I’ve heard of similar stories, and while not all of the victims turn to anarchism, some definitely do, stating that it would be better if we had no government at all, which they think would solve the problem.

According to The Logical Leap by David Harriman, it does not take a lot of the same types of facts to be aware of to come to an inductive generalization. Turning on several light switches in a house can get even a young child to come up with the generalization, “Flipping the light switch will turn on the lights.” So, even a few times of dealing with a government can lead one to realize the generalization that, “The government is preventing me from living my life!” Is this a valid generalization? One based on the facts in terms of causation? And what should one do about it? An Objectivist would say to advocate for better government based upon upholding individual rights in such a way that the individual is free to live his life as he sees fit so long as he does not initiate force against others. To many people who turn towards anarchism (no government), this seems like a very far-fetched way of getting rid of entrenched governments who violate individual rights. However, a contextual research into the early decades of the United States (the first 150 years) will show that just such a government did indeed exist (sans slavery and taxes). That is, a government geared towards an extension of self-defense in an institutionalized manner did exist, and was lost over the years. But what made that loss possible; and, indeed, what made the United States possible in the first place?

Basically, it was the ideas of The Enlightenment that made such a free country possible, as the individual became sovereign in all walks of life due to the rational influence of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, who advocated that each man’s individual mind was capable of knowing reality unaided by Divine Intervention or government edicts. Prior to that, with the possible exception of Ancient Athens, there was a top-down approach to government whereby the government would set the terms for the life of the individual in that society – of the individual being the servant of the State instead of the opposite idea that the government ought to be the servant / protector of the individual. It was the Founding Fathers of the United States and the political theories they understood and advocated that led to the individual protection type of government. Unfortunately, these ideas really required a more philosophical approach – basically a new rational philosophy and a rational morality – to ideally translate into a politics that would stand the test of time and not become eroded as reason and individualism wavered due to bad philosophies (primarily Kant and his collectivism). Without that fully rational basis, the Founders presented the case of rights as being self-evident – as it states in The Declaration of Independence – whereas the concept of individual rights does require a whole host of more fundamental ideas to be completely validated. Lacking such a base, the political ideals of the Founders became chipped away almost from the beginning, but especially after the ideas of Kant swamped the field of philosophy.

And I think it is because the ideas of individual rights and proper government are not self-evident that collectivism on the one hand or anarchism on the other hand begin to take precedent in people’s mind. They tend to think that we need either more government (total socialism) or get rid of government altogether (anarchism) to solve the current problems. I have written elsewhere why I do not think that anarchism or competing governments will work, but I do think the anarchists just cannot conceive of a proper government or say that it has been tried and has always failed. Due to this, I think their initial inductive generalization is a false one, that the alternative is not Socialism versus Anarchism, but rather upholding individual rights in a fully institutionalized manner (Constitutional Republic) or dispensing with them in fully institutionalized manner (Communism). The idea of institutionalized protection for the individual is very difficult for the confirmed anarchist to accept, as individualist as some of them are, but anarchism is not the solution. A government dedicating to protecting the legitimate rights of the individual would leave one free to live one’s own life according to one’s own ideals while preventing others from interfering with said decisions with force (as this would be illegal and punishable by law). Anarchism, on the other hand, would not provide for such protection. Some anarchist claim to have thought it all through and have come up with solutions based on market principles, but I have yet to see a worked out solution that would not eventually lead to outright violence in the streets as one segment of individuals attempts to protect themselves from other individuals in an effort to protect their rights, which they claim were violated (real or imagined). With a Constitutional Republic and institutionalized systems of protecting the individual (police force, military, and courts for resolving disputes peacefully), I don’t see how one can protect oneself for large-scale enterprises, like a corporation that exists, say, in all states of the United States; nor for one’s own individual life as these competing agencies of force vie for protecting the individual without any sort of institutionalized system of resolving disputes (the court system). So, both myself and fellow Objectivists are for a clearly limited Constitutional Republic rather than anarchy.

In my June 24th episode of Philosophy in Action Radio, I answered a question on whether the corporal punishment of children is ever justified. Two weeks later, I was stunned and thrilled and blown away and elated to receive this email from a total stranger who found Philosophy in Action via the Stitcher App. Here, see for yourself (with his permission).


Dr. Hsieh -
I recently discovered your podcasts when I subscribed to Stitcher and the app suggested it as something I might like. The app was correct.
The first podcast I heard was the one in which you discussed corporal punishment of children.
I was raised by parents who scolded, yelled, punished and frequently spanked me repeatedly with a belt. Until now, I had prided myself that when I spanked either of my twins I did so only once with my open hand and only when they were “out of control” – but if truth be told I have also noticed that I only spanked them when I was frustrated and angry at their behavior as well.
You really made me think when you asked the question, “What are you teaching your kids when you hit them?’ But you made my jaw drop when you matter-of-factly stated, “Obedience is not a virtue.”
It was a simple yet grand statement that I instantly realized was TRUE. It was grand because I had never thought of it before.
I have, in fact, been trying to teach my children to be obedient. Obedient to me to be sure, but obedient nonetheless. Since hearing it, your statement has been ringing in my head like a bell and I’ve realized that obedient may be that last thing I want my children to be – and that includes being obedient to me.
I want them to be strong, intelligent, confident and self-directed. I want them to question everything and take no statement for granted. I want them to internalized a father who loves them and values and respects them as rational beings.
So, a day or so after I heard your podcast I sat down with my 4 years old son and daughter after giving them breakfast and I told them that I had decided that spanking them was wrong and that I would not do it anymore. Their eyes lit up at hearing this and something changed in our relationship at that moment. I also hit upon, quite by accident, the principal argument and rationale that I have since used over and over again to convince them to cooperate with me. I asked them to help me.
Children generally love to help their parents and I now regularly ask them to help me get them ready for school, or ready for bed. I ask them to help us get things done so we can do other things. There are still times when they are willful and uncooperative and I get frustrated and angry, but I’ve kept my promise to not spank them and instead I tell them honestly how I feel and I usually refuse to help them with some trivial request that they’ve made pointing out that they didn’t help me when I asked them to.
Now, I find their willful episodes becoming less and less of a problem – much less than when I would spank them for it. Instead, they seem to be learning that kindness and cooperation beget kindness and cooperation.
I thought that you might like to know that all this has come from you saying to me, “Obedience is not a virtue.”
I thank you for that truth.
- Christopher J. Wieczorek, PE
Wow, just wow. My hearty admiration and congratulations to Christopher. He’s quite a man — and quite a father.
If you missed that episode on spanking children, have a listen:

Duration: 25:08 Download: MP3 Segment Also, if you’re interested in taking your parenting to the next level, I interviewed Jenn Casey and Kelly Elmore on “Parenting without Punishment” on the next Wednesday. That’s here:

Duration: 48:57 Download: Standard MP3 File (11.3 MB)

Link to Original

Tautologies are not meaningless. All true statements are able to be converted into the form of a tautology, and no false statement can ever be a tautology. Tautologies are methodological guides for conceptual thinking that assure us that we can know before ever looking up from the words that a statement such as "existence does not exist" must be wrong. The opposite of a contradiction is a tautology. Contradictions are to be avoided; tautologies embraced.

Imagination is rearrangement and recombination of memories, memories of whole entities or memories of attributes such as color or shape or texture or sound. The origin of the memories is from existence outside of the remembering consciousness.

The idea of an illusion takes for granted that there is in fact a truth or reality against which the illusion can be compared.




This is an invalid use of the idea of an illusion. It is 'you' as a perceiving, judging, thinking subject which is capable of falling for an illusion. If there is no 'you', what then is falsely believing the illusion? The very idea of illusion requires both an external reality and a fallible subject, and to repudiate one or the other by an "argument from illusion" is the logical fallacy of the stolen concept.



Reality is the final authority by dictating what works and what does not. The practice of objectivity in finding definitions will find what is common in all experiences. In the effort to be objective, it is helpful share experiences with others and to listen to others experiences in order to craft definitions that encompass of the known relevant cases but no more.



All organisms are mortal (in the sense that they are not invulnerable to damage).
If all organisms were dead at the same time, that would be a world without conscious organisms.

Using a restricted and literal interpretation of 'world', Earth's Moon is goes beyond being a merely possible world without consciousness into being an actual world without consciousness.

"...She rejects the morality of traditional utopias, as well as the cynicism of those who reject idealism as such. Ayn Rand offers both a moral and practical utopia that enshrines rational selfishness, individualism, and laissez-faire capitalism." -Richard Salsman



Yes, but to clarify: "Rand's self-declared purpose in writing fiction was to project an "ideal man"—a man who perseveres to achieve his values, even when his ability and independence leads to conflict with others." -Wiki



Again, to clarify: "Objectivism is far from being cold and calculating. It is sometimes perceived that way because it emphasizes the supremacy of reason as the basis of all human action. The common view of reason is that it is not compatible with emotion, but the Objectivist view of emotions does not support any such dichotomy. Emotions are rational, if based on consistent values.

"Objectivism advocates happiness as the ultimate aspiration for every individual. In Rand's own words, her philosophy is "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life..." (Atlas Shrugged, appendix). Happiness does not refer to a hedonistic distortion, but a long range happiness based on rationality, morality, integrity and productivity. " -Atlas Society

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.

Well, I assume Moralist came here not to discuss just anything, but specifically to discuss topics that Objectivists might be interested in, and for which he wishes to get feedback from Objectivists.
Let's assume that he opposes some fundamental ideas that every other member holds true. If so, and if he wishes to discuss these differences in a polite way, what can be wrong with that? Of course, nobody here wants him to proselytize and try converting people to Christianity, but I think you should give him the benefit of doubt as having the sense to tailor his remarks to his audience. Some members value discussion with opponents, others ignore them. As long as the forum is not swamped by that type of discussion alone, I think it should be welcome. If a member finds that it's a waste of time, they can ignore it. For others: if it doesn't kill you, it can only make you stronger.

I think you can avoid calling it a sacrifice, because there can be value gained from that act. Not value after death, but value while you're still alive.

"To the one who dies, no values are possible to him after death. If he attempts to arrange things to operate a certain way after his demise, it's only for his benefit now, in life. If he wants his classic car given to a museum, or his mechanic, it's not because he's worried about watching what's going to happen to it from above, when he's a ghost and his no-good son has ownership of it. It's because he values this thing in life that he takes the trouble to secure it after his death. It's for his peace-of-mind and well-being now." -Jam Man

A person deeply in love with his wife will care about what happens to his wife after he's dead. "Caring about others means that their well-being directly affects one's own; it becomes integrated into one's structure of values." -Dante

An example of this from Rand's works is when Kira tries to escape from the USSR at the end of We the Living. She knew her chances of getting out alive were slim. So why did she decide to risk her life at that moment? Her highest values were her work, which she was never actually able to do in the USSR, and her love, Leo. She was able to survive in the USSR without doing what she loved because she had Leo.. and that was enough. But towards the end of the book, he gave up on his own life and left her. Kira had to escape after that because she couldn't bear to live without any value in her life. She didn't have Leo, and she didn't have her work. She had her life, yes, but that wasn't enough.

Ugh, some people never comprehend any kind of functional epistemology. I've seen this type of discussion before, and I sympathize.

But, yes, if you assume a bunch of junk not backed up by any data, you could come to this "conclusion"--there are, in theory, more "possible" ways for organic molecules to form than there are (in theory, anyway) atoms in the known universe. But then, this assumes that, say, all combinations are equally likely, that events are random instead of causal, that we know ALL the causal factors involved (a claim which is laughable in any field today), etc. etc, etc.

Anyway, if you're going to study Objectivism, concentrate on epistemology. This is where Objectivism differs most from other philosophies and (not surprisingly) the point of greatest importance in understanding and apply Objectivism. You will wind up ass-over-teakettle in the ditch 99% of the time if you try to argue any application of Objectivism without a solid grasp of the epistemology.

As to "going Galt", the earlier point of seeing the valley being a resort, a place to withdraw from "getting one's hands dirty", I find this forum to be a place to one can go and interface with like-minded individuals, develop a deeper and broader understanding of reason, logic, morality, identification of fallacies and contradictions, etc. Unlike the valley, it also brings in people who don't hold Objectivism with the same esteem, giving rise to different advocates of Objectivism adressing and dealing with them conversationally in an arena that explicitly Objectivist in nature. I find this a good thing. It doesn't mean we all agree, or that the ideas put forth are explicitly objective even if we do agree.

John Galt is credited for stating: "When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit."

This is a place where we can look for and find those who make reality king and insist on granting it access to the throneroom of understanding via discourse, and help one another out in that process.