bluey

You said you'd add him to ignore if he continued to redirect you to his previous posts rather than re-presenting his argument. I haven't seen any more links and I have seen a good number of arguments that directly referenced yours. So I guess that means you're just an asshole who isn't worth debating with. Too bad. I see no evidence that you're willing to honestly deal with either the subject of the debate or the other members of the forum, so I'm done with you.

So are you saying you wouldn't have a problem with it if Keating had done the blowing up, rather than Roark? So how is it consistent for you to say that Roark can't blow it up as his only recourse to protecting his own rights (which he didn't just "give away" as you keep insisting), yet entitlements can be ended abruptly? (Although your argument on this point is really a matter of degrees - you're not saying "lets collect no more taxes immediately", you're saying "let's give a 30 - 90 day warning and then stop collecting taxes", which is a matter of degrees from "let's stop collecting taxes, a bit at a time as entitlement programs are wrapped up and infrastructures replaced, over the course of a number of years") Also as far as the "collateral damage" issue was concerned - Roark took his actions with the full knowledge that there may be serious consequences for them. He expected to spend significant time in prison. As for a moral defense - the whole situation arises because the government abdicated its responsibility to protect individuals from force.

We're not talking about your house. Since you want to equivocate the two situations, here's how it would go down if it were your house: You would make a contract with an architect (Keating's firm, in this case) to have a building designed. You would put in certain terms, he would put in certain terms, and you would both sign. One of Keating's terms is that the building must be built exactly as designed, or else you have no license to use the design for your building. You agree to this term and sign the contract. Keating contracts with Roark to have the building designed and hands over the plans to you. You then hire some other architects who make changes to the design, and go ahead and build the altered design. Keating sues you for breach of contract. You lose and owe him a lot of money. You can make up whatever alterations you want to the scenario, but as it happens in the book, for whatever reason, Keating and Roark can't sue the government. What law is being invoked? Whichever one gives the government the tyrannical power to breach contracts and violate, rather than protect, the rights of its individual citizens. Or if there is no such law, then it's whichever government officials who are acting in breach of their positions. Either way - a right has been violated and it's up to the court to sort it out, and the only way it gets to court is if Roark does something illegal.

And of course adding to the problem was that there was no legal recourse for either Keating or Roark - they couldn't sue for the breach of contract. So Roark blew it up in order to a) reclaim his right to the design which had been stolen from him and get the issue into court. And you just provided a quote explaining why it might be an ok idea to break a law in order to get a hearing in court in respect of that law.

What arguments, what debate? Whenever anyone has addressed your points, you've either claimed to be offended by their tone and refused to address them in return, or you've randomly jumped to completely unrelated topics without making any attempt at coherence. You started the thread with two different questions without giving any indication of how you thought they were related, and now there are about five different topics going on all at once as people have tried to address your misuse of terms and misunderstandings of various replies. Maybe your goal was to confuse everyone into not having anything more to say to you and you want to call that winning an argument. Whatever.

But Objectivism says you have to be honest, non-criminal, and rational (and if other people think you're not rational, then you obviously aren't). Otherwise, when you die, you get sent straight to the People's Republic of Hades for all eternity!

No, you were talking about "unfunded liabilities" that currently make up a large percentage of federal spending. Expected future expenses don't have anything to do with your last point, and they have nothing to do with the subject of returning property to the unjustly taxed after a government restructure. Why would you need a way to pay for expenses that haven't been incurred yet? How and why would you project expanded future expenses after the separation of state and economics? Your last response made no sense and I tried to reply to it anyway. This one doesn't make sense either - I can't figure out what your argument is and you don't seem interested in defending your position. You're going to have to be a lot more clear if you want to continue to debate about (one of) the subjects of your OP.

Just to be clear, we are talking about property (money) that has been unjustly seized by the government from individual citizens to fund government initiatives that are outside the realm of protection from force. In that case all government liabilities are "unfunded" in the sense that they are funded only by forced taxation. The government doesn't have any other means of paying for anything. I don't understand your last sentence - are you trying to argue that the government can spend more money than it collects/has collected in taxes? How would the government return property in "payments" - once taxation stops, there is not going to be any more money available next month or year than there is this month or year. If there is not currently enough to return 100% plus interest, adjusted for inflation, to everyone who has contributed (in some cases over upwards of 70 years), how would there be any more once the next payment is "due"? Since as you say the looting has stopped by this point?

It certainly doesn't spend any *more* than the amount it collects in taxes. Property would be the only appreciating asset. However you add it up, the amount available to return is going to be much, much smaller than the amount that has been collected. Never mind increasing the returned amount to account for interest and inflation.

Where are you going to get the money that you'll return, plus interest? It's not still sitting there, you know. It certainly isn't collecting interest or rising with inflation. Maybe you'll have to invent a "restitution tax" or something.

Do you think hitting the brakes in your car is the same as continuing to propel the car forward, simply because the principles of physics make it impossible to stop a large moving object on a dime? Do you deny that a society with a significant and increasing percentage of free-market elements is MORE STABLE than one with no functioning government whatsoever, where millions of people have been put of out work overnight, where schools, roads, power and water systems suddenly cease to function, etc?? Do you think there is some possibility of an overnight destruction of 80% of current government functions that would somehow leave a seamless transition to a government whose military and policing functions are fully intact and functional immediately? Or where utilities that are currently government-run could be replaced overnight by private infrastructure and management? Or perhaps where the sudden loss of currently-public services would simply go unnoticed? Do you think there is anything principled or consistent about insisting that changes occur in a way that is patently impossible? IIRC, Rand herself suggested that in a change to a completely free market economy, the elimination of forced taxation would be the last step of the transition. It's all well and good for you to wish you could just snap your fingers and skip all the steps, but you can't claim that you're being consistent to do so. To be consistent with Objectivism would be to advocate a rational progression towards a free economy, in tangent with cultural changes that will allow such a progression to be made volitionally, rationally, and with the least possible increase in chaos.

We are calling for a transition from a mixed economy TO a free market economy over a period of time, rather than an overnight change, which is impossible anyway - which was the point of my first question to you. Given that the culture has to change in order for any of these changes to be made, what do you think is an alternative?? Are you going to put together an army and shut down all economic functions of the government overnight, by force? The way it would happen is that cultural changes would allow for increased freedom in one area at a time as voters become less tolerant of political involvement in certain areas of life. As these changes happen and people observe themselves to be better off, more changes would follow. What is your "principled manner" of achieving an overnight change? No - I mean *I*, a rational and responsible human being, get to say it's in *MY* self-interest to influence changes in society through volitional and rational means rather than through force. It's in *MY* self-interest to live in a more-stable rather than a less-stable society - where people have somehow overnight lost the framework on which their livelihoods and future plans depended, where they are essentially being punished for making decisions based on reality. But it doesn't matter anyway because your head is in the clouds if you think there is ANY alternative to change that happens slowly, in any society, much less one that is becoming MORE rational and free.

Obviously nobody is arguing against ending socialism. We are arguing in favour of phasing out socialist elements in a mixed society in a sane way that will not result in more socialism. It's called rational self-interest, maybe you've heard of it?

An important element of this whole scenario is that there is no "I" who owned Cortlandt. No one in particular was making decisions, no one in particular owned the property or directed the design, no one in particular was responsible for making agreements or enforcing contracts. The whole thing was a circus of non-responsibility. It's not at all like the case of the temple, where the entire design and purpose of the building was changed, but there was an owner and he made the decision about property that was actually his - and Roark left it alone.

What's your point? Are you saying that there's nothing for us to do until society collapses on its own, in which case there is no possibility of "phasing out" reliance on government services? Or are you saying that government services should be ended abruptly through use of force by some extra-governmental power? Since you don't seem to think it's possible that enough members of the culture will voluntarily change - which of course is the premise of the "phasing out" approach - I don't understand what you are proposing as an alternative.

Excellent, thank you for this and for the link.

I'm doing a little research and wondering how many people have been attending the Objectivist Conferences, specifically in 2009 but also in earlier years if anyone has that info. I can't seem to find it on the OCON website or the ARI site. Can anyone here who has attended give me an accurate or even a ballpark figure? Thanks!!

I've seen some ads for things like this, the Wii Fit offers something similar. I actually think it looks really cool, I'm not overweight but it seems like a good way to visually keep track of your progress. Anyway he is trying to sell this, right? Not just give it away? So how is it supposed to be altruistic?

You could look into how these subjects are taught in the Montessori or Mortensen systems. These are both systems that teach math using physical materials that kids are taught to manipulate so that they learn math through experience. I'm not completely familiar with them but it might be something for you to look into since you're interested.

It's fine and dandy not to *want* it to end in 80 years. It's irrational to clamp your hands over your ears and decide to believe that it isn't going to, and live your life in accordance with that belief.

You can't help others achieve rationality. The fact is, a top-notch grade 12 education is not going to help a destitute Somalian if his government is a corrupt gang who takes everything he produces, kidnaps his children when they need more soldiers, and prevents him from leaving the country to make a better life. Education doesn't eliminate poverty - freedom does. As long as governments exist to use force against citizens rather than to protect them from force, a hundred billion dollars wouldn't help the poorest country. When people are free to help themselves, and know that they are free to use their own minds and keep the products of their efforts, they do choose to educate themselves and their children to whatever extent they can. They find a way to do it. As it stands, I personally already am forced to "give" a good 30% of my income to educate kids who can't afford it and a bunch of other stuff ... but apparently it isn't helping much, so why would I give more? I think you need to examine this premise that if people only kept what they "need" and give the rest to some cause, the world would be a better place. It wouldn't. The world gets better the more people are left to decide for themselves what to do with their money and their minds.