Scott_Connery

All of you are much more optimistic than I. I agree the left is intellectually bankrupt, but that doesn't seem to bother many people. I see the world going lefter and lefter every day, and violent oppostion to anything we would recognize as capitalism. Bush is in many important respects the left most president we have ever had, and yet his oppostion strives to be even farther to the left. And this is in what is probably the most capitalist nation on earth.

On the contrary, I think we would still be turning people away at the recruitment offices. A huge majority of the country agree with Bush on this issue in one form or another. I think that Bush would be quite well recieved by mostif he said that the peace-keeping in Iraq was doing god's work.

Awesome post Denali!

Here are a couple FDR and the end of economic liberty Phony of the Century also, I think it is important to have a precise definition of fascism. The term has come to be quite the package deal conceptually. Fascism: a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism) Using this (proper) definition, there is really very little doubt.

I agree with that sentiment whole-heartedly.

I think he was the best president of the 20th century. sadly he doesn't have much competition for that title.

I don't have a problem with any of those principles. However, in my experience the sense of life of strait edge people is deeply flawed. I have never met a group more consistently bitter and angry.

Objectivists, I think we can all agree, approve of the use of body enhancing drugs. These are a short-cut to a legitimate state of being physically. Why then would we disapprove of a short cut to a mental state of being? (Assuming there were no negative side-effects)

The 10th ammendment does not prohibit the government from making any kind of laws. I just prohibits them from from making laws relating to things that they have no authority over. For example the government is given the authority to coin money. Therefore congress can pass a law to create a mint in DC. The constitution does not give congress permission to provide free healthcare, so it may not create any laws relating to it.

Port Aransas is a nice place to visit. Good fishing.

They don't really make financial sense now. The hybrid cars are really really expsensive compared to comparable straight gas cars. They also have significantly higher repair costs (The batteries need to be replaced periodically at a cost of $3500). Therefore gas would have to be double or maybe triple for them to pay for themselves. Also, the technology doesn't really add that much mpg. I recall reading that the Insight gained 3mpg over a same weight, same hp, same aerodynamics, gas car. As of right now, gas is cheap and would be much cheaper if it weren't for silly government laws.

There is a little known amendment, number 10, that does specifically forbid anything the constitution does not expressly permit the government to do. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. " So, all those examples you listed are not just wrong, but illegal.

I think thats a little pessimistic. Congressman Ron Paul votes in a way that is very nearly objectivist, and he seems pretty popular at least in his district.

I think if an objectivist were somehow elected ( I think he would have to be a stealth objectivist to have any vague hope) than the president would just veto every single bill that crossed his desk. He would also issue quite a few pardons, probably in the hundreds of thousands for people who were imprisoned for crimes which do not involve the initiation of force. There would also be a goodly number of executive orders to pass counter-manding previous ones. Then with any luck he would get to appoint a supreme court justice or two.

I don't mean harder to make ammendments to the constitution, I think that is already hard enough. I am talking about laws passed which violate the constitution. Examples of this are endless, all the entitlement programs, all the gun control laws, the drug war etc. There are not ammendments that make any of this constitutional, but they are on the books anyway, and they are very very difficult to challenge in our current system.

I think the most obvious flaw with our constitution is the lack of self policing. 90%+ of the laws on the books are plainly un-constitutional, and yet they stand. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it needs to be harder to pass laws and easier to get them removed. Clearly, having political appointees be the judges of what is constitutional is not working well.

I think it is fair to say that it is virtually un-doable. I also think it is fair to say that the Soviet Union implemented it about as well as it could ever be done.

I think that if you apply a violation of peoples rights unfairly. I.e you target only some people for violation (new home owners in this case) then the government is doubly wrong. They are not only treating everyone unfairly, but they are treating a specific group who have done nothing wrong especially unfairly.

I've always thought the Geneva convention was a little strange. It only seems to limit the good guys. I think the last major conflict the US had where our enemies respected the rules of war is world war 1. The Nazi's certainly didn't, though they were mostly decent to US POWS. The Koreans certainly didn't follow it, neither did the Vietnamese. Saddam Hussein's troops didn't either time. That being said, I am not saying we should mistreat enemy POWS, I just think it is bizarre to formalize it into a treaty that we know most of our enemies will ignore. Perhaps enemy violations of the rules of war should be some sort of objective criteria for us to escalate the war? I.e. if you torture our soldiers we pull out and nuke your country, when before we only planned a conventional war?

I think that in today's society with our corrupt seizure laws it is indeed equivalent to buying stolen goods. It also gives an incentive for the agencies involved to keep confiscating property.

What part of Texas? I'm from Plano.

I don't like the game. If you run an objectivist type government, it results in hordes of homeless people starving in the streets etc.

They aren't big fans of self defense at all either.

That sort of thinking would be necesity mean that a giant conspiracy exists amongst all medical firms. I hear this type of argument made frequently about all manner of products. Tire makers make tires that wear out artificially soon. Light bulbs that go bad intentionally. There was a rumor from the 60's or maybe earlier, that one of the big three had invented a 100 mpg carburator (sp?), but didn't want it brought to market because people wouldn't buy enough gas..... I've even heard someone apply it to tennis balls. The answer of course is that for such a conspiracy to happen, all the involved players would have to intentionally forgo profits they could earn. If just one firm would bring the life saving drug/machine to market, while all the others only addressed the symptoms, they would absolutely rake in the cash faster than they could count. If just one firm produced tires that performed identically to the competitions, but lasted 10 times as long, they would gain almost 100% market share, and thus crazy amounts of money. Obviously, it is impossible for everyone to willfully make less money than they have the potential too, especially if the company is currently having financial difficulties.

I don't really have a lot to add, other than I have a girlfriend that goes to St. John's Santa Fe. Small world.....