SapereAude

A friend and I were categorising current trends/initiatves/regulations and social norms by whether they are based in 1984, Brave New World or Atlas Shrugged.
What we came up with is that our economy and regulatory environment mirror Atlas, the political/police state mirrors 1984 and the moral climate is based on Brave New World.

A veritable melting pot of crapulence.

Sad but seems to be true.
Whatever, I'll keep shooting the self-righteous down 'till the grave!

Aequalsa,

My point precisely.
I always joke that it is better to commit a mortal sin than a paperwork error- Jesus might forgive you, a bureaucrat never will.

I've started and run businesses and promise you it is not a "far cry" from being government owned and controlled. I can follow my own beliefs and philosophy less then 50% of the time without running afoul of regulation. This is to say nothing of the amount of my production I am able to actually keep nor does it compare in anyway to the kinds of regulations larger companies than mine, in almost all industries are subjected to or the amount of taxes that are paid through the double whammy of a 50% tax on profits with a 38% capital gains tax on the remainder. The government controls and owns far more of the economy than most communist rulers could ever have hoped for, not least of which is banking and oil which are secondary ways of taxing and controlling what is allowed to exist.

I agree with you about not being too defeatist but you shouldn't kid yourself about how far gone it is or how difficult the challenge we face is either. They've been very successful at hiding the governments involvement from the 99% of people who are employees. With automatic withholding and a relative lack of regulation on private individuals it is not very apparent how completely controlled we are but we very much are.

You know, it is one thing to call me a kook because I posted an hyped up article on Obama's birth certificate; and it yet another thing for me an other Objectivists to be called a kook for pointing out that Obama et al follow and preach Marxist political philosophy and want to impose Marxism on the rest of us. What do you have to do, be thrown into a gulag before you learn to think in terms of principles and to take ideas seriously? It has been pointed out time and time again that the political philosophy of the Left comes straight out of the Communist Manifesto -- but that's OK, because it is only abstract ideas and have nothing to do with the daily lives of Americans. Obama is aiming towards a government controlled economy and Pelosi is aiming to curtail political speech -- but that's OK because the trains run on time. Get real!

What is meant by "outside of a political-economic social system?". Rights are prior to any system and serve as the only justification for one.

"The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions." - Ron Paul

Unless, apparently, those individuals organize themselves into a state - then he has no problem with passing laws to violate individual rights.

An important point in all of this is to consider the consequences of something you assert, or to paraphrase Rand – Take it serious and follow through on its implications. In this case, the idea is that a fetus at conception has rights as a human being. OK, let’s take that at face value – A fetus has human rights, which means in this context it has political rights which need to be protected. This leads to many consequences:

Does this make a fetus a citizen of the United States?
Does a fetus get a Social Security Card?
Do parents have to name the fetus despite no identifiable sex so this human life can be registered for that SSC or other Government identification?
Can a parent claim a fetus as a dependant upon their taxes?
Does the US Census now have to count pregnant women as two people?
If the mother’s life is threatened by some medical condition from the fetus, can the mother take criminal action against the fetus?
Can the family make a civil suit against the fetus?
Can the fetus file a civil lawsuit against the mother for drinking or smoking during the pregnancy?
If I accidently kill a pregnant woman in a car crash will I be charged with two counts of manslaughter?
If you say “no” to any of the above then are we giving fetuses special group rights that places them above normal individual rights?
Since a women is now forced to care for the unborn citizen against her wishes, does this mean she has more rights before she is born than after she is born?
Re-read that last one because there are some really scary consequences in it.


Do I need to continue?

I'm not going to address your post entirely, because I don't have the time to do so right now and I recognise that I've caused some people some frustration in the past with quick toss off replies that I never come back to.

I do want to point out since you brought it up though that legally reputation can be considered property.
For example, when you buy or sell a business often part of the price is called "good will". That is - the good will the business has earned and maintained. It is given a recognised material value. Someone who slanders or libels you then, in a way that effects you professionally can in fact be doing you lasting material damage.

"I shall not assist another being" - but rather - "I shall not live my life for another."

Yes, this is the difference and the basis for the true benevolence. Only man who lives his life in full for himself can value life of others , feel an empathy and desire to help. A man who sacrificed his life to others doesn't appreciate his own life, let alone the life of others.

Corporations are obviously not people –they are groups of people who share a common purpose. However an individual does not lose his rights by acting on behalf of a group. The purpose of the group is irrelevant - whether a group exists for the purpose of prayer, or political advocacy, or profit does not change the rights of the people involved.

The attack on “corporate personhood” is an attempt to deny the rights (primarily the freedom of speech) of people working for certain non-politically correct groups – namely groups with the primary purpose of making a profit. This is just a veiled attack on capitalism and property rights.

An inherent weakness(and strength) of internet discussions is the lack of non-verbal indicators due to the relative anonymity of the internet. When having a discussion in person with a "snarky 14 year old" I am far less likely to push inconsistencies in his or her thought or require a 60 year old level of wisdom and experience to support his statements. I'll simply take them for what they are. Likewise, I'm not likely to try to change a 60 year old's fundamental outlooks on life, cause what's the point of that?.

Without a word being said, in person I can ascertain a persons relative age, sex, level of income, and many more things with fairly consistent accuracy while online this isn't the case. For example, say I meet a 47 year old who starts lecturing me on the benefits of a paleo diet. I can tell right away from his immediate access to facts and understanding of the subject that he has a solid grasp of the field. Maybe I inquire and then find he is a nutritionist by trade and has studied and lived by paleo for 7 years and has a flawless physique. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the lecture. Online, he could just as easily be the snarky 14 year old pulling up wikipedia to make an argument on his half-baked notions of dietary nutrition. I have no way of knowing how much weight to place so I'm going to press harder than usual. A benefit of being online is that we are all perceived equally in the valuation of our opinions so ideas aren't as immediately discarded. The downside is that we usually shouldn't be regarded equally because some of our opinions are more valuable than others.

Not sure that I have any contribution on how to alleviate the problem but to note that the more time I spend online the more often i can get a sense of whether a continued argument is worth having. I feel that I've gotten better at avoiding the continuation of useless conversations...not..you know...a lot...but a bit better.

The arrogance of this is infuriating. Did it not occur to the "reporter" that perhaps his narrative--his view of the world--is perhaps incorrect if he has to make stuff up to bolster it?

I'm gonna reply to this, because after reading Peikoff's comments carefully and also reading this thread, I think this argument is clearly the same one Peikoff's putting forth.

So the argument here is that she actually is consenting by being in the room regardless of what she says, up to the point where she tries to leave the room. The analogy is that posting on this site communicates one's consent to be posting on this site, even if one says in the post "I don't consent to posting here." This is a flawed analogy because here, the individual is simultaneously taking the action and also stating that they don't consent to it. Their statement is the relevant action. In this posting analogy, we have just one action, making the post, and it's sending contradictory messages about consent. In the Kobe example, on the other hand, we have two separate actions. The first is going up to the room, and the second is verbally stating 'stop.' The first gives consent, and the second is intended by the woman to withdraw that consent.

Therefore, a more relevant analogy would be making a post, and then later messaging the site owner or an admin asking to have it taken down. In that situation, it seems obvious to me that the later message does adequately communicate that the post is staying up without the poster's consent. (Of course, that doesn't obligate the post being taken down, because the site owner doesn't need continued consent to keep posts up, as stated in the forum rules. Here, consent is not required to keep the post up, because it's on the site owner's property and not the poster's. Unless someone wants to argue that the sex situation is analogous and continued consent by the woman isn't required, the analogy breaks down here).

The salient point is that the later message does withdraw consent. It's a separate action, taken after the first consenting action, clearly intended to communicate that the situation has changed and consent no longer exists. If you continue at that point, you're continuing without the consent of the person. In certain circumstances, that's permissible. The posting example is one; holding someone to a bet that they made, lost, and then tried to back out of would be another. In the sex example, I hope we can agree it's not.

Here's the problem with your argument, Jonathan13:
When she adjusted her views to state that it was immoral she qualified it with *why* it was immoral. Rand, like anyone, had to some extent to rely on what was "known" at the time. Most respected psychiatrists, psychologists and medical doctors at the time were in agreement that homosexuality was a mental disorder. When Rand made this statement homosexuality had recently, as a whole, been labelled as such by the DSM-II in 1968. (It was also listed as a deviation in DSM I). Rand, not being omnipotent was relying on the widely accepted science of her time. This science claimed (somewhat contradictory) that homosexuality was not only a mental disorder but also a choice.

From Atlas Shrugged " "a sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality" (938)".

Rand always maintained that morality presupposed choice. It was only reasonable and consistent for her to change her view to call homosexuality immoral given what data she had to work with.

That she viewed homosexuality as disgusting I take no issue with. Most people find something someone else does sexually offputting or disgusting. That is a matter of taste.

As to her finding it immoral based on what was known at the time I have no issue with either. We can only conjecture what she would have said if presented with what we know now about human sexuality. If one believes that Rand was most often internally consistent and rational one would tend to think that she would probably still find the idea offputting but- by her own definition of morality- change her mind on the morality issue. If one believes that Rand was often contradictory and inconsistent you'll probably choose to believe the worst.

Edited to add: that said, as far as "choice" comes in to play. One would have to also define what is being discussed. How do we know for sure if she was talking about homosexuality-as far as a person's innate tendencies or homosexuality-the physical acts? To me, the distinction would seem of some importance.

Interesting topic.

Consider this. Your children exist now, when you are alive. It's not for the peace-of-mind of your corpse that you bequeath your inheritance to them. It's for your peace-of-mind now, while you are alive, that you make such arrangements.

To the one who dies, no values are possible to him after death. If he attempts to arrange things to operate a certain way after his demise, it's only for his benefit now, in life. If he wants his classic car given to a museum, or his mechanic, it's not because he's worried about watching what's going to happen to it from above, when he's a ghost and his no-good son has ownership of it. It's because he values this thing in life that he takes the trouble to secure it after his death. It's for his peace-of-mind and well-being now.

It sounds like you need to take a step back.
I understand that your love and concern for your sister make this situation troubling for you but it is, afterall, her life to make choices as she sees fit.
Part of making choices will always be making mistakes.

When you love someone it is almost guaranteed that they will come with some baggage in the form of relatives one would rather not associate with.
She'll probably have to go through a trial and error period of figuring out how and where to set her boundaries with her husband's family.

Your heated emotional response to all this will probably backfire at some point. Your post started off as being about handling having to sit through religious ceremonies you disapprove of and veered into what seems to be hatred and contempt for your brother-in-law's whole family. There will inevitably be conflict and your BIL will probably have to choose to stand up to his family or damage his relationship with his wife. But really, that is bewteen them when it does happen. Which it hasn't yet.

Ultimately, the (admittedly awful) behaviors you're describing aren't really about religion. Many non-religious in laws indulge in the exact same awful behaviors.
Your sister found what sounds like a great man from a terrible family. Sucks, but such is often the case.
You might want to ask yourself though what getting yourself so worked up over it will gain you, or your sister, or anyone.
If you are truly wanting to help your sister being calm and dispassionate about the situation is probably best.

Vitriol can make for good drama, but rarely good living situations.

Been there (many times) - chatted, ate well, drank, danced.
Celebrated a special day in the lives of special people.
Seems like the priest had no 'evil' effect on me.
When I left, I had the same morality I arrived with.

I'm not sure who this "one" is - someone who relies on appeals to authority for philosophical guidance?

Yes, let employees take care of themselves. If taking a job below some minimum wage is to their interest, then let them take it. If it is not to their interest, then they shouldn't take the job.

And, just as an aside: until one has a job they are not employees, they are the unemployed and should thank anyone willing to hire them.

A salient point that doesn't seem to have been addressed here, and I think is necessary to the discussion

There is a difference between (A)theist and (Anti)theist and I believe that many people who claim to be atheist are actually behaving as antitheists. I don't believe that is productive. I don't necessarily mean people here... I mean people in general. The kind of people who can't allow a cross to exist in a military cemetary, the kind who can't allow the existence of religious imagery... I think they protest too much. They expect tolerance for their atheism while wanting to strip others of their rights to belief. I think this kind of rabid anti-theism fuels some of the more irrational behaviors in the neo-Christian movement.

Also, much has been made of tax money being wasted on religious displays. Because these are generally local I'm sure that it is done differently all over. But most of the ones I've known of and have heard about are privately funded.

Now, this is not to be an apologist for Christians. Simply put, I just don't believe that being an atheist automatically makes one more rational than if one is Christian. Most of the atheists I know outside of the Objectivist community are socialists and anarchists.

Rand was quoted multiple times as saying that religion had a valid function as an early and primitive form of philosophy. That Christianity is not entirely rational does not automatically make the person that rejects it rational- they can just as soon pick up something else equally irrational. We must define ourselves by positives, not negatives.

In the spirit captured by the OP, Merry Christmas

"The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . ."

If you asked the average Hollywood type why he does what he does, and you could somehow be guaranteed an honest answer, he'd tell you it's because it's what his friends do — it's what those he's trying to impress are doing.

It's "in" to be a liberal in Hollywood. Supporting liberal causes and spouting liberal rhetoric is how you show those around you that you're one of the gang.

Many so-called "creatives" are anything but. They don't invent, so much as they cling, copy & regurgitate.

Liberalism isn't difficult to grasp; it's the lessons of Sunday school told in slightly more sophisticated language.

Liberalism allows vapid people to feel moral — albeit in a smug, self-righteous way. It affords them the opportunity to feel that they're "making a difference" in the world, while enjoying a level of status above those they claim to be concerned about.

Liberalism is an antidote to anxiety & guilt. Successful people often experience anxiety — and virtually no one who makes money today is proud of it.

Most of the people in Hollywood (particularly those at the top) are not serious thinkers. Not necessarily unintelligent, just not at all concerned about important philosophic issues.

Combine non-thinking with neurosis & extreme second-handedness, and you have a formula for a thoroughly collectivized mindset.

You, perhaps inadvertently, made a connection for me that I had not before noticed. You're right in that he was only able to do what he did because he was a man. It was a demonstration of her view of masculinity in its most appropriate context, that is, acting without apology and with full desire, upon a woman. You can, of course, disagree with her notions of masculinity(many do), but I think that is what she was trying to convey.

The building's destruction, I'm surprised to learn that anyone thinks was wrong. He made the realization that his "contract" had been totally violated and the justice system he lived under would not act to correct the wrongdoing, so he took away what he had given them. He took pains to insure that no innocent's rights had been violated and he was fully willing to accept any consequences that resulted. It might be argued that it wasn't sensible to risk, throwing his life away in prison, but the demonstration was that his sense of integrity was inviolable and allowing that monstrosity to continue existing would be an injustice he couldn't tolerate. If we lived in a world where just men weren't cowards, than that bastardized building would not likely have been built in the first place, but that's not the case, so it was and he had to act.

The fact that any brute can destroy a building doesn't mean that men who are not brutes ought to never destroy one. Which seems to be your same thought process with regard to the "rape" which, I would guess, stems from a mind-body dichotomy on these issues. That force and brute strength, as such, is wrong or amoral at best. Ragnar made the point that answers it best when he explained what happens when brute force meets force with a mind behind it. Force and action and masculinity all have their place, but never disconnected from the mind. I have no reason to think that Roark banging Dominique or blowing up the building was anything but, intimately connected to his mind and really his highest values.

Yes, Jonathan, I do understand all that. However for my tastes the way it was portrayed was lame, trite, tedious and facile.
I also understand that the character of FdA was not supposed to be acting as himself during that part of AS however I don't find the director skilled enough to direct any actor to play any part of FdA's personality (real or feigned) much less one of a group of D-listers seen here.