RoR: Forum

Post 40

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 10:02am

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Quoting out of context Joe - no nicey! Let's put them back in perspective:

a) Yes I can fight armies: by refusing to buy into fear! If no one is afraid, we don't need armies to defend us, if we don't need armies to defend us, others don't have to be afraid of us (our armies). Have you forgotten the arms-race?
Of course there are those louts in this world who suck up to some enigmatic 'leader' or 'book' and go on a killing spree. But I thought 9/11 has proven beyond a doubt that an army cannot defend me from those sickos! If someone is willing to trade his life for mine, nothing can stop him, except his own death. Buying into individuals may in the long run protect me from most of them by showing them alternatives to suicide missions - by finding a more rational way of living. The rest we just have to kill (no army needed for that - just send in a few assasination squads) - or, if that is not morally acceptable, let the parasites starve by not giving them weapons, clothes, food, any kind of support ... that's how I alone as an individual can fight armies.
PS: that slur on enemy soldiers coming to kill and rape me I'll ignore - do you have any idea how many US or Nato soldiers kill and rape women in wars and revolutions? Spare me the glorious liberator chant! Scrap the armies, wars, revolutions and if some nut from some fanatical pretend-leader comes after me with his club (I don't think they are even capable of building a gun without a creator's help), let me deal with him ...

1.) I wasn't suggesting doing nothing - on the contrary: I gave you a very concrete example what you can do and repeated it above ... going in guns blazing and shooting everything in sight is definitely not an alternative for me - no matter whether you are the 'agressor' of the islamic-fascist sort or the 'liberator' of the knight-in-shining-armour sort ... it's the old false choice of split issues: US army or Nazis thugs. The constant gauntlet of: it's broken - fix it! No I'm not fixing sth by getting out the bigger club! I have to go back to the place where the issue was split and solve the contradiction ... receipe see a) ...

2.) definitely not: I was in no way suggesting that America take that 'noble role' - I was suggesting though, that America did not enter the war for objective rational reasons - a counter-attack on Japan would have served that purpose ... I'm not even suggesting, they might not have had reason to end WWII before it spread to the US - that's their choice and decision ... I was suggesting, that US involvement in any war (not only WWII) was to 90% dominated by politics, hidden agendas and 'playing world's guardian' ... give me concrete examples why America was justified in entering WWII and I'll discuss them ...

3.) to those dead it is the same! And many unarmed citizens are slaughtered in liberation attacks - again refer to a) how to prevent building up this huge bulk of 'unarmed slaughtered citizens' of 'fanatical armies': they are individuals! And if they give up their individuality to serve some 'higher purpose' that is their choice, but they also have to face the personal consequences of that choice. Building liberation-armies just proves them right: the strongest and most ruthless wins - killing is never a winning game ...

4.) yes indeed - if the non-voters not supporting this law have reached 80% let's see which law, judge, army, police will enforce that law ... aren't they the voters, too, that refused to vote for it? And until they have reached those numbers, I can at least show them that it is possible to do sth else than sanctioning the lesser of two evils ... you can actively refuse! And that's a choice becoming more and more popular these days - definitely more popular than politics which have taken a down-turn for as long as the numbers of non-voters have grown ... call it chance? Or tipping the scales?

5.) two points:
5.1.) little steps are just bait to make you swallow the hook - the hook is just as bad as open tyranny, with one critical distinction: it is hidden in the bait!
You cannot even denounce it as what it is without being shown in extensive example that it is actually good for you. A tyranny I can denounce any time I wish - and I can fight it, because I can recognise it for what it is! So let the open tyrannies come (if indeed they are the only alternative - see below the conclusion) - I'm not afraid of them ...
5.2.) yes I am in a hurry to get this parasitical society scrapped!
I wouldn't go so far as to get actively involved in the scrapping (I have other things on my mind), but I would take the chance to start WWIII if it knocked on my door.
Truth be told I couldn't care less if humanity evolves to the Global Brain or is made extinct by evolution. I just want to be left to my own devices because all I really care about is myself; and if 'fate-gods-or-galt' are well-meaning, I would certainly enjoy to see the achievements of other creators. Let the parasites eat up each other.
The only reason I'm even involved in this discussion is the fact that this our beautiful world is so overpopulated (over 6 billions!), that it leaves little space to be 'left to one's own devices' ... and I've tried ...

So telling them I want no part of it is my way of actively saying: scrap your little lies, scrap your hook behind the bait, scrap your armies, scrap your intimidation games ... you'll not make me afraid of some loosers with a gun or some suckers with a vote ...

VSD

Post 41

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 10:35am

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Cass, Joe, Barbara

Cass: Thanks!

Joe: Regi, I still don't buy your view that hiding in fear from the government and waiting for society to collapse is the noble ideal you try to make it out to be. Hell, you can't even hope that we'll rebuild a better world afterwards, given your premise that things always get worse. It's called a malevolent universe premise. And that makes you Dominique Francon. Won't your wife be shocked?

Whose advocating hiding and waiting for society to collapse. I admit, the biggest single danger to any individual in the United States today is the government. The danger of being attacked by Islamist terrorist, for the individual, is less than the danger of being in a plane crash or being struck by lightening. The danger of having your money, your property, your time, or even your life taken by the government is a virtual certainty.

The universe is benevolent, the government is malevolent, or don't you believe evil is possible in a benevolent world. The only thing I advocate is for those who know campaigns, programs, movements, voting, and all the WEB sites in the world are not going to stem the flow of oppression and tyranny is, if they want to be free and not just look forward to someday when freedom might be secured in some society, they better start learning how to be free now, and doing those things that make it possible.

There is nothing to prevent those who have achieved freedom for themselves, to the extent they can afford the time and resources, to join the effort to bring additional freedoms to society.

Barbara: But you see, Regi, there is no strike and no Galt's Gulch today.

But there is, both. There are many who live there lives freely, right now, and there are many different ways of doing that. By freely, I mean, they live their lives as they choose, without getting the permission of any government, and without living in danger of having their person or property threatened by any government. The "gulch" is the whole world. In the fictional version, you will remember, those of the gulch did not, "hide out," there. They worked for railroads, or in diners, or wherever they could do what they chose while contributing as little as possible to the system.

All we've got is the system.

That's what they tell you, and it is exactly what they want you to believe. Whose going to fight the system when they believe that's all they have.

If we don't work within it, what shall we do instead? Sit and sulk? Scream and yell?

Sulking, screaming, and yelling is all those who work within the system can do. I personally do not have time for such emotional luxuries, I'm too busy working outside the system.

There's another relevant fact. Even if there were a strike today, which could only have very long-range objectives, ...

Yes, those on strike do think in terms of the long-range. Those attempting to work within the system are only thinking, "range-of-the-moment," the consequences of which are going to be more of all that is already wrong, including greater danger of external threats, because ....

... I don't think I would join it; the threat of Islamo-fascism is too great and it must be fought before we are overrun. For the same reason, I probably wouldn't have joined such a strike during World WarII; that might have resulted in Hitler taking over. The real, more immediate threat of totalitarianism today lies, not in George Bush but in Muslim fundamentalism.

But that is exactly where the danger lies. I do not mean George Bush himself, but what he represents, big government and irresponsible spending for votes. The danger from outside is the result of the rot inside, just as it always has been in every advanced society that eventually collapsed.

There is no danger of the Muslims overrunning us by force. They will simply walk in, breed, and outnumber us, as they are doing in Europe. Certainly, nothing in George Bush's policies oppose that internal rot, especially so long as he is blowing kisses at the Islamic fith column right here in the US and does nothing about the thousands who invade us across both borders north and south.

The immediate threat of Muslim attack is both overblown (we are not in imminent danger of being taken over by Muslims) and underestimated (there is nothing the government can do to prevent another terrorist attack.) The reason there have been so few terrorist attacks is because they just do not have the resources to make any more, despite oil revenues and American aid. But there will be more, no matter what measures the government takes. They cannot be stopped, or, as I've pointed out before, Israel would have done that long ago. But terrorist attacks do not bring down a country, or, as I've also pointed out, they would have brought down Isreal long ago.

Islam is a real threat, not only to the United States, but to all that is of value in Western Civilization. There is a method of fighting that threat. American policy, both foreign and domestic, is exactly the opposite of that method. Islam is an ideology, a retrograde anti-civilization ideology, oppressive, and superstitious. You do not fight those ideas by preventing people from declaring them evil openly and loudly, but that is exactly what the American government does. To say these things wherever the government is in control is called "hate speech." You do not fight them but killing them, because it has the same effect as attempting to eliminate hornets from inside your house by shooting at the nests. It only infuriates them and spreads them out. Take the nest out of the house, and put screens on the windows. You do not fight them by saving them from their own ignorant behavior, by reforming their governments or giving them aid. That only stregthens them without improving them.

(For the record, there around 2 billion Muslims in the world.)

Regi

Post 42

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 10:36am

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PS to Linz:
agreed that we cannot ignore present reality ... far be it from me to say 'let the fanatics come' with the armies and armament they have currently built up ... but we should take a step back and find out how they got so powerful in the first place, that they can actually threaten us today ... and even more important, we should take a step back from the actual threat and think ahead to when that threat will be over: Will it be over (we are still fighting for as long as civilisation lasted)? How will we get there (no matter how many 'Saddamites' we extinguish they crop up faster than we can kill them)? What will we do to prevent it from happening again (who created the 'suiciders', the weapons, and left them to any lunatic willing to wield them)? Current practice of waging war certainly does not answer those questions, just as little as our current politicians can ...
To quote Ayn Rand out of context (she was talking about the world of philosophy): '... they didn't take the world because they are better or smarter than us, they took it because we left it to them ...'
Do you really think some filthy, bearded, barely intelligent scum sucking up to some fierce-looking, charismatic guy with a mouldy book in his hand (just to build up some more 'Feindbilder'), could actually build a gun, not to mention an army, or an atomic bomb to threaten us? Those achievements they got from us the creators, because we left them to their unconditional use!
Alfred Nobel was the best example of this contradiction, how a great invention was turned into a weapon of mass-distruction, yet all we remember is that the Nobel-Prize for Peace is still the highlight of every pacifists career ... same for Oppenheimer and atomic energy ...
Screw the Saddamites! I'm more concerned with the creators ... especially because they actually do have sth to offer us - me as an individual and this world as a conglomeration of individuals - and thus are far more worthy (literally 'worthy' in terms of investment, of value returned) of our support than the gun-happy-kick-ass parasites you try to scare me with ...
VSD
PPS: as for the Islamo-fascists, same answer: Send in the assassination squads for their leaders and let the other suckers starve if you can keep them away from your door long enough ... but STOP FEEDING THEM! This is no zoo ...

(Edited by Vera S. Doerr on 9/04, 2:35am)

Post 43

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 2:55pm

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Regi
I was not talking about Ayn's private life vs. her philosophical life. Ayn stated on several occasions that she believed that America was not currently at the point where we should go on strike. These statements were based on philosophical principle (based on the relatively strong state of free speech in America). It is my belief that if she were alive today that she would still hold that position.

Post 44

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 3:54pm

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David B - you wrote:

'Linz: "I learned today that leading Saddamites on their vile anarcho-fuck pro-Islamo-fascist web sites refer to me as a "Bush-eater." HA Ha HA hA!!!!!! At least the bastards have a sense of humor! Bush-eater!!! Love it! Just as well you can take as good as you give, Linz :-).'

I confess I didn't realise at first just *how* clever "Bush-eater" is when directed at *me*. I was not familiar with *that* meaning of the term "bush," though had I thought about it for a couple of seconds I would have twigged (so to speak). So yes, full marks for their humour. But they're still Saddamite scum!

Here's one just for them, the vile anarcho-fucks, with compliments from the Bush-eater:

"People will look to the resurrection of New York City, and they will say: 'Here buildings fell. Here a nation rose'."

George W. Bush, acceptance speech, Republican National Convention, October 2, 2004

Post 45

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 4:45pm

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Adam, you said "I agree with the idea that a vote does not mean unequivocal endorsement, however that is the effect in practice. No one looks at a vote for candidate A and interpret that vote as being against candidate B." I disagree that it is. I think far too many people vote against a candidate instead of for the other for this to be a widespread belief. People aren't voting for Kerry (who could?), they're voting for Bush. And when Bush got elected, they were voting against Gore, not for Bush.

Besides, even if that's how everyone interprets it, it's not true. So why would you act accordingly? If everyone thought voting for a Democrat was the compassionate thing to do, would you? I didn't think so.

Lindsay, to some extent I'm playing devil's advocate here. What got me going was this idea of "principled" non-voting, as if it were immoral to cast a vote. I completely disagree with that, as it has nothing to do with Objectivist ethics, and contradicts it in many ways. So I'm all for looking at the bigger context. At times, it makes sense to vote for someone who's less than ideal. This is not pragmatism, as some people have said. Maybe we need an article on what pragmatism is!

I mentioned elsewhere that there are lots of factors to consider. Living in California, I have strong reason to believe my vote doesn't matter as far as the big two. So I'm free to vote for whoever I want, since the cost is nothing, and I reap any benefits. If I wanted to vote for the Libertarian candidate, I would. I'm not planning on it, though. My personal view is that the Libertarian Party is crap, and needs major reworking. If the same people vote for them and their candidates every year, then how do they know they're pissing off their party members? If the results don't change based on their policies, good or bad, then we are as likely to get bad changes as good. And more specifically, I hate those peace-mongers who evade reality. We are at war. They declared war on us. Pretending that we're not will only make things worse. Reality is unforgiving.

Vera, you tried to put things into perspective, but I'm still hearing the same thing. Moral equivocation between the US and Nazi Germany. The belief that you can somehow choose not to be oppressed by a dictatorship. That an army can't defend us, so why bother trying? Your explanations just seemed to confirm what I thought of your previous post. I don't even know where to start, since I have to disagree with everything. You talk as if the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and if we just ignore the threats, we'll be fine. You say get rid of our armies! It sounds like the stolen-concept. Hey, we don't get attacked by other countries [implicit assumption: because we have armies], so why bother having armies? If you really think politics, war, armies, etc have no impact on your life, or that you can magically choose to ignore them and they won't effect you, there's no possible conversation we can have on this topic.

Regi, Dominique had a specific fear. That mankind was evil, and that the good couldn't survive in her world. You have the same view. You believe the government will necessarily get worse, ending in disaster. And since the government is ultimately controlled by the people, it follows that the people are. And just like Dominique, you get angry when people go off and act as if the world isn't full of monsters. You lash out at anyone who takes positive action to improve things. Why do you get so worked up when you see people successfully making a positive contribution? Why do you want others to go down the shadowy self-fulfilling prophecy of yours? Nevermind. I don't care.

And I'm still not buying your hide-in-fear arguments. You've always talked about living free now, but that ignores that your freedom is limited by other people, not yourself. Yes, you can go live in the woods away from people. Or you can go "underground" and only buy stuff on the black market. Or any number of other things. But doing what you can get away with or what you're allowed to do by the government is not "freedom". A slave who does what he's told is not free. It's precisely the things that he can't do that is the measure of his lack of freedom. So talk all you want about living free right now, but it still means hiding from the government. If this is your moral ideal, I don't want any part of it.

Post 46

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 5:28pm

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James,

These statements were based on philosophical principle (based on the relatively strong state of free speech in America).

Yes, I'm familiar with the quote, but it includes words to the effect, when one is not free to say what they choose, all bets are off.

I doubt if she were alive today she would fail to notice we no longer have free speech in America, that people are penalized, punished, and put in jail for no more than what they say or print. Some people point to all the things one is still free to say, but freedom of "some" speech is not freedom of speech.

There is not one of the Bill of Rights that has not been abrogated. Nazi Germany did not put everyone in prison, those who weren't didn't think things were so bad, just like in America. (I'm not comparing the US to Nazi Germany, only the fact that under the worst tyrannies, not everyone is oppressed.)

By the way, I do not advocate either a revolution or Atlas Shrugged type "strike." I am all for anything anyone does they believe might stem, or even turn back the flood of oppression and tyranny. I personally doubt many will work, but even saying that, I do not intend to discourage other's efforts. We all have to pursue liberty in the way our own best judgement dictates.

Regi

Post 47

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 5:53pm

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Joe,

There are two things that never motivate either my choices or actions--fear and anger.

There are few things I fear in life, but other men has never been one of them, and I am almost never angry, and since I was I child, nothing anyone has ever said about or to me has made me angry. There is no particular virtue in that, I just learned at a very young age what a waste my emotional energy that kind of response is.

So who or what is it you think I angrily lash out against? Is it others who are seeking freedom and individual liberty and to limit the power of government? Why would I be angry with them? They are on my side. So what if we do not seek those things the same way? If they saw things the way I do, they would choose my way, and vice versa. Each must pursue these things by their own best judgement.

I have never tried to discourage you or others from pursuing these things your way. I heartily wish you success.

If you have read my article on Solo, "Shoot The Bastards?" I do not see how you could have so thoroughly misunderstood my position.

Regi

Post 48

Friday, September 3, 2004 - 6:25pm

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Regi
Your view of the state of free speech in America is balderdash, poppycock and twaddle.

Post 49

Saturday, September 4, 2004 - 8:37am

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James,

Of course, the greatest freedom enjoyed by any people in the world is still in the United States of America. But that does not mean we still have freedom of speech.

See my article, "Freedom of Speech means Freedom to Offend," on SOLO, and, "I write badly, therefore I am a would-be terrorist," in Short Stuff from ASAP on The Autonomist, and an article I just posted this morning, "The Price of Liberty."

Regi

Post 50

Saturday, September 4, 2004 - 2:52am

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James Kilbourne in replying to Regi says that his view of free speech in the US is "balderdash, poppycock and twaddle."

This is ad hominem unfit for public debate. It is especially out of place in an Objectivist forum.

I will give two counterexamples that show the state of free speech in the United States.

1. McCain-Feingold.

2. The arrest of the demonstrators at the Republican convention in New York-- not the fact that they were arrested--the little matter of keeping hundreds of them in custody past the 24 hour requirement of an initial hearing and the setting of a bond. This was done to keep them from returning and protesting.

Bill Perry

Post 51

Saturday, September 4, 2004 - 3:30pm

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You're right Joe - we keep turning in circles ... as long as you insist on seeing only groups of people (US, Nazi, army, Islam, etc.), we do indeed have nothing to talk about ... that's how parasites define themselves - as a group - and the larger the better ... and as long as you keep voting, you keep voting for parasites, as they are the one's to define themselves as numbers, and the government elected by numbers is defined by their desire to feed the large numbers of parasites at the expense of the few creators ...

I define myself as an individual - as a creator - and I try to find other's who are willing to define themselves as individuals, as creators. I try to make my life as independant of the parasites as I possibly can ...

You are of course right that we cannot simply ignore the potential for destruction the parasites have built up not only in sheer numbers (6 billion depleting natural ressources at unimaginable speed) but also in stolen genius (atomic bombs that can literally blow apart the whole earth). Yet that threat is manageable - if not through massive withdrawal of our support and starving them out, then definitely by sending in a few dedicated elimination squads, targeting their weapons/leaders with all the strength our genius can devise ... granted that's not the pretty and politically correct way to do it (it wasn't the pretty and politically correct way how they got there in the first place), but let's not get into another discussion of power (good or bad). As long as you keep fighting them on their terms, you will never change their principle behind it: You give them that power and have only one vote how it is wielded! And you will eventually loose - parasites spread faster than creators if you keep feeding them ... invent anything from electricity, to explosives, to atomic energy, and the parasites will steal it and abuse it ... and turn it against you ...

Vote for any lesser of two evils and the parasites will always out-vote you ... every time you count fingers, you count parasites - creators and individuals would never define their lives through groups, parties, governments, by any name you may find for a mere conglomeration of numbers - we're too individualistic for that ... that's the point I'm trying to get across - that no government based on numbers, no army based on governments, no law based on brute force can ever represent me ...

I understand and appreciate that you are trying to change that, but you will not change it by swallowing their bait - you will not change it by redecorating hell - you can only change it by getting out before hell destroys itself ...

Imagine Thomas Edison had not given away his invention of electricity for free - Alfred Nobel would not have revealed his formula for dynamite, Oppenheimer would have kept his knowledge of atomic fusion to himself ... imagine all the creators of today would keep their creative abilities to themselves, guarding them even fiercer than you are trying to guard your country, only sharing them with those they explicitly agree with to not abuse it by turning it on it's creator - on a one-on-one level only - never on a group-counted-by-numbers-and-characteristics level ... creators joining their efforts in creating their own world as and where they see fit, rather than wasting their efforts on destroying a parasitic world ... how long do you think your government could keep selling weapons for oil to the Islam when nobody knows how to build cars anymore? how long would your social security payments feed the parasites when you stop creating food? how long would laws oppress you when you are no longer within the reach of their guns, they can no longer build? That's the circle I'm trying to get into ...

Granted it's not easy to find these ways - but there's always a way and to me it's always personal - never as a group, never as a party, never as a society or humanity as a whole: from infanthood on when my own father molested me as a child, growing up under the dictatorship of Ceausescu in Romania, being a foreigner after my parents got out and moved to Germany, becoming a gender-outlaw in my late teens, challenging my professors at the university from the first semester onwards, working at jobs I define myself - whenever I faced the challenge of transforming personal evil or formalistic evil (legal, judicative, executive or political), I did not seek to reverse our world ... I sought to reverse my personal life:

by building fulfilling sexual relationships, one as old as 14 years now, built on total individuality and personal values shared and freely given instead of desires taken by force, persuasion or emotional blackmail ...

by becoming a non-voter who have by now reached an absolute majority if they were ever to be counted, instead of exchanging individual dictators for dictatorships of the masses ...

by becoming a total individualist building a life that main-stream society cannot even imagine, right under their noses ...

by moving between genders - physically, socially, sexually - as others move in social circles ...

by sharpening my mind at the best this world had to offer me, not seeking those who are weaker than me to glory in imagined superiority, but seeking those who are stronger, brighter, wiser, so I could learn from them and maybe one day surpass them ...

by creating jobs as I see fit today, not as necessity drives me to feed my physical frame ...

Hmmm - this starts sounding like the same circle again - lets back off ... I'm no good at political discussions because I do not even accept the basic axioms of politics: that there is a society (I only believe in individuals), that they need a form of government (no one else can tell me what's good for me), that the vote creates these governments (I'd always be out-voted even if all parasites would suddenly vanish from the earth - a vote is always to the disadvantage of those who do not agree and still have to support it) ... so I guess all I have to offer in my defense is a personal life I manage to build in spite of societies, governments, voters ...

So you see: in a way I have won - even if it is only on a (by your standards) very small and personal level ... and I'll keep winning long after the armies, ideologies, philosophies, governments, races, classes, religions are all gone ... because everything in my life only depends on ME :-)

VSD

Post 52

Saturday, September 4, 2004 - 6:20pm

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Joseph, I hope you haven't given up on this thread such that you dont get this message.
I never said or implied, I think, that it was immoral to vote, and if I gave that impression, then I offer my apologies.
I simply have always seen Objectivism as outside all current political parties, and assumed that other Objectivists would also. When it came to examining why many Objectivists do support current mainstream parties and want to vote them into power, I just think that - in terms of getting what Objectivism ultimatley wants, you are in error. I just think you're wrong. And we all are wrong sometimes about something. Being honestly wrong isn't immoral - even supposing I'm correct about that.
But it's a personal opinion, and as I said, for me this is just my "line in the sand".
I never, ever, get into personal attacks of any kind, certainly not to accuse anyone of being immoral. I certainly don't want the kind of interpersonal fallout that we have seen happen a couple of times to other people recently on this forum - just because I expressed my view with a passion.
Cheers
Cass

Post 53

Saturday, September 4, 2004 - 11:16pm

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Barbara said:

Dean, I expresssed myself very sloppily when I said we must wait for relative peace before mounting an all-out attack on domestic policies of which we disapprove. Thanks for catching it. What I should have said is that we should wait for relative peace before rejecting Bush because of some of his domestic policies. We have every reason to protest them and to try to have them changed.

Thanks for the honest reply, Barbara. I'm still not sure that I agree, though. Although it may seem a bit cynical, I suspect that Bush, from time to time, uses the war time to promote his social agenda--distinctly when he knows that many people believe that we should stand as a united front behind our government.

(Although I may be getting a bit off the topic of Bush's domestic agenda, I have other issues.)

Also, whether Bush (and his administration) is involved in such a deliberate and nefarious agenda or not, I am still not sure I agree that Kerry would not stand firm against terrorism and show the same resolve and uncompromising resistance to its evil that Bush (allegedly) has. Having a more nuanced (sorry for the buzz word) and complex foreign policy that wants to engage foreign powers diplomatically to convince them to do the right thing for their own best interests is, I think, not foolhearty. While alienating morally compromised nations (like France, for instance) may be inevitable and hardly regrettable, engaging in unilateral action with half-hearted international aid to go war based on intelligence (what ever happened to wars waged in defense of actual hostility?), especially while our effort to distinguish terrorism deserves our complete and full-minded attention, and earning the collective ire of the world is, I think, an act worth questioning. Would it have been so bad if we had ignored Saddam for five or ten years, supporting continued inspections and sanctions, in order to focus on actual terrorists and the states that support them? I'm still not sure. Although I think Saddam and his cronies deserved to be put down, I think he was far from an imminent threat and thus not in America's best interests to topple at this particular time.

While I am convinced that Bush and his administration lied and continues to lie, in full knowledge of their lies, and while I revile and am incensed by the Republican National Convention's motto (sans flourish), "Elect Bush or terrorists will kill you," (actually, when I hear rhetoric to that effect, I want to join the leftist demonstrators here in NYC in giving a collective double-bird to the RNC) I am still convinced that he will not compromise in the war against terrorists. However, what president in his right mind would induce the rage of the electorate by half-heartedly or foolishly fighting terrorism? I'm still far from convinced that Kerry, whose campaign platform has been very centrist, and whose alleged lies--even if true--amount to far less a moral failure than Bush's lies, would do any less to eliminate this horrible breed of Islamo-fascism (as you call it).

Post 54

Sunday, September 5, 2004 - 7:46am

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Bill,

Both the McCain-Feingold bill and the arrest of the demonstrators at the Republican convention in New York are excellent examples of the repression of free speech as well as the right of peaceable assembly.

I also appreciate you defending me, although I'm immune to that sort of thing. I'm not sure, in this case, James was attacking as much as expressing his view, which is very common, though naive, that we are still free in America. I'm sure he really does think what I said is, "balderdash, poppycock and twaddle," and if that's what he thinks, I'm glad he said it.

Regi

Post 55

Monday, September 6, 2004 - 1:22am

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Cass,

"I never said or implied, I think, that it was immoral to vote, and if I gave that impression, then I offer my apologies."

Check out your first post (post 2).

And then you say: "I just think that - in terms of getting what Objectivism ultimatley wants, you are in error." And you have given absolutely no reason to support that, aside from vague notions of "principles".

Vera, I've mentioned it once on this thread, but you just don't seem to get it. Politics is not about choice, it's about force. And it means other people are going to use force against you. You keep talking as if you can choose to opt out of it. As if when the thugs come for you, or civilization collapses, you can just ignore them. And you call that victory! Your ability to ignore the problem is based on the fact that civilization still exists, and there are others out there who will save your ass so you can ignore it all.

Atlas Shrugged is fiction, people! If civilization collapses, it's not going to be some beautiful paradise where everyone is a productive genius sitting in a hidden valley. It's going to be genocide, Islamic jihad, rape, pillaging, and all that nasty stuff. Why are you so anxious to see the end of the world? Do you not realize what you'd be giving up?

And as for you free speech scare-mongers, a little bit of context might be appropriate. I see that you're all free to express yourselves, and haven't been rounded up for slaughter yet. You don't think there have been infringements on the 1st amendment in the past? You really think Ayn Rand would throw up her hands and declare the US a totalitarian state, no better than any of the others? I agree with James. Balderdash, poppycock and twaddle!!!

Post 56

Monday, September 6, 2004 - 4:17am

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Joe wrote:

"And as for you free speech scare-mongers, a little bit of context might be appropriate. I see that you're all free to express yourselves, and haven't been rounded up for slaughter yet. You don't think there have been infringements on the 1st amendment in the past? You really think Ayn Rand would throw up her hands and declare the US a totalitarian state, no better than any of the others? I agree with James. Balderdash, poppycock and twaddle!!!"

Right on the money! Where is the *context* the Saddamites pretend to be big on? Out the window. Context would get in the way of their mindless Bush-bashing Saddamism. It would require a recognition of the cosmic qualitative difference between discrete intrusions on free speech in America & routine, systemic denial of free speech in the Saddamites' pin-up countries like Saddam's Iraq. Since Saddam's Iraq is no longer an option for them, thanks to the military action they so vehemently opposed, Kerry-voting or Badnarik-voting Saddamites should migrate to the next best country according to their quisling values, North Korea. Let them try from *there* to exercise the free speech for which, as Joe observes, they haven't yet been rounded up for slaughter *here*.

Linz the Bush-eater.

Proudly.

Post 57

Monday, September 6, 2004 - 10:14am

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Joseph;
I have just checked out my first post. I still can't see anything in it that suggests that voting is in any way "immoral".
I am not about to get into a fight about "vague notions of principles".
If you can't think in principles, then that's your issue, not mine.
This is beginning to verge on the personal, angry, and tense.
As such, I am now withdrawing from this thread.
Cass

Post 58

Monday, September 6, 2004 - 10:36am

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Joe, Linz, James,

Balderdash, poppycock and twaddle!!!

Well, who can argue with that?

Post 59

Monday, September 6, 2004 - 10:41am

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"Atlas Shrugged is fiction, people! If civilization collapses, it's not going to be some beautiful paradise where everyone is a productive genius sitting in a hidden valley. It's going to be genocide, Islamic jihad, rape, pillaging, and all that nasty stuff. Why are you so anxious to see the end of the world? Do you not realize what you'd be giving up?"

two things come to mind here:

1: atlas shrugged may be fiction, but its really seductive fiction. I'm hard pressed to think of any other work of fiction which makes the idea of the world ending seem quite as beautiful and quite as sexy as does atlas. a lot of people, myself included, are rather attached to this vision, and loathe to see holes in its feasibility pointed out (which I do not deny exist).

2: giving up is precisely the point. there's an argument, which I'm not completely sold on but getting there, that the world as we know it has pretty much irredeemably gone to philosophic hell, that it's simply not going to get better, or, at the very least, not going to get better in any of our lifetimes (it took 150 years or so to get from kant to stalin, why should we expect a quicker change the other way around?), and that the only way you would truly get a rational society with rational people in our times is to just start over, tabula rasa. in this version, as opposed to being caught up in the apolcalyptic rhetoric of much of atlas shrugged (though these reasons can and often do overlap), its not about wanting to see the world end. its merely about wanting to go somewhere else and hit the reset button on history.