RoR: Forum

Gary,

We think completely alike on this.

Which is it to be? All Side A or all Side B?

Neither.

It is reason, when and where you can find it.

Michael

Post 41

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 7:13pm

Amigo,

Absolutely!

Andrew,

A cripple, a retard and a midget walk into a bar........ :-O

(wink, wink!)

gw

Post 42

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 7:16pm

Michael-

You damn southerner, you'd even shoot Phil, so don't act all pacifist.

Post 43

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 8:33am

And being a southerner, not with just one shot either.

Post 44

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 9:36am

"Irrational Savages."

On whose turf people step first.. Having superior technology does not grant land rights. Remember- as a rule, these folks weren't sending out parties to go fuck with the white man. Some of them maybe could have, at times. It's moot, now.

The thing that has to be acknowledged is that technology has always developed faster than those who develop it. In the end, man is man. That is where the trouble can start. That is why Ayn Rand developed a rational system for living on the earth. Albeit, peppered with a bit of her own baggage, which is normal and natural.

There was no Objectivism back then. There was only a minority of people that even practiced religious tolerance. On the whole, they had no way of dealing with cultures outside of European culture (which was far from flawless). There were very bad men, pigs, really. Pigs with guns and tools.

And, within the primitive or indigenous cultures, pigs existed. Being a sick, evil asshole is equal-opportunity- it crosses all lines and is present everywhere. It just happens to be more opportune for you if you are a morally bankrupt fuck that has access to technology. Git 'er done.

Steven, I think what I'm getting at is that when we consider putting out articles, we have to at least for a moment look at purpose, and possible perception. Not to be ruled by that, of course not! But, you are right that people will look at part of something (maybe even just a title) and get lit up. That too is foolish. I read everything if I am going to comment on it. Often, I won't even do that because by reading something I realize I need to research the history and context. All that being done, I will comment.

"Irrational Savages" is a pigeonhole. It is like saying "nigger". The word is "humans". That's the problem, when you look for a solution...

Best,
rde

Post 45

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 10:49am

Rich,

When particular humans, such as those Steven wrote about, try to commit mass-murder; we call that irrational and savage, at a minimum. When can Steven start calling them something other than �humans?� It�s not a pigeonhole to identify particular humans as murderous bastards when that is how they acted.

Steven used the phrase only once in the article: �The rational minds of Western men, here represented by the courageous Voortrekkers , defeated the dishonest, irrational savagery of the Zulu.�

Let�s try that your way: �The Western men�some of whom of course were rational, while some were pig fucks, just like any other society�here represented by the courageous Voortrekkers� some of whom of course were probably cowards, like in any society�overcame their hardship, which had been created by the actions of another group of humans�some of whom of course were evil, and some of whom were probably really very nice, just like any other society.�

How can he even tell the story this way? It makes no sense.

Jon

Post 46

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 12:18pm

The point, brother, is that it's not much of a story to tell in the first place.

Maybe consider it this way...

Africa is apparently where the seeds of most everything came from. Take a look at it now, take a look at it before. It's been exploited, fucked wiith, and abandoned. They have the highest AIDS spread on the planet. They are only twenty some years fresh from all the dandy fucking with the British did.

Now, we could go for the obvious: They Just Won't Learn<tm>, maybe. Well, I don't buy that. Maybe the teacher fucked up. What no one really talks about (at least in whitebread intellectual forums like this one) is the whole part about the matter-antimatter clash when The White Man landed back there. Keyword: we showed up. If you are into letting people be, that means (from their perspective) that invaders arrived, from an unknown distant shore. Those particular parties in question were, well, let's say they lacked a few social skills. They had the very same mindset as used in the term "primitive savages". That is not a very good place from which to start. It is called prejudice, and no, I don't give a shit about criticism involving "multiculturalism"- the white boys just didn't get it, and the answer was to move on with the business plan; that involved killing, land taking, chick raping, and other routine horrors associated with ignorant fucks. Mind you, doing so as guests in someone else's house. Even if you use a simple measure such as level of hygiene, I'm not sure who would have come out on top on that one, but I wouldn't be banking on the white boys.

All this is water under the bridge. It is over. I didn't do it, you didn't do it, and we can't undo it. A point is that it is not a place to take toehold for the glorification of Modern Man. Stick with The Enlightenment. Find something. Admit that our model of transformation has had grievous ups and downs, and that they involved senseless brutalities; brutalities that our, er, primitive savages hadn't even considered.

There is nothing to be proud of in all of this, on either side. It is old news, but at the same time, news that we repeat over, and over, and over again. There is no end to it.

On our planet, where civilization attempts to triumnph, it was only recently that we even agreed that water is a common human right. There are rights, you know, at least fucking water, when you're talking about other people taking it, and attempting to privatize it.

Primitive savages? They aren't shit! How about Attilla? There are sides to this argument, and Objectivism, in general, paints over them. They can't find a logical solution for moral outrages done before them. The Big Plan is supposed to be perfect, flawless! It isn't. Most things aren't.

rde
New Offer!!
Due to lack of response, we are even more in need of Negro Objectivists! Find me a Negro Objectivist, and I will pay you either Five Dollars, or .005 cents US per pound, whichever is greater!

(Edited by Rich Engle on 8/25, 12:21pm)

Post 47

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 12:51pm

"you'd even shoot Phil...not with just one shot either"

People gotta tell me when my name pops up. I'm not getting enough entertainment.

Jody, as someone whose favorite food is Creme Brulee, you can't be all bad - even if you are a southerner.

Post 48

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 1:00pm

I've been kind of waiting (hoping, really) for Steven to square his thoughts here with his previous ideas in the old thread "Moral Outrage in Tehran," post #69 where he states:

"Allowing the state the power to kill is a terrible idea."

This was in response to a brief discussion about capital punishment and my "odd obsession" with a current case.
I suspect a deep conflict in Steven's principles as his ideas about justice just don't square.
Retribution against a savage tribe is fine. Retribution against a single savage is not.

Steven concluded:

"Allowing the state to execute is bad because it will inevitably be used in cases where society (or Objectivists) do not want it to be used. But, by sanctioning execution, we have given the government the proverbial inch, and you can be damn sure they will take the mile that goes right along with it."

I am not interested in drudging up a capital punishment debate, I'm simply pointing out a glaring conflict in Steven's ideas, i.e.: either retribution by the good against the evil is morally correct, or it's not.
I'm wondering were he draws the proverbial line with justice as a principle?

Thanks.

Post 49

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 2:50pm

"Due to lack of response, we are even more in need of Negro Objectivists! Find me a Negro Objectivist, and I will pay you either Five Dollars, or .005 cents US per pound, whichever is greater!"

Why the obsession with this? Did you ever pay Marcus his $5?

Post 50

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 3:15pm

There is such a thing as a 'rational' savage?

Post 51

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 3:32pm

Mr. Engle --

"On our planet, where civilization attempts to triumnph, it was only recently that we even agreed that water is a common human right. There are rights, you know, at least fucking water, when you're talking about other people taking it, and attempting to privatize it. "

What on earth are you talking about here? I will leave the rest of your post with its numerable faults alone.

Why do you conclude that a "right to water" exists? Why is this a right? Please explain this to me. Clean water (and there isn't much use for dirty, undrinkable water) is a form of wealth. It is something that is produced and thus it is the rightful property of those who produce it.

And why do you keep bringing up the racial makeup of Objectivists? Should SOLO have a racial quota system? Why does it matter if there are or aren't black Objectivists?

- Jason

(Edited by Jason Quintana on 8/25, 3:36pm)

Post 52

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 3:39pm

Rich,

Africa is apparently where the seeds of most everything came from. Take a look at it now, take a look at it before. It's been exploited, fucked wiith, and abandoned. They have the highest AIDS spread on the planet. They are only twenty some years fresh from all the dandy fucking with the British did.

This is absurd.

How have the British cause Africans to spread AIDS among themselves? Who caused Mugabe to wreck the Zimbabwean economy and starve the people there? Who provoked the Hutus into slaughtering 800,000 Tutsis a decade ago? Who raised child armies in Libera and Sierra Leone to hack each other apart to gain control of the blood diamond trade?

Africans have only themselves to blame for their problems. The Royal Navy liberated them from the evil of the slave trade. Then British colonists brought trade, cultivation, and the rule of law to large expanses of the continent. When the Brits were told to leave, the native populations opted for tribalism and kleptocracies.

Interestingly enough, when Africans do take charge of their lives, as in Uganda and Botswana, civilization returns.

Either Africans are fully rational human beings capable of fixing their own messes, or they are quasi-children requiring the white man's supervision. Which is it?

Andy

P.S. If we want to help Africans, we and the Europeans can stop subsidizing our farmers and drop our trade barriers to their food exports, especially sugar.

Post 53

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 4:03pm

Rich,

Admit that our model of transformation has had grievous ups and downs, and that they involved senseless brutalities; brutalities that our, er, primitive savages hadn't even considered.

Why hadn't they? Take American Indians for example. They were just as intelligent as the Europeans who settled the New World. Isn't that why most Indians joined and then melted into the European culture that began spreading across the Americas? They recognized the advantages of the European "model of transformation", as you put it.

So what are we to make of those Indians who chose not to? They had no rule of law, no property, and only Stone Age technology. Yet we dealt with them through the law. We made treaties with the tribes, and for the most part, those treaties were honored. Of course there were injustices. Some very brutal and inexcusable ones like when Jackson put the Cherokees and the other Civilized Tribes on the Trail of Tears. The remarkable thing is how little conflict there was.

The primitive peoples European settlers faced were neither fools nor children. They were human beings fully responsible for the choices they made when confronted with a superior civilization. We have no apologies to make to these long-dead people for leaving them little choice other than to yield to our "model of transformation".

Andy

Post 54

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 5:43pm

Did you ever pay Marcus his $5?

No he didn't, the lying toad!

And seeing how Clarence is shall we say "a big guy", I think the prize has gone up about double now.

Hand it over Ricky Rich!!!!

Post 55

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 10:16pm

Ronald Bailey over at Reason just wrote a good article about water and all those nasty, evil capitalists who are trying to privatize it.

Post 56

Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 10:42pm

Didn't Karl Hess, Jr. write a book on that - Visions Upon the Land ?

Post 57

Friday, August 26, 2005 - 7:25am

They recognized the advantages of the European "model of transformation", as you put it.

I'll stay where I am on this subject as in here: http://solohq.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0531.shtml#4

From there:

As far as the glorious, "almost effortless transfer of Western civilization to this continent," we could go on and on. For the sake of brevity, why don't we talk about mandatory Indian Boarding School, a progressive social experiment brought to us in 1878 by a wonderful fellow named Capt. Richard Pratt.There's a bevy of info on this whole debacle, one place to look at is: http://www.kporterfield.com/aicttw/articles/boardingschool.html

A few select highlights from that site concerning operational procedures (note that Pratt was a soldier, not an educator):

Many boarding schools were established far away from reservations so that students would have no contact with their families and friends. Parents were discouraged from visiting and, in most cases, students were not allowed to go home during the summer.
Indian boarding school students wore military uniforms and were forced to march.
They were given many rules and no choices. To disobey meant swift and harsh punishment.
Students were forbidden to speak their language.
They were forbidden to practice their religion and were forced to memorize Bible verses and the Lord�s Prayer.
Their days were filled with so many tasks that they had little time to think.
Indian students had no privacy.
Boarding school students were expected to spy on one another and were pitted against each other by administrators and teachers.
Students were taught that the Indian way of life was savage and inferior to the white way. They were taught that they were being civilized or "raised up" to a better way of life.
Indian students were told that Indian people who retained their culture were stupid, dirty, and backwards. Those who most quickly assimilated were called "good Indians." Those who didn�t were called "bad" Indians.
The main part of their education focused on learning manual skills such as cooking and cleaning for girls and milking cows and carpentry for boys.
Students were shamed and humiliated for showing homesickness for their families.
When they finally did go home, as to be expected, many boarding school students had a difficult time fitting in.

rde
I never offered money for Objectivist Brothers:
My sig file must've been messed up.

Post 58

Friday, August 26, 2005 - 8:02am

If murder and death are inherently vile, anti-life subjects, then I guess we can throw out virtually all opera, most of William Shakespeare, a large part of art. We can throw out myths and parables, novels, and movies.

It is false to say that the article glorifies death for its own sake. If it did, it WOULD be nihilist garbage.

But, it is more along the lines of a parable. As presented, it is a story of treachery and justice/revenge/a reckoning.

For you who so despise the wholesale slaughter, lemme ask you a couple of questions.

If your people, on a peaceful mission, were slaughtered, would you have just packed up and gone home? Doesn't that reward the evil of treachery?

Isn't bringing murderers and bullies to justice, regardless of their culture and skin color, laudable?

Isn't the triumph of the few just over the legion of unjust worthy of a story?

Was there any other court of mechanism of justice available to the settlers at that time other than their self-help justice?

Using your big brain and enlightened attitude to pretend that violence is not a part of life, and a necessary, sometimes laudable, part at that, runs afoul of this little thing we call the primacy of reality.

Post 59

Friday, August 26, 2005 - 8:45am