Rationalis

"But if the First Amendment were to ever be amended, it would be the moral right of every citizen to rise up and overthrow the oppressive government to replace it with something better." Of course, hoping that they value those rights enough to do so.

"technically all that would be required to eliminate the right to free speech is a large enough vote of both houses of congress." I completely agree with this statement and would like to add some thoughts of my own. The fundamental problem I see with our society today and a potential problem in any "free" country of the future, is that for any"right" to be enforced it must rely on the cooperation of a dominant controlling party(whether numerically or technologically) and a culture that supports the upholding of that right in a society to be applicable in a pragmatic sense. For example, despite the fact that a document written hundreds of years ago stated explicitly that freedom of speech was a right not to be abridged by the government, a ruling majority elected by "the people" in our legislature could vote to amend said freedom in a way, oh, I don't know that would ensure "responsibility of the press" as lauded by our appeasing political leaders. To clarify, what is moral and what happens can be two entirely divorced things, just because an individual posesses a right in a moral sense does not mean that they will be allowed by the rest of society to enjoy that right. To create and maintain a truly "free country" the predominant culture in a society must be one that values said individual rights so that those freedoms will never "come down to a vote."

"There is no such thing as a "fair share" of taxes" By "fair share" I meant in regards to our society's current tax structure and status of government entitlement spending, as I agree that in an ideal, free market society, as has been discussed in earlier threads, involuntary taxes would be much less prevalent if not completely nonexistent. "It is completely irrelevant if Spanish speakers are integrated into the English-speaking majority -- it is their right to speak Spanish or Hindi or whatever the heck they want. On their own dime." I apologize if I did not make my point clear on this, I have no issue with what language people choose to speak so long as I am not paying for them be educated by a different standard than would myself or my children, but that brings up the whole aspect of the immorality of a publicly funded educational system in the first place which is a subject for another thread. In summation, I concur with your counter argument on this point. I did not post my earlier statement in order to justify the sentiment of those in favor of the anti illegal immigration movement but rather to supply information regarding the effect and, or percieved affect illegal immigration has had on those people living in southern california, the area where this debate is most applicable. I apologize for any misconceptions drawn due to my choice of wording, I am new to this form of discourse and still have trouble voicing my thoughts clearly, however I seek to improve

"Gee thanks for the warmth Erik. If you consider the North American society as a whole, I'm freaking pious in comp!" Please elaborate on this point, do you mean to say that the culture of North America, is, as a whole, less in agreement with Objectivist principles than some other culture you are comparing it to and if so what is it that you are comparing it to? Was there some point I missed in your arguement?

I live in southern california and the main problem that people here have with illegal immigrants is that more and more emergency rooms are closing due to an overflow of uninsured patients who must be treated due to state law, a sentiment that is quite disturbing to those individuals in southern california who pay for their own health insurance and experience an interruption in the treatment they rightly deserve and have paid for. In addition, public schools across the state of california constantly face pressure from militant pro immigration groups to provide spanish speaking only students with bilingual education. Such education would not hold learning english as a priority but rather two parallel courses of education in every publich school in california would be taught, one in english and the other in spanish. Such discourse does not facilitate integration of a minority population into the prevalent culture in which it resides, especially when said group chooses deliberately to speak another language. A guest worker program, however, would be a good idea in facilitating the integration of the millions of illegal immigrants into American society particularly in acting as an impetus for said immigrants to pay thier fair share of taxes and thus paying for the services that they consume. So, while I concur that the response in the legislature to this issue has been extraneous and damaging, one must consider the effects of illegal immigration before one denounces the sentiment of this recent movement to rectify the immigration issue.

Chernobyl, was a special case and as was posted in a thread earlier, there is a distinct difference in the structual designs of the fuel rods of nuclear plants in the United States and those of the Soviet Union (such an accident would never have happened in a plant using the American design). Now, in a completely free market economy safety itself would be a valued commodity and as such, any of this "faulty" power plant's competitors would simply have to advertise the increased safety and reliability of their own product, and backed by reliable scientific evidence(company that tests plants according to set standards and gives ratings?), would quickly drive it out of business.

Anyone who drives off a bridge, while intoxicated, with a passenger, and then flees the scene letting said passenger die, easily beats out the competition for twit of the year, and that is why my vote goes to good ol' Ted Kennedy.