AllMenAreIslands

That makes no sense at all. Given the world's population has steadily increased, why wouldn't the number of countries have also increased (even if it wasn't a steady climb)? Interesting estimation of population dating back to the year dot The Number of Countries in the World Has Nearly Quadrupled Since 1900 Number of countries, 1900: 57 Number of countries, 2000: 192* * Per official State Department list.

How about writing back to them saying no, they don't. It's not government's job, and in fact, by getting involved, government will cause the decline in the availability of health care and health insurance.

Why is another gov't sponsored insurance plan needed? There may not be any money left for the environmental measures he wants to implement to siphon away. If Obama's goal isn't to bankrupt the country, I'd like to know what his goal is. It sure isn't to ensure that people can obtain affordable health care.

I'm enjoying your art very much, Ifat. I like the website, especially where you put little notes to explain technique or inspiration.

I think it's fair to say that neither side (settlers or Indians) were fully committed to the principles of individual rights.

After considering the preliminarily perceptible elements, I'd say that of all the peoples of the world, as a people, "Indians" strike me as being the closest to building a nation grounded in individual rights. They had not quite reached there. I come to this conclusion for what may at first strike some of you as being facetious or silly. But the name "Indian" is the closest any people have come to calling themselves Individuals. I do agree with the point shadesofgray raised, which is that the settlers from Europe who came to America were born of the tradition of employing coercion to get things done. I put it to you that there were tribes who traded peacefully with the newcomers, a fact which war-like people on both sides (emigrants and natives alike) frowned upon. Finding such a tribe and looking to make a new alliance with forward-thinking and planning First Nations people strikes me as an avenue worth considering and exploring. I know that a great deal of knowledge was discovered by Europeans and Asians. But if the price is a life under constant coercion, it's not worth it. It's time to call for banning of coercion, and to seek to establish the First Nation founded on the principles of individual rights.

Unfortunately, there aren't any "world leaders." They're all followers.

Nicely put, Zip. Happy Birthday, USA.

Indeed individuals act individually and must be held accountable for their actions. However, what term can we use other than "collective" or "collectively" to refer to a risk that only arises cumulatively? Example: let us accept for a moment that refrigeration equipment does produce some negative effects. For one thing, refrigeration confers a great many benefits, so it would take a high level of negative effects to make action worthwhile. But let's say the negative effects are measurable. One could not blame a single individual; rather we could all be said to be to blame. Individually we all enjoy the benefits of refrigeration but at the individual level there isn't enough damage to be actionable. It is only the cumulative effect of many individual choices that results in the problem. In such a situation, I would agree with George Reisman's view that such cumulatively caused risks are best regarded as acts of nature. Individuals must be left free to deal with them and to find solutions. The cap & trade scheme/legislation is held to be "the answer" precisely because it is said to be everyone's problem. Everyone is to blame because our modern lifestyle is to blame. "Too much" CO2 is in everyone's interests to fix. And since everyone knows this scheme will cause prices to rise generally, we should all be happy to pay more because "somehow" the increased prices will "combat CO2" as well as "fix climate change." This view owes much to belief in the intrinsic value of nature as well as to the bizarre persistence of the belief that government is the entity that ought to fix this kind of problem. In this case, a rush to judgment (and action) by government will end up destroying many lives by pricing technology out of most people's ability to pay. All this for the sake of a negligible negative. The assertion of collective wrongdoing in the case of CO2 ignores both the lack of evidence that CO2 has a harmful effect on the environment as well as the growing evidence that causes other than man's activities are primarily responsible for CO2 levels. But even if it were true that our modern lifestyle is to blame for adverse CO2's (or some other substance's) consequences, I do not see how a government-run scheme would or could fix it. Such a demand ignores the mountain of evidence of governmental failure every time it has undertaken projects of this kind. Infrastructure such as roads, bridges and utilities; essential services like education, health care and garbage pick-up; long-range planning activities such as money for old age or in the event of unemployment have all been made the subject of government intervention. These highly important issues are said to be too important to be handled by individuals on their own behalf. Government must step in. It then usurps the decision-making and expropriates vast sums, proceeding to play at problem-solving. The projects are begun with great flourish and then left to flounder when another project is suddenly deemed more important. The result is non-action and waste. Issues and concerns remain, only now people no longer have the resources to address them. If people really care about cleaning up actual pollution, the entity they should NOT entrust the project to is the government. Why should this CO2 situation or a sulphur situation or indeed any pollution situation be different from any of the other grand projects? The short answer is, it won't be because it can't be. The nature of government precludes its success in the same way and for the same reasons as it precludes its success in trying to coordinate the marketplace. In the case of carbon dioxide, conclusive proof does not even exist yet that it is harmful to us. Furthermore, even if it were eventually proven to be harmful, evidence supports the conclusion that CO2 levels are caused by factors other than man's activities. Either way, destroying our individual ability to improve and reshape the world is destroying our ability to find a way to effectively combat climate change, pollution or any other real problem. Imaginary problems should most definitely not be the subject of such confiscatory legislation. Government should not initiate force for ANY purpose including to fix alleged pollution issues. There is absolutely no justification for this scheme. If there is no problem, then there is no need for such a heavy-handed solution. But more importantly: if there is a real problem, the government is incapable of solving it. All it does is waste the resources thereby creating a bigger problem than if nothing had been done at all. Individuals should be left alone to work these matters out for themselves, between and among themselves. When an individual can be identified as contributing measurable pollution all on his own (or just his factory/business), then the proper recourse is for those affected to take him to court. * * * Fines are more frequent now. In other words, things have relaxed in the last few years, but during the more stringent application of the law, there were forced abortions and all kinds of infanticide (by parents as well as by "authorities.") Here's one link.

Thanks, khaight. That is very interesting AND helpful. I especially like the political values angle. I've used a variation of the grab-bag issues, for example stating that I support individual rights for homosexuals, including same-sex marriage (usually considered a liberal/lefty position) as well as capitalism (a conservative/righty position.) But I haven't used that variation of the punch line - "You tell me which party I should support."

Emphasis mine. I wonder if they'll take a page out of China's book and start forcing people to have abortions if they already have a child or two.

Just an FYI - Zip posted the cartoon as an example of what we're up against, and shades reposted it as a quote because he was responding to it (I'm still not sure what shades is referring to with his "it's funny because it's true" comment but maybe he will enlighten me.)

Capitalism Forever, I agree with you that we're the right choice and everyone else is the wrong one. Unfortunately, that approach won't work even in politics with so much evidence to support it. Even my initial idea (that we focus on RATIONALITY won't work, because its opposite is IRRATIONALITY, and nobody would consciously choose to take that position.) However, there are a number of strong positions that the Objectivist political party could own, and I think the very strongest one is to appeal to voters as Individuals. The other parties all treat voters as groups, lumping people in together. Our party could take up and own the Individual position. Not just with the emphasis on individual rights, but also incorporating the fact that rationality is a faculty of individuals. Perhaps someone will suggest an even better word, but no matter what: we should select a key word that drives the entire campaign, underscores every public statement and at the same time conveys the message that our party cares about people as individuals. "Participatory Politics" in my view has lost a great deal of credibility. The arena has become a battleground in which various groups take turns shoving their views down everyone else's throats. Furthermore, all the existing parties cherish and revere the idea of "the group." Space Patroller, I think it will pay to bear in mind that the Right (Republicans) doesn't mean what it used to in Ayn Rand's day. It has been taken over by those with a religious agenda. Sure, there are candidates who don't push religion in their agenda and where are they today? Trying to change people's minds back to a meaning the Right used to have is doomed to fail. You can't make the same word mean two different things in people's minds. Instead of trying to change people's minds, we want to work with what they already know. Consider this. Of all the voters out there, who are most likely to be attracted to our new vision of politics? People who are disaffected with their own party, that's who. They already don't like the opposite party, but now they feel let down by their own as well. It makes sense to reposition all existing parties as being essentially the same - because it's something that people are now sensing for themselves.

Space Patroller, sounds like you are unfamiliar with the advertising concepts of Positioning and Repositioning. They do what khaight said: take account of what others believe and what concepts they use to understand the world. When you say, "active participants of our like have staked out a position on that field which means we have an existing, meaning an in-the-real-world, presence" what exactly are you thinking of? None of the current participants are fully consonant with the individual rights, laissez-faire capitalism platform. So why would you want to align Objectivism with any of them, when we have a number of distinguishable attributes which can be used to effectively position Objectivism? Running a successful political campaign is an exercise in marketing, and just like in the business world, new products coming onto the market need to find a way through the infomation overload and get into prospects' minds. Having taken account of what's in the prospects' minds, a Positioning campaign seeks to exploit what is already in those minds. If we conducted a survey, I expect an overwhelming majority of people would admit they consider politics and politicians to be dishonest. It's well-known that politicians say one thing to get elected and do another once they're in power. The track records of the vast majority of politicians stand as evidence for that proposition, after all. Given that Politics is generally viewed as a dishonest business, we don't want to occupy a rung on the current ladder. We have a brand new product in Objectivism. We SHOULD reposition ALL the competition as irrational not just because we need to, but because we can. The product "ladder" for Politics in people's minds already has a number of positions on it. The labels differ (Left/Right, Republican/Democrat, Liberal/Conservative etc. etc.) but the essence of left/right/center are positions already occupied by other parties. Trying to dislodge one of those parties and take over its position is an irrational way to market Objectivism, because the ladder itself is tainted. We don't want a position on a tainted product ladder. Working with what already exists in people's minds means that in order to effectively introduce a new "ladder," we need to identify not only in what way the Objectivist political philosophy can be distinguished from all others, but how it can be related to them. Objectivism can own the rational ladder because it is a rational philosophy. Therefore, it can't seek a position on the "irrational" ladder. It has to bring a new ladder into the mind but it would not be doing so in a vacuum. As I said, there is plenty of evidence to support our claim that the others are all irrational. When we position the Objectivist political party as the "rational political party," we effectively reposition everyone else as "irrational political parties." We can use their dishonesty against them by demonstrating that they have to be dishonest because what they seek to achieve is the irrational.

Thanks, Grames. As for Space Patroller's comment: YES! It isn't about who's been around longer; take that tack and you doom the campaign forever. After all, compared to "established politics" Objectivism is always going to be the newest kid on the block.

Why struggle to fit into the playing field as defined by them? The "left/right/center" divisions in present-day politics basically stand for different variations of statism. Objectivism/Capitalism ought to reposition all of them as irrational, while claiming its rightful place as the rational alternative to statism.

At least now I understand how a burglar who injures himself in the process of robbing a home could be awarded damages by a jury of his idiot peers. When the world is full of unthinking "people" like EthanTexas, cause/effect and context can be dropped and ignored with impunity.

The saddest part is this woman doesn't really care whether what she is saying is actually true. She doesn't care that the costs are exponentially higher than she's been told and is hysterically parroting at her constituency. She doesn't care that the thousands of jobs she says will be created won't begin to make up for the millions of jobs lost when companies can't afford to do business in the US and go overseas. If she cared about truth, she'd know that continued dependence on foreign oil has much more to do with the impediments put in place by government urged by hysterical "green" doomsdayers and slug-worshippers to development of domestic oil sources than a desire to import oil for the sake of it. If she cared about truth, she'd know that human living conditions have vastly improved over the past 200 years thanks to all the technological developments. She'd recognize that cars are cleaner than horses as a means of everyday transportation. If she cared about the truth, she'd realize that this bill will achieve the opposite of every goal it purports to support. But she doesn't care about truth. She must think her life and her family's lives will somehow carry on as they are, or even improve! She is oblivious to the effect of the shackles this shite bill will place on the businesses which she and other ostriches like her expect to continue producing as if nothing has changed. But then: why were we expecting criminal types like this Senator Chucky Cheeks to care about honesty, integrity and rationality? How many more of the Senators are like this fool?

Re CFCs and the Ozone Read the articles on Ozone in Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns. You will find that that link provides PDF versions of most of the book. In the Ozone section is S. Fred Singer's thought-provoking piece in which he notes that the data supporting a decrease in the ozone has had to be revised downward, from a doomsday figure of 18% cited in 1980, to 7% in 1982, and to 2%-4% in 1984. Discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole caused the screeching to be renewed, along with more doomsday scenarios arrived at by ignoring much evidence. It was only when an honest tabulation of the contributing factors was made, that once again the effect of man's activities was reduced to negligible. What has been ignored is that the discovery of a thinner atmospher in the coldest place on Earth does not automatically mean it was caused by man. To conclude that CFCs cause the depletion of ozone is like saying that a blanket in the back seat of a vehicle causes a traffic accident. The mere presence of CFCs in an area of the stratosphere that has lower ozone is not determinative. Far more likely is a thoroughly natural and non-manmade explanation, including volcanic eruption, sea spray, solar cycles and seasonal variations, which when taken into account, yield a case being made for man's contribution being somewhere in the vicinity of .2%. Yes, Point Two Per Cent. Even double or triple that amount we're still talking less than 1%. In other words, negligible. If YOU consider it worthwhile to stop using refrigeration and climate control (by which I mean, heating and air conditioning, which are man's actual & proper means of controlling his environment i.e., the environment inside buildings), then YOU get rid of your fridge, stop buying refrigerated and frozen foods, and refrain from heating or cooling your home. In effect, YOU become a subsistence farmer living hand-to-mouth. Oh, and you better get off that computer too just to be on the safe side.) Thanks to Grames for the additional information on Chernobyl.

CFCs did not cause the hole in the ozone layer. You calmly announce it as an aside demonstrates your lack of quality information on the matter. Communism gave us Chernobyl. Shoddy reactor design should not be used to indict what has proved to be the safest form of energy yet developed.

Indeed it is flawed. Humans, left to their devices, find it self-defeating to destroy themselves. Rather, they tend to seek out that which will sustain them. It is only those who purport to do things for altruistic reasons who are offering poison instead of value. It is only those who seek to steal a living through the brandishment of fear and weaponry who are epistemologically likely to wish to destroy themselves. As well they should. The problem is that they deflect their self-hatred onto the rest of us, in the name of "saving the planet." It has been the ingenuity of individuals seeking to improve life on earth that has resulted in the discovery of more and more ways to combat first diseases and then sources of disease. The government machinery has been turned against such advancement so that those who cannot earn a living seek to destroy those who can. If anything is guilty of posing serious problems, it's the unchecked intervention by government at the behest of losers in the apparent never-ending quest to ruin every solution found to the problems posed by nature. DDT is a great example. It and all kinds of other pesticides have been banned by our governments in the name of "saving the planet." This is the entity you're telling me has my interest in mind? Here was a case of something "in the wild" namely mosquitoes, causing harm to humans, which had essentially been combated by human technology. What is government's response? It is systematically destroying the companies that make the pesticides by banning the use of pesticides. Government and centralized planning are destroying the advances that were made against major killers. You can't seriously expect me to accept that this monstrous abomination masquerading as keeper of the peace is the entity to turn to if a killer species of flora such as the one you assert "could happen" were to be discovered or created. This horrid thing, the government, is now trying to eradicate all kinds of industrial activity by pricing it out of everyone's ability to pay. Energy is the lifeblood of our civilization, but this pre-historic system of legalized theft, plunder and coercion is on the rampage, blindly lashing out at all of man's achievements on earth. This rabid irrational monster must be stopped immediately. It is now truly a matter of life and death.

Are you an idiot or just wilfully blind & ignorant? Check your facts before you post garbage.

Will all the Americans here be contacting their Senators? What are the chances of getting the bill rejected in the Senate?

Absolutely. It is exponentially different, just as our brains are vastly different because of the exponentially larger capabilities we possess. Ok. Now I see where I went wrong in calling animal communications "language." Thanks Grames.

Welcome, MissLemon. I too am interested to see your art, and look forward to reading your posts around the forums.