Maarten

Hehe, well, my mother doesn't speak english very well, for example. But yeah, I guess almost everyone here does to some extent at least.

Well, they do, especially the ones who are interested in Objectivism I would say, because I don't think they've been translated yet

I guess I could translate for the Dutch illiterates here I can also read a little bit of french, so I may be able to decipher part of posts made in that language, but it's been a few years since I used it so I have probably forgotten a lot.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading this is how easy it is to totally misconstrue someone's views when you discard the context. I think that pretty much sums it up in this case. I must admit, though, that I didn't bother to read the whole thing. For one thing, I don't think the writer of this piece mentions what exactly she found to be an expression of independence about the guy. Obviously he regards it as something despicable, but I think it would be quite possible to abstract one good quality from someone who is utterly depraved in other aspects of his character. It is quite clear to me from one of the quotes that she did not consider his crimes something positive about the man.

Heretic! *runs off to grab some tar and feathers*

Hi there! Welcome to the forum And I would recommend all of them, her non-fiction books are very interesting, to say the least. I started with the Virtue of Selfishness at the time, after I had read AS a few times. After that I read Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, and then at some point I got Objectivism: the philosophy of Ayn Rand. This is a very good book in my opinion, but I preferred to first read some of her non-fiction first-hand, rather than read a book where someone else explains her views. It's a very comprehensive overview of Objectivism, though

Yeah, but isn't this the same period in history when the Fed was created and started inflating the money supply? If that is the case then suddenly everyone is able to spend more, and it creates the illusion of having unlimited money around, which makes people far more careless. If you keep pouring money into the economy at this point then it may seem to boom for a while, but that can't last forever as we have seen

But especially when your wrongs were extensive, the onus of proof is on you to prove that you are better than before, and you are likely to run into some pretty heavy skepticism from those people who knew you back then. It is not easy to change the way someone thinks about you, especially not if it was at one time an earned judgment.

Still, why does it matter if you are moral or not? Like IAm said, it's not an end in itself to be moral. It is impossible to change the past at this point, the only thing you can do about it is try to learn and never fall to those depths again. If you are primarily interested in how you feel about yourself, then why are you trying to get someone here to tell you whether you can be moral or not? If what someone here says truly matters that much, then you are not independent in this aspect, we may offer you advice but we cannot simply say something to make all your troubles go away..

you're right, it doesn't seem to be working properly quite yet

I think the chat is working now

Hi Ashley, welcome to the forum! I am sure you'll like it here

Hunter, I doubt that Kant just made an honest mistake to arrive at his philosophical system, though. At such a scale that is impossible. I mean, he wasn't just some poor guy who tried to save reason, but failed to do it...

That's what I mean, though. I can't really see the difference between these cases, and it seems utter folly to say that wages or profits cause the economy to fail ultimately.

I suppose he means that there is no such distinction made there, not that no men have sex with women

I don't see the connection between what the majority of mammals do, and what humans should or should not do. Why do you think this is relevant to the discussion?

But I think it goes quite far to say that no one can speak your name without permission. As long as they are not claiming that they are you, I see no problem with a website questioning your viewpoints, for example.

There is a difference between technology and ideas, though. Technology can and should be protected by patent laws, as it requires a certain act of creativity for someone to find this particular application. If I develop a new method of extracting oil and start using it, then it would be wrong for others to copy it without my consent, and the government should enforce my property rights.

I am not sure what your exact disagreements are about, since you haven't mentioned them, but it is my understanding that Objectivism is not every view ever held by Miss Rand. Concrete applications of her philosophy are just that, and they are not part of Objectivism. Objectivism is a philosophical system, and that's why I think her views that rely heavily on more specialist sciences should not be considered part of it, in the same way as you are not required to share her views on what constituted good music to be an Objectivist. *note* That is not to say that everything goes, of course, just that I don't think the more peripheral issues are really part of the philosophical system of Objectivism

It seems to me that if homosexuality is learned, then it IS open to morality. Learning is not some passive process that takes places where your brains somehow absorb information, it requires the volitional acceptance of the person involved, and therefore they accept things by choice. It may not have been your intention, but this is very similar to the standard argument used by apologists of criminals: "they couldn't help it!".

But it is the same. If a company spends $100 on goods, they will want to make a profit as well, so eventually they get back more money than they paid. How is this different from interest? The only thing I can see that is different is that interest is usually agreed upon in advance, and you can't not pay it, but I think in reality this difference is negligable. Why are you focusing on interest and not on profit? If one of the two creates a problem, then I think the other would as well.

Using version 1.0.7 of Mozilla Firefox here. Works okay, and you get to survive smilies without harm in the chatroom.

This is pretty disgusting. I knew it was bad over here, but here beats that The stupid thing is that the lies she told about her identity were known for years, and only now that she has caused more controversy by taking a stand on the Danish cartoons issue is everyone crying about it. I don't think it even matters anymore whether she got into the Netherlands on false pretenses or not, because I assume that almost everyone who wants to escape a country over there would try to increase their chances as much as possible given the too-strict immigration laws they have here. This is sacrificing someone to appease those who would rather not have unlimited freedom of speech, and it is a sad, sad day for the Netherlands that it could happen with the full support of the population (well, around two-thirds to eighty percent, depending on the question). You can read a lot about her on LGF if you want, she really is a rather special woman, and I hope she can go to the US now like she is planning to, it would be your gain and Europe's loss. Can't say that I blame her...

Fraud is also punishable by law right now, and because you'd have a lot less bad laws in this case the courts can be smaller than they are now and still do what they are supposed to do more effectively. Besides, if you look at it from the expenses point of view the courts probably take up such a small part compared to welfare and various pressure-group associated costs that it is almost negligable. Over here for example, if they'd reduce the functions of the government to the proper ones they could reduce taxes by about 85%, easily. That would mean going from almost 50% income tax to something like 9% or so, which is an enormous difference. But then, I've never seen anyone in politics trying to consistently cut down on taxes, and I doubt it will happen any time soon.

New York, of course. You can't leave without taking your greatest symbol of achievement with you!