RussK

My response is that the questions posed by Stewart, and the answers given by Kristol are absurd. Military health care doesn't come close to resembling 'civilian health care.' I actually think Stewart comes out the stupidest in this interview because he has been in a flurry to support health care reform for a few weeks now, and if there's one way not to sell the Obama health care reform it would be by telling the American people that they are going to get Military style health care. Kristol is only slightly less absurd than Stewart, but this shouldn't be surprising to anyone given his neoconservative ideology; Kristol actually believes it's possible for the government to run health care better than the free market can, and believes in the necessity to at least accept or run on certain socialist ideas in order to get into power. The absurdity is that both Kristol and Stewart have lost all reality on this issue, and are trying to promote their positions with concrete examples or propositions that they no nothing about--though they should, especially Kristol since he 'supported the troops' by promoting the Iraq war. As far as why the military has government health care, which means that the military branches use money given to them by the federal government, is because the military is a part of the government. The role of the military is to defend the country, of course, and to do that soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen must be fit to perform the job. That requires health services both on and off the battlefield, so to speak. Military health care is a necessity and function of the military itself, and has absolutely nothing to do with socialism or national health care.

I thought about using a caveat concerning Connecticut for some of the reasons you've mentioned, but I decided not to because I would just be using generalizations I've learned about people from the Northeast U.S.; and I didn't know if they applied to the Republicans in the same area. I figured if the caveat should be given, someone more familiar with the situation would come and rebuff my post.

I don't know if Peter Schiff is an atheist or not but I do know that I've never heard him talk about religion or religious values, and as has been pointed out he doesn't take well to altruism. The Peter Schiff for Senate website doesn't have any position statements on it so it's hard to tell what his position is on 'social matters'. If it turns out that he is an unbeliever or has aversion towards religious (aka, family) values, then my opinion is that his electability will go down. We'll have to see what happens in the primaries.

I had to do a search on the term nirther, I hadn't seen it before. Anyway, "Hawaii again declares Obama birth certificate real." But I doubt this will stop the crazy blogs or emails.

When it comes to the environmentalist aspect, the christian right has some blame in this if their flocks go left of center. Many churches have been using environmentalism to recruit and become more pop-culture for a while. I have a young family member who was introduced into the pentecostal movement through a church group that styled itself as environment loving. Advertisements are generally targeted to specific markets where they will have the greatest effect, and the christian right has been sewing the seeds for christian environmentalism for a few years now, in my experience.

It was adapted from the Hunter S. Thomson novel, and the Wikipedia entry for the novel identifies it as a "roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents." The only thing worthy of this movie is to watch Johny Depp play another 'quirky' character very well, which is also one of the few good things I have to say about the movie "The Libertine."

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Simply an amoral, hedonistic movie with little to no meaning in the plot.

I don't think Terry will ever try and kill anyone. He's the type that's responsible for getting subordinate crazies into an uproar and "violent convulsions." Maybe one day he will get brazen enough and issue a direct threat and then the proper authorities can act against him.

Yeah, you're right, gridlock is only hoped for so the statists squabble about 'plans' and don't get anything done. It's not really something to advocate as principle. The conclusion of my last post was more of an attempt to elicit a response on how one actually brings about gridlock through voting, etc. Though, at this exact moment I think I realize what most are meaning when they talk about supporting gridlock: distributing the power by having different parties in control of different branches of government. Of course I knew that but I thought about the issue in the wrong way or went to far with it. I was caught up on an idea of total gridlock where power by party was completely equal.

On Hitchens and Marxism, etc., in "god is not Great," he states that he was a Marxist and a Trotskyite: The purpose of this part of the book is to show solidarity with readers who may be having their faith challenged, illustrating how his faith was challenged when he was a Marxist. I didn't know about Christopher Hitchens until I read the book, and it's the only thing I know him by. The book isn't bad, but it's not exactly the strongest case for atheism that can be made. In the book, Hitchens argues against religion by illustrating many contradictions to be found within particular religions, and the arguments he puts forward for atheism are solely from a secular humanist perspective--which is why I thought of him as a probable socialist type. How did others here come to their opinions of Hitchens, if not from the book?

Yeah, it's a shame that the subject has so much stature over other ideas. Then again, maybe not. If it were not for that type of silliness, Communism may have had more sway in America.

I figured he harbored such opinions after I read his recent book, "God is not Great." In the book, besides attacking most of the worlds religions, he essentially outlines his growth as a socialist, which he started out by being a communist. The Right will not be moved to Rand's capitalism because of her atheism; the Left will not be moved to her atheism due to her capitalism.

While jogging I realized that I forgot to add that I also am in favor of political gridlock. However, I only realize this as a sort of desired end state without any real organized means of achieving it. How could one go about organizing a national gridlock movement, when it seems impossible to do so on the state level?

This primarily doesn't deal with the essence of the original post, but if viable were to mean the electability of candidates due to the opinions of the electorate, then yes, I think the GOP is a viable option in 2010. One of the reasons for such a statement is that I don't think the electorate can yet come close to making an educated decision when it comes to their voting on election day; I think they will once again be led by emotion. Just as has happened in so many elections in the past, whoever is in office during some sort of turmoil, even if they were not in office when the turmoil began, will receive blame for the turmoil or the inability to fix it. When the turmoil is the sad state of the economy, instead of blaming the real cause of the problem(s)--improper role of government through improper ideas of ethics--the electorate will simply blame the Democrats, instead of upholding realized principles and unelecting the problem. It is also to be expected that after the election of President Obama, GOP members have finally something to go to the polls in droves about. The success of the Democrats, with the presidency being the final achievement was expected because members of the GOP were not going to have a good turn out for the elections, and they sure were not going to have a good amount of independent support. Sarah Palin, because of her pentecostal religious nuttery, was probably the majority base for the GOP turnout during the presidential election. Slightly off topic, but I still find it funny and sad that most of the grass roots 'advertisement' I got during the presidential election from the Republican side, was completely about Sarah Palin and her ability to speak of god, prophesy, heal, and not have an abortion. With GOP members and independents who are having all these knee jerk reactions ready to go to the polls in high numbers, and Democrats and independents having won the battle, nothing to attack, and/or a little confused or sour not willing to go heavily to the polls, I think there is good chance for GOP victory. As far as viability from my perspective as a voter, I don't think the GOP has learned a lesson yet. Of course it's hard to say if they have or have not changed because they are still running around confused and no one is putting out this 'new' GOP message. I do view religion to be worse than socialism, and therefore wont support the GOP unless they do make substantial change; however, this is not to say that I will vote Democrat or vote at all, but that I will not vote Republican.

I wonder if New Orleans will pass a zoning law like this?

Interesting proposition, but I'm not convinced its results, if it became fact, would be better than the current way that the books are produced and acquired. Although, I haven't given much thought to it, and don't know much about the publishing industry, I think ARI buying the rights and being responsible for publishing the books could actually cause problems. Problems that come to mind include the cost--amount of donation required--to cover publishing, marketing, etc... of the books; possible distortion of the books' market; and the potential for destroying the works themselves, if ARI were to relinquish them to the public domain. Supposing that ARI did have all the rights to the books, the prices of them for the consumer could very well be lower; however, what comes to mind is that they could really only be substantially lower if ARI chose to seek little to no profit. If that were to be the case, there would probably be less books published because ARI wouldn't have enough money to publish all of Ayn Rand's works, yearly, to the quantity and quality that they are currently published. Not to say that I know the cost it takes for all of the different publishers to put out their yearly prints of all the works, but my guess is that it's well over that of ARI's yearly budget. Currently, ARI relies on donation to send out around 300,000 copies of Anthem and The Fountainhead to schools; ARI is also looking for donations for the new AS initiative, with the goal of raising over $2million. They're going to require many more benefactors, giving much more money, before they could honestly think about the idea of being responsible for the publishing of all the works, if they didn't plan on sustaining it through the profit of the books. One of the best reasons I can think of for keeping the profit motive for publishing and selling the books alive--essentially, keeping things how they are--is a concept inherent in the pursuit of profit successfully: supply and demand. The way the books are published and sold now is based on that principle, with publishers and other parties looking at what ever data they have for the matter and making decisions based upon that data. Although, ARI could make some very good decisions concerning the publishing of the books, I don't think they would make better decisions than a party who would sell the books for profit. A party not seeking profit could make errors that would lead to inflation of the works, which would waste money; deflation, which would harm the spread of the ideas from the books; and possibly the preferential selection of some books over others, resulting in inflation and deflation of certain books in particular. Public domain, though will happen eventually, isn't something that should happen for its own sake. Without copyright protection, anything goes, and that leads to the potential for Ayn Rand's works to be improperly edited or changed in some way. Of course, the destruction or distortion of a particular work in the public domain is just a potential; I recognize that most people are not going to want to read something that has been distorted, and the market for as accurate a read as possible will continue to be a primary for books in the public domain. After all, most of the things I am usually interested in reading is probably in the public domain, so I'm not totally and finally opposed to the idea. However, I do think that while copyright protection is still available, it should be utilized for as much security and benefits that can be had from it.

Correct. Let no one forget that the real reason for the surge in Iraq was to stop the violence that Shia and Sunni were causing against each other. After mass slaughter and evacuations, each neighborhood in Baghdad was completely sealed off and surrounded by t-walls. Any place without them was deserted and in shambles. After all the killing, evacuating and sealing, the areas became either decidedly Shia or Sunni, and were guarded by U.S. forces and militia. Those militias for the Shia were initially Jaysh al-Mahdi or the IA; and CLC/SOI groups for the Sunni. After the Shia started to see that they could get payed by the Americans--Iraqi doesn't produce anything except government oil, and the welfare sucks--, like the Sunnis, then they started to request the establishment of CLC membership. Now we don't pay those groups; we turned the responsibility over to the Shia dominated Iraqi government, who has decided they don't need a bunch of Sunni's running around with RPKs and PKCs. Hey, but they got elections, and that's always a benchmark for success... Since I'm on a tangent, lets not forget about the Kurds, who stupidly missed their best opportunity for independence, when Iraq proper was at its worst. Now the IA is too strong, and being against an officially annexed Kirkuk (Kirkuk referendum) is a solidifying Iraqi nationalist theme, the only thing Shia and Sunni agree on.

This is by no means a support for government intrusion or a support for Czars coming to America--which Onkar Ghate wrote about--but so long as arbitrary laws, regarding just about every facet of life keep increasing, maybe Czars will help prevent some confusion and streamline the arbitrary. I think I'll go get some fresh air now.

When I read this yesterday, I didn't know how to respond. My first thought was that I didn't fall back on anything, so I had to think longer about it. I can only speak for myself, but if by fall back upon you mean react, what I generally do is recognize the necessity or justice in things, and recognize my ability to achieve a different result, if that ability is even possible. In a truly malevolent situation which included uncertainty and worry, I've recognized the situation for what it was, recognized that when the time came I would and could only do my best, and attempted to stop thinking about the situation when forethought started to become too speculative (causing more worry). I would stop thinking about the situation due to the realization that only once I was in the situation would I actually know--have the ability to know--what decisions to make and how to act.

Believe it or not, some people probably--I don't know any nurses--like the practice of nursing, which would make the devotion that you write about just a vehicle for that practice, not a primary. I also disagree that any job requiring intimate interaction or interpersonal skills, is altruistic; I don't see how that's even a subject of morality, necessarily, unless I'm missing something.

Lisa has always been crazy to the left, in an adolescent sort of way, hasn't she? Many of the crack pot ideas they present through her character are usually made a fun of, in some way. Then again, I haven't followed The Simpsons in a long time, usually I just happen to run across it, or select it when nothing else is on. I did think the episode was funny, and the parody understandable; their previous attempt was quick and unintelligible.

No physical force, to take from one to give to the other, should be allowed. I think the essence of your question is where the mentally incapacitated would get help, if the rejection of the welfare state was ever to be upheld by government; and whether an Objectivist, or any other person, would ever contribute to someone who would not be of value to them. I've come to this conclusion--let me know if I'm grasping too much at nothing--because you recognize voluntary private charity in your post, but then you state a case about mentally incapacitated, non-functioning, or non-productive people who would not get assistance; and if they cannot get assistance, you mean they cannot get voluntary support. First I'd have to reject the notion that the mentally incapacitated, or any affected person you described, are of value to no one, and therefore would never get assistance. A few examples of how these people would get a more targeted assistance (focused on a particular individual or ailment), under a system of private charity, comes to mind: Family members are going to be the first likely to assist someone in that situation; individuals who have had someone they know, either family members or friends, who've suffered from a particular ailment, may lend support; and the both could fund research projects aimed at curing a particular ailment--these things happen now, and are not likely to stop, but instead increase when the welfare state is weakened or abolished. As for non-targeted support, that won't focus on a particular mental or physical ailment, there will be the general charities--homeless, hunger, etc...-- to help these people.

The Police Chief couldn't explain why the incident happened. Maybe it happened because the deputy thought that he was above the law and wanted to show his power. I applaud any police officers who can consistently refrain from these power trips--slightly off topic, but that goes for soldiers in combat as well. I'm not too sure that the police officer should be fired, given his 20 year track record with little complaints, but I wouldn't be surprised if the victims sue the station.

I forgot about those super bowls because they lost those games. Definitely a good team in that decade though. Off topic, but all of those super bowl losses remind me of the Buffalo Bills, who have had so much hate thrown on them--at least by NFL fans I know (except one Bills fan)--for losing their super bowls; however, there's no doubt that if a team wins four conference championships in a row, they should be considered pretty damn good. I would try that, but I'm sure that paint fumes and alcohol wouldn't mix very well.

I found this list of unionized grocery stores. Only one of the stores on the list operates near where I currently live; the last place I lived (FL) there were no grocery stores that were on that list, that I saw or remember anyway. I did live in Ohio for about a year, and Kroger was generally the most popular place to get groceries--they were also some of the most rundown stores I had ever seen.