See "Iranum" for free

[sjw]

No. And nowhere in this thread did I ever imply any such absurdity. You are the one bringing in absurdity, and then wondering why everything appears absurd from your twisted viewpoint.

Shayne

So am I understanding you correctly that you think that people consent to live in dictatorships?

Consent is the only proper principle. What you do once all parties consent is up to the consenting parties.

[sjw]

You were arguing, were you not, that we should be morally pure and should have supported the pre-Shah government in Iran because it was democratically elected...correct?

Adam

Again, no. Nowhere did I say any such thing.

Shayne

[Selene]

You were arguing, were you not, that we should be morally pure and should have supported the pre-Shah government in Iran because it was democratically elected...correct?

Adam

Again, no. Nowhere did I say any such thing.

Shayne

Ok.

In post # 8 of this thread, you opined that:

"I'm not saying this is the whole story either. But it is an important part that shouldn't be ignored. If the US has wronged anyone in the past, it should take responsibility, and try to arrive at solutions that de-escalate the situation it helped create. I'm not suggesting we should ignore dangerous enemies even if we did in some measure help create them. But we should be engaging in an open diplomacy, that lays all the facts and all the history on the table, and also lays out all the proper principles that should have been and should be in play, express our intent to try to make things right, and call on Iran to do the same. If in that context Iran takes hostile action, then I would advocate decisive US action."

I must have misunderstood what you meant by "we" and "open democracy diplomacy ." It appeared that you were speaking favorably about the concept laying "...out all of the proper principles that should be in play..."

Adam

Edited February 28, 2011 by Selene

[sjw]

You were arguing, were you not, that we should be morally pure and should have supported the pre-Shah government in Iran because it was democratically elected...correct?

Adam

Again, no. Nowhere did I say any such thing.

Shayne

Ok.

In post # 8 of this thread, you opined that:

"I'm not saying this is the whole story either. But it is an important part that shouldn't be ignored. If the US has wronged anyone in the past, it should take responsibility, and try to arrive at solutions that de-escalate the situation it helped create. I'm not suggesting we should ignore dangerous enemies even if we did in some measure help create them. But we should be engaging in an open diplomacy, that lays all the facts and all the history on the table, and also lays out all the proper principles that should have been and should be in play, express our intent to try to make things right, and call on Iran to do the same. If in that context Iran takes hostile action, then I would advocate decisive US action."

I must have misunderstood what you meant by "we" and "open democracy." It appeared that you were speaking favorably about the concept laying "...out all of the proper principles that should be in play..."

Adam

Note that in the very words you quote here, I said "open diplomacy", not "open democracy." And by "open diplomacy," I mean that we peons know what the politicians are doing and why.

Shayne

[Selene]

Shayne:

My error.

In the prior paragraph in that same post, you alluded to the "democratically-elected leader of Iran." Is the fact that he was democratically elected of any import to your argument?

I get the perception that you favor that construct which is why I am attempting to clarify your statements for myself.

"It does not identify all of the factors creating this intent. Importantly, it does not even mention how the US helped to overthrow a democratically-elected leader of Iran to install and support a dictator. Now, if Iran had done that to the US, do you think we might have some kind of lasting hatred toward Iran?"

Adam

[Mike Renzulli]

Okay well then that clears it up. However, I will bring up one other point.

Since you agree that people would not consent to dictatorships and it is historically and evidently true that totalitarian states will support movements or groups who will commit acts of violence abroad in order to spread said totalitarian state's ideology would you agree that it makes sense that free countries that neighbor it or subject to said dictatorship's affiliate group attacks should take the host country committed to spreading communism, Islamism or fascism out by clandestine or military force if necessary?

No. And nowhere in this thread did I ever imply any such absurdity. You are the one bringing in absurdity, and then wondering why everything appears absurd from your twisted viewpoint.

Shayne

So am I understanding you correctly that you think that people consent to live in dictatorships?

Consent is the only proper principle. What you do once all parties consent is up to the consenting parties.

Edited February 28, 2011 by Mike Renzulli

[kiaer.ts]

I watched enough of it to tell that it's misleading at best, as they don't provide the full context for the source of anti-Americanism. E.g., they leave this important bit out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

I'm no expert on history but I know when I'm getting a biased account.

Shayne

So your premise is that because the people who were in power in 1953, and are now long dead, did something bad, that, out of shame and guilt for the actions of these dead men, we who are alive now and innocent of those acts should not defend ourself from the current murderous religious dictatorship?

[Mike Renzulli]

BINGO, Ted! You nailed it right on the head!

The actions or mistakes of present policy makers share no blame or guilt for mistakes of the past. Though I do not think that installing the Shah was a mistake, according to Shayne's logic he seems to allude that very point based on the issue you raise in your question.

Regardless of how one feels about the 1953 or any other coup conducted by the U.S., foreign policy mistakes of the past should not be a distraction from defending ourselves when there is a clear and present danger in our midst. In this case, it is the Iranian regime.

I watched enough of it to tell that it's misleading at best, as they don't provide the full context for the source of anti-Americanism. E.g., they leave this important bit out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

I'm no expert on history but I know when I'm getting a biased account.

Shayne

So your premise is that because the people who were in power in 1953, and are now long dead, did something bad, that, out of shame and guilt for the actions of these dead men, we who are alive now and innocent of those acts should not defend ourself from the current murderous religious dictatorship?

Edited February 28, 2011 by Mike Renzulli

[BaalChatzaf]

Shayne:

You are in favor of democracy as the organizing principle of government?

Adam

Consent is the only proper principle. What you do once all parties consent is up to the consenting parties.

See my book for details.

Shayne

That would mean unanimous consent. One dissenter and there is no consent.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

I watched enough of it to tell that it's misleading at best, as they don't provide the full context for the source of anti-Americanism. E.g., they leave this important bit out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

I'm no expert on history but I know when I'm getting a biased account.

Shayne

So your premise is that because the people who were in power in 1953, and are now long dead, did something bad, that, out of shame and guilt for the actions of these dead men, we who are alive now and innocent of those acts should not defend ourself from the current murderous religious dictatorship?

You need to learn to read. E.g., I clearly said above that one could make an argument preventing Iran from having nukes. Indeed, I don't want them to have nukes.

Even more obnoxious though is your amoralist, concrete-bound view that it is irrelevant what our government did 50 years ago when clearly there has been no repudiation of it, nor is there any actually different policy in place. The government, qua institution, has a responsibility to own up to its past mistakes.

Shayne

[sjw]

Shayne:

My error.

In the prior paragraph in that same post, you alluded to the "democratically-elected leader of Iran." Is the fact that he was democratically elected of any import to your argument?

Yes. It means that there is a knowable cause-effect relation in ousting him in favor of a dictator.

I fail to see how any of this is that complicated, or why you and MR seem obsessed with importing premises here that I do not hold.

I get the perception that you favor that construct ...

Sigh... You're having a hard enough time telling what words I'm actually using, don't compound the error by trying your hand at guessing at my meaning.

Shayne

[sjw]

Okay well then that clears it up. However, I will bring up one other point.

Since you agree that people would not consent to dictatorships and it is historically and evidently true that totalitarian states will support movements or groups who will commit acts of violence abroad in order to spread said totalitarian state's ideology would you agree that it makes sense that free countries that neighbor it or subject to said dictatorship's affiliate group attacks should take the host country committed to spreading communism, Islamism or fascism out by clandestine or military force if necessary?

I think you don't spread liberty through hypocrisy. Nor can you force people to want liberty. Many in Iran like theocracy. Even if they are in the majority, does that make what they are doing legitimate? No. But if you blow many of them up that isn't going to convince them that they're wrong, on the contrary, they will have good reason to think that you're wrong, because in fact, you are.

Where you should invest your energy Mike is in actually trying to make the US be a free country. Then it would be easy to convince Iran to be free. Here's how: show them that liberty works, help people who actually want it escape to the US. And that would be the end of that. Iran would either collapse or evolve. But your method is the opposite: defend the hypocritical US in any and all actions abroad, bomb people without actually making a rational case that doing so is just, and if they take your actions as acts of war, call them "terrorists." Your methods put them into a stance where they are guaranteed not to evolve.

Shayne

[sjw]

Shayne:

You are in favor of democracy as the organizing principle of government?

Adam

Consent is the only proper principle. What you do once all parties consent is up to the consenting parties.

See my book for details.

Shayne

That would mean unanimous consent. One dissenter and there is no consent.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes, I actually believe that the moral is the practical. Which, amazingly, means that I'm more of an Objectivist than those who proudly wave its banner.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Shayne:

You are in favor of democracy as the organizing principle of government?

Adam

Consent is the only proper principle. What you do once all parties consent is up to the consenting parties.

See my book for details.

Shayne

That would mean unanimous consent. One dissenter and there is no consent.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes, I actually believe that the moral is the practical. Which, amazingly, means that I'm more of an Objectivist than those who proudly wave its banner.

Shayne

I think the wheels are off your car here. The morally practical social unit will have to be extremely small. The bad boys will get up a bigger unit and take you over. They'll want your women!

--Brant

[Selene]

Shayne:

I am just going to guess at this because you know how confused I am, but it appears that there are an infinitely greater amount of Iranians coming to the United States gulag than there are leaving for the beautiful democracy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's (Persian: محمود احمدی‌نژاد Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād's [mæhˈmuːd(-e) æhmædiːneˈʒɒːd] Iran.

As you explain. "Here's how: show them that liberty works, help people who actually want it escape to the US. And that would be the end of that. Iran would either collapse or evolve."

Therefore, would you consent to us backing underground groups that would help Persians escape to the United States?

Would you consent to military incursions into Iran to set up rendezvous points to ferry Persians to the United States and provide military cover for the operation?

Where would you draw the policy lines for the President?

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Me: Freedom! Don't want it.

Shayne: Okay.

Me: I can do anything I can to whomever I can for I have no freedom!

Shayne: Huh?

--Brant

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

[sjw]

I think the wheels are off your car here. The morally practical social unit will have to be extremely small. The bad boys will get up a bigger unit and take you over. They'll want your women!

--Brant

The wheels are off your car actually, but certainly your perspective is the status quo perspective so what you are saying has the appearance of reasonableness. No the social unit would not be extremely small. Most people have a list of things in common they want from government: punish murder, theft, etc. Start there. That's a pretty big group.

Shayne

[sjw]

Therefore, would you consent to us backing underground groups that would help Persians escape to the United States?

I'd consent to the US letting them in (so long as they make an oath to always have an allegiance to individual rights), and charity groups undertaking the operation.

Would you consent to military incursions into Iran to set up rendezvous points to ferry Persians to the United States and provide military cover for the operation?

Where would you draw the policy lines for the President?

Adam

Our government is here for a single purpose: defend our rights on this continent. It should not be doing military charity operations. It should let the citizens do that. Now, you can talk about creating a kind of government that goes around the world freeing everyone. Can you get a lot of people to consent to that notion? Because you're asking for blowback. I think a better strategy is to secure the continent and enable citizens to rescue people if they want, and I think the regimes will fall very easily just from that. You don't need to force it.

Shayne

[sjw]

Me: Freedom! Don't want it.

Shayne: Okay.

Me: I can do anything I can to whomever I can for I have no freedom!

Shayne: Huh?

--Brant

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Huh?

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Me: Freedom! Don't want it.

Shayne: Okay.

Me: I can do anything I can to whomever I can for I have no freedom!

Shayne: Huh?

--Brant

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Huh?

Shayne

I think your 100 percent political premise is no good. However, here's mine: Our government to be will be dedicated to the protection of individual rights. You don't have to be part of that government or consent to it but those that do are setting it up. Once it proves the general efficacy of its protect-rights' orientation if you violate rights our government will act to protect the violated from you and it's too bad if you never consented to its jurisdiction for no consent from a rights' violator is needed. If you aren't a rights' violator or a rights' violator to be you can consent or not as you wish for whatever that's worth.

--Brant

Edited February 28, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Selene]

Me: Freedom! Don't want it.

Shayne: Okay.

Me: I can do anything I can to whomever I can for I have no freedom!

Shayne: Huh?

--Brant

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Now you're talkin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL44Z6B5X1Y

i saw her twice, once when she was in her prime and then later on before the end when she had gotten heavy and would weave on stage while swigging from her bottle of Southern Comfort.

She started as as a gospel singer and was a great blues singer. She died at 27:

"When she failed to show up at the studio by Sunday afternoon, producer Paul A. Rothchild became concerned. Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel (since renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel) where Joplin had been a guest since August 24.^[22] He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche still in the parking lot. Upon entering her room, he found her dead on the floor. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.^[8][23] Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin which was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.^[24] Joplin was cremated in the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles; her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean and along Stinson Beach. The only funeral service was a private affair held at Pierce Brothers and attended by Joplin's parents and maternal aunt.^[25]

Joplin's will funded $2,500 to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. The party, which took place October 26, 1970, at the Lion's Share, located in San Anselmo California, was attended by her sister Laura and Joplin's close friends, that included tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle; Joplin's fiancé Seth Morgan; Bob Gordon; and her road manager, John Cooke. Brownies laced with hashish were unknowingly passed around.^[26] Her death at age 27 has caused her to be included in a phenomenon rock historians call the 27 Club.

Legacy

CLASSY CAR Joplin's Porsche 356 in "Summer of Love – Art of the Psychedelic Era" (Whitney Museum, New York)

Joplin's death in October, 1970 at the age of 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world. Her death was coupled with the fact that another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, had died a few weeks earlier in September. Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice." Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable." Author Megan Terry claimed the Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in the ability to captivate an audience.^[27]

Joplin's extraordinary success as a pioneer in a male-dominated rock industry of the late 1960s was unprecedented. Joplin, along with Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, opened opportunities into the rock music business for future female singers. Stevie Nicks commented that after seeing Joplin perform, "I knew that a little bit of my destiny had changed. I would search to find that connection that I had seen between Janis and her audience. In a blink of an eye she changed my life." ^[28]

The girl could sing the blues....love her stuff!!!!

Adam

[sjw]

Me: Freedom! Don't want it.

Shayne: Okay.

Me: I can do anything I can to whomever I can for I have no freedom!

Shayne: Huh?

--Brant

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

Huh?

Shayne

I think your 100 percent political premise is no good. However, here's mine: Our government to be will be dedicated to the protection of individual rights. You don't have to be part of that government or consent to it but those that do are setting it up. Once it proves the general efficacy of its protect-rights' orientation if you violate rights our government will act to protect the violated from you and it's too bad if you never consented to its jurisdiction for no consent from a rights' violator is needed. If you aren't a rights' violator or a rights' violator to be you can consent or not as you wish for whatever that's worth.

--Brant

If I squint real hard I still can't see how that's any different from what I'm advocating. In fact it looks precisely the same as what I'm advocating.

In fact, it looks like you're plagiarizing me (which is not a complaint). ;)

Shayne

[sjw]

If I squint real hard I still can't see how that's any different from what I'm advocating. In fact it looks precisely the same as what I'm advocating.

In fact, it looks like you're plagiarizing me (which is not a complaint). ;)

Shayne

Here is a quote from my book on this (p. 90):

Two objections might be raised by some anarchists; first, that it is illegitimate to enforce Natural Law everywhere, because not everyone necessarily consents to its jurisdiction; second, that someone's definition of Natural Law might not match someone else's definition.

The first objection is absurd on its face: suppose an anarchist living in the wilderness enters your city, kidnaps one of your children, flees into the wilderness, and then complains when your police force rescues your child (which by the Law of Conservation of Rights is as if you yourself rescued your child). He then complains that he doesn't consent to your police having jurisdiction. By even using the word “consent,” he implicitly accepts Natural Law, and all the arguments I have given in Chapter 2 apply to him, particularly the argument regarding justice, which entitles the police to recover the child and extract justice from the kidnapper. Clearly, to make the argument that your Natural Law jurisdiction does not apply to him is mere sophistry aimed at getting away with crimes against Natural Law.

Shayne

[Selene]

I think a better strategy is to secure the continent and enable citizens to rescue people if they want, and I think the regimes will fall very easily just from that. You don't need to force it.

Shayne:

I think you will need the consent of the Canadians, Mexicans and the other Central Americans for your fortress Continent program.

Of course, that will depend on where you are going to draw the continental lines.

That's just humor Shayne

However, assuming everyone consents, you are suggesting this fortress continent program for military or defensive purposes only...correct?

Trade will still be open and free...correct?

Adam

Edited February 28, 2011 by Selene

[sjw]

I think a better strategy is to secure the continent and enable citizens to rescue people if they want, and I think the regimes will fall very easily just from that. You don't need to force it.

Shayne:

I think you will need the consent of the Canadians, Mexicans and the other Central Americans for your fortress Continent program.

Of course, that will depend on where you are going to draw the continental lines/

However, assuming everyone consents, you are suggesting this fortress continent program only for military or defensive purposes only...correct?

Trade will still be open and free...correct?

Adam

I didn't mean to include Canada and Mexico as part of US jurisdiction, so as you point out, "continent" isn't precisely the right word. Also, the issue of borders glosses over some other important matters.

Yes what I had in mind with the borders has to do with militarily defending against encroaching states. It's an objective line that they shall not cross.

On the scale we're talking, there can't be any laws but a defense of Natural Law, which certainly includes the right of free travel and trade. Certain localities might decide to ban trade in this or that however, so long as this banning is consensual that's fine. E.g., you might have a homeowners association or even a city that banned drugs, and all the parents agreed because they don't want their kids getting them. That's fine. But it's not fine for the Federal level of government to ban them.

Shayne