Rex Little

I like Taylor, but my one gripe with him is that he should never sing "Fire and Rain". It's an intensely mournful song, and his range just doesn't encompass mournful. "Wistful" is about as close as he can get. If you want to hear the way that song should sound, listen to the Blood, Sweat and Tears version.

Frankie Valli (note correct spelling) was the lead singer for a group called the Four Seasons, who recorded a number of hits in the 1960's (when I was a teenager listening to Top 40 radio). They had a distinctive style; probably its most distinctive feature was Valli's heavy use of falsetto.

The great thing about Billy Joel is that he can do so many different types of music. It's especially fun to hear him copy someone else's style. "For the Longest Time", for instance, is straight out of 50's do-wop, and "Uptown Girl" is a perfect ripoff of the Four Seasons.

I've never noticed anything explicitly Objectivist in Card's work, but one of the themes running through his Alvin Maker series is that the hero is all about creation, while his enemies are bent on destruction. Card is indeed a conservative--I've seen some opinion pieces he's written--but it surprised me when I learned that. The "feel" of his writing has always seemed vaguely leftish to me.

Didn't see this thread until Sparhawk revived it today. I'd enthusiastically go along with the recommendation of Heinlein. Everything he wrote is great fun to read, although there's a sharp dropoff in quality starting with The Number of the Beast--. I also agree with those who said to stay away from L. Neil Smith. Khaight calls his books "red meat thrown to the hard-core libertarian fringe," but I'm a member of that fringe, and I found his stuff downright embarassing to read. Khaight also mentioned J. Neil Schulman's Alongside Night. That is excellent, but even better is Schulman's The Rainbow Cadenza.

I live less than 80 miles from San Diego, and listen to a lot of Padres broadcasts. Last year, after Montreal Expos pitcher Scott Downs miraculously escaped from several jams in a game against the Padres, I heard Coleman say: "Scott Downs is the luckiest man in America, or at least in Montreal." Apparently he didn't earn a degree in geography, either. . .

Atheism is the least of the reasons an Objectivist couldn't get elected. Between our "zero tolerance" for drug laws and business regulation, there's something to offend almost everyone. Just look at the Libertarian Party. For all it gets slammed by Objectivists, its political positions are so close to identical that the voting public isn't going to see any difference. The LP's high-water mark in presidential elections is, if I recall correctly, something short of 2% in nine tries.

NObody has suggested an actor to play Wesley Mouch, but I just thought of the perfect fit: William Shatner.

When you get down to it, the difference between the ideal Objectivist government and ideal anarcho-capitalism is semantic rather than real. Consider: 1. The Objectivist government must not be funded by forced taxation, or it is no longer an ideal Objectivist government. This opens up the possibility that the government could fail for lack of money. 2. Despite the common use of the phrase, the Objectivist government would not have a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force. People would still be allowed to defend themselves by force, and hire others to defend and protect them. These hired protectors are subject to the rules set forth by the government, but those rules can't be arbitrary. They can only prevent the private security forces from violating the rights of others; if they do more than that, we no longer have an ideal Objectivist government. This is no different than the anarcho-capitalist ideal: if a defense agency violates the rights of others, it is not considered a legitimate defense agency any longer, but rather a criminal gang. Both ideals assume that the group in possession of the preponderance of force (whether that group is called "the government" or "the most powerful defense agency") will follow certain rules in applying that force. And for both, the only thing that can really enforce those rules is a belief in them that's endemic to the society from which the men with guns are drawn. If that belief weakens, the men with guns will overstep their limits, because they can. Again, that applies no matter how you label them.

Sadly, some do move away from Objectivism as they age. An example is commentator Don Feder (www.donfeder.com). I used to work with him in a group called Individuals for a Rational Society, whose goal was to spread Objectivist ideas however we could (mostly by presenting lectures and debates, doing TV/radio editorial rebuttals, etc.). This was back when we were fresh out of college. Now, 30 years later, he's a conservative, more concerned with religious values and preventing abortion and gay marriage than anything else.

In my late teens, I developed a laissez-faire outlook pretty much on my own. My dad (a welfare statist, ironically), suggested I might enjoy reading Rand's books, that her views were in tune with mine. I picked up Atlas Shrugged once or twice, but got bogged down and never got beyond the first couple of chapters. Then Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls. I was outraged. I would spout off to anyone and everyone about how terrible this was. I even called the local radio talk show when it had John Kenneth Galbraith as a guest defending controls. (This was way before Rush Limbaugh; the talk host where I lived was a flaming liberal.) I soon realized that my arguments were incoherent and I was getting shot down in flames. In search of intellectual ammunition, I turned to Rand. I read Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal and For the New Intellectual before any of her fiction. Then I re-started Atlas, and this time I couldn't put it down. I was up until 4 AM three nights in a row finishing it. Needless to say, my political arguments got a lot sharper.

And it will provide a crossword puzzle answer every so often.

The cardio benefits of moderate drinking (a glass of wine a day or so) are well known. This link (http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Health/5-02-15Wine4Women.htm) came from a quick Google search, and I'm sure there are lots of other sources.

Let's frame a slightly different situation: one where there is a clear attempt to do harm, with clear intent, but no actual possibility of doing so. For instance, someone picks up a gun and fires it at me yelling "die, you scum"--but it's a very realistic-looking toy rather than a real gun. (He thought it was real; it wasn't his, he picked it up just before shooting.) Or he's a believer in voodoo, and sticks pins in the chest of a Rex Little doll, fully expecting to cause me a heart attack. Has he committed attempted murder in either case?

I wouldn't call it "sarcasm" exactly, but it was intended to poke a bit of fun at the vehemently anti-Libertarian position most Objectivists seem to take. (If that constitutes trolling, then I plead guilty.) Mainly, though, the idea was to direct Billy (and anyone else interested) to a thread where arguments on both sides are presented, so they can make up their own minds.

Now that is interesting; I'd love to be able to cite that evidence. Can you direct me to it?

Exactly. I'm surprised anyone had trouble interpreting this; a click on the link I provided should have made it clear.

Billy, that "troll" remark was aimed at me, not you.

Consider the custom of tipping in restaurants. The vast majority of people--probably well over 90%--do this, unless the service is monumentally bad. They do it even when there is no tangible payoff for tipping, or penalty for failure to tip, such as when they're eating in a place far from home, where they've never been before and never will be again. Why do we tip, even when there's no external incentive? It has to be because we've simply absorbed the idea that we should, that it's the right thing to do. And since that's the case, it's possible that the legitimate functions of government (police, defense, courts) could be paid for the same way: people donate a certain percentage of their incomes for that purpose, just because they know they should. Obviously, this belief would have to be widespread--nearly universal, the way tipping is--to reliably pay for government. I don't know what a society would have to do to bring this state of affairs about. But the fact that it works for tipping tells me it's possible.

Are you sure? My understanding is that she has no cognitive ability or volition, but some level of sensation may still exist.

Just about all of Heinlein's later books were disappointing compared to the standard he set in Moon and earlier. I'm inclined to believe that age and infirmity were taking their toll. His attitude toward Objectivism was probably summed up by this line from Moon, spoken by Professor de la Paz in a discussion of political philosophy with Manny: "I can live with a Randite."

Billy, Objectivists will often vote for a Republican if he appears marginally less statist than his Democrat opponent. (I suppose they might vote for a Democrat if he appeared less statist, but I know of no case where this has actually happened.) They will, however, vehemently reject candidates who are strongly anti-statist and pro-capitalist, because their party's platform doesn't expound Objectivist moral and ethical principles in support of its political positions. If this makes no sense to you, you can see it explained and debated in excruciating detail in this thread: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=2580.

Two questions related to this case which interest me but have gotten little attention: 1. Once it was finally decided that she would no longer be kept alive, why must starvation and dehydration be allowed to take their course? Why can't she be given something which brings death on quickly and painlessly, rather than go through a process which is agonizing to her if she's still capable of sensation, and is certainly agonizing to her family and probably even to her husband? Decrepit pets and capital murderers are given this final mercy--why not a once-human being? This is a rhetorical question; I know that the answer is, "this is what the law allows." I just wish someone would express a tenth the outrage over it that the Religious Right is generating over the feeding tube removal. 2. What are the details of the malpractice suit that her husband won? Did genuine malpractice occur, or was it a "litigation lottery win" based on a pathetic patient, deep-pockets defendant, and sympathetic jury? I read somewhere that it was based on the hospital's failure to diagnose her bulemia; if that's true, it seems like the hospital was held to an unreasonable standard of omniscience, considering that bulemics generally go to great lengths to hide their condition.

As far as I know, Michael Schiavo can get a divorce if he wants to. (Who would contest it?) I'm pretty sure Terri's parents have urged him to do exactly that: get the divorce, walk away and let them care for her. The problem (for him) is, he'd lose the right to determine her care; specifically, to order the tube pulled. He wants that tube removed. Whether because he truly believes that's what she would choose or because of an ulterior motive, that's what he wants, and what he's spent years in court trying to accomplish. Felipe: you're not the first to compare Dubya with FDR. Columnist/blogger Vox Day (a religionist but still fun to read) regularly refers to Bush as "George Delano."

What's really sad is that the only options legally open are: 1) keep her "alive" in this vegetative state indefinitely, or 2) pull the feeding tube and let her die of starvation and dehydration, a process which (based on what I've read) could take a couple of weeks and has to be agonizing if she's still capable of any degree of feeling. If Congress was going to pass a law directed specifically at her case, it should have directed that she be given a painless lethal injection when the feeding tube was removed. For the record, if I'm ever in that position, pull the tube and give me the Black Capsule.