sanjavalen

As DavidOdden pointed out, there can be no Objectivist Symbol because the person who came up with Objectivism (Rand) never made one. If ever there was any symbol that would become associated with Objectivism, it would be one of an organization that people associate with the philosophy or which is preponderantly made up of Objectivists.

I don't think any of this is applicable to doing business with Cubans. Again, the US has no interest in prosecuting people for trading with Cubans. Not to mention that it isn't a crime to trade with a mafia don - only to actually be a mafia don.

I think the context was different back then, though. The Soviet Union (and its allies) were actively attempting to subvert the US, and openly declared goals of worldwide revolution - and followed through with that declaration in every place they could. Direct military confrontation, due to nuclear weapons, was not a first option. Economic embargo, however, was. What threat to the US does Cuba present today?

The US has every right to prosecute murder, theft, etc in its jurisdiction. I believe most courts would throw out any claim against a man who prevents an abortion from being done in, say, Iran, on the grounds that it is out of their jurisdiction. Can you provide data of a man who committed a crime in another country with no relation to anything revolving around a US jurisdiction (ie not committed on a US national, on nominal US soil such as the embassy, against a US corporation, etc.) and was sentenced and served time in a US jail? I know we have extradiction treaties with many countries but I do not know that the US courts assert that they hold worldwide jurisidiction. Some factual data to back up that (to my knowledge) fantastic assertion would help. As far as embargos, the US government, as an agent of the citizens* of the US, has as part of its responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens. You'll note that, as an agent of the citizens of the United States, the US Government has no reason, moral or practical, to protect the rights of citizens of other countries, or to try and do things in their best interest. No moral government exists that will try to enforce its claim as an agent of its citizens on people with whom it holds no such agreement. Simply put, Cuban (or Iranian, or Tibetan, or Georgian) slaves are not the concern of the US government and it has no reason to take any legal action (be it lawsuit or embargo) against people who violate the rights of individuals whom the US government is not the agent of. To make the absurd claim that the US government is the agent of the Cuban people is, of course, plain silly. If the US government is not the agent of various slave-peoples around the world, it has no business taking any action for their benefit. If someone wants to make the absurd claim that it is, an embargo still isn't the answer; rather, immediate invasion and liberation would be. But, of course, the US Government is an agent of people who reside in the United States, not those who reside in Cuba. *I use "citizen" here but, essentially, the US government is an agent of anyone who is located in its jurisdiction.

I won't be killed for disagreeing openly and publically with the ruling cartel. Thats an important difference. The US is no ideal; but to simply state that there is no moral difference is sheer blindness. The US can still be turned around peacefully; in Cuba the only alternative is armed revolution.

The point of Ayn Rand's views on the is-ought "problem," which I believe to be her most substantial contribution to philosophy in general, is that any moral-ethical system does not make sense if it is not based on the concept, not of bare survival (there lies a great misunderstanding,) but living life in a manner suitable to a being of your nature, what Rand calls living life qua man. Rand's view on the matter is twofold: 1) Values are necessary, if you want to live 2) Therefore, the only proper base for values is your own life, qua man. The first point is the most important one and the result of her innovative approach to the is-ought problem. Instead of asking "What values ought men hold?" she asked "Do men need morality and values at all - and if so, why?" Values (and thus morality) are only necessary if you choose to live. At the point at which you have decided not to live, values become superfluous and meaningless - logically unjustifiable. So the conclusion is that, if you wish to be logical, there are only two alternatives: hold your highest value to be living life qua man, or to not hold life as a value at all, in which case no values are logically justifiable and the only (reasonable) course of action is to sit down and quietly die. Of course, you can also be illogical and hold some contradictory values, living but pursuing values that contradict your own wellbeing, but if you consciously choose that you move beyond the realm of rational discussion.

It's an interesting premise - that marketers are responsible for what they do, but parents are by no means responsible for what their children wear and how they act. Children grow into adults, and of course have free will; so even an excellent set of parents (especially in this cultural sewer) can raise a child who ends up being a poor human being. But so long as they are under your authority, it is a simple enough matter to forbid them to dress in that manner.

I think its simply a value that Brook gets to spread the word, so to speak, through the vast audience Beck has. Even though most will probably reject it out of hand, hopefully some people are made curious about what Dr. Brook is talking about and look into Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

A bit off topic, but Jeff Cooper, famous pistolero and ex-marine corps officer in WWII, visited the line in 1984 and wrote this about it. It has stayed with me since I first read it:

I don't think so. The fact that they are government-owned toilets still presents the essential contradiction, ie, that I would be forced to pay for same-sex only bathrooms even if I disagreed with it (and it would cost me money to boot!) The solution, of course, is private restrooms, but I still ask: why same-sex only? I recognize that the owner could decide whichever way they wanted, but I still don't see the point.

I just don't see the point of different bathrooms for each sex.

Whether or not people want separate men's and women's bathrooms doesn't answer the question: What's the point?

What's the point of separate men's and women's bathrooms?

Its also worthy to note that even "non religious" people, in my experience at least, give great moral authority and respect to religious figures - priests, pastors and the faithful in general as "Good, right people but just not the kind of life I want." Its really just as bad as being Christian if a person grants moral authority to Christian leaders.

Before I moved to Colorado to be with my fiance (K-Mac, she posts here way more often than I) I was part of the North Texas Objectivist Society (NTOS.) There are be parties twice a month, on average, where 20-35 other people came. Mostly students of Objectivism, tho a few people farther along than that and the occasional curious soul who was not an Objectivist but wanted to know more. Also once a month an after-work get together in Dallas, about 5-10 people usually attended those. Very family-friendly atmosphere as a lot of the attendees were married and a few couples had kids that would tag along (ever play with an Oist-raised kid? They are extra fun!) In Colorado they have FROG - the Front Range Objectivist Group. They are more academically focused (we get together mostly to discuss one of Rand's works) and meet less often, but we have been getting busy stirring up the social events here and its working out well. I can't imagine not living near a bunch of other Objectivists, its a very big value-add to my life. NTOS is really the only thing I miss about Texas, as it had a slightly different character than FROG - and I made a lot of my best friends there.

There is already a legal way to do that, namely, being emancipated. But it takes quite a bit to build up a sufficient case for it in every jurisdiction, to the best of my knowledge. As far as earning rights...they are all there already, as a minor semantical issue. They are simply applied in a different manner to minor who (to keep it simple, lets take clear-cut cases) have not reached the point physically or psychologically where they are entirely capable of making use of their rational faculty in a manner that adults do. I moved out of the house only a few months after turning 18 (it would have been sooner (like the day I turned 18,) but I made a promise to a family member I liked to stay for something - when that promise was fulfilled, I left.) It has been a very positive experience for me and I found out that, no, I was *not* as mature and rational as I thought I was. However, moving out on my own allowed me to identify where I was not mature, not rational and the very real, unavoidable consequences (not paying bills, not having a job, etc.,) allowed me to quickly fix those issues. Except in very rare circumstances, I do believe that a child is not fully an "adult" until they have lived on their own for a period of time, under their own effort and without any substantial help from outside forces (parents, family members, etc.) I believe that ought to be the litmus test for granting emancipation - living on one's own for some period of time that legal scholars can debate, but which fairly well establishes that the minor is capable of supporting themselves via their own productive effort and won't blow it all off for a week or two of partying.

JeffS: Its difficult to provide data for a lack of something. If someone wants to provide a novel as "proof" of something, they are just seeking rationalizations, not trying to engaged in reasoned discussion. Think of it reasonably: Would you buy tainted food or fresh food, if you had a choice? Fresh, obviously. So there is an opening in the market if it was physically possible to bring the freshest food to the market. Thats very important. No government decree can make fruit (or meat) last longer on the shelves. People who could afford to, bought food from places with a reputation of having decent or above quality foodstuffs. People who could not afford to, bought dicey food. What changes when the FDA comes in? Even assuming perfect enforcement, the net result is that people who couldn't afford to eat the freshest foods in the first place now do not have a cheap source of food. Who benefits, here? The entire scenario the person is positing is based on some faulty assumption that Capitalists would put out bad food - on purpose, and simply because they want other people to suffer.

Did the government stop child labor, by and large, or did capitalism? Despite the passage of laws against it, children still worked in various jobs (just in out of the way places less likely to provide good work environments) until there was enough prosperity in general that, by and large, children didn't *have* to work to survive. Similarly, the FDA did not suddenly improve the quality of foodstuffs and drugs. They were still sold - they stopped being sold when there was enough prosperity that people could, generally speaking, pass up on shady dealers and instead focus on ones that took pride in their foodstuffs and drugs. Prosperity, not regulations, make for pure food and drugs. There are still rotten fruit and snake oil being sold, even today - but only those who can't afford better food or more reliable drug treatments go to them. The same was true before the FDA existed; but by and large people could not afford better drugs/food anyway. The myth that government agencies accomplished much besides making it harder on the people who could not afford to deal with people who followed their regulations.

Wheres the proof that we don't have tainted food and drugs now? Turn on the news some time. There's usually a story on tainted food of some kind once every few months. Your key error was in ceding an important point: namely, that the FDA "ensures" that we have "clean" food and drugs, whereas Capitalism does not. The plain fact of the matter is that the FDA does no such thing. Neither does any system in Capitalism; the point is that the FDA does no demonstrable good, and would not have done any good had it existed pre-capitalism (just as labor laws did not "put an end" to child labor, but the productive forces of capitalism which made it *unnecessary* for them to work in order to live, did.) In fact it does a great deal of harm. If you have a subscription to The Objective Standard, a good article summarizing whats wrong with the FDA is here: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues...ates-rights.asp

Please clarify: are you suggesting that the govt ought to require everyone to purchase contract insurance?

Is not the refusal to discuss the reasons a decision was made insightful as to the nature of that decision?

I am not a parent, though I may one day become one. However, I have done some research into schooling (particularly Lisa VanDamme and her VanDamme academy, which looks very good,) and there is a similar problem for a teacher. Namely: how do you know that a child properly understands x subject and is not just guessing or has, by some incorrect process, come to the right conclusion? In mathematics, you show your work every time. This used to frustrate me (because it seemed like a waste of time,) but now I see exactly why it is that you have to show your work. In the humanities, every question you answer is an essay question - and you *explain* why you think the way you do in every answer. A similar method should be profitable to adopt with children. Whenever your child wants to make a decision (or makes one,) ask them to explain why they did what they did. Even a quasi-rational parent can fairly easily identify, at that point, whether the child was capable of making a rational choice but did not (primarily through an error of knowledge,) made a rational choice (even if it does not coincide with what you'd prefer,) or was simply approaching the issue irrationally in principle. It not only allows you to have some insight into your child's thought processes (which would aid greatly in determining whether or not they have the capacity to make rational judgments on some subject,) but also encourages your child to introspect, a vital skill for any developing human being. The ability to step back and rationally introspect why you feel x, why you want y, etc., aided me greatly in becoming a mature, calm and rational adult. It also helped a lot more in making rational decisions in general. Your mileage may vary, but that is what I would try first.

The fraud argument seems baseless on the face of it, unless the bank actually actively deceives its depositers and lies about its fractional reserve system in some sense (claiming it has more reserves than it actually has, or claiming its a full reserve bank while not actually doing that.) How is it fraud if everyone is aware of it to begin with? Am I missing something in the argument for it being fraud?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/47011...ide-bomber.html

If you truly believe things are going to get as bad as you say they will, it would be prudent to prepare for such an eventuality. There is a large, thriving subculture of survivalists in the US. Some are kooks, some simply cautious and others do it for a fun hobby. There are a lot of people who have thought through how to survive all sorts of horrible things, from a severe natural disaster to a zombie apocalypse. Relax and begin to act, if you are honestly judging the facts to the best of your ability. If you are just having a panic attack get a hold of yourself, and reality.