Steve D'Ippolito

On further consideration I can see that merely mentioning Christian Dominionists--as an example of the most extreme form of the sort of thing I am arguing against here--was a mistake. What I am arguing against is the attitude I have seen expressed by many, many Christians that atheists aren't real Americans. Christians like, for example, George Bush Sr. This man was President of the United States and held this attitude, and he wasn't even the George Bush with a reputation for extreme religiosity. The dominionists are merely the most consistent expression of this attitude but by mentioning them I gave you an irrelevant target to fire at. When I refer to recent add ons, I am talking about "In God We Trust" on the paper money (and less recently, but still not at the founding, the coinage), and "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Local governments sponsoring manger scenes are not recent. But they are still a wrong thing for a neutral government to be doing. And yes it was intended to be a neutral government. You will find not one mention of God, Christianity, or Jesus in our constitution. Zero, zilch, nada. Yet huge percentages of our population believe those references to exist and huge numbers believe this nation was explicitly founded on Christian principles. As for "endowed by our Creator" in the Declaration of Independence, those words weren't even _written_ by a Christian, they were written by a Deist. But actually they illustrate my broader point--such references, regardless of the intentions and meaning of the person who actually penned them in acting officially, will invariably get corrupted into "evidence" that the US was founded on Christianity, even though given their authorship they would be better evidence that the US was founded on Deism. "After all, 'Creator' means 'God', and 'God' clearly is Yahweh/Jesus/Holy Ghost" [or all three or only one or whatever, don't get me started on the silliness that is the trinity] maintain the Christians, who oftentimes cannot wrap their mind around the concept of a god that isn't their specific god, or for that matter the concept of atheist as being someone who doesn't worship satan either. And Thomas Jefferson, the same person who penned those words you use as evidence also said this: "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Tax money--or other resource paid for or maintained by same--used to propagandize for Christianity or any other religion, or even aggressively against religion, is something he would have found abhorrent. He would understand my complaint. And a manger scene is a scene _directly_ out of the Jesus myth, as told in Luke (but not in Matthew), and can have no other meaning in a society with large number of people who actually believe the myth. Mind you if I had to pick two out of the three issues (IGWT, "Under God", and manger scenes) to delete while leaving the third one alone, it would be IGWT and Under God. I think they are more harmful than manger scenes, particularly because they are being done by the federal government whereas the manger stuff is state and local government--usually local. But that doesn't mean I consider them completely harmless; if nothing else they are a waste of tax money, and instance #23467961 (give or take a few) of government failing to focus on its proper job. In any case FFRF is not me, and they get to choose which of the three problems they will spend the most energy on combating. I for one am not going to complain that they chose to fight the least important one as well as the other two--particularly since they have had some success here but have had none so far on the Federal level violations. (Whether they are doing so by the most effective means is a different question, and I have my doubts on some of the details of their strategy.)

I would imagine there are more Christian dominionists than there are Objectivsts. Furthermore, the Christian dominionist is the most consistent sort of Christian--at least amongst those Christians who accept the bible as an unquestionable authority. And we all know who will win in a battle between the inconsistent and the consistent. The Christian dominionist is a huge potential danger, and it is already the case that one of the most common retorts--not necessarily by a Dominionist but by your general "God Fearing" American, to a non-Christian attempting to demonstrate that this is not a Christian country is for the Christian to pull a dollar bill out of his wallet and point to "In God We Trust." I don't want to just hand these people "evidence" that their view is right, especially when such evidence is in fact a result of a violation of the Constitution.

Um... no, it isn't. But first let me quote your reversal. The issue I raised only comes up when there are multiple governments claiming jurisdiction in an area with respect to specific acts, and they don't recognize each others' authority. It doesn't come up under a single government. By reversing my wording you state a non-issue. Part of a government's job is to define the law, and, yes, that includes the law it itself gets to operate under. When it is a single government, there is no issue of which government's law applies, because there is just the one government. When there are multiple competing governments, each one has to write its own law and they will invariably conflict with each other. Of course if there is a _pre-existing_ body of law, the question then arises, "Well who wrote it? Who enforces it on all those squabbling governments?" It would have to have been a government, an over-arching government... but such would contradict the original hypothesis that there are multiple competing marketplace governments. This doesn't come up under a unitary government, because there is no other government for it to have an argument with; it is the government that imposed that law; no pre-existing body of law is needed to arbitrate between governments because there is no plurality of governments. Now I see you are trying to bring up the issue of how to restrain that single government to ensure it doesn't violate rights, but that is an entirely different issue, a secondary issue to establishing the need for a single government. And now I see that perhaps the two sides have been talking past each other. You apparently have been chasing this issue _rather_ than the issue of whether a multiple government would even function. I don't know of any Objectivist who ever claimed that a single government would have to be proper; if anything, I see constant claims (which I happen to agree with) that we would have to be vigilant in ensuring such an entity remains so. So if you are attacking Oists for this, it's--from every example I have ever seen--a straw man. I made no assumption in anything I wrote that it is a proper single government, I just argue that multiple governments that each claim to have no one in authority over them will fight and squabble over which law to follow, and who has jurisdiction, and end up warring on each other, rather than actually governing. A single government does not have this problem. It will govern. It might not govern particularly well by Oist standards, but it will govern. It won't end up in a state where "Sue's government says that what Sue did to Bob was legal under its laws, while Bob's government says that what Sue did is illegal. Bob's government wants to arrest Sue for breaking (its) law, while Sue's government is defending her from false arrest." This is because there will be one law applying to Sue and Bob, the law that that government imposed. With a multi-government system, there is no one law because there is no one government. OK, a couple of case studies. I happen to live in Colorado. There are three governments that claim jurisdiction over me (and were I to live in a city, there could be four): Federal, State and County. The county government, though, is _really_ a part of the state government and derives its authority from the state government. That state government has delegated some of its functions, including some lawmaking, to the county government, There is an implicit understanding that the county cannot pass a law that contradicts state law, and state law overrides county law essentially whenever it wants to. So between the two of them the final arbiter is the state government; it is the single government and delegated some functions. (You will recall I said that was not an issue.) Similarly, a city government is in the same boat, and there are multiple flavors of such here in Colorado, but it would derive its powers either from the state directly, or from the county, which in turn got them from the state. It's a little bit more interesting when you consider the State and Federal levels, but suffice it to say, thirteen of the states, which were utterly sovereign, created the federal government and handed some of their authority over to it, and said federal government eventually brought about the creation of the Colorado state government and made it co-equal to the other state governments. There is some independence of action and law between the US and Colorado governments, but there are established procedures (established, in essence by the federal government via the constitution), for resolving disputes over who has jurisdiction and whose laws apply (the answer generally turns out to be that an act is illegal if either the federal or state governments prohibits it, though in some cases the feds are able to require the state to not illegalize something). The point is disputes between these governments are handled, because there is an explicit recognition by all of the governments involved that a specific government is the final authority. And this makes it fundamentally different (rather than an example of) any sort of "competing governments" scheme I've ever seen advanced, because, a multi-government simply doesn't have the concept of a final authority. Without a final authority, ultimately, there is no government that can definitively settle disputes, and no way to definitively enforce the law because there is no final authority over what the law actually is. And if a government cannot do that, it is not a government. I will emphasize again that nothing in this guarantees that the final authority will govern properly. The question here is whether multiple governments is inherently anarchic, and I hope I've made a case that it is.

Specifically regarding "happy holidays" I use it not because I am anti-Xmas but because it's a quick way of saying the more involved "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"--It's not PC on my part, just shorthand. As for manger scenes, etc., on public property, it's a similar issue to "In God We Trust" and "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance. These are relatively recent add-ons from the 1950s (IGWT started appearing on coins in 1864, but didn't hit paper money until the 1950s). Unfortunately now, Xians use them as evidence that this is a "Christian Nation," which doesn't just mean a nation with a Christian majority but rather, a nation that is _explicitly_ Christian in form. This is a VERY dangerous meme to have people believe, as it helps those who want to turn this into a theocracy (e.g., the Christian Dominionists). So I believe it is necessary to fight manger scenes, ten commandments displays, etc. that appear on government property, on that basis. I do think there are better ways to go about it than some of the organizations doing the battle use. For example, under current law a local government can do the manger scene thing if they allow other faiths (and also atheists) to set up co-located displays. (Yes, it would be better if they didn't spend money and resources on ANY of this as it has nothing to do with rights protection, but that's one option under current law.) The FFRF (Freedom From Religion Foundation) supplies a banner for this purpose that doesn't just positively state what atheists think, but also ends in a sentence that is something of an attack on religious people, and I'd like nothing better than to see them not use that sentence.

But won't, because he has no sense.

Somehow, there is an overriding pre-existing body of law (including a body of procedural law governing how the agencies are to deal with each other or each others' clients) that all the agencies are somehow compelled to follow--or somehow invariably willing to follow even if not compelled to do so. And somehow, there is no way someone could start a new agency that doesn't want to ignore that law, or if it does want to ignore that law, would somehow be brought to heel without it turning into a civil war. All 2046 has to do is fill in those "somehows," and he has made his case. I note that in #137 2046 has emphatically agreed that he has posited the existence of a pre-existing body of law, so I am not erecting a strawman here. And that immediately implies that people can be compelled to follow a law whether they want to or not, and even if they don't recognize the authority of that law; that's inherent in what "law" is. So that part of my first paragraph isn't a strawman either. Personally, the only way I can fill in those "somehows" is by positing a government, but I am willing to admit I might be engaged in the fallacy of arguing from personal incredulity--provided someone finds another plausible way of filling in those somehows. And ixnay on pointing to private today's security companies and private arbitration as examples, because today they in turn are ultimately subject to government authority and that is what ultimately prevents them from behaving in the way Thomas describes. So they are not examples of AC in action. I agree that parts of the government's job can be outsourced; I don't agree that the final authority can be divided up and "marketized" in the manner AC describes.

Yes. What a piece of work.

No, it means that biologists now take evolution to be the underlying explanation of everything they have ever discovered, including things discovered before Darwin formulated the theory. A similar statement is now made regarding geology and plate tectonics. That particular paradigm shift occurred in the 1960s and there are plenty of geologists alive today who remember those days; it's quite exciting to hear them talk about how suddenly a lot of things they simply had no clue how to explain (such as why volcanoes were located where they were and not just anywhere) were now readily explainable.

I agree. If I had the strength of character of Roark and was in his shoes, then the first time she tried to sabotage what I was trying to accomplish, I would want absolutely nothing to do with her; she would be no more to me than Ellsworth Toohey. Since I am less of a man than Roark, I personally would ignore them for now, but look forward to dancing on both of their graves, rather than treating them as nothing.

Indeed. I would hope it would play out similarly to what is going on in physics right now. A team recently ran an experiment that appeared to indicate that neutrinos traveled ever so slightly faster than light, which would overturn a theory that is just as foundational to physics as evolution is to biology. They then went through everything relating to the experiment, looking for their mistake. After doing this as thoroughly as they could, they called other physicists' attention to it, essentially saying "Look, we know this is going to sound crazy but we can't figure out what we did wrong here." This is quite different from the guy who starts out convinced that an established theory must be wrong, because it doesn't match his preconceived notions, and just jumps on the first thing that looks like it might help his case. He's probably not going to go over it very very carefully to make sure it is what it looks like and that there isn't some explanation of it that actually fits the theory he doesn't agree with, because he doesn't need to--he already thinks that theory is wrong; why should he try to shoehorn something into it? It would be like expecting us to read some economic bad news and try to use it to justify communism. If he has a very rare quality best described as "OK, but I want you to prove to me I am right" he does go over it, he is thinking much more like a scientist than is normal for these sorts of people. What I just described is not the same as a scientist having a hunch that some hypothesis might be true and then looking for experimental data. He must still guard against leaping to a conclusion, and that is sometimes easier said than done. I am instead talking about someone who is preconvinced on the basis of nothing, really, that his pet theory is true... rather like today's creationists. What I find worrisome is that many creationists undertake to obtain scientific degrees solely for the purpose of fighting either evolution or the currently accepted belief that the solar system is 4.567 billion years old (a conveniently easy number to remember) and the earth is slightly younger than that. It's an attempt to fight the criticism that no real scientist in a relevant field accepts young earth creationism[see footnote]. This is true, so they have to try to manufacture some such scientists. Somehow or another the poor creationist has to evade for however long it takes to get their doctorate, almost everything that they are being taught, and not just the hour or so a day of science "education" people get in elementary and high school. (I note in passing here that scientists (and engineers) are required to continue to be exposed to non-science/non-technical subjects in college but the reverse is not true. How different would things be if it were, and people could not claim to be college-educated without some college level science?) Anyhow, I wonder how many of these creationists, starting out intending to be moles burrowing into the scientific establishment, actually A) don't flunk out or drop out before getting their doctorates and B ) still believe their bullshit once they do? -------------- [Footnote: When discussing creationism it's necessary to keep in mind that there are two broad varieties--Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism. The YECs are the ones we are usually talking about in these contexts--the ones who think the earth was created 6-10 thousand years ago, dinosaurs were around before the flood, the flood is responsible for most of the geology we see today, et cetera, ad freaking naseum. The Old Earth creationists accept all the evidence of the much greater age of the universe and the progressively increasing complexity of life and development over time--but they think god is behind the process, pushing it along and only making it look like there are random elements. Perhaps god is causing the occasional benign mutation that evolution "runs" off of, steering things in a direction that would lead eventually to some hairless ape developing a "soul". There isn't direct physical evidence against this claim--we only see the results of the mutations in the fossil record, not their actual immediate cause. Asserting knowledge of the cause is alas for them an arbitrary assertion. Anyhow the YECs have to ignore everything one would objectively derive from what our senses--aided by artificial senses known as scientific instruments--tells them and replace with a lot of arbitrary assertions; the OECs accept all of the objectively derived stuff and _add_ to it a much smaller number of arbitrary assertions since they don't have to explain away a lot of evidence--a much more tenable position; at least it cannot be proved wrong empirically. One has to argue on the basis of it being arbitrary assertions instead, a concept not well understood by most people, or convince them through logical arguments, rather than experimental evidence, that there is no dog.] edit: Damn the ass who invented the sunglass emoticon for making the use of B-parenthesis and 8-perenthesis a landmine.

Regardless, it's like someone opening an encyclopedia to the article on religion, and then complaining that the editors of the encyclopedia seem obsessed on the topic.

Fixed it for you.

It's a two pronged attack. Some of what they do is to claim there is actual evidence _against_ the current view (i.e., evolution). Certainly if someone were to actually find human and dinosaur footprints in the same strata, or rabbits in the Precambrian, that would do it. To the extent that this evidence is not _completely_ fabricated, it should be looked at more closely by someone if only so that they can say, "no you are misinterpreting this, it's not a human footprint" or "that's not a dinosaur footprint" or "that's not a rabbit fossil" or "those aren't Precambrian rocks" (which as I understand it, is invariably the case). This is a normal function of science, to at least glance at apparently contradictory evidence just in case it really is. Of course the IDiots don't quite do this. They like to bring these things up, and pretend that they are engaging in science by doing so--in many cases a qualified scientist, as opposed to the IDiot, would be able to see by themselves that it's not good evidence without even showing it to someone else. They aren't too happy with what happens when a scientist actually gets around to looking at their proffered evidence though, so they ignore/evade/lie when that happens. As someone pointed out earlier, if some piece of evidence like this were to prove out, it would not prove Intelligent Design to be true. But the attacks, dishonestly presented to the public, are enough to put question marks in many minds, and evolution looks like it is discredited. The other prong of the attack is to claim positive evidence for their view. Here is where it gets much more laughable to those with any scientific literacy at all, but again, their real audience is the now thoroughly befuddled and generally scientifically illiterate man-in-the-pew. The man in the pew sees evolution (apparently) discredited with reasonable sounding arguments, and creation (apparently) supported by all this evidence. It does not occur to him that he is being lied to, or that the presenter himself doesn't know what he is talking about. (More commonly it's some pastor repeating the line of bullshit he has been fed.)

You appear to be assuming the pre-existence of a body of law.

Intervention via rape. We'd better hope that kind of therapy doesn't catch on, leastwise not outside of child psychology as practiced by the Catholic Church, where it is too late already.

He was my favorite Leftist, because unlike most of them he was firmly on the side of the US in the cultural war against radical Islam. More so than George W Bush (who would not even acknowledge the nature of the problem) was.

There are people in my area who have to shut down part of their house during the winter, i.e., forego heating those rooms. They cannot afford the cost of heating them; they may be buying a tank of propane (several hundred gallons, at 2 or more dollars a gallon) every month as it is. Sometimes it is crappy house construction (the house leaks like a sieve or isn't insulated enough) and sometimes it's just a behemoth house that realistically they shouldn't have bought on their budget, which reinforces Gus Van Horn's point.

Does Lord God Tarskyte get one too? Smite all unbelievers!!

Wait a minute... this is the ARI's favorite economist?!?! Sweeping Massachusetts' socialized medicine plan under the rug based on the (alleged) intent of the guy who foisted it on them? Since when did intentions count? His criticisms of the other candidates, however, are valid. Ron Paul, by the way, is not anti-theocracy; he just wants it to be on the retail level. He does not believe the first amendment (or any other part of the Bill of Rights) should apply to the states and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/238/what-does-the-first-amendment-really-mean/ used to explain this but apparently he caught enough flak that he's pulled it. He also does not accept evolution.

Gold and silver. There is some diversification I can get behind! Gives you a warm feeling doesn't it?

Well then assuming you are correct (and I haven't read anything you or Grames has pointed to) Congress would have to acknowledge it or _pretend_ it needs to be repealed and do so. As it is right now the government is behaving as though it has been ratified, and would have to agree that in fact it hasn't been, or if it won't agree with you, go ahead and repeal it. Either way it must end up _agreeing_ it has no authority to tax income, and how that happens, I don't care.

the Flat tax, as I understand it, is an income tax with low rates and few deductions. Less complicated (which would reduce the compliance costs), but the government still has to be able to snoop into everyone's finances to be able to enforce it. It's just a modification of the income tax. The Fair tax legislation includes a statement that it is contingent on repeal of the 16th amendment and would be intended to replace both the income tax and the "payroll tax" that funds social security and medicare. Snooping for enforcement would be limited to businesses, not individuals. The only reason the government would want to know your income, based on the Fair Tax, is to compute your social security benefit (as if it will last long enough for us to see it) and that can be handled by the existing W2 mechanism since only wages are used for that. (It's astounding to think how much stuff we deal with on a daily basis is due to the income tax--even the existence of IRAs and 401ks is an artifact of the income tax.) I'll reiterate that the ultimate goal is to have no taxes at all--I am talking interim measures here, while we figure out how to persuade America that the government is doing FAR too many things.

I asked because you seemed to think the Fair Tax vs. Flat Tax was a choice between two income taxes.

The order that exists in the universe (no, it's not a product of our minds) stems from everything in the universe acting solely in accordance with its nature. Hydrogen always behaves like hydrogen because it is part of the nature of hydrogen to do so, masses respond to gravity in a specific way because they are masses and it is part of the very nature of masses to respond to gravity in that way, charged particles respond to electric fields in a certain way because they are charged particles and it is part of the nature of charged particles to do so. Someone pointing this out to Ayn Rand (was it Phil Donahue?) elicited the following rhetorical question: "What would a disordered universe look like?" The insistence that order implies a planner totally ignores the concept of order arising spontaneously from the fact that everything in existence can only act in certain limited ways.

The symbolism she ascribed to it is quite powerful so it makes sense in that context. (Different example: her account of the origin of the dollar sign is factually incorrect but also symbolically powerful.) I am sure that many people realized smoking was harmful before the 1960s (note here for instance that the slang "coffin nail" predates the 1940s: http://www.urbandict...=coffin%20nails ). All that happened then was it had been rigorously and formally shown in studies and parts of the government began to campaign against it (while other parts continued to subsidize tobacco farming). And even then, if I am not mistaken, Ayn Rand rejected the conclusions of the study and only quit smoking when she herself was diagnosed with cancer.