argive99

You definitely are an optimist. I hope you prove right because I could use the tax break. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening any time soon. And when there is a laissez faire revolution, sadly I'm not so sure it will be explicitly referred to as an 'Objectivist' one as much as I'd like it to. I don't know if that's the way history will play out; ie a tidal wave of Objectivists sweeping the culture up underneath them. The term Objectivist is being so watered down between the Brandens, Kellys and Sciabarras that I don't know if it will stick. I also think by the time Rand is fully integrated into mainstream academia there will be so many additions and reformulations to the Objectivist core that at that time there will be a long history of contributing intellectuals. In short, I think what we are seeing now is just the begining; the first ripples of a movement that will take a few centuries to reach its ascendency. Strangely enough, I actually think that Sciabarra may be right on this score like the proverbial broken clock. When things get going, I can see the movement and its main players, both intellectual and political, being referred to as 'Randians' as much as I hate that term. But I'd wager, using hisory as a guide, that that's the term that might stick; like Aristotelians, Thomists, Kantians and Marxists. And for kickers, future intellectual historians might refer to Peikoff, Branden, and Kelly all as the first generation of 'Randians' despite the fact that if you were to put them in the same room today there would be a mercy killing. In a way, I wish I would have been born in say about 75 to a hundred years from now. That's when things should get pretty damn interesting.

I would say that you are focusing on trivial dialog. The movie (directed by Capitalism hating, Communist loving Oliver Stone) clearly depicts Wall Street as an instrument of explolitation and theft and capitalism as heartless and evil. This movie, no matter how well acted, is one of the most anti-capitalistic movies ever made. I don't see how it could ever be considered a pro free-market movie. It contains every anti-capitalist stereo-type you can think of. Its a disgrace. A better Finance movie would be 'Other People's Money'. At least there the take over artist is not depicted as a parasite and Dany Devito's speech at the end is pretty damn good.

I always looked at Jeynes book this way: I felt that he offered an explanation for the biological origins of consciousness while Rand described the epistemological methods that consciousness operated by. I never viewed them as contradictory. I think at the least he does show through his analysis of historical literature that some shift occured in man's perception of himself (this by the way is a point I have seen elsewhere; Bruno Snell makes a similar point in his book on Ancient Greek thinkers). At some point man does become far more introspective and self aware in his outlook. Jeynes chapter were he compares the Illiad and the Oddessy seems to make a pretty good case for that. I'm not saying that everything Jeynes says is Gospel (to use a phrase) and proving his hypothesis would take a ton of research I am sure. But I wouldn't call it 'kooky' or 'wacko' offhand. It doesn't strain credulity. It seems rather plausable to me. And I loved the chapter on Scizophrenia too. Good stuff.

No one is saying that Silber was dumb for focusing on the state owned aspects of the Twin Towers. But Silber is an ass for denouncing the ARI (or Capmag) writers for arguing for big, beautiful skyscrapers in the context of the present reality of the Port Authourity. They own the land and they are going to build something there. So the writers were arguing for self-esteem made visable through architecture not self-loathing. Silber is an idiot for not recognizing the validity of such an argument, but then again Silber is just about the most idiotic, out of context thinker that has ever called himself an Objectivist. Oh I forgot, he no longer thinks that Rand was all that special. After all she wasn't an anachro-capitalist: http://coldfury.com/reason/comments.php?id=2122_0_1_0_C Good riddance to another garbage 'intellectual'.

In all the coverage I have read or seen the 'unbiased' news media keeps up its facade of "objectivity" and so all we hear about are "Chechen rebels", "militants", "hotstage-takers", "separatists" or "insurgents". If the worst happens and many children are murdered you can rest assured the blame will be put on the Russian military. Words such as "Terrorist" or "Muslim" will not be mentioned. There are some days when I just want to scream.

Eraserhead was bad but if you want mindless and pointless see 'Suicide Club'. It made me laugh, it made me cry. It made me kiss two hours of my life goodbye.

Yes but you cant take a paragraph here or a paragraph there and ignore the whole context. Obama is one of the most dangerous liberals to come along in a while. He's young, presentable, articulate and representative of old school liberalism. He is pure altruism with a sugar coated vaneer. He's dangerous and not someone to compliment in any way, shape or form.

I have read this book twice and did find the hypothesis he offers interesting. I'm curious Stephen as to what exactly you disagree with. Was it his analysis of historical literature; ie homer, the Bible, etc? Was it his theories relating to the bicameral chambers of the brain? He does seem to be making a not too implausible argument as for the biological reasons for the belief in gods. That's what I always liked about it. It seemed to explain, through the biology of the brain, why humanity has developed what Jeynes calls 'systems of external authorization'; ie God and religion. You're the scientist. So I will defer to you. But I didn't find anything that offensive about it. And certainly nothing that would contradict Objectivism. I thought it fit in quite nicely.

Please tell me what you found amazing about this. I know how I have been saying that different art strikes different people in different ways. But 'Suicide Club' was the biggest piece of incoherent nonsense I have ever seen. Was it some commentary about teen suicide in Japan which I know is high? Is its message 'love life'? I mean what on earth could you find 'amazing.' It had no plot, no character development, no discernable theme, no clarity, and a ton of useless blood and gore. Was it a Japanese version of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'? The only thing it did have is tons of adorable Japanese girls. Now I have to say I love Japanese women more than most but I didn't need to see them in this piece of crap. That's what Japanese porn is for. Really. I have been reading in the various movie threads all kinds of explanations why such examples of dog shit like 'The Village', 'Unbreakable', anything by Tarantino, etc are to be glorified as 'great art'. Fine. Some people have made some decent arguments. But I must draw the line with 'Suicide Club.' I am laying down the law and saying this now and for all time and saying it in the name of Ayn Rand, Aristotle, John Locke and the Founding Fathers: Suicide Club was one of the ten worst movies ever made in the history of the universe.

Here is a model Constitution from Lindsay Perigio over at SoloHQ so don't expect too much. There are some good points to it and some bad as when capital punishment is specifically outlawed. http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/constitution/index.html He does away with the presidency and has the executive power vested in three 'Tribunes'. He also does away with local government. Whatever its flaws it does provide a good model for some here that are interested in writing their own version of an Objectivist Constitution.

By this do you mean that we did not fight to win?

Thanks to Jack Wakeland for his clarifications. They were eminantly logical and very helpful.

This is a fascinating quote. If there is an argument to be made regarding the validity of the Vietnam War, its actually contained in that quote. Rand says "but the proclaimed purpose of the war was not to protect individual rights, it was not to establish capitalism or any particular social system..." This is in line with her other writings on rights where she says a free nation can invade an oppressed one to liberate it if it is in their self interest, although it is never their duty. So, if the purpose of the war had been to destroy completely the Vietnamese Communist movement, institue capitalism and a rights-respecting government, and do it with the least American causualties possible, then perhaps the war could have been justified. I think about our involvement in South East Asia; from the Phillipines to Japan to Korea to Vietnam. With the exception of Japan, the rest have been relative or complete failures. If the US had defeated both the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese and done what they did in Japan, I wonder what the state of South East Asia would be today. There would be at least three Western Style Constitutional Republics with powerhouse economies. Would China be the menace that it is today? So I wont foreclose the notion that engagement in South East Asia was axiomatically wrong, as it seems that Rand herself did not. But to be effective the wars would have had to have been fought from a selfish, pro-capitalist position and unfortunately, as we know to well, we ourselves have lost the knowledge of our heritage. How can we be expeected to transplant it on the world's savages?

There is no proof that it was Jefferson's child. Do a search in the TIA archives for an article by Erica Daniels on the bogus nature of the Sally Hemmings affair. In short, the evidence shows that a Jefferson was the father but not Thomas. The overwhelmingly likely candidate was his brother who was a simpleton and much more predisposed to such a thing. The TIA article points out that Leftist historians have used the Hemmings affair as one tool in a concerted effort to slander Jefferson in particular and all of the Founding Fathers in gernal. The Left hates America and they have a special anitpathy for the original Framers. Jefferson was a man of his time in many respects. He was a great man in so many ways but he was never able to overcome many of his southern, aristocratic sensibilities; one of them being slavery although he wrestled with the issue and had many rationalizations of why they couldn't be freed (some not entirely unreasonable from the perspective of a man of that age). There is a tendency to penalize the good for not being perfect. Don't commit that mistake with Jefferson. If you are an American or living in America, you are living in a culture that offers the greatest protection of individual rights in the world. Jefferson is a major reason why.

Wow. You have opposed everything Ayn Rand ever wrote on the subject. She condemned that war and said it was not fought in the name of stopping Communism. Do a search on what she wrote about it and get back to me. By philosophical evaluation, I am really interested in someone like Oddsalt or Jack Wakeland to explain what they think of Rand's evaluation of that war and if they believe it was a valid military exercise to sacrifice all those young American men in the jungles of Vietnam in a conscript army. It scares me when Objecivists so easily defend that war. Even Jack Wakeland's seemingly positive attitude towards it concerns me. Rand offered some amazing political insights into both World Wars and the fiascos in South East Asia. Have they been completely forgotten already?

Good points. I need to think more about this also.

Doesn't anyone have a philosophical evaluation of the war to offer?

This alway gets me. Two Objectivists with the same explicit value structure look at the same movie and yet one says that the film depicts depraved violence and disgusts him and the other says that it is because the film depicts such extreme violence and shows what happens to such people that he was uplifited. One sees no heroism anywhere and is repulsed, the other sees no heroism anywhere but sees other virtues in the film depite this. I am seeing this so much with Objectivists now that I read 3-4 different forum boards. There is such a different emphasis on the weight and significance attached to the various elements of different phenomena. Right now there is an 18 page thread on the decision between Bush and Kerry with as divergent opinions on the candidates as there is here on Tarantino. I would think that there would be greater unaformity but apparently not.

Frogs have fallen out of the sky? Plese tell...

I saw Magnolia and aside from some good acting performances, I would agree that the movie was rather worthless. I do think it had a theme though, although I haven't seen it in a while and I wont offer this as definitive but it was something to do with the relationships with parents and their children; ie the 'sins of the father affect the son' or something similar. I can see why you think it was religious because of the frog scene which is supposed to be a Biblical image. It was, as you say, an irrational movie.

This was inevitable from Silber. Rand's philosophy is now too 'flawed' especially in its false aesthetics, naive psychology and its failure to advocate anachro-capitalism. And of course all those ARI Objectivists are fools. http://coldfury.com/reason/comments.php?id=2122_0_1_0_C It seems the same pattern always follows. A person will spend years saying they are some version of enlightened Objectivist but that the philosophy needs to add this theory or correct that flaw, etc. Then, years later they come out and say they argree with Rand about some things but have realized that she was wrong about everything else. Followed ultimately by their complete denunciation of Rand and other Objectivists. I'll lay money that Silber will be denouncing Rand inside of two years if not way sooner. I can see now why people despise the Brandens.

I'm not a scholar in this area but I have read that Jefferson included the word 'property' in the first draft of the Declaration but removed it because of the slavery issue. Slaves were considered property and the issue was so contentous that many of the founders didn't want to risk not having unanimous Colonial support for the war. So they opted for a more pragmatic approach. Its a shame. Having the word 'property' or 'estate' in the founding documents might have provided another protection against the spread of socialist ideas. Also, it is interesting to note that some US states have the word 'property' in their state constitution.

I agree. For a while, I though that the movie might suggest that there is no difference between reality and a dream or worse that no one can know the difference. But it never went there. It concluded that there is a reality and Tom Cruise's character chose to live in it. I remember being impressed with that. Tom Cruise has chosen some really good scripts in the last few years with one notable exception. I loved 'Vanilla Sky' but not as much as I loved 'Minority Report' which despite some minor philosophical flaws offered a rare defense and glorification of free will. I also loved Tom's recent film 'collateral' which is discussed in a thread in this section of the forum. The one notable exception was 'The Last Samarai' which was an attack on Western Civilization and a glorification of barbarity. But 3 out of 4 aint bad.