Hairnet

@theestevearnold I see where you are coming from. However I don't know enough about the issue to see how that principle applies. @Leonid You understand the problem then right? How is it that people are EXPECTED to have opinions on these issues when in reality one would most likely need to take a few courses on the subject before being knowledgeable on the subject at all. Doctors who have studied these issues at great length seem to disagree about this stuff. If I took politics as seriously as I took my career, it would probably take me twenty years to gain the knowledge required to back up all my knee-jerk ideological opinions (Rand's opinons, a few others). Yet all these people, including some pro-market folks, claim to have knowledge on a large variety of issue which they most likely don't.

You are really stretching the term socialist there. Apartheid is statist and certainly illiberal , but it doesn't involve class struggle or the ephemeral goal of a democratically ran economy as a promise. Things are complicated when you see that more than a handful of racists are now pro-market and simply want the right to segregate themselves voluntarily from other groups.

Kate, When I use the term socialism, I do not mean a "mixed economy". I mean a society controlled by socialists or communists. While France is as an example of a society that has a very large state, it still is a society that values commerce and would be considered fairly right-wing by people such as Noam Chomsky. I am talking about places like Venezuela or Bolivia who empower these political parties and allow them to fully nationalize industries and direct the nation. European countries are more statist than the rest of The West or The Far East but they still embrace commerce as a way of life, they just do so under various statist paradigms depending on who is elected at the time. If you take a place like Nazi Germany, you see a state that gained power by claiming it would expel foreign interests. If you consider Vietnam, you see a parallel's between their revolution and Germany's.They were both expelling what they saw was French dominion, as both nations had suffered humiliating defeat by the French and French abuses. The Nazis are often seen as being unique in their racial collectivism, however the idea that both Marxism and Capitalism are two sides of the same Jewish coin isn't an idea unique to the Nazis. Mikhail Bakunin, a known anti-Semite, opponent of Marx, and a 19th century Anarchist also believed in the exact same narrative that Jews were backing two types of globalism, international capitalism from the West and Marxism from The Soviet Union. If you look at Al-Jazeera English, a web publication that has a far-left opinion staff, you will see an obsession with indigenous people's who are unfairly exploited by the white man. It really isn't any different than the struggle between Germans and the Jew, Slav, and French. The New Left claims to be anti-racist, but the Old Left's lasting legacy in this world is nations who are cut off from global trade and are extremely xenophobic and nationalist.

I can understand the idea of attempting to reveal the ignorance of people who seem out of line. I think that is a useful idea.

As of late, most conversations about politics have led me to believe there is something severely wrong in the way people think about politics. Most conversations involve two or more people who have spent hours and hours reading material that argues for their narrative or policy. These websites, books, and documentaries present facts and arguments that support their ideas. After having read the material of various groups I have found that a lot of this propaganda is actually very convincing. What I mean by this is not that they are right, but that I could imagine myself writing a character in a novel with those beliefs who was able to represent those beliefs and still seem reasonable. It seems very easy for someone to become convinced of a narrative, and have no idea that there narrative could be wrong. It seems like people are just telling themselves stories and using whatever "information" they get a hold of to fit into their narrative. You may think that the easy response is "well show them counter examples that prove their theory wrong". Somehow this doesn't work though. When people are shown contradictory information, they usually do one of two things. They readjust the narrative without rejecting the original premise or fundamental ideas, or they demonstrate a way in which that information is irrelevant or consistent to that narrative. This makes arguments about politics seem little more than arguments about theology. This has me thinking that I am susceptible to the same bias, While I have a firm belief in some basic political ideas, it seems that mostly what I have are hunches, stories and biases. Mises pointed out this problem in his works Human Action and Theory and History. He argued that what most people would do is that if the data did not correlate with the success of their policy they would just argue that their policy was working, but that other factors caused the data not to change in the correct direction. Making debates about political philosophy pointless. Mises responded to this problem by forming a deductive philosophy that defended capitalism through a rationalism and subjectivism. However Mises really only made an economics system, and deducing political ideas from his works seems unreasonable. I think that his response to this problem and the way Libertarians have used his work is one of the contributing factors to their ideology today. tl:dr Hypothetical Question: If someone brings up Israel and condemns their country for being a racist terror state, do I need to be knowledgeable to correct them and what exactly do I need to know to show that they are wrong?

I respect your decisions. I don't consider racists to be any worse than your typical Anarchist (Socialists). He just takes the same premises in an unpopular direction. EDIT: Added reading material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_and_nationalism Although the New Left today supports multiculturalism and has moved its narrative to be "anti-racist" the far left and right have had deep connections in their philosophies for quite some time. Mikhail Bakunin is a man you can see quotes of on both Stormfront and Revleft today.

This is quite tame Eiuol. @writer1972 The problem with the fourteen words is that it is rooted in collectivism and altruism. The only difference between the slogans of communists and that is that a specific breed of humans is made into a god instead of humanity as a whole. I don't plan on living my life for anglo-saxons, germans, or slavs anymore than I plan on living for humanity as a whole. White nationalists want to me to breed more white children for them. I may or may not have white children. I might select a mate from another race to procreate with though if that person suits my values better. It isn't up to the white race how I live my life or who I breed with. If the white race goes away it goes away.

What strategy? Neoreactionaries and white nationalists are just a bunch of anti-leftists with who live in an echo chamber. There is no chance of that movement growing.

Ticket quotas seem like a different issue. That officer felt like he was refusing to be part of what he saw to be a corrupt law enforcement policy. Is a corrupt law enforcement policy different than a bad law? My main question during the video though was "Why isn't this illiegal? Everyone hates this crap yet its still around, isn't that the voters fault?" (The sheep analogy was awesome).

You can usually tell if a woman has implants by touching and it just doesn't feel as good as natural breasts. (I am not saying you should feel the same way I do) Bluecherry's explanation might fit some guys though. I personally don't care when it comes to people I can only see and not touch.

Yeah I hate the Madonna/Pink thing. I also agree with Dante on the idea that she is trying to escape Disney. I think what people forget is that she is a young woman. Just like a Lohan was. Just about every woman I know went trough a crazy phase around 18-20. When I see this stuff I just think of all the girls I have known who went crazy for a few months after finding out that they could have lots of sex and drink a whole bunch whenever they wanted. Its like that but with billions of dollars and the paparazzi.

The destruction of the state in Atlas Shrugged was not a good thing. It wasn't privatized into a bunch of competing firms of anything wacky like that. It fell apart Roman Empire style (Diocletian). Oh and socialism doesn't work because they can't get anyone to take out the garbage!!! Do you really think libertarians "blank out" when they consider the problem of preventing people from using force? This stuff is free at least take the time if you are going to post about it. You come off like a troll when you use Rand's rhetorical devices so casually.

Why didn't you know if she was single or not before having sex with her? Did she lie to you?

I have found the amoralists to be the easiest to talk to. They aren't actually nihilists (destroyers), they just think that their values can't be justified because of the "is-ought" dichotomy. The duty ethic guys are way worse. Rothbard's heir Hanns Herman Hoppe is a good example of extreme rationalism, conservatism, and intrinsicism in the movement.

People had already made the utilitarian case for capitalism. There wasn't really any point arguing for what Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mills and Mises had already proven. A lot of Marxists and Anarchists in the early 20th century would assert that Capitalism was alienating and bad for human individuals, and that utilitarian and economic justifications for capitalism were weak because they were based on misguided and unjustified values. Anarchists and Marxists object to capitalism because it turns labor into a commodity (and everything else according to them). Erich Fromm argued that if a person perceives himself as being what he owns, then when that person loses (or even thinks of losing) what he "owns" (e.g. the good looks or sharp mind that allow him to sell his labor for high wages), then, a fear of loss may create anxiety and authoritarian tendencies because that person's sense of identity is threatened. In contrast, when a person's sense of self is based on what he experiences in a state of being (creativity, love, sadness, taste, sight etc.) with a less materialistic regard for what he once had and lost, or may lose, then less authoritarian tendencies prevail. The state of being, in his view, flourishes under a worker-managed workplace and economy, whereas self-ownership entails a materialistic notion of self, created to rationalize the lack of worker control that would allow for a state of being.[75] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery#Opinions_on_psychological_effects This reminds me of that part in the Fountainhead where the Communists were talking about Roark being a victim of Capitalism .Some socialists argue that capitalism forces men to turn their creativity into something to be sold, and therefor takes away the artist from their true intention. In "The Soul of Man", Wilde argues that, under capitalism, "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them": instead of realising their true talents, they waste their time solving the social problems caused by capitalism, without taking their common cause away. Thus, caring people "seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it" because, as Wilde puts it, "the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_under_Socialism Rand was describing the link between individual human flourishing and prosperity. What people hadn't done though was point out why Capitalism was good for the individual. Rand was showing why private property rights are necessary for individual reason and therefor are necessary for individual flourishing. Prosperity is just flourishing aggregated. This doesn't on its own end the discussion but it sets the tone. Democracy and Staitsm are going to be both looked at with suspicion once one accepts that the market and capitalism are fundamentally moral in nature.

I don't usually post anymore, because I have a habit of posting poorly thought out ideas. However... George Reismann is an economist who was heavily influenced by Rand and Mises. He wrote a giant book about Capitalism, so I would look at that. It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man’s nature—the connection between his survival and his use of reason—that capitalism recognizes and protects. In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate. They can deal with one another only in terms of and by means of reason, i.e., by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit. The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree—and thus keeps the road open to man’s most valuable attribute (valuable personally, socially, and objectively): the creative mind. From what I understand, she was using this as her criteria, that private property and individual rights were the only sane way to approach civilization, and anything else is kind of insane. I think if you wanted to argue philosophically for another system, you would do so arguing from this perspective.

That doesn't follow though. Just because all punishment engenders more adept criminals (who don't get caught), that doesn't mean all punishment should be eliminated . That effect on its own isn't intrinsically bad or good. Its just a factor that should be understood by the OP. Disproportionate responses to force can create even more violence in a society. The OP seems to care very much about the victims. His initial call for the summary execution of rapists wouldn't have served them well though .

Okay, so if we put the death penalty on the table for all rapists, what incentive do people have to not murder their victims (less witnesses)? We can't have people improving their situation legally by committing more crimes.

I am sure you have been fed and housed by anonymous groups before, such as hotels and food chains. Anyways, all that is being asked of society is to use defense in a particular way, no one is being enslaved. I am not entirely sure what kind of situation you are talking about, but I would refer to my statements about the wilderness and areas under strife.

I think its important to remember that you delegate your right to retaliation to the government. If a witch/thug/etc threatens you, just call the police/security and run away or hide. Fighting should only be used if it is your best chance for safety. While in the wilderness or in some chaotic failed state, one can only expect to by appearing to be threatened. it is in everyone's best interests to be discreet and unthreatening in places like that. That is why if I go out in the wilderness I wear an orange hat, so hunters don't mistake me for prey from afar. On the other hand, hunter's are to never shoot at what can't identify. I think everyone can do something to avoid those kinds of accidents.

I would third that remark. Going in looking to prove someone wrong can lead to a biased and exhausting read. I prefer to read philosophical texts to see what kind of good ideas I can lift from them.

So much stupid crap can be avoided if you just think about issues correctly, and that ability can only come from critical thinking skills and a decent philosophical framework. I think one really concrete way philosophy has helped me is that I no how to be fair and to judge others correctly. Some people I meet are just storms of emotion that have no ability to regulate themselves. They blame others for their mistakes and give other people passes for superficial reasons. Having a good sense of judgement helps so much in dealing with others. It allows one to avoid bad people and reward good people, which creates a social circle that can function. Another benefit is that people take you seriously when you show that you are fair in your dealings.

I don't think Objectivism would ever be too popular. However I imagine that people may invent philosophies of their own that are similar to Objectivism. So if our culture were a fact oriented, reason concerned, virtues seeking, right protecting, romantic culture... It would be like today, but politics would be more honest and not tinged with cultural bullshit. Democrats would be a right of center party that was really concerned with good government and sound regulations. They would still believe in interventionism, but without all the leftist-egalitarian-altruist lunacy . Republicans would probably become really free market oriented, and the Christians would either drop their crazy or form their own political base. I suspect LIbertarians would either get reabsorbed back into establishment politics or drop out of it entirely. Still we need structural change. The founder were brilliant, but their government was honestly too successful Our society has three hundred million people and technology they couldn't imagine. I think a newer more modern form of government is possible. I am not sure what is a good idea and what isn't though.

I think so. I have never agreed with this conclusion by Rand. I would not personally make this choice I mean. Still, this video is relevant. http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2013/07/why-choose-to-live/

Really great read. I also enjoyed the interview you did with Diana.