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Miles White

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Everything posted by Miles White

  1. My point exactly. Perhaps I misunderstood objectivist ethics. I always thought that man was by nature a selfish being, but maybe I am mistaking philosophical egoism with sphycological egoism. I always found shpycological egoism to make the most sense and only asumed that it can lead to philosophical egoism, in that case I do not credit what I said from above to be objectivist in nature. As far as the person diving into a river to save a suicidal lady, I was not calling it a virtuous act but mearly saying that if the individual wanted to save her then it could not be considered a vice but neither should it be encouraged. Or in other words, if it would bring great discomfort to an individual if he did not sacrifice his life to save a woman then I could not see why he should be stoped, even though that is not quit a deed to be promoted.
  2. Nobody has an obligation to do anything for anybody else unless you want to, but even then it's still not an obligation. First of all our society should not be asuming that they "need" anybody else to be their hero, individuals should try to become their own hero to the best of their ability. Secondly the only hero "we need" is the innovator, for productive acheivement is man noblest activity and the driving force of every economy/society. Absolutly not, but first of all lets figure out what "heroism" actually is. Do you define heroism as the ability to produce goods that will further the exsistence of man? Then the answer is no. Do you define heroism as simply lending a helping hand to others? Then the answer is still no. The fact of the matter is that man by nature is a selfish being. This means that everything that we do is solely based upon what we specifically want to do. A man works to earn money why? because he wants to. A man wears clothes in public why? because he wants to. A man dives into a river to save an old woman why? because he wants to. A man gives to a charity why? because he wants to. A man claims to hate egoism why? because he wants to. What most people don't seem to understand is the simple fact that to want is an act of egoism wether you like it or not. Remember, altruism is the doctrine of self sacrifice, in other words the only way to be an altruist without being a hypocrite is to do all the things listed above only replace the words "wants" with "doesn't want", and you'll see what I mean.
  3. I especially love the quote about "Buying a little piece of blue sky" and "The only way you can control people is to lie to them."
  4. Thought this video was rather interesting and suitable for the topic.
  5. Wether men vote for it or not can't sanction the act of theft. If men vote for people to initiate force upon their behave then that is their own fault but still does not make such a situation desirable or virtuous. Contrary to what most people beleive, there is an objective morality that exsits seperatly from mens petty feelings at the spur of the moment. It doesn't matter how many people want exitence to not exist, it does, it has, and it will. A is A regardless of what you or any random majority beleives. "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."- Marcus Aurelius
  6. That would most certanly be a heroic act, however to want to protect the intrest of the people must not be confused with altruism. For a man to sacrifice himself for another would require him to want to sacrifice himself thus rendering it an act of egoism. It would only be altruistic if he didn't want to save her and specifically saved her because of that fact.
  7. I remember hearing a similar list were Iceland was the happiest counrty in the world. http://www.reykjavik.com/News.aspx?aid=2006106300033
  8. I beleive that the government should be funded like insurence. For example, the police and local courts can be entirly privitized, but those people that pay a premium to the government will be free to choose what ever private police or court service they want completly free of charge because the government will sub-contract the service on behave of the donater. This system eliminates the free rider problem and gaurantees competative service maintained under objective law. The military would be a little more complex to fund, but that should be able to maintain revenue from the donations.
  9. I've never seen such a compilation of crap before in my entire life. Wow, I always thought libertarians were the least of all threats, but after reading those comments... now I understand how much more of a threat to freedom they are over the majority party system. How could they critisize some one who their own philosophy would be nothing without? It's hypocrisy, it's stupidity, it's ignorance, it's arrogance, there isn't enough words in the dictionary to describe the complete and utter atrosities of their mentality. They claim to be suppoters of capitalism by being anti-free trade and by spitting upon Rand. If this is the type of mentality that Ron Paul claims insperation from, than in the name of the best within us I hope Ron Paul fails miserably as he deserves and never runs for an elected office ever again.
  10. This reminds me of a funny little quote from Guiliani about the slogan "Change." "The only change that the Liberals want to make is the change that comes out of your pocket."
  11. It is only nessecary to interveine when they have initiated force upon us first, wich Osama Bin Laden did, which is why I support the war in afghanistan. At the time, I also supported the war in Iraq because I thought Bush was right in saying that they were holding wepons of mass destruction and was threatning to use them. I did not know that Osama and Hussain actually hated each other. Obviously now, my opinions on the Iraq war have changed dramatically but that still doesn't give Osama an excuse to get away.
  12. I beleive that Lyndon B. Jhonson had to of been one of the worst presidents in the United States history for preventing Barry Goldwater from becoming president. If only Goldy got elected, could you possibly imagine how much better things would be today?
  13. One of the things I love most about the gold standard. Anybody can print counterfiet paper that looks like dollars, but it's allot more difficult to try and replicate gold coins.
  14. It's a very difficult thing to do for the most part, because you can't force anybody to think a certain way unless they concent to it first, and even then it's still made by their own volition. I beleive at first that they should be taught what exactly they should not conform to, and when they reach an age were they want to seek an alternative the arbitray gray muck that is Subjectivism, then introduce Objectivism.
  15. Funny, and I just love how all these conservatives have a tendency to simply ignore the fact the Thomas Jefferson was a Diest.
  16. Does anybody know who plays Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in that show? My heros.
  17. Wouldn't it be funny, If bloomberg did run as an independant, and the republican voters who hate McCain all decided to vote for bloomberg insted in order to bring down McCain. Perhaps we are about to witness the death of the Republican Party, after all, look what happend to the Federalist Party or the Whig Party.
  18. I had no intent upon making a post with an angry feel to it. Perhaps it was the use of the word "claim" that produced a bitter tone in the post but I honestly had no intention upon making a critical post. I was making the post because I thought the argument he had was rather good even though I still beleive that taxation is an unecessary evil. I wish we could have a Freedom party over here in the United States that didn't have the word Peace preced it.
  19. Compared to Mccain and Huckabee? Thats a good point, perhaps now would be a very good opportunity to try and appeal to the Fiscal Conservatives, and Pro-choice Republicans out there that are just flat out fed up with the system. From the way many conservatives feel about McCain, allot of them would probably feel less guilty about adopting a new philosphy. One that actually makes sense this time.
  20. I found this video on youtube about Paul Mckeever (who's the leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario and Canada), discussing some of the political philosophy of Objectivism. However, what caught my interest was the end of the video were he claimed to justify taxation by saying that since techiniquly it would be moral to go out and hunt down a criminal who violated your rights, it's not recommended because of the risk that you would be taking in accedently hunting down an innocent man, and for that reason, we need to establish a government and for that same reason we need to pay taxes in order to maintain it. However, I still do not see how that example sanctions the initiation of force in order to generate revenue for the government, I found it interesting none the less and thought it was worth making a post about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zNn6p2r68
  21. Well, this sucks. Every time you find a candidate thats somewhat tolerable to root for, he resigns. First it was Thompson, then Guiliani, and now Romney. This was not a good year for politics, not like it ever is but this year was exceptionaly bad.
  22. I'm Miles White, and I was born and raised in Irvine Orange County California my entire life and still live here today. I hope to one day move to Laguna but thats still a far away goal for me.
  23. By social issues, I'm disturbed that he doesn't seem to beleive that the religious right is a dangerous threat to us at all. He supports overturning Roe vs. Wade which is not goood at all, and he is against immigration. His foreign policy is completly wrong. To allow terroists to get away with what they did to us on 9/11, is pacifism, and the thing with natural rights that most libertarians don't seem to understand or refuse to know is that your rights are worthless if you don't protect them. This means using retaliatory force against people when it is nessecary. If we except the docrine of pacifism, then we are allowing people to constantly violate eachothers rights wich thus renders the entire establishment of a government to be null and void, and there is nothing good about excepting that kind of a filthy doctrine on a national level. If a burgler robed from your house and you called the cops to hunt him down, should the government stop finding him because 'were making more enemies by pissing off the robers family members'? If no, then why should we do so with our foreign policy?
  24. I actually really hope Romney gets the nomination. Compared to all the other candidates, he's got the best credentials. Being a businessman, he's got experience of leadership and Bains & Company got rated by Consulting Magazine as the best company to work for. Also, his weird religion would only piss people off if he began to incorporate it into goverment. Romney is now my #1 choice for president. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_%26_Company
  25. This is a very disturbing topic. Even though technically they do forfeit their right to life, the one thing that would make this system fail is the possibility of wrongly accused people. What if somebody is actually innocent and is forced to become a mutant all because of a government punishment. The fact that there is no objective way a government can Guarantee that they will only catch criminals renders such deterrents to wind up doing more harm than good. So long as governments mistakenly arrest innocent people, such deterrents must be dismissed as a huge infringement of our natural rights.
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