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Doug Morris

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Everything posted by Doug Morris

  1. As I understand it, the point was not that the movies, taken as a whole, promoted Communism, but rather that bits of Communist propaganda had been slipped into movies that were primarily about other subjects. I don't know any specific examples. If we could get hold of her Screen Guide for Americans, that should clarify things.
  2. I have neither seen The Shawshank Redemption nor read the book I understand it to be based on, so I will have to engage in guesswork based on your post. If he gets pleasure and satisfaction from seeing other inmates better themselves and knowing he played a crucial role in this, that could be benefit enough, especially when you consider the limitations on expenditure of time and effort imposed by the prison. This does seem like altruism, unless he got enough out of it to make it worth the punishment. If he values his friend enough to make this worthwhile for him, it is not altruism. *** If Andy Dufresne does a good job of living up to his principles and values, this speaks well for him, even if those principles and values are mistaken. In her very favorable introduction to Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three, Ayn Rand says the focus is not "What great values these men are fighting for" but "What greatness men are capable of when they fight for their values". The hero of Anthem initially intends his invention, at least consciously, as a gift to the society in which he lives. At one point he suffers a severe beating for not making it back in time from working on his invention. Only after his invention is rejected does he flee that society and discover full egoism.
  3. One complication is that some organizers and publicizers of protests have blurred the distinction between anti-vaccine and anti-mandate. This may make it necessary to work harder to clarify the distinction and to get across that you are sincere about it. It is also a good idea to make sure you are not blurring the distinction yourself.
  4. It is possible for the majority to vote for something that is wrong. Prohibition is a good example of this. We use voting because it is usually much less destructive to use ballots rather than bullets to decide what government will do for now. We choose key government officials by voting because this is less dangerous than any alternative.
  5. Don't worry much about which Webster's definitions fit you. Use sound, logical definitions and be prepared to explain them. If a definition in Webster's is wrong, be prepared to insist on this. If you encounter someone who insists on using a bad definition of a term, perhaps you can resolve this by avoiding that term in talking with them and using descriptive phrases instead. In this case, it may work for you to explain your position on vaccines and your position on mandates. You may have to explain your views on the nature of government and what this implies about government's proper functions in order to clarify the difference. If the person refuses to listen, you won't be able to communicate with them; in that case, the person refusing to listen is the one who has a problem. I understand that modern dictionaries emphasize reporting how people use words and shun any attempt to say how people should use words. Thus a dictionary may list multiple definitions of "anti-vaccine', simply to report that each is being used by some people. If you encounter someone who is using the dictionary as an authority, you may have to discuss these points with them. There probably are, unfortunately, some people using the word "anti-vaccine" to include anyone who is really pro-vaccine and anti-mandate. The dictionary may be reporting this. You just have to insist on a sound approach and accept that you may encounter some people who are too irrational to communicate with.
  6. If Webster's or anyone else did this, they are wrong. There is a clear difference between being anti-vaccine and being anti-mandate. Being anti-vaccine means holding that vaccines are bad and people shouldn't use them. Being anti-mandate, in the context of vaccines, means holding that people shouldn't be forced to vaccinate. This follows from the meaning of the prefix "anti-". I am anti-draft, but I am not anti-military. If you are talking to someone who is confused about this, whether because of Webster's or for any other reason, you may need to explain the difference. If they are too irrational to listen, you won't be able to communicate with them.
  7. Perhaps Ayn Rand would have contempt for both sides. I recall there was at least one election in which she said it was probably better not to vote.
  8. One reason there has been more discussion of how much of a pro-freedom president Trump has been is that he has been touted as a pro-freedom president. In terms of deeds, how do you think he compares to, say, Reagan? Can you be more specific? I don't see much difference between Trump and other Republicans here. Both sides in our current politics seem more interested in making the other side fail than in helping the country. *** Trump's lie or delusion about a stolen election has put our system of orderly transfers of power in danger. If that is wrecked, we will probably end up with force being used to decide who's in power. The contest of force will be very destructive, and whoever wins will probably use force to keep power. This will be very destructive of freedom and rights. *** Recall that this exchange started with a discussion about whether Ayn Rand would view Trump with contempt. I think a case can be made for this. Of course she is no longer around to tell us, so there is guesswork involved in any case.
  9. Ayn Rand did not give a blanket endorsement of everything in Aristotle and acknowledged that Aristotle made errors. Where do you find any trace in Ayn Rand of that business about everything having a soul and being motivated by love for "God"? What people, and why should we believe them? On what grounds do they so theorize? What is your or their definition of "forms of Aristotelianism"?
  10. What does all this prescientific gobbledygook about everything having a soul and being motivated by love for "God" have to do with Ayn Rand's philosophy?
  11. Trump is a demagogue. This makes him very effective at firing up a base. It also made him a poor President.
  12. Yes, but he made them a lot worse. *** Saying Obama is not a native-born American is a vicious lie, whatever motivates it.
  13. I once tried driving in Manhattan. I stopped because I was afraid it would turn me into an offensive driver.
  14. Trump's most egregious and destructive misdeed was using a combination of lies and appeals to emotion to create terrible misinformation and divisiveness.
  15. Not only did he evoke such feelings, he encouraged them and mixed them with politics.
  16. The quotation can be true even if Trump is not a Russian agent and does not depend on or require any such accusation. Not explicitly racist, but probably motivated by racism. It was made without any real grounds. Has any similar accusation been made against a white president?
  17. One piece that I have heard called "Atlas Shrugged music" is the Donna Diana overture, which expresses purposeful motion.
  18. The differences between the mental abilities of humans and the mental abilities of other animals are great enough that we should be very cautious about drawing conclusions about either based on the other. Hubris refers to putting oneself on the level of the gods. In fact, there are no gods. Thus the concept either is nonsense or involves believing in something that is not real. Either way, I don't think it applies here.
  19. President Trump jump-started his career in politics with a patent lie, falsely claiming that President Obama was not a U.S.-born citizen of the United States. Trump perpetuated this racist lie for years, knowing that he had nothing to back up his claim. Trump falsely claimed that President Obama had bugged Trump Tower. 4 Trump falsely claimed America pays the highest taxes of any nation. 5 Trump falsely claimed tax reform will cost him a fortune. Trump falsely claimed that he had signed more legislation than any of his predecessors had at that point; in fact, he had signed fewer bills than any president since Eisenhower in the 1950s. 6 Trump falsely claimed 53 times that the tax plan under consideration in Congress “was the largest tax cut in the history of the United States.” 7 Treasury Department data revealed it would rank 8th. Trump falsely claimed that the Affordable Care Act is “essentially dead.” 8 It is not. Trump’s lies and false statements have done immense damage in our country and around the world. His repeated use of the term “fake news” to communicate his lies is being used, according to Senator John McCain, “by autocrats to silence reporters, undermine political opponents, stave off media scrutiny and mislead citizens.” 10 Trump has undermined our institutions and fueled division and rage. He has undermined the right of citizens to know what their government is doing and to work from a common base of information. He has subverted our nation’s credibility and effectiveness on the world stage. He has made clear to our allies and adversaries alike that his word can never be trusted.
  20. Trump tweeted in 2019 that Alabama was one of the states at greater risk from Hurricane Dorian than had been initially forecast. The federal weather office in Birmingham then tweeted that, actually, Alabama would be unaffected by the storm. Not great, but fixable fast with a simple White House correction. Trump, however, is so congenitally unwilling to admit error that he embarked on an increasingly farcical campaign to prove that his incorrect Alabama tweet was actually correct, eventually showcasing a hurricane map that was crudely altered with a Sharpie. The slapstick might have been funny had White House officials not leaped into action behind the scenes to try to pressure federal weather experts into saying he was right and they were wrong. The saga proved that Trump was not some lone liar: he was backed by an entire powerful apparatus willing to fight for his fabrications. The most ridiculous subject of a lie: The Boy Scouts When I emailed the Boy Scouts of America in 2017 about Trump's claim that "the head of the Boy Scouts" had called him to say that his bizarrely political address to the Scouts' National Jamboree was "the greatest speech that was ever made to them," I didn't expect a reply. One of the hardest things about fact checking Trump was that a lot of people he lied about did not think it was in their interest to be quoted publicly contradicting a vengeful president. The Boy Scouts did. A senior Scouts source -- a phrase I never expected to have to type as a political reporter in Washington, DC -- confirmed to me that no call ever happened. Yep, the President of the United States was lying about the Boy Scouts. The ugliest smear lie: Rep. Ilhan Omar supports al Qaeda At a White House event in 2019, Trump grossly distorted a 2013 quote from Rep. Ilhan Omar to try to get his supporters to believe that the Minnesota Democrat had expressed support for the terrorist group al Qaeda. Trump went on to deliver additional bigoted attacks against Omar in the following months. But it's hard to imagine a more vile lie for the President to tell about a Muslim official -- who had already been getting death threats -- than a smear that makes her sound pro-terrorist. When he told reporters on Air Force One in 2018 that he did not know about a $130,000 payment to porn performer Stormy Daniels and that he did not know where his then-attorney Michael Cohen got the money for the payment, it was both audacious -- Trump knew, because he had personally reimbursed Cohen -- and kind of conventional: the President was lying to try to get himself out of a tawdry scandal. The biggest lie by omission: Trump ended family separation Much of Trump's lying was clumsy, half-baked. Some of it was almost art. Here's what he told NBC's Chuck Todd in 2019 about his widely controversial policy of separating migrant parents from their children at the border: "You know, under President Obama you had separation. I was the one that ended it." Yes, Trump signed a 2018 order to end the family separation policy. What he did not mention to Todd is that what he had ended was his own policy -- a plan announced by his own attorney general that had made family separation standard rather than occasional, as it had been under Obama. All of Trump's words in those two sentences to Todd were accurate in themselves. But he was lying because of what he left out. When Trump claimed in September that Biden would destroy protections for people with pre-existing health conditions -- though the Obama-Biden administration created the protections, though the protections were overwhelmingly popular, though Biden was running on preserving them, and though Trump himself had tried repeatedly to weaken them -- Trump was not merely lying but turning reality upside down. Trump could have told a perfectly good factual story about the Veterans Choice health care program Obama signed into law in 2014: it wasn't good enough, so he replaced it with a more expansive program he signed into law in 2018. That's not the story he did tell -- whether out of policy ignorance, a desire to erase Obama's legacy, or simply because he is a liar. Instead, he claimed over and over -- more than 160 times before I lost count -- that he is the one who got the Veterans Choice program passed after other presidents tried and failed for years. And why not stretch? He knew he probably wouldn't be challenged by a press corps drowning in other Trump drama. It wasn't until August 2020 that he was asked about the lie to his face. He promptly left the room. lie: Trump was once named Michigan's Man of the Year Trump has never lived in Michigan. Why would he have been named Michigan's Man of the Year years before his presidency? He wouldn't have been. He wasn't. And yet this lie he appeared to have invented in the final week of his 2016 campaign became a staple of his 2020 campaign, repeated at Michigan rally after rally. It's so illustrative because it makes so little sense.
  21. It rained during Trump's inaugural address. Then, at a celebratory ball later that day, Trump told the crowd that the rain "just never came" until he finished talking and went inside, at which point "it poured." Fact check: Trump falsely claims US has 'tremendous control' of the coronavirus By Daniel Dale Updated 9:35 PM ET, Sun March 15, 2020 Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump made yet another false claim to minimize the severity of the coronavirus crisis, claiming Sunday that the virus is under "control." Trump's claim at a White House briefing -- "It's a very contagious virus. It's incredible. But it's something we have tremendous control of" -- was sharply at odds with the assessment of public health experts, including one who appeared with him at the same briefing. Facts First: Experts say the US does not have the virus even close to contained. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in his own comments after Trump left the room: "The worst is yet ahead for us. It is how we respond to that challenge that is going to determine what the ultimate end point is going to be. We have a very, very critical point now." Trump has repeatedly claimed, falsely, to have the virus under control. He said in late January, soon after the US announced its first confirmed case, that "we have it totally under control." He said in late February, when the number of confirmed US cases was in the low dozens, that "we have it very much under control in this country."
  22. Not as much as most people, and most people don't think enough. And he is very erratic. I would say sense of life is entirely emotional. It is also important. Emotions more generally are important as fuel and can be clues. But we must still make our decisions rationally. In addition, Trump is more dishonest than most politicians and is motivated more by a craving for personal reassurance than by any conception of what is moral or practical.
  23. Trump is emotion-guided, which puts him fundamentally at odds with Rand's philosophy, and in a way that makes him very dangerous.
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