Lazy Fair City


Peter

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I thought I would start here with poking fun at Wolf's absurdities.

Footloose Lazy Fair City. A fancy-free teen struggles to organize a dance in a strict Midwestern town.
That movie title sounds simple but your Freeman’s Constitution makes no sense, without a place, a time, and citizens. If it is just a document with rules to live by that’s one thing, but for it to matter, there must be people who are living by the Freeman’s Constitution. A city (or a territory) must be established to implement the Constitution and test it. There are no provisions for an army, and no taxation allowed to raise one, just fees for services rendered, paid for by citizen’s who want to go to war to keep their territory. You could call Greenwich Village your sovereign city but New York City Mayor De Blasio would catch on and run you out of town or stick you in Riker’s Island prison. You could resist but you would still lose. The mayor could call on the city police department, the state police, the national guard and eventually the armed forces to evict the invaders. Therefor your brand of Laissez Faire Sharia Law cannot be established by illegally seizing land from a civilized territory. That’s out of the question.

So where do you get your land? How about invading an Indian Reservation? Nah, the Indians would be the good guys and are Federally protected. And haven’t they had enough land stolen from them?

Now going back to my Greenwich Village idea, as an example of the principle of hiding in plain sight you could be living your dream protected by anonymity (De Blasio and other outsiders don’t know you’ve established your own special place.) Your territory must be invisible, like Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. You could have your own high signs like speakeasies did during Prohibition. The whole time you guys would be disregarding New York City’s laws. You might need to bribe a few building inspectors, and convince the local precinct that like the Hasidic Jews you don’t need any policing, no one would pay their taxes and . . . nah, that would eventually fall apart. The tax man is omniscient.

New ground is needed to float Lazy Fair City. If your territory is not newly filled in Ocean or a new city floating in international waters it would need to be outside the jurisdiction of any countries that might dispute its establishment.

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I thought I would start here with poking fun at Wolf's absurdities.

Therefor your brand of Laissez Faire Sharia Law cannot be established by illegally seizing land from a civilized territory. That’s out of the question.

So where do you get your land? .

That is so silly, with the Q-Bomb as anyone from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick knows...

220px-The_Mouse_That_Roared_first_editio

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Wolf wrote, “Any natural person who is not in contempt may petition the courts . . .”
end quote

But who keeps the list? Who pays for keeping the lists? So much is voluntary and impermanent. Anyone can pay or not pay as they see fit. Others may act or not act if they are not paid or just don’t want to pay. Are you talking about human beings? It sounds like some other species of social beings is under discussion to make this work.

Wolf wrote: Attorneys shall be admitted to the practice of law upon appointment by any client, but may be publicly censured or disbarred for gross incompetence or misconduct. . . . . Five or more attorneys, acting on behalf of ten or more natural persons, may convene a court of first instance by electing one of their number to serve as a law judge.
end quote

That sounds like the Oligarchy in The Hunger Games.

Wolf wrote: If suit is brought against a fictional legal person, any and all of its representatives, officers, agents, and fiduciaries may be summoned to appear.
end quote

Or once summoned they may disappear. Any place that allows fictional legal persons to sue, appear in court to testify, etc., I am already getting tired of this game.

Wolf wrote: Willful and repeated failure to appear when summoned may be deemed an admission of contempt, punishable by up to five years in exile and outlaw,
end quote

Criminals wearing disguises could slip into Lazy Fair City and then abscond with the loot.

Wolf wrote: To make these provisions effective, a majority of the first twenty signatories to this Constitution shall assemble or correspond for the purpose of nominating one or more members of the first Supreme Court . . . . Justices of the Supreme Court and inferior appellate judges shall serve during good behavior or until voluntary retirement and may not be removed, unless impeached by the City's Representative Body of Founders and convicted of misconduct by a majority ballot of law judges of first instance.
end quote

This is a permanent oligarchy. noun, plural oligarchies, or a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few. Until death do ye part.

Wolf wrote: The common law right to trial by a jury of one's peers, drawn at random from the full list of living natural persons signatory to this Constitution, shall be limited in family law cases to a jury of women . . . . From time to time, the Supreme Court may create, regulate, fund, and appoint judges to appellate courts, whose jurisdiction over courts of first instance shall be apportioned randomly by date of appeal and without regard to legal specialty.
end quote

That common law lacks common sense. It is a straw man argument. I have not read any of the comments Wolf sticks inside his Constitution, but I will see if he can explain any of this away.
Peter Taylor

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Wolf wrote: Every person signatory to this Constitution is lawfully empowered to arrest and detain a perpetrator or willing accessory apprehended during the commission of a crime . . . . No accused person shall be bound over for trial unless there is actionable evidence of crime and credible testimony to establish probable cause for complaint . . . . There is no personal right to exact vengeance or to obstruct justice and due process of law. Any person convicted of willfully and wrongfully invoking the police power may be punished by life exile and outlaw . . . . No man shall be prosecuted for crime or sued for damages in respect of his service in a revolutionary war, except in cases where wanton bloodshed or private vengeance or impairment of individual liberty or property was willfully perpetrated by a person or conspiracy to thwart civil due process of law . . . . and every natural person or group acting in concert possesses the legal right and duty to throw off such tyranny and to resist its evil by prudent and vigorous self-defense, including but not limited to flight, armed rebellion, sabotage, and use of disguise to avoid capture.
end quote

Fictional people? Disguises? The Key Stone Cops? I will read some more before I write more, but another allusion comes to mind.

From Wikipedia: V for Vendetta has been seen by many political groups as an allegory of oppression by government; libertarians and anarchists have used it to promote their beliefs. David Lloyd stated: "The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I'm happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way.

I will slog on but immediately the mundane comes to mind. Waste management. Municipal water. Sewer. Gangs. Duels. Outlaws. Noise. Pollution. A really big, Trumpian wall to keep the citizens in.

Peter

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Wolf wrote, “Any natural person who is not in contempt may petition the courts . . .”

end quote

But who keeps the list? Who pays for keeping the lists? So much is voluntary and impermanent. Anyone can pay or not pay as they see fit. Others may act or not act if they are not paid or just don’t want to pay. Are you talking about human beings? It sounds like some other species of social beings is under discussion to make this work.

Wolf wrote: Attorneys shall be admitted to the practice of law upon appointment by any client, but may be publicly censured or disbarred for gross incompetence or misconduct. . . . . Five or more attorneys, acting on behalf of ten or more natural persons, may convene a court of first instance by electing one of their number to serve as a law judge.

end quote

That sounds like the Oligarchy in The Hunger Games.

Wolf wrote: If suit is brought against a fictional legal person, any and all of its representatives, officers, agents, and fiduciaries may be summoned to appear.

end quote

Or once summoned they may disappear. Any place that allows fictional legal persons to sue, appear in court to testify, etc., I am already getting tired of this game.

Wolf wrote: Willful and repeated failure to appear when summoned may be deemed an admission of contempt, punishable by up to five years in exile and outlaw,

end quote

Criminals wearing disguises could slip into Lazy Fair City and then abscond with the loot.

Wolf wrote: To make these provisions effective, a majority of the first twenty signatories to this Constitution shall assemble or correspond for the purpose of nominating one or more members of the first Supreme Court . . . . Justices of the Supreme Court and inferior appellate judges shall serve during good behavior or until voluntary retirement and may not be removed, unless impeached by the City's Representative Body of Founders and convicted of misconduct by a majority ballot of law judges of first instance.

end quote

This is a permanent oligarchy. noun, plural oligarchies, or a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few. Until death do ye part.

Wolf wrote: The common law right to trial by a jury of one's peers, drawn at random from the full list of living natural persons signatory to this Constitution, shall be limited in family law cases to a jury of women . . . . From time to time, the Supreme Court may create, regulate, fund, and appoint judges to appellate courts, whose jurisdiction over courts of first instance shall be apportioned randomly by date of appeal and without regard to legal specialty.

end quote

That common law lacks common sense. It is a straw man argument. I have not read any of the comments Wolf sticks inside his Constitution, but I will see if he can explain any of this away.

Peter Taylor

So essentially, starting this as a humor thread as bait was planned by you?

And now you switch to a serious argument about the man's work?

Or, is your "serious commentary" the actual humor?

I am so confused by your brilliant comedic abilities, I do not want to miss anything...huh-smiley-emoticon.gifpuzzled-smiley-emoticon.gif

Even your cat is confused...kitten-confused-smiley-emoticon.gif

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Sheesh, serious humor and serious, Adam. the following is of interest and razzes another point of Wolf's. It's raining like heck here. The following perfessor writes the longest paragraphs.

Peter

From Owl. Date: Tue, 2 Nov 93 14:26:44 EST, From: Bryan Douglas Caplan, Subject: Waller on Anarchism and Justice To: libernet-d@Dartmouth.EDU
I think that libertarian anarchists ought to take thoughtful criticisms Like Dave Waller's seriously. How will anarchism handle the problem of wealthy criminals? It seems like anarchism makes the utopian demand that everyone voluntarily play by the rules. The comment is made more persuasive by examples from modern Columbia, medieval serfdom, and other situations where the wealthy have received and continue to receive unequal justice.

I think that there are two levels of reply to criticisms of this sort. 1. First, the wealthy have extra influence under GOVERNMENT, too. Indeed, this is precisely what the Columbian and medieval situations were: wealthy individuals use their wealth to control or capture the government, then use it to bend the rules for their benefit. In order to criticize anarchism, it is not merely necessary to point out that such a system permits the wealthy to evade the law. Why? Government, even minarchy, must face the same problem. Surely minarchy free of corruption is just as utopian as anarchism free of murder-for-hire. In order for the argument from wealth to work, it would be necessary to show that government has a COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE over competitive defense agencies with respect to equality under the law. 2. Second, GIVEN the general level of human depravity, anarchism probably does have a comparative advantage over government. Holding constant the level of human badness, we can merely look at the situation in terms of incentives. Under minarchy, the government faces only periodic competition in the form of voting; and voting is notoriously a pure public good, so voters will probably be unable to carefully monitor the government for corruption. If people find that the wealthy are securing unequal justice, their only alternative is to move to another country. In contrast, under anarchism there can be multiple suppliers of defense services in a single area. And the benefits of switching to an honest agency accrue to the consumer who switches, whereas the benefits of informed voting go to everyone equally. Now if a defense firm's consumer is wronged by a wealthy criminal, won't they just abandon him? No, for at least two reasons. First, a defense firm is really selling an insurance policy, a policy to defend the rights of their clients IF they are wronged. If word gets out that the firm abandons its clients when they come to demand the help they are entitled to, their insurance policy will be basically worthless. In essence, firms would want to protect clients even though the expected value of their case is negative, because otherwise their name brand would be seriously hurt. The second reason why the rich would have trouble securing unequal justice comes from the incentives of the rich person's firm. In insurance economics, there is a concept known as "adverse selection." This means that unless an insurer properly screens its customers, the most likely people to buy insurance are those who are most likely to demand benefits. For example, chronically sick people are most likely to buy health insurance, high-risk drivers are most likely (other things held constant) to buy auto insurance, and so on. But if most people buying insurance come from high-risk groups, then their premiums would have to be extremely high. Now what would happen if a defense firm acquired a reputation for defending wealthy clients to the death? It would face an adverse selection problem of the worst sort. Every criminally inclined wealthy person would want to sign up. The firm would have to pay out huge payoffs, either in the form of settlements to other firms, or to pay the cost of fighting wars with every honest firm. The cost of the policy would have to rise almost to the level of the cost of the crimes. However wealthy a client might be, there is a huge deterrent against accepting him as a customer regardless of his criminal behavior. In contrast, honest firms could sell very cheap policies, because the large majority of their clients would never require the services. This is just a standard application of insurance economics, which tells us that the firms that adequately monitor their clients can offer cheap premiums, even if benefits are high, since the probability of payout is low. Firms that indiscriminately defended wealthy criminals, in contrast, would have to charge very high premiums, since the probability of payout is high. Finally, since the number of honest people of ordinary means far exceeds the number of wealth criminals, the total number of trained police on the side of justice would vastly outnumber the number on the side of criminals.

Much more could be said, but the incentive system of free-market anarchism definitely seems better able to control the problem of wealthy criminals that government or even minarchy. We don't need to assume that everyone under anarchism is good, because we can show that for ANY level of goodness, the incentives of anarchism are better than for minarchy.
--Bryan Caplan Department of Economics Princeton University.

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See, nothing deflects or influences Peter...

He has the official Peter Unicorn Playbook and he will run that split T offense even when he is down 35 to 0 in the 3rd quarter - yes football season is here...

football-tackle-smiley-emoticon.gif

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Read Wolf's constitution then think about it then come with a general observation. You're nitpicking the mechanics, Peter, but you aren't a mechanic. If constitutions were motors there could be as many. Wolf made a motor. Presumably it didn't run too good.

Proper law re-enforces goodness and generally goodness is the wanna be, strive to be of human being. Badness costs too much, but is always a possibility. Hence law. A constitution is law for the law-makers who make constitutional laws. It does not make people good but can help make bad people afraid to act badly.

And, like Adam said, what's this doing in the Humor section? And, like I ask, why do you want to slice and dice something right out of the box? Go do that to the original American constitution. You'll have similar success and get similar questions.

For a more cogent criticism, I can't think of a reason you've given why anyone should read your lengthy animadversions upon this--or that--a pre-endeavor endeavor to your endeavors you don't seem to value. So here's a quid pro quo.

--Brant

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I thought about putting this more serious letter on Wolf’s thread but if he is going to delete his Freeman’s Constitution at some point that makes less sense. Nor will I cut and paste his constitution here because he is expecting me to behave morally and not reproduce it, and I agree.

Wolf quotes the Magna Carta, 1215 A.D.: No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimized, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and by the law of the land.

And he responds to his quote: I do not suggest that this provision of Magna Carta should be construed as an obligatory legal or constitutional precedent. Rather, I cite it to suggest that my theory of justice is not at odds with historical understanding of civil liberty and the rule of law.
end quotes

Along with my dislike of calling corporations or foundations fictional persons I don’t think Wolf should call his document a Constitution. It is fairer to call it a declaration, like the portions of the Magna Carta that he quotes. I understand he is trying to focus on the essentials, and that if he names our freedoms he is limiting the definition of our freedoms, which was the purpose the ninth amendment was written to remedy.

And I understand that the longer the Constitution the more likely it becomes harder to understand and more open to interpretation but freedom needs a definition. An expanded ninth amendment could be utilized in a new Constitution, but only after individual rights are enumerated, and the roles of the States and the Federal government are defined. Wolf cannot assume everyone will always know what he means by freedom.

Discussing the legal branch of government is important but there should be two other branches which do not exist in the Freeman’s Constitution. I wonder if his Freeman’s Supreme Court functions as a very limited executive branch? That leads me to think that Wolf also does not see the need for a legislative branch because no new laws will ever be needed, and that his Laissez Faire City would never need to defend itself from outside armies. Not likely.

An additional problem I see is that he considers his document a thing for all people but it is not enforced by the United Nations (or a fictional federation of planets.) It is not enforced except through some mysterious moral force much like Plato’s ideals or the idea of the god’s laws and vengeance. In that Wolf is expecting rational behavior to flourish he is right as a general trend, but if the entire globe is examined during the last 20 centuries, it is obvious that totalitarian irrational elements are just kept at bay by retaliatory force. Armies are required at times to keep people free. And that means a commander in Chief.
Peter

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I was word searching and found this. It is humorous though not germane.

Peter

From: "George H. Smith"

Reply-To: "George H. Smith"

To: "*Atlantis"

Subject: ATL: Mickey and Ayn

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:05:50 -0500

The following is from an article on Mickey Spillane in today's Washington Post. For the complete article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43815-2001Aug21.html

Ghs

Mickey and Ayn

Spillane's effectiveness at tailoring that political message for the masses made him the envy of intellectual conservatives and won him affection from another best-selling novelist who also endured critical skewering: Ayn Rand.

Spillane smiles when the writer of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" is mentioned. "We were good friends," he says. Rand was an atheist and Spillane was devoutly religious, but they found common cause in their opposition to communism, a theme they agreed should be championed in literature. Rand also liked Spillane because her concept of an ideal man was similar to the Mike Hammer character: tough, strong-willed, independent. She admired the way Spillane dramatized themes of moral absolutism in his detective plots. In 1961, partly as a publicity stunt, their publisher helped arrange a dinner meeting between them in New York. Spillane still recalls the affair: "It lasted four hours," he says. Later, Rand wrote to Spillane privately, explaining what happened when she got home: "I wish I could have brought you in with me that night, after our meeting, because you might have been pleasantly shocked, as I was: When I entered my apartment, six young people (my students and close friends) were there, with my husband, waiting for me -- and had been waiting for several hours -- to hear what Mickey Spillane is like in person. The news that I was going to meet you had spread through our own grapevine -- and there they were.

"All of them are enthusiastic admirers of yours -- all of them (including me) had been disappointed too often, when meeting famous people -- and so it was an enormous pleasure for all of us that I could give them a report on you (on any publicly reportable issues) which, for once, confirmed and raised, rather than lowered, our enthusiasm. You are the only modern writer with whom I do share the loyalty of my best readers -- and I am proud of this."

Rand appreciated Spillane's precision as a writer, and in an essay on literature (which appears in her book "The Romantic Manifesto") quotes from Spillane's description of New York at night as an example of his skill -- "The rain was misty enough to be almost foglike, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even

the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy yellow lights off in the distance" -- and then compares it to a passage by Thomas Wolfe -- "The city had never seemed as beautiful as it looked that night. For the first time he saw that New York was supremely, among the cities of the world, a city of night. There had been achieved here a loveliness that was astounding and incomparable, a kind of modern beauty, inherent to its place and time, that no other place nor time could match."

To Rand, "there is not a single emotional word or adjective in Spillane's description; he presents nothing save visual facts; but he selects only those facts, only those eloquent details, which convey the visual reality of the scene and create a mood of desolate loneliness." Wolfe, she argued, used only estimates, "and in the absence of any indication of what aroused these estimates, they are arbitrary assertions and meaningless generalities."

Rand's letters to Spillane (reprinted in the book "Letters of Ayn Rand") appear to indicate she was taken with more than just his writing. On one occasion, she mailed him a gift and wrote, "I am waiting eagerly to see you again. As you say, 'Time ran out on us the other evening.' But is there any reason why time should run us, rather than the other way around? Love, Ayn." Later, when Rand missed seeing Spillane after "The Girl Hunters" was published, she wrote to him: "Why have you vanished? I was hoping to hear from you when you were in New York, but I understand that you have been rushing in and out of the city and that one can never catch you. If you want me to be a 'Spillane Hunter' -- take this as part of the pursuit."

When asked whether Ayn Rand had a crush on him, Spillane just smiles. "I really liked her," he says, noting that much of their camaraderie came from an "us against them" view of the critics. "They hate us, don't they?" Spillane would say to her.

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Peter,

To add to the humor, I think you need to provide some sock puppet praiseful synopses in the third person, and meat puppet reviews of your own writings. You need to indulge in the lame stunt of having anonymous puppets promoting you by speaking of you as if you're a very famous intellectual, and they need to do so in the exact same overblown, romanticized writing style as your own (you have to forget to disguise your puppets' voices).

J

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I see Ridley Scott’s The Martian with Matt Damon is coming out the first week of October. The following letter mentions Mars, Science, and freer government or lack thereof so I will post it.

I saw that a large body of ice was recently discovered on Mars which greatly increases the water needed for humans. If a Mars colony is to function, it will need supplies from earth to be rocketed in before humans arrive. Shelter, food, and seeds, vitamins and minerals not found on Mars and some sort of livestock (I heard of using small animals rather than pigs or cattle) but also tools, communication devices, antennas, and a lot more. We could load the rockets in earth orbit and then allow them to auto load on a specific location on Mars. We would need to live below the surface in airtight quarters near frozen water.

The first colony on Mars would be a place to establish a truly free society after the initial hierarchical phase is completed.

Jonathan thought I should add to the humor. I don’t get the sock puppet illusion. Unless. Perhaps another person’s old letter could speak for me or even for Wolf? That could be my sock puppet intellectual ammunition.

Peter

From: "Dennis May" To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Who can be reasoned with? (was guns and knives) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:54:47 -0600

Dave Thomas wrote:
I'll explain a bit of my position here: I don't want some crackpot conspiracy theorist who believes that the government is evil to own nuclear weapons because a crackpot like that is just the kind of person who might go ahead and use nuclear weapons even if he/she has to kill millions of people in the process. There are a lot of doomsday people out there right now who would prefer an all-out revolution.... I don't want those people deciding for me.

You don't want people deciding things for you, but your perfectly willing to decide things for other people. You have decided that governments can be trusted to control certain weapons but individuals cannot. You identify a particular type of individual who might misuse weapons if they are allowed to own them. Can we now discuss particular kinds of governments which might misuse weapons if they are allowed to own them?

But of course if the populace is already disarmed the discussion is pointless, the government will continue to control the weapons in any case. What is the average lifetime of governments which support freedom? A difficult question to answer since they are a modern phenomenon with a few lessons from the Greeks as well. In my view after about 3-4 generations free nations begin to sour from a lack of understanding of how they became free. The less feedback there is maintaining freedom the quicker the slip back to collectivism occurs. I don't trust governments to maintain an acceptable amount of freedom without a populace which is able to reclaim their freedom once threatened. Without an ability to respond in kind simple feedback will always drive governments to collectivist policies. These policies have in fact killed hundreds of millions of people. It is not a hypothetical situation, it is a fact which has repeated itself time and time again. All of these governments had one thing in common: a disarmed population unable to resist the boot of government.

Dave is right some people are irresponsible and bear close watching. I consider it a fact only waiting to happen: if our government disarms the populace tens or hundreds of millions of Americans will die as they always do when collectivists rule without hindrance.

Consider the problem from another angle. Who is allowed to develop the future of energy in this nation? In the case of nuclear energy it is the government alone. Not only the government but a very small portion of the government which does not even allow qualified people from other parts of the government to participate. Your not talking only about weapons staying out of the hands of crackpots, you are talking about stifling every Edison who comes along in this and nearly every area of human endeavor. What government controls, government destroys.

We started out arguing whether or not individuals should be allowed to own 3 pounds of metal in the form of a gun. We use about a quarter million pounds of metal a year where I work and it is a fairly small operation.

In my last post I discussed the specific weapon of mass destruction "nuclear bombs". The problem is you can't discuss the bomb aspect without discussing all aspects of things nuclear. The umbrella of state security encompasses all things nuclear. That is where we threw out the baby with the bath water.

Unless you spent many hours in the physics library in the late 80's and early 90's you probably didn't hear that that the energy "crisis" has already been solved for all times. You likely didn't hear about it because the government interests and individual interests are not one in the same. Edward Teller and company developed the framework for hybrid fission/fusion reactors. Breeder reactors are already capable of providing clean nuclear energy for the foreseeable future but the fission/fusion hybrid reactor allows for a trillion years worth of electricity using materials common and native to Earth.

Basically you have a fission core, the products coming out are used to generate fusion reactions, which in turn creates products used to generate more fissionable material. You can tune the net reaction to be nearly the same as a pure fusion reactor. The benefits include: tuning the process to produce whatever useful byproducts you want, no unknown or yet to be realized physics is involved, no exotic processes requiring new materials sciences, and the ability to burn up left overs from previous nuclear power plants.

Lets not forget nuclear rockets as well. Nuclear rockets have been tested and they work. Nixon cancelled all further research and here we are thirty some years later talking about a trip to Mars taking years. It doesn't take but a month to go to Pluto much less Mars.

The secondary consequences of keeping everyone safe from every imaginable bad outcome has kept us from technology worth more than all the oil in the Middle East and more useful than everything done in the space programs since man walked on the moon.

Governments do not have the brains to accomplish what comes naturally to individuals. Cut the shackles off and the universe is ours. Leave the shackles on and man will die a miserable little death on a planet representing a mere dust speck of what can be accomplished. A natural progression for those wishing to keep that 3 pounds of metal out of individual hands so everyone can feel safe. Ideas have consequences.
Dennis May

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Is Laissez Fair City comparable to Galt’s Gulch? Below we have James Koontz questioning the right to revolt that Thomas Jefferson and Wolf defend as an absolute.
Peter

James Koontz on Atlantis once wrote: This admittedly gets into an Objectivist PR problem. Take the example of Galt's Gulch. There were numerous real and potential illegal activities going on there. Their trade and production would have been subject to income taxes on the value of the bartered goods and/or gold exchanged. In today's regulatory environment, there would almost certainly be some zoning regulations and power distribution regulations violated as well.

Would it have been OK to set-up a fortified Galt's Gulch and shoot down the National Guard helicopters sent in to arrest its population for refusing to pay taxes? If full scale war were then waged on this Galt's Gulch by the U.S. government- would it be OK for Ragnar to launch a ballistic missile strike against Washington, D.C.?

That's one of the more unpleasant things we have to be able to answer if we are really consistent in our application of Objectivist principles. The hypothetical Galt's Gulch really occurs on an almost daily basis in places such as crack houses, employers using illegal immigrants, and the like. These places are not doing things Objectivists believe should be illegal (superficially, anyway), so should we say they can morally defend themselves against government tyranny by whatever means necessary?

Not advocating in any way (I'm about the most pacifistic male you'll ever meet), just taking our arguments to their logical, and distinctly uncomfortable, conclusions to spark debate.

end quote

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I heard that the RMS Lusitania sank ...

So I am going to fill three pages of unrelated "stuff" that has no purpose and that no one will read.

The Lusitania made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in September 1907. Construction had begun in 1903 with the goal of building the fastest liner afloat. Her engines produced 68,000-horse power and pushed the giant through the water at an
The Lusitania leaves New York
May 1, 1915
average speed over 25 knots. Dubbed the "Greyhound of the Seas" she soon captured the Blue Ribbon for the fastest Atlantic crossing.

The British Admiralty had secretly subsidized her construction and she was built to Admiralty specifications with the understanding that at the outbreak of war the ship would be consigned to government service. As war clouds gathered in 1913, the Lusitania quietly entered dry dock in Liverpool and was fitted for war service. This included the installation of ammunition magazines and gun mounts on her decks. The mounts, concealed under the teak deck, were ready for the addition of the guns when needed.

On May 1, 1915, the ship departed New York City bound for Liverpool. Unknown to her passengers but probably no secret to the Germans, almost all her hidden cargo consisted of munitions and contraband destined for the British war effort. As the fastest ship afloat, the luxurious liner felt secure in the belief she could easily outdistance any submarine. Nonetheless, the menace of submarine attack reduced her passenger list to only half her capacity.

A contemporary illustration
of the sinking
On May 7, the ship neared the coast of Ireland. At 2:10 in the afternoon a torpedo fired by the German submarine U 20 slammed into her side. A mysterious second explosion ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned. The ship listed so badly and quickly that lifeboats crashed into passengers crowded on deck, or dumped their loads into the water. Most passengers never had a chance. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died. The dead included 114 Americans.

Nah...even I don't care...

A...

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I don’t understand your scorn Adam. The idea of a colony on new land governed under laissez faire politics pertains. So the type of rocket is interesting to me. The attempts to start a new city/state on previously inhabited lands that are still within the jurisdiction of a functioning country proves a new country will NOT succeed ON EARTH. Armed revolution pertains to the topic. Lazy Fair city likened to Galt’s Gulch is pertinent. I put this topic in humor to STOP Wolf from reading it and taking offense at my humorous jabs, not to entice him or you here by reverse psy.

Here is another idea. Objectivist Living is an internet site but to its visitors it is almost a place. Yet it is owned by specific people who have the final say, like Midas Mulligan. In no way is it a government but sometimes a miscreant negotiates a return to Oland with Michael much like an exile might to Laissez Faire City. I am sure hack attacks have been attempted upon this city's gates.

So I am hoping you will continue to visit this thread but if it bugs you, why come here? I can skim your irrelevant posts with ease, as you can avoid mine. Part of the reason I am not corresponding on the Freeman’s Constitution thread is because Wolf will not debate after he gives an extremely short criticism which is sometimes personal. So what is the sense to that?
It is 67 degrees here but I think I will put on a jacket and cut some grass with the weed whacker.
Peter

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Peter writes:

The hypothetical Galt's Gulch really occurs on an almost daily basis in places such as crack houses

No it doesn't, Peter.

The ideal of Galt's Gulch only works for people who govern their own behavior by decent values. This is also how our Constitutional government works. The more people fail to govern themselves, the more the Constitution needs to be violated in order to govern them. Our Constitutional form of government only works for the decent. It does not work for people with rotten values.

Greg

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Peter writes:

The attempts to start a new city/state on previously inhabited lands that are still within the jurisdiction of a functioning country proves a new country will NOT succeed ON EARTH.

...and it will NOT succeed anywhere else either, because people always take their values with them no matter where they are.

Greg

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Peter writes:

The hypothetical Galt's Gulch really occurs on an almost daily basis in places such as crack houses

No it doesn't, Peter.

The ideal of Galt's Gulch only works for people who govern their own behavior by decent values. This is also how our Constitutional government works. The more people fail to govern themselves, the more the Constitution needs to be violated in order to govern them. Our Constitutional form of government only works for the decent. It does not work for people with rotten values.

Greg

"In order to govern them." In order to "govern" the Jews--Nazi Germany? Or the German Aryans had "rotten values" and deserved the Nazis and the Jews were collateral damage? There are no victims in your cosmology--only the guilty? A philosophical justification for Big Brother?

--Brant

how much experimenting did you do with gasoline and matches before you decided to try something else, like hand grenades?

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Brant writes:

"In order to govern them."

Hey Brant...

I was referring to AMERICA. TODAY.

NOT to the dead past where you're still living in your mind! :laugh:

People have become so degenerate in their behavior that the Constitutional government created to govern decent people can no longer govern them. Only an unconstitutional government can do that, so that is what is happening right now.

In America. Today. (just in case this has not already been made clear) :wink:

The Constitution is being systematically DISMANTLED so a degenerating government can govern the degenerating people who are recreating it in their own image.

It's the perfect match made in Hell. :wink:

Greg

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Brant writes:

Well, there used to be quality Democrats in the US Senate. Not one today.

Well, there also used to be quality Americans in America, too. Hardly any today.

The government PERFECTLY REPRESENTS the prevailing moral values in this nation.

Greg

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Brant writes:

Well, there used to be quality Democrats in the US Senate. Not one today.

Well, there also used to be quality Americans in America, too. Hardly any today.

The government PERFECTLY REPRESENTS the prevailing moral values in this nation.

Greg

I don't think that it does. The current members of government from both parties, when running for office, did not promote themselves as supporting the policies that they ended up supporting. They sold themselves to the public with quite different ideas than those that they went along with. Many people were fooled by that marketing method, just as you, Apey, are fooled by the really obviously stupid shit that you repeat over and over here at OL. The only difference is that most of them are much smarter than you are, and they therefore learn from their mistakes, where you just keep repeating the same nonsense no matter how embarrassingly wrong you've been shown to be.

J

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