Lenny froths over Iran on live TV


Mike11

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This is Lenny McCrazy on the O'Reilly Factor.

Viewing the Lenny is an art form. I recommend watching once without the sound and watching the demented look in his eye, then once more focusing on the general facial expression while his body shakes with hatred, then a final time with the sound.

Then the monstrous persona is revealed as merely a scared senile old man wondering why the cameras are on him and what he did with his old cane - the one he remembers from an episode of All in the Family.

Edited by Joel Mac Donald
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This is Lenny McCrazy on the O'Reilly Factor.

Viewing the Lenny is an art form. I recommend watching once without the sound and watching the demented look in his eye, then once more focusing on the general facial expression while his body shakes with hatred, then a final time with the sound.

Then the monstrous persona is revealed as merely a scared senile old man wondering why the cameras are on him and what he did with his old cane - the one he remembers from an episode of All in the Family.

It is a sad appearance. Very sad. An embarrassment

Bill P (Alfonso)

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This is Lenny McCrazy on the O'Reilly Factor.

I don't care for Leonard as a person nor do I like his style. However, I have trouble finding fault with his logic. There is nothing he said that I disagree with.

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I don't care for Leonard as a person nor do I like his style. However, I have trouble finding fault with his logic. There is nothing he said that I disagree with.

Well, except that he alienates the people he needs to convince, the most. All the logic in the world won't help you in a public policy argument when you come across like an irrational nutjob.

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I could only watch the first half. I'll try to finish later. He's hard to stand to listen to. And the travesty of this man self-placed on a soapbox labeled "The Ayn Rand Institute" makes all of Barbara's and Nathaniel's purported evil machinations for destroying Rand's good name look anemic and pitiful. DIM, so far, is obviously not helping unless this is representative of desired consequences.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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I could only watch the first half. I'll try to finish later. He's hard to stand to listen to.

Leonard Peikoff's voice and delivery stand in the way of his message. He barks and hoots, in a form of peikoffic pentameter. La BLAH la la BLAH la BLAH la la la BLAH la BLAH.

No way can I endure taped lectures from the barking Preston Manning. "What CAUSES the PROBLEM is the welfare STATE!!"

Yes, Dr Barking-Hooter.

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I could only watch the first half. I'll try to finish later. He's hard to stand to listen to.

Leonard Peikoff's voice and delivery stand in the way of his message. He barks and hoots, in a form of peikoffic pentameter. La BLAH la la BLAH la BLAH la la la BLAH la BLAH.

No way can I endure taped lectures from the barking Preston Manning. "What CAUSES the PROBLEM is the welfare STATE!!"

Yes, Dr Barking-Hooter.

His voice is better (and his content!) in the earlier, pre-1982 lectures where the content is often quite good.

But imagine him reciting poetry - iambic pentameter - in current voice.

Bill P (Alfonso)

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I don't care for Leonard as a person nor do I like his style. However, I have trouble finding fault with his logic. There is nothing he said that I disagree with.

Well, except that he alienates the people he needs to convince, the most. All the logic in the world won't help you in a public policy argument when you come across like an irrational nutjob.

This is what makes me dislike the ARI, its not what they say, its the deranged way they say it. I find it highly unlikely that a "mind" like Lenny's could ever produce anything other than utter nonsense.

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However, I have trouble finding fault with his logic. There is nothing he said that I disagree with.

Jordan,

I have several issues where I disagree strongly with Peikoff and find the logic flawed, usually by gross oversimplification and package deal concepts.

1. The standard argument in the case ARI makes is that enemy innocents killed in war are the moral responsibility of the enemy. If that case stopped there, I would agree. But it doesn't. The continuation is that concern with enemy innocents is evil because it makes us pull our punches. That is a gross oversimplification and just plain boneheaded logic. One day I will break this concept down into its referents and demonstrate the contradictions being packaged together. I find it disgusting.

There are cases where concern with enemy innocents makes us pull punches and there are cases where it does not. There are even cases where pulling our punches results in greater gains than immediate tactical ones. Obviously there are cases where pulling our punches is a terrible policy. There is a reason strategy and tactics are used, not just tactics. War situations need to be analyzed and chosen by evaluating both, not by throwing everything into a blanket moral principle that excludes anything but short-term concretes and values and essentially eliminating strategy by reducing it to tactics only.

But there is something even worse. Concern with innocents in general is a human value that goes deeper than tribalism (our innocents are better than yours). Discarding concern with human life in such a cavalier manner (just because some people belong to another tribe) makes a mockery of a philosophy devoted to individualism and living on earth.

Please keep in mind that Peikoff is not saying that killing enemy civilians is a last resort. He is saying that killing enemy civilians is not a concern for our civilians and that it is evil for our military to be concerned about it. He is quite clear about that. This is tribal metaphysics.

2. I am totally in agreement with Bill O'Reilly about keeping the military under civilian control. Peikoff's insinuation in saying that the military must choose which weapons to use is another gross oversimplification.

When weaponry is so devastating that it is impossible to calculate the number of civilian deaths when deployed, there are diplomatic concerns involved that have nothing to do with the military. I agree that, in general, the military must be left to choose its tools.

But the military must always answer to an elected civilian. This is part of the brilliant policy of checks and balances designed by our Founding Fathers. History has shown time and time again what happens when this principle is ignored. That means the military can and should advise the President. That also means that a responsible President will listen to his military advisers and weigh their advice carefully. But the power of decision about using WMD's or any other issue concerning massive force—including when and where to wage war—must ultimately remain in the hands of a civilian (who can be impeached if he gets out of line).

3. In general, I agree that the best way to cow a bully is whop him real hard right between the eyes. But once again, I find Peikoff making a gross oversimplification by taking one principle to an international scale and ignoring everything else. Just for starters, "bully" is just one aspect of a hostile enemy. "Cornered and threatened" is another. There is the adage about a cornered rat. When a person thinks there is nothing to lose, he will fight back with everything he's got and to hell with the consequences, even his own life. World wars and ugly long drawn-out wars are made of such mixes. So are suicide bombers.

4. Demonizing Iran: I agree that Iran is the seat of much of the turbulence in the Islamist world, but oversimplifying Islamism as if it were controlled predominantly by Iran is such a blunder in... er... oversimplification that I do not know how to respond except by derision. Sure, Iranian ambitions have to be neutralized. They are making a holy mess out of things and the threat is real. But so do a lot else. It would be nice if you could snap your fingers on such a complicated issue and say, "This one thing will solve all the rest." But it doesn't.

There is a little issue of Shiite and Sunni hostilities that gets blanked out by such an oversimplification. I personally am appalled by the remnants of Nazism in the Islamist mentality I have uncovered by doing just a little research. Imagine what I will find if I dig deep. I won't even go into the USA's horrible habit of getting in bed with bloody dictators and training their secret police forces. Those are just three issues with will not go away by crushing one country. They will continue to breed terrorism until they are dealt with on their own terms. There is a lot more—a hell of a lot.

But to Peikoff, he has a pet theory that simplifies it all and this replaces those realities.

5. I have other issues, but I have to stop. They all boil down to oversimplifying massive deployment of force. Once you screw up everything on a huge scale (say like WWII did), you can't just say, "Oops." That's not good enough for a proponent of a philosophy of reason. He must think about consequences now, not later. (It is called analyzing causality.)

I must say something about Peikoff's delivery. Good manners on national television is the smartest policy possible with an interviewer like O'Reilly and Peikoff needed coaching badly. Instead of bothering with even thinking about this, much less trying to practice it, Peikoff constantly tried to interrupt O'Reilly by shouting. Since he has facial expressions that make his eyes bulge when he shouts, the impression was the worst imaginable.

Imagine what kind of mind that manner of presentation is going to appeal to. It is not a mind devoted to reason or goodwill. In fact, minds devoted to reason and goodwill are turned off and feel revulsion when they see something like that.

What a mess!

Michael

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1. The standard argument in the case ARI makes is that enemy innocents killed in war are the moral responsibility of the enemy. If that case stopped there, I would agree. But it doesn't. The continuation is that concern with enemy innocents is evil because it makes us pull our punches. That is a gross oversimplification and just plain boneheaded logic. One day I will break this concept down into its referents and demonstrate the contradictions being packaged together. I find it disgusting.

I can't see any way around the problem. In order to defend myself, innocents may get hurt. I don't see how caring about them changes the morality of it.

But there is something even worse. Concern with innocents in general is a human value that goes deeper than tribalism (our innocents are better than yours).

This is, essentially, Justice. The question becomes more complicated because the "innocents" are not the only actors in need of justice.

2. I am totally in agreement with Bill O'Reilly about keeping the military under civilian control. Peikoff's insinuation in saying that the military must choose which weapons to use is another gross oversimplification.

Peikoff said that the military professionals should decide tactics. I agree. Of course the President has the final say, but he doesn't know anything about the nuts-and-bolts of fighting a war.

A quick way to talk about this is to use Hiroshima as a surrogate. Was it moral to drop the bomb or not? I say it was.

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Peikoff said that the military professionals should decide tactics. I agree. Of course the President has the final say, but he doesn't know anything about the nuts-and-bolts of fighting a war.

A quick way to talk about this is to use Hiroshima as a surrogate. Was it moral to drop the bomb or not? I say it was.

In regard to the last it saved many, many "Innocent" civilian lives plus the lives of a million plus soldiers.

Many Presidents knew a lot about "the nuts-and-bolts of fighting a war." Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Grant, T. Roosevelt, Eisenhower come to mind.

--Brant

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I can't see any way around the problem. In order to defend myself, innocents may get hurt. I don't see how caring about them changes the morality of it.

Caring about the morality of it means honoring the morality of making the right decisions. This makes one a moral actor.

--Brant

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I can't see any way around the problem. In order to defend myself, innocents may get hurt. I don't see how caring about them changes the morality of it.

Caring about the morality of it means honoring the morality of making the right decisions. This makes one a moral actor.

--Brant

That's not what I said.

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Peikoff not knowing what he is talking about and not knowing it as a rule of thumb wants the military to choose the weapons to get the job determined by the political leadership done as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Well, a 30-megaton nuclear bomb exploded at 30,000 feet will incinerate everything above ground 250 miles in any horizontal direction.

The President might want some input. He just might.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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I can't see any way around the problem. In order to defend myself, innocents may get hurt. I don't see how caring about them changes the morality of it.

Caring about the morality of it means honoring the morality of making the right decisions. This makes one a moral actor.

--Brant

That's not what I said.

I said is not what you said? That is correct.

--Brant

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I would not appear on O'Reilly and this is part of my reasons.

Why does ARI never talk about the Saudis who are playing a double game. There were no Iranians on the planes on 9-11

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I would not appear on O'Reilly and this is part of my reasons.

Why does ARI never talk about the Saudis who are playing a double game. There were no Iranians on the planes on 9-11

Chris -

I have heard ARI speakers mention the Saudis, and our rather craven response to them. I can't provide a specific cite - some of the CDs having to do with foreign policy issues.

Bill P (Alfonso)

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I can't see any way around the problem. In order to defend myself, innocents may get hurt. I don't see how caring about them changes the morality of it.

Jordan,

My argument is not against the reality of innocent deaths in war. It is against a moral oversimplification that leads to more problems than it solves. And I am against preaching anything that gives a moral sanction to metaphysical tribalism.

For example, you mentioned "the problem" and "morality of it." I presume that you are talking only about military tactics, and even then, within a specific battle or skirmish. Within that scope, caring about innocents will not change the reality of needing to kill them at times.

But the morality?

I presume you use Objectivist epistemology in forming your concepts. So let's start with basing our morality on metaphysics.

If the meaning of human life and existence is only one tribe dominating other tribes as an end in itself, sure, caring about enemy innocents doesn't change the morality. Using that standard, though, why not reinstate slavery and put enemy civilians to work for free labor? That's reasonable. Why not eat them as food? Who gives a crap about the enemy tribe, right?

Let's take that logic further. If you enslave enemy civilians, you can get free labor for dangerous jobs. Look at the benefits. This not only helps end the hostilities sooner, thus helps save American lives, it also saves American lives from work-related accidents. So that's the moral thing to do. Right?

And, if there is a food shortage, why not eat enemy civilians? If you don't care about them and they are nutritious meat, what's the problem? If Americans get hungry and you save American lives doing that, that's the moral thing to do. Right?

If you are going to say, "They are human beings and that's disgusting," then we are starting to broaden the concept from the tribal vision (and I fully agree with that). In order to not fall off into contradiction, you have to choose one or the other on a metaphysical premise level for establishing your ethics. Otherwise, you have some very subjective metaphysics indeed. Result-wise, tribal metaphysics can't go anywhere but tribalism, and a contradiction on that level can't either. All roads lead to tribalism except for reason based on fundamental axioms.

The so-called problem you mentioned is resolved by making this an issue of degree and not kind. If the core metaphysical value is love of human life and not just love of tribal life, you can measure human lives, i.e., one life can be more valuable than another in a given circumstance simply because the "end in itself" standard for individuals is thrown out the window when force is involved. Reality imposes that choice, not men, even though men are involved.

But you are measuring values, not non-values as Peikoff insinuates. Innocent enemy civilians are values and ends in themselves qua individuals on a metaphysical level. They should be respected as such until the situation makes that impossible.

That impossibility is not an on-and-off switch for all time, either. It is contingent on clear and present danger and evaporates after the danger does. Since perception of danger is not a state but an estimation for a specific time, there is an enormous amount of leeway involved. In practical terms, a soldier—and only he—knows at the time when it is right or wrong to kill an enemy civilian.

This business about the deaths of innocent enemy civilians being the blame of this country or that only muddies the intellectual waters to promote tribalism. If you want the real blame on an individual level, reality is to blame.

The question becomes more complicated because the "innocents" are not the only actors in need of justice.

I fully agree with this and this is one of the reasons I am so against oversimplifications that exclude one set of actors or another.

A quick way to talk about this is to use Hiroshima as a surrogate. Was it moral to drop the bomb or not? I say it was.

I agree for that situation, especially in a world where the enemy was formally at war with us, hell-bent on conquering us at all costs, travel and hauling were much more primitive than today and these bomb devices were not stockpiled nor easily deployed.

Nowadays, the situation is not that clear and advantageous. There are many more aspects and dangers involved. An itchy trigger finger can really screw things up big-time and I do not cotton to the morality of itch with atomic bombs.

I am also glad that dropping those bombs on Japan was the President's call. I shudder to think what would happen over time if our Generals started jockeying for the power to do that autonomously.

Michael

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What a way to start. Peikoff: "I am absolutely not concerned with innocents!" Neither was Lt. Calley.

--Brant

Neither were Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay. Allied victory in WW2 would have come at a much higher price but for these two warriors.

Arthur "Bomber" Harris believed the place to whip Nazi Germany was not on a battle field, but where they ate, worked and slept, right at home. Curtis LeMay believed the key to defeating Japan lay in burning the country down to the ground, which he did. One night in March of 1945 approximately 500 B-29 armed to capacity with incendiary bombs burned out 16 square mile of Tokyo killing at least 125,000 people (many of them women and children) and de-housing another 1.25 million people, leaving them exposed to the chill and the spring rains of Japan. LeMay's raid killed more people than were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were on the target list for nuclear bombs because they were among the half dozen cities that had not been razed to the ground by incendiary attack.

You may ask, what is the point of this discourse. To which I answer, when you have a hot war the only thing, the ONLY thing that matters is victory. That end justifies what ever means are required to achieve. If one is not willing to fight unto the death of his enemy, then he should surrender and avoid the useless effusion of blood.

I list Harris, LeMay, W.T. Sherman (who burned the State of Georgia down), U.S. Grant and Phillip Sheridan (who starved the secesh) among my Heroes. They fought and won righteous wars. When U.S. Grant starved Vicksburg out he most likely had no thought for the women and children in that besieged town. He shelled the town twice daily and the residents were reduced to eating cats, dogs, horses and rats and living in holes that they dug in the ground. When Grant was done with Vicksburg, the Mississippi was once more open to the Union, from Illinois in the North to the Gulf of Mexico in the South. Phillip Sheridan burned the Shenendoah Valley out. He put the torch to homes and farms and thousands of farmers and their families had to flee just to find a place to get food. Hundreds if not thousands starved or perished in the rain and cold, mostly women and children. That is the price of victory.

Last but not least. If an unjust enemy ever believes, even for a minute, that you care more for the innocent than for winning, he will line his roofs with baby carriages and cribs full of tots. He will tie children to the front of his tanks. The result: more children will be killed if one is not resolute than if one is. That is the way it works.

War is the last place for sentiment and softness. War is about victory or defeat.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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Ba'al,

Does it make any difference to you that the situations you compared were quite different? The actions of LeMay and the others were in the midst of war, well after its start. On the other hand the U.S. is not at war with Iran. If Iran attacked the U.S. and war ensued, that would be a quite different situation.

I am baffled by Peikoff's wanting to go after Iran and not Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The Saudi government was financing the spread of Wahhabism, which to some advocates violent jihad against non-Muslims. Indeed, I was very disappointed with the U.S. government's behavior toward the Saudis.

Suppose instead the situation had been reversed. The U.S. government was financing and promoting a crusade to violence against Muslims. U.S. citizens on their own went to Saudi Arabia and murdered a bunch of Saudis. Does anybody believe the Saudi government would have made no demands on the U.S. government? Why didn't the U.S. government act, at least demanding huge concessions on oil, and maybe even threaten to confiscate the Saudi oil fields, which American companies developed in the first place?

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Well, Bob, this thread is more about style and method of presentation than how to fight a war. Peikoff came across as an hysteric which gutted his whole argument.

If the U.S. hadn't bombed Japan, a naval blockade would have starved millions to death.

Harris and LeMay were like vicious attack dogs both controlled and unleashed by their masters. If LeMay had had his way during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, there would have been a nuclear exchange that would have quite likely escalated into general thermonuclear war.

You can't put a smilely face on war and feel good about it.

--Brant

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You can't put a smiley face on war and feel good about it.

--Brant

I can and I do. Righteous war is among the great accomplishments of Man. In my youth, I was a tool smith for the warriors and I am proud of every scalp on my belt. Every great archer, needs a fletcher and a bow smith. That is me. I did my little bit to wear the Commie Bastards down to the nubbins. If I had been born ten years earlier I might have joyfully dropped 500 lb. and 1000 lb. H.E. on the Germans. They needed to be killed.

I think WW2 was both necessary and beneficial to the human race and our people fought it well. I look back at the period in our history with pride. For a brief period, America created The Greatest Generation. I will cherish that to my dying day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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