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Captain Nate

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Everything posted by Captain Nate

  1. It's the protect people from improper trial procedures and to help them protect and exercise their constitutional rights in a legal setting. A trial puts an individual is a very precarious position, their liberty or life is suddenly put at risk by the un-relenting power of the state, and a lawyer is thought to be needed to help defend their rights. Our history is replete with awful show trials and failed justice and the court-provided counsel has mitigated that, if not ended it. If you follow the development of this procedure over the centuries, you can come to appreciate the value and necessity of it, at least to a certain degree. An Objectivist system, I'm sure, can come up with a system in which to provide publicly-funded defense, but I don't think at any point it should be totally revoked.
  2. I just want to note I did not create the headline for this thread, it was split off from another post. jrs - I would also like to reinforce what I said above, that the North did not fight the war primarily over slavery (at least at first). In fact, the North was prepared to permenantly allow slavery, and was content to exist as a nation full of slaves, so to say that they had right because they were fighting for liberation of slaves isn't true -- they had no moral superiority. The only significant group which sought to use the war as a means to end slavery were the religious zealots, who thought war, death and killing was a very practical way to get their policy initiatives passed. I'm not saying I want the United States to be two different countries, but I hate painting the civil war in one broad stroke as we're taught it in school "The free Union defeated the evil slave-holding Confederacy." It was a lot more subtle than that.
  3. However...The South was at least a semi-free nation, like the North and because it permitted slavery right up until the war -- and during the first years of the war did not fight to end it -- they never had the moral high ground to justify their invasion. At best, they had a flimsy legal argument to support them. Just some food for thought.
  4. Welfare may in fact be beneficial and in your interest to support. It can be construed as a form of insurance, but like other insurance, it should be private. To use gov't force to make people take part in it is wrong.
  5. My ideal is a strict control of the borders -- we have to know who is coming into our country for our own safety. Second, permit a lenient, but thoroughly-vetted, visa and workers programs to allow hard working people from other countries to enter the US and work. They can make money, help our economy and maybe become more Americanized in the process, someday even deciding to move their families here in that case.
  6. I don't think this is a rational expectation. How can we have a society of law & order, if the police unilaterally decide what laws they will or will not enforce? It'd almost be the equivilant eliminating civilian control of the armed forces if the army and its soldiers could just say, "We don't like this law/war/situation" and just quit.
  7. If you went around questioning the war, it would be one thing. But former Presidents have to show more discretion. Worse, for him to do it in a foreign, Arab land it's just disgraceful.
  8. I'm going to be honest and look at this from the officer's perspective. The line at Best Buy is a high tension situation, especially with high demand and low supply of a certain object. While your haggling may appear harmless to you, it certainly would not have seemed so to the officer, or the other people you may have appeared to try to skip. My first feeling is you should have just accepted your place in line and not try to finagle your way past it.
  9. I think governments should be allowed to impose retaliatory tarriffs. If we couldn't, we offer no incentive to drive other states to drop their tariffs if their goods flow freely into our country, and our goods are hurt by their tariffs.
  10. Out of curiosity, where can I read about Ayn Rand's interpretation of the history of the Civil War? Also, would anyone be interested in giving me a brief summary of her thoughts? (Feel free to spin this out into a new thread if it's too off-topic).
  11. Great Article By Walter Williams on the Fed: http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/w.../inflation.html
  12. All though I share the concerns about funding purely through donations, I think it's worth noting that we already have unequal funding of government.
  13. Not to mention most criminals in the criminal justice system tend to be poor and seizing their assets and holding them until they die may end up being more costly than whatever gain is achieved out of it.
  14. Captain Nate

    Abortion

    Excuse me, but some people believe (rightly so) that the unborn child is a human being deserving of their right to life -- especially after a certain point. To argue for unrestricted abortion is to argue for the use of force upon others.
  15. Actually, the proper standard would be the initation of force and who is guilty of it. Saddam Hussein was clearly guilty of initiating force, if not upon us (which he was), then upon his own people. Saddam's government, being a tyranny, had no right to exist. The United States, being free/semi-free, was morally justified in deposing him. Now, whether or not it was a good idea to do so, that depends upon self-interest. Justification, as far as I can tell, doesn't.
  16. I'm probably going to find some disagreement here, but I don't necessarilly accept a person's right to an abortion unless health risks are posed to the mother. I know standard Objectivist thought is that a fetus is not a human being yet, but I don't really think that's right. However, I'm not interested in arguing the merits of abortion. Plus, abortion is not a huge issue for me, I am somewhat ambivalant towards it. When it comes to liberty in our country, I think there are bigger issues and you're doing a disservice to Alito and his importance in being appointed by focusing too strongly on it. Now, as for Alito, I think some of your fears are misplaced. I don't think he will overturn Roe V. Waid. It has been law for over 30 years now, and polling shows about 60% of Americans accept it as the law. The court has no interest in overturning it. Yes, a conservative court might impose restrictions, but I think a lot of those restrictions -- even if you support the right to choose to have an abortion -- are reasonable. Most pro-choice Americans probably find those restrictions acceptable as well. I like Alito because I get a few good impressions from him: 1) I don't think he will expand the power of the federal government. 2) I don't think he will stretch the Constitution to allow evil-doers to go free, but I think he's deliberative and reasonable enough to know when an abuse of liberty has taken place and strike it down.
  17. This is a good point. If the only way to shore up political support for drilling was to ensure we would not export it, once we start drilling we can change the rules later when needed. Otherwise, nobody would drill and nobody would recieve the oil.
  18. Well, yeah -- because it was most strongly targeted at them all though every group had reason to complain. I find it disappointing that a poster in an Objectivist forum would look positively on any State forcing their citizens to behave in a certain way, especially when it comes to their personal beliefs and not any action that might injure or harm somebody else.
  19. In my philosophy class my Professor showed this film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/maindetails) "The Waking Life," which I didn't really like at all. I wrote up my brief reaction to it, but I was wondering what some of you thought. My thoughts: Since we didn't see the ending, perhaps the conclusion of the film would give me a "Whoa, that's awesome" feeling that, without it, makes me feel unsatisfied by the various unimpressive monologues. And maybe if it were in color -- as it was meant to be had our projector not been broken -- I would have found it more engaged by the film. But, based on what I did see, I didn't like it and doubt its full form would have impressed me much further. I thought it was an empty film lacking the creative spark necessary to make such a stylistically-unique film work. It was about dreams, but it indulged in that theme far too deeply to have any strength as a story for me because it lacked any cohesiveness. As far as the lack of plot goes, I wasn't impressed by its pretentious, jumbled philosophical musings strewn throughout the story, which I thought were characterized more by a sense of forced trend-iness than meaningful discussion of ideas. Perhaps if one of the ideas were taken and used to create its own film, with characters and story, rather than just dropped into this hodgepodge of experiences like a college lecture, they would be more interesting.
  20. Definitely a problem. But I think, at this point, disengagement isn't exactly giving into terror. Walling off the territories, notgiving them Jeruselum, not peacefully negotiating fair treatment isn't really capitulating, it's more like shunning the whole process by which the terrorist tactics gained legitimacy in the first place. Of course, that might just be fatigue (over the whole situation) talking.
  21. Well, we'll recieve blame no matter what for anything. But if the Palestinians get a state and they blow it, well, it'll be "less" our fault than if they're in a perpetual non-state status.
  22. At this point, I see no viable long-term scenario but to give them Statehood. Wall them in and let them destroy themselves, Israel can wave its hands of the problem and let the Islamic States take some blame for once.
  23. Attorney-Client privelage wouldn't matter in this case anyway (I believe), because since he has already been acquited he cannot be tried again for the same crime without violating the Fifth Amendment protection against Double Jeopardy.
  24. Truthfully, large government contracts give me the most concern. In a proper system, monetary support of government officials isn't a worry because the government has no economic powers to benefit the supporters...except for government contracts. So there is SOME room for abuse. Significantly less room than today's system, but the flaw is in there. Of course, we can have the same bidding process that exists today, plus one added protection: payment for such contracts is consentually given by the public, not taxed. If fraud is suspected, people can withdraw financial support of the government.
  25. I have a very negative view of it, and am suspicious of France's motivations for strengthening it.
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