Craig24

I'm unsure if you're familiar with Rand's position on intellectual property rights but disagree with it or if you're not aware that she actually did have a stance on the issue. She was strongly in favor of both patent and copyright law as a means of protecting "the mind’s contribution in its purest form: the origination of an idea". (Rand 1964, Patents & Copyrights) 
Objectivists have argued that it does not, in fact, make any sense to draw a dividing line between intellectual property and other forms of property since it was ultimately man's mind which brought it all about. When I want the government to protect my factory, it is the preservation of my mind to act freely that I seek since this will enable my survival as a rational being. 
Now, in regards to the scenario you provided, it is highly problematic because you've seemingly plucked it out of thin air. To begin with, if a spear is being used for the purposes of defense or hunting then this would imply a primitive society, in which case the subject of individual rights is moot anyway. But, secondly, you simply can't own the idea of a spear (although you can own the specific type of spear which your company manufactures), so in a free society the government could not confiscate it from you, nor could a company claim sole monopoly on its production in a court of law. 
Intellectual discoveries, however, cannot be reasonably patented. To quote Rand once again: 
"It is important to note, in this connection, that a discovery cannot be patented, only an invention. A scientific or philosophical discovery, which identifies a law of nature, a principle or a fact of reality not previously known, cannot be the exclusive property of the discoverer because: (a) he did not create it, and (b) if he cares to make his discovery public, claiming it to be true, he cannot demand that men continue to pursue or practice falsehoods except by his permission. He can copyright the book in which he presents his discovery and he can demand that his authorship of the discovery be acknowledged, that no other man appropriate or plagiarize the credit for it – but he cannot copyright theoretical knowledge." 

This is true, unfortunately. Many Ucrainians consider S. Bandera and other of his associates as heroes. Yes, in the 1930s Bandera was militating indeed for an independent Ukraine (independent from USSR, at that time). But:
it was with terrorist methods (assassinations), by associations with the Nazi Germany (which ignored his independence claims and finally jailed him as a nuisance), he advocated for an independent Ukraine where the ethnic Ukrainians should be the masters, and all the others either deported, expelled or killed; a Nazi-like, Fascist state, in other words. It is also possible that, in the search of cohesion against the invader, the authorities avoid alienating some categories useful on the frontlines.
This is bad and shortsighted, because the problem is: what kind of Ukraine will develop after the war? One where there are different categories of citizens, hierarchically ordered by ethnicity, or one which is a fatherland for all ?
Fortunately, given the strive for Ukraine to associate with the EU, the first version has absolutely no chance to be accepted. EU exercises already pressure un Kiev to revise the provision of the too restrictive  National language law (2019)
This illustrates again a fact I stressed previously, that important is not only against what one struggles, but also, and even more importantly, for what kind of society one struggles. 
But the events described in the the @whYNOTlink (BTW, the tweet was promptly removed from the Parliament page) do not mean that Ukraine is some kind of a Nazi/Fascist state: there are zero representatives of an extreme-right party in the government or in the Parliament.
All of the above, however serious it may be for the future of Ukraine, does not justify the intervention of Putin's Russia, because what happens there is not their f..g business, but also because Putin's Russia will not bring to Ukraine freedom, respect of individual rights, an independent justice and so on, but will suppress the rest of liberties they have (more freedom of speech, freer elections) and bring Putin's style of corruption. For Ukrainians this would be a much worse alternative.

No, my "right now" doesn't mean "in the last few weeks or months". The context being your claim:
it is clear that I am taking about the specific longer term ambitions that Putin expressed and not about the today's results of his severe February 2022 miscalculation.
When Putin himself expresses clearly and openly his imperial ambitions and also starts to apply them, I have no alternative but to believe him. You cowardly refuse to take note of his repeated written expression of his vision for Russia that he is trying to implement.
Here is one of his latest opuses (July 2021): "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

1. They (Putin, in fact) are doing it right now. 
2. About the imperial ambitions (w/o the scare quotes) I posted here a short presentation.
Putin detailed in public his imperial ambitions for Russia in an article  and several speeches. They are readily available, also in English, on the Kremlin site. Exact references: on request.
PS: don't forget my challenge about your Putin/Lavrov claim about Russia fully abiding by the UN Charter in Ukraine events.

Is this just another way of formulating the idea that most Ukrainians actually prefer caving to Putin's demands by giving up the Donbas and that it is only us outsiders who seek a decisive victory for Ukraine? Also, your usage of the term "fanatical" is interesting. Do you not think that foreign policy should be subordinated to moral law? A fanatical (read: principled) idea, indeed...
Look, whether you like it or not, the fact is that this war would never have had to happen in the first place if the Russian government had simply left Ukraine to its own devices back in 2014. To do this, the Russian state-machinery needs to drop the imperial big-brother complex, and face the fact that it has no right to demand that Ukraine exist as a puppet-state or that it remain geo-politically neutral. So long as it refuses to do this, any free country should recognize Russia for the threat she is, and act accordingly. 
Your whole Putinist/Eurasianist framing of the conflict as ultimately revolving around a fundamental threat to Russia is frankly not consistent with the facts of reality. It is Russia who is busy flattening Ukrainian cities and villages, not the other way around. Now, sure, if you think that Ukrainians should submit to their Russian overlords for all eternity, then I can see why allowing for Ukraine to develop independently can be interpreted as a threat to Russia. 
Yeah? What does the UN say about summary executions of civilians or bombing civilian infrastructure? 

The purpose of arguing is NOT to convince - this will (almost) never happen. The purpose is to compare arguments.
"You may never convince the other guy, but it's often worthwhile to keep arguing for the effect it has on bystanders. Especially his allies. L. Neil Smith"
Another interesting observation:
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.” ― Frantz Fanon (alas!!)
 

Tara Smith, the author of Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, answered this question once during a lecture. Narcissism is essentially a form of second-handedness since it is an obsessive quest for external validation. It is a sign of low self-esteem. 
Have you ever read any of Rand's novels? The heroes she portrays are anything but narcissistic. How they are perceived by other people is generally of no importance whatsoever to them. 

0. The account you said OSCE (as reported by Reuters) negates, is this: "there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass".
1. The subject was the claim about targeting civilians. Surge in shelling does not mean surge in targeting civilians.
2. From the Reuters article you omitted the very part which was relevant for the subject - the number of victims of these more than 1,400 explosions. Writes Reuters:
One civilian causality after more than 1,400 explosions doesn't look like civilian were really targeted, does it?
Therefore, the OSCE/Reuters account refutes your claim above. As well as the other one: "No genocide perpetrated" is disingenuous by the OSCE and UN.
You've been caught lying again...

@RationalEgoist,  @tadmjones, @whYNOT 
About the figure of "14,000 pro-Russians dead":
14,000 is the number of the total conflict-related deaths in Ukraine in 2014-2021, civilian and military, as reported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (see the January 2022 Report here). UN and OSCE had about 1,000 observers in the Donbass region.
Considering the putinist propaganda about an alleged genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass, it is interesting to look at the numbers in more detail, by distinguishing between civil and military deaths.
total: : 14,200-14,400 (estimated) military: 4,400 Ukrainian forces, 6,500 members of armed groups [incl. 4-500 Russian military] (estimated) civilian: at least 3,404 civilians (including the 298 deaths on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014) The civilian death represent 20% from the total; this suggests, and OSCE and UN reports confirmed, that there was no identifiable pattern of targeting civilians and, therefore no genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass.
The first two years of conflict (2014-15) account for 90% of victims, the last three (2019-2021) for 2%. Therefore, propaganda claims that the Russia's February 2022 attack on Ukraine was designed to stop the ongoing genocide is ridiculous. It is one of the excuses, beside an alleged imminent NATO-sponsored Ukrainian attack, US bioweapons laboratories, nuclear weapons program and so on.
 

@whYNOT, what are you arguing for exactly? What is your concrete goal in participating here? I'm just so confused as to why any self-proclaimed Objectivist would support such an obvious mystic authoritarian like Vladimir Putin and his government. Quite frankly, I don't particularly care if you'll go on to tell me that you're not actually a supporter of Putin because all that any honest person would need to do is pay attention to whose interests are being served by your words. 
The only possible argument that I could potentially see against Western involvement in Ukraine (and I don't think I agree that this even applies to the present circumstances) is that current aid to Ukraine is self-sacrificial. Fine. But, if this was the position which you were indeed advocating in favor of, then you wouldn't need to obfuscate in regards to Ukraine for the purposes of making the country look bad as compared to Russia. It definitely seems like you have some ulterior motive here. Suspicious. 
Objectivists proudly and openly advocate for drawing moral distinctions between state actors. Do you honestly think that NATO and Russia are moral equals? If so, this is utterly nihilistic, and something to be expected from your average "anti-imperialist" leftist as opposed to someone upholding the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Remember who it is that one betrays when one avoids making clear differentiations between the good and the evil. If there are active currents within Ukraine struggling in favor of individual rights, then they ought to be supported intellectually, financially, and through armament to whatever extent is possible without self-sacrifice. Surely it is objectively better for Ukraine to develop a rights-respecting, liberal democracy for itself rather than reverting back to being a corrupt Russian satellite state primarily serving a group of oligarchs? The former is what most Ukrainians want, as far as I know. 
As I argued above (and it seems like mostly everyone here agreed with me), the Objectivist view is that Russia gets no say in the matter of Ukraine's self-determination. Russia is an outlaw nation because of what its government does to its citizens, i.e., deny them their nature-given individual rights. Russia has no right to have its opinions considered, it has no right to a sphere of influence, etc. And, face it, you trying to argue that Russia is somehow not a dictatorship because of what its constitution says was just downright embarrassing.
Now, do I think that the US government should be provoking war with Russia? Well, as I don't particularly care to die in a nuclear holocaust, my answer is no. But that's not what the US is doing. It's helping Ukraine defend itself against a blatant and clear aggressor. The idea that the Ukrainian government has been shelling its own citizens for 8 years is laughable Kremlin propaganda. I don't know if you've yet to refer to that mythical figure of 14,000 pro-Russians dead which is floating around the internet but I'd just love to see a single credible reference to back that one up. What the Ukrainian government actually has been doing is combatting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region along with the few Ukrainians out of a total population of 41 million people who treasonously support their actions. 
Even if there are flaws with Ukraine that do need to be recognized, it doesn't particularly matter when one considers the fact that there is a bloody war happening as we speak, and when we know that the victory of the adversary would be objectively worse. 
So, yes, Objectivists should undoubtedly support Ukraine over Russia in this conflict. 

So: today's Russia is not a dictatorship because... its Constitution says so!
But then, neither Soviet Russia was a dictatorship in Rand's time, because its Constitution said:
"[USSR] is a society of true democracy, the political system of which ensures effective management of all public affairs, ever more active participation of the working people in running the state, and the combining of citizen's real rights and freedoms with their obligations and responsibility to society [from the Preamble]"
Article 1. [USSR is the] state of the whole people, expressing the will and interests of the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia, the working people of all the nations and nationalities of the country.
Article 2. All power in the USSR belongs to the people. The people exercise state power through Soviets of People's Deputies [Parliament], which constitute the political foundation of the USSR. All other state bodies are under the control of, and accountable to, the Soviets of People's Deputies.
Etc.
Dictatorship? No way! If it would be, the Constitution would read:
"USSR is a dictatorship [or autocracy] etc."
But it doesn't. So...😁

I'm honestly disturbed by some of the attitudes that appear in this thread. 
Since this is an Objectivist forum, I will simply provide a reminder of the Objectivist view on national sovereignty: 
It should be clear, then, that Russia lacks any right to forcibly establish a sphere of influence in Ukraine according to the Objectivist view. In fact, Russia doesn't even have a right to lay claim to its own geographical territory, but that's sort of secondary in this specific case since the war is taking place within the borders of Ukraine. 
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Miss Rand publicly advocated for material support to be directed to Israel, although she was opposed to sending US troops to the battlefield self-sacrificially. Although Israel and Ukraine are not exactly on the same moral level as nations, I don't believe that it's particularly unfair to use this example as a frame of reference for how she might've viewed the current war. 

You're trying to define "individual" in terms of a concept that refers to a relationship between individuals: dependency.

Individuality isn't defined in terms of dependence. An individual is an individual no matter what his relationship is to other individuals. A concept that's useful in Politics has to be a precedent of concepts like "dependence". Politics starts with a collection of individuals, and then uses concepts like dependence to describe the relationships between them.

But what an individual has to be is someone capable of such relationships with other individuals. Applying political principles to something that's not is senseless.

Biology is a science. I'm no Biologist, but that statement doesn't sound like it's a part of it.

It's not. That's the whole point. If you wish to make sure that a child doesn't die, there's no need for you to force the mother into a relationship with that child. You can have a political solution to your goal: change of custody.

That's not the case with a fetus. You can't call something an individual if the only means other individuals have of establishing any kind of a relationship with it is indirect, through enslaving the mother.

Ok, is the info suppressed.. or can it be independently researched and confirmed?

No, being asked to watch a video by known admirers or Ayn Rand is one way to go. This was recommended to me by some QAnon people. I watched it. It was ridiculous.
 

This principle should be valid for everyone, right? In particular to USA/NATO and to Russia. Let's see.
Russia: it shouldn't have gone interfering, god-like, in Ukraine's internal affairs, by alleging genocide of Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Crimea and Donbass. But it did - capturing foreign territories and organizing and supplying with weapons and troops separatist movements.
USA/NATO: after Russia interfered militarily in Ukraine's internal affairs, any UN member has the legal right to defend the victim of an aggression.
Says Art. 51 of the UN Carter: 
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations...”

I want to try to cut through some of this, because there are a million possible debates in a million directions.
So, to clarify what I think is maybe the most important issue you've raised: it is not that I'm dissatisfied because Trump didn't put some "good action" in a broader philosophical context; it is that I am dissatisfied because, in context, I do not consider it to be a good action.
If someone offered to give me a hundred dollars, I might consider that to be a "good action" in some abstract, isolated sense. I mean, hey, a hundred bucks. Nice. But if, as they offer me that hundred dollar bill, they prepare a club behind their back, meaning to hit me over the head as soon as I reach out to accept, their offer of the hundred dollars ceases to be good.
I do not believe that Trump is principled at all, except as I have said, in that he wishes to promote himself and that he wishes to have power over others (that, in fact, he is a dictator at heart). Everything else, including his seeming adoption of this stance or that, is a means to these ends. He was a "Democrat" when it suited him, as he is a "Republican" now, but I do not believe he is really anything, at heart. Just an endless black hole of want.
When Trump takes aim at Obama (because I think it is more this than regulation or even economic policy, as such; I think that Trump is guided far more by the politics of personality than principle), it provides him cover for certain people to offer a plausible-sounding defense of him. Does Trump care about Amy Coney Barrett? I don't believe so. But he wants the support of the religious and he's willing to sacrifice abortion for its sake. (Is Trump pro-life? Perhaps as much as he was ever supposedly pro-choice. If Stormy Daniels had gotten pregnant, what do you suppose Trump would have suggested she do?)
When I see Trump posing with a Bible, or claiming to love the book, is that because I believe he has ever read it? Or is a "believer" in any sense? No: he is pandering, lying. Again, he seeks their support and he is cynical enough to believe that there are people who will take him at his word, despite all of his actions and his entire existence. (And those Objectivists who take heart at Trump's supposed admiration for Rand or Atlas Shrugged or whatever should take note.)
By the same measure, does Trump care about the Proud Boys? I don't believe so. Is he racist? Perhaps in some banal way, but not as a matter of principle, no. I think he would sacrifice any or all of these pawns as soon as it struck him as expedient. I think he would embrace critical race theory tomorrow, make it mandatory training for government employees, if it struck him in whatever pre-conscious reptilian brain system he uses that this was the better path to consolidating or furthering his power.
In short, I don't think Trump gives a damn about any notion of individual rights or liberty. It isn't that he's intellectually unable to relate his actions to some philosophical principle, but that he doesn't have any such principles apart from his pursuit of power. A regulatory rollback here or there is a fig leaf of respectability; it is, as I'd suggested before, the worm on the hook. It is the way Trump makes use of better (but naive) people who do have principles, who do care about things, and puts them under his power.

Who is worse, the US or Russia? 
Who is worse, the Ukraine or Russia?
There you go, now you can answer in a way that isn't as simple pure evil or pure good. Otherwise, you're going to sound like Kanye saying that he loves everyone, both Jews and Nazis. I've asked for a moral preference, and I'm sure you know enough to judge whether one is worse than the other right now. I have an unequivocal moral preference for the US today. I'm not even calling you out for being wrong here, I'm talking about failure to make moral judgments during war. I'll put it this way: morally speaking, "no one is innocent" is just a way to avoid judging whether someone is more guilty than another. 
Okay, then would you list a few things that Putin did which were immoral? 

Is this - "Russian-Ukrainians have been and are yet today being indiscriminately shelled and killed by their own government" - a fact ?
What independent agency established that Russian-Ukrainians have been indeed indiscriminately shelled and killed ?
Hint: there were at least two organization which sent monitoring missions to Ukraine: OSCE (started its activity in March 21, 2014 already) and UN.
Important:
- OSCE had almost 1'000 observers from 45 participating states. They issue weekly reports. Now, anyone of the participating states can stop the entire mission if, for example, it considers the reports as being biased. From March 2014 to March 2022 Russia approved every time the extension of the mission, which means it wasn't dissatisfied. The mission was discontinues on 31 March 2022 because Russia vetoed it.
- the UN mission was mandated by the UNSC in 2014 and continued its activity until its extension was vetoed, in March 2022, by Russia
Therefore: did these bodies establish, in their 8 years long activity, that Russian-Ukrainians have been indeed indiscriminately shelled and killed? That, in other words, there was indeed a genocide there, with civilians being targeted specifically (vs. simply a war, where people - military and civilians - are killed on both sides)?
After you establish this as a fact, I will consider your question "what you think Putin should have done?"
Please stay focused on this question and try not to go on a tangent ...

Yes becuz Russia has no nukes, no military, no history of belligerence and no territorial ambitions.  It's ok Europe.  Go right ahead and disarm if you wish.  Russia is no threat to you.  

Yes becuz Russia has no nukes, no military, no history of belligerence and no territorial ambitions.  It's ok Europe.  Go right ahead and disarm if you wish.  Russia is no threat to you.  

For Putin there was always the option not to invade.  

OK, her big achievement was, according to you, to radically change her opinion. Is this a value in itself? Because a more important question is: is her new opinion true? And was her old opinion false? Or, which is also possible, maybe both her new and her old opinions were false?
You implicitly answer these questions by your choice of the video, a choice you made according to your own opinion. As such, it advances nobody’s knowledge about the Russia’s war against Ukraine. 
Moreover, it is embarrassing that her employer, John Mark Dougan, the independent journalist, made her visit only the Russia’s side of the frontline, but not also the Ukrainian side, as one would expect from an independent journalist, to find out that in a war both sides are suffering, and that, therefore, one has to go beyond suffering and see who is responsible for all that.
However, the interview is quite interesting, on different levels – if one is familiar with the conflict in Ukraine.
Now: how objective is this journalist? According to Google, John Mark Dougan is quite well known as a conspiracy theorist (e.g. about a US-funded bioWEAPONS lab in Ukraine - see here, quite interesting), but this might be a subjective view. What is not subjective is this detail in his biography: he is a US fugitive and received political asylum in… Russia… He is a frequent contributor to Russia Today, RIA Novosti/Sputnik and other such "independent" publications. 

This is completely ridiculous and the clown is you, as it will result from the following.
0. The FACTS: it seems, as of today, that Ukraine was trying to knock down a Russian missile, but the Ukrainian anti-missile fell a few km inside the Polish border and killed two persons.
The Russian Missile was probably directed at Lviv, some dozen of km from the Polish border, and was part of the Russian campaign of destroying mostly civilian energy infrastructure before the approaching winter. This is arguably a war crime. The aim of this campaign was publicly admitted by Russia’s military
1. Looking retrospectively, it was a serious PR blunder; besides, no Zelensky’s words are capable of making NATO invoke Article 5 and possibly start WWIII
2. WW3 would not be in Zelensky’s interest at all, because Ukraine would be the first victim; his interest would be in getting more, and more performing weapons. And also to convince NATO of the obvious: that Russian military logistics inside Russia is fair game for Ukraine.
3. During this incident USA and NATO were from the beginning extremely prudent; this alone refutes all claims that USA/NATO looks for an excuse to attack Russia.
4. In a war shit happens, and the principal responsibility lies on the aggressor – unless there is proof that the other party targeted civilians. 
Now, who is the clown?
No, I do NOT take back my support for Ukraine just because of someone’s blunder: my support is much more principled than that.

It is difficult to find idiots more useful to Putin's fascist regime than the ones who spread propaganda of Russia's governmental outlets like Russia Today, TASS, RIA Novosti - even on this Objectivism forum.
The fact that they are doing it for free, precisely out of idiocy, is even more damning : they don't even have the excuse of having a family to feed...