the tortured one

The way I know it, love is a celebration of shared values. Sex incidently, is the physical manifestation of this celebration. Observe Hank Rearden, how little respect he had for Lillian, and how passionately he loved Dagny (anyone else have tears in their eyes when Dagny saw him in his plane looking for her? I could mentally picture the duress in Hank's face.) Similarly, look who Lillian ended up having sex with: Jim Taggart. The idea that love is irrational is false, check your premises. A girl who stays with her boyfriend even if he beats her is not love, it is the woman craving attention and getting it from the wrong places. A man who forgoes a high paying job to pursue a marriage with the woman he loves is not irrational, he values his relationship with his partner more than that job. Anyone who says love is all emotion and irrationality is probably an altruist, be careful of what they say. The concept of Egoism is rather complex and must be interpreted carefully. Egoism = selfishness = rational self-interest. A conclusion I have come to on my own is that Egoism is quite different but often confused for Egotism, which is irrational self-interest. Be aware of the difference when dealing with others. There is nothing more rational than genuine love between two people. <Edited by Elle (mod) for a few typos >

It is a small social forum called www.omni-fan.net It used to be www.dbz-fan.net, as it used to be a fan forum for the anime "Dragon Ball z", but as our interest in dbz waned, we converted it to omni-fan and from there it has been a mere social forum. Nothing of terrible interest, but these are still my old friends, so I hold some what of a sentimental attachment to them. Perhaps I should not have said everyone, as there are three active Objectivists at the forum. But there are also three active socialists as well, so the site does make for some pretty interesting political debate. My current alias at the site is "Vincent" (from a game, that name has little relation to me) but for the sake of convenience I may change my name back to "The Tortured One." That has been my alias at pretty much all of the forums I go too. If you find yourself at a forum and see a "Tortured One" check it out. If the person says "Citadel cadet" in special interests or anything, it's probably me.

are you kidding? they'd love it. Buncha commies.

I give blood as often as I can ... for the free cookie, of course But if I could sell it, heck, I'd make some money. I've already done so selling Platelets.

I am aware of the fact that Libertarians are all about the constitution in it's original state, particularly the powers granted to the government by Art.1 sec.8. Michale Badnarik himself is a Constitution expert, after all. For the longest time, I was a libertarian. I know what they're about. but the point I was trying to make is that someone said the Libertarian's aren't static. I said because unless it does become static, and grounds itself in firm philosophical roots, it will be suseptible to corruption, just like what happened to the Democrat party (remember, at one point in time, the Democratic party was Jefferson's party) And I think that is going to be a danger the Libertarians will always face. pretty much every libertarian forum I go to has this "indie-crats" which are left leaning liberals who have gone to the Libertarian party because they do not want to stand by the Democrat party. These "small l" libertarians are always fighting to turn the Libertarians into the Democratic party II, and without the social stigmata that comes with being associated with leftists, such as the term "liberal", which Republicans have turned into a 4 letter word. I knew one in particular who actually had in his sig "Saving the libertarian party from the radicals." Which is funny because Libertarianism has it's roots in Anarcho-Capitalism, which is what the Lp party was about when Ayn Rand knew about it. There are still a few of those radicals around (Lew Rockwell comes to mind) but I find that in 30 years the libertarian party has already moved away from that notion.

I sometimes have the opposite problem as well, people who talk down to me. Particularly people who study philosophy who regard Objectivism as an outdated offshoot of Nietzsche-ism. These are typically platonists and Kantians. Anyone else have this problem?

good points, but again, I disagree. I say that as long as the Libertarian party refuses to back itself with philosophy and remains a party of toleration, it is far more suseptible to corruption than Objectivism. 200 years from now, you can be sure that Objectivism will still stand for Laizze-faire Capitalism, as Capitalism is as much a part of Objectivist philosophy as is egoism and reason. There is no garuntee that the Libertarian party will be the party of free markets in that amount of time. Political parties tend to change over time, just like how the term liberal used to mean one who favors more social liberty and fiscal conservatism. For as long as it remains in it's current state, it will always be plagued by "small l" Libertarians who would love to turn the Libertarian party into the next Democrat party. Besides, I find that libertarians tend to be the harshest critics of Ayn Rand. I doubt that the party will accept Objectivism (which they have dubbed "Randian politics) when they only cite Ayn Rand when it suits their interest. To say the libertarian party is not static is a good thing smacks of the Liberal BS that the constitution aught to be a living document. It's yuppy-ish. My rights should not be at the mercy of the whims of a politician or the majority of the people.

I gave this test to another one of my online forums. EVERYONE scored 100% Kant. It was a real shock to me.

http://www.c-span.org/Search/basic.asp?Res...t=badnarik+cobb here is the link if you care to watch it. If you want a good laugh, pay attention to the second link, and watch Walt Brown of the socialist party. Talk about someone who does nothing but ramble. I mean, seriously none of the other candidates were as doddering as this old man.

one of life's finer pleasures is having a fully converted mini to call your own. Mine is a dark Elf sorceress. Based off of a 40k figure, with a sratch-made staff/flail and a 40k spore mine glued to her outstretched hand and painted up to look like a magic missile. I am very pleased with how she came out, here is another trend among gamers: this crome scheme. It looks very difficult to me: http://ne.games-workshop.com/chapter.asp?ChPlace=14 there are other conversions in there, just as beautiful. Remember that is only 14th in a top 15, so the other models look spectacular. check out the 11th place if you think the look of drybrushing doesn't look great on a model. for those who clicked the link but don't know much about the hobby, remembe that those models are 28mm, which is barely an inch in height.

The reason that miniature companies construct their models in heroic proportions is so that it is easier to pick out and complete details. Heroic proportions is basically an enlarged head, hands, and weapon. When placed under a microscope it looks rather silly, but at a glance for when viewed as a whole, the multitude of detail really brings the army to life. I have four armies, two fantasy, and two 40k. My skaven(think upright rats known for their "selfish" tendencies) army is old, and is painted as yours is, cartoony. But back in those days, even the professionals painted their armies in a cartoonly look. my second army is my imperial guard. Seeing as how they require tons of individual models, my paintscheme is detailed but nothing fancy. When painting 60+ models, efficiency is important. They wear a forest camo scheme. my third army is the Daemonhunters, mostly Grey Knights, Storm troopers, and Inquisitors. Since the army is smaller (around 35 models) I can afford to be more picky with my paint schemes. Since the army is more used for frontline assault against daemons rather than stealth, I go for a flashy, metallic paint scheme. I use a shiney metal with a watered down blue ink finish to go for that blue steel finish. Weapons are black and drybrushed grey to give them depth. my fourth army are my Dark elves, once again going back to my roots of playing a selfish race. This army wears very dark and sinister colors, so their clothing is predominatly black, and like I used on the Daemonhunters, I drybrushed gray to give their clothing depth. their armor is metal with a thick purple ink, to represent adamantium alloy. I will see if I can get some pictures posted. It's a very rewarding hobby. I personally did not like Card games. I prefer holding the model in my hand. I can understand their lure though.

I wouldn't call the thread redundant. The topic is RPGs, and that can encompass all types of RPGs. I don't see why we can't talk about all forms, differences between the types is mostly aesthetic. I would disagree with your reasoning on drybrushing and what-have-you. I tend to find bright, monotone colors cartoony, while drybrushing, inking, and highlighting adds depth to the model. I don't have any particular favorite artist, though I really like some of the artist work done for 40k. Despite the gothic atmosphere and religious overtones, most of the art is realist. Some of them use a distorted, gothic or surrealist style, but those are the artists I do not care for.

heh, that really didn't come out in my favor, did it? I treat everyone with the benefit of the doubt. If they have something smart to say, I respect that. Who was it that said "Better to keep your mouth shut and let people assume you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt? Perhaps I am a bit disgruntled, calloused from years of defending Capitalism and Objectivism against kids who have never had a philosophy or economics class in their life. Kinda like the Jonathan swift quote in my sig little vargrants. I usually get hit with that I am in a cult, doesn't matter if you say your an admirer of Ayn Rands, ARI or an Objectivist. My usually response is "How do you have a cult of individuals each thinking for themselves?" you know what's even funner? compare the (supposedly) cultish doctrines of Objectivism to the cultish doctrines of christianity. O'ism - reason, egoism, individualism, Chrisianity - subservience, slavery, faith. Be careful when slaying that sacred cow, because some christians get pretty emotional when you tell them their god is a figment of their imagination.

now heres another wrench to throw in this motor of a thread. Has anyone here played wargames? They are sort of like RPGs in that you take the role of an army commander. I have a few Warhammer and Warhammer 40k armies. I find it extremely rewarding to have 60+ models, each one lovingly peaced together and painted to exact standards, while you have that one model which you spent that extra time converting and painting. Then the exhilarating feeling of winning, squarely of course. I like the 40k fluff, it's a dystopian view of the future, the consequence of the triumph of Kantian thinking.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack. - George S. Patton the title is self-explainatory. What are your favorite quotes? Ayn Rand quotes are more than welcome, but come on, variety is nice too!

I'm with Oakes on this one. To give an example of our line of reasoning, Ayn Rand advocated school vouchers. Obviously she wasn't for public schools, but she felt that it would be a step towards privatization. when It comes to politics, I take a very Larry Eldar line of thinking. He has his 4 step programs which would take the program from it's current position to one of full privatization. ya gotta take baby steps. Especially with the large saturation of Kantian style thinking in our society.

I think that really doesn't pertain to philosophy, as long as you base your conclusions on facts and not faith. It would be permissible for someone to say "based on the evidence before me, which was collected from books and the history channel, I conclude that X had JFK killed." as opposed to "I think X had JFK assasinated. I don't know why, I just feel it." I was going to start another thread about this, but seeing as how a thread on the abandonment of reason is already in place., I figure this would be a pretty good place to post this. Has anyone else had problems with animal-philes who reject Objectivism in it's entirety because of the political rights of animals? Not the vegans, the ones who think that without proper animal rights laws people would torture their animals all day. "How can you say that? under your Randian logic, it would be ok for a man to subject his dog to the most unspeakable torment, and it would be ok!" of course, they don't believe that social ostracism would be enough. I find this very annoying. Philosophy is the study of man, yet people reject it because of that insignificant political aspect. Does anyone have anything to counter this outburst of emotion? It is rather annoying when socialists feel like they can claim the moral superiority of their belief and use their animal rights leg as a crutch. I couldn't personally care less about the issue. The animal is the man's property, he can do with it as he pleases. But certain people anthropomorphize their animals too much.

heh, good one. Christians can come up with some pretty nutty stuff. Another song came to mind "Break my mind" in which we need to stop listening to our brain and start listening to our hearts, because that is where God resides, and when we follow god, things are good... apparently I remember once I feel asleep during one of these assemblies. Having to sing songs about enslaving oneself to God and church for 45 minutes everyday is tiring. Anyway, one of the militant-christian girls (you know, the ones that feel the need to kick the ass of every non-christian) got upset at me and started saying I was a bad christian who was going to hell. It didn't confront me too much because by that time in high school I was pretty worn out on religion. Later, that same girl got expelled because she was caught smoking weed and having sex with her foster brother. She came from the foster family from hell. The parents were also militant christians who forbade TV, video games, non-christian books and movies, and staying up past 8:00 (imagine being a senior in high school and having that curfew.) If the kid wanted to go over to a friends house, the friend's parents had to fill out papers and submit police records and have an interview with the foster parents before the child was allowed to spend time at his house. But sleep-overs were expressly forbidden. and they wonder why christianity was the cause of the dark ages.

So I'm officially now on the private road bandwagan... Since it's never been tried [...] I would love to see data on a real world test. http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Internal.pdf by the author of "How Capitalism saved America"

A huge flaw that I have noticed is a lack of Egoism advocated with Capitalism. Watching the 3rd party presidential debates. Badnarik did nothing but Cowtow to David Cobb, a disgusting socialist. I'll give it to him that he was able to keep his head while Cobb went off on a blubbering tangent everytime he was asked a question. What is Capitalism without Egoism? It's a bunch of people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves while they live on handouts. Egoism's role in Capitalism is essential, and the Libertarian's failure to stress ethical Egoism is one of the reasons I distanced myself from them. I remember when I used to cringe when Badnarik used to refer to Americans as Altruistic as if that were some kind of compliment. You have to remember that Libertarianism is more of a political school of thought. I think I understand what he is trying to say (but I also understand it's flaw as well) Because Libertarianism falls philosophically under the same Pseudo-Kantian philosophy that permeates the majority. So they must prove that Capitalism is the best choice within the philosophy. That means they can only go by empirical evidence and observed market patterns. Utilitarianism is a popular philosophy among Libertarians, which is the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number. Now if one was to prove that more people would benefit under capitalism than under Keynsiansim or socialism while retaining identical philosophical axioms, the only way is by using empirical evidence. I find that's why Libertarians use the terms free marketeerism than Capitalism. Objectivism is far more deeper than that.

I have noticed that People either think it's one of the greatest movies ever or they think it was complete crap. It will probably end up like the Rocky Horror picture show, where the movie developes a cult of followers who absolutely love the movie while the rest of the world has never seen it. Me? I had to pause the movie several times to catch my breath, thats how hard I was laughing. It was so absurd it was funny, but I also liked it because I used to have a friend in high school who acted like Napoleon Dynamite. My family pointed out something strange. I am the kind of person who Reads Nietszche, Rand, and Aristotle in my spare time, but then I have this silly sense of humor and a fond love for all kinds of comedy, including the no-intelligence type. I guess I spend so much time using my mind in my free time, when I am ready to unwind I don't feel like using it anymore. I love slapstick humor, I like dry humor (Napoleon Dynamite and Best in the Show come to mind), black humor, dark humor, dirty humor, clean humor, Jewish humor (Analyse This anyone?) name a type of humor, odds are I can place it with a comedy I enjoyed. my favorite comedies are Napoleon Dynamite, Analyse This, My Cousin Vinny, Barber Shop 2, Caddyshack, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (My favorite of all time), and William Shakespeare's Henry IV part 1 (Falstaff never fails to make me laugh) What can I say? I love to laugh, and I love life too much to spend it not laughing.

One common motiff among Libertarians I see is that they see Government as intrinsically evil, like a giant rapid dog that happens to be your only means of protection. In the eyes of Libertarians, they feel the reason 9/11 happened in the first place was because of our very extensive interventionist policies in the middle east, or what they call "sticking our noses in places it doesn't belong." They didn't see the 9/11 attacks so much as an attack by Islamists as they saw it as a retaliation against our government. that's the impression I get, anyway.

In other words, It's Communism that doesn't want to take credit for every single failed communist system in history (which, incidently, would be all of them.) One Republican editorial writer called these people that try to distance themselves from the empirical evidence Indi-crats. Sure he was refering to Democrats who went independent so they wouldn't have to put up with defending the Democrat party, but the notion remains. It reminds me of President Johnson in Atlas Shrugged when he told Galt that he was willing to listen, and do whatever he said would be necessary to fix the state, but then shrivelled away from John when John told him to do something Capitalistic (in that case, abolish the income tax.) That seems to be fairly common among socialists today. They seem like they are trying to give Capitalism the credit it undeniably deserves, but also trying to bend the facts for their purposes. The common mantra I hear is "Capitalism is a nice economic system, but makes a lousy religion." damn, Now I have guilt that I didn't sign up for CyberNet back in October, if I had known about this event I would have bent over backwards trying to attend. Time to remedy that problem.

that's nothing. when I went to christian high school we used to sing a song called "make me a slave, Oh God"

A survey of college students asked them what was their most influential book in their lives. Atlas Shrugged came in second behind the Bible. I forget who conducted the survey. Another survey conducted by the congressional library asked scholars (the Intellegensia) what they felt was the most influential piece of literature in the 20th century. Their response was James Joyce's Ulysses. When they opened the survey to the American public, Atlas Shrugged was far and away number 1, and I don't even think Ulysses got ranked. If you value your time, do not touch Ulysses. I am convinced that when Rand sat down to write "the art of fiction" she read Ulysses to assist her in remembering what NOT to do in a writing. Horrible excuse for literature.