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Andrew Grathwohl

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Everything posted by Andrew Grathwohl

  1. Thanks everyone for their responses thus far. Well, we did resolve the First Barbary War with a peace treaty, and the second was resolved mostly by the European powers colonizing the MENA regions involved, if I remember correctly. Quite frankly, I would hardly doubt that the Barbary pirates have anything to do with the present Muslim extremists we deal with. It would surely be irrational to wage a forceful war against an entire group of people merely because they practice the same religion or live in the same area as the Barbary pirates did centuries ago, no? And wouldn't it be simple ignorance of history, though, to forget how the US has attempted to colonize the Middle East for many decades, dating as early back as the 1950s? This must account for a significant amount of the general hatred against the United States within that region, no? Ayn Rand says that our only true responsibilities are to get out of the way of others - I cannot imagine that our actions in the late 1950s in Iran, for example, was anything other than the antithesis of this concept. Why shouldn't we expect poor results from when we refuse to just let people be? I simply wonder how the quote that Mr. Odden provided could be Objectivist considering history has shown us that there was no significant backlash against the United States until after we began overthrowing elected governments there and began instituting our own methods and opinions on their ways of living. I have read through a substantial amount of Objectivist literature, yet I fail to see how we could ever pay the trillion dollars a year it costs us to run a militaristic empire through anything but socialist monetary policy and coercive fiscal policies. I'd be interested to hear a proposal as to how we could afford that sort of thing. From a broader perspective, I think it would be foolish to think that the precise verbiage of a religious text were any more valid of an excuse for one's actions in the MENA region than a Christian or Jew who uses the Old and New Testaments to validate an anti-abortion policy. But if it were the true reasoning for a small band of men to engage in such horrible violence as we've witnessed (and believe me, I've witnessed it - I was in Manhattan on 9/11), I think it would be foolish to attack entire governments, as the ARI provides that we should. Why not go after the specific people who committed these crimes against us? Why inevitably punish the people becoming slaves to their militantly-fueled religiously-fascist regime governments, who would so desperately wish to live in a free society as we do? Would not the rational method be to not entice our enemies and to lead by example? Why is it wrong think, as I've been led to believe by so much of what I've read by Ayn Rand, that one should never use force unless it is specifically retaliatory against the person who initiated it? But governments never initiated these acts - individuals did. I find it irrational to punish an entire State based on the actions of a few. I hate to say it, but I simply cannot see how a lot of the things the ARI supports could be considered Objectivist - particularly their policies against Iran. As I've shown, I think that the actions we've taken against a lot of the Middle Eastern countries were initiations of first-strike interventionisms, or are just far too vaguely connected to justify what I consider very immoral and irrational actions taken against entire countries of people - people who are for the most part innocent. No, I didn't really mean Jew. There are plenty of non-Jews, and even atheists, who are neoconservatives (Christopher Hitchens, for example). There are also plenty of Jews who are not Zionists. And don't call me a coward; I've already taken the courage to speak up against a system of thought which I have otherwise completely pledged my 100% unconditional support to, and to me that took courage. It pains me to think that I am in any way seen as irrational or immoral by a large (though, not an entire) group of Objectivists. By the way, Mr. Odden.... Surely, you don't think the United States is a free nation, do you? Because if you do, boy are you mistaken. And even if we were, considering the disastrous debts and domestic policy blunders as of lately, do you really believe it is in the nation's self-interest to engage in such a reckless foreign policy as the ARI prescribes to?
  2. Please, fellow Objectivists, tell me how any of you can support the neo-conservative foreign policy endorsed by the Ayn Rand Institute? 1. Initiating the first strike on a sovereign nation (Iran, Iraq) would indeed mean that the US was acting as the aggressor. 2. Acting in the interests of Israel is not in the interest of the United States. 3. Taxing the people to pay for this war would also be initiating force against the people domestically in the US. 4. Every religion teaches the violent teachings of Mohammad - the mere fact that certain governments practice this religion over another is not a realistic or objective justification for believing their religion is what is fueling their resentment to the western world. 5. Mere resentment to the western world is not aggression. None of the countries in question (Pakistan, Iraq, Iran) have come close to committing an aggressive act against the US. The Afghani government, on the other hand, knowingly harbored terrorists intending to harm America - the difference is sufficient. Regardless of the reasons for attacking Afghanistan, we stayed to nation-build and give more reasons for Muslims to resent America. I cannot see how any Objectivist could promote a foreign policy of nation building, military interventionism, and first-strike assaults. Please, somebody, for the love of science and logic, show me Objectivist literature endorsing this evil and horrifically inhuman practice!
  3. Reading through Atlas Shrugged for a second time, and got inspired to find other like-minded folks. I'm loving it here so far, and it gives me a lot of joy to discover that the study of Objectivism is rather strong and apparently growing exponentially! So I guess I'm a minarchist, ARI-hating Objectivist. I hope that my disliking of the ARI can be tolerated by those here, because I'm going to use this forum to primarily understand how the hell anybody can justify the foreign policy the ARI stands by. Thanks to everybody for making this forum such an inviting and intriguing place for Objectivists to engage in thought experiments and discuss.
  4. You better believe I'll be watching! It will be the first time I've patronized that program in over a few years now. I heard about that interview with Jim Crammer, but I just cannot for the life of me begin to believe that Jon Stewart had anything even remotely knowledgeable to say. Jon Stewart is a moron.
  5. I am from Fairfield County, CT, and can offer a couple of aspects regarding Peter Schiff that others here probably cannot. There is speculation regarding Schiff's social policies; the answer is no, he does not share all of Ron Paul's social positions. He's much more in line with Objectivist morals than with right-wing republicanism, though I should draw the distinction that Ron Paul has never truly wished to impose his morals on the country by making use of his power. Schiff is not religious, and most likely an atheist. I cannot speak definitively about his stance on abortion, but I would make the guess that he's pro-choice if I had to choose one or the other. The other major aspect brought up is Schiff's demeanor and word choice when speaking publicly. Though Schiff may not be selective in his terminologies and may imply worst-case scenarios on television interviews more often than not, this doesn't have any real impact on the power of Schiff's economic mind. The fact is that he would have never been nearly as correct about everything if he wasn't incredibly able in this field. Schiff has a very sophisticated and sound understanding of the economy, and of the importance of laissez-faire economics, and his new book explains in great detail his views on decoupling. The fact is that no television program would ever give him enough time to explain most of his insightful viewpoints, especially in the realm of decoupling. It's perhaps his most unpopular position among the mainstream media, after all. I would suggest that anyone who questions it read his new book, and not take his television appearances as the ultimate representation of Schiff's economic, moral, and political character.
  6. Thinking that electronic music is necessarily beat-driven, and that this stereotypical aspect of the genre must be the focus of any good electronic music, is partially why the young genre is so incredibly frowned upon. There are, in fact, brilliant examples of computer music, whose mathematical and engineering characteristics impress and surprise everyone from ordinary music fans to mathematicians and electrical engineers. Electronic music, contrary to the general discussion found here, actually possesses great potential to achieve the goal of beautifully representing metaphysical realizations without ever coming close to driving a beat or even establishing a pulse. As far as electronic music is concerned, the best examples of the genre are probably not even found in IDM acts such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, and that whole ilk, as they are merely a wonderfully prodigious offshoot of a generally boring trait of electronic music as a whole. While I admit that these are great examples of musicians, I believe that electronic music's true romantic and genius direction is being headed by sound artists like Fennesz, Tim Hecker, and Zavoloka. There is truly nothing more representative of selective metaphysical artistic realization than the manner in which these composers so perfectly blend the line between synthesized and organic instrumentation. The atmosphere that this instills in the listener is something that not even traditional classical music can come close to rivalling. Its results are so precisely metaphysical, in fact, that it is nearly impossible to distinguish at times whether or not the source of a particular sound is synthesized or recorded! If we are to follow Ayn Rand's ideas regarding the best kind of art, I believe that this type of sound design / composition would be the most conducive to her ideals, and thus represents the best that electronic music has to offer. By the way, first time poster, long time objectivist! I'm loving it here already...
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