CastleBravo

Better start packing.

Probably the same way they did the first time; armed force. Then they would proceed to put more restrictive gun laws into place.

If I ever raised the capital and found a large enough group of investors, I would be absolutely enthralled to begin work. As a matter of fact, I might have a new outlandish goal

That's the $1,000,000 question. Every time I have to ask it I reach the conclusion that even though this place is turning into a second-rate socialist toilet, it doesn't get any better. The scale of this crisis is absolutely biblical. I don't think there is much I can do so I'm just going to live my life for me and try to keep my head up.

It is sad that my first thought after reading that article was exactly this. It is so entrenched an anti-individuality that I question the point in pursuing my interests here. It is slowly becoming a place where I simply can't.

I was actually raised around southern baptism. I never really took it seriously and was never baptized. My grandfather on my mom's side was a preacher and my father's parents lived in the deep woods of Kentucky.

Because there is no evidence to support the existence of god. It shouldn't even be a question of "maybe" because in order to form a hypothesis (i.e. there is a creator) one has to have some form of evidence to support that hypothesis. The hypothesis must be testable in order to prove its truth and since there is no evidence I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe there is a god. Show me why I should even ask the question "is there a god?".

Now Greebo, the nice troll asked that we not allude to fairy tales.

Being that there is no evidence to support the existence of god (no, complexity is NOT evidence) I'd say the burden of proof is on you.

Let them Just more to write about.

This was my exact plan until I changed it a few weeks ago. I'm going to be a constitutional lawyer and write about the growing immorality and anti-individualism in today's laws.

I think I made my reply hastily. Letting them jail me would be sacrificing my life (my highest value) for a lesser value (Individual freedom). The best thing to do is to grin and bear it and continue to call out anyone who has not taken the time to define rights or values. Wherever there is a facebook status update proclaiming healthcare as a right, I will be there searching for people willing to listen and accept the truth. I will no longer waste my time on Democrats or Republicans. They are absolute children. It is not worth it for me to keep leading horses to water and then having them try and demonstrate that there really isn't any water. In relation to the "zombie apocalypse" reference, look for survivors. We have to connect with reasonable minds. If this website is any indication, they are definitely still out there and in numbers far greater than expected. Continuing with our zombie allegory, what has ever come from slaughtering droves of them? Nothing but wasted ammunition and energy. What I mean by this is do not waste your time on unreasonable people. Surround yourself with individuals who think freely and will openly accept their own errors. This makes living in a world that thinks your ideas are a joke much easier. And I wouldn't despair quite yet over healthcare. We still have the option of a constitutional convention; http://gohmert.house.gov/index.cfm?section...&itemid=805 My bottom line is "If" by Rudyard Kipling. Keep your head up and know that you are leagues ahead of most men. As long as I am alive I will pursue greatness and as long as no man is pointing at gun at my head I will achieve it. Short of physical force, there is little that can stop me from becoming what I want to become.

I wouldn't mind seeing it if everything weren't so... ugly. The cinematography just makes me want to vomit.

"I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who will not sacrifice his love or his values." It is pretty clear to me that having someone shove healthcare down my throat is a direct violation of my rights as an individual. If it is illegal to be uninsured then they can send me to jail. I do not need healthcare insurance. If I did, I wouldn't need my neighbor to pay for it.

Your assumption that I was misunderstanding initiation of force was correct. I honestly wasn't even aware of a distinction. I still have a great deal to learn.

Why? How could these groups promote cultural change? What ends are these silly little beverage party's trying to achieve? If you answered political change, you are correct, and political change is not sufficient at this point to ensure the development of individual freedom. Stopping healthcare is not going to be the end of the debate. It is going to keep coming back until we are able to educate generations about WHY it is immoral and anti-individual.

I probably am. Do you have any other information on the differences of force and violence? I have never seen Rand write "initiation of violence". It is always force. If threats are force, then would it not be reasonable for me to shoot a man who says he's going to kill me without taking any action? Of course modern law would not look too kindly on my actions, but would this be acceptable in a reasonable society?

Good to-the-point article. This is the very core of the issue. Costs, free markets and the state of our nation aside, this is a clear violation of individual rights and should be treated as such.

Isn't pre-emtive war initiation of force? I can see no justification for attacking another nation, regardless of it's inhabitants, without said nation taking violent action first. The US nuking Tehran is about as moral as me shooting someone I've had disagreements with because we might get in a fight later. The notion is absolutely absurd. What I do think is that the minute they initiate force we wipe them off of the face of the earth along with any other nation that has the gall to attack us. NO ONE has the right to initiate force; why should this not apply to nations? I have not read this thread because it is 43 pages long. I'm a little confused as to how there have been so many replies... Reason suggests that pre-emptive force is nothing less than terrorism. How has "NO" not jumped out as the answer? How can someone who has studied the work of Rand even be asking this question? Also, how can someone who calls themselves an Objectivist advocate Genocide? That is utterly disgusting.

lol'd

This. When people think of us being nuked, they often think that the offending country is going to start lobbing 20 megaton bombs at our cities. While that might happen eventually, initially the offending country could (and would most likely) detonate a thermonuclear device high in the atmosphere. This knocks out pretty much our entire infrastructure. That scares me more than being turned into ashes before I even feel the heat. Think about it. You're typing a response this thread and everything just dies. No warning. No way of knowing the cause.

Yes, it is available on Netflix.

This little gem is 90 minutes of the most broken, ignorant psychobabble I have ever witnessed. To be honest, I wasn't even able to finish the movie. I got about halfway through it and had to turn it off before I broke my hand on my monitor. This film is about 'philosophy'. It is a camera crew following hack philosophers around while they muse about how bad it is to be human and do things human beings are supposed to do. I found it sickening. I had expected it to be in the tradition of Socrates in which he would walk around town asking people awkward questions and making them think about their lives. One philosopher asserts that consumerism is wrong and there are "better things" people should be spending their money on (i.e. hungry children). He even uses the "kid drowning in a lake" scenario to show me why buying Prada shoes is wrong. Another claims that the world is messed up because we pay too much attention to the self and not "the other". Anyone else seen this? bonus points if you made it all the way through the movie.

This is something I can agree with. I definitely don't remember picking up any anti-woman imagery. If anything it was anti-Willem. It has been a while since i last watched it so I'll give it another go. I probably wasn't paying enough attention. I should also say I'm not really a student of Von Tryer. I only picked this movie up because it had the potential to be more messed up than Eraserhead (David Lynch), not because of who wrote it. I can't say I love or hate it...

I couldn't agree more. I actually find it easier to have an agreeable conversation with Liberals than conservatives. Their ideas don't seem to come from a deep-seeded anti-human religion as much as the right's ideas do. They're just stubborn, misguided.... well, weenies. Most of the time it's like talking to a two year old that want's his juicy-juice and wants it NOW, the twist being he doesn't acknowledge he can get it himself without a tax payer funded "mother". The word 'brat' comes to mind. I can't quite tell which camp I despise more... It can be reduced to Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck because they both pretty well sum up the mentality of the modern liberal and conservative.