Dormin111

Should it be illegal for an individual to purposefully incite violence against another person or property? This is an article by Walter Block which explains his position on the legality of the incitement of violence: http://lewrockwell.c...k/block201.html Useful Quote (actually from Murray Rothbard in the article): "Should it be illegal …. to ‘incite to riot’? Suppose that Green exhorts a crowd: ‘Go! Burn! Loot! Kill!’ and the mob proceeds to do just that, with Green having nothing further to do with these criminal activities. Since every man is free to adopt or not adopt any course of action he wishes, we cannot say that in some way Green determined the members of the mob to their criminal activities; we cannot make him, because of his exhortation, at all responsible for their crimes. ‘Inciting to riot,’ therefore, is a pure exercise of a man’s right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime. On the other hand, it is obvious that if Green happened to be involved in a plan or conspiracy with others to commit various crimes, and that then Green told them to proceed, he would then be just as implicated in the crimes as are the others – more so, if he were the mastermind who headed the criminal gang. This is a seemingly subtle distinction which in practice is clearcut – there is a world of difference between the head of a criminal gang and a soap-box orator during a riot; the former is not properly to be charged simply with ‘incitement.’" I am personally leaning towards Rothbard/Block's view on the issue, but I am not completely there yet. Given the context laid out in the above quote, I agree with them, but I worry about applying the same principle to emergency situations. For instance: I am walking down the street with an armed friend and I suddenly yell out to him, "Oh my God! That guy behind you is going to shoot you! Quick! Shoot him!" My friend may very well turn around and shoot the innocent third individual without a thought due to the misinofrmation I have provided to him. My friend can't be blamed for reacting in such a way since he had a valid reason to suspect his life was in danger. It is technically true that my firend could have paused and surveyed the situation before following my advice, but to do so would have have put him in grave danger. Another version of this scenario is "yell fire in a movie theater" though I don't really buy this one as much since in that scenario, a rational individual should be able to pause an examine the scene before acting.

Sadomasochists gain pleasure from pain, but they still value pleasure. Self-defeating personality disorders are just that, disorders. They are anomalies which don't represent ordinary human psyches.

WOA! Now there's a red flag.

Even if the evidence does show that fracking is dangerous (which is quickly reversing direction), Rand would not be against the act in principle. She would be against it if a gas company lied to a local community and then polluted their water, but not if the company set up some sort of safety precautions or compensated the damaged persons.

The clip above is about six minutes long from the Danny Deviot movie, "Other People's Money." I haven't actually seen the whole movie, though I am told it is not too relevent to the clip. Anyway, the context is that Devito is a "corporate raider" who comes to a small town to liquidate the remaining assets of a failing company which employs the entire town. Of course Devito is rediculed and attacked by the collectivst, communitarian, unionist townspeople who refuse to see reality. In this scene, Devito speaks at a town hall meeting following a rousing, "we can do it if we all chip in" speech from the union leader. This could come straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

I think there are two very important factors involved in the long term survival of a male/female relationship: physical attraction and type of friendship. I don't think it is ordinarily possible for a long term platonic friendship when one or both individuals are physically attracted to the other. Though my thoughts on the subject are not fully formed, I don't see much of a difference between a "deep friendship" and a "romantic relationship" beyond the sexual elements. As you say, if there is attraction, the individual will naturally want to take it to the next level since an "attractive and likeable person" represents a complete package. However, if there is no attraction between the two, then I don't see why the friendship has to become anything more. As for friendship "type," I believe there are many forms of friendship from "deep, long lasting confidant" who I wouldn't mind (platonically) living with to "funny jerk" who I only like to spend an occasional evening with. I think if the male/female relationship falls on the less intimate side of the scale, then a long term relationship is possible, even if sexual attraction is involved.

I agree with the Atlas Society's position that Objectivists should consider themselves to be "political libertarians." Objectivism is a moral philosophy which encompasses many philosophical categories. Libertarianism is only a political philosophy. There is no reason libertarianism can't be folded into Objectivism.

Part Two is a continuation. If you've read the books, then you don't need to see the first, though for those who haven't read the book, I imagnie both movies are very difficult to follow.

There was no indication of this. The movie just ignored the cast change. There was actually a laugh from the crowd when Eddie Wilers appeared as a very different looking, but still black, guy.

I too very much liked Schilling as Dagny. She was beautiful and had a unique elogance to her thats hard to come by. And the party scene where she walks in with the fancy dress... BAM! As for the new Dagny, ehhh.... I wasn't a fan. Samantha Mathis is a decent looking 42 year old, but is too old and has nowhere near the the stunning beauty of Schilling. Acting wise she was par for the course for the movie, which isn't saying much.

The speeches were very awkward. I certainly can't blame the writer for shortening the monologues, but I think it would take a far more competent director to make it work. Basically they were turned into extended dialogues where the hero will say three or four sentences worth of clunky Rand dialogue (which works a lot better on paper) and then the villain will respond with an obvious looter one liner like, "But what about the public good!?" (which also sounds a lot better on paper). Then everyone just stands around staring, or in the case of Rearden's speech, clapping. I thought Rearden's acting was good, but Fransisco was just plain awkward. It ends with (SPOILER BELOW)... The first appearence John Galt.

Bottom Line: Definitely better than the first. I and literally everyone I talked to and overheard agreed. It was better directed, has some decent comedy, and was even pretty suspenseful at times. But... It's still a TV movie. It still looks and feels extremely cheap. The acting is mediocre and "stage-like" with the exception of the new Rearden who was actually pretty damn good. Everything still feels clunky and disconnected like the writer was just trying to pack as many plot points from the book into the movie as much as possible. It gets especially bad when they try to do "big speeches" like Rearden's trial and Fransisco's Money Speech (even cringe worthy). Feel free to ask any questions.

I don't think I phrased it right. I mean that theoretically a person could legitimately own property and only let people on it if they were willing to fight or something. I guess its kind of like impromptu boxing boxing contract.

Rand defines a value as something which one acts to gain or keep. It is a metaphysical fact that individuals act and have values. One cannot act randomly or not act. Even if an individual thinks "I will just lay here until I die," that is a choice and an action which implicitly declares a value (in this case the value is "lieing in one place until death"). Nor can an individual litterally act in a random or nonsenical manner. It is also a metaphysical fact that individuals prefer pleasure and happiness over pain and misery. One can argue about the anomolies which constitute exceptions to these rules, but that is another matter entirely. Given that human beings have a specific universal nature, it is another metaphysical fact that some values will result in pleasure and happiness while other values will result in pain and misery. Thus man must derive a system of ethics which chooses the right values to pursue which will result in pleasure and happiness. EDIT - I don't think Rand describes or answeres the "is-ought" contention very well in VoS.

If a gang of thugs hangs a sign at the entrance of an alleyway reading, "if you walk down this alleyway, you will be assaulted and robbed," does that make the mugging and robbing voluntary? Of course not, an individual should have the right to walk down an alleyway without being mugged (assuming the thugs don't actually own it), and a group of individuals should have the right to start their own corporatio unmolested.

"I just brushed these instances off as the female having some unresolved personal issues for her to get caught up on such a minor detail. Frankly, I equated it with it being like me saying that a female's breasts were just too small for me to date her, and I still feel that this is an adequate comparison. There is much more to a relationship, and a woman, that is more important than her breast size." I don't think it is irrational to consider height to be one of many attributes which factor into an individual's attractiveness. As a 5'11 male, a girl's height of 6'1 or 4'8 wouldn't exactly be a deal breaker in terms of dating or sexual attraction, but it would be a turn off. Keep in mind that physical attraction is a key attribute in a romantic relationship, and that your dating rejections in college were probably not conscious rejections of your entire worth as an individual, but rather of your physical attractiveness to a few select people. On the specific breast comparison, I don't think the analogy is accurate. A female with small breasts is lacking a portion of potential beauty, while a male of short stature is perceived (by some, but by no means by all) to have a negative characteristic. There is a difference between a lack of positive and a negative.

When the original inventor first sells the good, part of the copyright could require the recipient and all future recipients (via sales contract with the first recipient) whether through sales or gift to abide by the the original copyright protection. I imagine there could also be a provision requiring the "destruction" of the invention upon disposal so that it cannot be found and copied. The contract provision could also prohibit the "detailed" publications of the nature of the invention, though I agree this provision would be difficult to enforce. The same could be said for modern music copyright laws which are utterly unenforceable. Edit - while I agree that Rothbard's proposal seems difficult to enforce (especially with the "destruction" provision), I don't see how it is is any less enforceable than modern day IP law, which is a twisted nightmare of never ending litigation. As said, music copyright protection has pretty much been abandoned, and big patents tend to get lost in never ending chains of fights against "similar" products. With the previosuly contract provision, there is no violation of freedom speech. It would be no different from taking a job in which your employment contract stipulates that you may not share corporate secrets with competitors.

I would like to necro this topic with some helpful insights from Murray Rothbard who I believed solved the IP problem. To Rothbard, patents were invalid, but copyrights could exist in a completely free market (even his an-cap version) and do the work of patents effectively. Let's say an inventor creates a new machine and wishes to sell it on the open market but does not want someone t come along and imitate his product. This inventor can put a "copyright" stamp on every machine he sells which explicitly (or implicitly eventually if a lot of machines are sold in an ordinary store setting) and legally prevents the purchaser from copying the machine for sale. This function would be a simple "term of contract." In the same way that I can rent a car out to someone with the condition that he not crash it lest he pay me a penalty, I can sell an item with the condition that he not copy it lest he relieves a similar punishment. The key difference between this solution and a patent is that it does not prevent the creation of similar products. If another person manages to create a similar, or even identical invention without purchasing the copyrighted product, then he has every right to do so and will not be legally restrained. If a third party purchases the copyrighted item and shares it with the second inventor, thereby assisting with the invention, then the copyright has been violated with both individuals being complicit in fraud. Any problems with Rothbard's proposal?

I know similar topics have been done on this subject but I have not quite found what I am looking for. My understanding is that humans and non human animals both have consciousness because they are aware of their surroundings. However, animal consciousness stops as precepts while human consciousness involves the formation of concepts. But i have difficulty seeing this in a nature. A mind without the ability to form concepts would have to consider each encounter with a physical entity independently. That is, every precept would be its own unit of variable use to the subject rather than being organized under generalizable concepts. If this is the case, I don't see how an animal would function at all. Wouldn't every glad of grass be its own precept and therefore present a tremendous level of uncertainty to the animal? I am assuming that instinct is the solution to this problem. Animals must have inborn reactions to stimuli which enables it to deal with a variety of precepts. This function is clearly evolutionary as animals with weak or inaccurate instincts would die off. If this is the case, does this mean that all animal action is involuntarily driven by instinct? Can an animal purposefully evade instinct? My secondary issue involves demonstrating the percept/concept divide between animals and humans. How is this empirically demonstrated? I find it difficult to articulate this argument to others. People I have discussed this with (who are equally ignorant of biology as myself) generally believe that animals have the same mental processes as humans, but at a weaker level. For instance, some days my cat wants to go outside and paws at the door while other days he wants to sit inside and doesn't paw at the door. How can it be demonstrated that this is a result of instinct (presumably sme sort of environmental factor or diminishing returns on outside adventures for the cat) rather than a conscious decision?

Leonids, Daniel suggests paying for the legislative state through coercive taxation of the private defense agencies. Do you see another way for the state to fund itself? Also, for the sake of concreteness, should the state have an army? Of so, should it be more powerful than the private defense agencies? If the state should not have an army, why should the private defense agencies abide by the state's laws?

Supposedly the ratio of reported female spousal abuse to male spousal abuse is not actually reflective of reality. A great deal of female on male abuse goes unreported for a number of reasons. First, the man can usually fend the female off with relative ease. Second, the male is often embarrassed to seek assistance in restraining and punishing a woman. Third, most Western culturals generally see it as permissible for a woman to strike a man to some degree (how often do men get slapped by women in moves with no retaliation). Unfortunately it is difficult to find any exact statisitcs precisely because such events go unreported.

Very good stuff Grames, I will have to think it over.

Rand defines all morality into three categories: subjective, objective, and intrinsic. As far as I can tell, all subjective moralities essentially collapse into intrincisim. If I claim, "what is right is whatever my concious opinion deems to be right," then I am proclaiming my opinion to have intrinsic moral value. The same could be said for hedonism or any other form of whim-worshipping. Is this a logical conclusion?

"Is human nature good?" The question itself is invalid. Good by what standard? Good, by Objective standards, relates to values which promote the existance of a being according to its nature. Therefore this evaluation is dependent upon a valuer. To judge all of humanity as "good" or "bad" implies that it must be beneficial or detrimental to some other being. If such a being exists and the question is adjusted accordingly, then it can be answered. Otherwise the question begs intrinsic moral premises.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/NEWS/scotus_opinion_on_ACA_from_msnbc.com.pdf I recommend checking out the very strongly written dissenting opinion (two thirds down the page). At one point the individual mandate is likened to military conscription and it is said that this law basically destroys any semblence of Constitutional restriction of federal power.