Mr.Taft Wrote:
Even you say that most Americans don't actually live the 'altruistic code'. They just think it's 'moral' and tell everyone else to do it. Don't you believe that actions speak louder than words? I'm not asking you to abide in cliché’s, but I'm saying that if you want to throw philosophical labels on everyone, use the right one. I understand that people (even Christians!) that preach altruistic code have certain behavioral patterns (like killing people and scolding those who aren't 'sacrificing enough'. But if they aren't actually doing it themselves, how can you label them an altruist? William Shatner played the captain of an intergalactic ship on Star Trek, but that doesn't make him one (though it does make him a tool). Sean Connery played 007, but that doesn't make him a British spy. I've had a friend preach in a church service, even though they weren't a Christian. What I'm asking you to consider is this- when a person preaches one side of philosophy, but is internally driven by a different one, which philosophy has that individual truly adapted?
There are two sides to the altruist coin, two kinds of practitioner: the sacrificial lambs who willingly walk to their own slaughter under the delusion that they will spend eternity in paradise with super beings; and the collectors of sacrifice who perpetuate the irrational mythology and profit from the sacrifices of others right here on Earth. The answer to your question is simple: Both the sacrificial lamb and the collector of sacrifices are living by the altruistic code. Neither are egoists. Egoists neither make nor collect sacrifices. Egoists are free. We live by trade, value for value.
The problem is people believe the code of self-sacrifice is the moral one. All aspects of the code are in play in the hearts and minds of all believers. This opens the door for all of the collectors of sacrifices out there, from the Christian preacher who tells you it’s a sin to acknowledge the validity of the 21st Century science of evolution, to the Wahabi school teacher who convinces his teen-age student to strap on the explosives and blow up the infidels. One asks you to sacrifice your mind to the lord, the other, your life. It is simply a matter of degrees. But, mark my words: Should Christians in this country be backed into a wall like the Muslim in the Middle East believe they are, Christians would respond in kind, committing the very same atrocities, sacrificing infidels in the name of their lord with impunity.
All religionists of every stripe are the enemies of liberty. When you believe you were created by a supernatural being who also sent a rule book to follow, you can justify all kinds of behaviors. The only defense a man has against men who claim to know the unknowable [and equally unlikely] is his own mind with which to judge what is, and what isn’t. If you give up your right to reason truth, you give up your soul, your humanity.
I could have raised my children believing that Harry Potter is a god, that J.K. Rowling’s amazing books are holy books and that she is a great prophet; that all we muggles aspire to become magical beings [if not in this world, then in the next]...I could have raised them to be Potters, a new faith I just invented, and my kids would actually have good role models to emulate, despite Rowling’s altruistic bent. Harry’s a terrific kid...a really nice person despite some miserable cards he was dealt; he loves his friends, and he is humble to the core despite the fact that he is always the hero; Hermione is wonderfully studious, smart and loyal, who also achieves greatness despite being born a lowly mudblood. She’s beautiful, but seems to not notice the effect she has on people. Ron’s whole family is dirt poor [but happy as hell] and Ron is a loyal friend who at the age of twelve willingly put his life on the line to protect a boy he met less than a year ago. Harry has many other disciples: Ginny, Neville, Luna, Fred, George, etc. All face and ultimately destroy unmitigated evil, a devil-sorcerer, whose name I cannot mention here.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 7]
Mr. Taft wrote:
2. If a Christian is a Christian because they seek some sort of post-earth reward, they are not a Christian. I repeat, they are NOT a Christian.
Well now, that’s just it, isn’t it? You’re promised an eternity with your lord and savior [resurrection] if only you leave whatever ambition you may have at the door, if only you will give up your right to judge the world around you and love your enemies, let them drink your blood. You’re promised a reward for sacrificing your life, but told you’re not doing it right if you hope to achieve the promised reward... Christians believe in resurrection, but “if they seek this post-Earth reward, they are not a Christian.” So people go around secretly seeking eternity in paradise, performing selfless acts with their selfish [your definition] goal in mind, and they are made to feel immoral by people like you and Emmanuel Kant who argue that “for any action to be moral, the actor cannot receive any kind of benefit whatsoever.”
Do you see the impossible contradiction here? I repeat, do you see the impossible contradiction here?
By your moral code: If your action benefits some stranger who is homeless because he prefers smoking crack to working to pay his rent, your action is moral. If your action benefits you in any way, then it is evil, un-Christian. Then you say, “I feel so good when I sacrifice my weekend and go down to the local shelter to serve up grub.” But, Mr. Taft, that “good feeling” you get feeding hungry people is a benefit you have received doing your lord’s work. By your definition, your good deeds are selfish.
Once I offered to give a boy a pair of shoes. When I made this offering, I was—as I am today—NOT a religious man. My thought process going into the offering was simple: This boy looks poor. Those shoes he is wearing are the poorest shoes I have ever seen. I’ll go home and check my closet and my sons’ closets... There I discovered a half-dozen pair of never-worn shoes. Next day, I offered the poor boy a pair of shoes. The offering cost me nothing. In fact, had he accepted my offer, he would have saved me a trip to Goodwill, helped me clean out my closet, and saved me the anguish of having to watch him walk passed my classroom each day wearing those terrible shoes...pure selfishness [my definition].
Actually, Mr. Taft, I was just being nice. I’m not at all religious, but I am nice. I like being nice. I like smiling at people when I pass them in the hallway; I especially like it when they smile back. I like helping people out, especially when they haven’t asked for anything. I hate to see good people suffer, especially when they suffer through no fault of their own. I like having friends, people who like me back, not because I have done something for them, but because they enjoy my company. I think sometimes you think being nice requires strict adherence to the teachings of the ancient nice guy. It doesn’t.
So, you travel through life looking for opportunities to be nice like Jesus was, defining “niceness” as a sacrificial service you provide for others, denying yourself even the satisfaction of knowing you helped somebody. Satisfaction is a reward...that would be selfish!
I suppose the people who actually make a living pushing the paradise promise use it like a fisherman uses bait or a lure. The prize, the result of your selfless acts with no thought of reward for yourself [lest they not be selfless acts] is a great big hook in your mouth! Ever wonder why he called his disciples to be "fishers of men?"
2. If a Christian is a Christian because they seek some sort of post-earth reward, they are not a Christian. I repeat, they are NOT a Christian.
Well now, that’s just it, isn’t it? You’re promised an eternity with your lord and savior [resurrection] if only you leave whatever ambition you may have at the door, if only you will give up your right to judge the world around you and love your enemies, let them drink your blood. You’re promised a reward for sacrificing your life, but told you’re not doing it right if you hope to achieve the promised reward... Christians believe in resurrection, but “if they seek this post-Earth reward, they are not a Christian.” So people go around secretly seeking eternity in paradise, performing selfless acts with their selfish [your definition] goal in mind, and they are made to feel immoral by people like you and Emmanuel Kant who argue that “for any action to be moral, the actor cannot receive any kind of benefit whatsoever.”
Do you see the impossible contradiction here? I repeat, do you see the impossible contradiction here?
By your moral code: If your action benefits some stranger who is homeless because he prefers smoking crack to working to pay his rent, your action is moral. If your action benefits you in any way, then it is evil, un-Christian. Then you say, “I feel so good when I sacrifice my weekend and go down to the local shelter to serve up grub.” But, Mr. Taft, that “good feeling” you get feeding hungry people is a benefit you have received doing your lord’s work. By your definition, your good deeds are selfish.
Once I offered to give a boy a pair of shoes. When I made this offering, I was—as I am today—NOT a religious man. My thought process going into the offering was simple: This boy looks poor. Those shoes he is wearing are the poorest shoes I have ever seen. I’ll go home and check my closet and my sons’ closets... There I discovered a half-dozen pair of never-worn shoes. Next day, I offered the poor boy a pair of shoes. The offering cost me nothing. In fact, had he accepted my offer, he would have saved me a trip to Goodwill, helped me clean out my closet, and saved me the anguish of having to watch him walk passed my classroom each day wearing those terrible shoes...pure selfishness [my definition].
Actually, Mr. Taft, I was just being nice. I’m not at all religious, but I am nice. I like being nice. I like smiling at people when I pass them in the hallway; I especially like it when they smile back. I like helping people out, especially when they haven’t asked for anything. I hate to see good people suffer, especially when they suffer through no fault of their own. I like having friends, people who like me back, not because I have done something for them, but because they enjoy my company. I think sometimes you think being nice requires strict adherence to the teachings of the ancient nice guy. It doesn’t.
So, you travel through life looking for opportunities to be nice like Jesus was, defining “niceness” as a sacrificial service you provide for others, denying yourself even the satisfaction of knowing you helped somebody. Satisfaction is a reward...that would be selfish!
I suppose the people who actually make a living pushing the paradise promise use it like a fisherman uses bait or a lure. The prize, the result of your selfless acts with no thought of reward for yourself [lest they not be selfless acts] is a great big hook in your mouth! Ever wonder why he called his disciples to be "fishers of men?"
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Mr.Taft [Part 6]
Mr Taft Wrote:
1. I've never sacrificed my happiness. Never.
That is because you’ve been taught that sacrificing your time and energy in the service of others is the source of all human happiness on Earth. You believe you’re doing God’s work when you give up your weekend to serve up grub at the local shelter. You think you know what God wants. Of course you’re happy. God approves.
There’s nothing wrong with serving up grub at the local shelter. Relieving human suffering is a nice thing to do; but it is only a moral thing to do if you are doing it because you choose to, not because you’re told you have some moral duty to do it. And it is absolutely immoral to be serving up grub to strangers at the shelter while neglecting your responsibilities to your own children.
That having been said, I hope you are happy Mr. Taft, always. Could your happiness be the result of you rightly turning your back on the essence of the message you call gospel truth? For Christians and Muslims alike, life on Earth is characterized in most miserable terms: it’s all about sacrifice and suffering, it’s about denying the evil, corrupting flesh that is the human body, it is about serving something not of this earth. Scan your four gospels, Mr. Taft. Quote Jesus once telling people to be happy living their lives on this wonderful planet of ours. I doubt you will be successful in your search. For Christians and Muslims, the reward for doing what you’re told comes after you’re dead in some eternal paradise; if you don’t do what you’re told, then you burn for all eternity in hell and hell fire. And this Earth, the greatest place in existence, the birthplace of humanity, is invariably described as a cesspool made evil by evil humans.
Ayn Rand describes the altruist code precisely: It is a morality of death. It’s not about achieving happiness on Earth. It’s not about celebrating the human condition. It’s not about celebrating the human body, the best product of three billion years of evolution on Earth. Even the Christian symbol, the crucifix, is about death...a bloody, brutal death to be sure. It represents the wholesale denial of the importance of the flesh, the earth, the material...in favor of your non-material, unidentifiable soul or spirit. The mind/body dichotomy accepted by Christians and Muslims is baseless. There is no evidence to suggest that a separate, non-material soul exists. None of our 21st Century tricoders can pick up energy of any kind leaving the body of a newly deceased individual. If your soul hypothesis is a correct one, a whole new physics would have to be discovered [a proposition not outside the realm of possibilities] to prove it. Good luck discovering these entirely new laws of nature.
Your soul is your conscious and subconscious mind. It is every thought, every memory, every experience you have while you live. It is the sum total of everything that you are. Your soul is most important; and it is all located in a very real way between your ears. Here’s something the ancient holy book writers didn’t know: When your heart muscle stops pumping and oxygenated blood ceases to be delivered to your brain, your neural net begins to unravel and everything that you are ceases to exist. You die. They also didn’t know: The function of the human brain...Why people get sick? What a planet is? What the sun is? DNA? Atoms?
How do you imagine these ancient people who knew so little about the true nature of existence came up with a moral code suitable to living, breathing men on Earth? They didn’t. The powerful, literate minority came up with a code that enabled them to control the masses, doling out baseless promises of eternal rewards and punishments.
Ever experience a ping of guilt because you haven’t done enough good deeds today? Or, god forbid, you did something for yourself for a change? Or because you really don’t like somebody [much less love them]? Ping! There went a bit of your happiness.
1. I've never sacrificed my happiness. Never.
That is because you’ve been taught that sacrificing your time and energy in the service of others is the source of all human happiness on Earth. You believe you’re doing God’s work when you give up your weekend to serve up grub at the local shelter. You think you know what God wants. Of course you’re happy. God approves.
There’s nothing wrong with serving up grub at the local shelter. Relieving human suffering is a nice thing to do; but it is only a moral thing to do if you are doing it because you choose to, not because you’re told you have some moral duty to do it. And it is absolutely immoral to be serving up grub to strangers at the shelter while neglecting your responsibilities to your own children.
That having been said, I hope you are happy Mr. Taft, always. Could your happiness be the result of you rightly turning your back on the essence of the message you call gospel truth? For Christians and Muslims alike, life on Earth is characterized in most miserable terms: it’s all about sacrifice and suffering, it’s about denying the evil, corrupting flesh that is the human body, it is about serving something not of this earth. Scan your four gospels, Mr. Taft. Quote Jesus once telling people to be happy living their lives on this wonderful planet of ours. I doubt you will be successful in your search. For Christians and Muslims, the reward for doing what you’re told comes after you’re dead in some eternal paradise; if you don’t do what you’re told, then you burn for all eternity in hell and hell fire. And this Earth, the greatest place in existence, the birthplace of humanity, is invariably described as a cesspool made evil by evil humans.
Ayn Rand describes the altruist code precisely: It is a morality of death. It’s not about achieving happiness on Earth. It’s not about celebrating the human condition. It’s not about celebrating the human body, the best product of three billion years of evolution on Earth. Even the Christian symbol, the crucifix, is about death...a bloody, brutal death to be sure. It represents the wholesale denial of the importance of the flesh, the earth, the material...in favor of your non-material, unidentifiable soul or spirit. The mind/body dichotomy accepted by Christians and Muslims is baseless. There is no evidence to suggest that a separate, non-material soul exists. None of our 21st Century tricoders can pick up energy of any kind leaving the body of a newly deceased individual. If your soul hypothesis is a correct one, a whole new physics would have to be discovered [a proposition not outside the realm of possibilities] to prove it. Good luck discovering these entirely new laws of nature.
Your soul is your conscious and subconscious mind. It is every thought, every memory, every experience you have while you live. It is the sum total of everything that you are. Your soul is most important; and it is all located in a very real way between your ears. Here’s something the ancient holy book writers didn’t know: When your heart muscle stops pumping and oxygenated blood ceases to be delivered to your brain, your neural net begins to unravel and everything that you are ceases to exist. You die. They also didn’t know: The function of the human brain...Why people get sick? What a planet is? What the sun is? DNA? Atoms?
How do you imagine these ancient people who knew so little about the true nature of existence came up with a moral code suitable to living, breathing men on Earth? They didn’t. The powerful, literate minority came up with a code that enabled them to control the masses, doling out baseless promises of eternal rewards and punishments.
Ever experience a ping of guilt because you haven’t done enough good deeds today? Or, god forbid, you did something for yourself for a change? Or because you really don’t like somebody [much less love them]? Ping! There went a bit of your happiness.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 5]
Mr. Taft wrote:
Donn ... I've been reading and thinking a lot about your writing. I have a few questions. With the statements about Hitler and slave owners and things such as that, I understand that they promoted the 'altruistic' ideal, but I don't see any evidence of them living it themselves. It seems to me that their internal motives were selfish, even though they preached self-sacrifice. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they didn't practice what they preached. So instead of altruists, I feel like a better name for these people (and any that follow in their example) should be 'egoists breaking the natural law'. What are your thoughts on this?
In Jesus' paradigm, he stayed true to self-sacrifice, long before He asked anything of others. He and many of His followers followed this teaching to death. Paul speaks in his writing 'if we are wrong, let us be the most pitied people on earth'.
I love this quote from Paul. I think what he’s trying to say is...if you are wrong, and there is no Heaven, no eternal life, no reward, then you should be the most pitied person on Earth...pitied because you sacrificed your happiness on Earth for some promised reward after you’re dead. If the reward doesn’t exist, and this is your only life, then you have sacrificed your life for nothing.
Altruists like to say “the world would be perfect if everybody were only strong enough to live true to the code, like Jesus did.” They argue, like you, that people just don’t “live it.” To which I have at least two responses:
1. People can’t “live it” because it is irrational, i.e. contrary to what comes natural to humans...REASON and the desire to live. The only way to achieve perfection by the altruist code of self-sacrifice is to do what Jesus did and let them kill you. For a human being to aspire to be dead is most irrational. Dead people, of course, have no need of moral codes.
2. Any code that demands human self-sacrifice will be [and has been] used by its practitioners to sanction the sacrifice of humans [particularly those outside the collective]. And the really sad thing is that they generally execute these genocides in the name of their god...Yes, Mr. Taft, even Christians. If you live by the code that views sacrifice as a normal [even moral] component of human relationships, then you will do one of two things: A. make sacrifices for others, or B. demand sacrifices of others. Most people who live by your code do both. Ever hear a parent say, “How could you after all I’ve done for you?” What they’re actually saying is “How can you do this thing that I don’t want you to do after all I have sacrificed for you. Now you must sacrifice and give it up.” Guilt and force are the tools of the altruist.
It’s a good thing most Americans don’t live it! The sad thing is they believe the code of self-sacrifice is moral and are made to feel guilty for not living it. By whom? By others who thrive on collecting human sacrifices. An egoist, all I want you to do is live a good life and achieve your happiness in any way you see fit that does not violate the rights of any other individual. Now that’s a message of love.
Donn ... I've been reading and thinking a lot about your writing. I have a few questions. With the statements about Hitler and slave owners and things such as that, I understand that they promoted the 'altruistic' ideal, but I don't see any evidence of them living it themselves. It seems to me that their internal motives were selfish, even though they preached self-sacrifice. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they didn't practice what they preached. So instead of altruists, I feel like a better name for these people (and any that follow in their example) should be 'egoists breaking the natural law'. What are your thoughts on this?
In Jesus' paradigm, he stayed true to self-sacrifice, long before He asked anything of others. He and many of His followers followed this teaching to death. Paul speaks in his writing 'if we are wrong, let us be the most pitied people on earth'.
I love this quote from Paul. I think what he’s trying to say is...if you are wrong, and there is no Heaven, no eternal life, no reward, then you should be the most pitied person on Earth...pitied because you sacrificed your happiness on Earth for some promised reward after you’re dead. If the reward doesn’t exist, and this is your only life, then you have sacrificed your life for nothing.
Altruists like to say “the world would be perfect if everybody were only strong enough to live true to the code, like Jesus did.” They argue, like you, that people just don’t “live it.” To which I have at least two responses:
1. People can’t “live it” because it is irrational, i.e. contrary to what comes natural to humans...REASON and the desire to live. The only way to achieve perfection by the altruist code of self-sacrifice is to do what Jesus did and let them kill you. For a human being to aspire to be dead is most irrational. Dead people, of course, have no need of moral codes.
2. Any code that demands human self-sacrifice will be [and has been] used by its practitioners to sanction the sacrifice of humans [particularly those outside the collective]. And the really sad thing is that they generally execute these genocides in the name of their god...Yes, Mr. Taft, even Christians. If you live by the code that views sacrifice as a normal [even moral] component of human relationships, then you will do one of two things: A. make sacrifices for others, or B. demand sacrifices of others. Most people who live by your code do both. Ever hear a parent say, “How could you after all I’ve done for you?” What they’re actually saying is “How can you do this thing that I don’t want you to do after all I have sacrificed for you. Now you must sacrifice and give it up.” Guilt and force are the tools of the altruist.
It’s a good thing most Americans don’t live it! The sad thing is they believe the code of self-sacrifice is moral and are made to feel guilty for not living it. By whom? By others who thrive on collecting human sacrifices. An egoist, all I want you to do is live a good life and achieve your happiness in any way you see fit that does not violate the rights of any other individual. Now that’s a message of love.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 4]
Mr. Taft Wrote:
Donn wants to "educate" or change people's minds to objectivism...I never said I want to force Christianity down people's throats. If they won't listen to me, fine.
I chose the teaching profession, and I did so against the wishes of my father. I have been teaching successfully for 21 years and have never regretted my decision. I have always taught for the public school system, where no one is turned away. I have had every possible “kind of student” in my class: gifted and intellectually challenged; black and white, red, yellow, and brown; rich and poor and homeless; Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists...you name it! You talk about making education available to everyone. I actually live it!
You, Mr. Taft, sat in my AP Government class for five months. You know what I do; yet when you refer to me in your correspondence with Emptying Guilt, you cynically place the word educate in quotes. I suppose if I had stood before the class spouting the bromides of the faithful, my teaching would have met your approval and you would dignify me by calling me an “educator.”
Of course I want everyone I encounter to know about Objectivism. It saved my life after 32 years of devout Christianity, unquestioned faith, irrationality, guilt, and self-destructive behavior. But, I require no followers, no disciples, and people who disagree with me in my class are never punished. I do not require your approval or acceptance. As you have every right to tell people about Jesus, I have a right to tell people about Ayn Rand. Of course, I think Rand’s thinking is better than Jesus.’ It is my right [and yours] to make judgments about what is good and what is evil.
Through my blog and in my classroom I explain what it means to be a free man. A free man owns his life, owns his thinking, owns his success or failure. I teach people to take care of themselves and to do no harm to others. I teach people that they have no duty to make sacrifices for others and no right to demand others make sacrifices to them.
I teach only what IS. Nothing I teach requires anyone to make a leap of faith. It is not a religion or static doctrine of any kind. I teach individualism, science, human thinking, reason, rationality... secular ideas, and I do it in a most appropriate setting: a public school. Mr. Taft... Why is it that you and your congregation, those who claim to love humanity so much, hate man’s mind, human thinking?
Donn wants to "educate" or change people's minds to objectivism...I never said I want to force Christianity down people's throats. If they won't listen to me, fine.
I chose the teaching profession, and I did so against the wishes of my father. I have been teaching successfully for 21 years and have never regretted my decision. I have always taught for the public school system, where no one is turned away. I have had every possible “kind of student” in my class: gifted and intellectually challenged; black and white, red, yellow, and brown; rich and poor and homeless; Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists...you name it! You talk about making education available to everyone. I actually live it!
You, Mr. Taft, sat in my AP Government class for five months. You know what I do; yet when you refer to me in your correspondence with Emptying Guilt, you cynically place the word educate in quotes. I suppose if I had stood before the class spouting the bromides of the faithful, my teaching would have met your approval and you would dignify me by calling me an “educator.”
Of course I want everyone I encounter to know about Objectivism. It saved my life after 32 years of devout Christianity, unquestioned faith, irrationality, guilt, and self-destructive behavior. But, I require no followers, no disciples, and people who disagree with me in my class are never punished. I do not require your approval or acceptance. As you have every right to tell people about Jesus, I have a right to tell people about Ayn Rand. Of course, I think Rand’s thinking is better than Jesus.’ It is my right [and yours] to make judgments about what is good and what is evil.
Through my blog and in my classroom I explain what it means to be a free man. A free man owns his life, owns his thinking, owns his success or failure. I teach people to take care of themselves and to do no harm to others. I teach people that they have no duty to make sacrifices for others and no right to demand others make sacrifices to them.
I teach only what IS. Nothing I teach requires anyone to make a leap of faith. It is not a religion or static doctrine of any kind. I teach individualism, science, human thinking, reason, rationality... secular ideas, and I do it in a most appropriate setting: a public school. Mr. Taft... Why is it that you and your congregation, those who claim to love humanity so much, hate man’s mind, human thinking?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 3]
Mr.Taft wrote [to Emptying Guilt]:
Our inaction to someone's self-degradation hurts them just as much as lynchings and gas chambers. How do we help to stop the self-degradation (obesity, drug addictions, alcoholism) of individuals? By educating them on how to take care of themselves and advance as a society (not just the strong, but everyone). Here's where me and you disagree. Advancement can only come through a relationship with your Savior (I mean Jesus, not Donn). I sincerely hope your journey leads you to know your Creator on a deeper level. God really would like that.
Let’s say I agree...education is the answer. What will the curriculum be? Wait...wait...I know. Rational selfishness, Egoism! If you want people to learn to take care of themselves, they need to know:
1. This is your one and only life to live, so make the best of it. Take care of yourself!
2. Live your life in pursuit of your own happiness...there is no higher purpose. You have no need to feel any guilt for not living your life in accordance with anybody else’s wishes or doctrines. Set rational goals for yourself and aspire to achieve them!
3. Be nice to others. Respect the rights of all individuals. Judge, and prepare to be judged. Don’t let anyone nail you to a tree.
Alcohol, drug, and food addiction are forms of self-destruction, self-sacrifice. Self-destruction is a product of the altruist code.
That having been said, you believe you have a moral obligation to sacrifice your time, money, and energy helping that person who sits in the alley shooting up drugs, that to not help him would be the same as lynching or gassing him? Are you serious? Did you cause his self-destruction? Not at all. Does the fact that you live a moral life cause his immorality? Of course not. Can you try to help him if you choose to? Certainly. Do you have a moral obligation—a duty—to help him? No.
Charity, and whether or not to give to a charity, is a private decision made by individuals. It is no one’s duty. If one is “duty-bound” to do anything, that means they have no choice. For any issue to be a moral issue, it must involve a choice. For example: Do I kill this person who has hurt me deeply, or not? If I choose not to, then [and I think you will agree] I have made the moral choice. I’ve decided to do the right thing and respect the right of that individual to live no matter how much their rejection hurt me. Now if they’re coming at me with a knife trying to kill me, I have a very different choice to make. Do I kill them, or do I let them kill me? Moral choices are for the living. The dead have no need of moral codes. To allow this person to kill me without defending myself would be to sacrifice my life to satisfy his rage [or any other irrational desire]. It would be wholly immoral for me to not defend myself.
No one has the right to demand your charity. Any doctrine that defines charitable giving as a moral responsibility or duty has rendered all giving immoral. Again, without choice there is no moral question to be answered. There is no difference between giving your money to the thug who has convinced you that his gun is loaded and the preacher who has convinced you that he knows what God wants you to do. In both instances, by your standards, you must hand it over. The thug with the gun threatens to end your life on Earth; the preacher claims you will lose your eternal life in some paradise. Both use Force.
Finally, regarding your last point: Most people have difficulty understanding and maintaining successful relationships with people standing right in front of them or sleeping in the same bed with them...relatively simple minds, simple people, simple problems. Your lot claims understanding and a personal relationship with an all mighty, all powerful, all knowing creator of the universe... the most complex of all possible minds. Stupefying arrogance.
Our inaction to someone's self-degradation hurts them just as much as lynchings and gas chambers. How do we help to stop the self-degradation (obesity, drug addictions, alcoholism) of individuals? By educating them on how to take care of themselves and advance as a society (not just the strong, but everyone). Here's where me and you disagree. Advancement can only come through a relationship with your Savior (I mean Jesus, not Donn). I sincerely hope your journey leads you to know your Creator on a deeper level. God really would like that.
Let’s say I agree...education is the answer. What will the curriculum be? Wait...wait...I know. Rational selfishness, Egoism! If you want people to learn to take care of themselves, they need to know:
1. This is your one and only life to live, so make the best of it. Take care of yourself!
2. Live your life in pursuit of your own happiness...there is no higher purpose. You have no need to feel any guilt for not living your life in accordance with anybody else’s wishes or doctrines. Set rational goals for yourself and aspire to achieve them!
3. Be nice to others. Respect the rights of all individuals. Judge, and prepare to be judged. Don’t let anyone nail you to a tree.
Alcohol, drug, and food addiction are forms of self-destruction, self-sacrifice. Self-destruction is a product of the altruist code.
That having been said, you believe you have a moral obligation to sacrifice your time, money, and energy helping that person who sits in the alley shooting up drugs, that to not help him would be the same as lynching or gassing him? Are you serious? Did you cause his self-destruction? Not at all. Does the fact that you live a moral life cause his immorality? Of course not. Can you try to help him if you choose to? Certainly. Do you have a moral obligation—a duty—to help him? No.
Charity, and whether or not to give to a charity, is a private decision made by individuals. It is no one’s duty. If one is “duty-bound” to do anything, that means they have no choice. For any issue to be a moral issue, it must involve a choice. For example: Do I kill this person who has hurt me deeply, or not? If I choose not to, then [and I think you will agree] I have made the moral choice. I’ve decided to do the right thing and respect the right of that individual to live no matter how much their rejection hurt me. Now if they’re coming at me with a knife trying to kill me, I have a very different choice to make. Do I kill them, or do I let them kill me? Moral choices are for the living. The dead have no need of moral codes. To allow this person to kill me without defending myself would be to sacrifice my life to satisfy his rage [or any other irrational desire]. It would be wholly immoral for me to not defend myself.
No one has the right to demand your charity. Any doctrine that defines charitable giving as a moral responsibility or duty has rendered all giving immoral. Again, without choice there is no moral question to be answered. There is no difference between giving your money to the thug who has convinced you that his gun is loaded and the preacher who has convinced you that he knows what God wants you to do. In both instances, by your standards, you must hand it over. The thug with the gun threatens to end your life on Earth; the preacher claims you will lose your eternal life in some paradise. Both use Force.
Finally, regarding your last point: Most people have difficulty understanding and maintaining successful relationships with people standing right in front of them or sleeping in the same bed with them...relatively simple minds, simple people, simple problems. Your lot claims understanding and a personal relationship with an all mighty, all powerful, all knowing creator of the universe... the most complex of all possible minds. Stupefying arrogance.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 2]
Mr. Taft Wrote:
Donn's evolution would tell us that the dying class would die. And if we're okay with letting the weak die off, we should have been okay with slavery. After all they were just the weaker class. We should have been okay with Hitler killing the 'weak'. Donn's "natural law" says that you can act as long as it 1. doesn't hurt you, and 2. doesn't hurt someone else.
Outrageous! Look at the laws again. Read them carefully: 1. Take care of yourself; 2. Do no harm. Slavery and genocide violate the second rule in every instance, clearly.
It’s not a coincidence that slavery, an institution that existed everywhere throughout human history, was abolished within a century of the birth of capitalism! The two freest economies on the globe at the time—England and the United States—were the first two countries to abolish the institution. Slavery in the United States persisted in the old-world, agrarian aristocracy of the South, only. In the more advanced, more capitalistic North, slavery died a natural dead decades before the Civil War. Slavery exists today in parts of Africa and Asia, in socialist-authoritarian states, only.
Genocide has never been committed by anything but a socialist-authoritarian state or a theocracy. Only an altruist-collectivist regime can “justify” the sacrifice of so many souls for the good of the community.
Slavery and genocide are impossible in a world governed by rational-selfishness, Egoism. The standard upon which all moral decisions are made, the question that must be answered, is: “Have the rights of any individual been violated?” If the answer is “yes,” to act on your ambition [whatever it is!] would be immoral. That’s what “do no harm” means... unequivocal respect, reverence! for the rights of each individual. What are those rights? Well, to begin with: Each individual has and absolute right to their life, to their liberty, to pursue their own happiness. My actions can never result in the sacrifice of anyone’s life or freedom to think and act on their own behalf. Religionists do this all of the time in their efforts to legislate a “moral society.”
While my standard is “absolute respect for the rights of each individual” and can never result in injustice or tyranny, the religionist’s standard is “what does Yahweh-God-Allah want?” or “what would Jesus do?” wholly subjective standards that have resulted through history in bloody holy wars, Inquisitions, and jihad. Why? Because the rights of individuals are freely sacrificed to what some consider the will of their god. If you think you’re working for an all powerful god, you’re not subject to any manmade law, however rational or appropriate, and you are free to commit atrocities in his name, like killing a doctor who performs abortions or flying airplanes into buildings.
Your moral code, Jesus’ moral code, Altruism is the code that glorifies the concept of “sacrifice.” Slavery—sacrificing the liberty of some individuals so that others can relax on their front porch sipping mint juleps; and genocide—sacrificing the lives of individuals so that others can create the “perfect society” they dreamed up while in prison, are both results of your moral code. May I remind you: the Southern slaveholder was Christian and defended the institution of slavery quoting from your New Testament, e.g. Colossians 3:22 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord." Hitler was a Christian blessed by the pope of the Catholic Church. Nazi Germany was a Lutheran nation. A Christian locked the door and pulled the lever of every gas chamber.
Still, I don’t damn any member of any faith. An individual has an absolute right to think what they want to think as long as they harm no one. But, I must say, if you’re unhappy with the state of the world, Mr. Taft, know this: This is the world created by your moral code. Over 90% of the globe believes altruism is morality, that selfishness is evil, that self-sacrifice is the key to moral perfection.
Every bit of filth in existence—every murderer, thief, child molester, rapist, and leach—acts on the altruist’s code of sacrifice. They all force others to make sacrifices to their irrational needs. Egoists live by trade, dealing with all others by trade, value for value, devoid of force. What don’t you get?
Donn's evolution would tell us that the dying class would die. And if we're okay with letting the weak die off, we should have been okay with slavery. After all they were just the weaker class. We should have been okay with Hitler killing the 'weak'. Donn's "natural law" says that you can act as long as it 1. doesn't hurt you, and 2. doesn't hurt someone else.
Outrageous! Look at the laws again. Read them carefully: 1. Take care of yourself; 2. Do no harm. Slavery and genocide violate the second rule in every instance, clearly.
It’s not a coincidence that slavery, an institution that existed everywhere throughout human history, was abolished within a century of the birth of capitalism! The two freest economies on the globe at the time—England and the United States—were the first two countries to abolish the institution. Slavery in the United States persisted in the old-world, agrarian aristocracy of the South, only. In the more advanced, more capitalistic North, slavery died a natural dead decades before the Civil War. Slavery exists today in parts of Africa and Asia, in socialist-authoritarian states, only.
Genocide has never been committed by anything but a socialist-authoritarian state or a theocracy. Only an altruist-collectivist regime can “justify” the sacrifice of so many souls for the good of the community.
Slavery and genocide are impossible in a world governed by rational-selfishness, Egoism. The standard upon which all moral decisions are made, the question that must be answered, is: “Have the rights of any individual been violated?” If the answer is “yes,” to act on your ambition [whatever it is!] would be immoral. That’s what “do no harm” means... unequivocal respect, reverence! for the rights of each individual. What are those rights? Well, to begin with: Each individual has and absolute right to their life, to their liberty, to pursue their own happiness. My actions can never result in the sacrifice of anyone’s life or freedom to think and act on their own behalf. Religionists do this all of the time in their efforts to legislate a “moral society.”
While my standard is “absolute respect for the rights of each individual” and can never result in injustice or tyranny, the religionist’s standard is “what does Yahweh-God-Allah want?” or “what would Jesus do?” wholly subjective standards that have resulted through history in bloody holy wars, Inquisitions, and jihad. Why? Because the rights of individuals are freely sacrificed to what some consider the will of their god. If you think you’re working for an all powerful god, you’re not subject to any manmade law, however rational or appropriate, and you are free to commit atrocities in his name, like killing a doctor who performs abortions or flying airplanes into buildings.
Your moral code, Jesus’ moral code, Altruism is the code that glorifies the concept of “sacrifice.” Slavery—sacrificing the liberty of some individuals so that others can relax on their front porch sipping mint juleps; and genocide—sacrificing the lives of individuals so that others can create the “perfect society” they dreamed up while in prison, are both results of your moral code. May I remind you: the Southern slaveholder was Christian and defended the institution of slavery quoting from your New Testament, e.g. Colossians 3:22 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord." Hitler was a Christian blessed by the pope of the Catholic Church. Nazi Germany was a Lutheran nation. A Christian locked the door and pulled the lever of every gas chamber.
Still, I don’t damn any member of any faith. An individual has an absolute right to think what they want to think as long as they harm no one. But, I must say, if you’re unhappy with the state of the world, Mr. Taft, know this: This is the world created by your moral code. Over 90% of the globe believes altruism is morality, that selfishness is evil, that self-sacrifice is the key to moral perfection.
Every bit of filth in existence—every murderer, thief, child molester, rapist, and leach—acts on the altruist’s code of sacrifice. They all force others to make sacrifices to their irrational needs. Egoists live by trade, dealing with all others by trade, value for value, devoid of force. What don’t you get?
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Mr. Taft [Part 1]
Mr. Taft wrote:
Regulation is not the answer. I'm a huge proponent of free will. My answer is education. Educate the people on how to buy smart and eat smart and think smart. When they don't, it's their fault. That doesn't mean we stop trying. It seems to me that what we agree on is that there should be success. [Mr. Taft was corresponding with fellow blogger, Emptying Guilt at Blogspot...I snatched his comments without permission!] But who do we want success for? We SHOULD want it for everyone. Because if we don't want it for everyone, we only want it for a few. That's elitism.
So if we have complete capitalism, that creates a class of powerful and a class of dying. Donn's evolution would tell us that the dying class should die. And if we're okay with letting the weak die off, we should have been okay with slavery. After all they were just the weaker class.
[Actually, he said more. I'll address his issues one at a time over the next several weeks, assuming I get permission.]
Education is not a right: It is a responsibility. Individuals have a responsibility to acquire the skills they need to be successful in life in the 21st Century, just as they did when we were living in the wilderness, hunter-gatherers, 40,000 years ago. If you refused to learn your essential lessons, then, and you ate a hemlock salad, you died as a result of your failure to pay attention and act accordingly. Taking care of yourself or failing to take care of yourself is a matter of choice. In a free society individuals are free to succeed and free to fail.
Many of the people you euphemistically refer to as “the weak,” are the most morally depraved among us. They think they have a right to be taken care of. They think they have a right to your productivity. They use the widespread acceptance of your altruist code to force the sacrifice of the successful to sustain their own depravity. They wish to exist without effort. You are taught to pity them, as if ineptitude is a virtue. It is not.
Of course we should want everybody to make the right choices and live successfully. People who fail to live successfully—independent of others, surviving well by trading with others, relying on reason and the power of their arguments to persuade, rejecting the use of force in all human relationships—tend to be a drag on others...making unreasonable, immoral demands on others. “I don’t wanna work... provide me with food, clothing, shelter, and health care!” Or, “Yeh, I stole your car. I needed the money. What of it?” Or, “She divorced me and caused me pain. I couldn’t cope, so I killed her.”
Your moral code forgives their failure unconditionally... excuses it, rewards it. There’s nothing wrong with “wanting” everybody to make the right choices; but the only way to ensure that all people do, is through force; i.e. take away their right to make choices. You will have to destroy liberty, Mr. Taft, in order to execute “your wish.” This is the psycho-epistemology of every despot who ever walked the Earth, the sinister and the saint. As Madison said: The cure for the problem is worse than the disease. However much I may want everybody to live successfully, I cannot force them to. I can only take care of myself, make sure that I live a moral life, make sure that I am not a drag on my fellow man. This is what it means to live a moral life.
I spend my days earning my self-esteem trying to educate my fellow man about the only moral code that has the potential to make your wish come true, Egoism. If all individuals were rational and selfish, we’d live in a perfect world. Nobody would come to the market place empty-handed, or [perhaps] worse, carrying a gun. People would live in peace, trading with one another, value for value.
Finally, Capitalism is not elitist. It is economic freedom. Some will always make better use of their freedom. It is not elitist that some succeed by their own efforts and some fail by their own lack of effort. The A-student owes nothing to the dropout. He did not earn his “A” at the expense of the dropout. The dropout could have earned an “A” too. This thing you rail against—this inequality that results when men are free to pursue their own happiness, and some make good choices and some make poor choices—is called reality. The consequences, both those enjoyed and those suffered, are called justice. When you sacrifice those who succeed to those who fail, you reward failure and grow the number of failures who inhabit this planet. You sacrifice justice to your feelings, hoping to create a better world. Nothing good can result when justice is sacrificed. You can’t wish a better world into existence.
Regulation is not the answer. I'm a huge proponent of free will. My answer is education. Educate the people on how to buy smart and eat smart and think smart. When they don't, it's their fault. That doesn't mean we stop trying. It seems to me that what we agree on is that there should be success. [Mr. Taft was corresponding with fellow blogger, Emptying Guilt at Blogspot...I snatched his comments without permission!] But who do we want success for? We SHOULD want it for everyone. Because if we don't want it for everyone, we only want it for a few. That's elitism.
So if we have complete capitalism, that creates a class of powerful and a class of dying. Donn's evolution would tell us that the dying class should die. And if we're okay with letting the weak die off, we should have been okay with slavery. After all they were just the weaker class.
[Actually, he said more. I'll address his issues one at a time over the next several weeks, assuming I get permission.]
Education is not a right: It is a responsibility. Individuals have a responsibility to acquire the skills they need to be successful in life in the 21st Century, just as they did when we were living in the wilderness, hunter-gatherers, 40,000 years ago. If you refused to learn your essential lessons, then, and you ate a hemlock salad, you died as a result of your failure to pay attention and act accordingly. Taking care of yourself or failing to take care of yourself is a matter of choice. In a free society individuals are free to succeed and free to fail.
Many of the people you euphemistically refer to as “the weak,” are the most morally depraved among us. They think they have a right to be taken care of. They think they have a right to your productivity. They use the widespread acceptance of your altruist code to force the sacrifice of the successful to sustain their own depravity. They wish to exist without effort. You are taught to pity them, as if ineptitude is a virtue. It is not.
Of course we should want everybody to make the right choices and live successfully. People who fail to live successfully—independent of others, surviving well by trading with others, relying on reason and the power of their arguments to persuade, rejecting the use of force in all human relationships—tend to be a drag on others...making unreasonable, immoral demands on others. “I don’t wanna work... provide me with food, clothing, shelter, and health care!” Or, “Yeh, I stole your car. I needed the money. What of it?” Or, “She divorced me and caused me pain. I couldn’t cope, so I killed her.”
Your moral code forgives their failure unconditionally... excuses it, rewards it. There’s nothing wrong with “wanting” everybody to make the right choices; but the only way to ensure that all people do, is through force; i.e. take away their right to make choices. You will have to destroy liberty, Mr. Taft, in order to execute “your wish.” This is the psycho-epistemology of every despot who ever walked the Earth, the sinister and the saint. As Madison said: The cure for the problem is worse than the disease. However much I may want everybody to live successfully, I cannot force them to. I can only take care of myself, make sure that I live a moral life, make sure that I am not a drag on my fellow man. This is what it means to live a moral life.
I spend my days earning my self-esteem trying to educate my fellow man about the only moral code that has the potential to make your wish come true, Egoism. If all individuals were rational and selfish, we’d live in a perfect world. Nobody would come to the market place empty-handed, or [perhaps] worse, carrying a gun. People would live in peace, trading with one another, value for value.
Finally, Capitalism is not elitist. It is economic freedom. Some will always make better use of their freedom. It is not elitist that some succeed by their own efforts and some fail by their own lack of effort. The A-student owes nothing to the dropout. He did not earn his “A” at the expense of the dropout. The dropout could have earned an “A” too. This thing you rail against—this inequality that results when men are free to pursue their own happiness, and some make good choices and some make poor choices—is called reality. The consequences, both those enjoyed and those suffered, are called justice. When you sacrifice those who succeed to those who fail, you reward failure and grow the number of failures who inhabit this planet. You sacrifice justice to your feelings, hoping to create a better world. Nothing good can result when justice is sacrificed. You can’t wish a better world into existence.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Hope you don't mind
Dear Loyal Readers,
I'll be on vacation for a couple of weeks. Check back in a couple of Sundays. I may have something interesting to say then.
Donn
I'll be on vacation for a couple of weeks. Check back in a couple of Sundays. I may have something interesting to say then.
Donn
Sunday, May 17, 2009
A Graduate
Today is Graduation Day! My high school seniors will be making their way across the stage to pick up their diplomas, proof that they did in fact accomplish something these past four years. Some students, of course, need no such affirmation from society. They have worked hard and they have done so for their own good. They didn’t need any coaxing to come to school, to study hard, to graduate with honors. Like little Aristotles, they want to know. They believe without knowing that the difference between the educated man and the uneducated man is as profound as the difference between the living and the dead.
This year I had so many excellent students [particularly in my AP U.S. Govt. and Politics class] that when pressed by my administration to issue awards, I refused. I refused to identify only three students for awards, when so many deserved recognition. And again, the number of students who deserved recognition were the very individuals who least require any sort of affirmation from me. These individuals are never defined by others: they define themselves.
I like to think that I’m a lot like them, but I must say, when one of these students decided to recognize me this year with a beautiful letter and a generous gift card with which I took my wife out to dinner for Mother’s Day, I was completely blown away! I guess I learned that even a hard-core Individualist, like myself, likes to be told he made a difference in somebody else’s life. Maybe I should have given those awards, after all.
If I were to give an award to this student it would most certainly be “Most likely to succeed.” If you could see him, you would agree: the only student in the school who arrives each day with a starched and pressed dress shirt and tie, he certainly understands how to dress for success. You would agree, but you would understand very little about him. This young man is far more complex. He exasperates many of his classmates with his strong opinions, a quality I particularly enjoyed while he sat in my class. See, I enjoyed exasperating him with mine! The reason I hold so much hope for this student as he embarks on his future [in politics] is not his strong opinions, however, but rather, his willingness to listen to mine.
When asked for my advice concerning his future in politics, I told him that he should never compromise his values. To his credit, this young man knew that I didn’t mean: never change your opinions. He sat in my class for three months challenging my views, agreeing when he could, bombing me with insightful questions when he didn’t. In the end he began to form his own opinions and, more importantly, discovered that consistent, rational opinions on political issues are born only of a rational philosophy.
A politician must listen to his opponent to find the root of his opponent’s error. He must be ready to reverse his own position if the error, once discovered, happens to be his own. As much as I loathe what Chris Matthews has become since 2003, he did tell a wonderful Barry Goldwater story: Two-thirds of the House had already voted up the proposed 26th Amendment to the Constitution permitting 18-year-olds the right to vote. The Senate was debating the bill. The minority leader, Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater led his party to withhold the necessary support. Goldwater was sitting in the Senate chamber listening to his colleagues on the other side of the isle make their arguments, when suddenly he turned to his whip and said: My God...they’re right! The majority leader changed his vote that day and persuaded the Republican caucus to do the same. The 26th Amendment passed the Senate.
The root of every error is found in philosophy and usually surfaces in an argument as raw emotion. Coercion...force...duty...guilt...and unconditional love...these are the enemies of reason. Judge, my friend, and prepare to be judged by others.
This year I had so many excellent students [particularly in my AP U.S. Govt. and Politics class] that when pressed by my administration to issue awards, I refused. I refused to identify only three students for awards, when so many deserved recognition. And again, the number of students who deserved recognition were the very individuals who least require any sort of affirmation from me. These individuals are never defined by others: they define themselves.
I like to think that I’m a lot like them, but I must say, when one of these students decided to recognize me this year with a beautiful letter and a generous gift card with which I took my wife out to dinner for Mother’s Day, I was completely blown away! I guess I learned that even a hard-core Individualist, like myself, likes to be told he made a difference in somebody else’s life. Maybe I should have given those awards, after all.
If I were to give an award to this student it would most certainly be “Most likely to succeed.” If you could see him, you would agree: the only student in the school who arrives each day with a starched and pressed dress shirt and tie, he certainly understands how to dress for success. You would agree, but you would understand very little about him. This young man is far more complex. He exasperates many of his classmates with his strong opinions, a quality I particularly enjoyed while he sat in my class. See, I enjoyed exasperating him with mine! The reason I hold so much hope for this student as he embarks on his future [in politics] is not his strong opinions, however, but rather, his willingness to listen to mine.
When asked for my advice concerning his future in politics, I told him that he should never compromise his values. To his credit, this young man knew that I didn’t mean: never change your opinions. He sat in my class for three months challenging my views, agreeing when he could, bombing me with insightful questions when he didn’t. In the end he began to form his own opinions and, more importantly, discovered that consistent, rational opinions on political issues are born only of a rational philosophy.
A politician must listen to his opponent to find the root of his opponent’s error. He must be ready to reverse his own position if the error, once discovered, happens to be his own. As much as I loathe what Chris Matthews has become since 2003, he did tell a wonderful Barry Goldwater story: Two-thirds of the House had already voted up the proposed 26th Amendment to the Constitution permitting 18-year-olds the right to vote. The Senate was debating the bill. The minority leader, Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater led his party to withhold the necessary support. Goldwater was sitting in the Senate chamber listening to his colleagues on the other side of the isle make their arguments, when suddenly he turned to his whip and said: My God...they’re right! The majority leader changed his vote that day and persuaded the Republican caucus to do the same. The 26th Amendment passed the Senate.
The root of every error is found in philosophy and usually surfaces in an argument as raw emotion. Coercion...force...duty...guilt...and unconditional love...these are the enemies of reason. Judge, my friend, and prepare to be judged by others.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I'm Sure
You don't have to know everything
in order to say you know something;
I know that one thing
I'm sure
You've got a right to your life:
You've got to be free
to do your own happiness.
Do your own thinking.
I know that one thing,
I'm sure
in order to say you know something;
I know that one thing
I'm sure
You've got a right to your life:
You've got to be free
to do your own happiness.
Do your own thinking.
I know that one thing,
I'm sure
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 25]
Donn,
Disgusting?? No, your thoughts are naive and unrealistic. You think if your 3 multi-mega-international corporation colluded another multi-mega-international corporation that someone would come in and undercut them?? HAHAHAHAHA, dude, that’s about as unrealistic as can be imagined. You’re living in a fantasy world. The truth is, they'd come in, offer to buy you out for some pittance, if you refused, they'd simply lower their prices until then sell at a loss until you, with your smaller capital, went out business and then raise prices right back to where they were. They’re bigger, THEY could sustain the losses you could not. How do I know?? Why, THAT was Bill Gate modus operandi for years.
Marcs
Marcs,
Are these multi-mega-international corporations more or less powerful with or without the help of politicians? You call me naive? You trust the goddamned politicians more than a middle class kid with a great idea who hands the world desk top computers, or the poor farm boy who built the Model-T.
You know nothing about Gates...only what you've read in the yellow press. Believe what you want. Be as negative as you want. Eat your heart out over other people's hard-earned success. Sic your politicians on him. Cry, it's unfair! He has so much and I have so little. Florida's going to cut my teacher salary! Break up his company! He must have cheated. He must have hurt somebody to get where he is...tax him! Give me my share of what he has created... pathetic.
You damn mankind for his every achievement. Say you care about the little guy, and then destroy the creators of his middle class livelihood, the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the capitalist. You won't know what you've done until it's too late and Americans are living like much of the rest of the world in filth and tyranny. Say you care about liberty, but deny men the product of their labor. Enslave mankind a few percentage points at a time and call your work Progressive. Enslave the best of us. Why? So that you can provide health care, free housing, and food stamps to that high school drop out with two kids, a third on the way, and no idea who the fathers are. Call her "less fortunate" as if luck had anything to do with her predicament.
Hand the world over, Marcs. Hand it to least worthy among us. That's the altruist-collectivist way.
Donn
Donn,
Now you’re just getting nasty and ugly. I have to end this conversation now, Bye.
Marcs
And that my dear reader was the last time I heard from Marcs.
Disgusting?? No, your thoughts are naive and unrealistic. You think if your 3 multi-mega-international corporation colluded another multi-mega-international corporation that someone would come in and undercut them?? HAHAHAHAHA, dude, that’s about as unrealistic as can be imagined. You’re living in a fantasy world. The truth is, they'd come in, offer to buy you out for some pittance, if you refused, they'd simply lower their prices until then sell at a loss until you, with your smaller capital, went out business and then raise prices right back to where they were. They’re bigger, THEY could sustain the losses you could not. How do I know?? Why, THAT was Bill Gate modus operandi for years.
Marcs
Marcs,
Are these multi-mega-international corporations more or less powerful with or without the help of politicians? You call me naive? You trust the goddamned politicians more than a middle class kid with a great idea who hands the world desk top computers, or the poor farm boy who built the Model-T.
You know nothing about Gates...only what you've read in the yellow press. Believe what you want. Be as negative as you want. Eat your heart out over other people's hard-earned success. Sic your politicians on him. Cry, it's unfair! He has so much and I have so little. Florida's going to cut my teacher salary! Break up his company! He must have cheated. He must have hurt somebody to get where he is...tax him! Give me my share of what he has created... pathetic.
You damn mankind for his every achievement. Say you care about the little guy, and then destroy the creators of his middle class livelihood, the entrepreneur, the risk-taker, the capitalist. You won't know what you've done until it's too late and Americans are living like much of the rest of the world in filth and tyranny. Say you care about liberty, but deny men the product of their labor. Enslave mankind a few percentage points at a time and call your work Progressive. Enslave the best of us. Why? So that you can provide health care, free housing, and food stamps to that high school drop out with two kids, a third on the way, and no idea who the fathers are. Call her "less fortunate" as if luck had anything to do with her predicament.
Hand the world over, Marcs. Hand it to least worthy among us. That's the altruist-collectivist way.
Donn
Donn,
Now you’re just getting nasty and ugly. I have to end this conversation now, Bye.
Marcs
And that my dear reader was the last time I heard from Marcs.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 24]
Marx,
The solution I am suggesting, laissez-faire capitalism, has never been a reality in this or any other country. The closest we ever got to the ideal was perhaps the Andrew Jackson Administration. Every example you site [once again!] is not an example of laissez faire OR CAPITALISM. What I am advocating is CHANGE. You [and anybody who voted happily on November 4th ] are a conservative, voting to preserve the status-quo quid pro quo! The goddamned “corporate giants” you rail against were created by the political entrepreneurs and the politicians who regulated and trust-busted the competition right out of the market place.
Corporations didn’t even exist in the 19th Century. Failed airlines, car-makers and financial institutions are subsidized and bailed out by politicians with tax-payer money. I’m not going to say this again: ANYTHING IN EXISTENCE THAT YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT THE ECONOMY WAS CAUSED BY SOME FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN THE ECONOMY. In a free market, failure is punished by reality...no subsidies, no bailouts. Because there are real consequences, there is less failure.
You know, man had never set foot on the moon before the Apollo missions. All of the problems that made that trip possible had to be solved before anyone could actually experience a stroll on the lunar surface. We were successful because our answers were correct IN THEORY. We proved our theories correct when we actually accomplished the mission. Had we never launched Apollo 11, our theories would remain correct. The truth is not always tried.
You criticize me for reading books? In fact, I’ve read hundreds since the last time we met. If not for trade and the sharing of knowledge, there would be no reason for men to live in communities or cooperate with each other at all. We’d all be better off on desert islands free to do whatever the hell we please. Of course I learn from books...really great books. I keep lessons that I determine are of value, discard others for reasons, and, in the end, form my own opinions. Every word I have written has come straight out of my head. You seem to be arguing one can only know something if he has actually experienced it. You made the same sort of arguments when we debated face-to-face 12 years ago. For example: You hate the Reagan Administration. Why? Because you personally were denied a college loan. I remember everything, Marx.
Collusion is another cynical myth that doesn’t exist for long if markets are left alone. If colluders attempt to hold prices artificially high for any length of time, competitors enter the market place and sell the same good or service for less. The colluders are A. forced to lower their prices, or B. go out of business. If McDs, BK, and Wendy’s got together and decided to raise their prices by 50%, that would be a boon for Checkers and Jack-in-the-Box. If ALL fast food burger joints in existence joined the cartel, I’d open Tracy Burgers and make a fortune! You really know almost nothing about free enterprise, Marx. You believe every pack of lies the political entrepreneurs and politicians have sold you...they are after all the ones who control our ridiculous public school curricula. Is Florida Memorial a public school?
Your thoughts on the Tylenol story are just disgusting.
Donn
The solution I am suggesting, laissez-faire capitalism, has never been a reality in this or any other country. The closest we ever got to the ideal was perhaps the Andrew Jackson Administration. Every example you site [once again!] is not an example of laissez faire OR CAPITALISM. What I am advocating is CHANGE. You [and anybody who voted happily on November 4th ] are a conservative, voting to preserve the status-quo quid pro quo! The goddamned “corporate giants” you rail against were created by the political entrepreneurs and the politicians who regulated and trust-busted the competition right out of the market place.
Corporations didn’t even exist in the 19th Century. Failed airlines, car-makers and financial institutions are subsidized and bailed out by politicians with tax-payer money. I’m not going to say this again: ANYTHING IN EXISTENCE THAT YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT THE ECONOMY WAS CAUSED BY SOME FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN THE ECONOMY. In a free market, failure is punished by reality...no subsidies, no bailouts. Because there are real consequences, there is less failure.
You know, man had never set foot on the moon before the Apollo missions. All of the problems that made that trip possible had to be solved before anyone could actually experience a stroll on the lunar surface. We were successful because our answers were correct IN THEORY. We proved our theories correct when we actually accomplished the mission. Had we never launched Apollo 11, our theories would remain correct. The truth is not always tried.
You criticize me for reading books? In fact, I’ve read hundreds since the last time we met. If not for trade and the sharing of knowledge, there would be no reason for men to live in communities or cooperate with each other at all. We’d all be better off on desert islands free to do whatever the hell we please. Of course I learn from books...really great books. I keep lessons that I determine are of value, discard others for reasons, and, in the end, form my own opinions. Every word I have written has come straight out of my head. You seem to be arguing one can only know something if he has actually experienced it. You made the same sort of arguments when we debated face-to-face 12 years ago. For example: You hate the Reagan Administration. Why? Because you personally were denied a college loan. I remember everything, Marx.
Collusion is another cynical myth that doesn’t exist for long if markets are left alone. If colluders attempt to hold prices artificially high for any length of time, competitors enter the market place and sell the same good or service for less. The colluders are A. forced to lower their prices, or B. go out of business. If McDs, BK, and Wendy’s got together and decided to raise their prices by 50%, that would be a boon for Checkers and Jack-in-the-Box. If ALL fast food burger joints in existence joined the cartel, I’d open Tracy Burgers and make a fortune! You really know almost nothing about free enterprise, Marx. You believe every pack of lies the political entrepreneurs and politicians have sold you...they are after all the ones who control our ridiculous public school curricula. Is Florida Memorial a public school?
Your thoughts on the Tylenol story are just disgusting.
Donn
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 23]
Donn,
So, let me get this straight, YOUR method of divorcing politicians from corporations is to DEREGULATE them? Now, you MUST realize how ludicrous that sounds.
Marx
Marx,
No. It makes perfect sense to me. Reality is the best arbiter. Government force in the market place changes that reality irrevocably, extending the life of bad players who happen to have buddies in Washington, among other things.
In a laissez-faire capitalist system bad players are weeded out by their better, more efficient competitors. Consumers benefit as the best products win and prices drop. If the economy is free and there is money to be made in any industry, fast food, for example, the original “monopolist,” McDonalds, will soon have no choice but to compete with the new players. Prices will drop [“buy one, get one free”], choices will multiply, quality will improve across the board as McDs, BK, Wendys, Checkers, Jack-in-the-Box, etc. all compete for your burger-buying dollar. Each would grow its menu to serve their diverse clientele and try to capitalize on some new niche in the market...adding breakfast, baked potatoes, chili, salads. Product safety is first and foremost in the mind of the producer in any food-producing industry. If people get sick eating at Burger King, Burger King won’t last long. They will rightly fail...go out of business. In a free market bad players don’t last long.
[Remember poisoned Tylenol? Their excellent product was nearly destroyed by a terrorist act. They responded by inventing product safety seals. You have to penetrate layers of security before you can actually take a Tylenol pill. That security was not mandated by government! It was invented by the capitalist producers of the product for a very rational, selfish reason: to protect their own livelihood. If people die taking your medicine, you won’t be in business long.]
Cost cutting is absolutely necessary if you want to survive the challenges presented by your competitors, but not at the expense of the business. If you cut cost where consumer safety is at issue, you won’t be in business for long.
Because the fast food industry was left alone free from interference by the politicians, others discovered unique opportunities to make money using the idea of the original “monopolist.” Eventually, consumers are able to purchase Mexican food, Chinese food, Cuban food, Health food—FAST, without even having to get out of their cars!
All of the health and diversity, efficiency and safety, of the fast food industry could be true of every industry in existence—including health care and energy—if the politicians were disarmed, forbidden from manipulating free markets.
Finally, politicians would have no corruption to peddle to the lobbyists in Washington if they were powerless to screw with just, free markets.
The only legitimate functions of government with regards to the economy are 1. the enforcement of lawful contracts and the settling of contractual disputes; and 2. to punish criminal behavior, like fraud, criminal negligence, libel, etc.
Donn
Donn,
Dude, you keep saying that but it just hasn’t worked out that way. White is black, black is white. In order to regulate we must deregulate. I’m sorry, that’s sheer insanity. Deregulation NEVER works out to be the best for society. I'll give you the latest example here in Florida. Used to be, when you wanted a motorcycle endorsement for your license, you went down to the DMV, plopped down 20 bucks, took the written test, then the driving test and you got it. Seems that JEB passed a law to take that AWAY from the DMV and give it to private, independent contractors. They said it would make cheaper and more efficient. Guess what it cost me? $265.00 PLUS I had to STILL give the 20 dollars to the DMV to issue me a replacement license. AND, I had to sit there and listen to a forced sales pitch from Harley Davidson for credit. I called ALL the competitors and, somehow, that’s the price they arrived at, the SAME price, what a remarkable coincidence, huh? THAT’S called collusion an THATS what you get when you deregulate. Why aren’t there gas companies out there selling gas for a significant cheaper price? Because first, they got to be too big, drove the smaller companies out of business and then the 3 or 4 more remaining colluded together to arrive at THAT price. Do you know what gas costs in China? About 1.50 a gallon, because Sinopec is ONLY allowed to make a certain amount of profit. You have two choices here, either government controls and regulates industry or industry buys and sells government. Seems to me, as China reaps TRILLIONS and TRILIONS in debt that we owe THEM, that maybe we'd better start getting our own house in order first. Finally, you keep saying bad business forces out bad competitors, not so, in fact, BIG bad business leads to corporations buying media outlets, bribing reporters to hide facts, buying scientists to say what they want them to say and WE never know any better and keep doing the same bad behaviors because we don’t have a clue. Your facts, your opinions are based, entirely on what someone said to you, or what you read but there haven’t been any examples where it seems to work that way or none that you can see for yourself. Tylenol? Really, how do YOU know that’s what happened? Did YOU perform the scientific tests or did some government scientists? Maybe Tylenol did it themselves, maybe it was simply a bad batch but they were big enough to buy the media outlets. Maybe they DESERVED to go out of business but didn’t because they were big enough. Who does total laissez faire policies help? No one but the corporate giants, the big wigs with hundreds of million dollar bonuses. Everybody else gets screwed.
Marx
So, let me get this straight, YOUR method of divorcing politicians from corporations is to DEREGULATE them? Now, you MUST realize how ludicrous that sounds.
Marx
Marx,
No. It makes perfect sense to me. Reality is the best arbiter. Government force in the market place changes that reality irrevocably, extending the life of bad players who happen to have buddies in Washington, among other things.
In a laissez-faire capitalist system bad players are weeded out by their better, more efficient competitors. Consumers benefit as the best products win and prices drop. If the economy is free and there is money to be made in any industry, fast food, for example, the original “monopolist,” McDonalds, will soon have no choice but to compete with the new players. Prices will drop [“buy one, get one free”], choices will multiply, quality will improve across the board as McDs, BK, Wendys, Checkers, Jack-in-the-Box, etc. all compete for your burger-buying dollar. Each would grow its menu to serve their diverse clientele and try to capitalize on some new niche in the market...adding breakfast, baked potatoes, chili, salads. Product safety is first and foremost in the mind of the producer in any food-producing industry. If people get sick eating at Burger King, Burger King won’t last long. They will rightly fail...go out of business. In a free market bad players don’t last long.
[Remember poisoned Tylenol? Their excellent product was nearly destroyed by a terrorist act. They responded by inventing product safety seals. You have to penetrate layers of security before you can actually take a Tylenol pill. That security was not mandated by government! It was invented by the capitalist producers of the product for a very rational, selfish reason: to protect their own livelihood. If people die taking your medicine, you won’t be in business long.]
Cost cutting is absolutely necessary if you want to survive the challenges presented by your competitors, but not at the expense of the business. If you cut cost where consumer safety is at issue, you won’t be in business for long.
Because the fast food industry was left alone free from interference by the politicians, others discovered unique opportunities to make money using the idea of the original “monopolist.” Eventually, consumers are able to purchase Mexican food, Chinese food, Cuban food, Health food—FAST, without even having to get out of their cars!
All of the health and diversity, efficiency and safety, of the fast food industry could be true of every industry in existence—including health care and energy—if the politicians were disarmed, forbidden from manipulating free markets.
Finally, politicians would have no corruption to peddle to the lobbyists in Washington if they were powerless to screw with just, free markets.
The only legitimate functions of government with regards to the economy are 1. the enforcement of lawful contracts and the settling of contractual disputes; and 2. to punish criminal behavior, like fraud, criminal negligence, libel, etc.
Donn
Donn,
Dude, you keep saying that but it just hasn’t worked out that way. White is black, black is white. In order to regulate we must deregulate. I’m sorry, that’s sheer insanity. Deregulation NEVER works out to be the best for society. I'll give you the latest example here in Florida. Used to be, when you wanted a motorcycle endorsement for your license, you went down to the DMV, plopped down 20 bucks, took the written test, then the driving test and you got it. Seems that JEB passed a law to take that AWAY from the DMV and give it to private, independent contractors. They said it would make cheaper and more efficient. Guess what it cost me? $265.00 PLUS I had to STILL give the 20 dollars to the DMV to issue me a replacement license. AND, I had to sit there and listen to a forced sales pitch from Harley Davidson for credit. I called ALL the competitors and, somehow, that’s the price they arrived at, the SAME price, what a remarkable coincidence, huh? THAT’S called collusion an THATS what you get when you deregulate. Why aren’t there gas companies out there selling gas for a significant cheaper price? Because first, they got to be too big, drove the smaller companies out of business and then the 3 or 4 more remaining colluded together to arrive at THAT price. Do you know what gas costs in China? About 1.50 a gallon, because Sinopec is ONLY allowed to make a certain amount of profit. You have two choices here, either government controls and regulates industry or industry buys and sells government. Seems to me, as China reaps TRILLIONS and TRILIONS in debt that we owe THEM, that maybe we'd better start getting our own house in order first. Finally, you keep saying bad business forces out bad competitors, not so, in fact, BIG bad business leads to corporations buying media outlets, bribing reporters to hide facts, buying scientists to say what they want them to say and WE never know any better and keep doing the same bad behaviors because we don’t have a clue. Your facts, your opinions are based, entirely on what someone said to you, or what you read but there haven’t been any examples where it seems to work that way or none that you can see for yourself. Tylenol? Really, how do YOU know that’s what happened? Did YOU perform the scientific tests or did some government scientists? Maybe Tylenol did it themselves, maybe it was simply a bad batch but they were big enough to buy the media outlets. Maybe they DESERVED to go out of business but didn’t because they were big enough. Who does total laissez faire policies help? No one but the corporate giants, the big wigs with hundreds of million dollar bonuses. Everybody else gets screwed.
Marx
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 22]
Donn,
HAHAHAHAHA... Your answer to reduce corporate influence on our politicians is to allow corporations to do what they want?? MORE Laissez Faire Capitalism?? And you think, somehow, they'll stop giving money to the policy makers and the holders of the USA's purse strings all on their own? Sorry, that’s SO contradictory I actually had to laugh out loud on that one.
Marx
Marx,
You laugh....And Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The economic crisis we are in today was created by your over-regulated economy...politicians in bed with corporations. Your cynicism prevents you from seeing the solution. The solution is liberty and rational, healthy self-interest. I’m suggesting we take away the purse...give the politicians an allowance to be used to fund the proper functions of government, period.
Donn
Donn,
I laugh because setting them free will ONLY do what it did in the era of robber barons, regardless of your bias, it was H E L L to be someone who wasn’t one of the top 1%. You let those guys do what they want and they won’t STOP what it was that has been so profitable for them, they'll do it more. Geez man, use your common sense
Marx
Marx,
By marrying them off to the politicians you have only made them more powerful... invincible! for christsake. Now, they can get a politician to CLUB the goddamned competition to death. Now, they no longer have to produce a better product, cheaper...all they need is a politician in Washington to back them up and they can serve up anything they want and you have to eat it...Eat it big time when their party is over. When their party's over these POLITICAL ENTREPRENUERS get their politician buddies to use the club again and bail them OUT!!! Who's lacking common sense?? You trust the goddamned politicians [who produce nothing and live extremely well, most in the top 1%] and damn the honest capitalist who just wants to sell his product to people who willingly choose to trade with him.
Donn
Donn,
The same "honest entrepreneurs" that turned the Cuyahoga river into a cesspool so horrific that it used to catch fire? Or the ones that sold cigarettes to the public while hiding damning scientific data so that people like my mother would be suffering from emphysema in her 70s? Maybe you mean the ones that produced the Corvair, designed so poorly that all it took was a bump from behind and it would turn into a blazing fireball but, the company felt that the amount of claims filed against it that would be successful was actually LESS costly then fixing the problem?? Wanna talk about the "love canal"?? Maybe what the pig farms are doing to South Carolina?? I could go on and on. The truth is, you dont regulate, they'll simply do a cost analysis before they EVER do anything and then, ONLY then, if cost of DOING something actually outweighs the costs of NOT doing anything. Its not ME that wants corporations to be married to politicians, its YOU. Geez man, use your common sense, why, in gods name would they EVER stop greasing politicians’ hands UNLESS there are LAWS forbidding it? I SUPPORT CAMPAIGN REFORM!!!!
Marx
Marx,
Reform? Give me a break. There are tons of laws on the books forbidding businessmen to grease politicians. You think the politicians are going to willingly give up the goose? No way. They reform campaign finance and people discover line 527...nothing changes. In fact it's worse [by your standards]. The soft-money is now given to unregulated private entities who can say and do whatever they want free from Congressional or FEC oversight.
Unless the divorce is final and the change systemic, i.e. a complete separation of government and the economy, the politicians and their business buddies will continue to sleep together, screwing all of us.
The examples you site are examples of political entrepreneurs, once again. Capitalism hasn't existed in this country for over a century. You'll have to find examples from the 19th Century if you want to prove your point to me. Every example you site happened WHILE the businessman and the politician were married...the source of the corruption. If you own the police, you can commit a lot of crimes and not have to worry about just consequences.
Besides, I said rational self-interest. In a free market the bad players are weeded out. They don't stay in business long. The damage they create is mitigated by the competition. In essence business IS REGULATED...It's regulated by the PRIVATE SECTOR: 1. your competition will let the public know you're a dirt-bag; 2. consumer watchdog groups will provide venues for people who were harmed by your activities; 3. the courts will still exist...class action lawsuits would still happen to weed out fraud and abuse. I'm not talking about lawlessness, MARX!
Did you know you can buy industry-certified lumber? I don't remember the name of the private entity that conducts the oversight, but Jared Diamond explains what they do in his book Collapse. The certification ensures consumers that the lumber they are buying was produced by a company that practices "silviculture," the planting of trees [like crops] to replace this renewable resource as it is consumed. Another great example of how the private sector weeds out bad players by educating consumers [rather than government FORCE] is the tuna industry. I don't care how much more it costs. I only buy dolphin-safe tuna.
The only reason the tobacco industry was able to lie and cheat and survive was because the industry was PROTECTED by Washington! You must know this! Few industries had as much clout on Capital Hill than the tobacco industry. Another reason they survive is because of people like me: We know about the dangers. We know it's not good for us. We do it anyway. [Sorry to hear about your mother.] Another industry in bed with the politicians is the auto industry...Have you ever seen the movie Tucker: the man and his dream? A great true story that makes my point well. Government is the only entity in existence that can sustain and enrich bad players. ONLY government has the CLUB to force competition out of the market place!
As long as government has the power to determine who gets to compete, there is no capitalism in this country. If you're not happy about the way the economy works these past 100 years or so, government intervention is the poison you rail against [even as you ask for more poison].
Donn
HAHAHAHAHA... Your answer to reduce corporate influence on our politicians is to allow corporations to do what they want?? MORE Laissez Faire Capitalism?? And you think, somehow, they'll stop giving money to the policy makers and the holders of the USA's purse strings all on their own? Sorry, that’s SO contradictory I actually had to laugh out loud on that one.
Marx
Marx,
You laugh....And Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The economic crisis we are in today was created by your over-regulated economy...politicians in bed with corporations. Your cynicism prevents you from seeing the solution. The solution is liberty and rational, healthy self-interest. I’m suggesting we take away the purse...give the politicians an allowance to be used to fund the proper functions of government, period.
Donn
Donn,
I laugh because setting them free will ONLY do what it did in the era of robber barons, regardless of your bias, it was H E L L to be someone who wasn’t one of the top 1%. You let those guys do what they want and they won’t STOP what it was that has been so profitable for them, they'll do it more. Geez man, use your common sense
Marx
Marx,
By marrying them off to the politicians you have only made them more powerful... invincible! for christsake. Now, they can get a politician to CLUB the goddamned competition to death. Now, they no longer have to produce a better product, cheaper...all they need is a politician in Washington to back them up and they can serve up anything they want and you have to eat it...Eat it big time when their party is over. When their party's over these POLITICAL ENTREPRENUERS get their politician buddies to use the club again and bail them OUT!!! Who's lacking common sense?? You trust the goddamned politicians [who produce nothing and live extremely well, most in the top 1%] and damn the honest capitalist who just wants to sell his product to people who willingly choose to trade with him.
Donn
Donn,
The same "honest entrepreneurs" that turned the Cuyahoga river into a cesspool so horrific that it used to catch fire? Or the ones that sold cigarettes to the public while hiding damning scientific data so that people like my mother would be suffering from emphysema in her 70s? Maybe you mean the ones that produced the Corvair, designed so poorly that all it took was a bump from behind and it would turn into a blazing fireball but, the company felt that the amount of claims filed against it that would be successful was actually LESS costly then fixing the problem?? Wanna talk about the "love canal"?? Maybe what the pig farms are doing to South Carolina?? I could go on and on. The truth is, you dont regulate, they'll simply do a cost analysis before they EVER do anything and then, ONLY then, if cost of DOING something actually outweighs the costs of NOT doing anything. Its not ME that wants corporations to be married to politicians, its YOU. Geez man, use your common sense, why, in gods name would they EVER stop greasing politicians’ hands UNLESS there are LAWS forbidding it? I SUPPORT CAMPAIGN REFORM!!!!
Marx
Marx,
Reform? Give me a break. There are tons of laws on the books forbidding businessmen to grease politicians. You think the politicians are going to willingly give up the goose? No way. They reform campaign finance and people discover line 527...nothing changes. In fact it's worse [by your standards]. The soft-money is now given to unregulated private entities who can say and do whatever they want free from Congressional or FEC oversight.
Unless the divorce is final and the change systemic, i.e. a complete separation of government and the economy, the politicians and their business buddies will continue to sleep together, screwing all of us.
The examples you site are examples of political entrepreneurs, once again. Capitalism hasn't existed in this country for over a century. You'll have to find examples from the 19th Century if you want to prove your point to me. Every example you site happened WHILE the businessman and the politician were married...the source of the corruption. If you own the police, you can commit a lot of crimes and not have to worry about just consequences.
Besides, I said rational self-interest. In a free market the bad players are weeded out. They don't stay in business long. The damage they create is mitigated by the competition. In essence business IS REGULATED...It's regulated by the PRIVATE SECTOR: 1. your competition will let the public know you're a dirt-bag; 2. consumer watchdog groups will provide venues for people who were harmed by your activities; 3. the courts will still exist...class action lawsuits would still happen to weed out fraud and abuse. I'm not talking about lawlessness, MARX!
Did you know you can buy industry-certified lumber? I don't remember the name of the private entity that conducts the oversight, but Jared Diamond explains what they do in his book Collapse. The certification ensures consumers that the lumber they are buying was produced by a company that practices "silviculture," the planting of trees [like crops] to replace this renewable resource as it is consumed. Another great example of how the private sector weeds out bad players by educating consumers [rather than government FORCE] is the tuna industry. I don't care how much more it costs. I only buy dolphin-safe tuna.
The only reason the tobacco industry was able to lie and cheat and survive was because the industry was PROTECTED by Washington! You must know this! Few industries had as much clout on Capital Hill than the tobacco industry. Another reason they survive is because of people like me: We know about the dangers. We know it's not good for us. We do it anyway. [Sorry to hear about your mother.] Another industry in bed with the politicians is the auto industry...Have you ever seen the movie Tucker: the man and his dream? A great true story that makes my point well. Government is the only entity in existence that can sustain and enrich bad players. ONLY government has the CLUB to force competition out of the market place!
As long as government has the power to determine who gets to compete, there is no capitalism in this country. If you're not happy about the way the economy works these past 100 years or so, government intervention is the poison you rail against [even as you ask for more poison].
Donn
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 21]
Marx Wrote: The only thing you’ve done is convince me that, if you look hard enough, you can find "evidence" to support any point of view. You have a habit of relegating ANYONE that you don’t agree with to "talented fabulist," for example, Michael Moore and the person that you blame for the designation of "Robber Barons" [Ida Tarbell]. I’m gonna tell you the ONE truth that you'll ever hear in this world that we live in: “there is precious little reality in our individual realities." Anyone can find anything to support the views that they have, some of it may very well be true but there is NO way to tell what is and what isn’t true. It all depends on "faith" and I really don’t have much of that in any of our news, educational materials, texts or even (with the advent of Photoshop) photographic records.
Marx,
My most important points require no empirical evidence at all. They require a profound respect for the human capacity to reason devoid of faith, emotions, mystic revelation...and the irrational personal biases created by humans who feel rather than think. For example, anti-capitalists feel everybody should have everything they need including 21st Century health care. They believe that a person’s need for something crucial, like life-saving pharmaceuticals, gives a person a right to them. I require NO empirical evidence, NO anecdotal evidence, NO media or textbooks, to demonstrate the pure evil of this supposition. I need ONLY reason and a profound respect for the rights of individuals to KNOW that nobody has a right to anything that was produced by somebody else.
21st Century health care is produced by people who: spend ten years in school mastering most difficult curricula; investors putting millions of their own money on the line with the expectation that Merc will develop the next “miracle drug” and they will rightly profit. Anyone who produces anything, owns the result of their productive work. No one can rationally place any demand on them to hand it over without compensation. In a moral and just society productive individuals TRADE with one another, value for value. All values are determined by two parties: the producer and the consumer. Without this moral equation our society is relegated to institutionalized gang rule. The majority of people [those who did not produce the life-saving medicine] sic the government on the producers. Government uses force to extort these 21st Century health care products from their rightful owners... Everybody in the health care industry becomes a slave to the state. How do you justify this extortion? You say: People need health care. Justice be damned! We’re all in this thing for the good of the community, so the individual rights of the producers be damned!
Now, my nihilist friend, answer my argument. No stories about the failed health care system we have in place here in the US, please. What we have is not capitalism. Like housing, banking, energy and nearly every other industry, government designed the health care system we have in place today. Try to give me a rational argument to justify “free health care for all.” If the rights of individuals are sacrificed to make your argument work, you have not created a rational argument.
Donn
Donn,
I have never said everyone should have free healthcare and I don’t recall anyone I know or anyone I support supporting "free healthcare for all." I DO support affordable healthcare for everyone, regardless or pre-existing conditions or whether some arbitrary insurance adjustor deems it’s ok for YOU to have healthcare. Healthcare costs are out of control and BEFORE you blame the legal system, take a look at the obscene profits the health insurance companies make. My brother does NOT have healthcare insurance because he's a truck driver and he cannot afford more than a thousand dollars a month for him and his wife. I think a gainfully employed, hardworking man should be able to afford healthcare. It should NOT be the domain of the wealthy or those lucky enough to have employer provided healthcare and THAT’S what’s happening. Do YOU think this is an unreasonable position? Then you’re out of touch with what private healthcare insurance agencies cost, you’ve been on state provided healthcare TOO long and you don’t know what OTHERS are going through. MEANWHILE, a friend recently stayed at a hospital for three days for some minor surgery. His bill came back at about 15,000 dollars!!! BUT, get this, it said....Insurance Company Discount 13,000... money paid by insurance company, 2000...money owed... 0.00.. DUDE, what the HECK is that??? They give a 13,000 discount to the insurance company?? But expect an uninsured individual to pay the WHOLE 13,000 ... that’s insane!!!
Marx
Marx,
If you want abundance of any good or service, if you want innovation and creativity in the market place in any industry, don’t ask Washington to “solve” the problem.
Donn
Donn,
Our politicians veer, slightly to the left and some slightly to the right but none are really interested in anything other than where their next campaign contribution is coming from, USUALLY, that’s from the corporations.
Marx,
Marx,
Laissez faire capitalism is the only solution to the problem you site. If you want to remove corporate influence in Washington over night, remove politicians from the market place. Abolish the 16th Amendment and take away that huge pot of gold the politicians extorted from the producers and 30,000 lobbyists are out of work. They’re there in Washington, lobbying, for their piece of a pie that shouldn’t even exist! People who think like you created the problem by encouraging and empowering government to manipulate free markets AND when everything you’ve created blows up in our faces, you go back to the politicians, who injected the poison into the body in the first place, AND WHAT DO YOU DO? You ask for more poison!!
Unbelievable that you can not see this truth.
Donn
Marx,
My most important points require no empirical evidence at all. They require a profound respect for the human capacity to reason devoid of faith, emotions, mystic revelation...and the irrational personal biases created by humans who feel rather than think. For example, anti-capitalists feel everybody should have everything they need including 21st Century health care. They believe that a person’s need for something crucial, like life-saving pharmaceuticals, gives a person a right to them. I require NO empirical evidence, NO anecdotal evidence, NO media or textbooks, to demonstrate the pure evil of this supposition. I need ONLY reason and a profound respect for the rights of individuals to KNOW that nobody has a right to anything that was produced by somebody else.
21st Century health care is produced by people who: spend ten years in school mastering most difficult curricula; investors putting millions of their own money on the line with the expectation that Merc will develop the next “miracle drug” and they will rightly profit. Anyone who produces anything, owns the result of their productive work. No one can rationally place any demand on them to hand it over without compensation. In a moral and just society productive individuals TRADE with one another, value for value. All values are determined by two parties: the producer and the consumer. Without this moral equation our society is relegated to institutionalized gang rule. The majority of people [those who did not produce the life-saving medicine] sic the government on the producers. Government uses force to extort these 21st Century health care products from their rightful owners... Everybody in the health care industry becomes a slave to the state. How do you justify this extortion? You say: People need health care. Justice be damned! We’re all in this thing for the good of the community, so the individual rights of the producers be damned!
Now, my nihilist friend, answer my argument. No stories about the failed health care system we have in place here in the US, please. What we have is not capitalism. Like housing, banking, energy and nearly every other industry, government designed the health care system we have in place today. Try to give me a rational argument to justify “free health care for all.” If the rights of individuals are sacrificed to make your argument work, you have not created a rational argument.
Donn
Donn,
I have never said everyone should have free healthcare and I don’t recall anyone I know or anyone I support supporting "free healthcare for all." I DO support affordable healthcare for everyone, regardless or pre-existing conditions or whether some arbitrary insurance adjustor deems it’s ok for YOU to have healthcare. Healthcare costs are out of control and BEFORE you blame the legal system, take a look at the obscene profits the health insurance companies make. My brother does NOT have healthcare insurance because he's a truck driver and he cannot afford more than a thousand dollars a month for him and his wife. I think a gainfully employed, hardworking man should be able to afford healthcare. It should NOT be the domain of the wealthy or those lucky enough to have employer provided healthcare and THAT’S what’s happening. Do YOU think this is an unreasonable position? Then you’re out of touch with what private healthcare insurance agencies cost, you’ve been on state provided healthcare TOO long and you don’t know what OTHERS are going through. MEANWHILE, a friend recently stayed at a hospital for three days for some minor surgery. His bill came back at about 15,000 dollars!!! BUT, get this, it said....Insurance Company Discount 13,000... money paid by insurance company, 2000...money owed... 0.00.. DUDE, what the HECK is that??? They give a 13,000 discount to the insurance company?? But expect an uninsured individual to pay the WHOLE 13,000 ... that’s insane!!!
Marx
Marx,
If you want abundance of any good or service, if you want innovation and creativity in the market place in any industry, don’t ask Washington to “solve” the problem.
Donn
Donn,
Our politicians veer, slightly to the left and some slightly to the right but none are really interested in anything other than where their next campaign contribution is coming from, USUALLY, that’s from the corporations.
Marx,
Marx,
Laissez faire capitalism is the only solution to the problem you site. If you want to remove corporate influence in Washington over night, remove politicians from the market place. Abolish the 16th Amendment and take away that huge pot of gold the politicians extorted from the producers and 30,000 lobbyists are out of work. They’re there in Washington, lobbying, for their piece of a pie that shouldn’t even exist! People who think like you created the problem by encouraging and empowering government to manipulate free markets AND when everything you’ve created blows up in our faces, you go back to the politicians, who injected the poison into the body in the first place, AND WHAT DO YOU DO? You ask for more poison!!
Unbelievable that you can not see this truth.
Donn
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 20]
Donn,
"Good" and "evil" are relative concepts...MY absolute "evil", obviously, is not yours. And obviously MY absolute "good" isn’t yours either. Finally, I AM concerned about voter fraud...when the elections committees have done their job and found "fraud" they can prosecute it. But again, who knows what’s true and what’s being reported as truth or even if there is ANY truth in the reports. We can not trust our media sources, some are controlled by the Republicans and some are controlled by the Dems and everyone’s doing what they do best, muddying the waters. I am NOT like you... I cant say "oooooh...LOOK...the Democrats have some potentially fraudulent voters registrations... BURN 'EM"... because, like I said, I remember no such outrage coming from you when GW was guilty of it in 2000 and 2004 and they never even did any real investigations. The one or two Fed Prosecutors that DID look into it were fired by the GW Administration for behaving in a non-political manner. Again, you keep claiming you’re not a Republican but you fall, hand over foot, to defend him when his positions are defenseless. As for Obama, this is where you guys get ridiculous, ALL these guys give monies to voters drive registration groups, yes, even Republicans and media, the so called "liberal media" which is OWNED by right wingers that control content, nary says a word when the right is caught doing the same. For instance, there's John McCain whining about how much money Obama took from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but NO one is pointing out that HIS campaign took nearly 30,000 a week from them for almost 2 years. The relative truth is CORPORATIONS GREASE BOTH SIDES and the side with the power gets the most, but they grease BOTH sides. You want a law completely outlawing corporate influence on Congress?? I'll go along with that 100% ...NEITHER side will, EVER!!! I'd do it like they do it in China, it’s a CAPITAL OFFENSE. But I’m realistic neither side will do it because THEY (politicians and corporations) control the votes, they control the media and they won’t ever take monies out of their own pockets. Finally, you can say what you want about Clinton, when he left, our country was in the best shape it had been in years, 7 years of right wing policy have completely turned everything into the worst mess I have seen in my lifetime. Two wars, one against a country that never attacked us and wasn’t threatening us. The biggest budget fiasco I have seen in years. The banking industry running rampant under deregulation and collapsing under their own bad investments and gambling and, your boy McCain, proposing that the government buy EVERY bad mortgage at FULL VALUE and making US, the taxpayer take the hit and, in actuality, bailing out those corporate executives at the full, inflated value ( I actually laughed at him when he proposed THAT at the debates .. he said That’s MY plan, not Bush's and NOT Obama’s MY plan). At LEAST, Obama's plan of requiring the industry to renegotiate the loans to help the homeowners certainly seems more palatable than rewarding the predatory lenders. MAKE em work together and not be at odds with each other. I’m sorry, I WISH that GW had found a 22 year old intern to screw rather than having him stand there at the top and continue to screw us all.
Marx
Marx,
Damn! You are incorrigible! John McCaine is NOT “my boy.” I don’t think I’ve said anything about Bill Clinton, either.
More importantly: Good and Evil are NOT relative terms. If we disagree about what is good and what is evil, it is because one of us, or both of us, is WRONG. I think my discussion about man’s inherent rights [the rational standard for judging good and evil on this planet] made my point irrefutably clear. You are wrong, and if the US continues to move in the direction you promote [socialism] that evil will be your grandchildren’s REALITY. Dying Europe will go first, so I hope in your lifetime you will get to see firsthand how the TRUTH will most certainly out. Inherent INDIVIDUAL rights cannot be compromised without destroying the lives and liberty of all men.
Donn
Donn,
Not incorrigible, you keep defending them. Stop washing your hands of them when they say things you can no longer defend.
Marx
Marx,
I've checked the record...I have not once [in our discussion] defended the 2008 version of John McCain!
Donn
"Good" and "evil" are relative concepts...MY absolute "evil", obviously, is not yours. And obviously MY absolute "good" isn’t yours either. Finally, I AM concerned about voter fraud...when the elections committees have done their job and found "fraud" they can prosecute it. But again, who knows what’s true and what’s being reported as truth or even if there is ANY truth in the reports. We can not trust our media sources, some are controlled by the Republicans and some are controlled by the Dems and everyone’s doing what they do best, muddying the waters. I am NOT like you... I cant say "oooooh...LOOK...the Democrats have some potentially fraudulent voters registrations... BURN 'EM"... because, like I said, I remember no such outrage coming from you when GW was guilty of it in 2000 and 2004 and they never even did any real investigations. The one or two Fed Prosecutors that DID look into it were fired by the GW Administration for behaving in a non-political manner. Again, you keep claiming you’re not a Republican but you fall, hand over foot, to defend him when his positions are defenseless. As for Obama, this is where you guys get ridiculous, ALL these guys give monies to voters drive registration groups, yes, even Republicans and media, the so called "liberal media" which is OWNED by right wingers that control content, nary says a word when the right is caught doing the same. For instance, there's John McCain whining about how much money Obama took from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but NO one is pointing out that HIS campaign took nearly 30,000 a week from them for almost 2 years. The relative truth is CORPORATIONS GREASE BOTH SIDES and the side with the power gets the most, but they grease BOTH sides. You want a law completely outlawing corporate influence on Congress?? I'll go along with that 100% ...NEITHER side will, EVER!!! I'd do it like they do it in China, it’s a CAPITAL OFFENSE. But I’m realistic neither side will do it because THEY (politicians and corporations) control the votes, they control the media and they won’t ever take monies out of their own pockets. Finally, you can say what you want about Clinton, when he left, our country was in the best shape it had been in years, 7 years of right wing policy have completely turned everything into the worst mess I have seen in my lifetime. Two wars, one against a country that never attacked us and wasn’t threatening us. The biggest budget fiasco I have seen in years. The banking industry running rampant under deregulation and collapsing under their own bad investments and gambling and, your boy McCain, proposing that the government buy EVERY bad mortgage at FULL VALUE and making US, the taxpayer take the hit and, in actuality, bailing out those corporate executives at the full, inflated value ( I actually laughed at him when he proposed THAT at the debates .. he said That’s MY plan, not Bush's and NOT Obama’s MY plan). At LEAST, Obama's plan of requiring the industry to renegotiate the loans to help the homeowners certainly seems more palatable than rewarding the predatory lenders. MAKE em work together and not be at odds with each other. I’m sorry, I WISH that GW had found a 22 year old intern to screw rather than having him stand there at the top and continue to screw us all.
Marx
Marx,
Damn! You are incorrigible! John McCaine is NOT “my boy.” I don’t think I’ve said anything about Bill Clinton, either.
More importantly: Good and Evil are NOT relative terms. If we disagree about what is good and what is evil, it is because one of us, or both of us, is WRONG. I think my discussion about man’s inherent rights [the rational standard for judging good and evil on this planet] made my point irrefutably clear. You are wrong, and if the US continues to move in the direction you promote [socialism] that evil will be your grandchildren’s REALITY. Dying Europe will go first, so I hope in your lifetime you will get to see firsthand how the TRUTH will most certainly out. Inherent INDIVIDUAL rights cannot be compromised without destroying the lives and liberty of all men.
Donn
Donn,
Not incorrigible, you keep defending them. Stop washing your hands of them when they say things you can no longer defend.
Marx
Marx,
I've checked the record...I have not once [in our discussion] defended the 2008 version of John McCain!
Donn
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 19]
Donn,
When someone uses a stereotypical picture to present their case, expect to be stereotyped. There IS evil, and there's NOT so evil, and there’s ok, and there’s pretty good and there’s better and there’s even great and fantastic. I won’t join you in your black and white interpretation of the world. You and GW and you’re "either with us or agin us" has to go because there ARE people with us, some sort of with us, some somewhere in the middle and some sort of against us and some totally against us. THAT’S what diplomacy is for: to move those countries polarized against us and bring them back, slowly to the fold. Consider the concept of the "lethal hug" ... THAT’S what Obama is espousing and it works far more often than invasion and occupation.
Marx
Marx,
Christ! I AM NOT A SUPPORTER OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!! I’m not a Republican.
Terrific! You acknowledge that there is evil in this world. Let’s say you have acknowledged the existence of WHITE. I’m not sure, but I think when you say “fantastic” you mean “good.” You acknowledge that there is good in the world. You have acknowledged the existence of BLACK.
So, you live in a world where there is good and there is evil; there is truth and there is falsehood; there is black and there is white.
Now, I have never said that the various shades of gray do not exist. Of course they exist. My point is simply that if you know what the good is, any movement in the other direction is movement towards evil. For example: There is truth. Anything less than the truth is a lie. There are little lies, bigger lies, huge lies, dangerous lies, evil lies.
Consider the following: All men have inherent rights. Among them are life, liberty and property [property means: the wealth created by your productive work]. These rights are not granted to men by their government. These rights are inherent. All men have them because all men are rational, thinking beings, responsible for their own existence. The greatest violator of these rights through history has been governments usually married to some church. The common justification for their atrocities: the collectivist-altruist code.
If man does not have an absolute right to his life, than he can be sacrificed by the collective will of other men. Every genocide in history was carried out by some government, usually with the backing of some church. The collectivist-altruist code is the “justification” used in every instance. The rights of the individual are sacrificed for the good of the community. The unequivocal protection of this inherent, individual right is an absolute good. Any movement in the other direction is movement towards absolute evil. Everybody talks about 6 million dead Jews. Nobody recalls the name of the first to be killed. Evil need not be multiplied by 6 million in order for it to be evil. If only 3 million had been murdered, would it have been less evil? How about 600? How about just you or your daughter?
A bird is free to use its wings to fly away from danger to preserve its existence. A lion is free to use its fangs and claws to tear the flesh of its prey so that it can survive. Human beings do not have wings, fangs, or claws. The key to a human being’s survival is his brain. If man is responsible for his own existence, a man must be at liberty to use his brain to preserve his own existence. Any institution that restricts man from the rational use of his brain for his own preservation is anti-man and evil. [Harming others, stealing, etc. are irrational, that’s why we call these behaviors “crimes.” Nobody is free to harm others even if he is trying to preserve his own existence.] Nobody has the right to control the thinking of any other man. Men, of course, are free to try to persuade one another. Again, through history no institution has been a bigger violator of man’s liberty than government usually married to some church.
Because man is responsible for his own existence, man must be free to produce the necessities of life. He must either produce food or trade with somebody who has. If you plant the crops, care for them, and finally harvest them, you own whatever your labor yields. The product of your labor is your property. Nobody can rationally make any claim to that which was produced by you. When we pay tribute to our government, we are paying a fee for services rendered [police protection, for example.] The redistribution of wealth IS NOT a government service. It is extortion. It is government forcing individuals to hand over the fruits of their labor. Why? So that it can be given to other people who did not produce it. Slavery is an absolute evil. Enslaved humans were forced to hand over 100% of their property, the product of their labor. In communist China, the Chinese were forced to hand over 100% of the property. Communism is pure evil. I guess by your standard socialism is less evil because people in Europe the few producers left are only 50-75% slave. Here in the United States the productive 60% of the population [the people who actually pay taxes] are only 30% slave.
Movement in the direction you promote is movement in the direction of pure evil.
Movement toward the absolute and unequivocal liberty of rational individuals is THE ABSOLUTE GOOD you fail to realize. You think so little of mankind. You think mankind is evil. You think that this IDEAL is unreachable, that government can create all things for all men BY FORCE. You are the advocate of force even as you rail against war! You are the cynic who restricts man’s freedoms and then damns freedom when the statist economy you created fails.
Donn
When someone uses a stereotypical picture to present their case, expect to be stereotyped. There IS evil, and there's NOT so evil, and there’s ok, and there’s pretty good and there’s better and there’s even great and fantastic. I won’t join you in your black and white interpretation of the world. You and GW and you’re "either with us or agin us" has to go because there ARE people with us, some sort of with us, some somewhere in the middle and some sort of against us and some totally against us. THAT’S what diplomacy is for: to move those countries polarized against us and bring them back, slowly to the fold. Consider the concept of the "lethal hug" ... THAT’S what Obama is espousing and it works far more often than invasion and occupation.
Marx
Marx,
Christ! I AM NOT A SUPPORTER OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!! I’m not a Republican.
Terrific! You acknowledge that there is evil in this world. Let’s say you have acknowledged the existence of WHITE. I’m not sure, but I think when you say “fantastic” you mean “good.” You acknowledge that there is good in the world. You have acknowledged the existence of BLACK.
So, you live in a world where there is good and there is evil; there is truth and there is falsehood; there is black and there is white.
Now, I have never said that the various shades of gray do not exist. Of course they exist. My point is simply that if you know what the good is, any movement in the other direction is movement towards evil. For example: There is truth. Anything less than the truth is a lie. There are little lies, bigger lies, huge lies, dangerous lies, evil lies.
Consider the following: All men have inherent rights. Among them are life, liberty and property [property means: the wealth created by your productive work]. These rights are not granted to men by their government. These rights are inherent. All men have them because all men are rational, thinking beings, responsible for their own existence. The greatest violator of these rights through history has been governments usually married to some church. The common justification for their atrocities: the collectivist-altruist code.
If man does not have an absolute right to his life, than he can be sacrificed by the collective will of other men. Every genocide in history was carried out by some government, usually with the backing of some church. The collectivist-altruist code is the “justification” used in every instance. The rights of the individual are sacrificed for the good of the community. The unequivocal protection of this inherent, individual right is an absolute good. Any movement in the other direction is movement towards absolute evil. Everybody talks about 6 million dead Jews. Nobody recalls the name of the first to be killed. Evil need not be multiplied by 6 million in order for it to be evil. If only 3 million had been murdered, would it have been less evil? How about 600? How about just you or your daughter?
A bird is free to use its wings to fly away from danger to preserve its existence. A lion is free to use its fangs and claws to tear the flesh of its prey so that it can survive. Human beings do not have wings, fangs, or claws. The key to a human being’s survival is his brain. If man is responsible for his own existence, a man must be at liberty to use his brain to preserve his own existence. Any institution that restricts man from the rational use of his brain for his own preservation is anti-man and evil. [Harming others, stealing, etc. are irrational, that’s why we call these behaviors “crimes.” Nobody is free to harm others even if he is trying to preserve his own existence.] Nobody has the right to control the thinking of any other man. Men, of course, are free to try to persuade one another. Again, through history no institution has been a bigger violator of man’s liberty than government usually married to some church.
Because man is responsible for his own existence, man must be free to produce the necessities of life. He must either produce food or trade with somebody who has. If you plant the crops, care for them, and finally harvest them, you own whatever your labor yields. The product of your labor is your property. Nobody can rationally make any claim to that which was produced by you. When we pay tribute to our government, we are paying a fee for services rendered [police protection, for example.] The redistribution of wealth IS NOT a government service. It is extortion. It is government forcing individuals to hand over the fruits of their labor. Why? So that it can be given to other people who did not produce it. Slavery is an absolute evil. Enslaved humans were forced to hand over 100% of their property, the product of their labor. In communist China, the Chinese were forced to hand over 100% of the property. Communism is pure evil. I guess by your standard socialism is less evil because people in Europe the few producers left are only 50-75% slave. Here in the United States the productive 60% of the population [the people who actually pay taxes] are only 30% slave.
Movement in the direction you promote is movement in the direction of pure evil.
Movement toward the absolute and unequivocal liberty of rational individuals is THE ABSOLUTE GOOD you fail to realize. You think so little of mankind. You think mankind is evil. You think that this IDEAL is unreachable, that government can create all things for all men BY FORCE. You are the advocate of force even as you rail against war! You are the cynic who restricts man’s freedoms and then damns freedom when the statist economy you created fails.
Donn
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 18]
Marx wrote: What I can tell you is this, you want me to prove ANY point? Anything, I can find it. If I can’t find it, I can create it in Photoshop and lift a couple official looking seals and logos and post it on the internet and I guarantee I'll find a group of people that will completely believe it. Finally, I believe that ANY time you venture into fanaticism or extremes you’re dooming this country. We were created with Checks and Balances for a reason; we were created with forums for a reason. I believe our founding fathers wanted this country to be diverse and accepting. I believe our Congress and Senate is FAR too centrist. We need RAGING Liberals in Congress battling it out with hard core Right Wingers, ONLY that way can we arrive at a true consensus. Like I quote I once read said "a bird needs both its right wing and its left wing to fly straight". Our current politicians are one thing and one thing only, corporatists. By the way, the Chinese are extremely proud of their deliberative body, as they said to me, there is FAR more diversity in ours than in yours. They said we have hard, hard right left wingers going toe to toe with hard right wingers every day.
Marx,
Your views [once again] suffer from the belief in a commonly held misconception about the Framers and the constitution they created: that the Framers compromised their values in order to achieve consensus, that the Constitution of the US is the result of your "pastiche" principal. Politicians in Washington also believe that oil and water can be mixed to produce a palatable colloid. This is not at all what the Framers did.
The Framers NEVER compromised a core value: they compromised on particulars. For example: That we have a republican form of government was never debated; how to elect a president was. That we have a separation of powers, and especially an independent judiciary, was never debated; how best to ensure an independent judiciary through various checks and balances was. That we have a federal system was decided on day one; decisions about federal and state power are still being debated today. That our Constitution is amendable was never debated; how to amend the Constitution was. That government is dangerous was never debated; whether or not a national Bill of Rights was a necessary addition to the Constitution was.
Capitalism is a core value. Unfortunately, a couple of loop-holes in the Constitution [namely, the Commerce Clause and the Elastic Clause] enabled politicians over time to compromise this value. From Hamilton’s National Bank, to Lincoln infrastructure projects, to TR’s trust-busting, to the 16th Amendment, to FDR’s and LBJ’s socialism this country has been on a steady course to self-destruction by undermining justice in the economy. Property rights were a core value dating back to John Locke’s 17th Century treatise, if not “thou shalt not steal.”
A perfectly just system is not improved by compromising with evil and incorporating some injustice into the system.
Donn
Donn,
You are FAR too ingrained with a belief to see the fallacy in what you say. You now label things you do NOT believe in as "evil" and the things you DO believe in as "good"...THAT’S a problem, there are way too many grey areas out there to try and divide everything into good and evil categories. The way you DO it, a lot of people with good ideas will go by the wayside.
Marx
Marx,
No Marx. Evil exists. Your failure to acknowledge it, to identify it, to fight it will be your undoing. How does one compromise with an armed thug who has sworn to kill you because you drew a picture of Mohammad?
Donn
Donn,
You don’t but, what about all the wonderful, law abiding decent Muslims? Funny, ALL the Muslims I have met have been wonderful, decent people. By YOUR rubric, people that believe in Mohammed are evil. Sorry, I won’t join you there.
Marx
Marx,
Subgunaditch! How did you come to that conclusion? I gave one goddamned example of evil. Here are others:
>Any institution that denies a human being the right to think for himself.
>Any institution that forbids human beings the right to speak their minds.
>Any institution that forces a man to work for the benefit of others...charity must always be a private matter and a choice.
>Cruelty, torture
>Sloth
>ETC.
Donn
Marx,
Your views [once again] suffer from the belief in a commonly held misconception about the Framers and the constitution they created: that the Framers compromised their values in order to achieve consensus, that the Constitution of the US is the result of your "pastiche" principal. Politicians in Washington also believe that oil and water can be mixed to produce a palatable colloid. This is not at all what the Framers did.
The Framers NEVER compromised a core value: they compromised on particulars. For example: That we have a republican form of government was never debated; how to elect a president was. That we have a separation of powers, and especially an independent judiciary, was never debated; how best to ensure an independent judiciary through various checks and balances was. That we have a federal system was decided on day one; decisions about federal and state power are still being debated today. That our Constitution is amendable was never debated; how to amend the Constitution was. That government is dangerous was never debated; whether or not a national Bill of Rights was a necessary addition to the Constitution was.
Capitalism is a core value. Unfortunately, a couple of loop-holes in the Constitution [namely, the Commerce Clause and the Elastic Clause] enabled politicians over time to compromise this value. From Hamilton’s National Bank, to Lincoln infrastructure projects, to TR’s trust-busting, to the 16th Amendment, to FDR’s and LBJ’s socialism this country has been on a steady course to self-destruction by undermining justice in the economy. Property rights were a core value dating back to John Locke’s 17th Century treatise, if not “thou shalt not steal.”
A perfectly just system is not improved by compromising with evil and incorporating some injustice into the system.
Donn
Donn,
You are FAR too ingrained with a belief to see the fallacy in what you say. You now label things you do NOT believe in as "evil" and the things you DO believe in as "good"...THAT’S a problem, there are way too many grey areas out there to try and divide everything into good and evil categories. The way you DO it, a lot of people with good ideas will go by the wayside.
Marx
Marx,
No Marx. Evil exists. Your failure to acknowledge it, to identify it, to fight it will be your undoing. How does one compromise with an armed thug who has sworn to kill you because you drew a picture of Mohammad?
Donn
Donn,
You don’t but, what about all the wonderful, law abiding decent Muslims? Funny, ALL the Muslims I have met have been wonderful, decent people. By YOUR rubric, people that believe in Mohammed are evil. Sorry, I won’t join you there.
Marx
Marx,
Subgunaditch! How did you come to that conclusion? I gave one goddamned example of evil. Here are others:
>Any institution that denies a human being the right to think for himself.
>Any institution that forbids human beings the right to speak their minds.
>Any institution that forces a man to work for the benefit of others...charity must always be a private matter and a choice.
>Cruelty, torture
>Sloth
>ETC.
Donn
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 17]
Marx wrote: Anyone can find anything to support the views that they have, some of it may very well be true but there is NO way to tell what is and what isn’t true.
Marx,
As a man, I seek the truth. If you are ill, for example, nothing short of the correct diagnosis, the truth about the cause of your illness, will enable medical science to develop a remedy for your condition. Guessing will not do. Wishing your illness away will similarly do nothing to alleviate your symptoms. Granted, a positive attitude may postpone the inevitable for some time [We’re only beginning to understand the healing powers of our own minds.], but without treatment, without eradicating the growing cancer, you will eventually succumb to your illness. People have been praying for thousands of years, and for thousands of years life expectancy for humans was forty-something. True medical science is only about a hundred years old. Since its birth, right here in the West, humans live twice as long. Have we discovered a truth here? Will you continue to credit your prayers for health and healing that science created? Probably. But know this: you are not being truthful.
Truth is not determined by majority vote. Truth is that which exists in reality. All of your holy books were written millennia-ago by people who thought they lived on a flat plane. None knew even the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. Up until about 500 years ago, had there been a poll, 99% would have checked the “flat-Earth” box. The vast majority of Earthlings didn’t know their Earth is a relatively puny globe floating through space, orbiting its sun with clockwork regularity. Had the majority voted and the poll results been published, the vast majority of people would have been comforted by the results. Their wrong-thinking would have been “confirmed” truth. “I must be right! Ninety-nine percent of my neighbors agree.” Did the fact that nearly everybody agreed the Earth is flat alter the reality, change the truth? No. Of course not. The Earth remained, stubbornly, an orb.
The truth is identifiable. It is definable. If the majority fails to see the truth, the truth remains, still, unaltered. The converse is also true: Something that you consider “true” must be identifiable, definable. People of faith through time and across the globe have prided themselves on their willingness to leap into the abyss of the unknowable and declare that they have found the truth. As it turns out, what they declare to be the truth is whatever they want it to be, the laws of nature be damned! If you are hungry, bread falls from the sky. If you want to live forever, believing in this man can deny nature the right to exercise on you every living thing’s inevitable, death. If you sacrifice your life for Allah, and take a number of the infidels with you, you will be rewarded with seventy virgins for some indefinable eternity. If you’re fortunate enough to be born with lots of good karma, you might be lucky enough to be re-born a sacred cow in your next life. All of the examples above have at least one thing in common: none of these beliefs is knowable.
Truth is knowable. It stands firm, unchanging, uncompromising. Man can know truth and falsehood—like good and evil, like black and white. If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data.
People of faith are actually comforted by the fact that no one can prove their irrational beliefs certifiably false. Their comfort is the result of an integrity deficiency, their absolute refusal to acknowledge: A proof requires data. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. Even Carl Sagan threw people of faith a bone when he wrote famously “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Before you break into a “halleluiah” verse, read Sagan’s maxim again. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in a world governed by natural law, i.e. the world Sagan spent his life trying to explain. In the natural world, however far away the subject of our query, however microscopic, however difficult the problem, there is data. As long as the possibility of data exists, there is an existent worthy of our attention, there may be something to learn, and rational men can debate the possibilities. If data exists then proof is possible. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. God theories and life-after-death stories offer nothing worthy of our attention, nothing rational men can debate. [This is why people of faith have been killing each other for centuries... they have nothing to debate, no data with which to persuade honest men. Like the playground bully they have only one tool with which to convert their more thoughtful peers who wish to live: that is, FORCE.]
Our failure presently to solve a problem does not alter the solution. The solution—the truth—is there for us to discover. In other words, whether we know the facts of reality or not, the facts of reality do in fact exist.
Given the fact that humanity faces so many real problems, real threats to our existence—from disease to global warming, from despotic governments to crime to hunger—I think it is immoral that so many of us spend so many hours and so much wealth and brain matter propagating falsehood, dreaming about eternity in paradise. Earth is paradise. Eternity [for a 21st Century American] is about a hundred years with proper diet and exercise.
Donn
Donn,
That’s nice, but incorrect. I can find data to support ANY position I have and if I cant find it? I can manipulate it to say whatever I want it to say and, being as YOU, personally are taking someone’s word that THEY did this research because NO one has the time in their lives to research everything...you can NEVER know what’s true and what isn’t. Finally, your reference to the medical industry? Let me tell you what my Chinese physician said "American Doctors, diagnose and manage health problems with an eye on getting you on some prescription medication and NOT on a cure"...fact is, the AMA themselves have said Americans are "overmedicated". There you, go, where's the truth in that?
Marx
Marx,
Are you suggesting that using your “manipulated data” you can reason a truth, alter reality?
Existence exists. Your failure to acknowledge reality will not change it.
Donn
Donn,
No, you can NOT impose YOUR truths on everyone, no matter how hard you try
Marx
Marx,
Truth exists.
Donn
Marx,
As a man, I seek the truth. If you are ill, for example, nothing short of the correct diagnosis, the truth about the cause of your illness, will enable medical science to develop a remedy for your condition. Guessing will not do. Wishing your illness away will similarly do nothing to alleviate your symptoms. Granted, a positive attitude may postpone the inevitable for some time [We’re only beginning to understand the healing powers of our own minds.], but without treatment, without eradicating the growing cancer, you will eventually succumb to your illness. People have been praying for thousands of years, and for thousands of years life expectancy for humans was forty-something. True medical science is only about a hundred years old. Since its birth, right here in the West, humans live twice as long. Have we discovered a truth here? Will you continue to credit your prayers for health and healing that science created? Probably. But know this: you are not being truthful.
Truth is not determined by majority vote. Truth is that which exists in reality. All of your holy books were written millennia-ago by people who thought they lived on a flat plane. None knew even the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. Up until about 500 years ago, had there been a poll, 99% would have checked the “flat-Earth” box. The vast majority of Earthlings didn’t know their Earth is a relatively puny globe floating through space, orbiting its sun with clockwork regularity. Had the majority voted and the poll results been published, the vast majority of people would have been comforted by the results. Their wrong-thinking would have been “confirmed” truth. “I must be right! Ninety-nine percent of my neighbors agree.” Did the fact that nearly everybody agreed the Earth is flat alter the reality, change the truth? No. Of course not. The Earth remained, stubbornly, an orb.
The truth is identifiable. It is definable. If the majority fails to see the truth, the truth remains, still, unaltered. The converse is also true: Something that you consider “true” must be identifiable, definable. People of faith through time and across the globe have prided themselves on their willingness to leap into the abyss of the unknowable and declare that they have found the truth. As it turns out, what they declare to be the truth is whatever they want it to be, the laws of nature be damned! If you are hungry, bread falls from the sky. If you want to live forever, believing in this man can deny nature the right to exercise on you every living thing’s inevitable, death. If you sacrifice your life for Allah, and take a number of the infidels with you, you will be rewarded with seventy virgins for some indefinable eternity. If you’re fortunate enough to be born with lots of good karma, you might be lucky enough to be re-born a sacred cow in your next life. All of the examples above have at least one thing in common: none of these beliefs is knowable.
Truth is knowable. It stands firm, unchanging, uncompromising. Man can know truth and falsehood—like good and evil, like black and white. If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data.
People of faith are actually comforted by the fact that no one can prove their irrational beliefs certifiably false. Their comfort is the result of an integrity deficiency, their absolute refusal to acknowledge: A proof requires data. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. Even Carl Sagan threw people of faith a bone when he wrote famously “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Before you break into a “halleluiah” verse, read Sagan’s maxim again. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in a world governed by natural law, i.e. the world Sagan spent his life trying to explain. In the natural world, however far away the subject of our query, however microscopic, however difficult the problem, there is data. As long as the possibility of data exists, there is an existent worthy of our attention, there may be something to learn, and rational men can debate the possibilities. If data exists then proof is possible. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. God theories and life-after-death stories offer nothing worthy of our attention, nothing rational men can debate. [This is why people of faith have been killing each other for centuries... they have nothing to debate, no data with which to persuade honest men. Like the playground bully they have only one tool with which to convert their more thoughtful peers who wish to live: that is, FORCE.]
Our failure presently to solve a problem does not alter the solution. The solution—the truth—is there for us to discover. In other words, whether we know the facts of reality or not, the facts of reality do in fact exist.
Given the fact that humanity faces so many real problems, real threats to our existence—from disease to global warming, from despotic governments to crime to hunger—I think it is immoral that so many of us spend so many hours and so much wealth and brain matter propagating falsehood, dreaming about eternity in paradise. Earth is paradise. Eternity [for a 21st Century American] is about a hundred years with proper diet and exercise.
Donn
Donn,
That’s nice, but incorrect. I can find data to support ANY position I have and if I cant find it? I can manipulate it to say whatever I want it to say and, being as YOU, personally are taking someone’s word that THEY did this research because NO one has the time in their lives to research everything...you can NEVER know what’s true and what isn’t. Finally, your reference to the medical industry? Let me tell you what my Chinese physician said "American Doctors, diagnose and manage health problems with an eye on getting you on some prescription medication and NOT on a cure"...fact is, the AMA themselves have said Americans are "overmedicated". There you, go, where's the truth in that?
Marx
Marx,
Are you suggesting that using your “manipulated data” you can reason a truth, alter reality?
Existence exists. Your failure to acknowledge reality will not change it.
Donn
Donn,
No, you can NOT impose YOUR truths on everyone, no matter how hard you try
Marx
Marx,
Truth exists.
Donn
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 16]
Fine. You asked for this, Marx.
So, you have heard me when I say that I am not a Republican, and you are wondering why I seem to be defending them. The answer is simple: We’re discussing an economic issue. If we were discussing a social issue—abortion, gay marriage, the posting of the Ten Commandments on the school or courthouse wall, embryonic stem cell research, the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, etc—I would be defending the Democrat position. On virtually every social issue [except gun control] I stand squarely on the side of the Democrats.
The reason you think I am defending the Republicans is because we are discussing an economic issue, and while the Republicans have sold out capitalism and are nearly as interventionist as Democrats, Republicans are not [yet] socialists. That’s the crucial difference: Democrats are European-style socialists...have been since FDR.
You Yellow Dog Democrats like to call the Republicans fascists because of their wrong-headed positions on social issues, and I agree with you. What about economic fascism? Why is there no freedom in your world where a person’s productivity is concerned? You know every true fascist regime in history was [and is] socialist...see Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, Chavez’s Venezuela...all socialist states.
When you call the USA Patriot Act and NSPD 51 fascist, I wonder where you’re getting your news. Whenever I have a question about legislation and/or an executive order, I go to the same place members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court go. I go to the Library of Congress and read a bi-partisan description of the legislation in question from the Congressional Research Services before I go to any media.
Congressional Research Services: Summary of NSPD 51
“On May 9, 2007, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which is also identified as Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20, on National Continuity Policy. The directive updates longstanding continuity directives designed to assure that governing entities are able to recover from a wide range of potential operational interruptions. Executive branch efforts to assure essential operations are similar to those that are broadly integrated into many private sector industries. Government continuity planning also incorporates efforts to maintain and preserve constitutional government, based on the assumption that certain essential activities typically provided by government must be carried out with little or no interruption under all circumstances.”
National Continuity Policy has been on the books for a long time. Abe Lincoln, for example, declared marshal law and suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War crisis; FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps with an executive order during WWII. NSPD 51 becomes effective ONLY in a national emergency, i.e. New York or Washington DC are leveled in a nuclear attack. It’s there so that our country doesn’t unravel into chaos during a national emergency. You better be glad it’s there. Take the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina and multiply it by about 85,000 localities nation-wide and you may get the picture. Trust me, if Obama becomes president, NSPD 51 doesn’t change.
You can research the USA Patriot Act yourself, but the story is much the same. Nearly every provision outlined in the USA Patriot Act was already in the books. The purpose of the act was to organize and consolidate US counter-terrorism efforts, to make sure everybody in law enforcement and intelligence was on the same page. The USA Patriot Act was bi-partisan, and the most controversial amendment to the law [the one you reference above when you’re damning Bush for listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails “without a warrant,” was passed three months ago by a Democratic Congress! Why did they pass it? Let’s take a look at what FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually says:
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law: "On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program."
Putting aside for now the fact that the Obama Administration will have the same power, if you go to CRS, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
"Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA."
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
Donn
So, you have heard me when I say that I am not a Republican, and you are wondering why I seem to be defending them. The answer is simple: We’re discussing an economic issue. If we were discussing a social issue—abortion, gay marriage, the posting of the Ten Commandments on the school or courthouse wall, embryonic stem cell research, the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, etc—I would be defending the Democrat position. On virtually every social issue [except gun control] I stand squarely on the side of the Democrats.
The reason you think I am defending the Republicans is because we are discussing an economic issue, and while the Republicans have sold out capitalism and are nearly as interventionist as Democrats, Republicans are not [yet] socialists. That’s the crucial difference: Democrats are European-style socialists...have been since FDR.
You Yellow Dog Democrats like to call the Republicans fascists because of their wrong-headed positions on social issues, and I agree with you. What about economic fascism? Why is there no freedom in your world where a person’s productivity is concerned? You know every true fascist regime in history was [and is] socialist...see Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, Chavez’s Venezuela...all socialist states.
When you call the USA Patriot Act and NSPD 51 fascist, I wonder where you’re getting your news. Whenever I have a question about legislation and/or an executive order, I go to the same place members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court go. I go to the Library of Congress and read a bi-partisan description of the legislation in question from the Congressional Research Services before I go to any media.
Congressional Research Services: Summary of NSPD 51
“On May 9, 2007, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which is also identified as Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20, on National Continuity Policy. The directive updates longstanding continuity directives designed to assure that governing entities are able to recover from a wide range of potential operational interruptions. Executive branch efforts to assure essential operations are similar to those that are broadly integrated into many private sector industries. Government continuity planning also incorporates efforts to maintain and preserve constitutional government, based on the assumption that certain essential activities typically provided by government must be carried out with little or no interruption under all circumstances.”
National Continuity Policy has been on the books for a long time. Abe Lincoln, for example, declared marshal law and suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War crisis; FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps with an executive order during WWII. NSPD 51 becomes effective ONLY in a national emergency, i.e. New York or Washington DC are leveled in a nuclear attack. It’s there so that our country doesn’t unravel into chaos during a national emergency. You better be glad it’s there. Take the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina and multiply it by about 85,000 localities nation-wide and you may get the picture. Trust me, if Obama becomes president, NSPD 51 doesn’t change.
You can research the USA Patriot Act yourself, but the story is much the same. Nearly every provision outlined in the USA Patriot Act was already in the books. The purpose of the act was to organize and consolidate US counter-terrorism efforts, to make sure everybody in law enforcement and intelligence was on the same page. The USA Patriot Act was bi-partisan, and the most controversial amendment to the law [the one you reference above when you’re damning Bush for listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails “without a warrant,” was passed three months ago by a Democratic Congress! Why did they pass it? Let’s take a look at what FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually says:
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law: "On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program."
Putting aside for now the fact that the Obama Administration will have the same power, if you go to CRS, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
"Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA."
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
Donn
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 15]
Marx wrote [regarding the charitable giving of Bill Gates]: “Mr. Gates isn’t doing any of THAT "giving", that’s his wife driving the charity, there was a Rolling Stone interview with the two of them a couple months ago and HE said he wouldn’t do it if his wife wasn’t the driving force.”
Marx,
Strange. Really strange. I thought people like you really appreciate humble people, people who credit others for their own achievements. Do you know the U.S. Congress actually declared some day [I don’t remember which day] a National Day of Humiliation! Christ! Right here in the United States...a national day of g-damn humiliation. The altruists love to see all of the little humans on their knees...all weak and desperate, helpless and needy. How the leftists hate the arrogant President Bush. Make up your mind! Do you want people to humbly give all the credit to their brother-men [or their wife] or do you want them to tell the truth and say “I’m a heck of a good guy?”
What you just read is actually my argument #2. My first argument would be: Bill Gates’ fortune is the moral result of his creative undertakings. He earned his fortune by his own effort. He deserves every penny of it, and as I have already said, we could never pay him enough for what he accomplished. Think of the trillions of dollars other people have made using his software. By rights, we should all be paying him a percentage! If Bill Gates did not give one dime of his money away he would be no less moral. Giving it all away wouldn’t make him more moral, either. Whether or not a person is living a moral life has nothing to do with how they spend their money...everything to do with how they acquire it. Gates’ wealth is the product of his genius. He can do with it whatever he wants.
Donn
[For some reason Marx decided to completely change the subject.]
Donn,
I understand that you say you’re not a Republican and I understand you keep saying you’re a laissez faire capitalist but you keep defending them and, at the same time, keep saying you’re not one of them. Reagan did a lot of damage. We survived even though we were well on our way to bankruptcy. Thank god Clinton managed to turn it around and, strangely, he did it by raising taxes on the top 1%. The Supply-Siders ALL screamed the economy would crash and burn and, surprise, it not only DIDN’T do that, it was one of the most profitable times in our history. Our economy reacts well to us paying off our bills. He streamlined the military and actually reduced the size of the Federal Government while reforming Welfare from a "way of life" to a "safety net." He did what all conservatives swear up and down they WANT to do but they couldn’t wait to tear him down. You SAY you’re a fiscal conservative but then why don’t you just adore Clinton?
We SOOOOOOOO overacted to 9-11. We let GW force the Patriot Act on us and that’s practically a fascist bill. It strips so many of our rights away. The man can listen to my phone calls, read my emails, sneak peaks into my home and search my stuff without a search warrant. What about Presidential Directive #51? Does it bother you that Bush gave the presidency the power to suspend elections and seize dictatorial powers? Do you realize that I actually held my breath when McCain said he was "suspending his campaign"? He started the department of Homeland Security, the biggest growth of our federal Government since FDR. The shocking thing is, I STILL hear Republicans calling Dems proponents of big government when they’ve grown it bigger than anyone I’ve seen in my lifetime. Its not about the size of government, it’s about the efficiency. Look how efficient FEMA worked under Clinton and what a disaster it was under GW. Reps complain at how inefficient government is and then work their best to make it so. I'd rather have Clinton and his mistresses then Bush screwing all of us.
Basically, I’ve said it before and I'll say it again. In order for our country to compete in today’s world, we need to take anything that works from any ideology. I COMPLETELY disagree with the Neocon concept of the "Unitary Executive." That’s for EITHER side. No one seems to realize what the terrorists REALLY want. THEY are winning. They wanted to financially BREAK this country, the way they BROKE the USSR in Afghanistan. Take a look around you, they’re winning. They were HOPING and praying we'd invade Afghanistan or Iraq and break our financial back and end our world financial domination. They NEVER thought they could invade and capture the US of A. They NEVER thought they could come here and do more than the occasional act of terrorism. They wanted us to react JUST the way we acted. INVADE, WAR, WAR, WAR!!!! They whole "Patriot Act" thing was never what they wanted, that was all Republican propaganda, telling people they were afraid of our freedoms and then, proceed to STRIP us of our freedoms .. it was SOOOO 1984, war is peace, peace is war, white is black, black is white. Mind you, they LOVED that we subjected Americans to this indignity but THAT was never in their plans. They got what they wanted, they got us involved in a war we couldn’t afford with a nebulous enemy we could never see. The truth is, or MY truth is, Clinton was ALWAYS 100% correct, terrorism is a Law Enforcement issue. Worldwide, the CORRECT answer was to work with Interpol and give them more power to find those murderous criminals because, they’re NOT just in Afghanistan or Iraq, they’re EVERYWHERE!!!
Marx
Marx,
Strange. Really strange. I thought people like you really appreciate humble people, people who credit others for their own achievements. Do you know the U.S. Congress actually declared some day [I don’t remember which day] a National Day of Humiliation! Christ! Right here in the United States...a national day of g-damn humiliation. The altruists love to see all of the little humans on their knees...all weak and desperate, helpless and needy. How the leftists hate the arrogant President Bush. Make up your mind! Do you want people to humbly give all the credit to their brother-men [or their wife] or do you want them to tell the truth and say “I’m a heck of a good guy?”
What you just read is actually my argument #2. My first argument would be: Bill Gates’ fortune is the moral result of his creative undertakings. He earned his fortune by his own effort. He deserves every penny of it, and as I have already said, we could never pay him enough for what he accomplished. Think of the trillions of dollars other people have made using his software. By rights, we should all be paying him a percentage! If Bill Gates did not give one dime of his money away he would be no less moral. Giving it all away wouldn’t make him more moral, either. Whether or not a person is living a moral life has nothing to do with how they spend their money...everything to do with how they acquire it. Gates’ wealth is the product of his genius. He can do with it whatever he wants.
Donn
[For some reason Marx decided to completely change the subject.]
Donn,
I understand that you say you’re not a Republican and I understand you keep saying you’re a laissez faire capitalist but you keep defending them and, at the same time, keep saying you’re not one of them. Reagan did a lot of damage. We survived even though we were well on our way to bankruptcy. Thank god Clinton managed to turn it around and, strangely, he did it by raising taxes on the top 1%. The Supply-Siders ALL screamed the economy would crash and burn and, surprise, it not only DIDN’T do that, it was one of the most profitable times in our history. Our economy reacts well to us paying off our bills. He streamlined the military and actually reduced the size of the Federal Government while reforming Welfare from a "way of life" to a "safety net." He did what all conservatives swear up and down they WANT to do but they couldn’t wait to tear him down. You SAY you’re a fiscal conservative but then why don’t you just adore Clinton?
We SOOOOOOOO overacted to 9-11. We let GW force the Patriot Act on us and that’s practically a fascist bill. It strips so many of our rights away. The man can listen to my phone calls, read my emails, sneak peaks into my home and search my stuff without a search warrant. What about Presidential Directive #51? Does it bother you that Bush gave the presidency the power to suspend elections and seize dictatorial powers? Do you realize that I actually held my breath when McCain said he was "suspending his campaign"? He started the department of Homeland Security, the biggest growth of our federal Government since FDR. The shocking thing is, I STILL hear Republicans calling Dems proponents of big government when they’ve grown it bigger than anyone I’ve seen in my lifetime. Its not about the size of government, it’s about the efficiency. Look how efficient FEMA worked under Clinton and what a disaster it was under GW. Reps complain at how inefficient government is and then work their best to make it so. I'd rather have Clinton and his mistresses then Bush screwing all of us.
Basically, I’ve said it before and I'll say it again. In order for our country to compete in today’s world, we need to take anything that works from any ideology. I COMPLETELY disagree with the Neocon concept of the "Unitary Executive." That’s for EITHER side. No one seems to realize what the terrorists REALLY want. THEY are winning. They wanted to financially BREAK this country, the way they BROKE the USSR in Afghanistan. Take a look around you, they’re winning. They were HOPING and praying we'd invade Afghanistan or Iraq and break our financial back and end our world financial domination. They NEVER thought they could invade and capture the US of A. They NEVER thought they could come here and do more than the occasional act of terrorism. They wanted us to react JUST the way we acted. INVADE, WAR, WAR, WAR!!!! They whole "Patriot Act" thing was never what they wanted, that was all Republican propaganda, telling people they were afraid of our freedoms and then, proceed to STRIP us of our freedoms .. it was SOOOO 1984, war is peace, peace is war, white is black, black is white. Mind you, they LOVED that we subjected Americans to this indignity but THAT was never in their plans. They got what they wanted, they got us involved in a war we couldn’t afford with a nebulous enemy we could never see. The truth is, or MY truth is, Clinton was ALWAYS 100% correct, terrorism is a Law Enforcement issue. Worldwide, the CORRECT answer was to work with Interpol and give them more power to find those murderous criminals because, they’re NOT just in Afghanistan or Iraq, they’re EVERYWHERE!!!
Marx
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