do Germany and France live under socialism today?

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, Arkadi said:

Brant--It would help if you stated precisely what view that I attribute to Rand you believe she had never expressed. But if you're not up to that, it is Ok with me, I'm all for the freedom of expression.

It's not been established whether she did or did not express a certain "view."

Why don't you simply quote her and give the reference?

--Brant

what I'm "up to" is irrelevant

[Arkadi]

Brant--Because I assume that at this forum people know their Rand well enough (as well, at any rate, as good Christians normally know their Bible), and it is boring to dig locating the citations.

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, Arkadi said:

Brant--Because I assume that at this forum people know their Rand well enough (as well, at any rate, as good Christians normally know their Bible), and it is boring to dig locating the citations.

It may be boring but should be done. You're dragging a rag doll around you're calling "Rand."

Let's say your statement about her ideas in the referenced post is correct. You are still implicitly telling the readers to go do your ("boring") job (and then rewrite your post?!). The bottom line of that is their ignoring you and what you write. But a quote is a hard core reference. Even a scholar then might take note of your evaluation and the comments on that. Granted, this is not a forum for scholars and I might be too picky, but there is nothing I'm going to do with your post as written except these non-ideological comments. I would like to do otherwise with the very little time I have available for OL.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

17 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

By being correct in the physical sense.   I deal with the physical or at least quantifiable  properties of the universe, primarily.  I have no idea what you deal with.

Living is a process of  solving problems in the engineering sense.  

You normal people are seeking something different (damned if I know what it is).  I am an Aspie   and a congenital engineer and mathematician. 

Who keeps walking off the basketball court onto the baseball field wondering where the hoops are.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

17 hours ago, anthony said:

1. I like to draw the line of making deductions from her novels...

2. Rand as philosopher paints the broadest of abstractions of the philosophy of Government and rights...

3. The science/philosophy of law and "the practice of law", follows logically

1. Very clear that Galt was cognizant of the consequences (he spoke about it plainly). Ragnar sank cargo ships and shelled coastal steel plants, Francisco destroyed copper production and harbor docks, Dagny shot a man dead, millions starved to death. No "deductions" required, which is why her body of thought was categorically rejected and reviled by everyone in America except us.

2. Rand's "abstractions" of government were borrowed from Rose Wilder Lane and Isobel Patterson -- amounted to assertion of rights, not a proof.

3. Private practice of law, adversarial justice, rules of evidence, trial by jury, probate, custody, etc do not follow logically from anything Rand said.

Not asking you or anyone else to agree with me. Merely speaking for the record.

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Who keeps walking off the basketball court onto the baseball field wondering where the hoops are.

--Brant

That is not too far from the truth   Very clever...

[Brant Gaede]

12 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

1. Very clear that Galt was cognizant of the consequences (he spoke about it plainly). Ragnar sank cargo ships and shelled coastal steel plants, Francisco destroyed copper production and harbor docks, Dagny shot a man dead, millions starved to death. No "deductions" required, which is why her body of thought was categorically rejected and reviled by everyone in America except us.

2. Rand's "abstractions" of government were borrowed from Rose Wilder Lane and Isobel Patterson -- amounted to assertion of rights, not a proof.

3. Private practice of law, adversarial justice, rules of evidence, trial by jury, probate, custody, etc do not follow logically from anything Rand said.

Not asking you or anyone else to agree with me. Merely speaking for the record.

1. In the context of the operation she was on I'd have shot the guard dead too, only without that conversation. The millions who starved to death kinda evaporated from her consciousness as from her novel. Ragnar never hurt anyone. (Mild sarcasm.) All that shelling was just to make the ships stop. (I wonder what he did to the crews. [Make them walk the plank?] His operations, BTW, seem to have been based on the German raider Atlantis of WWII.)

2. I don't know how Rose Wilder Lane influenced Rand but it's an open question how much she and Paterson influenced each other. Paterson, however, was her last teacher aside from any influence Nathaniel Branden had on her with all their discussions. As for "proof" you never prove anything in any philosophy except by trying them out. Your own proofs as with the different libertarian proofs are circular in that they start and stop in legal philosophy. Purportedly Rand references reality while pure legal philosophy references only itself creating castles in the air. 

3. That's right but only because you ignore Objectivism for your own prognostications.

______________

You have to be completely dense to bypass Atlas Shrugged as a cautionary tale. (Not saying you have.) As for that Rand was completely humanitarian. She was trying to save the world--the United States--from the consequences of collectivism. Most people who go on strike never get started in the first place and don't consciously figure these thing out. Their striking is their nothing and their nothing means you end up like Venezuela today. The great irony of her novel is that her greatest hero John Galt did nothing heroic except when the bad guys got a hold of him. And that was only sorta heroic.

Rand needs thinking--deconstruction then re-construction. You can't leave her in her novels; they are too hybrid of fact and fiction. Objectivism was an attempted remedy. It worked as such in the 1960s then it stopped when the left stopped functioning as an opposing intellectual force a la the Vietnam War protests. It stopped because its adherents were treated like intellectual serfs with the thinking left to the top, Branden and Rand. The serfs were mostly impotent therefore with nowhere to go and nothing to do except in their own productive specialized fields making money and such. The libertarians were the greatest exceptions but got chewed up by their own contradictions. To wit: legal philosophy without an overarching philosophy is in a boat at sea with itself.

--Brant

 

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

41 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

in a boat at sea with itself.

--Brant

Every time I see your name on a reply notification, I smile. It will take a long time to digest and consider what you said. Thanks.

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Every time I see your name on a reply notification, I smile. It will take a long time to digest and consider what you said. Thanks.

https://youtu.be/E84VqqCPI7w

[anthony]

18 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

1. Very clear that Galt was cognizant of the consequences (he spoke about it plainly). Ragnar sank cargo ships and shelled coastal steel plants, Francisco destroyed copper production and harbor docks, Dagny shot a man dead, millions starved to death. No "deductions" required, which is why her body of thought was categorically rejected and reviled by everyone in America except us.

 

That's providing instances of "deduction" from her novels. What can someone infer but that shooting a man is OK?  And it's quite common to get WTF?! criticisms about Roark blowing up a building - after all, Rand opposed IOF...so there. Self-contradiction! Except, before anything, these are works of fiction, romantic realism, not works of Objectivism per se. Deconstruct and reconstruct, Brant advises. There's no other path into Objectivism but work the concepts and principles for oneself out of raw experience, thinking and induction. Theory is words on paper for armchair critics, and little more until added to a life.

Which makes nonsense of "Randians"- and stuff. Rand's the mother bird who wanted to kick her chicks out of the nest to fly for themselves. (At times, reluctantly and protectively? who knows?)

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

Theory is words on paper for armchair critics

I'm very sorry. That would never have flown in conversation with Ayn Rand or any other thinker of stature in the Aristotelean tradition.

[Wolf DeVoon]

8 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

https://youtu.be/E84VqqCPI7w

Laughs. No, not funny like that. Honestly look forward to seeing your response when I post something. Still mulling over what you said, which was characteristically Brant -- deep, wide, thought provoking and deserving of serious consideration.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

I'm very sorry. That would never have flown in conversation with Ayn Rand or any other thinker of stature in the Aristotelean tradition.

And I am sorry, but this philosophy is created and structured to be used and applied, the theory put into immediate action. Use it or lose it. Do you have intimate knowledge that Rand would have disagreed? I shouldn't think so.

Else, one solely relies on O'ist principles one hasn't conceptualized and learned to justify independently, only to follow blindly.

(As for deductions from her fiction, you've nothing you'd like to debate? I've the sense that some rationalism among Objectivists is caused by over-deducing from the novels)

[Wolf DeVoon]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

As for deductions from her fiction, you've nothing you'd like to debate?

Glad to, I guess, if there's something in particular we mutually deem debatable. Off on the wrong foot if you think I follow anything blindly.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Not meant to be a debate, only exchanging views.

BRANT - I'd have shot the guard dead too, only without that conversation.

The way I understood it, Dagny walked up the the guard and spoke to him because it was the only low-profile, non-threatening, ultimately successful tactic to gain entrance.

BRANT - The millions who starved to death kinda evaporated from her consciousness as from her novel. Ragnar never hurt anyone... All that shelling was just to make the ships stop...

Ragnar shelled and destroyed Boyle's coastal Associated Steel plants, undoubtedly killing steelworkers, and undoubtedly must have killed others in blue water battles.

BRANT - I don't know how Rose Wilder Lane influenced Rand but it's an open question how much she and Paterson influenced each other. Paterson, however, was her last teacher aside from any influence Nathaniel Branden had on her with all their discussions.

Let's say that all three were influenced by Locke, for example. The point I made and still believe is that Miss Rand did not create a new theory of government.

BRANT - ... you never prove anything in any philosophy except by trying them out.

Speechless, baffled. That's unvarished pragmatism.

BRANT - Your own proofs as with the different libertarian proofs are circular in that they start and stop in legal philosophy. Purportedly Rand references reality while pure legal philosophy references only itself creating castles in the air.

The other way around. Rand linked ethics to government, a purely theoretical link and a particularly terrible idea, a castle in the air, unrelated to the reality of government then or now or any time in the future. The problem for constitutional law is how to restrain the government. I based my proposals on the documented evolution of common law and equity over centuries of real experience.

BRANT - you ignore Objectivism for your own prognostications.

With respect, I don't ignore the Objectivist canon, I disagree that it illuminates law.

BRANT - completely dense to bypass Atlas Shrugged as a cautionary tale... She was trying to save the world -- the United States -- from the consequences of collectivism.

She failed, obviously. But it's a new thought (for me) to consider the characters of Atlas as anything less than plausible, desirable examples of heroism. If memory serves, she spoke about it as the goal of her work, to project an ideal man. So I took it seriously that one should act like Roark as an artist (I tried to do that) and much brighter men should emulate Galt and Midas Mulligan, withdraw the sanction of the victim and stop the motor of the world.

BRANT - Rand needs thinking -- deconstruction then re-construction. You can't leave her in her novels; they are too hybrid of fact and fiction. Objectivism was an attempted remedy. It worked as such in the 1960s...

I disbelieve that. A few thousand enthusiasts, then a chain of disasters, Branden, Greenspan, Peikoff, Kelley, Sciabarra, Aglialoro. Every time Rand spoke she was pilloried by the establishment, particularly Republicans who defended religion and charity. Rand became an evil pastiche: "Greed is good!" (Gordon Gecko)

BRANT - [admirers] were mostly impotent therefore with nowhere to go and nothing to do except in their own productive specialized fields making money and such.

Oh. I see. Normal ordinary people are impotent, risk averse. The Objectivist enterprise was a folly without hope of changing anything?

BRANT - The libertarians were the greatest exceptions but got chewed up by their own contradictions. To wit: legal philosophy without an overarching philosophy is in a boat at sea with itself.

This is the remark that gave me real pause, and I had to consider it carefully. Above I said that the philosophy of law predates Objectivism by many hundreds of years, all of it the result of actual cases and controversies apart from legislated rules. I view it as a disaster that America chose political appointment of judges, and I endeavored to resurrect Franklin's alternative method -- that lawyers should elect one of their number, the most successful, to office, so as to divide his lucrative practice among themselves. Engineering societies do it. Doctors do it.

None of the professions "are at sea" in a hopeless muddle, unable to think or reason. Does Objectivism illuminate the practice of medicine, surgery, pharmaceutical research, or radiology? -- no. Engineering? -- no. Practice of law? -- absolutely not. Where Rand had a lasting impact is on the private lives of those who took her seriously, in any profession or none at all, that each of us has a choice to make, individual purpose or the slow incremental death of second-handing like Peter Keating. Clear as a bell philosophically, illustrated in dramatic fiction.

[BaalChatzaf]

8 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

.

BRANT - ... you never prove anything in any philosophy except by trying them out.

Speechless, baffled. That's unvarished pragmatism.

 

 

Varnished pragmatism is the best kind.  Along with mitigated empiricism.  

[moralist]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 6:04 PM, anthony said:

And I am sorry, but this philosophy is created and structured to be used and applied, the theory put into immediate action.

...and our own lives are the laboratory in which is demonstrated the empirical results of our experiments in applied philosophy.

If what we subjectively believe to be true is objectively true, the results are a happy decent meaningful productive life of health and prosperity, by earning your own freedom from the corruption of this world...

...and if what we subjectively believe to be true is objectively lies, the results are the slow emotionally painful death of an upset angry offended failure who blames others for what you alone have inflicted upon yourself.

So you see... each of us already has empirical proof in our own lives of whether what we believe is truth or lies.

Greg

...

[Brant Gaede]

On 5/14/2017 at 7:38 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Not meant to be a debate, only exchanging views.

BRANT - I'd have shot the guard dead too, only without that conversation.

The way I understood it, Dagny walked up the the guard and spoke to him because it was the only low-profile, non-threatening, ultimately successful tactic to gain entrance.

BRANT - The millions who starved to death kinda evaporated from her consciousness as from her novel. Ragnar never hurt anyone... All that shelling was just to make the ships stop...

Ragnar shelled and destroyed Boyle's coastal Associated Steel plants, undoubtedly killing steelworkers, and undoubtedly must have killed others in blue water battles.

BRANT - I don't know how Rose Wilder Lane influenced Rand but it's an open question how much she and Paterson influenced each other. Paterson, however, was her last teacher aside from any influence Nathaniel Branden had on her with all their discussions.

Let's say that all three were influenced by Locke, for example. The point I made and still believe is that Miss Rand did not create a new theory of government.

BRANT - ... you never prove anything in any philosophy except by trying them out.

Speechless, baffled. That's unvarished pragmatism.

BRANT - Your own proofs as with the different libertarian proofs are circular in that they start and stop in legal philosophy. Purportedly Rand references reality while pure legal philosophy references only itself creating castles in the air.

The other way around. Rand linked ethics to government, a purely theoretical link and a particularly terrible idea, a castle in the air, unrelated to the reality of government then or now or any time in the future. The problem for constitutional law is how to restrain the government. I based my proposals on the documented evolution of common law and equity over centuries of real experience.

BRANT - you ignore Objectivism for your own prognostications.

With respect, I don't ignore the Objectivist canon, I disagree that it illuminates law.

BRANT - completely dense to bypass Atlas Shrugged as a cautionary tale... She was trying to save the world -- the United States -- from the consequences of collectivism.

She failed, obviously. But it's a new thought (for me) to consider the characters of Atlas as anything less than plausible, desirable examples of heroism. If memory serves, she spoke about it as the goal of her work, to project an ideal man. So I took it seriously that one should act like Roark as an artist (I tried to do that) and much brighter men should emulate Galt and Midas Mulligan, withdraw the sanction of the victim and stop the motor of the world.

BRANT - Rand needs thinking -- deconstruction then re-construction. You can't leave her in her novels; they are too hybrid of fact and fiction. Objectivism was an attempted remedy. It worked as such in the 1960s...

I disbelieve that. A few thousand enthusiasts, then a chain of disasters, Branden, Greenspan, Peikoff, Kelley, Sciabarra, Aglialoro. Every time Rand spoke she was pilloried by the establishment, particularly Republicans who defended religion and charity. Rand became an evil pastiche: "Greed is good!" (Gordon Gecko)

BRANT - [admirers] were mostly impotent therefore with nowhere to go and nothing to do except in their own productive specialized fields making money and such.

Oh. I see. Normal ordinary people are impotent, risk averse. The Objectivist enterprise was a folly without hope of changing anything?

BRANT - The libertarians were the greatest exceptions but got chewed up by their own contradictions. To wit: legal philosophy without an overarching philosophy is in a boat at sea with itself.

This is the remark that gave me real pause, and I had to consider it carefully. Above I said that the philosophy of law predates Objectivism by many hundreds of years, all of it the result of actual cases and controversies apart from legislated rules. I view it as a disaster that America chose political appointment of judges, and I endeavored to resurrect Franklin's alternative method -- that lawyers should elect one of their number, the most successful, to office, so as to divide his lucrative practice among themselves. Engineering societies do it. Doctors do it.

None of the professions "are at sea" in a hopeless muddle, unable to think or reason. Does Objectivism illuminate the practice of medicine, surgery, pharmaceutical research, or radiology? -- no. Engineering? -- no. Practice of law? -- absolutely not. Where Rand had a lasting impact is on the private lives of those who took her seriously, in any profession or none at all, that each of us has a choice to make, individual purpose or the slow incremental death of second-handing like Peter Keating. Clear as a bell philosophically, illustrated in dramatic fiction.

I just found this.

I'll get to it when I have time.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

On 5/14/2017 at 7:38 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Not meant to be a debate, only exchanging views.

BRANT - I'd have shot the guard dead too, only without that conversation.

The way I understood it, Dagny walked up the the guard and spoke to him because it was the only low-profile, non-threatening, ultimately successful tactic to gain entrance.

REPLY: I WAS CONTRASTING FICTION WITH REALITY.

BRANT - The millions who starved to death kinda evaporated from her consciousness as from her novel. Ragnar never hurt anyone... All that shelling was just to make the ships stop...

Ragnar shelled and destroyed Boyle's coastal Associated Steel plants, undoubtedly killing steelworkers, and undoubtedly must have killed others in blue water battles.

REPLY: LIKE I SAID I WAS USING SARCASM.

BRANT - I don't know how Rose Wilder Lane influenced Rand but it's an open question how much she and Paterson influenced each other. Paterson, however, was her last teacher aside from any influence Nathaniel Branden had on her with all their discussions.

Let's say that all three were influenced by Locke, for example. The point I made and still believe is that Miss Rand did not create a new theory of government.

REPLY: WHO SAID SHE DID? AND I WAS TALKING ABOUT REAL LIFE LIVING INFLUENCERS. NOT THE DEAD GUYS.

BRANT - ... you never prove anything in any philosophy except by trying them out.

Speechless, baffled. That's unvarished pragmatism.

REPLY: THE KEY WORD IS "PROVE." ABSTRACTIONS CAN BE WORDED OUT INDEFINITELY.

BRANT - Your own proofs as with the different libertarian proofs are circular in that they start and stop in legal philosophy. Purportedly Rand references reality while pure legal philosophy references only itself creating castles in the air.

The other way around. Rand linked ethics to government, a purely theoretical link and a particularly terrible idea, a castle in the air, unrelated to the reality of government then or now or any time in the future. The problem for constitutional law is how to restrain the government. I based my proposals on the documented evolution of common law and equity over centuries of real experience.

REPLY: NOW YOU ARE USING "TRYING THEM OUT." OKAY. THERE IS A LEGITIMATE AND ONLY WAY TO STRUCTURE A PHILOSOPHY FROM THE GROUND UP AND IT'S ALL ABSTRACTION. THE FOUR BASIC PRINCIPLES OF OBJECTIVISM ARE FUNDAMENTALLY LINKED BY THE INDIVIDUALISM OF AN AUTONOMOUS AND SOVEREIGN MIND SANS ANY IMPOSSIBLE "GROUP THINK." THAT'S A ROLE OF THE OBJECTIVIST ETHICS AND WHY SHE CHAMPIONED AN INDIVIDUALIST PHILOSOPHY--THE PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS--FOR HER POLITICS. RIGHTS ARE "RIGHT" AND THE VIOLATION OF THEM WRONG. THAT'S WHY THERE ARE NO POSITIVE RIGHTS AND SINCE NO POSITIVE RIGHTS THE NEGATIVE RIGHTS ARE MERELY RIGHTS. YOUR BASIC POSITION IS A LIBERTARIAN VARIANT AND ILLUSTRATES WHY LIBERTARIANISM HAS PHILOSOPHICALLY EVAPORATED ALONG WITH INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS PROTECTION. THE HIGH POINT FOR LIBERTARIANISM FOR ME WAS THE PUBLICATION OF HOSPER'S LIBERTARIANISM IN 1972 AND THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS OF 1972 AND 1976 IF NOT 1980. OBJECTIVISM HAD/HAS ITS OWN SET OF PROBLEMS ALL OF A DIFFERENT ORDER.

BRANT - you ignore Objectivism for your own prognostications.

With respect, I don't ignore the Objectivist canon, I disagree that it illuminates law.

BRANT - completely dense to bypass Atlas Shrugged as a cautionary tale... She was trying to save the world -- the United States -- from the consequences of collectivism.

She failed, obviously. But it's a new thought (for me) to consider the characters of Atlas as anything less than plausible, desirable examples of heroism. If memory serves, she spoke about it as the goal of her work, to project an ideal man. So I took it seriously that one should act like Roark as an artist (I tried to do that) and much brighter men should emulate Galt and Midas Mulligan, withdraw the sanction of the victim and stop the motor of the world.

REPLY: THE STORY OF HOW SHE FAILED AND HOW STILL MIGHT SUCCEED HAS YET TO BE WRITTEN BUT PHILOSOPHICAL TIME IS SPREAD OVER GENERATIONS. HER NOVEL COMPRESSED GENERATIONS. NOW THE STORY READS MORE AND MORE LIKE CURRENT EVENTS AND THAT'S ALL INTELLECTUAL/CULTURAL INERTIA IN ACTION.

BRANT - Rand needs thinking -- deconstruction then re-construction. You can't leave her in her novels; they are too hybrid of fact and fiction. Objectivism was an attempted remedy. It worked as such in the 1960s...

I disbelieve that. A few thousand enthusiasts, then a chain of disasters, Branden, Greenspan, Peikoff, Kelley, Sciabarra, Aglialoro. Every time Rand spoke she was pilloried by the establishment, particularly Republicans who defended religion and charity. Rand became an evil pastiche: "Greed is good!" (Gordon Gecko)

REPLY: NONE OF THOSE WERE ANY MORE A DISASTER THAN RAND HERSELF. OR, THERE WAS NO "DISASTER," JUST TOO HIGH HOPES TOO SOON AND IGNORANCE OF ONE'S OWN IGNORANCE AND TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON PHILOSOPHY BY LACK OF EMPHASIS ON OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS RESULTING IN HUMAN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL EXISTENCE ALL AROUND AND ABOUT US. OBJECTIVISM LACKS MODESTY.

BRANT - [admirers] were mostly impotent therefore with nowhere to go and nothing to do except in their own productive specialized fields making money and such.

Oh. I see. Normal ordinary people are impotent, risk averse. The Objectivist enterprise was a folly without hope of changing anything?

REPLY: THESE AREN'T ORDINARY PEOPLE ONLY PEOPLE WITH ONLY SO MUCH TIME FOR THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES. THAT'S THE CASE WITH MOST OF US.

BRANT - The libertarians were the greatest exceptions but got chewed up by their own contradictions. To wit: legal philosophy without an overarching philosophy is in a boat at sea with itself.

This is the remark that gave me real pause, and I had to consider it carefully. Above I said that the philosophy of law predates Objectivism by many hundreds of years, all of it the result of actual cases and controversies apart from legislated rules. I view it as a disaster that America chose political appointment of judges, and I endeavored to resurrect Franklin's alternative method -- that lawyers should elect one of their number, the most successful, to office, so as to divide his lucrative practice among themselves. Engineering societies do it. Doctors do it.

None of the professions "are at sea" in a hopeless muddle, unable to think or reason. Does Objectivism illuminate the practice of medicine, surgery, pharmaceutical research, or radiology? -- no. Engineering? -- no. Practice of law? -- absolutely not. Where Rand had a lasting impact is on the private lives of those who took her seriously, in any profession or none at all, that each of us has a choice to make, individual purpose or the slow incremental death of second-handing like Peter Keating. Clear as a bell philosophically, illustrated in dramatic fiction.

REPLY: THE ILLUMINATION IS EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND THE PHILOSOPHY MERELY PROVIDES CONTEXT AND CLARITY AND SANCTIONS RATIONALITY--AT LEAST FORMALLY.

Lack of a reply is not agreement. And this statement is not disagreement either.

--Brant

[moralist]

4 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

REPLY: THE STORY OF HOW SHE FAILED AND HOW STILL MIGHT SUCCEED HAS YET TO BE WRITTEN...

Ayn Rand succeeded as far as I'm concerned... simply because I successfully followed her advice.

What anyone else chooses to actually DO with what she wrote and spoke is completely up to them because they are the only ones who are completely responsible for the results they set into motion by their own actions.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

3 minutes ago, moralist said:

Ayn Rand succeeded as far as I'm concerned... simply because I successfully followed her advice.

What anyone else chooses to actually DO with what she wrote and spoke is completely up to them because they are the only ones who are completely responsible for the results they set into motion by their own actions.

Greg

That's one story out of a much larger one.

--Brant

everybody has a story

[moralist]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

That's one story out of a much larger one.

--Brant

everybody has a story

That they do, Brant.

I simply acted on Ayn Rand's advice because it made sense to me... and it works like a charm.

The much larger story than just mine is that everyone here already knows whether what they believe is the truth or just a bunch of worthless lies...

...simply by looking at their own life and assessing the results of what they have DONE with what they believe. That's where the objective rubber meets the reality road.

Everything else is just irrelevant intellectual fluff.

 

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

22 minutes ago, moralist said:

That they do, Brant.

I simply acted on Ayn Rand's advice because it made sense to me... and it works like a charm.

The much larger story than just mine is that everyone here already knows whether what they believe is the truth or just a bunch of worthless lies...

...simply by looking at their own life and assessing the results of what they have DONE with what they believe. That's where the objective rubber meets the reality road.

Everything else is just irrelevant intellectual fluff.

Greg

Well, I've had an heroic life, but have never thought of myself as a hero. I just can't figure out if it would have been better if I had been more heroic or less. One thing's for sure: I've had far from a perfect life. I also know that if I had been more patient and written situations down for proper evaluation and consideration before making some choices it would have been better. I am taking the betterment I have achieved and trying to better the betterment. Ironically, I am not pursuing happiness but having stumbled onto it from time to time I know what it feels like. I am pursuing fulfillment or a sense of completeness. I intend to find out the happiness in that.

I sort of pity you your seeming perfection; I'll never be able to reduce myself that much for who I am and my outlook on life and my place in it have been exactly the same since I was 2 1/2 yrs old and turned on my remembered cognitive brain, but you have been more educational for me than anyone else here on OL or any Internet site going on nearly 30 years now. I am even pre-Internet Internet. (Google "Brant Gaede Ft Freedom", but please don't quote me from then.)

--Brant

[moralist]

20 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Well, I've had an heroic life, but have never thought of myself as a hero. I just can't figure out if it would have been better if I had been more heroic or less. One thing's for sure: I've had far from a perfect life. I also know that if I had been more patient and written situations down for proper evaluation and consideration before making some choices it would have been better. I am taking the betterment I have achieved and trying to better the betterment. Ironically, I am not pursuing happiness but having stumbled onto it from time to time I know what it feels like. I am pursuing fulfillment or a sense of completeness. I intend to find out the happiness in that.

I sort of pity you your seeming perfection; I'll never be able to reduce myself that much for who I am and my outlook on life and my place in it have been exactly the same since I was 2 1/2 yrs old and turned on my remembered cognitive brain, but you have been more educational for me than anyone else here on OL or any Internet site going on nearly 30 years now. I am even pre-Internet Internet. (Google "Brant Gaede Ft Freedom", but please don't quote me from then.)

--Brant

Thanks for your kind words, Brant.

That's a unique identifying characteristic of heroes, Brant, to never see yourself as being one. You can only see others as heroes. Whether you would have been better or not if you were more heroic would all depend on how you personally define heroism... for the definition you chose will either agree or disagree with the objective reality of what a hero truly is.

I'm not the objectively perfect ideals I write about. In fact, I could never become them. I can only subjectively aspire to emulate them as best I can. My life is the sole indicator which lets me know how well I'm doing, and there's always room for improvement. So it'a not about arriving at a Perfection I'll never be, but rather about constantly moving towards It. And even though I'll never reach It, I love It nonetheless.

This is because, as subjective being, I can never BE objective reality (God). It can only either agree with God or disagree with Him. So I found by trial and error over the years that it's better for me and my life to act in agreement with Him rather than to stubbornly disagree thinking my way is best. There is a proper relationship of a subjective being to an objective God... and it is that of a son to a Father.

There are so many rewards that overflow into a life just for doing what's morally right, that they could never all be written down. And it is the compassion and mercy of those gifts so freely given which make love for what's morally right grow and grow and grow...

...like living in a garden in Eden...

I looked at the fort freedom archives, and a question of what makes a Freeman a free man was asked? It reminded me of the Dune novels which referred to "the Fremen". I loved reading those books because they touched on the core of what it means to be a man.

No man is free. We are all slaves who get to choose our master. There is only One Master Who frees from the evil in the world, every man who chooses Him.

Greg

[Peter]

God and his son? You should watch that show, "Lucifer."