MasterScowler

Indeed. We are far too concerned with our public image; we have conducted this war in such a politically correct fashion that it has abdicated our capacity to succeed. Our soldiers are bleeding in the streets of Najriyah and Fallujah to satiate the sensitivities of the bleeding-heart liberals who oppose the war, and to cater to the diminishing approval of the Global Community. I'm tired of seeing the Good Guys die on unagrateful foreign soil. Spain has remarkably illustrated Rand's maxim "In the compromise between Good and Evil, Evil always wins". Spain has conceded, and Thailand has said that they will too; both will be forever at the mercy of terrrorists until they revoke the sanction they've given in doing so. We and our allies, on the other hand, continue to fight the good fight with one hand tied behind our backs, at the cost of our soldiers' lives. I think it's time that the insurgents paid with their lives, until there are none left, or they learn the value of rational self-interest. Whichever comes first is of no moment. First lesson of rational self-interest: if an 800-lb gorilla wielding a battle axe comes to your house and offers to clear it of cockroaches, one should not attack said gorilla with a butter knife.

Sorry if I haven't been clear. I reject that force requires physical contact or threat of violence. The Federal Government may legally sieze the property or freeze the bank accounts of alleged drug dealers. This is the use of force.

No offense, Kitty Hawk, but if that's all you got from it, then you missed the point entirely. The point of that particular aspect of SotF was quite clearly stated in the Wizard's Second Rule: "The greatest harm can come from the best of intentions". This is a paraphrase of "check your premises". Naked Empire was the first of three books on his remaining contract with Tor. I haven't heard that the third will end the series, personally. But I will concur with Kitty Hawk on this one. It's time to move on... When Goodkind first released Wizard's First Rule, he was a different person. He will deny this, but that matters not. WFR irrefutably has a much different flavor than does Naked Empire. If you read his interviews, so does Terry. He was more "moderate" when he first came on the scene. Now he is treading the fine line of pedantic Randroid. Pay very close attention to two things: The Keeper and Creator for one, and Richard's relationship with the D'Harans for another. He learned some very important lessons in D'Hara, not all of which Terry has yet addressed. I think the loyalty of the Mord Sith is still rationally questionable, as is the devotion of the D'Harans to the Lord Rahl (viz the logical errors of those who invested in D'Anconia's copper mines...) I'm waiting for Terry to resolve these topics; and I will be smugly validated if he doesn't...

Fair warning: Pillars of Creation was awful. The plot of Naked Empire was contrived, but the message was outstanding.

Which you did quite nicely, thanks. I'm not too worried about this being accurate, RC. I pride myself in being cognizant of my own paradigms of thought, and in seeking to conquer them. In this case, that the definition which makes the most sense to me also happens to include blackmail, slander, et al, only reaffirms that I was on the right track all along. I am not afraid of being wrong, mind you. As a matter of fact, I endeavor to find my incorrect ideas and ideals and squash them. That's one of the reasons I'm here. But after considering your post, and reconsidering my stance, I do not think this is one such case. Bearster, If "force" were a concrete concept, likely there wouldn't be as much debate about its definition, eh? Perhaps "reducing it to its epistemological core" could have been phrased better; RC seemed to understand what I was getting at though, so I'm not going to bother clarifying, if you don't mind. I'm not interested in semantics. Not always; one could threaten to blackmail a Senate-elect with revealing their rocky childhood, or a President with "proof" that he had smoked pot in college. It is not always a lie that is being revealed, it could be a matter of mere embarrassment for an honest error in one's past. The concept of blackmail does not presume that the "blackmailee" has done anything immoral. I knew a Feldblum went to Yale who was a fan of Rand. He was convicted of drug trafficking in his sophomore year and booted. A friend of mine tells me that he returned home, where he opened up a dry-clean business as a front store for harboring a fencing ring. i.e. Slander need not be true (nor even provable!) to be effective. *** Force is compelling a response from an individual by any means which they do not condone; be it legislation, internment, false implication, or hammering shoots of bleach-soaked bamboo under one's fingernails until they admit to a crime they did not commit. Force need not even be direct upon the individual; the Italian mafia in its heyday was notorious for implying that one's family could bear the response of one's non-compliance, and this is also a very effective tactic; today we call it terrorism. So I stand by my previous statements: force need not be a gun, nor even violent. It need only be a threat, real or implied, stipulatory or inevitable, of a specific response or situation.

It's the stigma of the underdog, Joerj11. People love to hate anybody who has more than them, so a movie depicting a member of the 2% as the bad guy will appeal to 98% of the populous. Well, maybe not 98%. Not everybody who reads Rand is a millionaire... This, BTW, is the same fallible thought process that made Christianity so popular; it appeals to the underdog -the poor, the sick, the suffering- tells them that they will be rewarded for these things; glorifies their toleration of it! "Do not be sad if you are hungry, if you are poor; you are chaste for it, and will be rewarded in the End!" Of course so many hate the wealthy; because they feel inferior! And besides, what if they're wrong, what if they will not be rewarded in the End? That means they suffered all of their lives for nothing, while the wealthy got to have all the fun! O cruel irony! ZiggyKD has a good point. Here's another: Robin Hood. If art is a value-judgment of man's metaphysics, then in deciding whether or not a particular movie has any value, one need only consider its value-judgments. For example: The Unforgiven American Beauty Boogie Nights Saving Private Ryan Boyz n the Hood All of these stories have elements that might be classified as stark anathemas of Rand's philosophy, but I think every one of them is an outstanding movie. After all, sometimes a negative illustration of a concept is even more powerful than a supportive one...

I knew it! After the American Domain Name Reservation Society was disbanded, Harold C. Heralder, III (Esq.) veritably disappeared from reality. Some said he was holed up in the basement of a RT 66 Web Cafe somewhere in Utah, others said he returned to his native Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, to become a marine biologist focusing on the pseudo-sociological stigma of iconoclastic tuna, but I was not so easily fooled, no sir! Think about it: who, of any significance whatsoever, has heralded from Greenland since Leif Freekin' Erikson? So I just checked, and lo! www.americanbooktitlesilluminatisuqattersconspiracy.com is alive and kicking... (so they are obviously a legitimate group) and is a vile threat to free speech/thought everywhere! BTW, my own novel is called "Tramp". Is that too simplistic, d'ya think?

I was introduced to Rand via Terry's books, Skywalker. I am also part of a community of his fans, and an admin on his web site. Terry's own favorite novel is The Romantic Manifesto. He has been a fan of Rand for 30 years. The Wizard's Rules are meant to be paraphrasal of her core values("The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason") as well as some of his personal philosophical views. I don't think he refers to himself as an Objectivist, however. Much like myself, there are certain topics where he would not seem to be in complete concordance. For example, consider how many times Richard sacrifices himself for the sake of others... Faith of the Fallen is probably his best book, and certainly reminiscent of Rand's writing. By Naked Empire, he has almost completely stepped outside of mere fantasy writing in favor of being philosophically didactic (to no small outcry from the Sword-and-Sorcery sycophants, who feel he is being more pedantic). But he is still one of my favorite authors. I find reading philosophal treatises tedious; books like Atlas and the Sword of Truth series add a little sugar to help the medicine go down...

In the Public Interest Monopolies thread, RadCap correctly asserted that the legislation of fair trade is synonymous with such thuggish tactics as drawing a gun. Wouldn't irrationally-founded laws designed to cut the legs out from under an objective entrepeneur be considered force? If you haven't already, check out Peikoff's article on Fact and Value. Rand considers Kant one of the most evil men in history; but, interestingly, he would not have broken any of the definitions of force presented here... I prefer to reduce esoteric concepts to their epistemological cores when I consider them. From the Princeton WordNet lexicon, then, force is (amongst other definitions) "to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means". Blackmail and character assassination, thus, are both means of force; no punch need ever be thrown, no gun need ever be drawn. As for America's involvement in Iraq, I consider it self-defense, despite being a preemptive military action. The force was initiated by Saddam. While shouting "I'm going to kill you" may not be the same as pointing a gun, saying it 19 times changes the scenario, too, esp when all the while being secretive about whether or not you are actually carrying a gun. Furthermore, he initiated force the day he decided that he could kidnap, torture, and kill at his whim. Some might consider this altruistic, it seems rather obvious to me that this action was in the United States' own rational self-interest. Deposing a piece of sh* criminal in the process is but icing on the cake (and a means of gaining support from the Rational Public Sector -those who understand the need to destroy evil when it appears). I reassert that, sadly, some people need a bullet in the head. (The Irrational Public Sector can euphemize this as Involuntary Enlightenment via Trepanation, if it helps them cope with reality...) Trepanning -uh, I mean... accomodating such persons is not initiating force; more likely it is a) answering force or 2) preventing it.

The reviews on TRQWBoEE(aEsTtDNFC) should be outstanding, although I think there was some confusion amongst his readers about whether or not it was the prequel or sequel to An Examination of Painfully Obvious Tautological Fallacies Regarding Life Qua Life in a Sarcastic Society, which I didn't care for as much as I will TRQWBoEE(aEsTtDNFC). (Sheesh, whatever happened to simple book titles, like The Republic? As if a superfluously redundant verbose book title were directly proportional to the value of its content...) I believe Sean Hannity uses similar writing methods; e.g. alternate reality...

RC: Here is The List as it Stands: *Encyclopedia of the World's Religions -R.C. Zaehner *Romantic Manifesto -Rand *Under the Banner of Heaven -Jon Krakauer The Iliad -Homer Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection Anatomy of Thought - Ian Glynn Ender's Game -Orson Scott Card The Complete CS Lewis (compilation) Let Freedom Ring -Sean Hannity Anthem - Rand The Virtue of Selfishness -Rand XML Benjamin Franklin: An American Life -Walter Isaacson Beyond Good and Evil -Nietzsche Antichrist -Nietzsche The Conquest of the Incas -John Hemming Darwin's Dangerous Idea -Dennett The Koran The Elric Saga -Michael Moorcock The Republic - Plato Nicomachean Ethics -Aristotle Sir Apropos of Nothing -Peter David OPAR -Peikoff *The last three I've read. I keep them in order as I gain interest in them, but the actual reading order is somewhat arbitrary... I like to break up the tedium of verbose, and painfully thought-provoking stuff with something light, silly and fun. Under the Banner of Heaven actually made me cry; the next night I read Paul Reiner's "Couplehood", and I switched to The Iliad instead of Sagan, thinking mythology would be a little easier on the brain... Even the Master Scowler needs an occasional break from the sturm and drang... And this doesn't include "The Reserves", about a dozen paperbacks and such that I keep around the house for when I need to fill a short gap of time between List selections. And "The Faves", e.g. if Terry Goodkind or John Grisham release anything at any point, they automatically move to the top of the list. Guilty pleasures, yaknow...

Damn. RH, you answered I question I never quite nailed down. Out-freaking-standing! I'll second AshRyan on that.

Exactly! Emotions ARE actions, because they are a form of thought, and thinking is an action. Emotions are a value judgment, and the emotion ascribed to that jugment will tell you its value. So the question is: Do you value hatred? Why? (I need to read Fountainhead again, because now I'm thinking it was Roark who said that the opposite of love is indifference.)

I do not like to worry; it produces nothing, and so is a waste of time. It has no value. I will ponder a trouble, but if I cannot resolve it, I put it away until a later date, when a resolution might be possible. Likewise, hatred produces nothing, at least nothing worth producing. I do not consider hatred a virtue, it is not one of my values, and I will not sacrifice my values to anybody for any reason. (BTW, feldblum, pardon that I can't recall the source, but I believe the opposite of love is indifference, not hatred. Maybe it was Rand... Anyway.) Looking at hatred at its most irreducible level, I think Nietszche summarized the inherent danger (and contradiction!) of such a thing quite well (viz fighting dragons). To wit: What can be said of she that steals only from thieves, but that she is a thief? What can be said of he that kills only killers, but that he is a killer? What can be said, thus, of he that hates only the hateful...

No smears, just being sarcastically playful. Kinda like the "twisted" (correct) logic comment, sarcasm. Sorry, forgot the <sarcasm> tags. My bad, I should know by now that sarcasm sometimes doesn't flow well via text. BTW, the last two sentences were also sarcastic. (Must be some Epimenidean blood in my lineage somewhere...) RadCap, OPAR is on "The List". Couple others precede it though. In the meantime, I hope I'm not imposing by posting. I sincerely do appreciate the insights. Apparently, you have the endurance of an elephant; your significant other must be greatly pleased. (Hey, only two paragraphs this post.)

Did I mention that I also have a dark, solipsistic, peculiar sense of humor? e.g. the monkey bones under my pillow, dontcha know... (Ah.. the monkeys... sweet, sweet monkeys.)

I had to think on this a bit, AisA. As it turns out, you are right; I do indeed subscribe to stipulatory intrinsic values. The stipulations are simple: 1) A human being has intrinsic value; sentience and conscience are prime factors of the definition of human, in this case 2) An evil human being abdicates their own value; anti-life has no value, nor do any who propagate it. Thus, I do not value anybody who does not value me. I do not believe a chair has intrinsic value. I do not believe a service has intrinsic value. I do not believe a moral code or any other normative concept has intrinsic value. But a human life does, by default, until such time as the value of life is discarded by the individual, or anti-life values are embraced by them. And what of accidental deaths? Would the survivor of a fatal car crash, where no evil intent was present, be guilty of murder or mere self-defense? Capital punishment is an issue in and of itself. I would be interested in taking part in a discussion if you care to start the topic. Duly noted. A soldier in a firefight mistakes a fleeing civilian youth for an enemy, and shoots him dead. What has been prevented? (viz Intrinsic value of a human being.) A soldier recognizes a fleeing civilian youth as such, and shoots him dead anyway. (He woulda grown up to be one of 'em.) Has value replacement been prevented here? (viz Intrinsic value of a human being.) If, in any of the above hypotheticals, it is determined that the individuals in question are at fault, guilty of wrongfully initiating force, a fitting reaction is necessary. If they are morally sound individuals, they will recognize their transgression and kill themselves for having wrongfully killed another, yes? If not, then an objective third party is justified in carrying out any retributive... er, responsive force, and since they have used deadly force, they are to be killed, yes? What if they had used debilitating force or mutilating force? Should the response be wholly reciprocal? Intent defines an action, and thus the reaction. This is the role of the conscience, that sector of reason whose purpose it is to make value judgments. As the conscience is a factor in determining the action, so too should it be a factor in determining the response. I concur with all statements on this. I do not propose a replacement of these statements, but an addendum. What I lament is that they chose to use their minds, almost inarguably great minds, for ANTI-life. thus, their deaths are not lamentable; their choices are. i.e. Some people need a bullet in the head, e.g. murderous dictators. These are people who have abdicated their right to life, and that is a shame, for life is to be valued.

I am the Master Scowler, for even unbidden I scowl dismayingly -and indeed, when focused, with baneful disapprobation! I do not broadly advertise my real name over the internet, no offense. The nick originated with my wife, in a way. She was upset with me one day for being unfriendly at a family function, proclaiming, "You're always scowling at somebody." To which I replied: "I don't scowl all the time... I've been known to smirk on occasion." She was unamused, I find no end to it. Heh heh. I am an aspiring writer, having completed the second draft of my first novel, and presently working on the final. I am quite passionate about many creative mediums, and consider myself a musician, artist, actor and writer of mediocre-to-mildly-impressive talent. I intend to hone my mildly impressive writing skill to masterful level, however. Potential exists exclusive of present status. I began reading Rand only a year ago, having devoured The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, The Romantic Manifesto, and a number of her essays. I have also read a little on Dennett, Kant and Neitszche, and on myriad religious topics, including Mormonism, Islam and some little-known ideologies, such as Huna. While I do not consider myself a philosopher, a theologist, or a scholar of any sort, I am confident of my grasp on most of these topics. (After all, one need not know whether Aristotle put on his left or right sandal first to comprehend A = A, eh?) Per Rand's own wishes, I do not call myself an Objectivist. There are some items which I have not yet resolved to fit comfortably within a true Objectivist idiom (and it will trouble me little if I never do). I don't think any one philosoper, Miss Rand included, has professed The Truth, or otherwise penned the Great Big Book of Everything That is True. Rand made mistakes in her life; no doubt she professed some of them at some point. That said, I do subscribe to Rand more so than to any other philosopher, but since I cannot be an Objectivist, I often refer to myself as a rational/ethical egoist, which is to say that rational self-interest is my prime mover, with the understanding that sometimes the "right" or "proper" course of action is not always the smartest. I'm looking forward to teaching and learning here. I'd appreciate that nobody makes a fool me, and will endeavor not to make a fool of myself. (I suppose I should have introduced myself ere I butted heads with RadCap, but alas, it is my lot to make bad first impressions, as I have little interest in propriety, preferring in its stead the aforementioned ubiquitous, woeful scowl.)

Perhaps I should clarify then. I purport that there are three forms of violence: aggressive, defensive, and retributive. Of the three, only defensive violence is justifiable. Initiating violence is in and of itself morally gray; the morality of the violence lies in the intent... in the value judgment placed by the individual. I would never kill a man unless my hand was forced; any threat (the word "threat" implying myriad forms) upon me forces my hand, and even though I might be killing pre-emptively, I could still be acting in self-defense. When I speak of the responsibility (read: accountability) of the killer, I am not implying any specific recourse. Despite the paradigmatic context of the word, "killing" is not always evil, but it is always lamentable. That is not to say that any shame falls upon me for killing a Bad Guy, but that the Bad Guy bears the shame of espousing such values as to incur his own death. It falls inescapably upon each individual, be they solider or serial killer, to assess their values ere they act upon them. Regardless of whether or not my commanding officer or my President has ordered a missile assault on a village, if I am the one pushing the red button, I am obligated to resolve the value judgment of doing so; viz every single Nazi solider what executed a Jew, viz Ron Lafferty. Free Will demands personal accountability. The difference between murder and self-defense is in the value judgment, thus, it is good to kill a killer before they can kill somebody else, viz. the U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein. *** Yes, I understand the difference between murder and self-defense. Thus, I understand the moral implications of each. i.e.: I am accountable for what I do. I am not accountable for what you do. If personal accountability cannot be instilled, it must be enforced.

I have other questions and ideas on this topic, but I don't wish to impose upon you. You are a powerful thinker, and I appreciate the time and consideration you've given me, and I recognize that you are not obligated to correct my path, that it is my own duty to do so. I thank you for what you have afforded me. Don't sweat the thug comment (I doubt you do). I am not so thin-skinned as to be psychologically damaged or otherwise offended by your opinion of me. As a smart man said: If you do not agree with my decisions on what actions to take or not to take, that is your TOUGH LUCK. Besides, it's an inaccurate assessment. But if you don't mind, a closing statement: FWIW, I think the disconnect in this discussion was not wholly on rights, but more so on value. I wish every man was morally sound, that there was no need for government. But I recognize that for what it is: a Utopian ideal, a mere wish and thus without value. I understand that to assume that we could feasibly and successfully operate under such lawless premises would be to deny reality. Rand did not condone anarchism; a laissez-faire republic was her ideal government. She, too, recognized the need for legislating and policing Bad Guys. Businessmen are not de facto Bad Guys, but some Bad Guys are businessmen. My focus was not to marginalize businessmen or their practices. My intent was actually to speak on values. To consider the value exchange of men; to consider the trade of currencies that do not necessarily equate without remainder; property vs life. I do not espouse any Kantian duty to their fellow man. I do not condone altruism qua altruism. I do not think you should give anything away, especially to your enemy. I do not think you should be idle in the face of a threat, real or implied. But in the context of rational self-interest, I also recognize that it is not inherently evil to help somebody. AR said that if you want to help somebody, and you can afford to do so, then go right ahead. She correctly renounced altruism as an irreducible virtue, as opposed to an exercise in rational self-interest. If I value the exchange, and can afford it, helping you is good. In this case, it is not altruistic; it is selfish! That should appeal to your ubermensch values quite nicely. What I am suggesting here is that the first value of all men should be life. Not the right to life, but the living of it. I am suggesting that the value in saving a life is a worthy exchange for any who can afford it. I am suggesting that each man reexamine their values, and what they can afford. Because value is not intrinsic, neither is the assessment of what one can afford. While you may value a chair more so than the seller, I doubt you value your life more so than the rape victim does hers -but as for the rapist... So the true moral question is whether or not you suffer a rapist. Whether or not you tolerate evil. Whether or not you sanction THUGS. Every day you must come into contact with others without consent. The moral questions come into play in how that exchange is conducted beyond the initial contact. Choosing NOT to do something is still a choice MADE, an action TAKEN. A rapist FORCES his desires on another. You WALK AWAY from a rape scene. A patient FORCES you to treat them at gunpoint. You REFUSED TO TREAT a patient. Indeed, A is NOT non-A. There is no such thing as a NON-action, RadCap. You cannot be alive without placing value judgments on that which you experience. Thinking is an inevitable action of living. Peikoff would appear to agree with me: In some contexts, a man is properly held blameless for an unreasonable idea, so long as he himself does not act on it. For example: if I conclude that, though you are innocent of any wrongdoing, your death would be a wonderful thing, but I then remind myself of your rights, hold myself in check and refrain from killing you, I may be free of blame and can even be given a certain moral credit: “He kept his idea within his own mind,” one could say, “he did not allow it to lead to the destruction of the innocent; to that extent, in actual practice, he was moved by the recognition of reality.” But this kind of analysis does not exonerate the philosophic advocate of unreason. In regard to him, one cannot say: “He implicitly advocates murder, but does not himself commit it, so he is morally innocent.” The philosopher of irrationalism, though legally innocent of any crime, is not “keeping his ideas within his own mind.” He is urging them on the world and into actual practice. Such a man is moved not by the recognition of reality, but by the opposite: by the desire to annihilate it. In spiritual terms, he is guilty of a heinous crime: he is inciting men to commit murder on a mass scale. Advocacy of this kind is a form of action: it represents an entire life spent on subverting man’s mind at its base. Can anyone honestly hold that such advocacy pertains not to “action,” but merely to the world of “ideas,” and therefore that verdicts such as “good” and “evil” do not apply to it? Your own twists of logic (correctly) value freedom. You (correctly) recognize that force is a denial of freedom, and that there are many other forms of force beyond the pointing of a gun. Your philosophy is (correctly) that there is nothing higher than the self, that your rights are inalienable and sacrosanct, that your values are well-considered and good. Your philosophy values property over life. It would cost you more to stop a rape than you would purchase in the exchange. It would inconvenience you more to save a life, than you would gain in saving it. My <sarcasm>thuggish</sarcasm> philosophy recognizes the exchange of many forms of currency; and the conversion of them is often complex. One must constantly examine the value of their currencies, so as to be truthful to their rate of exchange. As such, my philosophy seeks truth qua truth, recognizing the caveat that the premises for seeking may itself be skewed, and requiring great effort from the individual to counter their own prejudices. As such, my philosophy tolerates no convenient paradigms; i.e. it places no blame in being wrong, but does not suffer a man being knowingly wrong. I know that value is not intrinsic, RadCap, nor is it absolute. I know, too, that I should not force you to accept my values. But there are at least two values that all objectivists and rational men can agree upon: 1. I own what I earn. 2. Living is good. What we don't agree on, brother, is which, if any, take precedence. *** Again, thank you for the exchange. Feel free to offer your own closing statement, if you so deem, but as for me, I will take your cue and put this topic to rest.

Actually, this is exactly what I am getting at. To wit: you are the doctor. Your patient suffers a terminal illness, but can afford the treatment only in part. As a person, would it not trouble you to turn your patient away? could you do it at all? Say it's not even terminal. Say it's merely debilitating. Does that change your response? You are unequivocally correct. A slight, but important, correction: I did not say I value my life. I said I value life. Now, as a rational egoist, my life takes precedence, by in large, over most considerations. But as a moral egoist, I recognize circumstances where some values may take precedence over my own life: attack my home, and I will lay down my life to defend it. As a matter of pragmatic cost-benefit, this does not make sense; I can always build another home. As a matter of placing value on what I have earned, and the sanctity of my claim to it, I could not call myself a champion of reason were I to allow it to be taken from me without challenge. So when I say I value life, RadCap, I also value yours and your right to it. If I didn't, I wouldn't trouble myself to analyze my values; it is the difference between being self-centered, and rationally self-interested. Exactly my point. More later... In theory, no. In practice, yes. See, if a theory is of little use in practice, it's not a very good theory. What you're referring to is the exchange of their productivity; and I concur that there can be no other rational, moral form of exchange than by mutual consent. What I'm referring to is the exchange of lives. Four American people were mutilated in Iraq last week, sparking a resurgence of violence. NPR reported that three of the victims were former military; two Navy SEALS and an Army Ranger. The mass media reported them as civilian, however, to spark emotional outcry. Hussein is referred to as an oppressor, and a killer of women and children; the obvious contradiction is that everybody is somebody's child - why should the assassination of a child be more shocking or considered more evil? A man walks by an alley, and sees a woman being sexually assaulted; if he continues walking, is he more or less good than the rapist? Peter Schwartz said that the immoral — the unjust, the dishonest, the irrational — is by its nature anti-life and can offer no value. But justice is not self-propagating amongst the immoral; justice cannot be NON-action... The moral demand for action could not be more clear. Why didn't the Men of the Mind relegate themselves to Galt's Gulch, to live in mutual, rational, moral harmony, and never trouble themselves with the evil and injustice of the world outside? Why did Dagny shoot the guard when he could not decide whether or not to "allow" her passage? For risk of granting moral sanction... In this particular hypothetical, a doctor has the ability to save a life. You do not believe she has a moral obligation to do so. This speaks volumes of the doctor's ethics and values. Assuming she is not responsible for her victim contracting a terminal illness, she cannot be accountable for its effects. But can she lay any claim to value of life, any claim to a love of it, having so callously and impersonally disregarded the life of another? This makes no practice sense. How does she rationally resolve the remorse for a failed surgery? Should she feel more remorse for the loss of a toddler over the loss of a teenager, the loss of a mother over the loss of a father, the loss of a janitor over the loss of an executive, the loss of a transient over the loss of a president, or the loss of a toddler over the loss of a president? Please pardon the dig on mass-media demagoguery... Would it matter if the President had voted to raise taxes in her income bracket (thus mitigating his cost-benefit value to her)? You're unequivocally correct; I have no right to your property under any circumstances. but much like the doctor, how you assign value to your property and my life speaks volumes... Killing somebody is not the same as allowing them to die, but neither are laudable. re: Kenneth Lay and his constituents: The reference seems self-evident to me. You think I'm avoiding the question, I think you're begging the question. But, I'll bite: I'm referring to those what froze the stocks of their employees so that they could sell theirs first. Why bring it up? Why continually translate my English into your English? Here's why I bring it up: every day when I come home from work, I can see my neighbor cleaning a Glock at his kitchen table, glaring at me. He offers no verbal threat, but the inference of violence is not to be ignored. What action should I take, if not to initiate action against him? Should I disregard it altogether, as he has not inititated force against me? Initiating force can be a form of defense, can it not? This would be a fool's prolicy, as that right is immutably temporary, and thus of only temporary value. So if you have the ability to save my life, at no risk to yourself, and you choose not to, that is not the moral equivalent of "disposing of my life"? Myself, then, summarily: all men should be held accountable for their actions, if not personally, then externally. If I put in place the methods by which you rob me blind, certainly I cannot be held accountable for your theivery, though I would be guilty of comedic stupidity.

So said responsibility is garnered every time the trigger is pulled, correct? The gunman is "initiating" a bullet into somebody else's body, after all. Does this mean I need take no prisoners? If my Ranger unit storms an enemy's compound and finds that all of the militants therein are "pencil-pushers", am I to shoot them all? They are quite directly supporting the war effort. And while I'm dispensing "ifs", how would one ethically treat draftees vs enlistees? If Wackistan invades Funkistan, then introduces a draft (and it is well-known that Wackistan has methods to "convince" conscientious objectors), are the draftees initiating force, or are have they been forced, too? Or should they have refused, on pain of death -even their childrens' deaths, to initiate force against their neighbor, and thus accept moral responsibility for myriad Funkistani deaths? Of course, emergency situations are not the same as non-emergency situations; anybody with a gun pointed at me had better be prepared to get shot, regardless of their motives and life circumstances. Feeling remorse after the fact is far preferrable to getting dead. The moral responsibility, I think, does indeed lie on the shoulders of the initiator of force, i.e. the individual. If you are killing another person, you had better have a damn good reason to be doing it; yeah, your government is responsible for its actions, but you are responsible for your actions in the name of your government: viz Nazi Germany.

Perhaps you're correct, albeit semantically. Might I rephrase "public interest" as "services indispensible to quality of life"? If A = A, my friend, then healthcare is expensive. Comparative rationalizing does not change this. A true monopoly (and I thank you for not nitpicking my assessment of monopoly) offers no room for barter. What I am willing to pay is moot, as the service is unable to be had by other means, save perhaps relocation. Well of course not. We happen to concur on this point (which you seem rather fond of espousing). I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear that I am no proponent of whim worship; allow me, if I may, to expound a bit on my values, in the hopes of clearing up my ideas and precluding any further presumptions of me embracing slavery. My first value is life, to all other concepts sine qua non. If there is no life, then freedom, private property, happiness, love and any other value one holds are moot. Galt espoused this value as well: "I will do whatever you tell me to if you put a gun to my head." I also value work, and private property. I concur fully with MinorityOfOne's paper on SBC (I thought this a candid point in my post...) And I value personal accountability; I value this to the degree that where an individual lacks it, I think it necessary to bestow it upon them. Indeed, if you extoll any value exchange at all, then justice is an inseparable factor in that exchange; a dollar's worth of goods for a dollar's worth of productivity, yes? To wit: If moral sanction is the name of the game, and the dollar is the currency for value exchange, what is the dollar value of a human being? Are some worth more than others, say a doctor vs. a janitor? Once that dollar value has been established, we could guage against each individual's value the cost of saving their life, the difference of which would decide whether or not the doctor is justified in sentencing their patient to death, or if she has committed murder. Does Enron ring a bell? And here's what they have to do with anything: D'Anconia Copper. While I enjoyed and accepted much of Atlas Shrugged, I thought this particular moral lesson flowed both ways. If we do not legislate businessmen, we grant them moral sanction to do business as they see fit. If everybody in the world had as strong of values as did Galt or Rearden this would make perfect "practice sense", but our society is not utopian, and there are plenty like Lay and his "constituents", who embrace no such morality, and we would be guilty of their crimes would that we were to grant them sanction due to our inactivity. I do not wish to mitigate the freedoms of The Good Guys, RadCap. But nor will I grant sanction to The Bad Guys. Each man has a right to live their life according to their wishes. No man has the right to impose upon another. Each man has the right to collect what they earn. No man is entitled to another man's earnings. Works for me. So what about the "right to life"? Correction: I.E. I understand that men "ought" to exchange value for value, but that there "is" no monopoly on rational ethics in the business world (or any other nomenclature of men, to be sure). So while you might throw up straw men denouncing slavery, I also hear an undertone of "There are no Americans in Iraq." Are you suggesting that all men are rational, ethical and trustworthy, and that there is no need to legislate or otherwise hold them accountable for their actions at all? Rand said that at any time where public rights take precedence, it is thus inherent that at some point, one individual's rights is considered more important than another's. Like Francisco's lesson, this also flows both directions. If she is suggesting that no one individual's rights may trump another's, she paints de facto that the life of the patient is just as important as the life of the doctor, and if values can be prioritized, then does not the value of life trump the value of productivity? In other words, does the right to live trump the right to earn? I am not suggesting a zero-sum resolution. Hell, I'm not really suggesting any resolution at all. I am merely searching for answers.

orality. Oy. I can spell. Really I can.

I am curious as to any thoughts on this topic; e.g. is it unethical to legislate against monopolies where public interest is a prime factor; is it foolish not to? To wit: I live in the Chicago suburbs, and in Illinois, the phone giant SBC has been directed to lease out its networks to competitors at greatly reduced prices. I am not fully aware of the details of the matter, but that is semantic anyway. As I see it, SBC built the networks, and as such, despite that it benefits me directly, I disagree with this policy. Compete or crumble. However, this gives me pause to consider the flipside. If SBC did control 90% or more of the telephone business (a veritable monopoly), how would this affect the individual? With no competition, customer service becomes a non-factor, prices become arbitrary. There are some who may not conisder phone service a public interest, but I dare any of them to survive in the contemporary world without one for a month. Worst-case scenario, 911 is not available. Furthermore, what of other services, such as natural gas, electricity, medicine? While I can appreciate the Objectivist stance on individual deserts, I can't resolve for a dismissal of life in its stead; e.g. no human being should be deprived a life-saving surgery due to financial constraints. While a rational, ethical individual could responsibly manage a monopoly, I think it presumptuous and foolish to afford such a berth; to disregard the practices of Kenneth Lay and his constituents, for example, is to deny reality. So while I do not support the concept of legislating monopolies ethically, I cannot refute the practice rationally. Is this due to an error in my own logic? What is the implied "ought" to this "is"?