Uttles

You're obviously too biased to change your mind, so I'm not going to try. I'd suggest reading something other than an official government indoctrination camp sponsored textbook on the subject though. "The politically incorrect guide to the Civil War" would be a good start. You sound just like Republicans today saying that "Iraqi Freedom" is a great cause to fight for. It's funny.

Any name to go with that speech? I've never seen that one. The fact of the matter is that the war was fought over money. The North was making tons of money from the South, and when the South left, they shit themselves. That is the reality of the situation. The War for Southern Independence was as much about slavery as the war in Iraq is about WMDs.

Grames, that is a very ignorant position to take. If you would have kept reading, you would realize this.

Looks like January was a good month to be born, I was born Jan 23rd! http://www.danielscochran.com/dscblog/2010...-and-jackson-2/ Seriously though, this is a great article about two generals for the confederate (read: sovereign) states of america

Whoa, I guess that means abortions should be fine up until the age of 20.

One of the things I Hear a lot is "if government intervention is so bad, then you should just stop using the internet. After all, it was created by the government." This is obviously ridiculous as the internet is not currently owned or operated by any single entity and I pay for my own private internet service. Also, even if the government started the internet I've already paid them back with the large amount of taxes on my Cable bill. Additionally, if the government did hold a monopoly on the internet, I would still morally be able to use it for the same reason that I can morally eat in the current climate of farm subsidies. But anyway, what about the "it was created by the government" part? Is there an objective refutation to this claim? I've searched for some information (on the internet) and it all comes back to NASA, the NSF, and the DOE. (the first TCP/IP networks) Before that was Arpanet. All were government owned. Now, I know that there were many individuals involved, including researchers from many universities, but those too were funded by government grants. Also, the internet was pretty much useless and insignificant until telecom companies started using TCP/IP to hook their networks together, but that doesn't cancel out the fact that they didn't create it. So, the postulation then is: The internet is great > The Government created the internet > Government intervention works sometimes I know this is false but I don't know enough of the details to refute it soundly. My response is simply "The internet wasn't the Internet before it was treated as private property." (private networks selling access to individuals and connecting to other private networks and so on) Anybody have a better answer?

OK so more nitpicking of terms, ad hominem attacks, and inventing of arbitrary defintions. I'm still not convinced. Yes, I said "life" and not "one's own life." I figured that was already well established in this line of discussion. Like I said before, I'm not "pro-life" or "pro-choice" in the abortion debate sense of the word. I'm anti-murder, and I think that killing a child is wrong no matter where it happens to be located at the time or if it is autonomous. If it's brain is functioning and it could live outside the womb, it's alive and has the right to stay alive.

So then a DNX abortion is OK because the organism is terminated while outside of the womb but the umbilical cord is still in tact, but infanticide is not because the umbilical cord has been cut? I'm sorry but this just isn't logical. If life is the standard of value for all of morality, I think it is crucially significant to define when life begins and to have that definition be objective. Something as arbitrary as the fetus' location should not be used in the definition. Additionally, it's been shown that babies born at 7 months will survive without any specialized care. (Other babies are born even before that but require medical intervention to live) This organism doesn't magically become human 9 months later, it already is. Obviously then, you can't say that a baby in the womb at 7,8, or 9 months is not a man. I think Rand was 100% right that a clump of cells cannot be identified objectively as a man. Only a rational animal is a man. I don't believe however that we can assign any other arbitrary criteria like "the umbilical cord was cut" or "it can fend for itself." When a fetus becomes a rational animal, it is a man.

It's not that I can't identify certain points or certain assumptions that I need to change, it's that I can't spell out exactly every step in the process. So if I were to try to explain to someone exactly how I came to a conclusion I could tell them the key points in between but not necessarily all of the points. If I somehow can't recall any intermediary points, then I don't put any stock in my "hunch." However, I end up being right most of the time after further investigation. So there must have been a good bit of complex concept use going on, I just am not very good at identifying it.

I disagree with this definition of the beginning of human life. Man is a rational animal. Therefore, man is a "man" at the point where his conciousness first becomes active. This study shows that a fetus can "learn" at 30 weeks: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_sh...-research-.html and there have been many more like it (this is just the most recent) So, if a fetus is conceptualizing at 30 weeks, then it is a rational animal, and therefore a man. Science needs to be used to determine the cutoff point, in my opinion, to determine when a fetus begins to think. Otherwise, we should just go around executing every non-volitional adult, because there are plenty of those around.

I'll go read the main thread for more but I just don't buy the contention that the fetus has no rights until it is physically outside of the mother. That is not an objective measure of when life begins. Why not a week after it's out? Are you saying that a week old baby can provide for its own survival using it's mind? Come on.

Has it been objectively demonstrated that Obama is in fact a US citizen? Last time I checked, the certificate his campaign produced was a fraud. (I can't remember the details, but it had features that weren't possible on the printing equipment of the day or some such thing) It doesn't matter, because you can't be impeached for not being a citizen. You also can't be impeached when you own congress.

I've never really believed that some people are "naturally" smarter than others. I think some people score better on IQ tests because they were taught things through conceptual methods. The degree to which they achieve a high IQ is directly proportional to the amount of conceptualization that has taken place in their learning process. This can happen by accident, by custom, or by direct intention. I don't think many people are lucky enough to enjoy that third option in today's world (when they are children, I mean.)

It seems like everyone here, along with everyone in the mainstream abortion debate, is avoiding the obvious and essential issue: how do you objectively define when a human life begins? Is it when the fetus pops out of the vagina? Does that magically make it a person? Is it when the fetus develops a heartbeat and measurable brain activity? (I would be comfortable with this definition) Is it when the sperm and egg unite? To compare a fetus to a pinky is ridiculous. Does your pinky fall off and then grow into a human being? Of course not. A fetus is, like Rand said, a potential life, so it warrants special examination. However, without a brain, it is not a rational animal, and therefore not a human. "Abortion" is simply a diversion tactic. The issue here is murder. When you initiate force against a human and it dies, that is murder. We need to objectively define the beginning of a human life.

I disagree for this reason: It's one thing to say "I think there is a creator, because nothing comes from nothing, everything had to come from something." It's quite different to say "The creator talks to me/my predecessors so I will order you to live this certain way and you can't question my authority." The first is not a contradiction of reality or of Objectivism. The second clearly is irrational and evil. I think it's a distinction worth making.

Hello Everyone, I've been reading a TON about Objectivism and I love it. My brain is sore but I have the satisfaction of a good workout. Anyway I want to know how to properly describe the following situation: A person is presented with an issue or a problem The person immediately knows the answer, or at least has a very strong lead The person is proven correct through investigation When I do this in my personal or business life people sometimes ask "how did you know that?" and honestly I was just trying the first thing that my brain produced. Internally I'm using concepts that I've built up over a lifetime and so I go from point A to point Z without thinking about it. I can't necessarily draw out the entire conceptual hierarchy that went into coming up with that answer, but I know that it exists. "I don't know" (how I know) is obviously not the correct thing to say here. What is? PS - My mind is like an automatic "Occam's Razor" so I have a hard time backfilling everything to communicate it to other people, I'm trying to improve on that through studying Objectivist Epistemology

If it's so pointless (which I think arguing over God is pointless) then why do Objectivists generally feel the need to be so outwardly Anti-God? Anti-Religion I can fully understand. Anti-Altruism is of course a great way to be. Evangelizing for Atheism and ridiculing anyone who mentions God is not a good way to attract new minds to Objectivism. If that's something we want to do...

What about Piekoff's example of an atom that can perceive things around it (other atoms, bonds, etc) in a fictional "atom brain" but cannot perceive the object which it makes up? If you were that atom and you said "hey guys, I think we're a part of some big structure." Then an objectivist atom would respond "no, you can't prove that, and I don't have to prove a negative, you're wrong." In other words, it is possible for things to exist outside of perception and with no way to prove that they exist. I'm not saying this proves "God" but it does illustrate the point that sometimes you just can't prove something that is true. So to be accurate, you could say "God is possible, but not certain, and not really plausible." This is coming from Deist point of view. To say that God exists and is the basis for all of our knowledge is completely wrong.

Ah well torture would produce nothing so it would be a waste of time. The work should be so hard that it is torturous.

I oppose the death penalty because I think it's letting people off easy. I think crime should be punished. I don't mean we should send people to prisons to sit around all day and watch TV and have recess and then communal showers. I mean we should dole out some serious pain. For instance, in an Objectivist society you would presumably have military bases setup around the country for national defense. I'm sure those bases need manual labor done for upkeep. Rather than make taxpayers pay for both prisons with cable TV and for military base upkeep, how about make the criminals do it bare handed? For people who have turned away from the laws of reason and initiated force against others, the only just treatment is that of wild animals. Wild Animals respond to pain.

This is the most crucial element of the entire argument, in my opinion. If the government didn't have the powers that it held, companies would not be able to "force" anybody to do anything. It is by pull-peddling that they are able to do these things. Also, if the government didn't manipulate markets through "social programs" we might have a better setup of infrastructure these days. If anything killed the light rail industry it would be Eisenhower's Interstate system (or just: government ownership of roads in general). Think about it, what is more economical to build? Roads or Railways?

I've been thinking a lot about New Zealand. They have a mixed economy now and are a country of only about 4 million people. If Objectivists made a concerted effort to move there and engage with people about their ideas, we could potentially make enough of a cultural difference that the people would ditch the altruist ethics. I know this sounds like a pipe dream but honestly I just don't see another way. As humans it is our right to live free, and forming a new Atlantis would have the selfish motive of creating a society that respects the individual. The practical problem of forming a new country has been illustrated in several posts in this thread, so it seems like a tactic like focusing on one particular country that consists of mostly individualists (with misguided ethics) is our best bet.

*** Merged with an earlier topic. - sN *** Do you all think we can get enough Objectivists to band together and move to a particular geographic region in order to create an "Atlantis" where the government is based on the Objectivist Philosophy and is confined to the sole purpose of protecting our natural rights? I would be interested in doing this, or participating, if possible. Is there any such movement underway now?

How about this: 1) Existence exists. 2) Conciousness is the act of perceiving existence. 3) God is the source of all existence. I'm still reading up, I'll work on formulating this better once I have more of a footing

That's also a very good synopsis.