Doug Morris

I did a little research and found, as I thought, that categories like "Senior member" are based solely on how many times the person has posted and are not subject to demotion. Maybe we could still use a little clarification on "Regulars".

whYNOT's profile says both "regulars" and "senior member". So does mine. AlexL's profile says both "regulars" and "member". Maybe it would help if the moderators explain exactly what this terminology means.

There seem to be some people who just irrationally hate Ayn Rand. Every now and then one of them will come up with a hit piece like this. As long as there are a lot of people who don't understand Rand very well, there will be people with questions as a result of such hit pieces. We just have to keep answering and explaining as we need to.

Stephen Boydstun provided the following as an example of the government's attack on the gold standard. “Genuine free banking, as we have noted, exists where entry into the banking business is totally free, where banks are neither subsidized nor controlled, and where at the first sign of failure to redeem in specie, the bank is forced to declare insolvency and close its doors.” Doug, it looks like Murray Rothbard's book The Mystery of Banking is a good resource on this controversy, including the historical record. The book is available online. Pages 197-234 of the book (220-257 in the PDF pagination) look to be exactly the pertinent material, though it is challenging and probably requires some portions earlier in the book to understand it well. (i would suggest starting one page earlier.)

This can refer to clarifying specific points that arise. It does not have to mean something extensive.

I hope what I just posted helps.

In each of the following your friends may have additional questions, so try to be prepared to answer such. "Ayn Rand’s raped-girl-decides-she-likes-it novel, “The Fountainhead.”" "Rand’s hero Roark, in fact, “raged” so much in her novel that he blew up a public housing project with dynamite." It can help in both these cases to provide context from the novel. Also, make the point that the encounter between Roark and Dominique is an unusual encounter between unusual people, not a guide to ordinary relationships. "Only billionaires should rule the world, Trump has suggested. And he tried to put it into place, installing a billionaire advocate of destroying public schools in charge of public schools, a coal lobbyist representing billionaires in charge of the EPA, an billionaire-funded oil lobbyist in charge of our public lands, and a billionaire described by Forbes as a “grifter” in charge of the Commerce Department. Trump’s chief of staff said that putting children in cages and billionaire-owned privatized concentration camps (where seven so far have died) would actually be a public good." No one should rule the world. Such positions should be eliminated, not just filled by someone from a different faction. "Trump’s chief of staff said that putting children in cages and billionaire-owned privatized concentration camps (where seven so far have died) would actually be a public good." Neither "illegal" immigrants nor anyone else should be put in cages or concentration camps. Imprisonment should only be for people convicted of serious crimes, which does not include "illegal" immigration, and should be done in a properly thought-out manner, especially if children are involved. Rand's personal life is not relevant to evaluating her philosophy. If anyone insists on digging into her personal life, we need to sort out actual imperfections from smears. " Rand believed that a government working to help out working-class “looters,” instead of solely looking out for rich capitalist “producers,” " The working class are producers, not looters. The looters are politicians who seize people's wealth. Government should not "help" anyone at anyone else's expense. Its sole proper function is to keep physical coercion out of it, leaving everyone free to produce and trade and to enjoy the fruits thereof. Of course Ayn Rand disagrees with the traditional Judaeo-Christian ethic of self-sacrifice, for reasons which she has explained. It might be helpful to explain about metaethics here, for those people that are willing to listen. "Ironically, when she was finally beginning to be taken seriously, Ayn Rand became ill with lung cancer and went on Social Security and Medicare to make it through her last days. She died a “looter” in 1982," Government takes a lot more from us in direct and indirect taxes and reduced economic efficiency than it ever gives back. Anyone who leads a basically productive life and does not vote or advocate for government handouts is entitled to take whatever government is willing to give back to them. Ayn Rand first explained this in "The Question of Scholarships", written long before she got cancer. "over a million dead Americans from Covid" I don't think Ayn Rand would be a vaccine denier or a vaccine skeptic. Lockdowns kill people too. "an epidemic of homelessness, and the collapse of this nation’s working class." This is the result of mixed-economy statism, certainly not of laissez-faire capitalism, which we haven't even approximated for a long time. (Here you may have to persuade people that this is a well-thought=out position, even if they still don't agree.) "the Republican Great Depression" (If people want to argue with the following, you may have to research it.) The gold standard provided a natural discipline which prevented monetary and financial matters from getting too far out of balance. The government sabotaged the gold standard and moved further and further away from it, giving more and more control to the Federal Reserve. In the buildup to the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve loosened money and banking up too much, creating a speculative bubble which had to burst sooner or later, creating a massive dislocation. The specific trigger that burst it was a combination of crop failure and financial panic. Then Herbert Hoover intervened in ways that may have been well-intentioned, but made things worse. He propped up wages and prices, pricing people, goods, and services out of the market. He signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, which restricted trade when it needed to be opened up, and provoked retaliatory restrictions from other countries. If Hoover had been a do-nothing President as some people say, the Depression would not have lasted as long or been as bad. "pitting Americans against each other, and literally killing people every day." It is mixed-economy statism that does this, not laissez-faire capitalism. Mixed-economy statism pits people against each other in pressure-group warfare and impairs the functioning of the economy. "get billionaires and their money out of politics" The way to do this is to get away from mixed-economy statism and the resulting pressure-group warfare, and establish laissez-faire capitalism. (Sorry, I can't get rid of the bolding here.)

If anyone wants to claim that there was a systematic attempt to steal the election, the burden is on them to provide evidence. In fact, there is no evidence. There is nothing but groundless assertions and smear attacks.

The most important response to something like this is to explain, as fully as necessary, what Ayn Rand's philosophy really is. It would take a long time to refute every error in this rant, and I'm not sure how worthwhile such an effort would be.

I do not have to read Trump's mind to identify and judge his actions. No, I voted because I thought voting LP was more constructive than not voting at all. I would be very surprised if Biden were examining individual ballots or guessing at the motivation of individual voters. Tallying one more vote in the LP column will have a very small effect, but it is better than not voting at all.

I've recently started watching News Nation Prime. They claim to be avoiding the extremes of both left and right and providing unbiased news. Has anyone investigated to see how successful they are at avoiding bias?

Trump is provably unwilling to accept the outcome of orderly election processes and arguably to the extent of treason. No, I'm not enthusiastic for the LP. But voting LP sends a less ambiguous message than not voting at all, and is a lot less trouble than picketing the polling place.

There are a lot of reasons why elections go the way they do. This includes partisanship, bad ideas, and too many people voting their emotions. Trump is terribly flawed. I couldn't see my way clear to voting for either him or Biden, so I voted Libertarian.

Just to clarify: EC, are you Clayton?

I got page not found on the second link.

What proof is there? Could it be a matter of Russia nor caring whether it happens?

How you answer a question probably has to depend to some extent on just what the question is, making it more difficult to give advice. You may wish to consider focusing less on the FDA's motives and more on the basic principles that say the FDA, and government in general, shouldn't have this kind of power. I might be tempted to say that with government agencies, resistance is futile, with the last three words delivered in a Borg tone. (If you don't know what that is, ask a Star Trek fan.)

Does this mean once a woman goes through menopause, her husband doesn't care who fucks her?

My country. My race. (As in I don't attach much importance to my race.) My alma mater. My eye color. My planet. My cholesterol level. My blood type. My favorite foods. My cousins. How much ownership?

Aren't there things the government should permit us to do with consenting adults, but not with children? What about the following examples. Giving them alcohol or tobacco. Having sex with them. Putting them to work in dangerous places, such as in mines or on rooftops.

You smeared my question instead of answering it.

How reliable is Monthly Review? They identify as "socialist" - how does this affect their understanding? They call the present system "capitalist" - how much do they understand about different systems and about what is at stake?

What about the argument that people who bring a child into the world thereby assume an obligation to provide what it needs to develop into an independent adult?

If the Ukraine government has been persecuting and murdering Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine, why haven't we heard more about it from organizations like Amnesty International?

The idea would be that the producers would activate it if the grain was stolen. But as I said, it was a really weird thought.