danielshrugged

Well, of course that guy hates Atlas; he's a libertarian! For God's sake, I have a Sparta-loving communist friend who is reality-oriented enough to love Atlas as fiction.

Really? It's one of my all-time favorites.

The movie is Chocolat.

I think you're misrepresenting Dr. Peikoff's position. Dr. Peikoff condemns people who refuse to vote because they think both Bush and Kerry are bad. He doesn't condemn people who refuse to vote because they think Bush and Kerry are EQUALLY bad. In that case, he would probably agree with you that they are making an error of knowledge.

Not all libertarians are. I'm sure there must be some good libertarians out there, too. The problem is that the Libertarian Party denies or ignores fundamental moral (to say nothing of epistemological) issues on principle. So they might not all be anarchists, but the party does nothing to separate itself from anarchism. That said, it is true, in my experience, that a good chunk of libertarians are anarchists.

I don't know much about those authors, but I do know that Adam Smith is explicitly altruistic.

All right, obviously you have access to the statistics that show a correlation between agreement during class and participation grades in the OAC. Maybe you would like to post those statistics here? For you to question the honesty of the wonderful people at the OAC, without any means, on your part, to know how they conduct class, is downright dishonest. Furthermore, the only evidence you DO have is the reports of those of us on this forum who are in the OAC. Yet you ignore and MOCK those reports.

I think this thread is pushing me more towards Kerry. I haven't fully thought over my votes for the Congress...I know of one Republican that I will probably vote for. It's not as if republican = theocracy. There are some Republicans who are great threats and others who are all right. An important question to ask in distinguishing the two is: does this person (if religious) attempt to live by his religion as consistently as he can and to shape the world according to it, or is he essentially guided by the facts with a tad of religion on the side? Someone mentioned to me that Dr. Peikoff called Bush an M1.5. I think that might just make sense. He isn't Dark Ages religious, but his religion isn't just on the side, either.

And after Carter came Reagan (who, whatever his flaws, is at least a little better than Bush). Another Carter could knock some sense into this country.

Maybe a theocracy would emerge?

Now individual states are banning gay marriage in their constitutions. Several have already done this, and more are on the way.

Excuse my imprecision. You're still confusing belief in one idea with consistent thought and action based on that idea. That interpretation of the Bible isn't self-evident.

Dr. Peikoff can. http://www.peikoff.com/fordhall.htm Listen to the Ford Hall lecture on The One in the Many.

You're still confusing belief in an idea with consistent action based on that idea. As for how someone can belive in the Bible and support retaliation, it's not that hard. They see the war as self-sacrificial. They aren't defending their own lives. They want to sacrifice in order to save other people (including so-called innocents in these Islamic countries).

I was not talking about philosophic destruction. I was talking about the fact that this country will probably exist for many more years. The danger is not our non-existence, but our non-existence as a free country.

Cap Forever, You're confusing the literal with the consistent. Obviously nobody acts on the Bible consistently. The question is whether they believe it, not whether they consistently act on it.

I've already said that I don't think either one will. As I said, neither one can defend us. I don't pretend to be able to predict which one will do us less long-term harm. In principle, Bush and Kerry are the same (if Bush is an M1, and I'm not certain he is). As of now, I see this election as a choice between a firing squad and a crucifix. Would you care to choose one of those? I am open to being persuaded that Bush is worse than an M1. The difference would then be, not that he would do a worse job defending this country, but that he would push us in the direction of a theocracy. I don't think it's very likley, after all, that America will be invaded or physically destroyed any time soon. The real threat is spiritual destruction, and that is what only an M2 can do.

I did not say Iraq was not a threat. It may have been. By calling it THEwrong target (and leaving open whether it was A proper target), I meant to say only that Bush has attacked a lesser threat while negotiating with or ignoring greater threats. Why does this matter? Aggression against the wrong target doesn't do us any good.

Something I've said is that the only difference between Bush and Kerry on the war is that Kerry will wait until after we are attacked by Islamic terrorists to retaliate against the wrong target, while Bush wasn't afraid to attack the wrong target pre-emptively.

Charles, Bush and Kerry essentially have the same foreign policy. I do not believe Bush will do more than Kerry to protect this country. Bush properly attacked Afghanistan, but he did not use overwhelming force, with the consequence that many of our enemies fled and have remained safe in Pakistan. But Kerry, too, would have attacked Afghanistan--perhaps doing a better job than Bush. Then Bush went after Iraq. It is debateable whether Iraq was a proper target; what is not debateable is that Iran has always been a far greater threat than Iraq, yet we will do nothing about Iran. And even if Bush eventually attacks Iran, he will once again fail to use sufficient force actually to eliminate the threat. Meanwhile, Bush is negotiating with North Korea. Dr. Peikoff's point is precisely that Bush's religion prevents him from properly defending this country. Bush talks tough, but his policies do NOT protect this country. At most, Bush is succeeding in delaying terrorist attacks. But do not doubt that they are coming. Regarding the cultural dominance of religious fundamentalism, you have to remember that it is concentrated in the "Heartland." Cities and suburban areas tend to be less religious, but they only represent half the country. Again, I will state that, right now, I still doubt I will vote for either candidate. That is because I see Bush more as an M1 than an M2. However, I am open to arguments on this--so I can't say for sure that I won't vote for Kerry.

Did you listen to the statement?

I've never seen an Objectivist use the word Randroid to refer to rationalists. I think it's a bad choice of words for that purpose, since it suggests that the problem with rationalists is that they follow Ayn Rand's philosophy too rigorously. You can search HPO ( http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&...phy.objectivism ) for the word Randroid. I have read that the word may have been coined by a Libertarian, by the way.

I also had a number of criticisms of the film, a couple of which you mention--but I did think that the plot makes sense. It's annoying to do the spoiler alert thing, but I would be interested in hearing what doesn't make sense about the plot. I have a couple of things in mind you could be referring to, but I think they can be answered. I enjoyed the film, even with its flaws--and it had extraordinary potential (which it failed to live up to).

I think it was Pericles who made the specific claim that there are dogmatists on this forum. My purpose in asking for names is that I want to make it clear that there is no support for that claim. And I want to make that clear in order to defend this forum, which is one of my values.

No, they didn't. However, John Galt definitely knew Objectivism. His speech IS the philosophy.