Ayn Rand on Immigration

[Brant Gaede]

You're too stupid and hard headed with the crap you put in your brain to talk to anymore.

--Brant

brianiacs frequently make themselves stupid, but ideas and psychology are all mixed in together and if you don't like such a discussion and find it intolerable, get out of Dodge

[Wolf DeVoon]

Have there been any substantial improvements by you since your book on your proposed structure(s)?

Nope. The right to petition (Art. I) can't be changed; courts have to hear cases and controversies, can't exclude anyone from due process and fundamental fairness. I borrowed the election of judges by lawyers from Benjamin Franklin (Art. II) and still think it's better than political appointments or ballot by general public. Detailed provisions (Art. III) should be amended, because it referenced Laissez Faire City, but there has to be some kind of Executive and its stakeholders represented by some kind of oversight body, so that's the easiest thing to change as circumstances warrant. Definition of the police power (Art. IV) and right to revolution (Art. V) are my intellectual legacy, along with definition of justice.

Hand on heart I have nothing else to say, except National Defense should be privatized.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Are you saying patriotism is love of your government, which might be your rulers? What do you call Snowden, a traitor, a patriot, or what?

No, patriotism can be love of area (as you suggested) or love of liberty and justice (like the Committee of Safety in Boston) or clan membership or revealed religion or any damn thing, including notions about what government should do in a particular place or time. It's the last refuge of scoundrels to wave a flag, shout my country right or wrong.

Snowden's just a guy, no different than you or me. Traitors gave Russia nuclear weapons secrets.

[Selene]

...Traitors gave Russia nuclear weapons secrets.

OMG! You mean McCarthy was correct?

The utter stupidity of the fellow travelers continues to love the Soviets even now. Plus now they are double dating with the Islamo-fascists.

Just one big dangerous family of fools.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Have there been any substantial improvements by you since your book on your proposed structure(s)?

Nope. The right to petition (Art. I) can't be changed; courts have to hear cases and controversies, can't exclude anyone from due process and fundamental fairness. I borrowed the election of judges by lawyers from Benjamin Franklin (Art. II) and still think it's better than political appointments or ballot by general public. Detailed provisions (Art. III) should be amended, because it referenced Laissez Faire City, but there has to be some kind of Executive and its stakeholders represented by some kind of oversight body, so that's the easiest thing to change as circumstances warrant. Definition of the police power (Art. IV) and right to revolution (Art. V) are my intellectual legacy, along with definition of justice.

Hand on heart I have nothing else to say, except National Defense should be privatized.

As a practical matter a country this large can't privatize national defense as the basic structure. This sounds like a discussion for another century after we get a better world.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

As a practical matter a country this large can't privatize national defense as the basic structure. This sounds like a discussion for another century after we get a better world

How do we get to a better world?

I don't see much of a problem privatizing national defense. USG is bankrupt, entitlements will continue to crowd out new military spending, and vital defense activities are important to the private sector -- defend our shores, patrol the globe, gather intel from space -- maybe more important to American employers and insurance companies than to Pentagon planners and bureaucrats, sitting on their asses to cash in cushy retirement payola without thinking too creatively.

It's a deep subject that could be discussed in another thread if you wish.

[Selene]

As a practical matter a country this large can't privatize national defense as the basic structure. This sounds like a discussion for another century after we get a better world

It's a deep subject that could be discussed in another thread if you wish.

Sign me up...for a new thread...

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Well, let's hope Michael strips it off starting with #30. Otherwise I'll start one tomorrow afternoon.

--Brant

[Selene]

Well, let's hope Michael strips it off starting with #30. Otherwise I'll start one tomorrow afternoon.

--Brant

Seconded. Move for a vote...

[syrakusos]

The meaning of liberty is to do what's best for yourself, not what's best for the neighbors.

Yes, indeed! Sometimes those interests coincide. Sometimes it is in your interest to take care of your neighbors. Sometimes this, sometimes that. Objectivism is not Absolutism, so it demands that you (I) consider context. That brings a problem: what is "context"? Rand never said, as far as I know. (Searching the Ayn Rand Lexicon for "context" returned some cogent statements within context about context, but no formal definition of how one determines context. Rand says that context is not subjective, and that context is not arbitrary. Well, OK, can you give me an example of an objective context?

In any case, I am reminded of the scene in Atlas Shrugged, in the final third, I believe, where after meeting with the other steel producers, Rearden says that he regrets that he will have to save their goddam necks along with his own.

I remember Ayn Rand making those remarks about Russia (the USSR) and even Judge Lurie getting that one question ass backwards when he repeated it. I don't remember much if anything about immigration, but it sounds right.

My impression from being exposed to her for over 50 years is that considering today's context she'd endorse immigration restriction as a matter of national defense.

Entering "judge lurie immigration" into both Google and Bing returned nothing relevant. Apparently, you are enjoying some private knowledge. You also seem to be enjoying a private relationship with a Zombie Ayn Rand. My expectation - not personal experience with her corpse - is that

(1) she can surprise you, as, for example on gun control ("not important" she said).

And (2) she would differentiate the fallacious attachment of "immigration" to questions of "national defense."

[Brant Gaede]

I was at the Ford Hall Forum. Zombie Ayn Rand my ass.

--Brant

[Selene]

The meaning of liberty is to do what's best for yourself, not what's best for the neighbors.

Yes, indeed! Sometimes those interests coincide. Sometimes it is in your interest to take care of your neighbors. Sometimes this, sometimes that. Objectivism is not Absolutism, so it demands that you (I) consider context. That brings a problem: what is "context"? Rand never said, as far as I know. (Searching the Ayn Rand Lexicon for "context" returned some cogent statements within context about context, but no formal definition of how one determines context. Rand says that context is not subjective, and that context is not arbitrary. Well, OK, can you give me an example of an objective context?

This supposedly addresses what she meant by "context."

Abstract

Living organisms exhibit various levels of self-regulation, the highest of which is man's ability to regulate the operation of his conceptual faculty. Ayn Rand's theory of free will, the basis of this article, identifies this level of self-regulation with volition. The locus of direct volitional choice is placed in the choice “to think or not to think,” where thinking is understood as rational, purposefully directed cognition. The nature of this choice is analyzed in detail, with special emphasis on Rand's concept of mental “focus.” The epistemological status of the theory is discussed, including the role of introspective evidence in its behalf. It is argued that one's volitional control over one's own thinking has the status of an axiom, and that any attempted denial of this control is self-refuting.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/074959789190019P

A...

[william.scherk]

Entering "judge lurie immigration" into both Google and Bing returned nothing relevant.

I tried '"judge lurie" open-immigration Rand -zombie -socially -retarded' and got a link to an OL posting by Robert Campbell from 2009. I won't include the link so you can look for yourself after your fit of shame passes away, and your wife helps you take off the clown makeup.

Apparently, you are enjoying some private knowledge. You also seem to be enjoying a private relationship with a Zombie Ayn Rand.

I usually try to do a long set-up when I intend to be breezily insulting. But what the hell: sometimes, Michael, you mar your own presentation with awkward asides. They don't make you appear superior, but as affecting superiority.

If you were trying to put Brant down, you just made yourself look like an Aspie on his first date. Bite the food, not the fork, treat the date humanely, and you will be fine on your next outing.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Psychology, epistemology, man's nature, interests, and ethics aside (yes, all of it) the objective context of liberty is the legal right to conduct your own affairs without seeking permission from or later becoming answerable to anyone else. Churchill quoted Kipling: "Leave to live by no man's leave underneath the law." It is the right of the individual, Churchill explained, "to invoke the law even against the State itself."

Modern examples of liberty are hard to identify, we've traveled so far into the darkness of arbitrary government, but it's still possible to choose Coke or Pepsi or bottled water or nothing to drink (to save instead of spend) at a grocery store or restaurant, to accept or refuse work, marry or remain single, speak your mind or remain silent.

[Brant Gaede]

Liberty is when you can tell the busybodies off using harsh language and they have to leave. I've done this twice recently and expect one or two more incidents. Now I'm thinking it might be nice to live two hundred miles down a four-wheel drive road except it's useful to know what the busybodies are up about and figure out why and have a convenient place to bury any bodies because of the inevitable accidents sure to occasionally occur. To avoid the trouble I'm going to set up a Zombie (thanks for the word MM) residence to attract the flies while I luxuriate in the arms of a rich woman needs a sex slave and likes to travel to exotic foreign locales.

--Brant

life is hard then you have fun

[Neil Parille]

I've read off and on about the holocuast story over the years. I think there were probably gas chambers but the 6 million figure is probably exaggerated.

[Selene]

I've read off and on about the holocuast story over the years. I think there were probably gas chambers but the 6 million figure is probably exaggerated.

By what percentage?

[Neil Parille]

Don't know.

[william.scherk]

Duly noted who enjoys a bit of Joo baiting banter, and who can let off a bit of Did Six Million Really Die hint-hintiness. Oh well, freeze peach and all.

I miss Barbara Branden.

-- I'd ask Neil Parille about his reading list, but I suspect he is fine with a one-liner ... and no more.

[Selene]

Don't know.

Neil, with your "off and on" reading, you do not have even a sense of how allegedly "over inflated" that number was?

That's rather weak.

A...

[anthony]

Who can take in and imagine those figures? It's hard for me believe too sometimes. One million people, 6, or the total of 11 million murdered in Nazi ethnic cleansing, one comes up against Crow Epistemology equally. Not to mention ones disbelief at the magnitude of that planned and prolonged obedient surrender of their simple humanity, by nearly all Germans.

This most efficient, industrial killing machine, in logistics, innovation and manpower, could well have drawn out the duration of the War, if deployed on the Allied forces alone.

Wiki:

"Of the 9 million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed. A network of about 42,500 facilities in Germany and German occupied territories were used to concentrate, confine and kill Jews and other victims".

42,500 "facilities". I didn't remotely guess that many.

OK. But who believes Wiki always? Some vast conspiracy with 'an agenda' could have finagled the numbers: the meticulous, record-keeping Nazis, the post-war Allied Command - the Zionists?

I will ask again why it should be important to anyone to - a. exaggerate the numbers b. minimize the numbers.

Who benefits and what is the purpose, in each case?

[Selene]

I will ask again why it should be important to anyone to - a. exaggerate the numbers b. minimize the numbers.

Who benefits and what is the purpose, in each case?

Tony:

This is why I get pissed off at a statement like that from Niel...I do not know anything about him, however, in my nine (9) years here...wow...it is my ninth year anniversary on OL this month, whenever he posts, he is quite meticulous.

That is why I was disoriented by his jumping on this thread with his post.

Now, I am even more surprised by his non-answer.

As an answer to your question, I would find it quite bizarre for a person to say, "What's all the fuss about, it was only 3.1 million!"

Good question though Tony.

A...

[anthony]

Adam: Neil Parille certainly seems to me a meticulous academic, which makes his comment a little odd.

Not directed at him, but there is at large a growing perception I've been aware of, that Jews have 'milked' excessive sympathy from the Holocaust - and the subject is getting boring. By chance I have just finished reading Schindler's List again, and in T. Keneally's dry, quite dispassionate, factual account of real events (in a small microcosm of the Holocaust in Poland), I was reminded that there can be no end to our memory for those who went through hell and mostly died. Jews and Israelis were adamant in saying "never again". And lo and behold--at this moment, Israel and many other Jews are under severe pressures all over again, twice in our life times .

The facts must not be forgotten, nor figures trivialized.

Thank you.

[Selene]

Tony:

We should apply the same standards to survivors of that mass murder, of who/whom [?Ellen Help], I have known very personally, as we should apply to our Vets.

I have argued with a number of Jewish ultra Communists, who hate Israel, that Stalin and Mao made Hitler look like an amateur and got insulted that I attacked two of their heroes!

The left is a mental illness...

A...

[anthony]

Tony:

We should apply the same standards to survivors of that mass murder, of who/whom [?Ellen Help], I have known very personally, as we should apply to our Vets.

I have argued with a number of Jewish ultra Communists, who hate Israel, that Stalin and Mao made Hitler look like an amateur and got insulted that I attacked two of their heroes!

The left is a mental illness...

A...

Whew, yes. The Left are the left, everywhere. You go far enough Left and it becomes a suicidal psychosis. Basically radical-left Jews revile Israel because it stands for self-determination (in our terms, rational self-interest). They would rather that Israelis sacrifice themselves, than Jews hold their lives as a non-negotiable value.