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KendallJ

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Posts posted by KendallJ

  1. Well, I have LOTS of Objectivists friends. I don't believe any of them would be throwing around words like stupid and asshole over a disagreement about interpreting the NAP. I love Ayn Rand dearly and I know you do as well. Its plain as day. If you are on FB, I hope you will add me. So far, I have added one other from here. Its a much more flexible form of communication, with discussions not dragged down by the emotional and irrational pretenders. I admire your discipline. I probably should have ignored 99% of all posts in this thread, maybe all but yours. :P

    Best to only pay attention to those that agree with you.

  2. If I agree to manufacture 1000 boat motor pistons for you in exchange for $20,000, and you then turn around and make an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to sell them the pistons for $24,000, and then after you deliver the pistons, they refuse to pay you, their breach of contract with you would be none of my business. They would not be in violation of my contract with you, since they were not a party to it. They would owe me nothing. You, and only you, would owe me. They would have no obligation to me. I would have no right to sue them for breaching your contract with you, and I would have no right to try to recover from them what you owe me. My only rightful concern would be my contract with you, not yours with anyone else. Any forceful action that I would take against them would be an initiation of force.

    J

    This is not correct. Depending on the terms, 3rd parties may have rightful claim to suits. Happens all the time. If the terms of one agreement stipulate subsequent terms, then the subsequent party may have liabilit that the original parties may sue for. It is not necessary to have only a direct contract holder sue.

    The example you list above is not parallel to the Roark case.

    Keep trying tho.

  3. The owners of Coartland did not necessarily find him innocent. We do not know who the owners are. The jury had the right to their opinion. It doesn't affect mine.

    We do, the government is the owner.

    The principle is clear. Roark did not own Coartland. I do own my own body and the product of my labor.

    Roark owned the designs for Coartland. It could not have been built without the theft of those designs.

    This is a totally different context. Roark was committing intentional, premeditated aggression.

    ahem. Retaliation. Don't confuse the initiation of force with the retaliatory use of it.

    I hold Rand responsible, yes. No one got hurt. She wrote it that way. Doesn't mean that is the way it would happen in real life, no matter what precautions Roark took.

    It's irrelevant. It happened the way it happened in the book. This is the Objectivist meaning of "context." Principles must be unpacked in a context. It's fiction. Rand setst he context and the principles must be analyzed with the specifics that surround the story. Rand cannot and shouldn't write for everyone's "what if" senario. She'd go nuts.

  4. No one has offered a shred of reasoning why the contract between Keating and Roark would be morally enforceable against the owners of Coartland, whoever they are.

    I have, at least 6 times now. The owners of Cortdland (the government) have not had their consent taken away in any way whatsover. They have not been coerced, and force has not been initiated against them. This is the moral basis for contracts regarding future actions of the parties involved.

    Here is their uncoerced, freely voluntary choice: they can choose to build cortdland with Keatings desgins according to his terms (whatever terms he is willing or able to offer), or they can choose to not build it with Keatings designs.

  5. You are trying to hold Coartland and the public responsible for Keating's failure to uphold the contract. Sounds...collectivist!

    No, we're trying to hold a rights-violating government responsible for it's breech of contract.

    To claim that it is consistent to apply a specific direct instance of retaliation for rights violations to a broad diffuse instance of it would be hasty generalization.

  6. He can only contract regarding his actions. He can not make binding contracts regarding someone else without their knowledge or permission.

    He did not make a contract "regarding someone else" (really sloppy language by the way). He offered terms to the government for the use of his designs. That the building be built as designed. And they accepted after reviewing those terms. They consented to those terms freely. If they did not want those terms they were free to decline them. They did not. He did not force them to accept those terms, and his contract with Roark in no way bound the government to accept those terms. Keating has every right to do this, and Roarks contract is most certainly binding. It has not bound a future third party in any way, and as such doesnt' require their a priori consent. To then construct the house in violation of those terms means that they have breeched the contract and have stolen Keating/Roark's designs. The house was obtained by theft (i.e. by breech of cotnract), and they (if they were a private party) cannot claim rightful ownership of it.

    This sort of contract restricting future third parties who enter into subsequent contracts happens all the time today, and it would happen in a fully rights respecting country as well.

  7. Again, Keating had no right to make a contract regarding Cortland's construction.

    Back this up with an explanation. I've already shown you how your analogy is incorrect. All you've done is change the last word in your statement. The consent of the government to accept Keatings terms was not taken away by limiting the terms under which Keating offered to construct the house.

    By what principle does Keating not have a right to offer whatever terms he's allowed as to the construction of of something using designs that he has been given rights to?

  8. And of course adding to the problem was that there was no legal recourse for either Keating or Roark - they couldn't sue for the breach of contract. So Roark blew it up in order to a) reclaim his right to the design which had been stolen from him and :) get the issue into court. And you just provided a quote explaining why it might be an ok idea to break a law in order to get a hearing in court in respect of that law.

    Bingo. It makes all the difference in the world here that the supposed "property holder" whose "rights" were violated is the same body that is supposed to enforce rights, and who violated rights to obtain said property.

  9. In this case, since Roark *clearly* is not the owner of Coartland, he is *clearly* destroying someone else's property.

    Said property was built through the theft of Roarks property as it was constructed under breech of contract.

    Who owns the property and whose rights were violated again? We keep blanking that out. Certainly if we were being civilly disobedient and an innocent bystanders rights were violated, you could say that the case was parrallel to Rand's, but in this case it is absolutely critical that the government violating rights, and it is the owner of the building. A government cannot have rights by virtue of the violation of others rights to obtain them. Those are entirely illegitimate.

    Certianly if he had hurt someone it woudl be been his responsibility, but he didnt' so it is irrelevant.

  10. Yes, as I have repeatedly said, Roark had no contract with the owners of Cortland and his contract with Keating is irrelevant, just as you and someone else can't make a contract regarding my house without my consent.

    yes, you've repeatedly said and you are repeatedly in the wrong.

    This is not the case with Cortdland. This analogy is false. The contract with Roark is not a contract about your house. It is a contract about the manner of construction of your house. Your consent is not eliminated because Roark and Keating had a prior agreement. It is a contract with Keating about what terms he may agree to construct the house under. Keating offered those terms to the government, and they accepted, i.e. they consented. There is not "non-consent. The owners of Cortdlant were free to decide whether they wanted the house built under those terms or not. They were free to not consent to those terms. Keating however was not free to offer other terms. What they were not free to do is to take Roark's design regarldess of the terms they agreed to with Keating. It is not that the house was built, it is that they consented to the terms under which the house would get built, and turned around and built the house under breech of contract.

  11. Right, and I read them and didn't see anythign worth answering.

    Got it.

    They directly refute your points. So obviously if you think that they don't then it would be encumbent on you to show how they are in error. That would be "debate" or refutation. Ignoring them is not. They are substantive answers.

    The basis of your argument hinges on your very first post, which is what I've dealt with.

    Would anyone else in the room be curious to hear Chris refute these arguments? Pull up a chair. Let us know.

  12. I'm not interested in your links. If you have argument, state it. If you wish to copy and paste, do so. If not, I'm adding you to ignore list next.

    This really is an intellectually dishonest response. Are you afraid of the idea behind a single click? Does me providing you ready access to the argument somehow make your ideas unable to stand up to them? If you really believe that you are that correct then intellectually honesty, especially in one who makes the claim that no one has answered him and that he has won the day, would suggest you take a peak.

    I'm well known on this board for giving well reasoned if blunt answers. You may want to hide behind an ignore button, but the fact is everyone else involved in this debate can and will easily click through the links and see that there are very valid points that are raised, and they'll wonder why you need be so unreasonable as to close your eyes to them. In fact, most will think me gracious for twice linking you to posts that as someone who is participating in this thread, you ought to have read already (and your only excuse for not reading them is that you lost interest) What is is that your ideas can't stand up to in honest debate? You were the one who was claiming ad hom, and every other sort dishonest debate tactic. Now it's quite clear that when presented with honest ideas, you'll hide behind anything even the whine of someone unwilling to take one mouse click before you'd defend your ideas.

    It is stated quite clearly, in response to you original post in this thread. Click the link, and you'll have it. We're all waiting.

    Everyone is watching to see what your next actions tell us not only about your ideas but also about your character.

  13. So you are applying current American law to the Fountainhead? I am not. I am applying Objectivism to it. I don't care about the current law whatsoever. Lots of immoral crap in it.

    Well you'd have to cite why that particular law is immoral in this application. Otherwise it might be a perfectly valid interpretation even under Objectivism and so it is. Again, you really are showing youself to be a poor defender of your own ideas. You're not going to take one step beyond that original statement are you? You call that debate?

  14. No if you look at the previous post, I deal with the arguments that you and Johnathan13 seem to think justifies you. And I quote Rand against you. hellooo...

    These two posts, answer quite sufficiently your original claim. You have yet to respond.

    http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...st&p=241239

    http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...st&p=241181

    Have at her. That's twice now.

  15. You realize that a government project could be privately funded and owned, right? For instance, they may simply have planned to sell the project when completed, just as, say, Boeing is a private company that builds things for the government.

    Yes it could be, but since this is a novel and not a real case you can't just make stuff up. Your argument is hanging by the thread of whether it actually is or not so if it's not in the book, you're done. You need to provide evidence that it is NOT the government who is the contracting party, not simply claim that it "might" be. Time to crack that book you haven't looked at in a long time.

    You really think this is good debate on your part. Not even armed with the actual facts and all. Could you actually quote Rand against me?

  16. Joanthan13's points were not all the same as my point. I did agree with him however. I will let him defend his points. Mine is quite clear. The contract between Roark and Keating has no legal or moral force since Keating has no rights over Cortland whatsoever, regardless of whether it is public property or private property. He had nothing to do with Cortland at this point.

    I've spoken to this point three times now. Are you going to actually address my points or simply offer nothing other than a repeat of your first statement. If you stick your fingers in your ears and say it loud enough it doesn't make it any less false.

    As far as not responding to this or that, I lost interest after the absurdity of "stupid ideas" and the other silliness. I will respond to anything on topic, in time.

    Well then if you lost interest you shouldn't make claims about what everyone has or hadn't done.

    If I didn't, say it again. As for "being offended", I am not. My self-esteem is not dependent on the approval of some people on an internet forum. It merely bored me.

    Further, just looked it up in the movie. That line says, "Well, what are you going to do about it? Sue us? You will find that you can't sue us." No mention of government in the scene. Maybe in the book. Been a long time since I read it. Irrelevant.

    Wait. You claim that no one has quoted Rand against you and yet you admit that you're not even armed with the facts of the book itself to be able to use as your defense? Are you admitting now that you challenged my quote based on your knowledge of.... the movie, and not the actual book?

    You know I gave you teh benefit of the doubt early on as a newbie. The more you show your ignorance, the more it's clear that you didnt' even deserve that.

    As to the irrelevance, again, I've addressed this three times. The law does not provide for "squatter's rights" to the governemtn for Roarks design after the fact. The fact that Cortdland exists does not give the government rights to Roarks design. If Cordtland was constructed in breech of contract then it's construction represents a forceful taking of Keatings and thus Roark's property. Roark's and Keating's contracts are valid and Roark has been defrauded of his design under any legal interpretation. What you will have to do to counter this, is not simply restate your original statement, but you're going to actually have to cite the law.

  17. I read your post again. You were responding to Jonathan13's point, not mine. Further, your quote from The Fountainhead is in error. That line does not include the word government. I see no other quotes from Rand.

    Jonathan's point is the same as your original point. That Keating had no right.

    So you're suggesting that Keatings contract was with someone else than the government? I'll check it again, but I copied it directly from the text this am. If it should have been in brackets, I'll grant that. However, considering its metioned time after time that this was a governemt housing project and that beaurocrats were the ones making the changes. You need to provide evidence that it wasn't the government who Keating's contract was with.

    Bottom line, Keating had no right to make any contract with Roark concerning property he did not own. Roark knew this fully, which is why he didn't blame Keating for the collapse of their deal. Rand herself condemned the blowing up of public property as a form of political protest in Return of the Primitive. Further, the idea that it is irrational, as expressed by others, to cease the entitlements immediately because it would cause instability in the society and thus wouuld not be in one's self-interest is a flat out condemnation of John Galt, who did his very best to stop the motor that was powering all the same type of policies.

    Basically, only Jonathan13 has been advocating an Objectivist position in this thread, besides me. Very, very disappointing.

    I dealt with this claim that "Keating cannot make a contrat with Roark" in my second post, directly to your quote, not to Johathans. You didn't answer that. It is a completely flat out wrong statement. Moreover it is ignorant of the law. Having negotiated more than a few commercial contracts in my time, I know of whence I speak. Keating is fully within his rights to make a contract with Roark stipulating that he will only sign contracts in the future that require the building to be built as it is designed by Roark.

    You'll also note that there aren't any ad hominems in those posts. Incredulousness, definitely. Insults probably. Trust me you're earning them faster than I can generate them.

  18. I'm completely satisfied that my arguments have won this debate. The fact that no one is addressing any of my points, no one is quoting Rand against me, etc pretty much says it all. Instead, you want to argue that its legitimate debate to claim someone has stupid ideas. Pathetic.

    No if you look at the previous post, I deal with the arguments that you and Johnathan13 seem to think justifies you. And I quote Rand against you. hellooo...

    These two posts, answer quite sufficiently your original claim. You have yet to respond.

    http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...st&p=241239

    http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...st&p=241181

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