neverborn

To answer the question of would John Galt have fought as hard if Dagny wasn't around... definitely. As a previous poster said, Galt would have destroyed the world faster than before, as Dagny was his biggest obstacle. She was the one who fought against him more than any.

How do you deal with people who's argument is "Well, morals are different in.... (Iraq/third world countries/places where they don't think it's wrong) etc, so it's okay!"

It was an amazing speech. I'll have to type my notes up and throw them online for you guys. I stayed after the speech and talked to him for a while about various current foreign policy events. I also asked him "Who is John Galt?"

HPO?

I'm fairly new to the study of Objectivism, and in another forum, someone has copy/pasted a large article with "four objections to Rand's objectivism", just to snipe at me from earlier. Anyone out there that could offer me some help as to rebuttals? I'm going to post my own, but I will definitely accept suggestions =) The article is: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/...ht_From_Is.html

[Mod's note: Merged with earlier thread on a similar topic. - sN] How to have ZeroTaxes: I understand the immorality of coercive taxation. My question is how can we completely eliminate taxation whether income tax or national sales tax? The government has some obligations, such as to provide for national defense.

Ugh. Wow. The article I posted is still amazing though "We must no longer conceal our aims. It is time to openly declare that they can be reached by nothing less than a reversal of existing social conditions. Let the needy tremble at the coming revolution. The achievers have nothing to lose but their chains." Bwee!!!

From each according to his need Mike S. Adams January 4, 2005 Dear absent student: I received your recent email asking to be excused from the first two days of class. I am sorry that your mother bought your plane ticket before consulting the schedule for the semester. That happens a lot. In fact, it happens to at least one of my students every semester. But, please don’t worry. I am going to handle your situation under a new policy I have initiated for the coming semester. Under my new policy, students with special needs will be able to open a “special needs account” every time that they need to be exempt from the rules that apply to everyone else. Vouchers will be deposited in the account in an amount that accurately reflects the magnitude of each student’s special need. Two vouchers have been deposited in your account to handle this week’s absences. Since you will not be present on the first day of class, I am going to take the time to give you a special review of the class policies. I don’t mind repeating myself for students who can’t come to class. I have a lot of time on my hands. I have tenure. First of all, it is important that you come to class on time. You need to wear a watch and set it to the time indicated on the Weather Channel. Contrary to the views of the Office of Campus Diversity, there is a fixed reality out there, independent of your feelings. Come to class before it is really 10 a.m., not before you feel like it is 10 a.m. Of course, you might have some special problem that prevents you from making it to class on time. If so, just come to me after class and tell me what that problem is. I will grant you one special needs voucher for every time that you are late. And cell phones will be strictly prohibited in our class. Since students have consistently shown that they cannot remember to turn off the ringer on their cell phones, I do not allow students to bring one to class at all. But if you don’t feel like following this rule, just tell me that you have a special need for your cell phone. I will then deposit one special needs voucher into your special needs account for each day that you need to bring it to class. And if it rings during class, don’t worry. I will give you a voucher for each and every single ring! Just tell me why you needed to leave on the ringer. Furthermore, you will be asked not to read magazines or chat with your neighbors during class. But if there is a pressing need to talk, I will stop the class and allow you to finish. Of course, each time I have to do that, I will grant a special needs voucher, just as long as there really was a special need for you to speak. The policy also applies if you need to go potty during class. We will all wait for you to get back before resuming class lecture. We don’t want you to miss a thing. And don’t forget to pick up your special needs voucher after you get back from going potty. I also intend to change the way that we review our exams after they have been graded. I used to go over the answers in class, to make sure that I had not made any mistakes. I also allowed the student to hand back his exam if there had been a computational error. That was too complicated. From now on, I am just going to ask you how you feel about your grade. Anyone who feels that he needs a letter grade added to his exam will get a special needs voucher. Two letter grades? No problem. Two vouchers, coming right up! After the semester is over, you will cash in all of your special needs vouchers. Actually, I will do it for you if you need me to. This is the part of the policy you need to listen to carefully. Throughout your entire career as a student, you have been taught that you are entitled to something, just because you have a special need. That is the mentality behind affirmative action. It also explains other problems like grade inflation. It is also the reason why socialism has failed despite the murders of 100 million individuals, all sacrificed for “the good of mankind.” Since the rewarding of need and the corresponding punishment of achievement has been such a failure, there is only one rational thing to do. We must reverse the process. That is why, today, I am announcing a plan to deduct one point from your final average for every special needs voucher that you accumulate during the semester. The points will go to students who do not ask for special treatment but, instead, follow rules and seek to earn credit based upon individual merit. By implementing this plan, I will be doing my part to reverse the harmful effects of socialism upon our great nation. If others follow, we will soon see the emergence of a large gap between the needy and the achievers in our society. But if we stay the course, we will see many of our needy brothers join the class of the achievers in the future. If they do not, we can at least say that we provided them with an opportunity to achieve. We have no other obligation. We must no longer conceal our aims. It is time to openly declare that they can be reached by nothing less than a reversal of existing social conditions. Let the needy tremble at the coming revolution. The achievers have nothing to lose but their chains.

Exactly. It was my continuing frustration with the public schools. Public schools aren't immoral because of the news articles I posted, they are immoral for much different reasons, as are outlined above. I'm just saying that the first article shows that not only are public schools immoral by their way of theft, as we all knew, but they are completely WORTHLESS. The schools are stealing our money to provide what is not even education anymore. The first priority for a math teacher isn't MATH? :/

Maybe Orlando Bloom as Philip... o.o

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6942751/ According to benchmarks for middle school education, the top objective for the district's math teachers is to teach "respect for human differences." The objective is for students to "live out the system-wide core value of 'respect for human differences' by demonstrating anti-racist/anti-bias behaviors." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146684,00.html "The 'antiracist' and, actually, 'anti-American' curriculum permeates the school environment," Lillian Benson, whose children, ages 8 and 11, attend the district's schools, told FOXnews.com in an e-mail. "My children do not know Christopher Columbus, except that he was a racist who caused the death of many innocents or the founders of the nation. They have hardly heard of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln even though we live in the area that began it all. What they do know about is the wonders of Ghana, Mexico and China," she said.

Orlando Bloom for James Taggart

Ignore the fact it's a religious site, it's a great article entitled "The Nightmare of North Korea" http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/010/28.39.html

We need to storm the Ivory Towers of academia that the Left has such a horrible grasp on.

Agreed on Cate Blanchett for Dagny. Dagny needs to be someone who can go from looking 100% professional -- very attractive, but not a sexual being at all.... to being the hottest woman in the room, stealing the spotlight -- with nothing more than a change of clothes.