L-C

Property and life are part of the same currency of life itself: time. Having my car or some of my work stolen is no different than physically hauling me off to a dungeon for the amount of time it took to produce those things.

I'm no authority on boats but that does look good.

The latter will never happen without the former. Any foundation less solid than Objectivism is doomed to certain failure. Anyone who attempts to follow the conclusions of Objectivism without understanding the philosophy itself is acting on faith.

Most people don't view force the way we do, as the opposite of reason, but instead as a mere variation on the same continuum of tools. Put simply, force is not a big deal for them.

I may give of what I deem to be my excess, when I acquire it. And I will give it to a cause I consider worthy, such as medical research. Not throw it in a dump dominated by suffering and death. Africa should recieve help when it is deserving of such, and then only voluntarily. Right now it's pearls to swine. Or, if you will, pearls to people held hostage by swine, who will take their pearls.

Killing civilians without any strategic benefit serves no purpose. But if we need to destroy something, any incidental civilian deaths (not murders) are the responsibility of the initiators of force.

Consistency takes hard work but is very rewarding. Both your self-esteem and confidence will stand proud.

Volition is a type of causation.

There is no "line" between force and justice - only a no man's land. In Laissez-faire Capitalism, only the most gravely disabled would find themselves consistently lacking the means of self-support. This is in contrast to the unfathomable inefficiency of current society. Those few should be supported by their families, and would be supported by charity.

I "began" comparatively close to Objectivism. When I first started to pay attention to select topics such as taxes, crime etc. in my mid teens, I could have been considered a Classical or Neo liberal. Eventually I agreed with the more easily understood facets of Objectivism, and later on I agreed with its metaphysics and epistemology. I've never been religious. I've been an individualist and a loner all my life, which has helped. Look to the left for my country of birth and residence. It is only quite recently that I've started applying Objectivism consistently to my life, and the results are already showing. I don't talk about Objectivism "IRL".

The problem with shooting a running thief in the back on an open street is not moral - he deserves to be shot - but the lack of objectivity. A society with objective (rule of) law can't have people issuing retaliative death penalties.

Hi there. Things are not as fine as they may seem. Have you ever investigated the public school system, to which the alternatives are so few? The books are old and worn out, politically biased and there aren't enough of them. The whole apparatus reeks of ever-degrading socialist repressed condition. The teachers are nervous during class. After class they fight about teachers' "rights" and of being oppressed. The police force is severely undermanned and in some areas undereducated. The public health "care" system is overrun by budget problems and staff shortage. The system is inefficient, we know that. How much could we do if the system was effective? Much more. Read and re-read what DavidOdden wrote, especially this part: "It's a very clever form of socialism, constantly bleeding the citizenry but slowly enough that so far they still have blood pumping through their veins." It is as true as it gets. People do get by. Do you want to merely get by? I for one live to the fullest extent that I will enable myself to. Can you imagine what you could do with the money that the government take, were you to get to keep it for yourself instead? Every monthly salary check from January to August would be added, yes - added - to your wallet. Take your time to think about just how much you really pay and how little you really get from it all. That is, unless you are a wellfare taker. The wellfare takers are the most privileged people in Sweden. This is but a fraction. I could certainly write more. Much, much more. Now, you said you were debating with socialists. First off, frankly, don't expect ever to be able to budge their ideology one bit, just as you wouldn't expect to convince a devoted Christian to become unreligious. You can spend some time trying to inform the socialists, but I advice you to lay off your trials if they do not respond. Second, don't even think about having any hope that the large mass of intellectual sloths will understand. Talk to those who are at least remotely neutral and/or somewhat willing to listen and learn. Unfortunately, they are not as frequent as one would wish them to be.