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"Maybe the Constitution doesn't apply today."

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coirecfox

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My mother just uttered the most revealing words about the thoughts(or lack thereof) of Americans nowadays I was telling her that the purpose of the Constitution was to limit government, not individuals, and that Amendments like the 18th and that new homosexual marriage amendment from George Bush were not in the true spirit of freedom. Her response: "Well maybe the Constitution doesn't apply in today's day and age! I mean, everything is so complex."

:)

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AHHH!!! I know what you mean. We were discussing progressives in my history class, and a bunch of people said stuff like "They were trying to return America to what Jefferson had in mind when he wrote the declaration of independence". I wanted to puke. I then raised my hand and frantically reminded everyone of Jefferson's philosophic predecessor John Locke and the rights that the government is meant to protect.

Peikoff also gave a good lecture in '88 (I think) about pragmatism. He gave a good example of how a person who adds the sum of his experiences and creates abstractions from them will then from those abstractions create principles. And this person is always governed by this set of objective principles. So when someone asks him to rob a bank he knows from the basic principle of property rights that its wrong, and he will refuse. A pragmatist, because they refuse to make abstractions and want to look at every situation as an isolated and individual case, when asked to rob a bank will ask questions like "what bank?' "How much would we be stealing?" "is the money going to AIDS victims?" and so on...

People who are not governed by principles think the world is complicated because they want to evaluate every case which is unnecessary an impossible.

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From my experience, it is almost impossible to convert your mother to Objectivism.

Ha! I love that. Mind if I quote you? I'm asuming you mean "one's mother", in general, not coircefox's mother specifically. It seems to be a trustworthy proverb. ;)

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Ha! I love that.  Mind if I quote you?  I'm asuming you mean "one's mother", in general, not coircefox's mother specifically.  It seems to be a trustworthy proverb.  :D

Well, she's much more sympathetic than my father, at least (who is downright hostile toward Objectivism).

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I had lunch with my mother, father, and grandmother today and my new philosophy came up (because my father is interested in it) and they inquired on my views on god. I told them that I'm an Atheist and I believe that there is no one I obey except myself.

She said, "Once you give birth to a child then you'll come to me and ask me about god."

Of course she meant it in the respect of 'when I have a child with a wife' rather than me actually giving birth.

So I said: "You're right mother...as soon as I give birth to a child I'll come speak with you about god."

lol

~Michael

Edited by GreedyCapitalist
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