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No, I don’t think it was a mistake to send troops into Japan and Germany. I am not opposed to the use of ground troops to achieve, or verify that we have achieved, the destruction of a threatening regime. And I think at the time, given our relatively primitive reconnaissance capabilities and the weapons we had at our disposal, there was probably no other way to insure that the regimes had, in fact, been destroyed. (However, I do think it was a mistake to spend billions of American taxpayer dollars rebuilding those countries after we destroyed them.) But a great deal has changed since WWII. 1) We have multiplied, by several orders of magnitude, both our combat firepower and our ability to hit targets with great accuracy. 2) We have developed highly sophisticated reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities with satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic eavesdropping. In short, we can see them and we can destroy them. So I see little reason to send in ground troops. We can inflict sufficient damage to a regime like the one in Iran, to its military, and to its economic infrastructure, to eliminate any threat for many years to come -- regardless of who attempts to take over afterward. And we have sufficient military power to do this with a bombing campaign alone. And to quote Craig Biddle: "I would add only that our dropping of bombs should be followed by our dropping of flyers or pamphlets explaining: "From now on, this is how we will respond to all threats to America. We look forward to the time when you decide to civilize yourselves, renounce the initiation of physical force, recognize the principle of individual rights, establish the rule of law, and join the free world. Until then, we will be watching you from way up in the sky, and we will obliterate anything and anyone that even appears to threaten our safety." There is an ideological battle to be fought – but it must first be fought here, against our own intellectuals; it is they who hate America and who are largely responsible for spreading the disastrous ideas that have prevented us from confronting and destroying all of the state sponsors of terrorism.

It is difficult to get information; much of what I know came from my sales manager for the middle east, who traveled to the UAE several times. However, there is some information available on the web. Here is LINK to a web site run by the UAE; so you can expect it to put the Federation in the best possible light. Note the comments about "Driving Issues", "Public Affection", "Walking at Night" and "Eating during Ramadan". Perhaps the most significant fact about the UAE is that criminal and family law matters are governed by Shari'a (Islamic law), as discussed in this State Department Document LINK. " There is a dual system of Shari'a (Islamic) courts for criminal and family law matters and secular courts for civil law matters. Non-Muslims are tried for criminal offenses in Shari'a courts." I am assuming that Shari'a as applied in the UAE is similar to the Shari'a applied in Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. Here is an example of the application of Shari'a in the UAE:LINK. No one in the UAE will be seeing Brokeback Mountain anytime soon. One more example of Shari'a: LINK. Fortunately, it appears the woman escaped her sentence of death by stoning and instead only has to spend a year in prison. I wonder what a woman's prison is like in the UAE. Another example of Shari'a in the UAE: LINK. Imagine going to prison for a year because a cab driver saw you kiss your girlfriend. Here is another indicator of the influence of Islam (which is the UAE's official state religion): LINK Note the advice: "Do not discuss the subject of women, not even to inquire about the health of a wife or daughter. The topic of Israel should also be avoided." It is not only the topic of Israel that must be avoided. One day I discovered that my sales manager for the middle east owned two passports. One was used for traveling to Israel; the other was used for traveling to all the other countries, including the UAE. This was necessary because even the presence of an Israeli stamp on one's passport would prevent entry into the UAE. Of course, the Emirate's public relations people are working very hard to put a moderate face on the country. For instance, at one web site, UAE is described as a vacation spot featuring "Sun, sand and the mysteries of a traditional Islamic culture." Mysteries? Another of the seven Emirates defends his status as an unelected, unreplaceable ruler that answers to no one by noting that his emirate is "the most direct form of democracy; if my people didn't like me, they would overthrow me." The UAE claims to have constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech and religion. But note the following statement from the State Department document linked to above: "The Government prohibits non-Muslims from proselytizing or distributing religious literature under penalty of criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and deportation, for engaging in behavior offensive to Islam." Some freedom of speech. That is about all I can come up with at the moment. I don't believe the UAE is as bad as Iran, Saudi Arabia or some of the others. But I am still reluctant to trust them.

We have the power to blast Iran back to the stone age -- and at a relatively low cost at that -- and do it again if necessary in the future. There is no need to waste American lives to give them "a new ideological foundation". Furthermore, if mass destruction is not sufficient to convince them to stop supporting terrorism, you sure aren't going to convince them with lecture tapes.

No, I am suggesting that we stop helping Islamic theocracies, or anyone else we know to be our enemy. Granted, the UAE claims to be our ally, but Islam and freedom are so fundamentally incompatable that such a notion is like claiming that poisonous food can be an ally in fighting hunger. Well, I don't think we have to "pick fights with everyone all at once" -- and I did not advocate such a thing -- but I will say this: if the alternative is picking fights versus appeasment, I would pick fights every time.

I think there is a difference between your conclusions and Dr. Peikoff's statements. Here is the full paragraph from which you quoted: The "equivalent of de-Nazifying the country", according to Peikoff, comprises "expelling every official and bringing down every branch of its government." Whether or not an invasion is required to accomplish this is a military matter -- personally, I think we are fully capable of "ending the state" with air power alone -- but in any event, Peikoff does not say anything about "replacing the Muslim meme with a rational meme".

As near as I can tell, the UAE is an Islamic theocracy that does not respect the rights of its own citizens -- rights such as the right to free speech, the right to free association, the right to hold employment, the right of equality before the law, the right to select and change the lawmakers. It is slightly freer than some other theocracies. For instance, alcohol is not forbidden everywhere and cable television is permitted. However, it retains all of the other features of an Islamic theocracy: women are legally subordinated to men and cannot hold a job or travel without a man's permission, blasphemy against Islam is punishable by death, sex outside of marriage is punishable by stoning, speaking of Israel is punishable by imprisonment, anyone caught eating during Ramadan is sent to prison, kissing in public gets you sent to prison, individuals caught on the streets after dark can be arrested and held until daybreak, etc. Even running a red light carries an automatic one month prison term. In principle, I oppose any commercial ties that strengthen such a government. And that is what the port deal will do: the "company" seeking to acquire the lease-rights at these ports is owned by the UAE government and this deal it will simply create one more source of income for the (unelected) "leaders" of this theocracy. The United States need not, and should not, obtain the cooperation of such nations by granting them the status of "ally". If we need the cooperation of nations like the UAE, we should obtain it by issuing an ultimatum: cooperate or be destroyed -- and we should be fully prepared to carry out this threat. We are the most powerful nation on earth; we need not kowtow to the miserable bastards that control the nations of the middle east. Of course, the port deal is but one small example of a long list of such commercial ties that have served to create the problem we face with the middle east. It started with Iran "nationalizing" our oil facilities in the 1950s; we should never have permitted that to happen. It is time to stop helping our enemies -- and any nation that explicitly denies rights is our enemy.

Exactly. We don't have to tackle "de-Muslimization" of the middle east. We just need to "de-altruize" America so we can unleash our power and vaporize our enemies.

I realize you are addressing the appalling failure of the West to defend the basic concept of freedom of speech, but I would like to offer one clarification. There is indeed a fundamental conflict underway, but it is not between two different "civilizations" or "ways of life", for Islam represents neither. Islam seeks to brutalize, not civilize; it is a way of death, not a way of life.

I have no interest in debating the self-evident. I was merely pointing out additional problems with your "arguments", as well as providing an alternative explanation for the experiments you cited. The fact remains that what is being reported is a conclusion, an inference from the data, not a direct observation. And I have provided an alternative explanation. How do you know? If introspection is subjective, how can you claim any knowledge about how long a given process of consciousness might take? I notice that you did not respond to what I said about axioms. Why is that?

This is a false characterization of our position. The pro-volition position is based on observations: one's observations of one's own volition. It is you who are declaring an entire category of observations to be mere illusion. So please do not depict us as rationalists who are ignoring empirical evidence. No one disputes its implications? Then what do you think has been going on here? We have all disputed it, on the grounds that volition is an axiom and, as such, is perceptually self-evident. Regarding axioms, you wrote: You need to study the derivation of the axioms of Objectivism and their corollaries. They are not mere optional tautologies. They stand at the base of all knowledge; to claim to know anything, is to accept and use these axioms. I suggest you start with pages 1 – 72 of “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.” Once you grasp their derivation, you will see why it is necessary to reject any claim to knowledge that violates one of these axioms (or their corollaries). Having said that, I'd like to offer some comments on the experimental data you reference. Aren't the first and last statements above merely your interpretation of the observed data? Here is another interpretation of those observations. No process of consciousness happens instantaneously. The process of deciding to move one's finger will take some amount of time. Therefore, one would expect brain activity prior to the movement of one's finger. Furthermore, in the case of a process of consciousness as simple as deciding to move one's finger, one might fix the time of the decision to be at the conclusion of the process of making that decision, which would cause one to report the time of the decision after the first brain activity registers. Your interpretation requires the "non-conscious" part of the brain to be conscious of the fact that one is participating in an experiment and is expected to move one's finger and note the time one decides to do so. How can the "non-conscious" be conscious?

This is ludicrous. As anyone who can read can see, you did not state your four explanations as things which merely "contributed"; you stated them absolutely and adamently. And you know it. I cited those four explanations to demonstrate your tactic of modifying your argument to address the most recent criticism, even if it means contradicting or changing your previous stance. And here you are doing it again by trying to "spin" your statements into something they were not. There is nothing in your answer to indicate that it is only "part" of the explanation. Oh baloney. You certainly did not offer any of your explanations as "probably" true. Oh, is this the "nuanced argument" argument? Did you actually vote for the $87 billion before you voted against it You change positions as often as John Kerry. I am not going to read the rest of your post. If the beginning is any indicator, it is another verbose masterpiece of hairsplitting, insults and sarcasm – in other words, an utter waste of time. Whopee de doo indeed.

1. American Muslims are not protesting because we have appeased them. 2. American Muslims are not protesting because we have not appeased them as totally as Europe has. 3. American Muslims do not need to be appeased because they are able to see that cartoons are not an attack on their religion. 4. American Muslims are not protesting because, unlike European Muslims, no one has construed to them that this is a Muslim issue. It seems that you have now given four different answers to the question. Well, you rather missed the point. If it is not a Koranic issue, then the behavior of the rioters proves that they are not guided strictly by the Koran. And if it is a Koranic issue, then the behavior of the non-rioters proves that they are not guided strictly by the Koran. Either way, the situation proves that something other than the Koran is guiding the actions of at least some of the Muslims. That was my point. You need to find out what people know before denouncing their knowledge and calling them names; otherwise, you look foolish. I have read the Koran. I did not claim the Koran is balanced. I said it is contradictory. For instance, the one verse titled, "The Disbelievers" says: 109:1 Say: O disbelievers! 109:2 I worship not that which ye worship; 109:3 Nor worship ye that which I worship. 109:4 And I shall not worship that which ye worship. 109:5 Nor will ye worship that which I worship. 109:6 Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion. And then there are these two standbys: There is no compulsion in religion. 2:256 Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosoever will, let him disbelieve. 18:29 I read the article you linked to back when you first posted the link. Someone else had linked to it some time back. I would make one distinction that the article does not: There is no question that the Koran is full of threats against the infidels. However, the majority of those threats amount to claims of what Allah will do to the infidels. Explicit instructions telling the believers what to do to the infidels are much fewer in number. You should read more carefully. I didn't come to a conclusion; I said this vast number of fatwas suggests that Muslims look to these rulings at least as much as the Koran. I also did not say “they look to these rulings as often as the Koran”. I am not making any claim about the frequency with which they consult the two. I am saying they both can have great influence over Muslim behavior. If you were not so anxious to find a way to refute something I have said, you might notice that you are actually supporting my position with this: Even for those who are able to read it, the Koran really has few specific instructions, other than granting men the right to dominate their wives and exhorting the believers to hate the infidels. If Muslims truly want to live by the word of Allah, it is not at all surprising that they would need to submit thousands of questions to imams and clerics; after all, much has changed in the 1400 years since the Koran was dictated. So I am arguing that the clerics and the imams, through the fatwas they issue, their sermons, etc. exert as much influence as the Koran. At least that is what Muslim behavior to date indicates. The influence of the imams and clerics has obvious implications for a strategy to deal with the American Muslims in the event we ever summon the courage to properly defend ourselves by eliminating states that sponsor terrorism. Well, you do not have the power to "close this debate once and for all"; you only have the power to withdraw. I think that would be a good thing for you to do, at least until you can drop the hostility and proceed in a civil manner.

This thinking is as confused as the rest of what you write. There is a distinction between the location of a protest and the object of a protest. The absence of protests in America, against America, may or may not be attributable to our appeasement. But the absence of protests in America, against the Danish cannot be accounted for by this fact. Do you grasp that distinction? Muslims are not just protesting in Denmark; they are protesting all over the globe. If Muslims do not get "antsy" at countries that do not "reject Islamic crap", why are so many Muslims protesting so violently in countries like Britain, who appeases them to a far greater extent than we do? For that matter, if what gets Muslims 'antsy" is the "rejection of Islamic crap", why are so many Muslims killing fellow Muslims? And why didn't the Muslims get "antsy" when these exact same cartoons appeared in an Egyptian newspaper last October? There wasn't a peep of outrage at that time. And why does this Muslim outrage appear now, three months after the cartoons first appeared? Yes, there were some intitial protests, but why the resurgence after a long period when no one seemed to care about them? The answer, of course, is that the situation isn't as simplistic as you spent the better part of 8,000 words stating and restating. The reactions of the Muslims to these cartoons -- and many, many other examples -- refute your simplistic notion that "Muslims have identity, and entities must act according to their identity, thus Muslims will do what the Koran instructs them to do." If such were the case, we would see uniform Muslim reactions -- and we do not. The fact is the Koran does not present a single, consistent, uniform message to which Muslims respond robotically in a single, consistent and uniform manner. Neither of these notions is true and single glance at the statements and behavior of Muslims around the world proves it. Like the Bible, the Koran has its share of contradictory exhortations; for every murderous quote cited by bin Laden or Zarqawi, the Muslim apologists can cite one to the contrary. Reading the Koran one comes away with an impression of a book of threats seperated by calls for peace. (Personally, I believe the calls for peace are a smokescreen; but since I am not a mind reader, I cannot be sure whether the Muslims that claim Islam is peaceful are sincere, mislead or outright liars.) What is clear is that many Muslims, especially the less educated ones in the middle east but also many in Europe, are manipulated and controlled by their local imams and clerics. Islam is religion of a thousand commandments. As I have posted in this forum in the past, one can go to IslamOnline.net and see some 10,000 fatwas issued over the last 5 years clarifying Islam's vast array of rules. Note that these fatwas were issued in response to questions submitted voluntarily by Muslims from around the world. It suggests that Muslims look to these rulings at least as much as they do to the Koran. The point is clear: whatever the Koran (or other official Islamic texts) may say about creating images of Muhammad, that alone has not "determined" the behavior of Muslims these last few months. Instead, it is far more likely that Muslims have been manipulated into these protests, and those doing the manipulation have chosen countries where they think: 1) they can get away with the protests, 2) the local Muslims are easily manipulated, and 3) the protests will further intimidate the public in those countries, as opposed to turning the public more strongly against them. This would explain why they have not tried anything this violent here. This has obvious implications for your notion that the Koran’s urging of jihad makes radicalization inevitable, though I don't expect you to see it. I will save you the trouble of protesting that you do not depict Muslims so simplistically by quoting what you said before: Trouble is, "Islam" is not an entity. The entities in question are human beings, and if you check my screen name, it will remind you of the law of identity; then perhaps you will remember that the identity of human beings is such that they possess volition and do not behave like pool balls bouncing off one another or off copies of the Koran. One of your tactics is to cover all sides on an issue. An example of this is the fact that in this most recent post, you strongly suggest that the lack of reaction from American Muslims is a result of our appeasement of them, while darkly hinting that if we dare cease to appease, all hell will break loose (not that you advocate appeasement or anything) . But in the last post when I brought up the lack of reactions to these cartoons, here is what you said: Two different answers to the same question. This, I suppose, is what it means to “define what a pearl is”: it consists of having as many different positions as one needs on an issue. No wonder you found it to be a lot or work! I have more to say about the rest of your long post, but in the interest of keeping these things to a reasonable length, I wll do so in another post.

In the first place, what does this have to do with the inability to perceive brain activity? This is not an answer; it is a switch to a different argument. You started by claiming that introspection is not valid because the brain cannot sense itself. You gave examples of various brain activity that one cannot sense. However, you have not been able to explain why this lack of ability to sense brain activity affects introspection but not extrospection. Now you introduce the notion that all areas of the brain are required to fully perceive an object. What is the evidence for this? If all of the brain is required to perceive an object, then what part of the brain is left to think about and evaluate that which we perceive? That answer makes no sense to me. When did man not need the ability to insure that he was using reason governed by logic to guide his actions? That does not follow. The fact that you claim to perceive that you are being logical does not mean you are not evading or lying. If two people look at the same wall and one claims to perceive that it is red and the other claims to perceive that it is green, it is not the ability to perceive that is called into question; it is, rather, the veracity of one the claimants that must be at fault. Dave is correct when he notes: "There is no such thing as "perception of being logical." Any evaluation of logic is conceptual” But this does not change the fact that if your perception of volition is an illusion, all the other things you perceive in your consciousness might also be an illusion. You could claim, with equal validity, that you are really a brain in a vat hooked up to a computer that is running a simulation. (A claim that many have made.) Your argument that man is determined is an invalid induction arrived at by the arbitrary dismissal of direct observations that contradict your induction.

Now this is amusing. I love it. According to you, I've said nothing of relevance, I've advanced no debate, I've offered nothing but junk, and I have offered no substantive response -- and it only took you 8,000 words to respond to it!

Are you familiar with the fallacy of begging the question? Your response does just that. Either explain why an inability to sense our brain activity affects introspection, but does not affect extrospection -- or admit that it affects neither. But don't assume the truth of what you are trying to prove and then pretend that what I wrote supports it or means that I agree with it. The ability to monitor our consciousness, for purposes of insuring that we are using reason and logic, is just as vital to our survival as our perception. Why has evolution given us one but not the other? The ability to make the correct choice between thinking and not thinking is certainly as vital to our suvival as is our memory. Why has evolution given us one but not the other? If you have a point to make about this, then I think you should make it. And you should answer the questions.

So what? When I perceive a table, I am not aware of light hitting my retina, I am not aware of electrical signals travelling along the optic nerve, I am not aware of how many synapses fire, I am not aware of which part of my brain receives the signal, I have no idea what happens to the various levels of chemicals in my brain during this process and I am completely clueless about how my brain turns these signals into the image I see before me. Does this argue that my perception of the table is flawed in some fashion? No. Does this argue that what is in front of me is not a table and that I am suffering an illusion? No. Why, then, is extrospective perception deemed valid, in spite of the fact that I cannot be aware of all of these factors, but introspective perception is damned for the same lack of awareness? When I recall my name, my telephone number, the solution to an equation or the law of identity, I am not aware of "the interactions between dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine" either. Does this mean that my recollection of my name, my telephone number, the solution to an equation or the law of identity is all an illusion? So it is your position, then, that our perception that we are being logical is only an illusion? We cannot know when we are being logical and when it is merely an illusion?

You continue to egregiously misrepresent FatDog's position, and you are mischaracterizing this debate by pretending it is focused solely on a blatantly irrational proposal which, as far as I can tell, no one has advocated. What is at issue here (among other things) is whether the proper use of overwhelming force against our enemies will cause the fence sitters to join them in battle against us or encourage them to remain sidelined. That is the question I first raised and it is the question I have continued to ask. It is in this context that I have raised historical examples. If you wish to argue that Muslims are so unique history can tell us nothing about their potential reactions to the use of overwhelming force (which I do not believe), fine. But please do not make it sound like I have claimed that there is an historical parallel to the straw-man scenario that you keep invoking. Don't start misrepresenting my position as well.

I care. You attempt to dismiss the comparison of Muslim fanatics to Japanese fanatics on the grounds that the latter were rationally defending secular goals while the former are pure worshippers of death as an end in itself. Both depictions are caricatures intended to obliterate obvious similarities. The same can be said of a Kamikaze pilot; he, too, will not be alive to enjoy the homeland he is defending. Whether the motivation is a glorified place in heaven or avoiding dishonor, the fact remains that both parties choose death as a means to their goals. I see no basis for dismissing this similarity out of hand. The justification for terrorism most often cited by Muslims is the presence of Israel on “Muslim land”. Osama bin Laden's primary rationale for declaring war against the west is our presence on "Muslim land". The goal of restoring the caliphate – a central goal to the combat wing of Islam – is a desire to retake what they consider “Muslim land”. The pilgrimage to Mecca – i.e. the requirement to return to “Muslim land” at least once in one’s life – is a central tenet and requirement of Islam. And when they pray five times daily, where do they face? Mecca, the Muslim holy place. These facts do not support your contention that a homeland is unimportant to most Muslims. Do you really think you know what every Muslim believes? I know I don’t. But a recurring theme I hear from Muslims is that suicide bombings are justified because this is the only way to fight back against the technologically superior forces of America and Israel. No, we cannot deter them with threats of nuclear weapons dropped on our own soil. But whatever we threaten them with (such as, for instance, mass deportation should they “radicalize”), it would be a far more credible threat if we first demonstrated a willingness to inflict mass death and destruction on our enemies, regardless of civilian casualties and regardless of U.N. and world opinion. I wonder what you really believe. Are American Muslims mindless followers of Islam who will overnight become insane, maniacal suicide bombers when the Koran or a fatwa so instructs – or are they capable of reason and restraint, able to distinguish a proper American response from an improper one? You depict them as the former when issuing blanket warnings about the “costs” of “radicalizing” them – but then you retreat to the latter to explain their current behavior. It is difficult to believe that both depictions are true. What is not clear to me now is what actions you think they will take under what circumstances. Where on the continuum between the actions we have taken so far, and the random nuking of middle east countries (which you originally claimed beyond any doubt would trigger suicidal madness) do you assert this radicalization will kick in? And what do you propose to do about it? The topic here is an evaluation of your assertion that under certain conditions, American Muslims will "radicalize". Now, if you rule out all evidence of Muslim behavior available to us at present, if you declare that there is not a scintilla of evidence available on this subject, neither historical nor present day, then you have ruled out all evidence for evaluating your claim. That would make it an arbitrary claim, i.e. one for which no supporting or contradicting information is available. Are you familiar with the Objectivist concept of the arbitrary? Well you have certainly erected another straw man to blow over with your ALL CAPITALS shouting. I have not advocated historicism, at least not insofar as it means “historical determinism”. ( In fact, if anything in this discussion reflects a belief in determinism, it is your depiction of Muslims.) So denouncing it as “silly” and invoking John Galt is simply irrelevant to what I have actually said. Nor have I said that “just because” history does not support your idea, it is false. But the fact that history does not support your idea is at least potentially relevant. I find it curious that on the one hand you adamantly maintain that you do not advocate appeasement -- yet at the same time, you are anxious to show that appeasement's historical record of failure does not apply to your predictions about Muslim behavior. If you are not advocating appeasement, why do you care about its historical record? The burden is not on me to disprove your assertion. It is on you to support it. Since you have declared that all existing information on Muslim behavior, both historical and present day, is irrelevant to your assertion, it will be interesting to see you prove it. Furthermore, I sense another shift on your part. The “radicalization” of a small portion of the population is a significantly different problem than the specter of all 4 MILLION of them blowing themselves up or showing up at Walmart with a gun. So again, you need to clarify your position: how many do you expect to detonate and under what conditions? Personally, I think the behavior of American Muslims under current conditions is relevant and constructive. For one thing, I think it shows that you are painting with too broad a brush when you characterize all Muslims as being equally committed to the worship of death. Consider the recent nonsense of the cartoons of Mohammed. Muslims in Pakistan are burning the Danish embassy and rioting in the streets. Nothing of the sort is going on here in America. Why not? What is to STOP them from joining their Muslims brothers in such riots? Something accounts for this difference; what do you think it is? I do not find sarcasm persuasive. It would be useful for you to explain the distinction between your argument and “lets go easy so we don't radicalize the Muslims", because frankly I don't see such a distinction. You have exhorted me to "consider the costs" of "radicalizing" the American Muslims -- but if you declare that this consideration is not to have any affect on our actions, what is the point? If you are not arguing, in any sense at all, for a "lets go easy" approach, then what is the relevance of this whole "radicalization" issue to my proposed course of action? You should drop the pretense of being an injured party. I did not accuse you of advocating appeasement. I merely pointed out that history does not support your notion that the use of overwhelming force causes the fence sitters to join the other side; history shows the opposite. Since you have declared history irrelevant to this issue, why should you care what it shows? This is a nice straw man argument, because I don't think FatDog advocates the use of “goofy” tactics against nations that have “NO” ties to terrorism. You have jumped on his unfortunate choice of the word “Arab” instead of “Islamic” and on the fact that he did not specify the sequence in which he would attack, and twisted these as ungenerously as possible so as to be able to claim that he advocates the random nuking of countries without regard to their relationship to terrorism; so, unless I have missed something in one of his posts, you have seriously mischaracterized his position into one that, superficially, seems to justify your response. I don’t know what you think that accomplishes or proves. You seem to be under the impression that mere repetition of an assertion lends it weight, especially when accompanied by words in ALL CAPITALS, which is the equivalent of raising your voice. I am struck by this passage in particular: “Do you think that American-Muslims wouldn't make the same connections mentally if we nuked the middle east? Do you think that they wouldn't use their religion as an excuse to be violent? Why wouldn't they? It isn't like they all value their lives to begin with nor is it like their religion values human life.” So, how many American Muslims would you say do not value their lives? And how do you know? I think you are making the mistake of equating Islam and Muslims. Islam is inherently anti-life because it is anti-mind. But there is no reason to believe that every Muslim believes and practices all of Islam's tenets. I see nothing in FatDogs statements that argues for random nuking; he did not specify the order in which he would attack, but that is far from an explicit advocacy of random attacks. This is another example of painting with too broad a brush. The leaders of the Islamic nations, as well as the leaders of the various terrorist organizations, cannot be confused with the small percentage of the rank and file that are actually willing to become suicide bombers. One virtually never sees these leaders taking such actions. In fact, they have made a career out of exhorting others to sacrifice without doing it themselves. If all Muslims worshipped death as an end in itself, we would not have a problem; they would all commit suicide and that would be the end of it. But even the suicide bombers go to great lengths to insure that they die on their terms and at the time and place of their choosing. They are afraid of death -- if it is a death on our terms. And that is what we can threaten them with: death that does not defend Muslim land and does nothing to protect Islam. That is not a death they would welcome; if it were, they would inflict it on themselves today.

Aside from being an unsupported assertion, this is the same contradiction as before with different packaging in an effort at damage control. A consciousness that cannot be conscious of itself would be a consciousness that cannot make use of any of the information that it has accumulated. A consciousness that can only be conscious of itself in some inherently distorted , incomplete or otherwise flawed manner, that makes it susceptible to illusions, is in no better shape. Neither consciousness could claim any knowledge about its content or processess, including the claim to know that it is experiencing an illusion. If you cannot trust your perception of what is going on in your consciousness, then you literally do not know what is going on in your consciousness. Perception is the only means of knowing it. There are no grounds for declaring that some of your perceptions about your consciousness are valid while others are not; either you are perceiving your consciousness or you are not. If your perception of your volition is an illusion, then your perception that you are being logical might also be an illusion. Your perception that you are conscious might be an illusion. How could you tell the difference? If you can be fooled about one, then you can be fooled about the other. You position is still a contradiction: it is a claim to knowledge based on an attack on perception, the very thing that makes knowledge possible. It is an attempt to have your perception and eat it, too.

And how is it you know facts A - L? Because you perceive them? But you have denounced your own power of perception by declaring it susceptible to illusion. You cannot now invoke a set of facts, that you acquired by perception, to support a theory that depends on an attack on perception. You cannot have it both ways. You do not get to arbitrarily decide to use your perceptions in one case and dismiss them in another -- not if you want to remain within the bounds of logic. This contradiction invalidates every argument you offer. Beyond that, the fact that I may take different actions under different circumstances, and the fact that men respond to what other men say and do, merely proves that we are conscious and capable of initiating a response. It is a non sequitur to argue that this means men are determined by what other men say and do. That simply does not follow, because the alternative is not, as you suggest, that the mind is either random or determined. That is a false alternative that evades the possibility of volition. Your argument is an invalid induction; it is a fallacious attempt to reason from specific observations to general principle. It is invalid because it violates a basic principle of induction. The principle is this: to be valid, an induction (or hypothesis) must explain and account for all of the observations it purports to cover. A hypothesis that is contradicted by some of the observations must be rejected and revised. On the one hand, you have many observations of determinism in the physical world. But you also possess many observations of volition in your own consciousness. Indeed, in virtually every waking moment of your life from the time your mind reached the level of percepts, you have been aware of ability to choose to think or not to think, to focus or not to focus, and everything which that implies. In fact, the ability to control the actions of your consciousness is your basic sense of self-awareness; you are aware that you are conscious because you are aware of what consciousness can do. It can perceive introspectively and extrospectively. It can differentiate and integrate. It can form concepts and conceive propositions, which is cognition, and it can estimate the importance of things, which is evaluation. And it does all of this at your command. As an adult, you have many thousands of first-hand observations of your power to choose and control the processes of your consciousness, i. e. of volition. This means that your conclusion that the mind is deterministic consists of including all of the observations that support your hypothesis, while denying the reality of all those observations that contradict your hypothesis. This is inexcusable; it is a bad enough error to merely evade data that does not conform to one’s hypothesis. It is especially egregious to acknowledge the observations exist, but dismiss them as mere illusions. You cannot simply dismiss inconvenient observations. You cannot exclude them on the grounds that no one can explain their origin or identify how the observed phenomena works. The observations exist, and their existence is not somehow diminished or negated by such questions. Induction done in this fashion does not yield knowledge of reality; it yields wholly arbitrary assertions constructed by the whim of the inducer. For instance, it would be just as reasonable, and just as valid, for me to declare that the observation of determinism in physics is an illusion, that all entities are actually acting volitionally, and my proof of this is the tens of thousands of observations I have of my own volition in my own consciousness. You would never accept such a wholesale, arbitrary exclusion of observations for purposes of supporting a theory. Do not ask us to do the same.

I don't think the Japanese Imperial Army was "inspired by religion", but I do think the Japanese people's support of Hirohito was influenced by religion. The Shinto religion held that emporer Hirohito was a god and by all accounts the Japanese people believed this. Consider this: The war ended only after Hirohito went on the radio and told the Japanese people they had been defeated. Prior to that, even after Tokyo had been firebombed and two other cities leveled by atomic bombs, the people were still willing to fight to the last man, if that is what Hirohito wanted. Do you think Hirohito's influence over the Japanese people was based on reason? Muslims will tell you that their suicide bombers are fighting for their homeland just as surely as any Japanese kamikaze. And they will tell you that they, too, value something enough to fight for it to the death. They will also tell you that suicide bombings are a tactic of last resort, to be used only when all other alternatives have been exhausted. So these distinctions are not the bright line you make them out to be. Why? We have the ability to drop nuclear weapons on any area of the globe. Your smirky face notwithstanding, history does not support your overall contention, which is: the use of overwhelming force against our enemy will cause those who live in our midsts to turn into suicidal maniacs. History is replete with examples that demonstrate that it is appeasement and appearing weak that emboldens one's enemies and causes more of them to take up arms against you, not the overwhelming use of force to stike at his home base. I am not aware of a single example where the use of overwhelming force (such as the United States possess) causes the fence sitters to join the war for the other side. I acknowledge the possibility, but do not accept it as inevitable. I am not rabid, stumbling or ultra-defensive; I just question your assertion that the use of overwhelming force against our enemies in the mid-east will necessarily "radicalize" the American Muslims into becoming suicidal maniacs. You have not given us any evidence to support this assertion. To this point, we have bombed two cities in Libya (in 1986) killing dozens of Muslims, invaded Kuwait (in 1991) and killed tens of thousands of Muslims, invaded Afghanistan (2001-2002) and killed many more thousands of Muslims and invaded Iraq (2003) and killed still more thousands of Muslims. Yet this American "radicalization" process has not occurred (with one possible exception: the belt-way snipers). On the other hand, Spain and Great Britain, who have participated in the war on terror to a far lesser extent and who have bent over backwards to appease their domestic Muslims, have suffered home-grown terrorist attacks. France, the most egregious appeaser of all, has thousands of "radicalized" Muslims roaming the streets every night burning cars and buildings. Pacifist Holland and Denmark have similar Muslim problems, certainly far worse than we have seen here. So the "lets go easy so we don't radicalize the Muslims" argument is weak at best. If anything, we see once again that appeasement invites attack. NO such implication? Here is what you posted in response to previous suggestions that we use nuclear weapons against the Islamic nations of the middle east. This doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement for the use of overwhelming force against our enemies in the middle east. Perhaps you are now saying that the use of overwhelming force will not cause problems provided it is justified? It is just the capricious use that will backfire? Without considering the domestic "costs"? I agree with you, but if you look at your earlier post, they do not sound sympathetic to the idea of an immediate attack. I agree except I think the civilians in Iran are also legitimate targets. Killing people may NOT kill ideas, but it can sure dampen the enthusiasm for them. Just let me say that in the war on terrorism, the military force of our enemies is not the only potential threat. I believe the Saudi's are funding many of the terrorist groups, which makes them a legitimate target. However, rather than wholesale destruction of the country, I would advocate we seize the oil fields and return control of them to their rightful owners, the American oil companies that created them. (Provided this is militarily feasible; I think it is, but would defer to someone with greater military expertise.) But on the broader point, I don't think we have to nuke the entire middle east. I think one extremely thorough, totally ruthless destruction of one enemy country -- and Iran is my preference -- featuring vast, wholesale destruction of regime, military, civil and economic infrastructure, regardless of how many civilian casualties results, would bring the entire Islamic world to its knees. We will never get them to like us, but I believe we can get them to fear us.

Here are a couple of quotes from the links you provided: This states clearly that the pursuit of happiness for its own sake cannot be the goal of one's actions. This means that Catholic ethics avoids the alleged conflicts between self-love and benevolence (love of others) by making the goal of ethics something other than the achievement of happiness ("an agreeable psychological state"). What guidance then does the Catholic ethic provide? This means the standard for determining who is to be the beneficiary of one's actions is the "relative need" of yourself versus others. You may not pursue your own self-interest if there is anyone else in "greater need" anywhere in "common humanity". If you are seeking to reconcile the politics of Objectivism with Catholicism, you are making the same mistake the conservatives have been making for the last 50 years: You cannot achieve any sort of political freedom based on these ethics. You must choose between faith and force or reason and freedom; no compromise is possible.

I perceive, by a process of introspection while making a decision, that I have the continuous choice to think or not to think and everything this implies: the choice to be ruthlessly logical or allow logical fallacies to go unchecked; the choice to check the validity of my decision against all my other knowledge or to leave it un-integrated and floating; the choice to consider only reason or to indulge emotions and whims, etc. I assume that your introspection of your consciousness reveals the same perception of choices. However, you have declared this perception to be an illusion. According to you, whatever "choices" we make are really the outcome of those vast deterministic forces; we are not free to choose the rational over the irrational or the logical over the illogical; any such “choice” that is made is predetermined and outside our control. Thus, you have impeached your own power of perception. You have declared it susceptible to illusions that are created in your mind, against your will and outside your control. All of man's knowledge rests on the validity of perception. If you cannot trust your perception of what is going on in your consciousness, then you literally do not know what is going on in your consciousness. Perception is the only means of knowing it. There are no grounds for declaring that some of your perceptions about your consciousness are valid while others are not; either you are perceiving reality or you are not. If your perception of your volition is an illusion, then your perception that you are being logical might also be an illusion. Your perception that you are conscious might be an illusion. How could you tell the difference? If you can be fooled about one, then you can be fooled about the other. Such is the contradiction of your position: it is a claim to knowledge based on an attack on perception, the very thing that makes knowledge possible. It is an attempt to have your perception and eat it, too.

So if I am being logical, my evaluation and conclusion are not determined? I am truly free to choose conclusion A over conclusion B?