RussK

I don't use Facebook, so I don't know what is being given as reason for preventing this mosque from being built. However, although you have only posted short statements on this thread, I tend to agree with your line of thinking here. It would not be ok for a Japanese, in the above context, to freely buy dozens of automatic rifles. Additionally, while most of the talk in the 40s about a fifth column was mostly hype and generally unsubstantiated, I applaud the actions taken by the government to actively monitor, watch, and investigate Japanese at the beginning of the war--the same goes for Germans and, later, Russians. Were civil liberties--and individual rights--violated during these times, sure, unfortunately, we were at war--this should not be taken as an excuse for the excesses of the various programs. Just as rights can and are violated by our active police force, as a result of them doing their job of protecting rights, so to will rights be violated when fighting foreign agents on our own soil. Currently, the country is at war with Islamic theocracy, indeed, with a particular brand of Islam, fundamental Islam. Therefore, the same actions that have occurred in the past, to protect the country and our rights, should be applied to our current threat: the proper agencies should be actively monitoring and investigating moslems and supporters of Islamic regimes for sedition, subversion, and treason. In light of such proper actions by our government against threats to it, it doesn't seem too far fetched to me that some Objectivists are against the building of this mosque--whether or not they are correct in their conclusion is a different matter. In any case, if it were determined that this mosque and the proponents behind it were a threat and acting against this country--that they are indeed subversive and agents working against our rights--then the mosque should not be built. Additionally, what is kind of startling is the way people are jumping to conclusions against others or even questioning their principles in how they relate to Objectivism. It should be remembered that Objectivism is not libertarianism: civil liberties is not a sacred cow that must be upheld at all times, in all situations. Objectivism is about using reason for life on earth, and all things must be put into context. Sometimes, because of the actions of our enemies--their violation of our rights--the rights and liberties of individuals are sometimes violated in the pursuit of squashing the enemy. This is how Leonard Peikoff can make an analogy about attacking the home of a citizen, because a criminal is shooting out of it, even when the property will be destroyed and the citizen possibly killed--similar libertarian questions have been asked and answered in the past, of which I will not be looking up the sources, but this particular one either came from Peikoff's radio show or the Andrew Lewis show. Essentially, and to reiterate my position, I do not think anyone, when asked if it is ok for a Japanese immigrant to buy dozens of automatic rifles, after a Japanese invasion, should automatically conclude that they have that right; I would only expect such things from a libertarian or lawyer for the ACLU.

Here's a question though: What does Glenn Beck think net neutrality means? A few months ago I was watching his show, when he introduced the topic. He immediately took a conspiracy theorist approach and started talking about various negatives of the regulation--some of which I thought could be totally unrelated to net neutrality. In his rant, he didn't describe much, but just said to stay tuned, etc... Recently, from his show, I saw that net neutrality was written on a chalkboard with various other words (Obama's sins) that encircled a picture of the president. How does he run with the proposed regulation on his shows?

Damn, there are a lot of threads on this somewhat recent topic that it's hard to keep up. Anyway, I won't reiterate what I've already wrote in a few of the other threads, so I'll comment on something that President Obama recently said: he's going to treat the oil spill like "war." I heard this statement this morning while eating breakfast, and I couldn't help but think of something cynical. So, in light of his recent statement, here is my advice to the President: Don't treat this like a war, please, for the sake of the future of an entire region. This oil spill needs to be capped within months; we don't need to spend 10 years doing it, with nothing to show but failure.

How are school staff going to learn about someones sex-text? Or maybe that is another nightmarish policy which has yet to be released or planned.

That's a relatively narrow view of the topic. Net neutrality would affect more than the traditional internet, like websites; it would essentially regulate the whole spectrum of broadband services, whatever the data provider offers. For instance, Time Warner or Cox may want to increase or prioritize the bandwidth for downloading or streaming movies to their subscribers' set-top boxes; they may want to prioritize certain data for VoIP; or someone may want to offer a premium, prioritized service for gaming. The possibilities are truly endless, and that's why Mr. Niles labeled a 'neutral' internet, a "stupid internet": it is critical for future growth and technology for data providers to be able to prioritize their offerings. With net neutrality thought about in that larger context it becomes clear that Aol is not the only company guilty of showing favoritism. VoIP providers, in order to prevent dropped calls, must prioritize their packets for their service to be viable; Google (correct me if I'm wrong about the company and the details) just ended or reduced FTP service for their blogs; your ISP limits the amount of data you can download and upload. The fact of the matter is, providers have been prioritizing their services since before the commercial internet even existed. Without that capability, growth would have been retarded long ago.

That company was what immediately popped into my mind when I read the title of this thread. I tried them a couple of years ago because they had a free offer, and I saw the street name on the box that came. They definitely have a good product, be I've not had their stuff in a long time now.

John Dewey wouldn't have even thought of this. If only he were alive now to see how far his ideas have progressed; I think he would be shocked--in a very happy, giddy way.

Well, at least their doing something at the EPA, instead of just sitting around collecting their wage. However, with regulations like this, I'd gladly see them all unemployed... OT, but I do consider milk to be a pollutant: one to my body anyway. The crap the some farms feed their cows, from sorted restaurant trash to candy--wrappers and all--I can't bring myself to buy it or drink it on a regular basis, even if a particular milk brand is safe from those practices. Then add all the drugs pumped into these things to keep them healthy and massproductive and I'm even more repulsed. So much so that I'd rather use fake, synthetic soy milk for my Wheaties. Yet, at the same time, I've got no problem consuming large amounts of cheese

Definitely not surprising. Just as I wasn't surprised when I heard Oliver Stone, on Bill Maher's show, say he wishes the United States had a south American dictator for a president.

I hadn't even heard of net neutrality until I read that article a couple of years ago. I think the title of the movement is confusing because of the word neutrality. Who wouldn't want neutrality, right? That is, until one looks to see what it's all about: an internet neutral to property rights--a "stupid internet."

This reminds me of a drunken argument I had with one of those people a couple of weeks ago. As usual, the oil spill was being downplayed by him and his friends--and the news network that they love to defend--and they started complaining about how president Obama was handling the situation. I told them that they were funny people but they couldn't have it both ways: one can't constantly play down the situation while at the same time blame the president for a "Katrina."

Well, I don't know if BP will actually go bankrupt or not, but they have definitely been damaged by the problem that they caused. Everything that is occurring to them is being caused by the accident that they are responsible for. What worries me are people worried about the survival of a corporation when it should be being held responsible--if they go bankrupt footing the bill that they are responsible for, so be it. Additionally, if they go bankrupt and have to be liquidated to pay for the damages, that is justice as well.

I'm not an economist, so these opinions are somewhat barely educated generalizations. However, wouldn't the Fed simply create money the way they have been doing, by buying securities and creating new money, if they were worried about the low supply of dollars? If the money supply goes to hell, won't it be at the behest of the Fed anyway? In which you wouldn't have to worry about your IRA being raided because they're purposely withdrawing money from circulation. EDIT: I just realized this wasn't talking about the Federal Reserve. I saw "federal" seizure, and the Fed automatically came to mind. This post can be disregarded.

I'm too frugal most of the time to go out and buy one of these phones. I don't like being so connected all the time, so I just stick with my $25 boost mobile phone that I bought two years ago. Has anyone here used both, one of these Motorola's and an iPhone? I keep hearing that the droids are an iPhone killer.

I've had this opinion since its inception. The few people who are involved that I can stomach--that are not objectivists--still piss me off and I can't bring myself to converse much with them. The main reason: where the hell were they before? Well, I know, they were constantly telling me how I was wrong, how laissez-faire won't work for anything, and condemning my contextually staunch support of individual rights as un-American. Now it's a reversal, and they are spouting off things, as if they are introducing me to liberty concepts for the first time, just because they are following charismatic television and radio personalities and hate president Obama. Populist movements never keep their principles. Just like the anti-new taxes, conservative populism that ushered in Reagan and ilk totally evaporated sometime in the mid-90s, so to will this new movement in due time. Then everything will start anew, and everyone will be surprised about the growth of government which will start some new movement. Since a black president can no longer be the startling factor maybe the surprise next time will be a black, woman socialist president. However, though they are unprincipled and don't last, populist movements in the past have brought significant change to the country and how it operates, both good and bad.

Oh, the fun of extreme hypothetical questions... I'm going to approach this from the cut and dry "emergency" situation, in which immorality is taken out of the equation. First of all, not everyone is going to react the same and choose the same direction in such a situation. Furthermore, someone in the serious throws of dehydration is probably incapable of making rational choices. However, in the perfect hypothetical situation (of a horribly imperfect situation) it would be moral to obtain the water from another, by any means, if your immediate survival depended on it. Yes, this would be a violation of individual's rights; the other person's rights don't end because another is in an emergency. However, objectivism isn't libertarianism and all choices don't come down to individual rights.

Well, from what I've seen in the media, the response, as expected, hasn't been positive. From all of the reports I have seen, I give full support to the Israeli "raid". This ship had been trying to break the military blockade against Gaza. That blockade is there for a reason: to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Hamas controlled area. I think ships have been "raided" in such a manner in the past, resulting in finding stockpiles of weapons headed for the terrorists. Any ship that wants through to that area can and should expect to be boarded, searched, and probably turned around. Hence the reason why the Israeli government has said such humanitarian missions are dangerous and other avenues should be tried.

You're not going to find a complete consensus here. For reference to some of the topics about the oil spill, here is another thread on the subject. I don't think you are too far from the truth when you identify conservatives as being a little slower to react to the situation. The only ones I know that are in a hurry and motivated to get this spill contained are those conservatives in the region affected by the spill itself. I'm not an environmentalist, yet I understand, or at least perceive much more of a threat from the oil than other non-environmentalists, maybe because I'm from the Gulf and still travel there every year. Additionally, I do think that the government does have the responsibility to force BP to clean up all those areas, like the barrier islands and marsh lands, that are not owned by anyone.

I support that. Anyone who drills a well for water has a right to that well. When it comes to using the water table, that's a different question. Until I see reason to think anything different, I'll support aquifers remaining part of the commons and wells being owned by individuals. Which, without management of that commons, means who ever can pump water gets the water. In the rural, it doesn't work much differently than that. One of the things that stood out in your initial post was your argument that laissez-fair could solve these problems. I took it as you saying that private companies would be able to regulate the water usage based on what they charge for water, and to me that could only come from actually owning the water table. As we've both agreed, anyone can build a well and have that property protected because no one--for the large sources of water--owns that source. I'm not sure what's going on with these hotels, but I just took it for granted that they were getting their water by drilling their own wells, like those citizens who no longer had water. As for the air waves, I'll have to look at some of your sources. Do you recommend any other reading that covers the subjects we've been talking about?

They cannot be owned because the thing has a property of being shared by many. In some cases it would be technically possible to own such commons, but it would require great, unrealistic amount of assets. Other commons, like air waves, could never be owned because of their shared property. In certain cases, a whole oil reserve--if that's what underground oil is even called--and groundwater sources can be owned, but that's because they are small in comparison to the larger reserves and aquifers that are shared by thousands due to property rights.

You're right, property rights can be applied to just about anything; however, as far as I understand it, it cannot be applied to commonly owned things like rivers, oceans, oil reserves, air space, and if it isn't considered one already, groundwater aquifers, except through licensing. That's why I asked what type of laissez-faire solution you were proposing for use of ground water. Note, I'm not talking about someone laying infrastructure to pump that water and charging other people to use that infrastructure if they are interested in using it. I've got no problem with that; I just would like to know how that is supposed to stop the use--and scarcity for some--of ground water in this case.

How can laissez-faire be applied to ground water? One would have to own, in most cases, quite a bit of area; in this country, from what I've come to understand, multiple counties in a state or states. Do you think one can own a whole river or ocean? I don't, and I think government licensing of such resources is the best option that I know about.

Why should an underground river, or however they get their ground water, be considered any different from one above ground? Should not this matter be resolved just like river, oil, air and rights to other such potential assets?

The "New Sedition Act?" Are you serious? I would only expect such a misguided title from "a conservative blogger." Nothing in this post comes close to pointing out any similarities between this new proposal and the Sedition Act. I support the removal of campaign finance regulation, but this title is over the top.

Although I tend to use the term some what often, there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian tradition. That is something that was created out of continued secularization and commercialization of American religious groups and life in general. During the cold war it was used as a term to create solidarity of religion (and America) against communism and what was its most evil component, atheism. The only "Judeo-Christian tradition" that existed, maybe one could say up until that point, was infighting amongst christian groups in America (protestant vs. catholic) and a solid hate against Jews.