whYNOT

"Control". In other words, legal immigration. In other words: what's the problem?

I am careful to distinguish immigration from migration. Or, controlled borders from open borders. I suppose you mean the latter with "open immigration"?

Caplan, briefly https://youtu.be/l5OSWEF29VY?si=TbPM-rKW2VVOrPBU

"Only 75 per cent"? "In the second generation"? And the next generations, I suppose Caplan infers, will trend lower? That's not supportable by observation of European states. Much improved freedoms and prosperity there, notwithstanding. But the main concern is not keeping out the religious (from entering America, here) like Christians/Muslims /Hindus etc., but the adherents of fanatical Islam: those A. who will take advantage of soft immigration/migration policies, and who intend to subvert the country, and B. the descendants of the first (presumably assimilated) Muslim immigrants, who might revert to the fanatical ideology and will intend to subvert ... etc. Who of course can't be predicted and revealed (by mind-reading) but will be prevented and discouraged by uncompromised individual rights. . Yet Caplan making the case that immigration "can solve the problem of radical Islam" is naive if not altruistic. Sort of, let's try a noble experiment demonstrating that the experience of greater freedoms and wealth will win all of the radical Islamists over to freedoms. Let them come, it will be good for them and we will benefit... Downside, "we" end up with organized - wealthy and influential - radical Islamists who understand well how to subvert the country "from within" employing their new liberties. Self-interest will trump a fundamentalist ideology/theology? If one espouses volitional thinking, one knows people will default to bad ideas by non-thought--in any generation, wherever they live. There indeed are such individual Muslims who do rise above this collectivist-determinism by free will, but on the whole, unfounded.

I'd say you describe a "socio-psychological" problem that isn't new to several past generations and familiar to you and I. What is new - how it's being exploited. The support required from the school and any authority figure and institution, right up to government, should be limited to zero-tolerance for bullies and bullying, including verbal intimidation. And no more. The impression I have is teachers have been handed power by parents and institutions which exceeds their moral authority. A bully clearly picks on those who are perceived 'weak' and 'different' -- and solitary: outside the 'acceptable tribe'. It's a characteristic of the pre-individuated youth to search for their identity and self-confidence within groups, so their acceptance matters and rejection hurts them. It's that vulnerability magnified by social media that is presently being capitalized upon, by, you guessed it, the Woke. There's little authentic compassion by them for e.g. the youngster struggling with his/her gender identity, someone caught in that "Critical (race, gender, etc.) Theory" which strips away their individuality, and any real concerns for the person. Splitting up the society along another, recently-found "intersectionality" fault line is what the trans-activists aim for, using their shock tactics and appeals to victimhood. Many politicians and administrators at large have, you must admit, been "seeking to score points" for conversely, acting PRO-Woke. So much so, that another 'tribe', the young Jews anywhere in the world, banished from the 'acceptable' groups, who have come under incredibly vicious assault by the same 'empathic', Wokeist-bullies, have not received the support and attention they deserve. Being an aware person, would it surprise you to learn some are suicidal too? Anyhow, politicians should not provide for "transgender rights" - as any "group rights". The only "roadblocks" they put into policy should be based on physical abuse: no interference (surgical, medical) in an underage individual's gender; no contact sports for a trans-female. Nor should the Gvt. fund NGO's and activist bodies. By their own cash and initiative they are free to do what they please. The private parental care of the youngsters left untouched, naturally. But please, ban the interfering efforts into young bodies and psyches by those virtuous, "social-worker" teachers!

"De-Nazification of Ukraine". Both as 'a justification' (on its own, nonsense) for Putin's invasion - and a potential stumbling block in present negotiations and concessions made - needs clarifying. Yes, neoNazis exist in Ukraine. No, they are not electorally representative or socially significant. But yes, they are powerful in the military, notorious for atrocities in the Donbass and have political, cult-like and ideological goals over and above the democratic process which can be destabilizing after the war. They about equally hate Russians, Russian-Ukrainains -- and "the neoliberal West". Any who still believe Russia/Ukraine was a black-and-white issue: Ukraine is not as innocent as the media had us believe, and should not have been partnered with. (All the more cause for first averting and now ending the war). UnHerd is reliably independent.

Well, one has to go outside of official O'ism to find the objective thinkers on Cultural Marxism, for most Objectivists this is unfamiliar territory. They do fine with what's familiar. Unlike the adage, there are old soldiers and there are bold soldiers, but you won't find old, bold soldiers - what could stop philosophers growing bolder the older they become?

Who could? He's been nicely served up as the quintessential - and only - evil, throughout. Disregard the other evils committed by other players, those officials and leaders who ignored a possible "off-ramp", a truce and negotiations, at the start - in the (private) knowledge that Putin was available to talk, right then - so setting up Ukraine to take the fall for a war they knew was coming- and the half-lies and corruptions told by their pet media to keep everyone compliant - and Putin's your man! Pin it all on him, the convenient, sole locus and source of evil, and we have - "Satan". This status makes all the rest of humanity pure as angels. The quasi-religious symbol was picked up by the Objectivist community too, showing intrinsicism and - "substituting thought for principles". (Branden) Roughly, "Any who engage with an evil-doer grants evil sanction" - and so on. I hear it a lot online. Yet if one takes in the full scope of the evil and evasions by everybody - when e.g. no leader had the moral courage to say "Enough! No more. This stops here!" - which evasions led to a million Ukrainian men dead or disabled simply because peacemaking did not fit the agenda -- Rand's principle holds firm. NOT the evil committed only by one person, but the totality of evil sacrifices in general, was what has been permitted: granted "sanction". Among the rest, economic deprivations, etc., a self-sacrifice also, to the respect and reputation seen around the world of western civilization's once high standards has taken a big knock in this episode. Some other evil-doers have taken advantage of the observed Western weakness. When his difficult, if late, *moral* initiative to end the war, evaded in 2022 when just a few concessions from Russia and Ukraine with the US et al brokering the deal as guarantors, could have precluded any - or much less - loss of Ukr territory and all the horrific casualties - is today being properly undertaken by Trump, the naysayers in O'ism ~seem~ to imply (by a misapplication of Rand's principle) that because we don't deal with ( or "cosy up to") tyrants, the war must go on! Wherever it leads Ukr, Europe and the world. Are they not sanctioning evil? With those weird priorities what would O'ists have said at the time to JFK entering negotiations with Khrushchev?

The type of content seen here was commonly known but suppressed by Reuters and the msm, I found only on 'back channels'. With the war close to some kind of resolution one can be assured plenty more horror stories are going to come out of Ukraine. https://youtu.be/Kp26UsVbwtQ?si=_3vVe4InkR_xsunS

At the base, it has been kept ambiguous as to who is fighting whom. Was this a local spat between two neighbors which is none of the West's concern that's getting out of hand? Then, one would expect, send envoys in to stop it. Is this the collective West against Russia? The Russians for one know who is backing it and can end it. With "plausible deniablity" the West can claim and has claimed that here is innocent Ukraine attacked without provocation by belligerent, imperialist Russia, and the righteous thing is to help them since our collective freedoms are at stake. I think no party can claim innocence. The "provocation" of Russia is not arguable. Consider the number of "Kremlin watchers", academics, military and other experts on Russia who have made careers out of studying Russia, running computer simulations, and probing for weakness. Do you think they all couldn't foresee a response one day to NATO enlargement, political interference in Russia's "sphere of influence", already (in advance of membership) training the Ukraine Army up to NATO standards, permitting a civil war to continue boiling, and so on? If they could anticipate the consequences, they can't escape the responsibility (even with plausible deniability) from what happened. Only the warnings by a few honest men were heard from. Was there any urgent attempt to diplomatically engage with Putin pre-invasion, and avert a war, during the previous year when Russian troops, in a clear warning, were camped on the border? Or take heed of Putin's attempts to negotiate soon after invasion? The smart move was make this (through the media) a Russia vs. Ukraine war, so the West could maintain its militarily uninvolved pretext and the conflict would not escalate to "WW 3", but had the subjective certainty how Russia would be kicked out and humiliated by the superior UAF (not without arms, logistical, Intel, surveillance and covert manpower support - and the most advanced propaganda/psy-ops campaign - supplied by the West. They miscalculated. (After "A" threateningly jammed his fist close to B's nose ("psychological force") and refused to withdraw it after warnings by B, "A" hired or persuaded a stand-in, or surrogate, or "proxy" - "C" - to take A's place and be hit by B's (pre-emptive) punch on the nose. In the resulting brawl, C has had the worst of it). Taking Ukraine's side, my instinct was for sane heads to intervene in this unnecessary slaughter from the start.

When the evil genie has been let out of its bottle, there's no putting it back; today the West 'backs down', another day the West issues the same threat - give us x, or we obliterate you. Mutually assured destruction cuts both ways. (Better, I think to call the concept mutually assured "values". You have something *you* value (objective or non-objective), your life, your people's lives, your culture and traditions, the future of your nation, etc. - and I/we have, as well. The fact that neither the Soviets or the modern RF has so far gone that nuclear extortion route implies they understand the ramifications too well. Which means they -may- be negotiated with rationally. When self-value is entirely missing, you have no (diplomatic) option but to fight that enemy to the finish. What can one call the bad guys and nasty guys and worst guys but "grades of evasion"? If beginning with an objectively evil ideology which is taught and upheld - abstractly - by an academic or preacher or whoever, I think the ultimate evil-doer is the one who translates that ideology into concretes: into bloodshed and others' suffering. I know this could be intellectually debatable, since the dissemination of evil ideas was the first cause, but I'd argue that the most inhumanly evil person is the one who voluntarily enacts them, sees the evil happen, makes it happen. The trouble I notice with intrinsicism is as one prominent Objectivist I heard can evaluate (e.g.) Trump as "purely evil": where does that leave room in one's mind for Hamas, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc., etc. but all identically "evil", and the concept is devalued? "Immoral equivalence", perhaps?

AlexL, your presence here is to obfuscate and distract from honest enquiry and since you won't honestly disclose the name of the organization you represent I have no inclination to reply to you further.

A question for Harry Binswanger the Lexicon compiler. Where did "Diplomacy" go? With the Ayn Rand Lexicon as reference I recall a year or two ago linking Rand on Diplomacy in this present thread, (recommending diplomacy as a value in her succinct quote). Wanting to reference it once more with US diplomacy a central subject to Ukraine, my search of the Index (above) now does not show it.

D Dance Dark Ages Decorative Arts Deficit Financing Definitions Democracy Deontological Theory of Ethics: see “Duty” Determinism Dictator Dictatorship Director Distinguishing Characteristic: see Concept-Formation Dogma Draft “Duty”

And that 1954 Cold War attempt had pertinence to 2000 -- how? That Putin's request was as nefarious as was (unquestionable) Molatov's? "Suggestibility" and "association" make for effective indoctrination. "Did Putin want to join NATO in 2000? Wiki On 5 March 2000 in response to a question about his attitude towards NATO, Mr Putin also said he could envisage a closer relationship between Russian and the alliance. "We believe we can talk about more profound integration with NATO, but only if Russia is regarded as an equal partner," he said".