JEWS AND YOU AND JEWS

[BaalChatzaf]

It is the case that everything that happens has a cause, but an event need not have a purpose.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people.

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray.

I don't think "narcissistic self-exaltation" would survive this "mall shooting." I know you're trying to blast your way in, but rhetoric is a poor substitute for dynamite. The last time I saw Tony Robbins on TV, he looked like a basket case. When the shell is gone sometimes there's little meat to eat.

--Brant

[Robert Baratheon]

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people.

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray.

I don't think "narcissistic self-exaltation" would survive this "mall shooting." I know you're trying to blast your way in, but rhetoric is a poor substitute for dynamite. The last time I saw Tony Robbins on TV, he looked like a basket case. When the shell is gone sometimes there's little meat to eat.

--Brant

The narcissism is in the conclusion that the shooting happened for a reason and spared the survivor for some grand purpose instead of accepting it for the random or semi-random outcome that it was. It's the same basic outcome-determinative orthodoxy that moralist is pushing here: good, smart, creative people will succeed in life despite government, while bad, dumber, slower people will be crushed beneath its jackboots. In other words, within the capitalist setting, everyone who deserves to be alive is alive, and everyone who deserved to die is dead. No provision for "bad things happen to good people" or "shit happens" within this absolutist framework. The self-serving logic is basically circular: "Government hasn't suppressed me because I am a Randian Superman, and I am a Randian Superman because government hasn't suppressed me." Ipso facto, if you have any problems with government it's your OWN FAULT.

Your impression of Tony Robbins is correct and that is the context for which I am referencing him. Robbins pushes self-exaltation as a brand to those deluded enough to buy into the fantasy that each of us is a force of nature which cannot be denied if only we focus our energies with the right attunement. Moralist is peddling the same self-help drivel here with sleek Objectivist packaging on the product so we'll swallow it without the scrutiny.

[moralist]

You're right.

I have absolutely no sympathy for people who gave the government their sanction to become its victims. They stick their head in the noose and then whine about rope burns. So many people have literally pissed away their freedom in their need for the government to make someone else pay their bills. The government is only what people have demanded it to be. And each individual's own personal experience of getting the government they deserve is the direct consequence of how they are living their life.

So if you feel that you are not getting the government you deserve, change how you are living, and you will.

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life.

The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level.

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow.

(edited to expand on a few ideas).

A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people.

--Brant

That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie.

The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one.

And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard.

Greg

[caroljane]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

[moralist]

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people.

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray.

What good is it doing your own life to misascribe to me views and attitudes that I don't actually hold? Why fabricate things that aren't true just to argue against them?

There's also another difference between our two views, Robert. When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness. My wife and I watched an exquisite movie about just that last night. It's called "Buck". It's about someone who became a good man. The wisdom and moral character he learned to develop in himself are truly remarkable. It's well worth your time to watch it.

Greg

[moralist]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

So you feel that Eddie was betrayed?

[ginny]

You don't, apparently.

[Brant Gaede]

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people.

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray.

I don't think "narcissistic self-exaltation" would survive this "mall shooting." I know you're trying to blast your way in, but rhetoric is a poor substitute for dynamite. The last time I saw Tony Robbins on TV, he looked like a basket case. When the shell is gone sometimes there's little meat to eat.

--Brant

The narcissism is in the conclusion that the shooting happened for a reason and spared the survivor for some grand purpose instead of accepting it for the random or semi-random outcome that it was. It's the same basic outcome-determinative orthodoxy that moralist is pushing here: good, smart, creative people will succeed in life despite government, while bad, dumber, slower people will be crushed beneath its jackboots. In other words, within the capitalist setting, everyone who deserves to be alive is alive, and everyone who deserved to die is dead. No provision for "bad things happen to good people" or "shit happens" within this absolutist framework. The self-serving logic is basically circular: "Government hasn't suppressed me because I am a Randian Superman, and I am a Randian Superman because government hasn't suppressed me." Ipso facto, if you have any problems with government it's your OWN FAULT.

Your impression of Tony Robbins is correct and that is the context for which I am referencing him. Robbins pushes self-exaltation as a brand to those deluded enough to buy into the fantasy that each of us is a force of nature which cannot be denied if only we focus our energies with the right attunement. Moralist is peddling the same self-help drivel here with sleek Objectivist packaging on the product so we'll swallow it without the scrutiny.

I think you are misrepresenting Rand and capitalism. As for the latter that strikes me as go-along-to-get-along crony capitalism. Wesley Mouch worked for Rearden before he worked for the government and Rearden was simply trying to protect himself from the government by employing him, not crush his competitors or gain unfair advantage. As for Rand's Nietzchean influence, that's best for elsewhere than this thread, but it actually waned in Atlas Shrugged compared to The Fountainhead.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

In effect she also abandoned Rearden, leaving him to fly around Colorado for a month looking for her while she was on a sabbatical. In respect to your example, not mine, I think Rand wanted to make a more general point about the indefiniteness of the future. It's true she was purblind about a lot of normal human being things, but you need more than that to burn a productive genius at the stake of righteousness. Go get Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh if that is your wont.

--Brant

[Robert Baratheon]

What good is it doing your own life to misascribe to me views and attitudes that I don't actually hold? Why fabricate things that aren't true just to argue against them?

There's also another difference between our two views, Robert. When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness. My wife and I watched an exquisite movie about just that last night. It's called "Buck". It's about someone who became a good man. The wisdom and moral character he learned to develop in himself are truly remarkable. It's well worth your time to watch it.

The "ugliness" I see is outcome-based elitism founded in self-serving circular logic. You've managed to succeed despite overbearing government, so therefore everyone can, and government is not really a problem to anyone at all. You're deluding yourself by blaming the victims of Mordor and denying what the ramifications would be if the Eye of Sauron ever captures you within its oppressive gaze. "But that will never happen" you claim. "I'm the cleverest little Hobbit in the shire, tucked away safe in my little hobbit hole." We shall see, Mr. Baggins. We shall see. A darkness is spreading across this land - some have called it "socialism." Your honor will not save you when the looters come for their plunder.

[Brant Gaede]

You're right.

I have absolutely no sympathy for people who gave the government their sanction to become its victims. They stick their head in the noose and then whine about rope burns. So many people have literally pissed away their freedom in their need for the government to make someone else pay their bills. The government is only what people have demanded it to be. And each individual's own personal experience of getting the government they deserve is the direct consequence of how they are living their life.

So if you feel that you are not getting the government you deserve, change how you are living, and you will.

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life.

The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level.

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow.

(edited to expand on a few ideas).

A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people.

--Brant

That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie.

The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one.

And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard.

Greg

I know you have a train for those tracks because the top of them is shiny.

--Brant

did it break down and you didn't know how to get it going again?--did a wagon train come down your street which you refused to join?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm a fan of Tony Robbins.

His methods get results if you use them.

Some of his stuff has gotten too woo-woo, though. Bracelets. Fire-walking. People bash him for that stuff and they should.

But in general, he knows how to inspire and how to devise methods so people can help themselves improve their skills, from learning, to performing, to exercising, to persuasion and so on.

In short, his approach is to teach you how to use your conscious mind to program your unconscious to get specific results you desire. I've used some of them and they worked for me. Here's a typical case for getting and keeping inspired energy through the rough depressing times of projects that I posted on OL. This one has helped me--several times--reverse a depressing spiral that kills my production like nothing else. Anyone who creatively produces any project of significance knows exactly what this is.

And Tony's a great direct marketer.

The guy rocks.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I'm a fan of Tony Robbins.

His methods get results if you use them.

Some of his stuff has gotten too woo-woo, though. Bracelets. Fire-walking. People bash him for that stuff and they should.

But in general, he knows how to inspire and how to devise methods so people can help themselves improve their skills, from learning, to performing, to exercising, to persuasion and so on.

In short, his approach is to teach you how to use your conscious mind to program your unconscious to get specific results you desire. I've used some of them and they worked for me. Here's a typical case for getting and keeping inspired energy through the rough depressing times of projects that I posted on OL. This one has helped me--several times--reverse a depressing spiral that kills my production like nothing else. Anyone who creatively produces any project of significance knows exactly what this is.

And Tony's a great direct marketer.

The guy rocks.

Michael

SO! You want an argument? Let me go find one. I'll be right back!

--Brant

sparks fly!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness.

Greg,

We don't agree on some things, but I am your brother in this spirit.

I like you more each day.

Michael

[moralist]

You're right.

I have absolutely no sympathy for people who gave the government their sanction to become its victims. They stick their head in the noose and then whine about rope burns. So many people have literally pissed away their freedom in their need for the government to make someone else pay their bills. The government is only what people have demanded it to be. And each individual's own personal experience of getting the government they deserve is the direct consequence of how they are living their life.

So if you feel that you are not getting the government you deserve, change how you are living, and you will.

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life.

The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level.

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow.

(edited to expand on a few ideas).

A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people.

--Brant

That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie.

The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one.

And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard.

Greg

I know you have a train for those tracks because the top of them is shiny.

--Brant

did it break down and you didn't know how to get it going again?--did a wagon train come down your street which you refused to join?

My train is human powered.

What good is it doing your own life to misascribe to me views and attitudes that I don't actually hold? Why fabricate things that aren't true just to argue against them?

There's also another difference between our two views, Robert. When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness. My wife and I watched an exquisite movie about just that last night. It's called "Buck". It's about someone who became a good man. The wisdom and moral character he learned to develop in himself are truly remarkable. It's well worth your time to watch it.

The "ugliness" I see is outcome-based elitism founded in self-serving circular logic. You've managed to succeed despite overbearing government, so therefore everyone can, and government is not really a problem to anyone at all.

Yes.

If I can with only limited skills and no education to speak of... anyone else can.

Each person's experience of government is created by how we live. It is only an opportunistic agent of self inflicted suffering caused by our own failure to properly order our own lives.

Angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) the government as if it's our enemy does nothing to change anyone's life for the better. It can only make things worse. Anyone who changes how they live will automatically change their experience of government.

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, one can refuse to be a victim if one has seen oneself that way and of course the different perspective will make everything seem different, even the government. That doesn't mean letting the government and its minions and bullying morons off the hook.

--Brant

I sure don't

if only those slaves had made the best of things, the darkies would still be happy in the Carolinas and Alabama picking cotton and strumming their banjos and having great sex with their masters

[Robert Baratheon]

Yes.

If I can with only limited skills and no education to speak of... anyone else can.

Each person's experience of government is created by how we live. It is only an opportunistic agent of self inflicted suffering caused by our own failure to properly order our own lives.

Angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) the government as if it's our enemy does nothing to change anyone's life for the better. It can only make things worse. Anyone who changes how they live will automatically change their experience of government.

Except your moral framework is laid bare by the categorical imperitive, i.e., if everyone thought and behaved as you, no one would ever get off their slacktivist butt to prevent government from degrading into a collectivist authoritarianism under which even you, in all your self-sufficient awesomeness, would undoubtedly suffer. Your philosophy can offer nothing but blame and smug self-righteous condemnation to explain why so many of the world's citizens die under poverty and autocratic regimes. We have to accept within your worldview that every person in North Korea deserves to be oppressed - nay, actively invites their oppression throughmoral weakness. It's a despicable disregard for the complicated circumstances under which individuals and born and often forced to operate. Worse than that, it's dangerous by failing in your responsibility to protect liberty, especially when you see it being denied to those more vulnerable than you. The canary in the coal-mine is dying and you just keep working after blaming it for being a weak canary.

[caroljane]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

In effect she also abandoned Rearden, leaving him to fly around Colorado for a month looking for her while she was on a sabbatical. In respect to your example, not mine, I think Rand wanted to make a more general point about the indefiniteness of the future. It's true she was purblind about a lot of normal human being things, but you need more than that to burn a productive genius at the stake of righteousness. Go get Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh if that is your wont.

--Brant

Indeed they both built their own stakes, showing a bigoted ugliness that was at least equal to their productive genius.

[Ellen Stuttle]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

Eddie told Dagny to leave without him and that he didn't want to go.

Ellen

[caroljane]

Also, I do not consider being a pioneer aviator as the same as being a productive genius.

[PDS]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

In effect she also abandoned Rearden, leaving him to fly around Colorado for a month looking for her while she was on a sabbatical. In respect to your example, not mine, I think Rand wanted to make a more general point about the indefiniteness of the future. It's true she was purblind about a lot of normal human being things, but you need more than that to burn a productive genius at the stake of righteousness. Go get Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh if that is your wont.

--Brant

Indeed they both built their own stakes, showing a bigoted ugliness that was at least equal to their productive genius.

Bigoted?

[PDS]

Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people.

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray.

What good is it doing your own life to misascribe to me views and attitudes that I don't actually hold? Why fabricate things that aren't true just to argue against them?

There's also another difference between our two views, Robert. When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness. My wife and I watched an exquisite movie about just that last night. It's called "Buck". It's about someone who became a good man. The wisdom and moral character he learned to develop in himself are truly remarkable. It's well worth your time to watch it.

Greg

I have seen this movie. Twice. The first time I could barely sit through it because it hit so close to home. The second time I took my daughter to see it so that we could have a talk about her grandfather, long since passed away..

Beautiful movie.

[caroljane]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

In effect she also abandoned Rearden, leaving him to fly around Colorado for a month looking for her while she was on a sabbatical. In respect to your example, not mine, I think Rand wanted to make a more general point about the indefiniteness of the future. It's true she was purblind about a lot of normal human being things, but you need more than that to burn a productive genius at the stake of righteousness. Go get Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh if that is your wont.

--Brant

Indeed they both built their own stakes, showing a bigoted ugliness that was at least equal to their productive genius.

|N

Bigoted?

Er, yes. Ford was a violent anti-Semite and Lindbergh was Nazism's #1 American fan and booster.

[PDS]

And when Dagny didn't need Eddie anymore, she abandoned him. Nice one, Dags. Loyalty is a one-way street.in fictional Randland, leading to a dead end.

In effect she also abandoned Rearden, leaving him to fly around Colorado for a month looking for her while she was on a sabbatical. In respect to your example, not mine, I think Rand wanted to make a more general point about the indefiniteness of the future. It's true she was purblind about a lot of normal human being things, but you need more than that to burn a productive genius at the stake of righteousness. Go get Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh if that is your wont.

--Brant

Indeed they both built their own stakes, showing a bigoted ugliness that was at least equal to their productive genius.

|N

Bigoted?

Er, yes. Ford was a violent anti-Semite and Lindbergh was Nazism's #1 American fan and booster.

Oh, I thought you meant Dagny and Rearden.