Leonid

Probeson " It should be clear to anyone who has objectively looked into this conflict that all of the wars Israel has fought happened outside its mandated borders." The person who undertakes on himself to discuss Israeli-Arab conflict should at least know that Israel hasn't had any mandated borders till peace agreement with Egypt and Jordan. Israel doesn't have mandated borders with Syria, and Lebanon and for sure not with Palestinian autonomy for this is not a state.

Around what principles French or Italians or Spaniards or Hungarians united? The only country which has a philosophical foundation is USA. Why you deny from Jews a natural state in which all other nations exist? And you are mistaken by referring to Jews as religion. They are a nation exactly like French or Americans. They share language, culture and heritage. I for example a Jew and atheist. Even according to Judaism a Jew is a person who born from the Jewish mother, that's all. He could be Christian, Muslim or Hindu, but from the view point of Jewish and Israeli law he is a Jew. To deny the country of Jews, created by Jews as a Jewish national home to be a Jewish State is a terrible discrimination. And this is not true that non-Jews are denied Israeli citizenship. There are a million ethnic Russians who live in Israel as full citizens. Everybody could immigrate to Israel, the difference is only in the process of naturalization. So there is no apartheid in Israel. If you really look for the apartheid laws you should check the laws of Palestinian autonomy. Its laws stipulate that everybody who sell land or property to the Jew is punished by death. That means that I can buy land everywhere in the world but not in Judea, from where the very name of Jews originated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_land_laws http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/PA-affirms-death-penalty-for-land-sales-to-Israelis "Muhammad Abu Shahala, who worked for the Palestinian Authority reportedly confessed under torture to selling his home in Hebron on the West Bank to a Jewish man." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134245/Former-Palestinian-intelligence-officer-sentenced-death-selling-home-Jew How about to BDS Palestinian autonomy? If people who call to BDS ( Boycott Disinvestment Sanction) Israel were having a grain of integrity they would do it. BTW, why you are trying to revive the myth of ethnic cleansing which never took place? It is a historical fact, that the majority of Arab population left Palestine on their own ever before initiation of hostilities in anticipation that victorious Arab armies will drive Jews to the sea. Read " The Haj" by Leon Uris.

Do you think that Israeli Jews allowed to visit Syria? Israel is in the state of war with this country. The war never ended, the present situation is not peace but armistice. In the whole human history of wars no government ever allowed a free movement of civilian population to and from enemy's territory. Your problem is that you constantly take things out of context in order to present very distorted and biased picture of Israel. All anti-Zionists do that. If you think that such a position could promote peace in the Middle East or help Palestinians, you are mistaken.

Probeson """... bars a list of candidates from participation in elections to the Knesset “if its aims or actions, expressly or by implication” deny “the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.” Israeli law also prohibits participation in election of any party which propagate racial, ethnic or religious hatred. For example a Jewish party "Kah" of rabbi Meir Kahane had been prohibited to participate in elections in 1988. And I cannot see any basis for your claim that Jewish state is inherently racists simply because it's Jewish. France is a French country because the majority of its population is French, they use French language and share French heritage and culture. Nobody claims that France is racists or antidemocratic, in spite that 10% of its population are Arabs. Israel is not an apartheid state as Rev. Meshoe observed, and this observation is not social metaphysics ( whatever it means) but based on his personal first hand experience with apartheid and Israeli reality, an experience which you obviously don't have. Israel doesn't discriminate against Arabs, but it's a mixed economy and such a state as Ayn Rand rightly observed, exists in the state of permanent gang civil war. There is no one ethnic and not only ethnic group in Israel which never claimed a state discrimination, by which they mean that state doesn't distribute funds equally. There are immigrants from Russia and Morocco, Ethiopia and Poland, there are young and old, religious and secular and many others who claim that state doesn't treat them equally. Arabs are not an exclusion. This is not an apartheid but a natural condition of welfare state. In USA, Europe and many other places the condition is exactly the same. The laws you cited are not directed against Arabs or any non-Jews but created in order to build Jewish national home, to help Jewish immigrants to settle in Israel. Jews used to help each other for thousands of years and nobody called them racists for that. If you really and sincerely look for the signs of apartheid, you should look to the Arab side. Recently Mahmoud Abbas the head of Palestinian autonomy said that no Jew will be allowed in the future Palestinian state. http://zoa.org/2013/07/10209533-zoa-condemns-dictator-abbas-reiterating-statement-no-jews-in-future-palestinianstate/ Such a statement would make the architect of Apartheid Hendrik Verwoerd and his teacher Adolf Hitler really proud. Or consider the words of PLO ambassador to the U.S., Maen Areikat: “I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated." As I mentioned before the exact meaning of apartheid is separation. There are Palestinian leaders who promote the policy of apartheid, not Jewish state.

In Israel one of the Supreme court judges is an Arab, 4 Arab political parties represented in the parliament and Arab is a vice prime minister. Israeli Arabs have exactly the same rights as Jews, including right to vote, and less obligations. For example they don't have to do military service. Apartheid is a word in Afrikaans, originated from South Africa and means separation, or what they used to call a separate development. Israeli Arab citizens are not separated from the Jewish population in any way. The only law which gives to the Jews a preferential treatment is the law of return. But this law which grants to any non-Israeli Jew an instant citizenship discriminates not only Arabs, but any non-Jew. Since Israel had been created as a shelter to the persecuted Jewish nation, such a law makes a lot of sense. That doesn't mean that non-Jew cannot get an Israeli citizenship. He simply has to go through the process of naturalization as in any other country. Israel is a secular state, in spite that religion plays a major role in Israeli society, exactly like Christianity in America. But religious laws as a rule are not enforced by the state ( few such a laws like prohibition of TV broadcast and public transportation on Saturday existed in the past). In short, if Israel is an apartheid state, then USA is apartheid state as well. To call Israel an apartheid state is an insult to all black and white South Africans who fought against apartheid. For example Reverend Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, an outspoken member of the South Africa Parliament, wrote in "San Francisco Examiner" : "As a black South African who lived under apartheid, ...in my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa.Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is...in my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above...Black, brown and white Jews and the Arab minority mingle freely in all public places, universities, restaurants, voting stations and public transportation. All people have the right to vote. The Arab minority has political parties, serves in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and holds positions in government ministries, the police force and the security services. In hospitals, Palestinian patients lie in beds next to Israeli Jews, and doctors and nurses are as likely to be Israeli Arabs as Jews. ...None of the above was legally permissible in apartheid South Africa!" The description of Israel as apartheid state in his opinion is "slanderous and deceptive" to make such accusations against Israel as doing so "trivializes the word apartheid, minimizing and belittling the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of color." http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23889/Default.aspx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se5xTh8uwyo Or consider the statement of Aatef Karinaoui, a 42-year-old Bedouin Muslim resident of the city of Rahat, who is running for the Knesset this year: . I’m a proud Arab and a proud Israeli too. I’m not a Palestinian. Look at Syria, look at Egypt, look at Libya, look at Tunisia and look at Bahrain; the problem is not Israel, it’s the Arabs.” He continued, “I have no problem with the Star of David on the flag or with the national anthem –- no problem at all. Israel is a democracy, and I respect every country that is a democracy. http://unitedwithisrael.org/bedouin-supports-israel/ About 44% of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli citizens, consider Israel as a democratic state and less then half agree that there is a discrimination against them. Majority trust in Isreali institutions and only 18% are bothered by Palestinian-Israeli conflict and 38% consider themselves as Israeli patriots. http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=26236#entry314105 If one wants to claim that there is still a lot of animosity and problems between Jews and Arabs in Israel, I'd agree. But if words have any meaning ,designate any concepts and aren't just parroted labels, Israel is NOT an apartheid state.

"Interact with others in a manner that is consistent with the pursuit of ones own happiness." And what is it? What if one is a sadist and his pursuit of happiness is consistent with a torture of others? Or he is a racist? Or anti-Semite? Kant simply paraphrases the Golden principle of rabbi Hillel which is a subjective standard of value.

"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other eases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it." Wealth of Nations That was written by Adam Smith in the year 1776, clearly before full Industrial revolution took place. Yet he concluded that a work motivated by self-interest benefits the individual and society. He also observed that "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

Ayn Rand never viewed capitalism from the collectivist point of view of common good. Capitalism by her definition is a socioeconomic system based on individual rights where all property is privately own. In other words, for Ayn Rand capitalism first of all is a moral system which befits and benefits the rational individual. Since society doesn't exists as a physical entity but in fact simply a collection of individuals who interact with each other, a system which benefits each and every individual will benefit society as a whole. This is not a primary moral justification of capitalism, but one can take it as a formal logical proof that capitalism will necessarily lead to the greater prosperity of society.

Too bad. Sense of duty eliminates compassion because duty has no moral referral. Duty to whom and why? Duty is Kantian term and it presupposes means without ends. Duty denies a beneficiary of the moral action. In this particular case it"s even not a dog.

If he didn't like him why he kept him?

In spite thousands of words written by Ayn Rand and other Objectivist philosophers people still fail to distinguish between altruism and compassion. Dog cannot feed itself. If man adopted dog he took certain responsibilities on himself. Besides, dog is valuable and feeding dog is sort of trade, that is exchange of values.

As Kant put it: " The sovereign, as undertaker of the duty of the people, has the right to tax them for purposes essentially connected with their own preservation. Such are, in particular, the relief of the poor, foundling asylums, and ecclesiastical establishments, otherwise designated charitable or pious foundations. 1. The people have in fact united themselves by their common will into a society, which has to be perpetually maintained; and for this purpose they have subjected themselves to the internal power of the state, in order to preserve the members of this society even when they are not able to support themselves. By the fundamental principle of the state, the government is justified and entitled to compel those who are able, to furnish the means necessary to preserve those who are not themselves capable of providing for the most necessary wants of nature. " The Science of Rights, sec C. In other words the need of some people becomes a claim for the wealth of others.Kant was a most prominent philosopher in the modern history. He defined the ethical and political trends of our times. Is it any wonder that we are living now in the Age of Entitlement in which herds of infantile egoists demand for free more and more "most necessary wants of nature", like running water, health service, education electricity, transportation, communication, etc, etc, etc...

The problem is that unlike our ancestral hunter-gatherers we don't live anymore in accidental world. We are living in artificial environment. Everything around us, everything we use in order to live, except the air we breath, has to be created and delivered to us. if we find ourselves in the metaphysically given world, naked in the middle of the bush without any tools, we won't be able to survive for 2 days. Since our civilization is based on the principle of labor division, our survival depends on our ability to produce certain goods and services which we ourselves don't need and which we exchange to the goods we need. Because the world in which we live is mostly man-made, and our survival depends on it, many people have a tendency to view it as metaphysically given, that is-people can have goods simply because they have a need and goods are out there, like the breathing air or sunlight. They view I-phones, computers, education, housing, health services as part of the nature and claim all these and more by right. This is an infantile egoism, an epistemology of hunter-gatherers which was appropriate 40000 years ago, but doesn't apply to the modern world. The educated people do recognize the man-made nature of our world, but claim that because people's lives depend on the man-made goods and services, it is a moral obligation of everybody to provide everybody else with whatever he needs in order to exist, regardless his ability to produce and to give anything in return. This is altruism. As Auguste Comte who coined this term put it "The individual must subordinate himself to an Existence outside himself in order to find in it the source of his stability. And this condition cannot be effectually realized except under the impulse of propensities prompting him to live for others.". Since such a condition is simply contradicts a human nature, it could be implemented only by initiation of force. When the individuals do that, we call them criminals. But if society as a whole accept and implement such a principle we call it the State.

The whole issue has to be re-designed. The main point is that one acts primary not in order to die for the beloved, but to save his or her life. It is seldom a case that certain unavoidable death follows such an action. One only has to evaluate the degree of the risk one prepare to take in order to achieve one's goal in accordance with his hierarchy of values.But isn't that apply to all actions?

The question is what is a philosophical and psychological basis of such an attitude. In my view these people are infantile because they even don't think in terms of slaves and masters. They don't internalize the fact that goods and services have to be created by somebody. For them they are simply exist and have to be distributed equally. Epistemologically they simply fail to see a difference between metaphysically given and man-made. In fact it's much worse than just a parasitism. A parasite at least recognizes the fact that he needs a host. A master knows that he needs a slave. An infantile egoist doesn't have to worry about such things. His source of good and services is a government which provides and suppose to be as omnipotent and omniscient as alleged God. The origin of wealth is not of his concern. He doesn't make any mental connection between goods and services and man's effort. If he asked how in his view he could be provided, his answer would be " some how". "Atlas Shrugged" of Ayn Rand exposes this attitude in full. Altruism is simply a sophisticated rationalization of it.

The key word is " lawful" Government supposes to make laws. As long as they are objective, their execution will be a function of privately funded law enforcement agencies. Therefore the state cannot wither away as Marx was dreaming. There has to be a mechanism to put retaliatory force under control of objective law.

Eioul-no, there wasn't any revolutionary situation in Russia, not in the terms described by Lenin. After Tsar abdicated, there was an interim government which called a foundation assembly in order to establish a constitutional republic. Lenin arrested the government and cancelled the assembly using a relatively small military force.It was simply a military coup. Then he established a dictatorship which lasted 70 years. If this is a revolution then any take over of a city or part of it by Mafia gang is revolution as well. I'd agree with you that multiparty system is inadequate for Objectivist society. However what in your opinion will constitute the process of nomination of government officials? Maybe the old good monarchy will do?

This is a full quote : "To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action." V. I. Lenin The Collapse of the Second International http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/ii.htm

Eiuol, you don't read Russian history very well. What Lenin did wasn't revolution at all. It was a coup d'etat followed by bloody civil war in which 2 million people perished. In Lenin own wards revolutionary situation exists when “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; " Nothing like that that happened in Russia.

Depends on your partner. Romantic love in Ayn Rand words could be a highest passion for the highest value. It's like to ask is it rational to lose your life, fighting for freedom? After all even a slave can pursue and get many values. Evidently it's not the same. However, if a value of your partner is not that high and you can live nappy after her demise, don't die for her. That would be a sacrifice.

This is a question of hierarchy of your values. IF you can live happily without your girl friend, don't die for her. If you do, that would be a sacrifice. Concentration camp is altogether different story. It's like emergency situation where you have to fight for your mere existence. But nobody spend the whole normal life span in the concentration camp. It's a temporary situation.

It is sad to observe how the rule of law becomes rule of the mob and whim.

Thank you for your input. I'm mostly agree with the position of StrictlyLogical. In Objectivist society the process of nomination of government officials should also been objective, not driven by the whims of the mob, or ability to look cool on TV.Unfortunately, no one even suggested what such a process may be. No constitution per se even protected freedom, it always could be amended, changed or suspended by using for example a national emergency as an excuse. In my view the main function of the government is a legislation and therefore legislators should be judges nominated in accordance with their previous records. There is no need to change government every few years just for change sake. Since government will be a privately and voluntarily funded institution, people always will be able to remove it by cutting funds. it is clear that in such a situation the nomination of government officials would be a rare event. In any case Objectivist society would end a democracy as we know it today. And for the best.

Life is worth living only if one acts in order to pursue, gain and keep values which constitute life. For man here is a difference between life and mere vegetative existence which is in many respects is worse than death. if one cannot keep and protect such a values, like for example life of the the loved one, his life becomes meaningless. Therefore the choice to die for his/her protection is in fact an affirmation of life and a moral choice par excellence. And this is a profoundly selfish choice. For other hand to choose life of misery without happiness would be a sacrifice. .

Will a future objectivist society be a multiparty democracy? if so, how philosophically parties will differ? What would happen if non-objectivist party will win election?