themadkat

It's worth renting. One thing that I was able to do on the second viewing is, on the first time around I was very caught up in Ennis's story seeing as he is the main character. This time around I focused more on Jack, who is frankly the more sympathetic character to me anyway. I picked up on some things I didn't the first time either.

But the reason they were doing it was because the police were unwilling/unable to. There are, realistically, many neighborhoods in the US like that, where the police barely even come if 911 is called. Frankly, in a situation such as that, I would not at all think badly of the citizens if they took up arms to "clean up" their neighborhoods, especially the property owners. They specifically went after people who were unlikely to be punished by the "objective" legal system. On the other hand, the film shows that their choices were not without consequences (their severe injuries, the death of their friend). I, too, would applaud the efforts of those who dedicated themselves to taking out the trash if the legal system had shown its impotence.

I don't understand why people here hate on Boondock Saints so much. I really enjoyed this movie and I'd be interested to know what people disliked so much about it. Of course the whole part where they supposedly felt they were inspired by God was rubbish, but that's just something of an Irish Catholic thing and I was willing to let that go. Even though it was not a comedy, the humorous parts of the movie were priceless.

I can only say one thing. You, by yourself, cannot fix this. It is impossible. A relationship will die if both people are not willing to work on it. If your girlfriend does not freely choose to commit to making this better, there is no way around the fact that it must end. If the relationship is not worthwhile enough to her that she would fight for it that means she would not fight for you, and you can and should have a better woman than that.

I daydream constantly. I daydream about all sorts of things. Unlike the author's findings though, my daydreams frequenly are either violent or sexual (not both at once, thankfully, though one can lead into the other). But I also daydream about things that have happened, things that could have happened, what have you. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about alternate universes, like one of my alter egos in a story-scape. This is certainly useful for writing fiction. I don't tend to daydream much about my future or what I'm going to do. That's more often the subject of more straightforward consideration, full-on thoughts where I'm focus. My daydreams are more about drifting away, I think. I'm often accused of having my "head in the clouds" or being "absentminded", but I get great pleasure out of considering random possibilities and alternatives.

I know this is an old thread but it seems worthwhile to resurrect it. I saw this movie again last night. It was unfortunate that the DVD refused to play an important scene and I had a few too many folks milling about the area in the beginning, but I was still able to enjoy it. I have to say I enjoyed it even more the second time. What is the best thing this movie has going for it? Characterizations, and I'm a sucker for excellent characterizations. All the main characters are both written well and acted superbly and that is so rare these days. The casting was excellent. Everyone was believable and able to express a lot of depth of emotion while saying very few things. After seeing it a second time my take-home message from this movie is that no one can box you in better than yourself. Your worst enemies are your unexamined premises, especially when you refuse to seriously question them even after they cause a major contradiction in your pursuit of happiness. Especially in the character of Ennis, he is the one most repressing himself as an individual, not the society around him. It's his own fear that is his enemy. You can see that to some degree that has even been transmitted to his children. The scene where he is in the car with his daughter, Alma Jr, and neither of them says much when they both clearly have many things they would like to express, I ended up shouting at the screen "How much repression can you fit in just one truck?" Alma is barely able to ask her father to live with him when she clearly wants to and it seems she has more in common with him than with her mother and stepfather. These are just some of my initial thoughts. If someone has seen the movie and remembers it well enough I'd love to continue to discuss philosophical points about it. I don't care whether or not you actually liked the movie, although certainly if you didn't like it we may have some divergent interpretations of events in the movie.

The philosophy followed by the founding fathers was not Objectivism. Objectivism had not been formulated yet. The philosophy followed by the founding fathers was the principles of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism.

Yeesh. No wonder I'm a misanthrope. I want to see heroes in the world but when I look at the majority of mankind all I see is tribalistic garbage like this. What a waste.

I see a lot of good responses here already, but I wanted to add that from my standpoint it is a simple matter of justice. There is no reason for you to be treated this way. You are a valuable individual and you need to be treated as such, not as someone to be led around by the nose at another's convenience. The problem is, no one can enforce this but you. You've got to insist that anyone you deal with, not just this girl, treat you in accordance with your worth, and if they don't, you need to walk away. I know this is easier said than done, believe me. I've made this mistake too. But do not let another use your strength as your weakness. And definitely don't let yourself be ruled by your package. However good the sex may be, it's not worth how you'll feel about yourself afterwards when she throws you away again. This girl not only doesn't respect you, she obviously has no respect for herself either, which makes her dangerous to herself and others. There is a slim possibility she really cares for you, but even if that's true, she has way too much work to do on herself before she should even approach you. There's a lot of good people out there who would be glad to have you as a friend or partner and who will treat you as an equal. This girl has debased herself and is trying to take you with her. Don't do it. You can be better than that. One final thing: Don't be guilty that you still find her attractive. I've seen some people on topics like these more or less imply that there's something wrong with you for the fact that physically she still gets you going. Don't sweat it. Just recognize that it's something you're not going to act on and there's no need to sweat your physical responses.

Here's one article to get you started. I'm at work and don't have much time but I'm happy to post newer articles later (this one's from 99). This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's much more. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999-03-25/...cain-a-war-hero The forum isn't uniform. I definitely think climate change is occurring, and it may or may not be catastrophic at this point. However, I am not an Objectivist, so take that as you will. For me, the jury is still out on whether or how much humans have a hand in the change. What I believe the best thing to do is at this point is stop trying to prevent climate change (which is now impossible, if it wasn't always practically impossible) and work on dealing with the changes that are to come. To do that, clearly hobbling technology is not the answer.

At the end of the day John McCain is a crazy old man and is the last person we want with his finger on the big red button. Several folks who have known him for a long time say that he is not in control of himself and prone to over-the-top outbursts. Combine that with the fact that his military service was a total joke (he more or less collaborated with the North Vietnamese for several years) and that his political record is slimy from the beginning and I don't see how anyone can vote for him.

I would hardly call this band Objectivist, but my "theme song" so to speak is by No Doubt off their sleeper album The Beacon Street Collection: "That's Just Me" You think that I will change but you know that will never be I'm just that way, and that's just me Well it's just the way I am and I am doin' all I can why can't you see, I just can't change I could care less, what you see, I'm just nevertheless here for me... You always get what you want but still keep lookin', I guess you just never get what you need With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me Doesn't matter what you say cause my confidence will lead the way words will never do, sad but true And if I didn't act this way well it just wouldn't be the same and that wouldn't do, cause I'm not you I could care less, what you see, I'm just nevertheless here for me... You always get what you want but still keep lookin' I guess you just never get what you need With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me That's just me, that's just me Well it's just the way I am I am no Larry or a Sam why can't you see, I'm just that way Well there it is it's right here, so crystal clear, well there it is it's right here So crystal clear in front of my face You always get what you want but never get what you need you want it I guess you're just nevertheless lookin' for your dreams I could care less what you see

God this movie irks me. I'd almost like to go see it so I can help refute it if people ever bring it up in the future but I hate the thought of giving them my money. It'd be worse than the fact I paid to see Passion of the Christ. I'm so disappointed in Ben Stein...

I used to fall into this trap to a degree. It was because I understood the only moral systems to be deontology or consequentialism and I chose deontology because I supposed that it was the system based on principle (not seeing how it could easily come to be disconnected from reality). I eventually found my way around it because I had also chosen the empiricist side of the empiricist/rationalist dichotomy and, well, being an empiricist deontologist is a very interesting place to be. Do not fall into the trap here of supposing inaction to be the only moral course because then you run the danger of allowing the argument that "anyone who really chooses to make a difference will be dirtied at some point, just accept it, you can only stay clean by being uninvolved" which is untrue. I agree with other posters. The baby is already dead. Save the crowd.

The entire list is really pretty awful. Most of the choices don't even make sense. By what warped definition were they judging genius? It seems like for a lot of the list they're just using genius as a synonym for success, regardless of the person's intellectual standing.

My father's family is Catholic mostly (some Protestant as well), and my mother's family is Jewish. Neither of my parents are particularly religious and we never went to church. I was allowed to be exposed to religion and pretty much permitted to choose my beliefs in the supernatural, or not. The God thing never did anything much for me. I decided not only that there was probably no God at all, and that even if there was, He and I wouldn't get along.

Nope. Making it better for the students is reason enough for me. I'll be the first to admit that Zywicki in particular is kind of a moron, and I in no way support what he said in that meeting - as I said in an earlier post, it's paranoid neocon tripe. But there's no danger of the college at large ever adopting his worldview. For one thing, the faculty would never allow it. They're far too liberal. Secondly, most alumni do not feel that way. Far more are concerned with the direction of the college over all and what may happen to our prized undergraduate experience if the administration and its cronies on the board try to treat Dartmouth like a brand name instead of a school.

Thank you for that. The letter Paul is referring to is the one I posted here. I've already voted (class of 06 baby!), and I voted for him and his fellow slate members. I share a lot of the reasoning he outlined, though I diverge from him in some places and choose different points of emphasis. My main concern is that Dartmouth will lose its identity under these Board-packing folks. Their concern for "being outside the mainstream of higher education" is extremely revealing. I didn't want to be in the mainstream of higher education, I wanted a Dartmouth education, dammit. Dartmouth is not and never should be Harvard Lite or Princeton Jr. As I told a friend of mine, if I wanted to be in the "mainstream of higher education", I would have gone to Penn State for a hell of a lot less money!

I am a big fan of TJ Rodgers. The "petition" Trustees that followed him, not so much. Todd Zywicki recently made a bit of an ass of himself when he was caught spouting paranoid neocon tripe at a separate and, what he presumed private, conference. Still, even though I don't much care for some of the backers of the "petition" candidates, I feel their presence is so necessary that I'm willing to swallow some bitter medicine. On a more positive note, TJ Rodgers gave some fantastic interviews and explained his rationale in a detailed, logical manner in several publications both Dartmouth-related and otherwise.

Most people are probably not aware of the ongoing fight over the role of alumni in the governance of Dartmouth College. Most people are probably also not aware of the things that make Dartmouth special, or why it is not merely an analog of its fellow Ivies just stuck out in the woods somewhere. The following is a letter I received today from the Board of Trustees (minus four, but they try to de-emphasize that fact) which I found highly disturbing for several reasons. First I'd like to see if anyone can find objections to it on its face, and then I'll explain why I, personally, was infuriated by this. And for the record, I'm voting for everyone they're telling me not to. April 28, 2008 Dear fellow Dartmouth alumni, Last month, the Trustees launched a search for the next president of Dartmouth—a search that is critically important to maintaining the unique character of Dartmouth and ensuring that our students continue to receive an outstanding education. As we embark on that search, the College has become ensnarled in yet another divisive campaign—this time around the Association of Alumni (AoA) election. As Trustees of the College, we were reluctant to enter this debate, but we feel an obligation to respond to a recent letter by four trustees to alumni containing inaccurate claims and endorsing like–minded petition candidates for the AoA. This group has wrapped itself in the rhetoric of "democracy at Dartmouth" but they are working with national groups that have a clear ideological agenda for the College. The Upper Valley's local newspaper, the Valley News, wrote in a recent editorial that this group wants to "turn back the clock" at the College. They believe they can manipulate Dartmouth's unique process of electing alumni nominees for the Board of Trustees and are now waging an aggressive campaign to maintain control of the AoA, which administers those elections. A Well-Organized, Well-Funded Group's Campaign Against the College Critics of the College—long championed by The Dartmouth Review and supported by outside groups like the Hanover Institute—are well organized and well funded. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on full–page newspaper ads, glossy mailings, and web sites to elect their allies to the Board and now the AoA. They are supporting a costly lawsuit against the College. This will force Dartmouth to divert some $2 million away from critical priorities like financial aid and faculty in order to protect the independence of the College that Daniel Webster so ably defended in 1819. The plaintiffs have repeatedly refused to reveal who is really paying for their suit or their campaign, although an ideological special interest group—The Center for Excellence in Higher Education—with no connection to Dartmouth is raising money to support their lawsuit. They have politicized Dartmouth elections and have brought Washington–style politics to trusteeship. And, this week, The Dartmouth Review launched a reprehensible and baseless personal attack on Chair of the Board Ed Haldeman—unabashedly timed to coincide with the AoA elections. Members of this group even encouraged their political allies in the New Hampshire Legislature to promote a bill that would allow the Legislature to insert itself into the affairs of the College—a misguided effort that failed by an overwhelming majority. What Is This Group's Real Agenda? Amidst the many emails and letters you've received, we're sure you have asked yourself—what is this group's real agenda? Trustee Todd Zywicki provided an unintended glimpse of that agenda in a speech last October where he attacked Dartmouth and its peer schools, saying those "who control the university today[,] they don't believe in God and they don't believe in country." He discouraged people from contributing money to support the College and told his supporters that it would be a "long and vicious trench warfare I think if we are serious about taking the academy back." This group's political agenda is also at the heart of their opposition to the expansion of the College's Board of Trustees. We recognize that alumni have many different views on the governance issue, but after a thorough review of Dartmouth's needs, a majority of the Board determined that it was in the College's best interests to add eight new members who could bring additional skills and talent to the College—leaders who could help ensure Dartmouth remains a world–class institution. Four of our trustee colleagues filed an amicus brief against the College to try to achieve through the courts what they could not achieve in the boardroom through normal Board processes. We sent a copy of the report explaining this decision to all alumni. We also voted for a more open election process to ensure the winning candidate received a majority of votes. This group opposed the changes because they reduced their ability to game the system. They want you to believe that the Board is looking to "marginalize" alumni. The fact is that every member of the Board (except the Governor and the President) is a Dartmouth alum. Alumni will continue to nominate a higher percentage of trustees than at virtually any other institution in the country and will remain central to the College's governance. What Is At Stake For Dartmouth and Its Students? This group has publicly vilified the leadership of the College in newspaper interviews and letters. And, while the College is in the midst of a critical capital campaign—the largest in its history—they have done little to advance it and, in some cases, actively urged alumni to divert resources from Dartmouth to institutions that are more ideologically in tune with their own agenda. They have lost sight of Dartmouth's purpose. The College exists to provide a superb education to its students, not to advance the personal politics of its alumni. And now they are putting Dartmouth's future in jeopardy. They would push the College far outside the mainstream of higher education. As The Dartmouth wrote in a recent editorial aimed at this faction of alumni, "If you truly love it, you should be able to cherish the College without controlling it." What Does All This Mean For You, Our Fellow Alumni? By every significant measure, Dartmouth has become a stronger institution over the past decade. That progress has come despite the harmful efforts of this group—not because of them, as they have claimed. As Dartmouth looks to build on that strength, we want to encourage all of you to stay engaged with the College—and to read the election materials carefully and to let your voice be heard in the upcoming AoA elections. We need individuals representing Dartmouth alumni who bring no political agenda to the table—except what is in the best interests of Dartmouth. We need individuals who can fairly and effectively represent the views of all alumni and work with the leadership of the College to carry forward the business of Dartmouth. And we need individuals capable of unifying the College's alumni to help Dartmouth remain the finest College in the world. Please join us in putting Dartmouth's interests first. Trustees of Dartmouth Leon Black '73 Jose Fernandez '77 Christine Bucklin '84 Karen Francis '84 Russ Carson '65 Ed Haldeman '70, Chair Michael Chu '68 Pam Joyner '79 John Donahoe '82 Steve Mandel '78 Brad Evans '64 Al Mulley '70

My first response to this post is that you should be less worried about whether you are acting according to Objectivist standards and just make sure you are acting as rationally as you can by your own standards. Does your course of action make sense to you? Are you in concord with your values or struggling against them? What is your personal evaluation of your behavior and your responsibilities? That's what you should be asking. That said, I've been in similar pickles before. My position at present translates roughly to somewhere between your shift manager and your assistant manager. I may be able to comment on it from a business perspective if you like. But I still maintain that the best judge of your circumstances is you.

I am an athlete, how did you know? Also, just to clarify, I myself do not follow the above diet. I SHOULD. I would like to, and would find it satisfying. Currently, due to the nature of my night shift and the fact that I can't cook a lick, I don't eat as I should, and frankly, I know that's part of the reason I don't have enough energy and am a little on the chubby side. I currently enjoy recreational exercise on the side, but if I were to ever undertake serious practice of some sport again (which is not out of the question) I would need to seriously improve my diet. I definitely get enough protein as I'm something of a carnivore but I eat too much junk carbs and I need more fresh produce. When I buy a house, which I hope to do by the end of the year, my fiancee and I plan to have a vegetable garden so we can take the matter of good nutrition into our own hands and not have to rely on buying things as much. I have to say some of the best food I eat comes from a farm I visit up the road who holds a fundraising breakfast once a month. It did take me a while to get used to the very small portions of meat they serve in contrast to the much larger servings of veggies and potatoes, but even though they don't give you much meat it's delicious and really all the food is quite good. All the food they serve comes from that actual farm and they cook it up to order right in front of you. It's really delicious. What I wish more people understood is that giant factory farming operations dominate the market right now not because they are the most profitable, efficient business model but because they have benefited enormously from government intervention and regulations, right down to the estate taxes that force families to sell off their owned-outright land because they can't afford the taxes on it at the generation switch. For example, do you know it can be illegal to just sell some bread you made to your neighbor? How ridiculous is that? Food is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there. Like most pervasive problems we face, I think that freeing up the system and letting people do what they feel is best for them is the only long-term answer.

I'm surprised the issue of quality has not come up earlier. The assumption that our current methods of factory farming are the best way to feed people nutritious food is erroneous. The things that get introduced to the food in those places would make your head spin. Yes, cruelty is a factor, but another thing to keep in mind is that animals raised in a more natural (for them) setting do taste better and are better for you. If you eat a natural chicken as opposed to one pumped full of hormones and antibiotics (which, by the way, we're still not certain of the long-term effects of these things on us), yes, there is less meat, but what meat is there is much better for you and, guess what, tastes way better. The idea that our current factory farming system is somehow necessary to feed large numbers of people cheaply is not true. Less but better meat will feed you just fine. A healthy human diet does not actually require that much meat. Frankly it doesn't require as much grain as we eat either. Fresh veggies and fruit should be the base, a bit of grain for calories, and then enough meat to get your lean protein. If everyone ate like that, chronic diseases would drop through the floor, especially things like Type-2 diabetes. Want to know the difference between a steak from a cow raised in a factory farm in a stall on grain and then slaughtered in a meatpacking plant vs. one raised free-range on grass and done up by a butcher? I can take the latter cow, throw the steak on the grill for all of a couple minutes, and if I wanted to eat it then, still bloody, I'd probably be just fine. I'm taking my life into my hands if I do that with the former. Also that bloody steak is going to taste amazing. Lastly I want to take issue with the idea that animals are mechanical automatons. Something like an ant may be that way, largely responding to chemical cues, but the higher animals are certainly not like that. They are actually conscious, they are just not necessarily self-conscious and they don't have a conceptual faculty. I see both environmentalists and some Objectivists make the same mistake and say that we are somehow apart from nature, with different rules. We should neither be subservient to nor dominant over nature. Like any other animal, we are part of nature and, like any other animal, must live according to our natures. The main difference between us and other animals is that we do have a conceptual faculty which can give us a greater understanding of reality on a deeper level than anything else. But we're still animals and we still live within nature. Even a city is part of nature, just an environment that we happened to create. Lots of animals create their own environments to survive, just not on the tremendous scale we do.

I've met one child in my life who was diagnosed with ADHD and was in fact pretty impaired. I watched her for a summer when she was 7 and again briefly at the end of the summer when she was 9. She was a very sweet kid to deal with, the toughest thing about her being her literally constant need for attention. (This was a little hard for me in particular to swallow because even though as a child I was demanding of attention I could also be left alone for hours to my own devices and have been perfectly content. The demand for attention would come when I wanted you to see my drawing/high score/jail cell for my action figures/whatever.) I don't actually know if what she had was ADHD but she certainly had something going on. This child, however, was adopted from Russia when she was a toddler and undoubtedly experienced some extreme forms of stress at young, formative ages. There is also the strong possibility that her mother drank during pregnancy. The other problem is that the girl's mother, although extremely caring and loving, is a very busy lawyer and adopted the girl on her own so there is no second parent. So she doesn't get much parental attention no matter how well-meaning her mother may be on this score. The kid would be about 12 now. I wonder how she's doing.

I really think that the way they drug some of the kids up someday borders on child abuse, and the parents are mad to allow it. I'm not a parent but I may be in a few years and you basically won't convince me to put anything into my kid like that unless they'll die without it (ie if my kid is a diabetic, obviously I'll give them insulin).