dream_weaver

That tells me that you probably observe trust as more of a matter of adherence to principle (and presumably the Aristotelean principle of truth derived by coherence to reality) than of adherence to prescribed law.

In order to live, man must eat food and drink water. This principle is adhered to by anyone who is alive. If it were made illegal to consume neither food nor water, could you trust any living soul you encounter?

A principle is simply a fact, or general truth, upon which other general truths (principles) can be built upon. I would hardly consider that subjective. You have a choice to determine if your principles are true or false, integrated or contradictory. The kind of world we live it is a product of many laws (rules) which are in contradistinction to valid principles. As was also pointed out in the referenced thread, there are only two fundamental ways with which to deal with others along these lines.

Dominique seemed to be testifying on Roark's behalf, but stated explicitly that she was not. That was the parallel I was drawn to, admittedly ignorant of the 'capital crime' referred to on the wikipedia account. Yes, the prevailing attitude in the minds of the people involved, her testimony of "The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save men from it, but to save it from men. What's the difference, however?" could underscore it. Not to save men from a great work which would be an affront to their sense of life, but to "save it from men???" What's the difference? To save something from men? From men doing what to it? Destroying it? Observing it? Interesting catch, and question.

It's a reverse application. The pity belongs to those who condemned Roark. Miss Francon exposed the nature of the other witnesses soul's in stark contrast to the nature of Roark's to the courtroom. Roark exposed the nature of the Judge's soul by presenting him with the photographic evidence of what had been built.

If it were for the objectively legitimate government expenditures of protecting individual rights, I could concur, (presuming, of course, that the expenses were commensurate with the services.)

In short, no. Criminals, in general, do not trust others. (For 0.99¢ you can check out Peikoff's "What To Do About Crime") As to there being no assurance that any payment to an extortionist will satisfy his demand, have the current tax levels satisfied Washington's demands? At last count, it was $16 trillion and rising.

Call That a Ball? Dogs Learn to Associate Words With Objects Differently Than Humans Do The bottom line: Though your dog understands the command "Fetch the ball," but he may think of the object in a very different way than you do when he hears it. As the authors explain, "Where shape matters for us, size or texture matters more for your dog. This study shows for the first time that there is a qualitative difference in word comprehension in the dog compared to word comprehension in humans."

I'm reading that you are ascribing an existence/identity relationship to property/individual rights?

Property owner A would have to show his individual rights are being infringed upon by property owner B.

Have you determined if Objectivists are able to reason about this problem?

If property rights are a derivative of individual rights, then property rights cannot be used to deprive another of their individual rights. An O'ist government that upholds individual rights should be prohibited from promoting property rights over individual rights. If easements, as currently understood provide for this, then why not?

Considering that the distinctive characteristic of man is his rational faculty, i.e.: conceptual consciousness, such a "magic point" in the history of evolution where "man" ceased being motivated like the lion, prior to this point, such an entity would not be man. edited to clarify.

I'm still missing something here. If -- [a] "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context, and there is only one fundamental right (all the others [including property rights*] are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life, [. . . where the only restriction lie in regard . . .] to his neighbors, [that] his rights impose no obligations on them [and their rights impose to obligations on his'] except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights [or his to abstain from violating their rights']. ["bold italics added] Property rights are a derivative of individual rights, Easements, written or grandfathered, are a recognition that an individual's right to his own life sanctions the actions necessary to that right, providing that they impose no obligation on his neighbors, nor they on his, to that end.

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 7 January 3, 1972 "What Can One Do?" Later added to "Philosophy: Who Needs It." In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities—or, more precisely, history is made by intellectual movements, which are created by minorities. Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not quantity, but quality that counts (the quality—and consistency—of the ideas one is advocating).

So you did. I grabbed more than I had intended.

Destroying destruction? Destruction is an abstraction. That would be like a war on drugs. How are you going to win a war against an inanimate object?

It is not the socialist intellectuals to whom the moral challenge is issued, The moral challenge to connect or make socialism synonymous with evil or wrong.

I would say that the only way to fight force initiated against one's self is with force. In Galt's speech she writes: "It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the man [or men, dream_weaver would add.] who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own. He uses force to seize a value; I use it only to destroy destruction."

Then her allegation that socialism can win only by default—by the moral default of its alleged opponents, says that it is the moral code of altruism that needs to be challenged along with the irrationalism that makes it possible. This would be the key to the "door of resistence."

There are enough threads on religion without needed to segway further here. I'm only trying to point out that Objectivism holds that moral code of altruism gives rise to socialism, and that in a world that religion has held a near monopoly on the field of morality, that it too, is viewed to be altruistic in nature. Socialism pedals its illicit goods by pandering to many who believe that the rich men can and should be sacrificed to the poor ones, hoping that the question of whether it is right or wrong to sacrifice any man for any reason does not come under the microscope. In PWNI, Miss Rand asks "What is the moral code of altruism?" She continues: "The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value." It is via "service to God" that altruism is tied into religion as its moral code.

Hopelessly depraved may have been a little stong. From what I recollect from my upbringing, man is by his nature a sinner, fallen short of the grace of God, and is not capable of heaven by works alone. Man, by his nature, according to most religious doctrines, is fallen, sinful, or as expressed bblically, men love the darkness because their deeds are evil - depraved in that sense.

It does seems clear that you've already chosen to believe there is some wonderful being who cares for us all, and have accepted the code of morality that accompanies it. Is the conviction that man's nature is so innately depraved, that the discovery and validation of a morality based reason is impracticable?

And all counting on the victims will not be able to understanding how the sham has already been exposed for what it is. The socialist will continue to count on moral agnosticism to continue to be practiced, that any moral judgments passed on the altruistic principles they are counting on can simply be brushed aside. Counting on the continued paralysis of man brought about by the acceptance of a moral creed of altruism which cannot be practiced, because while man usually will act according to what he thinks is right, he won't act against the moral code he has unwittingly accepted?

The con artist becomes a pawn of the victims blindness He is becomes dependent on them not to see the nature of his deceit. He is slave to the victim's non-thinking and evasion of the time. Should they begin to question him, it requires coming up with more lies to try and cover his initial deceit. The con artist is counting on the nature of man as a volitional being, not to use his volition to discover and expose the nature of his scam. (It is ironic that this should come up after an allusion to the Branden/Rand relationship.)