Jake_Ellison

In the short term, republicans would be a huge danger to individual rights, as they are on the verge of taking over the Supreme Court, which is supposed to uphold individual rights in this country: instead, with one more Republican appointment to the Court, they will without any doubt allow State Legislatures to decide on individual rights in each state, and that would be the end of a free America, and the Constitutional Republic as we know it. David of course said exactly that, he did not say McCain will turn the US into a theocracy. Of course, the end of individual rights, which we are so close to, will be a huge step in the direction of a dictatorship, most likely a religious one. As far as fascism being caused by economic conditions, that is just silly: fascism is caused by ideology, and enabled by a lack of strong principles, like the ones that caused America to uphold individual rights through recessions, wars and even the Great Depression. Those principles are in danger now because of the Republicans, and their ideology is the only one growing dangerously.

The election might as well be over, the Republicans are out of power for at least four years, so what will happen to the Party of God now? Can they change to offer an alternative to Obama in 4 years, and if so, where would the new blood come from? (is it Giuliani, is it Bloomberg, Ron Paul, or someone else?) Is there a chance they will be completely destroyed in the next four years, as the corruption scandals and hearings will no doubt be rolling in now that the democrats have a huge majority in Congress?

I know that the philosophy works, because it works great for me, and it makes so much sense, but this poll really doesn't prove that: obviously, people with a (college) education( A) make more money( B ); they(A) also read more( C ); ==> people with a (college) education(A) read more of everything( C ), including Atlas Shrugged(C1)===> people who make more money because of their education read more Atlas Shrugged. This conclusion isn't the same as C1 ===>B (meaning reading Atlas Shrugged causes wealth) or even C===>B(meaning reading in general causes wealth). However, my logic relies on two things that are, I think you would agree, true more often than not (A==>B and B==>C), and explains the corelation between C1 and B; if one would have to choose between my premise to explain this corelation, and yours (C1 ==> B ), they would probably pick mine, because we know a lot more about my premises. (in fact it would be hypocritical of anyone who went to college or is there currently to dispute them, or at least the first one) If you were to prove, however, that people reading Atlas Shrugged make more money than people who went to college, and read other philosophers(C2), then my logic would not explain: C1 causing more B than (A and C2), ( or even just that A and C1 is better than A and C2), so people would be left with your theory, as an explanation to that.( of course the reverse of ypur theory wold still be just as good an explanation)

I agree with this statement, but I don't agree with your previous one. We do not owe animals anything, we owe ourselves not to engage in torture for fun, specifically we should not allow ourselves to sink into such depravity that we would enjoy an animal's pain.

Well, there are many reasons why that's a bad idea , but for one: In both cases (criminals and enemy countries) it would create an huge incentive for government, even a democratically elected one, to arrest rich people or go to war against certain countries, even if such an action isn't justified. The beauty of a government which isn't allowed to collect taxes, no matter what, is exactly the fact that it becomes very nicely limited, no matter what the people voting for it's leaders would like it to do. Another point: how exacltly do you collect from an enemy country? The only way is through a lengthy occupation and heavy taxation, Roman Empire style. Remember what happened to them? P.S. Objectivists believe war is the answer only if a nation is a threat, not if it's a bad nation.

Wow, is that a new right you came up with? I didn't even know that I "owed" humans anything other than to not take away their life, liberty or property. The right to compassion, isn't that "the right to have your basic needs satisfied"? Is a homeless person being "owed" a house, too? Animals are not members of society: they have no rights and we don't trade with them, so we don't owe them anything. We do not derive stuff from domestic animals, we produce animals, and eat them. I don't understand where this debt of ours would be coming from.

Except for sen. Inhofe and a few others, republicans feel the same way about global warming. Recognizing that the Republican Party is embracing environmentalism and the welfare-state, driven by religious altruism does not mean someone is an Obama supporter: we just want the republicans to lose, because they are far more dangerous than some junior senator raising taxes a little for a few years. I don't understand why McCain would be a better president: Is he prepared to defeat Iran? (by defeat I don't mean a few bombs dropped in the desert, for show) Is he going to take the government oyt of the economy, or at least take steps in that direction? Is he going to lower taxes for those who produce wealth in this country? Is he going to abolish the FCC or restrict it's powers? Is he going to end the war on drugs? Is he going to go into Pakistan, and kill the leadership of al-Qaeda? Please, answer yes to any of those questions, produce some evidence, and I'll be the first one to encourage everyone I know to vote for him. Until then, I think throwing the ball around in the back yard, or having a barbecue would make a perfect tuesday afternoon.

You need to switch the whole argument around-make them come up with reasons why people wouldn't pay, and then knock those reasons down with examples: Right now, people are voting for leaders who tax them for around 40% of their money, perhaps more, so almost everyone thinks it is right to pay the government for security, they believe in it. We know people are willing to put their money where their mouth is, since even after this massive taxation by the government, the christians are paying their dues to the church, and record numbers of Americans (compared to other countries) are giving money to charity. Also, whenever there is a war, millions of Americans are willing to risk their lives for their country. Keeping all this in mind, why on Earth wouldn't Americans pay for their own security voluntarily, knowing what the consequences are for them and their families if they don't--especially since they would be so much more prosperous without the huge taxation? Make them think of arguments as to why this would not happen. Tell them to imagine themselves in this new world, where the police and army are dependent on their contribution: Wouldn't they feel morally obligated to give, the same way people are morally obligated to give to their church, or to sign up for military service in times of war? Another question to ask: Why would the defense of this country not be far more important than anything people currently contribute to voluntarily? Someone who five minutes ago advocated looting for the exact same cause will not have an honest answer to this question.

I don't think we know Obama well enogh to make a decision on wether he's a real radical, or just someone who spent his life telling people what they wanted to hear, and the reason for that is that the actual media, the people who have the training and means to really investigate him did not do their jobs: not just because they are left leaning, but also because they are more scared than ever of the GOP. What we do know, however, is that the people around President Obama, who are going to be part of his cabinet (Biden, Kerry, probably Powell + a bunch of Clinton people), and the leaders of the Democratic Party (Pelosi, Read), are all career politicians. I think it's safe to say there won't be any radical changes, that would not be popular with americans. The main areas of concern will be the healthcare system and the financial industry: I think they have popular suport to do a lot of damage there, even more than there's already been done. The only sweet part, for me, of a McCain victory, would be watching the truth, after all this hype, on the news: there wouldn't be millions marching on the White House, there wouldn't be riots or massive protests, just the same few hippies that boo when Bush is in town, or try to arrest Karl Rove. No one would really care that he lost, because the only people buying into this hype are the ones creating it: he's not charismatic, or brilliant. He just looks OK reading a teleprompter, because he's standing next to McCain.

What's even worse is that if you ask McCain about that, he'll tell you it's a good idea. In fact I remember hearing McCain about a year ago talking about a much longer, mandatory service for young people, as an alternative to rep. Charlie Rangel's proposal to reinstate the draft: in fact he made the argument that everyone should be required to sacrifice a full year , if I remember correctly, of their life for their country. Just to back up my post.

My apologies, I made the mistake of putting too much stock into Drudge's integrity( they linked to the video). There could be, and in fact was, a context which changes the meaning of the whole thing. Here's the whole quote, including the part that was "accidentally" left out: "And we are going to grow our foreign service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy," said Obama. "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we have set. We have got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." Still quite stupid, but not nearly as scary as the video. Answer the hypothetical question anyway, after all that is how the nazis expanded their power, so such a force would be a real threat to America as well.

I think Obama's just an idiot, and he'll retract the whole thing tomorrow, and we can just forget about it. That said, let's assume that he means it, and he becomes president. Could he then push this idea through, and make it a reality? Here's my take on the contents of the video itself (I haven't seen the whole speech, but I can't imagine how it could be misinterpreted because of the lack of context): A civilian security force, that's just as well funded? Isn't that a second military? What exactly would distinguish a 450 billion $/year security force from our current 450 bn/year security force, the military? What makes such a force "civilian" in nature? The only thing I can think of is that they might be able to be deployed on american soil, without that pesky "habeas corpus" getting in the way. Please, someone tell me why I'm wrong, because I don't want to be right on this one.

If this is Rush trying to help McCain, he must be going senile. There is no way a pro-choice person will take this kind of moralizing from someone who spent years judging drug-addicts while on the phone with his dealer, ordering up painkillers. This has to be pissing off moderates, and they'll just stay at home.

Does puting a serial killer in jail or to death constitute evil? I believe answering that question, and answering why it is not evil will negate your argument in the post I quoted. Let's look at it this way: when Ayn Rand set out to define an ideal society, I would think she was searching for a system in which participants in that system(citizens) would be able to live together in such a manner that as long as they all were trying to survive as "rational human beings" the use of force would not be needed. In a laissez-faire capitalist system, where the only rights are to life, liberty and property, such a life is possible for every participant who understands everyone's rights and respects them. Government is of course necessary to keep in line those few who don't--these people automatically go to jail or get the infamous "blue liquid"-they no longer have rights. If, after a while, a judge (who represents society) decides they have learned their lesson and will from now on probably conform, they get their rights back. One thing, however, as a rational society, we cannot do, is to give rights to those who don't understand the concept, and are therefore not going to respect people's rights. That would make our ideal society imperfect, since the only criteria by wich citizens get their rights: the objective expectation that they will respect everyone else's, goes out the window. So even if your conclusion were true, and animal torture were immoral in all cases for the reasons you mentioned, animals could still not be given rights, and government could therefore still not jump in and protect them. So we are still at the same impass: just because a citizen is doing something evil, they should not be stopped unless they are violating other citizen's rights. If a dog were able to understand the concept of rights and respect them, that dog could become a citizen, with rights. There are no such dogs, but we do have in America creatures who in fact do fit this criteria: they are called illegal immigrants, and once they are properly punished for ilegally crossing the border they should be given the same rights everyone else has, long before we even consider giving rights to animals, no matter how close they are to becoming rational. Why do I bring this up? Because our legal and political system is already having trouble processing these newcomers (who often have trouble understanding or respecting rights themselves), can you imagine having a court sending your dog to jail, because you swore that he's really smart and he deserves rights, and two hours later he crapped on my driveway?

Well by that logic you can just say "Nightmare planets in the Milky Way", and that would be right too. My point was that since the ten or so non-soviet eastern european countries are only represented by one city, while Western Europe and Asia are both represented by several, choosing to place the phenomenon in Eastern Europe shows your bias against the region-or your lack of understanding of the difference in culture between countries that have always been under russian influence, and countries that were under that influence for only 45 years(45-89), because of reasons beyond their power. You should've said all Europe and Asia to include every place, or you could've said former soviet countries, which were most heavily represented, and contain the actual playground photos, to accurately describe the region in which these photos are concentrated.

That's just as irrational an idea as Tim McVeigh had: You live in the greatest country that ever existed, how is it a good idea to try and destroy it? If you dissagree, please name a better one, and of course that's the end of the conversation since you can simply move there and live happily ever after. If everyone reacted the way you are reacting during the time this place was a british colony, where would America and the world be now? Is the country taking a step backward? Sure, but the situation is in no way hopeless: most of the people are not actually hurdling down the wrong path, they are just lost, and looking for a good idea.

There are a lot of contradictions in your argument, enough in fact that I personally cannot consider it or respond to it with arguments of my own until they are cleared up. Of course there is the lower orders of reason thing David pointed out, I'm not gonna go into that.(I'll wait for the definition of the concept) I want to point out another contradiction-I numbered 3 statements you made in a single paragraph: Number (1) is an ambiguous statement: animals are "largely", but not exclusively instinctive. Nr. (2) animals cannot act rationally, in fact their decision-making is "fight or flight" , which is exclusively instinctive.(according to your own statement, which I highlighted) Nr. (3) Our interactions with animals are the same("just as") as our interactions with humans: "we remove their ability to act rationally. Meaning of course that animals are quite rational. Then, in the next paragraph, you say that these two things are morally equivalent: 1. restricting an animal from acting instinctively (by your own admission, "fight or flight" is automatic=instinctive) 2. restricting a man from acting rationally. The contradiction here is in the fact that you previously introduced the concepts of degrees of reason and degrees of rights, but then you make no moral distinction between violating 0 degrees of reason("fight or flight" instinct) and violating 100 degrees of reason (man's mind). Where does the "lower order of rights" come in, if you make no moral distinctions in the two cases?

Sure there is: milk and eggs contain everything you could ever need. In fact plants contain everything you need too, and vegetarians can be perfectly healthy if they pay a little attention to make sure they eat the right things. We want stake because it brings us pleasure, not because it has such a soothing effect on our heart and cholesterol levels. You are right about the medicine part, but that does not justify slaughterhouses: I don't see how those are justified, but bullfighting somehow bothers you. If you want to judge entertainment for pleasure, you should judge eating meat for pleasure by the same measure. I would argue that by your standards, killing for food is actually worse, especially since animals are killed every day in your city, while bullfighting is something you can avoid by pressing a button on your remote.

I think in most countries they got rid of the crap the communists buildt. When I was in Hungary for instance there really is almost no trace of communism, except for those awful apartment buildings in some of the suburbs. The rest actually looks better than places in England or most of the american south. (if you're into gothic and baroque, or stone in general) I doubt someone in Estonia certainly, but probably also in Lithuania, can just walk around their neighbourhood and find that stuff those website people searched out in Uzbekistan and provincial Russia. Here's the list of places where the photos were taken: - Moscow & St.Petersburg, of course - Kharkov, Ukraine - Minsk, Belarus - Ivanteevka, Russia - Odessa, Ukraine - Prague, Czech Republic - Stockholm, Sweden - Akko, Israel - even Basel, Switzerland Since Prague is the only eastern european city depicted there (and it has no playground shots, just really shitty art - but I've seen worse in Central Park) outside the old Soviet Union, I don't see why the title of the thread. Except for the crap even fans of this stuff would have trouble calling art, rotting in some shithole in the former soviet union, people got rid of most of this stuff in the early 90's. Most of these countries were free before they got stuck behind the Iron Curtain in 1945, and even then they tried to rebel against the Soviets. What makes you think they would've kept anything from that period when they were given a choice, after '89? Prague is an exception, of course, they seem to have decided to let loose that moron, David Cerny. But that's probably because he has some type of political connections or fans in local government. (and he's a local boy with international "recognition")

Communism is in fact not a perfect system, even if all the players in the game were intelligent robots, making decisions for the good of the "hive" or society or whatever you want to call it. It would be an efficient system, if we take out the selfishness of human players, up to a point (like we see in ants, bees etc.), but it does not allow for progress the way a capitalist system (or, another example: evolution based on the competition between species) does. I don't have a good enough understanding of math and game theory at this level to use my own words, so I'm just gonna use a passage from Ray Kurzweil's "Singularity is near" to explain what I mean-read it all the way, because it's not as hard to understand as it first seems-: ( he talks about technological progress as being just another form of evolution(darwinian); "the law of accelerating returns" is irrelevant for this discussion, but it basically means this progress is speeding up exponentially as we evolve-in both darwinian and technological evolution ) (1)To explain "order" , here's another quote: "Simply having more information does not necessarily result in a better fit. Sometimes, a deeper order—a better fit to a purpose—is achieved through simplification rather than further increases in complexity." (Order in our system is basically technological/economic/scientific etc. innovation) So even if you had perfect participants(with the same intelligence of humans, but without all the "negative" traits) making perfect decisions all the time, you would not have the kind of progress we have in a capitalist system based on competiton and trial and error (the failure of bad ideas). So if someone tells you communism is a perfect system(except for human nature), they are talking out of their ass: they are ideologs, not mathematicians or economists. We in fact do not know what level of intelligence even our AI computers would have to reach before they perform better than a capitalist system, but it would have to be extremely high, well beyond our capacity to understand them: if such a thing even exists at all-I think it does-. There is something called empathy, which is part of human nature. It is a feeling, and capitalism does not ignore it: it just treats it as a feeling as opposed to a rational concept, and therefore leaves it up to individual human beings (the only ones capable of having feelings) to act on it. When someone is forced to act on a feeling, they are no longer acting on a feeling. I think that's pretty obvious( even if we don't go into the morality of acting on feelings).

You may be trying to link to the "Registered user's page" (that page contains the "Why Should One Act on Principle" Peikoff lecture), or something else that requires registration.

Yeah, I have that policy too.

Wow. That's a harsher judgment of him than I ever made, and yet you're the one jumping to his defense, for some reason. All I did was inform him that I no longer wished to continue the discussion, and explained why. You on the other hand are basically calling him stupid. I guess you're not a lawyer, huh? That's not true. I aked him several questions in both my first and my third posts. My second post was just a short comment letting you know you've made a good point, and then in my fourth post I said I'm done with the conversation, and explained why. I didn't even characterize the act of "spreading his ideology", why would I attack him for that. I just said this is not the place to do it, if he is unwilling to engage people in debate over it. 1. You are not "perhaps a little harsh", you are instead struggling with relatively simple facts and data, such as the contents of this thread. 2. It is ridiculous to suggest I tried to shut something down just because I expressed the fact that I dissaprove of its contents. Not only did I not say this thread should be shut down , I didn't even suggest such an action should be considered by someone who would have the right to shut it down. I just let it be known, using very careful wording, why I see no reason to take part in the conversation. ( more precisely what changed compared to the point in time when I wanted to have a conversation on the subject)

Not a fan of the sport, I think calling it a noble activity celebrating man's supremacy is reading too much into it, but if "torturing bulls" is what bullfighting is, why would the people doing it limit themselves to torturing only bulls, and torturing them only in this specific manner, sometimes through a bullfighter's lifespan, and across generations. If you use a term like "torturing bulls for amusement" you are making assumptions about people's motive's and psychological processes, and you need to back those assumptions up with psychological arguments (at least something basic: you can't just base it on nothing). I don't know a lot about the psychology of torture, but even if you only know about it from movies, you would have to admit that is not how torture works: as a person goes on, their "acts of torture" become more extreme, they need a lot more to be satisfied. I think that while this tradition might have its roots in the roman arena-games which used animals, and which at times degenerated into just plain torture (although not to the extent revisionist historians of today are describing them), they are just a sport people hang on to in the name of preserving tradition, and the psychology of the participants and the spectators is that of any football player and football fan. As I said, I do have a problem with it, because it's rigged and generally not based on competition. (since it doesn't warm my heart that some weird tradition is being preserved, I find it absolutely pointless and stupid)

Oh, ok. I thought you meant something else by board, and treated the sounding as an adjective. You learn something new every day. As far as talking with someone with opposing views, you can check for yourself, I've made an effort to stay on the topic monopolyonreason chose, and I addressed every single point he made in his first two posts, without even once relying on objectivist phylosophy as "the truth" . Unfortunately he didn't return the favor, instead he continued to write unrelated essays, ignoring every single point I made and repeating things I refuted previously. Having a conversation with someone like him is the argumentative equivalent of talking to your TV set. If you dissagree, please point out the parts in his post where he is addressing any concerns I raised. Or for that matter, point out something in my first two posts, where I am doing something other than direcly addressing something he wrote. (isn't thast the definition of dialogue? Back and forth between two people on the same subject?)