Tanaka

A false premise can never lead to a correct conclusion. And your premises are clearly false. Kings don't have divine rights. In fact, there is no God. Also, people's beliefs in those false premises are irrelevant.

I like Letterman's humor. But, knowing his political views, I'm worried that he doesn't realize how serious this is. He's probably under the impression that this is just like any other threat celebrities receive from time to time. It's not, Islamists will try to carry this out, and his only chance is to protect himself.

You are using an Ayn Rand quote to support something she never intended it for. The context in which that sentence was used in the novel (said by someone living in a community of Objectivists) makes that very clear. Furthermore, there is nothing in Objectivism urging you to isolate yourself from like minded people, or from people in general.

Neither, really, In the short term I doubt they would be able to protect their population if they did that. It's too late for any kind of a safe solution. But it would of course be an appropriate reaction to the Palestinian aggression, and a (very costly) move in the right direction for Israel. The point is, your taxes being spent on US military aid to various countries (including Israel) has nothing to do with the OP's question, or with Israeli sovereignty. Israel is and should be sovereign and acting in its own interest, no matter what they receive and from whom.

1. I would say people should make up their minds on whether they can accept living in this imperfect political system, and then act on that decision consistently. If they decide they can, they should serve their time in the IDF and then take advantage of the freedoms it defends. If they decide they cannot, they should dodge the draft, and then move to a western country with a professional, volunteer military, as soon as they have the means to do so. Dodging the draft but then sticking around to take advantage of others' service would not be moral. 2. If five million Objectivists were forced to establish their own country, in the middle of the desert and surrounded by savages, I have no doubt they would be able to field a military that's much more competent than the well intentioned, patriotic Jewish conscripts of the IDF. In fact Israel, as it is, would be able to field a more competent professional military than the IDF. They would of course have to cut a lot of social programs to pay for such a military. Professional soldiers are just better than conscripts. For one, they're doing something they've chosen to do. They also have more time to train, as they serve longer terms. They're also usually a little older than most conscripts. And, more importantly, the military of the Objectivist nation would be better used, because its leaders would have a better Ethics to guide their decisions than Israel's leadership does. Being a soldier, in Capitalism, is a profession. The Objectivist view is the same as with any profession: any given career is right for some people, wrong for others, depending on their abilities, passions, etc.

"morality ends where a gun begins" - Ayn Rand

The word evaluate implies the use of reason. It's not that they want you to evaluate with something other than reason, they want you to accept without an evaluation. As someone who likes to evaluate things, you should just say no. The term "bias" means ignoring some relevant data in favor of other data, due to some flaw in one's process of collecting and considering evidence when conducting a study. If you are studying reality, you cannot be called biased for ignoring data not related to reality (opinions), you can only be called biased for ignoring facts of reality. If you're making an opinion poll, then you would be biased for not collecting and considering opinions. But here, we are discussing reality, not opinion polls. So we need to consider all the facts and nothing but the facts to reach any conclusion. As per the definition of "biased", the biased ones are the people asking you to consider unrelated data (their opinions). People love to use terms that belong in science or logic for their arguments against science or logic, without understanding them. Specifying the exact definition of such terms invalidates their arguments every time.

I didn't say adapting to the environment, I said adapting the environment. They're the exact opposites. An animal has to adapt to the environment, people don't. We can change it to suit our needs. And no, adopting and pursuing irrational values, just because the society around us is irrational, would not be rational. It would just mean destroying yourself along with the irrational society you joined. The rational moves would be trying to change the society, or just removing yourself from it.

It can be countered by giving an example of a person who is making his decisions solely according to altruism, but is happy. Not by someone who merely "believes" in altruism. As far as altruistic societies, I'm not sure what definition you're using for either an altruistic society or a happy society. I'm especially in the dark about the latter, but the former is unclear too: altruism means self-sacrifice, to another. If the society is sacrificing its member, are the "others" (the beneficiaries of the sacrifice) within the society (in which case sure, they might be very happy with the arrangement, because they're not being altruistic), or outside of it? Either way, I guess your question is more about how Objectivism defines a principle, abstractions etc. than just this particular principle. It's a complex issue, but you could start at the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry for "principles".

Objectivism doesn't define the virtue of productiveness as "producing a product many want to buy". That's pretty much the Libertarian definition, at least the one I've heard them use. My impromptu, Objectivist definition would be "adapting the environment to one's own needs (to further one's life) through a creative, rational process". In the modern context, in which one is a part of a vast, rich marketplace of goods and ideas, that would translate into a creative, long-term, specialized career. The fundamental difference between the two definitions is that yours is subjective, it isn't built on any objective idea of what is and what isn't good (as in objectively furthers a man's life). Instead, it assumes that whatever people want is the good. That's obviously wrong, people want bad things all the time. The fundamental reason why doing (certain kinds of) porn isn't productiveness is because (certain kinds of) porn is objectively bad. I'm adding the (certain kinds of) tag to my sentence because prudes and religious opinion makers love to characterize art and photography which celebrates the human body and sexuality as porn. When I'm saying that porn is bad, I am referring to the kind of grotesque porn which denigrates women (or men I would guess, in the case of gay porn), trivializes the body and cheapens sex, not to erotic imagery in general.

You should judge yourself just as harshly as you judge any other person (and act to rectify your failings), but you should not act as the Judge of yourself. Leave that to a Judge appointed by society. Yes, I know, that's a more clever than intelligent way to make a point, so let me explain: In Objectivism, egoism is the premise, justice a conclusion, not the other way around, but ultimately they are linked in more than one way. If you act to destroy yourself, then that's not a form of justice. If you refuse to restore justice, that's not egoism. It's not a simple thing to do, but egoism and justice can and should be defined and applied in a non-contradictory way. I don't think there's any point in trying to speculate too much about what that means for your hypothetical scenario, except to say that "you" (the criminal) should look for a way to restore justice without giving away your freedom for too long. Serving some prison time in exchange for peace of mind for the rest of your life is fine, choosing to go to jail for the rest of your life is not. You definitely shouldn't keep any of the money, there's no justification for that.

That's a circular argument right there. You are assuming non-contradiction to deduce that circularity is not valid proof ((at least non-contradiction is the only reason I know of why circularity is a bad thing), and then you are using that result as your premise to show that assuming non-contradiction is wrong. The thing is, you are assuming Aristotle's law just by attempting to use words with specific meanings (any words, not just circularity, but circularity was a really low hanging fruit to pick on). That's what makes it an axiom (something that must be accepted before speaking of proof or logic, and does not require or have any proof).

You haven't used force unless you somehow violated the rules of the road. If you followed all the rules, then the other person is not your victim at all. He is the victim of the road system(which he was, presumably, using voluntarily, thus assuming the risk that he could be killed), and you are entirely innocent. If you have violated the rules of the road and that caused the accident, then you are responsible for the death. However, justice doesn't mean the victim's fate alone is what determines your punishment. When you stand trial, it is still you and your actions being judged. And there is an objective difference between causing someone's death through negligence and murdering someone with premeditation. Therefor any objective punishment will be different for the two. I used a principle in my answer: justice. But Objectivism, while quite clear and to the point, is far from easy or simple. You're not going to understand what Ayn Rand means by the word justice from just a quote or two. As a start, you could read the entry for Justice and related entries, at aynrandlexicon.com

So you are asking us to give our opinion based on your evaluation of yourself? That seems like a pretty biased method to conduct an opinion poll. Even if it's just to satisfy a curiosity. You have almost 200 other posts on this forum, not just this one where you list what you supposedly believe and apply. Wouldn't you prefer that people answer based on their full knowledge of you (through all your posts) instead? P.S. My answer is "I don't know.". Even if I'm allowed to consider what I remember from all your posts. I would need to know you better to even begin to have a well informed opinion on that. But I am kinda leaning towards "No, you're not an Objectivist". That's just the wibe I'm getting. Could be wrong, of course.

There are plenty of people who understand and agree with Objectivism, not just Dr. Peikoff. But I think "intellectual heir" suggests that the heir "inherited" the predecessor's intellect in terms of magnitude, not just content. Does Ayn Rand really have an intellectual heir, with that in mind? Does any Objectivist intellectual, as of now, have the body of work (in which he builds on Objectivism, while remaining consistent with it, as opposed to just understanding and explaining it to the rest of us) to qualify?

Maybe you have a different idea for time travel (going back in time, not forward, obviously) than I, but since I don't know yours, I'll just start with mine: moving a person or object from context A (the Universe right now) to context B (the Universe X years ago) without changing him in any way. Here's the problem with that: Let's say you invent a time machine, go back in time before you were born and kill your pregnant mother. Then these two statements: 1. you were born, grew up and went back in time, and 2. you were killed in the womb; -should both be true. So time travel violates whichever metaphysical principles mix poorly with the notion of a paradox. I.e. the law of identity. The other possible idea for time travel would be this: moving a person or object from context A (the World right now) to context B (the World as it was X years ago) without changing him in any way. In this second definition, we are talking about an "alternate World, just like the one we had X years ago". In this case, the above paradox doesn't exist, but what we're talking about isn't really time travel. It's just a relocation into another, disconnected from us (aside from the connection we just created) hypothetical World that's a copy of what we had X years ago.

You really think that your claim that "building a seawall would be beyond the long range planning horizon of most individuals" is sufficient justification for using force to collect those individuals' money and build it for their own protection? I disagree that it couldn't be built privately, by the way. If the government got out of the way and allowed towns and cities to be build and administered by private entities (corporations, associations, etc.), they would protect themselves better than short sighted politicians would protect them. Citing a single exception, where a single politician out of thousands actually had some foresight, doesn't change that. The fact still remains that all the other government run settlements in the region were washed away by the tsunami, despite the fact that Japan has one of the best funded and least corrupt governments in the World.

You are assuming that everyone here took your claim that this project is a realistic effort to create liberty for granted, to the point that you are using "create liberty" and "this project" interchangeably, and accusing everyone who is disagreeing with your claims with being anti-liberty. That's a fundamental mistake that is making any further communication in this thread impossible. The question at hand isn't whether creating liberty is a good thing, and whether people who are doing that should be supported or shouted down. That is not what so many people are "malevolent" about, that is not what you need to prove to us. The question is whether your project will, realistically, create liberty. The only reason why anyone not affiliated with your project would believe that it will is your word. There is absolutely no other reason whatsoever that I have seen. Refusing to take your word for granted doesn't make people "malevolent" towards liberty, it makes them malevolent towards taking strangers' word for granted. Sorry, but I just can't do that. You'll have to give me some actual, verifiable information that you have done more than just start a website and a few threads on various forums, before I start believing in your project. And, after that initial step of establishing that you're actually in business, you will, like aquelsalsa said, still have to respond to huge amounts of criticism. If your only rebuttal to people pointing out that the continent you're trying to do this on is an uncivilized, war torn, tribal mess is "You're racist", no one will take you seriously.

It's too late to edit my previous post, but I'd like to qualify that I'm not arguing against Japanese culture (I love Japanese culture), just the statements I was quoting. The book they're from looks like one of those trite Eastern philosophy self help books. I wouldn't put too much stock into them being an informed description of anything except the author's own philosophy.

No, it's not. Especially when that "error" causes one to trample others' freedom. Quite the opposite, the first reflex should always be minding one's own business, and interfering with others only when entirely certain that no errors have been made.

None of these are true statements. Everything lasts (for various lengths of time), and I just finished my lunch. I'm positive about that. It wasn't a perfect lunch though, because the shops and markets around here are very poorly stocked and I can never find the right stuff. But, if I had found the right stuff, and cooked it the way it's supposed to be cooked, it would've been perfect (perfect by the standard I formulated when I first set out to make that meal). So the speaker is not really acknowledging reality, he's acknowledging a subjective perspective (things don't last long enough for his expectations, finished things aren't good enough for his expectations - so he calls them "unfinished", and his standard of perfection is intentionally formulated so that it would be physically impossible to attain). For instance the perfect speed for a car, for him, would probably be a million times the speed of light. The bottom line is, some things are perfect. They last for as long as they've been designed to last, they look the way they were meant to look, they perform the functionality they were expected to perform, etc. As long as one's idea of perfection is not meant to sabotage his own life by ignoring reality, but is instead formulated with reality taken as a primary, perfection is attainable.

How sensitive can that information be, if it only costs $25 to get it? So it's obviously not sensitive information. That leaves one other explanation. Hmm...

The question in need of an answer, in a case like this, isn't whether it's a child or not (the answer to that is not a moral/legal issue), or whether the victim was the fetus or the mother. The question is: How should the perpetrator of the crime be treated? How should he be judged/sentenced? Personally, I find the answer pretty clear cut. What would possibly make a person who sets out to kill a woman's fetus less evil/violent/anti-social/dangerous/irrational/etc. than a person who sets out to kill another person? I submit to you that nothing, if anything he would have to be more heinous than your average killer. So he should be treated the same way a murderer is treated, end of story. A semantic distinction should be made to avoid confusion, of course (because a fetus is not an individual/person - that's a fact of reality, and any confusion on that, especially in today's US legal environment, is dangerous), but there's no reason for any distinction between the punishments. In the US, there are fetal homicide laws in place which prescribe the same punishment for this particular crime as they do for the killing of a person, both in federal law (when the crime falls under federal jurisdiction) and in states' laws. In some states, the legal definition of murder in the first degree includes the killing of a person or an unborn child (with both crimes listed in the definition of the legal term "murder"). They distinguish between the acts, but not the punishments. I think that's perfect.

Is it? Post the law.

The laws of the United States aren't secret information. They are very much available for anyone to read, and decide for themselves whether they say trading in platinum is a legal or illegal action. I have looked up some of the relevant laws in the past, and it is my conclusion, based on that, that trading in gold or platinum is in fact legal, in any amount. I would love to hear your argument against my position, but you should base that argument on a similar research into the facts of American laws, not on unsubstantiated claims by right wing blogs or defense attorneys.