Paul passes McCain

[Martin Radwin]

[

And you choose to give them carte blanche? You paint yourself as much a TRAITOR as they are, and deserve the same as they do.

I want a government that will KILL MUSLIMS. The more the better. If that is treason then make the most of it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's see. There are about one billion Muslims in the world. You want a government that will kill Muslims, the more the better. So your ideal government would kill all one billion or so Muslims; any less than killing all of them would be a suboptimal solution by your standards. Your "final solution" to the "Muslim problem" makes Mao, Stalin, and Hitler look like pikers by comparison. If you were president and presumably had the power to implement this policy, you would become by an order of magnitude the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world.

Martin

[Brant Gaede]

[

And you choose to give them carte blanche? You paint yourself as much a TRAITOR as they are, and deserve the same as they do.

I want a government that will KILL MUSLIMS. The more the better. If that is treason then make the most of it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Let's see. There are about one billion Muslims in the world. You want a government that will kill Muslims, the more the better. So your ideal government would kill all one billion or so Muslims; any less than killing all of them would be a suboptimal solution by your standards. Your "final solution" to the "Muslim problem" makes Mao, Stalin, and Hitler look like pikers by comparison. If you were president and presumably had the power to implement this policy, you would become by an order of magnitude the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world.

Martin

I don't think he means "all," I think he means enough. Then I would agree if we are talking about Muslim terrorists targeting the West. "Enough" might be a relatively small number if other tactics are used too.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I agree with giving an intellectual discount for rhetoric, but it is hard to take phrases like "the more the better" and say, "What he meant was..."

The whole point of having a rational philosophy is to identify, then judge and act. This means identify the bad guys and kill them if necessary. This does not mean identify some bad guys, turn into a bigot and hate (or kill) all who look vaguely similar.

We talk about learning. One of mankind's repeated follies throughout history is bigotry. It doesn't work and it is a spiritual mess since it is based on blind fear.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

We talk about learning. One of mankind's repeated follies throughout history is bigotry. It doesn't work and it is a spiritual mess since it is based on blind fear.

Michael

Another on of mankind's repeated follies is failing to do away with one's enemies. That is why there were three (count them) wars between France and Germany.

Blind fear. Is fearing another WTC (or its equivalent) blind fear? Or is it sensible concern?

What you do not seem to grasp is that devout Muslims prefer death and martyrdom to life. That makes them very dangerous. They are in the same class as Kamikaze pilots. The Kamikaze pilots were the main fear of U.S. navy people in the Pacific War. Submarines they could handle. "Normal" air attacks they could handle. Suicide attacks made them shit in their pants.

However you seem to believe that fearing one's avoid and fanatic enemies is mere bigotry. It isn't. Look at the hole in the ground where the WTC used to be.

I will tell you what. I will hold my peace on this matter, since I have already stated my position, until the Next Big Attack right here in the U.S.A.. And then I will post my recipe for marinated crow, for your delectation.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited July 9, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I will tell you what. I will hold my peace on this matter, since I have already stated my position, until the Next Big Attack right here in the U.S.A.. And then I will post my recipe for marinated crow, for your delectation.

Bob,

Thank you.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

I want a government that will KILL MUSLIMS. The more the better.

Ban him. Revoke his membership.

[Brant Gaede]

I will tell you what. I will hold my peace on this matter, since I have already stated my position, until the Next Big Attack right here in the U.S.A.. And then I will post my recipe for marinated crow, for your delectation.

Bob,

Thank you.

Michael

Well, it's kinda hard to make subsequent comments when Bob has shut up. It wouldn't be fair to him. So I'll just have to make a few points then I'll probably be done too.

--I see nothing essentially wrong with the US sending agents abroad to kill its enemies, though the devil is in the details.

--The US is in an unacknowledged de facto war with Iran and that's Iran's doing. And Iran is involved in much more than Iraq and fighting the US. Thus the US should get the lead out and clobber Iran. There are non-nuke ways to do this. The reason for avoiding nukes if at all possible involves a more sophisticated analysis.

--The US should really be defended by the Defense Department and other agencies. That'd mean greatly increasing the size of the Coast Guard and securing its southern borders. Etc.

--Etc. I don't have time for more, but this is really the wrong forum for this kind of discussion.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For the record, here is my position on who is right between the Muslims and Jews:

FALSE DICHOTOMY

Bigoted Muslims and bigoted Jews and bigoted people of all sorts are wrong.

Bigotry is wrong. Period.

That is part of what is causing this mess in the world. Bigotry needs to be eradicated from human affairs, both peacefully and by force when appropriately prompted. I support this position.

Objectivism is a philosophy of reason and rationally produced values, not bigotry.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

For the record, here is my position on who is right between the Muslims and Jews:

FALSE DICHOTOMY

Bigoted Muslims and bigoted Jews and bigoted people of all sorts are wrong.

Bigotry is wrong. Period.

That is part of what is causing this mess in the world. Bigotry needs to be eradicated from human affairs, both peacefully and by force when appropriately prompted. I support this position.

Objectivism is a philosophy of reason and rationally produced values, not bigotry.

Michael

I'm not afraid of what bigoted Jews might do to me or my country. No one can or ever will eradicate bigotry from human affairs; it's reflective of tribalism, which probably has a strong genetic component. Objectivism is incompatible with bigotry unless ye be a bigot. There is thus good and bad bigotry. One might even make an argument for good terrorism. Good bigotry is common with good discrimination. There is good and bad discrimination too. However, to temper Michael's reply, "bigotry": "a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion." There is survival value in it. Most people aren't so smart to intellectualize themselves out of bigotry and fight anyway.

--Brant

(warrior--good warrior, good warrior; honest!)

Edited July 9, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I don't know about all human affairs, but I can try to keep bigotry off my little corner of the universe. I loath bigotry. This is probably one of the few things I loath in life.

I agree that tribalism probably has a genetic element. I had an interesting conversation with Barbara on instinct (I hold that there exists a tribal or herding instinct in primates) and she pressed me for a definition. I researched a bit and saw that there were different meanings this term has taken in different literature. What I mean by the term is preprogrammed behavior that develops on an "if... then..." basis over growth, and experience and choice can modify it. Choice obviously means intellect.

Thus I believe we do have an innate tendency toward the tribal, but we can choose otherwise. I hold that a conscious choice to avow thinking and submit oneself to the tribal urge is one of the greatest acts of intellectual cowardice I can think of. This is part of the reason I loath bigotry. In a heartbeat, the bigot will kill both fool and genius, both villain and hero, both second-hander and innovator, both parasite and producer, all indiscriminately, all because he seeks the protection of a tribe and craves to merge his identity in it. Rational thought is only on the table to come up with bigger and better forms of the destruction of his scapegoat.

This is a spiritual pigsty. It is disgusting.

As a rational person, it is possible to be an excellent warrior without being a bigot. Identifying enemy armed forces and killing them during wartime is not bigotry. I believe you were and are one such warrior.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Brant,

I don't know about all human affairs, but I can try to keep bigotry off my little corner of the universe. I loath bigotry. This is probably one of the few things I loath in life.

I agree that tribalism probably has a genetic element. I had an interesting conversation with Barbara on instinct (I hold that there exists a tribal or herding instinct in primates) and she pressed me for a definition. I researched a bit and saw that there were different meanings this term has taken in different literature. What I mean by the term is preprogrammed behavior that develops on an "if... then..." basis over growth, and experience and choice can modify it. Choice obviously means intellect.

Thus I believe we do have an innate tendency toward the tribal, but we can choose otherwise. I hold that a conscious choice to avow thinking and submit oneself to the tribal urge is one of the greatest acts of intellectual cowardice I can think of. This is part of the reason I loath bigotry. In a heartbeat, the bigot will kill both fool and genius, both villain and hero, both second-hander and innovator, both parasite and producer, all indiscriminately, all because he seeks the protection of a tribe and craves to merge his identity in it. Rational thought is only on the table to come up with bigger and better forms of the destruction of his scapegoat.

This is a spiritual pigsty. It is disgusting.

As a rational person, it is possible to be an excellent warrior without being a bigot. Identifying enemy armed forces and killing them during wartime is not bigotry. I believe you were and are one such warrior.

Michael

Michael,

So let's rationally identify the enemy. Out of 1 billion Muslims on the Earth, perhaps 10-15% cheered and thought 9/11 was a good idea. The other 85-90% do very little to speak out or fight against the 100-150 million Muslim fanatics who believe in holy jihad against the West. Where does that leave us? It leaves us in the position of having to consider necessary collateral damage in populations that won't do the right thing and turn in the fanatics.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

I have a much better idea. Why don't we let the military do the job we hired them for instead of preaching bigotry? They are specialists in identifying the enemy and taking them out.

We are supposed to be intellectuals. If we honor that name, we need to preach reason, individual rights, and separation of church and state, etc. Not bigotry.

Our job is to keep new enemies from forming through persuasion. The military's job is using force.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Jim,

I have a much better idea. Why don't we let the military do the job we hired them for instead of preaching bigotry? They are specialists in identifying the enemy and taking them out.

We are supposed to be intellectuals. If we honor that name, we need to preach reason, individual rights, and separation of church and state, etc. Not bigotry.

Our job is to keep new enemies from forming through persuasion. The military's job is using force.

Michael

Michael,

I don't agree with Bob Kolker, but let's look at numbers and clear and present danger. There are perhaps 14 million Jews on the earth and perhaps 1% of them are right-wing fanatics of the kind that might kill Yitzak Rabin. Clearly those people are dangerous, but nothing like the threat posed by fanatical Muslims. The religion of Islam is about holy war against the infidels. Those who take their religion literally have already declared you and I the enemy.

Our military is not served well by a philosophical position that says we don't know who the enemy is, it's your job to figure that out and by the way they all look alike, be sure you don't kill any innocent civilians.

I know plenty of Muslims who are decent people. I live and work with many.I don't expect them to convert to something else. I simply expect them to out the militants in their midst and have no truck with them.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

For the umteenth time, if you (or anybody else) are really interested in doing something, please read the following from the Rand Corporation (and endorsed by Daniel Pipes). That's a really good start.

Building Moderate Muslim Networks

We can make a difference.

Or we can bitch on Internet forums that Muslims are evil because Islam is evil because they want to take over the world and we don't want to die and there are suicide bombers and they are evil evil evil and those who aren't evil are anyway because they don't speak out and we should nuke them and think about it later and everything else we have read for the last few years in O-Land. We're all gonna die goddam it! They're gonna blow us to pieces!

None of this makes a damn bit of difference, incidentally. Life goes on and broadcast news keeps pouring it on. All this public bickering and bitching does is give Objectivism a bad name as a cult with fruitcake followers.

If there is one Objectivist I can cite who has balls, and I mean real balls, not this sorry tribal cowardice I constantly perceive masquerading as tough talk on Internet forums and in letters to editors, etc., his name is David Kelley (and his staff). He knows what has to be done and is not afraid to do it. He has scheduled a talk called Outreach by Objectivists into the Muslim Community by Omar Altalib at this year's summer seminar. I bitterly regret not being able to attend because this is one talk I particularly wanted to see.

God, I admire Kelley! I mean it. He does things for real. I have no doubt this approach is one seed that will grow tall. And all this terrified bitching we see now will be forgotten over time, lost in its shadow.

To be fair, even with all the bombastic talk, Yaron Brook sat beside Daniel Pipes on the same stage when he endorsed the Rand Corporation study. I see that as a good sign. Not great, but it is something more than bigotry.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Michael,

I have never endorsed Yaron Brook's position or the nuclear saber-rattling from ARI. Nukes would not effective against terrorists in any case. We have to be clear, however, that there is something fundamental to Islam which has caused the kind of extremism we see. If adherents to Islam only had a problem with the US, possibly we could look at our past history to see if there were anything we could do differently. Islamic adherents have waged unprovoked war on Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other sects within Islam. Pretty much everyone who doesn't subscribe to Islam is a target.

I applaud efforts at bridge-building, but we have to be clear-eyed about whether we are out of time.

Jim

Edited July 10, 2007 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Brant Gaede]

Islam is a horrible religion spread by force. My idea of reaching out to moderate Muslims is to slather the religion with the truth pulling the "moral" teeth of its extremists. Muslims need to be freed from their religion as part of the defense of the United States.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Islam is a horrible religion spread by force. My idea of reaching out to moderate Muslims is to slather the religion with the truth pulling the "moral" teeth of its extremists. Muslims need to be freed from their religion as part of the defense of the United States.

--Brant

Please describe in specific, non-general and operational terms how you propose to do this. No hand waiving please. And how much collateral damage do you expect? How much collateral damage are you willing to inflict? Are you willing to let women and children be used as shields? If the militants hide behind baby cribs and women's skirts do you shoot through them?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jim,

If Islam per se were the problem, the present problems would have existed ages ago. They didn't, at least no more than Catholic expansionism, etc., did throughout history.

The present problems exist because a fundamentalist strain of Islam (Salafi or Wahabbi) has received huge funding from oil money and they invested it in spreading their denomination. Another fundamentalist strain in Iran (Shia), also flourished with oil money. (The USA really crapped all over itself with the sorry history of that one—read the history on how it blew the privileges of being in bed with the dictator, the Shah, by pure arrogance.)

Then there is an issue that is not discussed as much as it needs to be. There is a huge ideological leftover from Nazism in the Middle East (Saddam was a good example). That has nothing at all to do with Islam. The only thing that manifestation really shares with fundamentalist Islamists is hatred of Jews (which is a bigotry I particularly despise).

Of course we are not out of time. The problem is to correctly identify the problem, then solve it. Oversimplification and bigotry and terrified reactions will never solve it. There are many non-fundamentalist strains of Islam now popping up in public. Guess why?

I thank our lucky stars that responsible people, like those at the Rand Corporation (meaning "powers that be backstage") are applying real thinking and acting to this issue, and are not listening to the hysterical people from our neck of the woods.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Islam is a horrible religion spread by force. My idea of reaching out to moderate Muslims is to slather the religion with the truth pulling the "moral" teeth of its extremists. Muslims need to be freed from their religion as part of the defense of the United States.

Brant,

This is the simplest thing in the world and it is going on right now. You don't combat the religion. You inject the ideas of individual rights and separation of church and state (for starters) into the Islamic culture, just like it was done with Christianity.

The military responds to the bad guys while this grows. Then the Muslims will finally take care of their own, just like we do here with fundamentalist Christians. They are allowed to exist. They are not allowed to impose their ideas by force.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Islam is a horrible religion spread by force. My idea of reaching out to moderate Muslims is to slather the religion with the truth pulling the "moral" teeth of its extremists. Muslims need to be freed from their religion as part of the defense of the United States.

--Brant

Please describe in specific, non-general and operational terms how you propose to do this. No hand waiving please. And how much collateral damage do you expect? How much collateral damage are you willing to inflict? Are you willing to let women and children be used as shields? If the militants hide behind baby cribs and women's skirts do you shoot through them?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Using radio and the Internet and other forms of communication. The more Muslim terrorists want to do terrorism the more this should be pushed. There are great myths associated with Islam. Let's see how those myths survive incessant truth.

The US should not tolerate oil revenues flowing out of Saudi Arabian coffers into Wahhabism world-wide. I think that that is effectively an act of war and the US should stop tolerating it.

The US should get rid of the regimes in Iran and Syria.

In regard to your last two sentences I assume you are speaking literally and metaphorically. If you shoot a few times they'll stop using shields and fewer will be killed, otherwise many more of them will be killed eventually anyway. And the lives of the "good guys" have to be primarily considered.

When I say Muslims should be freed from their religion I mean they should be freed from force and intimidation directed at them from within their religion. I don't mean that this should be done by attacking the idea of a Supreme Being (by the US government) or arguing that religion per se is irrational, etc.

Sorry, I really don't have time for more detail.

--Brant

PS: Michael, I don't get separating intellectuals from the military. That's much too ivory tower for me.

(Note: There are broader, deeper questions about US foreign policy and what it should consist of. I'm much, much less of an interventionist than my remarks imply. I am addressing the immediate context of US-Middle-Eastern relations.)

PPS: Collateral damage? Not much. The longer the US holds off, though, the more we are likely to see.

PPPS: Shooting human shields is not done just because they are shields, but because you are being engaged or you can't get around the situation to accomplish your mission. It might be tactically advantageous to record the situation with video and not engage and use it for propaganda.

There is nothing nice about war, but it is disastrous and stupid to be in one and pretend you aren't.

Edited July 10, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

PS: Michael, I don't get separating intellectuals from the military. That's much too ivory tower for me.

Brant,

Obviously the military need to use thinking. That is not what I am getting at.

What can a civilian do with respect to combating the threat posed by Islamist fundamentalists?

(1) Vote.

(2) Become a mercenary.

(3) Spread freedom-type ideas to Muslims.

(4) Bitch among other civilians and do nothing.

(5) Don't bitch and do nothing.

I have no wish and probably poor ability for military mercenary work. I can help spread ideas to Muslims (so I have my little project going). I observe many Objectivists bitch among themselves and do nothing.

This is the context for understanding my meaning. Also, I understand "intellectual" in the sense Rand gave in For the New Intellectual, p. 26-27 (and I have mentioned this before):

The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society's course by transmitting ideas from the "ivory tower" of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual's specific professions are in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called "humanities," but for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories, for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies man's means of knowledge sad makes an other sciences possible, The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields. A free society has to be an informed society. In the stagnation of feudalism, with castes and guilds of serfs repeating the same motions generation after generation, the services of traveling minstrels chanting the same old legends were sufficient. But In the racing torrent of progress which is capitalism, where the free choices of individual men determine their own lives and the course of the entire economy, where opportunities are unlimited, where discoveries are constant, where the achievements of every profession affect all the others, men need a knowledge wider than their particular specialties, they need those who can point the way to the better mousetrap—or the better cyclotron, or the better symphony, or the better view of existence. The more specialized and diversified a society, the greater its need for the integrating power of knowledge; but the acquisition of knowledge on so wide a scale is a full-time profession. A free society has to count on the honor of its intellectuals: it has to expect them to be as efficient, reliable, precise and objective as the printing presses and the television sets that carry their voices.

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

PS: Michael, I don't get separating intellectuals from the military. That's much too ivory tower for me.

Brant,

Obviously the military need to use thinking. That is not what I am getting at.

What can a civilian do with respect to combating the threat posed by Islamist fundamentalists?

(1) Vote.

(2) Become a mercenary.

(3) Spread freedom-type ideas to Muslims.

(4) Bitch among other civilians and do nothing.

(5) Don't bitch and do nothing.

I have no wish and probably poor ability for military mercenary work. I can help spread ideas to Muslims (so I have my little project going). I observe many Objectivists bitch among themselves and do nothing.

This is the context for understanding my meaning. Also, I understand "intellectual" in the sense Rand gave in For the New Intellectual, p. 26-27 (and I have mentioned this before):

The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society's course by transmitting ideas from the "ivory tower" of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual's specific professions are in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called "humanities," but for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories, for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies man's means of knowledge sad makes an other sciences possible, The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields. A free society has to be an informed society. In the stagnation of feudalism, with castes and guilds of serfs repeating the same motions generation after generation, the services of traveling minstrels chanting the same old legends were sufficient. But In the racing torrent of progress which is capitalism, where the free choices of individual men determine their own lives and the course of the entire economy, where opportunities are unlimited, where discoveries are constant, where the achievements of every profession affect all the others, men need a knowledge wider than their particular specialties, they need those who can point the way to the better mousetrap—or the better cyclotron, or the better symphony, or the better view of existence. The more specialized and diversified a society, the greater its need for the integrating power of knowledge; but the acquisition of knowledge on so wide a scale is a full-time profession. A free society has to count on the honor of its intellectuals: it has to expect them to be as efficient, reliable, precise and objective as the printing presses and the television sets that carry their voices.

Michael

HaHaha!! I guess given my circumstances I should probably do 1 and 5 . I just don't buy into the notion that we can persuade the fanatics and pull punches. We probably can lay the groundwork so that we don't have another generation of fanatics.

Jim

Jim

[Brant Gaede]

PS: Michael, I don't get separating intellectuals from the military. That's much too ivory tower for me.

Brant,

Obviously the military need to use thinking. That is not what I am getting at.

What can a civilian do with respect to combating the threat posed by Islamist fundamentalists?

(1) Vote.

(2) Become a mercenary.

(3) Spread freedom-type ideas to Muslims.

(4) Bitch among other civilians and do nothing.

(5) Don't bitch and do nothing.

I have no wish and probably poor ability for military mercenary work. I can help spread ideas to Muslims (so I have my little project going). I observe many Objectivists bitch among themselves and do nothing.

This is the context for understanding my meaning. Also, I understand "intellectual" in the sense Rand gave in For the New Intellectual, p. 26-27 (and I have mentioned this before):

The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society's course by transmitting ideas from the "ivory tower" of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. The intellectual's specific professions are in the field of the sciences that study man, the so-called "humanities," but for that very reason his influence extends to all other professions. Those who deal with the sciences studying nature have to rely on the intellectual for philosophical guidance and information: for moral values, for social theories, for political premises, for psychological tenets and, above all, for the principles of epistemology, that crucial branch of philosophy which studies man's means of knowledge sad makes an other sciences possible, The intellectual is the eyes, ears and voice of a free society: it is his job to observe the events of the world, to evaluate their meaning and to inform the men in all the other fields. A free society has to be an informed society. In the stagnation of feudalism, with castes and guilds of serfs repeating the same motions generation after generation, the services of traveling minstrels chanting the same old legends were sufficient. But In the racing torrent of progress which is capitalism, where the free choices of individual men determine their own lives and the course of the entire economy, where opportunities are unlimited, where discoveries are constant, where the achievements of every profession affect all the others, men need a knowledge wider than their particular specialties, they need those who can point the way to the better mousetrap—or the better cyclotron, or the better symphony, or the better view of existence. The more specialized and diversified a society, the greater its need for the integrating power of knowledge; but the acquisition of knowledge on so wide a scale is a full-time profession. A free society has to count on the honor of its intellectuals: it has to expect them to be as efficient, reliable, precise and objective as the printing presses and the television sets that carry their voices.

Michael

My problem with Ayn Rand here is she wasn't competent enough, as valuable as what she said was, to tell commanders and troops in the field what to do or even what wars to fight. Just too much philosophy relative to empirical data and experience. She didn't even understand self-defense. She created the impression that the police will protect us instead of us protecting us. I went out at night last week to walk my dog and strapped on a .357 magnum. A car came slowly down the street toward me looking for I-don't-know-what. It just kept going, but nobody is going to get away with mugging me for my chocolate Lab. This attitude of mine simply wasn't anything Rand could have related to.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Good strategic analysis and brief discussion of possible US-Israel attack on Iran and Syria soon at Moon of Alabama, which is the rump list of ace blogger Billmon (who retired last year).

Brant,

You and I are old enough to remember how it was in the 50's when Ayn Rand wrote. Zero crime, nobody locked their doors at night in Middle America. 100% consensus on mom and apple pie, reflected in Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, etc. Hard to fault Rand for her era. On occasion I carry a .38

Bringing this back to Ron Paul, I don't think there are enough calm, confident voters in the US to elect him president. Eugene McCarthy comes to mind. The world is too tense for a Boy Scout fix.

W.

Edited July 11, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Brant Gaede]

Good strategic analysis and brief discussion of possible US-Israel attack on Iran and Syria soon at Moon of Alabama, which is the rump list of ace blogger Billmon (who retired last year).

Brant,

You and I are old enough to remember how it was in the 50's when Ayn Rand wrote. Zero crime, nobody locked their doors at night in Middle America. 100% consensus on mom and apple pie, reflected in Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, etc. Hard to fault Rand for her era. On occasion I carry a .38

Bringing this back to Ron Paul, I don't think there are enough calm, confident voters in the US to elect him president. Eugene McCarthy comes to mind. The world is too tense for a Boy Scout fix.

W.

As far as I can tell Ron Paul is not the man we need for President now because of the big mess the US has made in the world and now has to deal with. I don't think he is up to it. I may be wrong, but it is a common enough perception that he has no real chance, but maybe his campaign will be educational, even for me.

--Brant