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jws1776

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Posts posted by jws1776

  1. I don't want to wait for an atheist to come along.

    I see a bunch of claims on this board about how a Christian and an Objectivist(Atheist is too broad of a term) can have romantic relations but I don't see how. How can an avid Church goer and an Objectivist be in a successful relationship? I don't want to control them or come across like I'm trying to change them and I don't want them to try to control or try to manipulate me. The few girl that I like is christian and goes to church.

    Great question and one that applies to a relationship I was in over a year ago that lasted a year and a half. An ex-girlfriend that I had not seen in over a decade since college tracked me down (thx Facebook!) and initiated contact. We had not spoken or seen each other in over a decade and in that amount of time, I became an Objectivist or at least more of one than I could have possibly been when I was younger - in a sense, the evolutionary process took place and I matured, learned enough and integrated it all into my life to at that point honestly consider myself an Objectivist. Over that decade apart, my ex-girlfriend became more of a Christian than I had remembered - it was a part of every aspect of her life. Bible study on Wednesdays with a group of women, church on Sunday, constantly referencing "Jesus" in conversations and incorporating her religious beliefs into her political views, etc, etc. She was really involved with her church, talked about God all of the time and it was way out there.

    So how can an avid Chruch goer and an Objectivist be in a successful relationship? - There is no way whatsoever if I had kept things going with her after a year and half back during round two that it would have ever worked out past the physical side of things and in hindsight that is all that was there during the entire relationship. She was very "un-Christian" if that is even a word when the lights were out and that was all we had to work on a decade prior and then after her return. So physically - it was a non-stop porn fest for over a year and a half, but I could never take her seriously as a person in terms of her religious beliefs and a really weird, almost immature approach to life that stemmed somewhat from her religious beliefs. Her Christian faith was something she had a way of putting on hold when it was convienient for her to do so and when it was time to do what we had always seemed to do best, she was more like a possesed demon sent from hell than anything that could been sent by "God".

    In the end, the relationship could have been considered successful sexually but not on any other level - we certainly didn't connect as individuals intellectually or spiritually, etc. I could never have a logical, rational coversation with her, she was not very intelligent, her life (on the outside) seemed to evolve around her faith, Jesus, God, etc and the relationsip could have never evolved past the physical side of things and with just that, I was left feeling empty sometimes. I can blame it on hormones, lust, neuro-chemicals or whatever steered me off course again and was against everything my brain was telling me to do, but there is something great about waking up after spending three days trapped in a hotel room in Cabo surviving off of a case of bottled water and a few Zone bars engaged in a non-stop porn induced sex marathon looking around at a room that in another time and place might resemble a crime scene and realizing you still have four more days to go in a never ending quest for the next orgasm. It was a combination of pleasure & pain - passion, lust and at time hate on those long nights where I seemed to have gotten lost and not really cared if she was into "Jesus" and thought the war in Iraq was part of "prophecy". So we let things run their course, and time took it's toll. Occasional arguments led to a few days at a time without talking, followed by her neurotic need for "make up sex" then it was back to normal for a while and then I just couldn't take it anymore and every moment I was with her, I realized on some level that I was lying to myself on so many levels. So we went our separate ways.....

    jws

  2. FUCK ! - Ok, I just thought I would get emotional and say that too.

    Now, back to the topic. I just wish Lincoln the tyrant would have left the South alone and respect the fact that those states were free to leave or stay in the union much like the original colonies were free to stay leave or stay with England.

    If the north was concerned about "freeing" slaves then they could have let the South leave the union and welcome runaway slaves into northern states since they would not have to return them to states that were no longer part of their union. Or Lincoln could have had his butchers, mercenaries and madmen (like Grant, Sherman, etc) simple march south and "free" the slaves and allow them to go north, once again to freedom.

    But we all know that Lincoln was not concerned with freeing slaves - but rather enslaving freee men. And seriously - the north did not want a migration of slaves into their states in the event the south left the union and slaves either escaped and went north or at some point were freed by those in the south much like slaves had previously in the north. Northern Americans didn't want black people living amongst them to that extent. So the solution seemed simple at the time: start a war (and Lincoln had numerous reasons for doing so that fit with his tyrannical and mercantilist agenda) send armies south to kill other Americans, defeat the south and then let those states deal with the aftermath off over a million free slaves.

  3. Lincoln -

    He raised an army to invade his own people

    Ignored the Constitution: state's rights, the right for state's to leave the union

    Responsible through his lap dogs Grant and Sherman for war atrocities

    Allowed immigrants that came to northern states to join the army and kill Southern men, rape Southern women and destroy Southern cities. Non-American's trained and armed to kill Americans in the South, many who were descendants of former US soldiers that fought in the Revolutionary War, and War of 1812.

    Subjegated a once free people that comprised the Southern states.

    - -

    In looking back, it is interesting that his death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth was just par for the course. Lincoln chose to live by the sword and so it made sense that he also died by it. Seriously - over four years after the War of Southern Independence began, did Lincoln think after causing the deaths of so many people that he would be immune from meeting the same fate that so many soldiers met on the fields of Fredricksburg, Manassas, Antitiem, and Gettysburg. He contradicted himself in speeches prior to being elected regarding slavery and other issues. He was a coward and a fraud and DiLorenzo does a great job at exposing Lincoln for what he is in both of his books.

    Slavery has throughout the history of mankind died of natural causes in western civilizations and would have evenutually done the same in the Southern states as it did already in the north. Lincoln used it as an excuse for his unjust war. Slavery still exists in at least four countries in the world today - in parts of the world where it originated.

  4. Lincoln said in many of his speeches prior to becoming president that he would allow slavery to continue (in the northern states were it existed in 1859 as well as the southern states) in order to preserve the union and felt that if letting slavery continue, it would prevent a war and preserve the union, then he would allow that. He lied. That is what liars do. He went on to become a US president that raised an army to invade his own people, is responsible for unleashing war criminals on the south, which led to the destruction of southern cities, mass starvation, and atrocities by Sherman, Grant and his other butchers.

    The north was more than willing to let slavery continue in the south as long as that labor continued providing the northern factories (part of the mercantilist's trade monopoly) with raw materials as well as additional products to trade with Europe. Along with the fact that the south was allowed to continue slavery as long as they kept sending their tariff money north, and when that was threatened after Lincoln was elected, it meant war in the eyes of the north. All the south was guilty of at that point in time was not sending tariff money north, since slavery was still legal in 1860. Also, it is very touching how Lincoln "freed" the slaves in the south with his Emancipation Proclamation while allowing slaves in the north to still be slaves. I think he said in that speech that slaves were only free in states that were not in the union.

    And if the main goal of the civil war (War of Southern Independence) was to "free" the slaves by the federal government, then why did it stop there. As far as civil rights is concerned, it took well over a hundred years after the civil war for black citizens to even have most of the rights they should have had in 1865. One would think if the goal was freedom for slaves that it would involve more than just rampaging through the south, raping women, burning crops, killing white confederates, etc and actually be a sincere form of freedom. The fact is that Lincoln knew if the south left the union, and northern states eventually freed all of their slaves, that refuge slaves from the south would ultimately flee and go north to freedom and northern states would have to deal with a "free" population of former slaves. Nobody in the north wanted that, so it made more sense to free them in the south and then know they would stay their once they were free. Fact is, Lincoln was a racist and wanted nothing more than power, to subjegate the south and he was a tyrant and a butcher. Period. Lincoln deserved to be assasinated. He chose to live by the sword, (although a coward that never served in the army like Jefferson) and so he also surely died by it.

  5. I would be pretty surprised if Lincoln told the boys, "I know you've been away from your own women for a while, so go get 'em southies and then have some fun."

    In any event, the Union army fought to break, utterly and completely, the will of the South in their rebellion against the Union. This naturally involved destroying Southern farmland, cities, etc. To do so was absolutely moral, absolutely just.

    Lincoln, Grant, Sherman.........all war criminals. And of course Lincoln didn't tell his mercenaries to rape Southern women. They just didn't prevent it or prosecute the men that did it and it was in fact part of his war policy in the last 18 months of the war

    And it was not a "rebellion"........ever hear of the Constitution, state's rights, the right to break ties with the federal government and secede from the union. State sovereignty vs. federal tyranny. The south just wanted to be left alone as did the colonies when they fought England.

    Interesting though that your response would come from someone with a Dimmu Borgir album cover in their avatar - a known satanic band with a lead singer named "Shagrath"........shouldn't you be playing Dungeons and Dragons right now.

  6. Can anyone help me understand the following ?

    1. How can an objectivist (THE Objectivist) Ayn Rand have a love affair? (even with permission )

    2. How could AR ever have been married to someone who could "share" her? (how could Frank be of her caliber)

    3. How could lesser minds dupe AR ? (Barbara and Branden)

    I have struggled with the same questions for some time considering the incredible impact I feel Rand's works have had on my life and own development as a person. I try to make sense of it all by realizing that maybe as Rand got older in age and realized she was never that passionate about Frank, that she gave in to a weakness that enabled her to be with Branden and after all, we are all human beings with some degree of weakness in some areas and strengths in others. As far as being with Frank, married at the same time, I don't understand how if that happened, she could ignore any concern for how her husband would have felt at the time. And as for lesser minds being able to do to Rand what the Brandens did......I've come to find in life when a lesser mind employs the use of manipulation, deception and lies on a better person that makes the mistake of trusting them, then the results are usually what occurred in the case of Rand and the Brandens. They preyed on her virtues and her willingness to let them into her world, trust Nathaniel, and she overlooked some things that might have been more obvious to her if she was not emotionally and physically attracted to Nathaniel. If being with another man while she was married is/was wrong, it pales in comparrison to the level of deceit and manipulation that both Branden's used to dupe Rand and in a sense she was the victim throughout that entire episode of her life.

    jws1776

  7. I began reading Ayn Rand's novels when I was seventeen (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, We The Living) and did not get into her non-fiction work until my mid-twenties. I now in my early thirties absorb any Objectivist material I can get that is available through the Ayn Rand Bookstore (lecture tapes, books by other Objectivist writers like Peikoff, etc.) A couple of years ago, I read both Branden books Judgement Day and Barbara's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and had little inisght into the relationship between Rand and Branden until reading both of those texts. All arguments aside.....one thing that I have had a hard time dealing with in terms of my admiration and respect for Rand who is possibly the greatest philosopher and writer ever to have existed, is the fact that if she did have an affair with Branden while married to another man, she who I always admired for being an advocate of the sanctity of contracts and capitalism, would have been actively breaking a contract (marriage) while having an affair with Branden. I don't doubt Branden's lack of integrity based on all other material I have read online and after researching him more in depth but it just doesn't make sense that such a great mind like Rand would have engaged in an affair with man while being married to another. I don't think I ever read anything that said she admitted to it either, which has given me some hope, and I could tell from reading Judgement Day and The Passion of Ayn Rand that a lot of things were being left out of the story as would be expected when considering who the authors of those texts were. Still confused as a younger student of Objectivism that my hero in a sense could have behaved in such a way, when if she wanted to be with Branden could have easily gotten divorced and engaged in the relationship as an unmarried woman.

    jws1776

  8. Love at first sight?.......No, but definetely LUST at first sight. I have had that happen, and the end result after using all other means of evaluating a person other than vision, I have usually found out that it was exactly that, just lust. Love is such a complex emotion, and based on so many factors that is is virtually impossible to actually love someone on first sight and based on using vision alone.

    But lust, oh yeah.....and if and when that has occurred with me, more so when I was younger, as I began to know the person more and realized that I only had a visual (physical) attraction to her I found that I would begin to evade other signs about the person that I just knew were things that I didn't like about her as a person. Fortunately, lust (an all that it could encompass: infactuation sometimes) as a reaction to how someone looks combines with a still yet unexplained chemical reaction that man can have to pheromones and the neurological sensations that occurr when physically attracted to a person and only the person's body seems to get old after a while. But that primitive primal physical attraction and lust that at times can defy logic and reason or give a man a way to evade logic and reason (despite it's consequences) could be what enabled primitive man to procreate at a stage of human development when it hardly made sense to take on a mate and create children when mankind's development was at such a level that even survival itself was hard.

    jws1776

  9. This would be a lot less funny if you hadn't misspelled "writes" in such a way as to say exactly the opposite of what you meant. But yes, in the case of the Civil War and slavery at least, the victor certainly did "right the books."

    So say the radical feminists too. And it's just as meaningless a flourish over your signature as theirs.

    I suspected you didn't have a valid response; I just didn't expect you to fold and admit the bankruptcy of your position so easily.

    Sorry I didn't spell check.....I'm multi-tasking over here: on the phone, finsihing off a half-rack of Heineken, throwing a ball out onto my deck to keep my dog busy, and typing in between.

    My initial statement is my position. Thomas Di Lorenzo has written extensively on Lincoln in two texts: The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked, both recommended.

    Oh and expect more spelling errors, I am slightly dsylexic, but that is not Lincolns fault.

    jws1776

  10. "Christians"......Had an encounter with one when I was younger and dated her for almost a year. I ignored her lack of logic and reason and adherence to her religion at the time because she was only 18, and I thought she would grow out of it. She had me convinced she was a very moral and good person (as a Christian) at the time and it seemed like she was, but it just didn't work out at the time.

    Over a decade went by after going out with her then, and I recieved a call from her a year ago when I was getting divorced and she said she heard I was from a mutual friend and got my number. She claimed she had "loved" me for the last ten years and dreamed of being with me again someday, and even got married to a man "I don't love" so that if she ever came back to me, it would be easier. Well, I let my emotions guide my actions (first mistake) and continued talking to her on the phone despite the fact she was currently married. One thing led to another and this formerly innocent, Christian girl from my past came over to my house one night when we agreed to meet since she was planning on getting divorced and coming to me once that was over. I was consumed by a range of emotions when she got here and allowed an affair to begin at that point, on that night. What I came to find out in the weeks and months that followed, was that her religion gave her an opportunity to live a charade of a life in her other world, (bible study on Wednesdays with mom, church on Sunday, etc) while secretly cheating on her husband in what became a very passionate sexual affair with me.

    Her lack of remorse, empathy and sympathy for her spouse was shocking as time went by. I of course ignored it and rationalized my behavior because the sex was incredible. Even the day he found her sent emails to me and mine to her on her email account, her indifference and lack of any emotions for him and the pain he was in was amazing. But like an idiot that was thinking with my other head, I ignored it and continued having sex with her. It fed my ego, when she said she got pregnant once when she was married, but knew we would be together again someday so she aborted it. Once again, Christian hypocrisy similiar to what I had dealt with over a decade earlier. The sex gradually got even more intense and entered a level that I doubt most Christians would allow themselves to experience, but that didn't seem to bother her, as long as nobody knew and she had her other world to go back to every morning. This formerly innocent, semi-naive, Christian girl I knew when I was younger turned out to be the exact opposite of what I imagined a mature, adult Christian woman would be over ten years later.

    I could go on forever about the year we were back together, but the most shocking part about it was when I brought up a news story from a decade earlier when the pastor at her church here in the state we live in was arrested for molesting three boys and then numerous other men at the time that had that happen to him at his hands when they were younger came forward to. He was removed from that church and faced criminal prosecution and it was well known in this area at the time. When I brought that up, because she had previously almost worshipped the guy when we were younger, she began to fiercly "defend" him, and did so on grounds that I could not believe I was hearing. She began to explain to me that what he did was the result of "satan" using him because he was the leader of their church to "hurt" the church, and the people of the church that were members, and chose the pastor (rather than someone else) because it impacted and affected the entire church and so many lives, by just one man being used for that. I was speechless and blown away by her response and could not believe a human being could actually think that. She argued with me that night over the issue and couldn't understand why I didn't agree with her. I just think the guy was sick and a bad person, period, and that almost enraged her at one point.

    In addition, at the age of 30, I was fortunate enough to see what this perfect little Christian girl had evolved into a decade later. Her use of alcohol at times was amazing, and resulted in her becoming so angry with me that she would do things like grab a hard book on my desk and knock me on my head in an argument. She ran off to Cabo with me for two weeks in the middle of her separation/divorce and when I asked her if her parents knew she was with me, she replied casually that they thought she went alone, because it wouldn't be "right" for her to be with a man unless she was married. I obviously thought that was weird all things considered, but thought it was even stranger that she said she didn't have sex with her husband before they got married because he was a member of her church and also a Christian. That would have been understandable but we had spent the previous few months f-ing like porn stars and she admitted to having sex throughout college. (of course with men she wasn't going to marry). It kept getting worse as time went by. I realized that in the aftermath of her divorce, she had no intention on actually being with me on a level that would run parallel with being a 30 year old woman. She moved into her parents house and only worked a few days a month, while dad took over the bill paying role previously handled by her husband. She lacked any real ability to deal with reality and think critically about life. She insisted on sleeping in bed when she was at my house with a giant teddy bear she had since her childhood, which normally would just seem a little weird but it was after hours of intense, and sometimes non-traditional sex. The dichotomy was becoming more apparent as each week went by. Of course I ignored it because the sex was on a level equal to an xxx movie and she told me all the things I wanted to hear. "I love you soooo much" "You are the only man I have ever wanted", etc etc.

    The entire thing finally erupted when two things happened in the course of the same week towards the end of the relationship. Dad found out we were together again at one point and we had been arch enemies in a sense when I was dating her when we were younger and he went on a rampage. I would have thought a 30 year old woman would have been able to deal with him, but his financial and emotional control over her were adversaries I didn't have the time or energy to fight again over a decade later. I told her to grow up and deal with him or I was getting out. Over the next two weeks, while I gave her time to make a real adult decision, she continued coming over and well....the sex was always awesome with her so I kept banging her......but one morning when she was still sleeping, I grabbed her cell phone that had gotten pushed under the bed the previous night during the action and went into my office and turned it on. What I found was a reality check unlike no other.......text messages from what I assumed to be other guys - thats right guys/plural....from different numbers that were sexual in nature and context. I could have left it at that, but I had noticed a month earlier when she typed her password into her phone that it was the four digits for the year she graduated from college. I called in and typed it in correctly, and she had saved a series of messages from different guys with recent times and dates and they were all sexually related, etc. I put her phone back under the bed, and fell back to sleep. She left that morning and called me later that night and I told her what I had found out while we were on the phone. I heard a slight sound that resembled a gasp, and what sounded like crying and she hung up. I sent her a final text that said "Your second chance was your last chance, don't ever contact me again."

    And that was my last attempt to ever deal with a "Christian" in terms of a relationship. Since then, I have been with women that would be considered atheists, and have experienced a high level of trust, integrity and intimacy with them and they conduct themselves like mature, rational women. No veil of religion masking a hidden side that eventually manifests itself and becomes obvious later. I grew up Catholic and abandoned that world at what I consider to be an early age (14) when the use of logic and reason started to occur. Some of the worst people I have ever had to deal with in my life were Catholics and Christians. They think their religion gives them an ability to avoid accountablilty and responsibility for their actions and harm they cause people. It's built into their religion in the sense that they think all they have to do is ask God or Jesus for forgiveness and everything is ok. That in itself if followed by mankind as a whole is a recipe for the downfall of civilization. Two thousand years of evidence has prooven that.

    jws1776

  11. Your "second war of independence" would have left four million black folk in chains. Some independence that it. Any war fought to defend slavery is a war on behalf of evil.

    Bob Kolker

    That's great and everything but the war was not fought to "free the slaves". Lincoln mentioned numerious times in speeches that are well documented that he was concerned with only preserving the union at the beginning of the war and if he could have while also preserving slavery in the Southern states then he would have. Lincoln didn't "free" the slaves until over two years after the war started and it was a desperate political maneuver (Gettysburg address) to justify an unjust war and keep the north fighting. If the war was fought simply to free slaves, then the directives given to Grant, Sherman and the other northern butchers and mercenaries would have been to invade the south (by the way, Lincoln is the only president in the history of the US to raise an army to invade American sovereign states) and systematically "free" slaves and bring them into northern states. The fact is that northerners did not want to have to deal with a population of free slaves and preferred they were left in the South and dealt with socially, economically and integrated into Southern society there. The war was fought over a northern mercantillist agenda that included high tariffs in the south (ruining free trade with Europe) and the use of that money to finance corporate welfare in the north, northern infrastructure and improvements and on the side of the South, it was fought over the same principles that our founding fathers fought for: limited government, freedom from centralized control (a king in 1776 - a northern federal government in 1860), state's rights, and constitutional law. It was wrong but at the beginning of the war, slavery was still allowed under law. The end result of Lincoln the Tyrants war was the act of freeing slaves and enslaving free men.

    Slavery with the onset of the Industrial Revolution would have died of natural causes with a decade anyway, since employing someone vs. holding them as a slave was far more efficient as was prooven in the northern industries and factories that existed at the time that used immigrant labor rather than slaves. It was becoming expensive all things considered by 1860 to hold a slave: there was the need to keep them from running away (a problem employers don't have), medical care, housing, clothing, food, etc and slavery typically results in the least amount of production that can be obtained from someone when using them in a productive capacity. Slavery ended in numerous other countries in that century for practical economic reasons and would have in the south. The northern politicians were more than happy to allow slavery to continue to exist when they were able to benefit from it via the use of raw materials being sent north instead of to Europe because of the results of high tariffs. Lincoln was a mass murderer, a tyrant, and a man that sanctioned the greatest war atrocities ever to occur in the Western Hemisphere: allowing his troops to burn Southern cities, rape Southern women, burning crops in the South that led to starvation of a civilian population, and the list goes on.

    Lee fought for principles that our founding fathers fought for.......and if the War of Southern Independence was wrong then you cannot logically argue that the War of Independence in 1776 was right since slavery existed at that time too. A is A. Every Southern warrior in gray that entered the field of battle for four long years was defending his home, his family, state's rights, constitutional law, and against oppression by the federal government. The rise of federal tyranny in the US began and got worse because of Lincoln and the war from 1860-1865. As a ceremonial act every 4th of July, I make a point to burn a five dollar bill as a passive act of defiance and hatred for a man that manipulated the Constitution, invaded sovereign states and should have gone down in history as a war criminal and mass murderer.

    And as for the superiority of northern troops in the war. Lincoln was smart enough to recruit from his states a large population of recent European immigrants (Norway, Germany, etc) into the army knowing the South did not have immigrants coming in because of the blockade, and armed non-Americans and sent them in regiments into the South to kill Americans on the bloody fields of battle across the Southern Republic. That was inherently, just wrong. He was a mastermind and even his political use of "freeing slaves" was nonsense. In depth research into his speeches from 1846-1860 shows that he was an incredible racist and lacked any concern for slaves until he realized the issue could be used for political advantage. Further study into who he was as a person from what evidence is available shows that he had psychological problems that may if he was studied while still alive, shown he was a sociopath.

    jws1776

  12. General Robert E. Lee

    The glory and honor for the Southern Republic in their battle for state's rights, and secession lay in the struggle itself and not victory. Lee fought during the war knowing full well that actual victory against such a larger force (manpower, logistics, etc) was far from certain, yet fought anyway. My definition of a great general is one that enters the field of battle against incredible odds, and with the knowledge that victory against those odds is not likely but fights anyway based on his principles, and fundamental sense of what is right and that it needed to be fought for even in the absence of any chance of true victory. By 1864 with the Mississippi in Union control, and the eastern coast blockaded and union armies destroying southern cities, raping southern women, and burning farmland as Lee's troops began slowly starving, he continued on until the very end, even against all hope. It is the fight for a man's land, family (women and children), and state against incredible odds and with little or no chance of victory that defines a general. He only led two actual offensive campaigns on northern soil (Antietem, Gettysburg) and those were just attempts to get the north to feel the effects of war on their own ground. He fought a defensive war for his people, family, state, land, and the principles of state's rights and the constitutional right to secession. He did not fight to conquer and invade other lands for wealth and resources or acquire an empire. He wanted the Southern Republic left alone as our Founding Fathers wanted the colonies to be left alone and freed from England's control. It was not a "civil war" It was our Second War of Independence

    jws1776

  13. At the time that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the colonies were still under the rule of a "king". Throughout the history of mankind, rule by kings implied by it's nature that those that lived under a king had rights that were only granted to them by the king they lived under, and the concept of individual inherent rights of man that are naturally endowed in the absence of a ruler or king had not been practically developed or evolved to a point where a man living under a king was actually free.

    So the argument could be made at the time........what was worse....a king ruling over tens of thousands of people that were essentially slaves since they lacked any fundamental real rights or liberties outside of what the king allowed them to have, or an individual owning a few slaves and having power over them. The dominance and rule of kings over large groups of men had to end prior to the concept of individual men owning slaves could even begin to be addressed, and individual liberty as a concept and the natural evolution man being free could occur.

    As far as being able to free slaves, there was no way at the time that they could have been practically integrated into society, due to racism. But the same could be said if a few hundred white colonists were brought to somewhere in Africa at the time. They hardly would have been able to integrate into any society that existed in the central regions of that continent for the same reasons.

    The founding fathers mistake, given all relevant facts of reality at the time, was in not freeing them and allowing them to return to their land of origin. The colonies (America) even at the time were a rich geographical region and could have easily financed the returning of free slaves to Africa and solved the entire problem. As human beings, once free they were hardly in a position to just stay within a nation or region where they were once enslaved and so much racism existed. It would have also been possible to set up a territory farther west for them to go and inhabit, but native Indians that existed farther west would have resisted the influx of African people the same way they resisted the westward movement of white Europeans.

    jws1776

  14. "Does the court have the legal ability to keep prosecuting an individual in hung jury cases for as long as they wish?"

    No, in every state in the Union, a case can only be brought to court a third time after two hung jury cases and after the third hung jury, it has to be dismissed by the court. This gives prosecutors an incredible amount of room to work with defendants after the second hung jury and attempt to get the defendant to take a plea bargain rather than risk being convicted in the third trial after two hung jury cases.

    The fact that a case can be retried after even one hung jury, is wrong for one reason mainly and it puts a defendant at an incredible disadvantage in the second and or third trial because most or all of his resources (assuming he used a private attorney) would have been expended in the first trial which if it results in a hung jury, leaves him or her having to finance his attorney for the second or third trial while the state has the resources already in place to pursue another trial. More importantly and the main issue involving a prosecutor's ability to pursue a second and third trial on the same charge relates to how the cased is tried. Prior to entering court for a second or third trial in lieu of a previous hung jury, a prosecutor can modify, change, and adjust his approach and direction with the prosecution and how he handles a different jury the second and or third time around. The strategical advantage that it offers the state in the sense that a prosecutor has an opportunity to asses and alter his prosecution and have a second chance in court is in itself wrong. It would not be as much of a problem for a defendant, if a prosecutor was required to handle the case in court the same way he did the first time and it was just a matter of presenting the same argument and case to a different jury. However, the gray area of double jeopardy comes into play, when a prosecutor is allowed to approach things differently and have a second chance with a different jury knowing where he might have made any mistakes in the first trial. In addition, the incredible amount of power inherently given to a prosecutor to bargain and offer a plea bargain after a hung jury in the first trial should not be allowed since a defendant is in a weaker position when forced to face the same charge(s) in court for a second or third time. Plea bargains, after a case has been brought to trial once and resulted in a hung jury, should not be allowed - this would force the state to seriously reconsider whether or not a case should be brought to trial again.

    And to get even more in depth..........I think there should be a law that once a prosecutor offers a defandent a plea bargain at any point in time prior to a trial taking place that it should be admitted into evidence and known by a jury once and when a trial occurs and the plea bargain is not accepted. The fact that the state is allowed to offer a plea bargain in a case and not see it through to a trial, is an admission by default that the person might not have committed the crime they were charged with. A is A.........if someone is guilty of a crime and the evidence exists, a prosecutor should not be allowed to alter facts of reality and offer a plea bargain for a lesser charge. A jury should be allowed to know that if prior to a trial, even a second one after a hung jury on the first, if a prosectuor offered a reduced charge for a plea bargain as it is the only indicator they have other than assumed innocence until prooven guilty that a defendant might not have committed a crime.

    jws

  15. So what would an Objectivist approach to skydiving be, considering that life is held as a value, and the act of doing something that is relatively dangerous and a potential threat to one's life could be considered a goal worth persuing as a hobby or recreation. Is there a dichotomy that exists between holding life as a value, then engaging in a sport that could be considered a risk to that value?

    Just looking for some input.

    jws

  16. Laws existing, that require doctors to provide emergency medical care for "free" hardly affects the doctors in many cases. Doctors get paid by hospitals and it is the hospital as an entity that gets stuck with the bill in most cases and not the individual doctor. Physicians would have gone on strike decades ago, if they as individuals were actually required to perform services and not get paid for the work. They are intelligent people as anyone practicing medicine would most likely be, and they know that the "free" services they are providing will be absorbed by the hospital itself, which ultimately has to charge paying customers more to cover all of the "free" services they provide. I don't think there is a single case in the history of the US medical system where a doctor working for a hospital, had his paycheck reduced to account for the "free" work he performed while at a hospital.

    The average person without insurance is usually given a large amount of forms to fill out which are submitted to the state so that if the person can't pay for the services performed and meets certain criteria, then the hospital is reimbursed through tax dollars for the work performed and it is the taxpayers that cover the cost and work for free in order to do so, not the doctor himself. In the case where someone can afford the bill but does not have insurance, then collection procedures that exist within our market are in place so that the hospital can pursue them through the legal system, even allowing for the transfering of the debt to a collection agency if and when needed, and allowing for the hospital to write the debt off and see some portion of the money owed via the loss on paper.

    Once again.....a doctor would never be dumb enough to go through all of the related education and time to become a doctor if he knew that as an individual, he would not get paid for certain services performed, they leave that to the hospital, taxpayers of the state they live in, and the financial office that is in charge of securing the payment either from the state or the patient once the services are rendered.

    The real problem is not that the average person without insurance cannot afford most emergency medical care, but rather the medical system in the US is shackled by regulation, artificial costs, etc that make the care beyond affordable for most people without insurance. It is the doctors that benefit from the restriction to entry into their field, and the hospitals that work with the main five insurers in the US to make the system that is currently in place so expensive to begin with. Combined with the fact that medical debt is dischargable via a chapter 7 bankruptcy, leaves most creditors that hold medical related bills with little or no recourse when someone decides they are unable or unwilling to pay a large debt incurred from medical care.

    jws

  17. Great post.....looking forward to the responses. I thought the one regarding judging people with respect to their honesty, etc was really interesting.

    Moral evaluation seems really complex, especially with respect to intimate relationships where honesty is often expected if not required.

    I was wondering what thoughts anyone had regarding The Standard Proof for Honesty and / or judging people when they are younger (18-30) vs. older (31---). I have found that if I qualify someone as "honest" or moral and they are in their late twenties or older that their established moral behavior is likely to continue along the same path, whereas when I was younger and knew people of the same age, that if they seemed honest at the time, the possibility of finding out they changed as they got older became apparent and vice versa, if someone was not necessarily honest but I kept dealing with them, by the time they got older they saw the flaws in their behavior and made the necessary corrections and turned out to be great people and good friends. So does the age of a person have an factor in how one would judge them and decide whether or not to trust or deal with them anymore, and is there a higher probability that negative behavior exhibited by someone in their earlier years can change as opposed to someone that is older not being able to change much at all?

    jws1776

  18. Virgin Steele (lyrics by David De Feis)

    INVICTUS

    "A Sonnet of Pure Victory

    A Hymn to the Spirits of Freedom and Grace

    And whichever Gods there may be...

    Manacled, Beaten, Blackened and

    Burned Cast from the

    Light of the Goal I'll never falter, stumble or kneel

    Thanks to the strength of my Soul

    Lashed by the Winds of Fate

    Stung by the Gods of Hate

    I'm Rising in Power,

    I'm Rising Unchained Call this a

    Sacred Vow All that I tell you now I may be

    Bloody, but I am unbowed I am Power

    Harken the Hour,

    Season and Day Phantom of Dark Misery

    Summon your Demons,

    Hunger and Hate Spirit of Impurity Ravaged by

    Fire, stripped and enslaved

    Torn from the World that I know I'll never cry out,

    buckle or kneel I am the King of my Soul

    Stung by the Gods of Wrath

    Blinded by Circumstance

    I'm Rising in Power,

    I'm Rising Unchained

    All that I tell you now

    Sure as a Sacred Vow I may be

    Bloody, but I am unbowed"

  19. I think the permanency of the tattoo (short of laser removal) might attest to the individual's commitment toward what the image contains.

    That is exactly what a tattoo should be for and represent. I only have two and they are not visible when I have a shirt on, nor would I want a tattoo to be. For me they represent something personnal that I value/valued at one point in my life and are in a sense, timeless, at least to me.

    th_lestroseavsommer.jpg

    Last Rose of Summer....

  20. I'm not sure that I understand your meaning here. Are you implying that because something is able to be stolen, it is morally justifiable to do so?

    No, but anything that is actually valuable is either secured in a way that it cannot be stolen. Security system, guards, etc. If the medicine that is needed is actually that valuable then there would be no practical way to steal it, and the entire issue is over. Assuming it could be stolen and was needed by my wife, I would steal it if it was possible to steal it. Within the scenario given, if that type of medicine was in fact something that valuable, then I don't understand why it would be possible to even gain access to it and take it. But yeah, I would take it, if my wife's life depended on it, but then I wouldn't be married to just some woman that I got along with, and enjoyed being around. It would be a woman who if she ceased to exist would cause me incredible emotional pain, so the act of taking it would be extremely selfish on my part. In saving her life, I would be saving a part of mine that I would not want to live without.

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