Inspector

No, but so long as we have the power to dole out such punishment successfully, we ought to exercise that ability. I am not saying to consider it in a vaccuum - I am simply saying that the propriety vis a vis whether we are acting in our national interest or altruistically is not a part of the consideration of retaliation. It is an unrelated consideration. This is not the same as saying that there aren't any related considerations. It's a little late, but if get in our time machines and play armchair general, then I would say YES. Flatten that area of that berg. I'm saying we could have avoided the casualties of the Korean and Vietnam wars by fighting properly and not being afraid of "escalation." Sure, and I'll second Darkwaters' response about protecting property rights overseas. But the point is that there was that the USA was acting within its rights to do so - and you cannot say that Iran is absolved of any of the responsibility for murdering our citizens. Thus, the response to said murder is not effected by any consideration of the propriety of acting to defend property rights. As I said above, it is a separate and unrelated question to the question of what we ought to do to retaliate.

Exactly which points of this new, as John so aptly calls him, twit do you think are worthy of the label, "good?"

Now *that* is a first post. Well said, SpiralTheorist.

This may be incidental, but from what I've observed, women are much more likely to overlook a facial deformity and look at the overall man than men vice versa. I think you're lucky to be a guy. Masculinity is also less about being pretty - if you can focus on enhancing your other manly qualities I think you could very well "compensate" (in a good way) for your unfortunate handicap. Besides, if our civilization doesn't collapse, I expect that plastic surgery will advance. Of course, you may need to get rich to benefit from that sooner rather than later, but being rich is just a good thing in general. The point is, you need not look at your condition as necessarily permanent.

Granting for the sake of argument that Objectivists as a group tend to have less children than the general population (because I honestly don't know if that is true or not), I can offer some speculation as to why this is. Objectivists should tend to consider the full consequences of their actions more than most people, and also should be more considerate of the gigantic commitment and responsibility that children represent. If they are indeed Objectivists, the idea of just falling backwards into having kids because of carelessness or lack of planning would be totally anathema... which is definitely not the case for a large amount of the population. The same can be said for most demographics that are wealthy and educated - i.e. that have demonstrated the ability to consider consequences and plan their lives long-range. If it is true that Objectivists as a group tend to have less children, this is probably a good thing - as it is an indication of the virtues mentioned above - and thus that the children they do have will be brought up properly. One such child is worth 10 irresponsibly-raised ADHD monsters, if not more.

Oh no it does not have anything to do with the response. You are conflating two kinds of immorality - self-sacrifice and the violation of the rights of others. These are both immoral, but they have very different responses. We did not violate Iran's or any other nation's rights by being in Lebanon. Therefore, no action taken against our soldiers could be considered "retaliation." It was a murderous act of war. This is entirely separate and should not in any way be influenced by the question of whether we had a national interest in having soldiers there in the first place. It literally has nothing to do with it. The fact is that a proper national defense is based on the idea that anyone, anywhere that threatens the lives of the citizens of the nation will be annihilated. Nobody - nobody gets away with threatening or killing Americans. Period. Doing so will reap the whirlwind. Thus, it does not matter whether or not it was a bad idea to be in Lebanon. Our citizens were murdered. That is the only relevant information. I cannot think of a war in the last 60 years that would have been particularly costly to us if we had fought it the correct, non-sacrificial way. Even the Soviets were extremely vulnerable until the later part of the 60's and early 70's. They simply did not possess the nuclear capability to strike us until that time. Sure, people were afraid of the early SS-6 ICBM's, but they weren't even operational at all until '59, and even then they were so slow to operate and deploy compared to our Atlas missiles that we could have blown them away right on their launch pads. This leaves only the strategic bomber forces to actually deliver nuclear weapons to us, and we far outmatched the Soviets in both offensive and defensive air capabilities. If we had gone to a nuclear war with the Soviets in the first 15-20 years of the cold war, we could have annihilated them with little loss on our side. It was only because we were willing to feed them and play the pretend game that they were *not* trying to conquer the world that they ever grew into a proper threat. (and even then, the cost of becoming a threat was too much for their economy to sustain) The botched prosecution of the Korean and Vietnam wars were entirely based on fears of "escalation" with the Soviets and Chinese - and those were phantom fears based on a kind of moral and existential cowardice. Escalation would have been utterly disastrous for our enemies - if it came to nuclear war, we would have come out just fine and they would be a smoking, radioactive ruin. (at least, until the 70's and 80's) So, getting back to our point, it would not have been a strategic error for us to have acted properly to uphold our national defense, even in those situations such as Vietnam where involvement may have been unnecessary. Good. I think you are forgetting that we were in a war with the Soviets and that oil was an important strategic resource. If you set the Leftist nonsense aside, it was a perfectly legitimate cold war goal to ensure that the Soviets didn't gain control of that resource.

Your position does not make any sense apart from the idea that: Because it was not in our interests to have troops in Lebanon, therefore we have no right to complain or take action in response to Iran's murdering us. And therefore, implicitly, Iran has a right to murder us. Otherwise, why do you keep repeating the statement that our policymakers were mistaken to put troops in Lebanon? What does that have to do with our response to Iran murdering our citizens? (soldiers are citizens) The fact of Iran murdering our citizens doesn't have ANYTHING to do with whether it was in our interests to station troops in Lebanon. Nothing. Iran has ZERO right to murder our citizens and the only proper response to such murder is massive and overwhelming retaliation. The idea that it may (and I am not agreeing with you here - only granting it for simplicity of argument) not have been in our interests to station troops in Lebanon does not give Iran the right to murder us. Saying "the proper response is to stop our own mistake" implies that our mistake justifies Iran's murder. This is false. The government of Iran at the time had a contract with our oil companies - our citizens. There was a coup, in which theocrats threatened to loot the property of our citizens. The proper response to this is to defend the property rights of our citizens, which was done. Obviously, not as well as we might and should have done it, but there was nothing wrong with the attempt. Iran does not have a "right" to become a looting theocracy. Your claim seems to be that they do have the right to become that, and our interference with the exercise of that "right" justifies them murdering our citizens.

Let me see if I can follow your logic here... (bold mine) ...So because the troops in Lebanon did not serve our national interests, Iran had the right to murder them? You are conflating two "rights" here: 1) That it was "right" - i.e. served our interests - to have troops in Lebanon 2) That we had a "right" to have them there - i.e. that we were violating someone's rights by having them there, so deserved some form of retaliation for it. Of course, the two have nothing to do with each other. We had every right to have troops in Lebanon, whether it served our interests or not. They weren't violating any rights of Iran - as if an Islamic dictatorship has any rights (it doesn't) - by being in Lebanon. Iran had no right to murder our troops and whether or not it was reasonable to expect that our troops were "in harm's way," it was still a murderous act of war on Iran's part. The fact that it may have been foolish to put them in harm's way does not diminish Iran's moral responsibility for murdering them - NOT ONE BIT. Further, you have made the utterly false assertion that we somehow deserved war from Iran since we defended the property rights of our oil companies when we thwarted the first attempt at Islamic dictatorship back in the 50's. That somehow wanting to protect those property rights is a bad thing for which we were justly punished. That is completely and totally backwards. The first attempt at Islamic revolution was not rightful. Our defense against it was rightful. There can be no just retaliation against our rightful thwarting of the first Islamic revolt. It is not "our fault" that Iran was and is murdering our citizens. They are entirely in the wrong and we are entirely within our rights.

We are indeed divided on that. I know plenty of men who definitely do not do what is in their best self-interest. I see self-destruction all the time. I think you would do well to keep your views confined to one thread, in the debate forum, since you obviously disagree, rather than, as Darkwaters said, aggravating everyone here by spreading your arguments all over the place. Keeping it confined to the debate forum would be most in keeping with the rules, and also with general decorum.

Marxist: Communism failed because we started looting before capitalism had produced enough to sustain our mooching behinds! It's not our fault! Inherent in this formulation is the fact that Capitalism is productive and Communism isn't. It's like a confession, really.

As David said, yes. Obviously. Have you ever tried to trade with a crocodile? It depends on what you mean by that. If you mean, "as soon as a man chooses to live as an animal - by initiating force" then the answer is yes. As soon as a man initiates force, it is appropriate to deal with him like we do animals - by force. Because most other men do not go around initiating force. And because "I feel like it" is not a reason.

Fascinating stuff John; thank you for sharing that information.

Is feeling pain the source of rights? Think with your rational faculty - do not rely on emotional programming inspired by a decadent culture. I don't know what you mean by "cruelty," (as I think it may be a bit of an anti-concept) but sadism is certainly wrong. Sadism would be wrong against inanimate objects, though. "Feeling pain," by itself, is not an ethical consideration.

So? You made a specific claim: "Either [animals'] sole purpose is survival (an automon [sic]) or they can make a choice." I have given an example of a creature which clearly is an automaton but which engages in suicidal behavior. Thus, you cannot use suicidal behavior as proof that a creature can make a choice. Your statement is false. Where did you get that idea from? That doesn't follow at all. If by "basic" you mean perceptual-level consciousness then obviously yes. But choice does not follow from this. Animals are still driven by instinctual, automatic response to stimulus and not choice. The point is that you can't just cite some study which does not support your claims and then declare things proven. This is doubly so if the study is epistemologically corrupt.

If the energy market were unregulated, it would be easy to know - because the best would be dominant. Unfortunately, it is very heavily regulated so I don't know if nuclear is second to coal because it is more expensive or simply because the regulations make it so. I can tell you that the "alternates" - solar, wind, etc - are crap.

Yes it does. (I think the rest of your argument hinges on this point.)

What is the purpose of what you have said, Moebuis? It looks like you are just being rude. Mark has made a very valid point: despite the fact that "there is no fact that excludes the possibility that Mal acted as an Objectivist would, given his context," the fact remains that Mal is not and cannot be an Objectivist, properly speaking. This is a valid and necessary distinction. As a character, we know that his creator is not capable of making him consistent in the long run. We've been lucky so far since the series has been short-lived. If you want to consider the creation apart from his creator, I think you'd have at best a pre-conversion Rearden. Without the philosophical foundation on which to lay his good sense of life, he'd be just as precarious as when considered as a character. To deny this is to deny the importance of ideas in man's life.

Actually, I think you've nailed it, Steve. Think of yourself taking your girl and her friends out to the mall for some shopping. Would you want to be "one of the girls" for a day, (i.e. getting pedicures with them, getting emotional about clothes shopping, etc) or would you consider that role embarrassing and emasculating? You don't have to be romantically interested in any of the other girls to need to be masculine. It is the same with a properly feminine woman.

Also, not to nit-pick, but since you did invite help with your English: If you use the term "Objectivism" to refer to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and not the general Greek school, then it is a proper noun and should therefore be capitalized. Also, here is a more direct link to the ARI's articles on the war.

What I mean by "expression of gender" is the acts by which one is masculine or feminine. The essence of the masculine is strength - or, more broadly it is efficaciousness. A woman can be strong and efficacious but she doesn't express her sexuality by doing so. A man's sexuality, however, is tied to efficaciousness and so he can be masculine simply by being good at something. This can be an intellectual task, as well, provided that there isn't some complicating factor involved (i.e. it is something feminine or otherwise interfering). In other words, I believe an intellectual accomplishment can definitely be an expression of masculinity as long as the man is, well, masculine about it - i.e. as long as he is forceful, passionate, confident, and so forth in his delivery. Certainly, my personal experience does back this up. To say the least.

No, one could not be proper and say such a thing. It is the woman who worships the man. Honestly, people, RTFM.

Ah, you may be stuck thinking in a feminine mode here (which is not a fault, mind you). Remember that man's primary expression of his gender is in dealing with reality. So general competence is an expression of our sexuality (in the right context). I could be wrong, but those are my initial thoughts.

Great job! That was a truly excellent letter to the editor: it was short but still made its point very well and in terms everyone could understand.

Generally, in war, you want to impose a blockade on the enemy, not a de-facto embargo on yourself. I can see keeping militarily useful things out of enemy hands, however.

Agreed. (edit: with TL and RB) Rock music is excellent for a particular spectrum of moods. It doesn't overlap exactly with classical music - I don't consider it to be competing for the same ground. Rock is for when you want to... well, rock. I'd venture to say that most of it is not about anger. That's the fallacy of the frozen abstraction right there. Yes, a lot of the lyrics and even sometimes the tunes suffer from the plague that is modern culture, but underneath that is often brilliance. If you can tolerate the nonsense - and I'm not saying that you must; it's your call - then it can be quite rewarding. To quote myself: Also, I love how some folks here condemn metal in favor of classical music, apparently ignorant of just how much influence the latter has on many genres of the former.