RationallySelfless

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. The government tacitly sanctioned slavery by virtue of not arresting slave owners. Women might disagree with you on that.

Today, we've got tariffs and regulations on businesses. Back then, we had slavery. Honestly, I'd much prefer tariffs and regulations to slavery. The "socialism" implemented in the US only restricts the freedom of individual people to buy and sell. Slavery restricts a rational person's freedom in every possible way. Not only could the slaves not start businesses or trade, slaves couldn't even walk a hundred meters in the sun without permission. I don't see how any pseudo-socialism from FDR could compete with the complete removal of the fundamental rights of tens of thousands of people. Late 19th century might have been pretty free, I'm not sure. There were probably heavy railroad monopolies, though, and the near-slavery of Chinese workers. We also have to keep in mind the restriction of freedoms of women. Although they weren't as severe as those imposed on slaves (usually), the disenfranchisement of 50% of the population certainly doesn't point to a very free society. I'm not sure why you stick the unions in there. How are unions a force opposed to freedom? They're just inverse corporations, and should be treated as such. Edit: Closed-shop unions where membership is mandatory are a different story, of course. I'm not sure if they existed in the 19th century though.

Correlation is not equal to causation, et cetera. Even if you could prove that there's a correlation between being "feminine" and being "liberal" (you haven't so far), that wouldn't prove causation. Let me guess... cultural pressures enforce differing ideals on young girls and boys?

Ah, so I've been going about the whole thing the wrong way around. I'm not sure why I was having so much trouble with the Law of Identity (you'd think it would be a pretty simple concept...) but thanks, that reductio has actually helped a lot. At least I don't have to disprove the Uncertainty Principle now

Ah, I might have misunderstood the Law of Identity. What you guys are saying is that a given electron is still a given electron, even if we can't discern all of its properties exactly? Now that I think about it more, that makes sense. If the two principles contradicted each other, I would assume that one or the other is unrealistic. Then I'd have to do a ton of research into quantum mechanics and epistemology before I'd feel comfortable deciding which principle was wrong- after all, both are backed up by a large volume of evidence.

One of the central tenets of Objectivist metaphysics is the Law of Identity, "A is A." A is, of course, identified by its properties. If I am holding an apple in my hand, I can safely say this: "The apple in my hand is red, has a roughly circular silhouette, has a stem X centimeters long, and is bruised in one area. That is the apple in my hand and those are its properties; A is A and that slightly bruised apple is a slightly bruised apple." If someone asks me, "when you say 'this apple is this apple,' what apple are you referring to?", I can respond with "I am referring to the slightly bruised, red, circular apple in my hand." The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states, basically, that we can't understand everything about an elementary particle. We can't know both the momentum and position of an electron. Therefore, the properties of those particles are to a certain extent unknown. My question is this: how can I be certain that "Electron A is electron A" if I can't be certain what electron A is in the first place? If I can't describe the properties of electron A to an observer, how can I say that it is, in fact, electron A?

Actually, AFAIK, Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The independent elected leader resigned soon after, and Hitler replaced him.