Martin Radwin

Of course! Because, obviously, anyone who is opposed to any of the actions of the Israeli government, such as imposing blockades, occupying land that is not theirs, seizing vessels in international waters, bombing and killing thousands of innocent civilians, and keeping entire populations living in nearly subhuman conditions, obviously is motivated by nothing but hatred of Jews. Similarly, anyone who is opposed to the actions of the government of China is obviously a racist who hates Chinese people. Anyone who is opposed to the actions of the government of Russia obviously hates Russians. Anyone who is opposed to the actions of the Mexican government obviously hates Mexicans. Oh yeah, and lets not forget the most important of all instances of this rule. Anyone who is opposed to the actions of the U.S. government, such as its ongoing wars, bombing, and occupation of multiple countries, which have resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, obviously hates Americans and is presumably a terrorist as well. I'm glad we've cleared that up! Martin

Well, I sure am impressed with your obvious brilliance. You've demonstrated a grasp of logic that is nothing short of genius! All of those logical fallacies of which George is so clearly guilty, and you discovered them all after only reading 9 pages of an internet thread. For example, your brilliant logical insight that George was not making a reasonable offer to Wendy by asking her to apologize after stealing and plagiarizing 7 years of his work. Instead, you have determined that the logical thing for George to do was to say "I am sorry", in other words, for George to apologize to Wendy for her stealing and plagiarizing his work. That is brilliant logical deduction of the highest order. If there were such a thing as a Nobel prize for philosophy, you would surely be awarded it. I am literally dazzled by the force of your logic! It's too bad for Wendy that, back when George was giving those seminars on fundamentals of logic, you weren't giving them instead in his place, given your obvious vastly superior grasp of logic. That way, when she stole and plagiarized your work instead of George's, TRW would have been a much better work of philosophy. Martin

I never knew this until now. I'm immensely saddened for him, though not at all shocked or surprised. What makes this a redoubled tragedy is that the University of Southern California — as I still find to not be universally known, among friends and contacts — is not a government institution, but a private one. That this kind of apparent ostracism and group-think extends to private colleges, ones that are widely presumed to be more insulated from them, shows that such philosophic diminution and decay goes far beyond the realm of political funding struggles. I'm sure Barbara could cite examples of this at New York University, also private, on the other coast. I can testify to it at Northwestern University, between the two in Illinois. Avoiding direct government funding is no guarantee of a campus culture of truly independent thought. The problem is that even allegedly "private" universities are all recipients of huge quantities of government money, generally in the form of research grants. As far as I know, the only private university in the entire country that does not take federal funds is Hillsdale College. And even Hillsdale, I believe, is the recipient of government funds at the state and local level. Without government, in the context of a totally free market, universities as they exist today would not exist at all. Whatever shape they would take, they would look very different than they do now. So modern universities are overwhelmingly creatures of the state. I have no doubt but that USC is the recipient of millions of dollars of government research grants. So it's not terribly surprising that a libertarian like Hospers who comes out against such things would not be very popular at a university that is a massive recipient of government largesse. Martin

George, Here's an idea that is probably completely impractical, but it does kind of appeal to my sense of justice. Take all of the work you have done over the years on this subject, put it all together, and publish a book, "Fundamentals of Reasoning", by George H. Smith. Given the mountains of evidence you have, I don't think that Wendy would entertain the notion of suing you for plagiarism. Martin

The same Rand who spent the better part of a dozen years either rewriting, or hectoring him into revising, The Ominous Parallels? Not at all likely. I wasn't thinking about matters of style, which are relatively unimportant. I was referring to the various positions that Peikoff has taken on matters of substance. Ghs If this is so, it doesn't speak very highly of Rand as a philosopher during the latter years of her life, considering the appallingly low quality of the work done by Peikoff since her death. One thing that Peikoff permitted, for which I could only imagine Rand would have wanted to strangle him had she been alive to see it, was the bastardization of her work in "Ayn Rand Answers", in which her replies were modified throughout the book in such a way that it's impossible to tell what she did and didn't actually say. Rand had a thing or two to say about second handers who modify the work of others without their consent. Of the many sins committed by Peikoff and his roving band of second handers, that was probably the most despicable one of all. Martin

I guess this is what passes for serious analysis in the mainstream media these days. Never mind that the US is engaged in an endless stream of brutal, murderous, senseless wars having nothing whatever to do with the defense of the US, whose only actual purpose is the extension of the US empire. Never mind the thousands of dead and the tens of thousands of medical/psychological casualties, who come home from the wars after multiple tours of duty with PTSD, only to find that they are put on long waiting lists for help from an overburdened and understaffed VA. Never mind the thousands of veterans who have committed suicide, or the thousands of veterans who are now homeless and living on the streets, or the veterans who apply for disability assistance and are denied, so that the money saved from their denied care can continue to be plowed back into the war machine. None of this matters. The only thing that matters is that the president should not play golf on Memorial Day, so as to show that he cares about the plight of the veterans living and dead, even though the reality is that he and the military industrial establishment over which he presides don't give a damn about the lives of any of these veterans, except insofar as it may affect their potential future war planning. The more than 1500 soldiers who have died in Afghanistan didn't lay down their lives for their country. The truth is that they laid down their lives for nothing. Just as the over 4000 US soldiers who have died in Iraq laid down their lives for nothing. Just as the over 50,000 US soldiers who died in Vietnam laid down their lives for nothing. That's the real truth that most Americans don't know and don't want to know. And the purpose of so much government propoganda, which is willingly spread by the mainstream media, is to hide this fact from Americans, to convince them that these wars are noble and that the soldiers who died in them died for a good cause. For if enough Americans understood the truth about these wars and the wasted lives of their sons and daughters, they would be out in the streets of DC with pitchforks, and the politicians who authorized these wars would be hanging from the lampposts. Martin

So Barack Obama, who has enormously escalated the war in Afghanistan, who has enormously escalated the use of drone attacks in Pakistan, who has unilaterally started a war in Libya which is now targeting civilian as well as military installations, who has done nothing about withdrawing any significant number of troops from Iraq, who is running record military budgets and has not advocated even the slightest reduction in military spending or even the slightest reduction of U.S. troops stationed around the world, who during his campaign promised to close Guantanamo and has now reneged on his promise, who voted to fund the murderous Iraq war while he was a senator, even while proclaiming his opposition to the war, who has expanded the murderous drug war in Mexico, which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people in Mexico caught in the crossfire between the Mexican government and the drug cartels, who has enthusiastically supported the TSA in its quest to irradiate and molest millions of Americans, who has declared his right to order the murder of any American citizen anywhere in the world -- it is this Barack Obama who really advocates a foreign policy of non-interventionism but just won't confess it. It really takes a special kind of stupidity to actually believe such utter nonsense. Martin

Martin, That's funny. I asked because you asked a question and answered it. From what I saw, you were directing your rhetorical questions at Kat and insinuating that she was a hawkish neocon. Is my understanding correct? And you accuse me of not reading carefully and making unwarranted presuppositions? Nowhere was I insinuating that Kat was a hawkish neocon. I never said any such thing and I never implied any such thing. My purpose in making the post, which I thought was perfectly obvious, was to point out that, despite the fact that Bin Laden was dead, it was very unlikely that anything was going to change with regard to U.S. foreign policy (or domestic policy, for that matter, although I didn't specifically refer to that). And so, from my perspective, there is no sense of closure regarding Bin Laden's death, given that nothing will likely change that will affect our lives in a positive way. Now, if the future proves me wrong, if, for example, the U.S. really does withdraw from Afghanistan now that Bin Laden is dead, I will be the first to admit that I was wrong and that something positive resulted from Bin Laden's death that was really worth celebrating. But I don't expect this. So far, none of the statements made by any of our illustrious leaders give us much hope to believe that anything is going to change for us. There you go again making unwarranted presuppositions. I didn't pretend anything. I asked. I would suggest for you to please read more carefully, but I have found that this is an ongoing problem with you. You seem to like spouting from a soapbox far more than reading correctly. Michael You asked? You mean that this was a serious question? You actually considered the possibility that I made the post because I like talking to myself, so you had to ask the question in order to see if this was true? If you think that I am the type of person who enjoys talking to myself in internet postings, I would suggest that you please read more carefully. Martin

So now that we have CLOSURE, can we finally get the hell out of Afghanistan? Can we finally end our occupation of Iraq? Can we finally stop flying drones over Pakistan and firing hellfire missiles into wedding parties? Can we finally stop bombing Libya? Can we finally put a stop to all of the wars and bring our troops home? No? Not this time? The danger of terrorism is greater than ever? That's what I thought. I guess that CLOSURE will have to wait for another day. Martin I'm awaiting the day when the U.S. government gets the hell out of the United States. I guess this means I will have to wait awhile for closure. Ghs Yes, you'll have to wait even longer for that. The impending bankruptcy of the U.S. government may eventually force some significant cuts in the overseas empire. But getting the U.S. government the hell out of the United States? Much as I, like you, would love to see that happen, I don't imagine that either of us will live long enough to see it. But a boy can dream ... Martin

Martin, Are you talking to yourself? Michael Not at all. I've asked a series of rhetorical questions. The obvious intent of these rhetorical questions was to illustrate that, despite Bin Laden's death, we should probably not anticipate that anything substantive will change in the lives of Americans. As a result of which, I don't feel any sense of closure at all. If you prefer to pretend that my purpose in making this post was that I like to talk to myself, so be it. Martin

So now that we have CLOSURE, can we finally get the hell out of Afghanistan? Can we finally end our occupation of Iraq? Can we finally stop flying drones over Pakistan and firing hellfire missiles into wedding parties? Can we finally stop bombing Libya? Can we finally put a stop to all of the wars and bring our troops home? No? Not this time? The danger of terrorism is greater than ever? That's what I thought. I guess that CLOSURE will have to wait for another day. Martin

Or we might win by killing billions of people. We shall see. We will see if Allah can do sh*t to stop us. Ba'al Chafatz Congratulations on your brilliant insights, Ba'al. Only you, along with a claque of aspiring future Hitlers, could imagine that we could somehow "win" by killing bilions of people. Martin

Peculiar? Dayaamm! Do you mean something like the invasion of Normandy was not an "act of war" because the USA did not "initiate" the war? Your words are conveying this to me. Is my understanding of your meaning correct? Any violent action that occurs within the context of a war is technically an "act of war." This applies to the killing of bin Laden as well. My point was that this is so obvious that it seems peculiar to call attention to it. When U.S. soldiers engage in firefights with members of the Taliban, these are not normally reported as "acts of war." This is understood as part of the context. So what does it mean to say that the killing of bin Laden was primarily an act of war rather than an act of justice? I don't understand the basis for the comparison. The killing of bin Laden, since it occurred in the context of a state of war that has been in effect for a decade, would have been an "act of war" regardless of whether it was just or unjust. You object to the selling of the killing as "an act of justice," because you view it primarily as an act of war. Maybe you mean that justice was not the primary motive of those who authorized and implemented the attack. I don't know one way or the other, but I suspect that the Navy Seals who participated in the attack viewed it principally as "payback" -- i.e., retribution -- which is a type of justice. I cited Locke because he provides an excellent framework for distinctions that are vital to libertarian theory. Whether we should attempt to educate the public about Lockean theory in this realm is a judgment call. It is also irrelevant to the point I was making. I cited Locke in the course of suggesting how libertarians should view the killing of bin Laden. Ghs Whether the killing of Bin Laden is consistent with libertarian principles seems strangely irrelevant in the context of the world we live in today and the kind of government that rules over us. The U.S. today is a bankrupt, decaying empire ruled by a government that is fighting wars with multiple countries around the world and murdering countless numbers of innocent people. The U.S. government, in its quest for world domination, has murdered far more innocent people than Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists could ever hope to accomplish. This was a point long ago made by James Bovard, that governments are and always have been the world's principle terrorists, having the means at their disposal to kill vastly greater numbers of people than all of the private terrorists combined. With regard to your comment in post #151 about Bin Laden as an enemy combatant, as far as the U.S. government is concerned, we are all now enemy combatants or ready candidates to be labeled as such. Obama has declared that he has the power to order the murder of any person in the world, including American citizens, without evidence or trial. As far as the ruling clique that runs this country is concerned, we are all terrorists (or at least potential terrorists) now. Whether or not any particular act committed by the U.S. government may be judged to be consistent with libertarian principles, the U.S. government doesn't give a damn about libertarian principles or ethics. Its sole aim is world domination, both abroad and at home. Martin

Well, a nice start would be to be able to criticize Islam, or Allah forbid - even maybe draw a cartoon or two without censorship and a fear of getting brutally murdered. Bob Of course it would be a nice start. And, of course, the threats of violence and actual murders of people drawing cartoons of Mohammad or otherwise mocking Islam are both evil and stupid. My comment was a facetious reply to Infidel's ludicrous suggestion that we could somehow destroy the faith in Allah of the world's population of Muslims. Here's the reality. Religious belief declines very slowly, over multiple generations and hundreds of years. Here in the United States, at least 90% of the population are Christians, Jews, or Muslims. And we are among the most technologically advanced, educated societies that has ever existed in the world. I would guess that the rate of religious belief among Europeans is slightly lower than in the United States but still very high. The rate of religious belief in the U.S. has been decling over the last hundred years, but very slowly. Given this reality, how long would you expect it to take for there to be a significant reduction in religious belief in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Yemen? Like it or not, we are going to have to live in a world populated by hundreds of millions of Muslims for a long, long, long, long time. Islam is not going away. There will probably be significant numbers of Muslims a thousand years from now. There is no enlightenment fairy that's going to come along and convert all of these hundreds of millions of Muslims into enlightenment atheistic thinkers. And if there were such a fairy, he/she would have to make a stop here in the United States as well to disabuse the majority of Americans of their religious belief. So, we're just going to have to learn to live in peace with our Muslim neighbors. Utopian fantasies about destroying their religious faith are not going to help to achieve this goal. Martin

You mean you didn't like my idea about the international assasination squads? Or even, presumably, my idea about nuking all of those jihadi dogs and cats? I must say, I'm shocked and more than a little disappointed. I thought you would think that these were just swell ideas. But since, instead, your solution is to destroy their faith in Allah, I guess I should ask just how exactly you propose that we accomplish this feat? There are about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, most of whom presumably have a certain degree of faith in Allah. So, how are we to go about destroying all of that faith? I eagerly await your solution to this vexing problem. And it had better be at least as good as my idea of nuking all of those jihadi dogs and cats. Martin

Soon people being groped by TSA at the airports should start saying "cut this crap out, Bin Laden's dead". I don't know about pulling out of Afghanistan or Iraq, in terms of timelines etc. I like the sound of it, of course. Nice drawing concept, though I wish the rodent in the talons was a bit clearer, the color isn't distinct compared to the eagle's feathers. Plus I wouldn't mind some drops of blood, maybe coming out of the eye. Bin Laden's dead but the Jihadis are Out There waiting to do evil to us on our own ground. Bin Laden showed them the way. Bin Laden is dead but the Way still beckons these death lovers. The world will not be safe as long as there is one Jihadi Out There. Ba'al Chatzaf You're right, Ba'al. We'll never be safe as long as there's a single Jihadi Out There. So the obvious solution is to make up a list of every single Jihadi in the entire world. Then we send assasination squads out all over the entire globe, murdering each Jihadi one by one, until there are no Jihadis left. Then at last we will be able to breathe easily. We will be safe! Oh, wait. I've thought about this scenario and just figured out that there's a slight flaw. What if our list of Jihadis is incomplete? What if we end up missing some, so that even after our assasination squads have done their work, there are still some surviving Jihadis left, meaning that we will still not be safe. What if some of the Jihadis slip through the cracks? We would feel really stupid if, after all of the diligent work of our assasination squads, we still had to continue living in mortal terror. So, I've come up with a slightly revised plan. This time, we make up a list of every country in the entire world that we believe has any Jihadis living there. Then, we nuke every one of these countries, killing every man, woman, child, dog, and cat in that country (you never know, there might just be some canine and feline Jihadis. We can't take any chances). This way, we don't have to worry about any Jihadis slipping through the cracks. Problem solved. We will be safe! Oh, wait. I just thought of something. What if we suspect that some Jihadis are actually living in the United States? What are we going to do then? We don't want to nuke ourselves. Do we? Martin

You really ought to learn to read more carefully. Nowhere did I say or imply that I was offended by you calling OBL an asshole. In fact, I happen to agree with you that OBL is an asshole and, presumably, a mass murderer. My point was that OBL was not responsible for the thousands of deaths and injuries suffered by American soldiers in the wars that followed 9/11, as you stated. It was not OBL who ordered the invasion of Iraq with over a hundred thousand soldiers. It was not OBL who ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, a war that was allegedly fought to kill OBL but that has turned into the longest war ever fought by the U.S., with no end in sight. OBL was responsible for the death of about 3,000 Americans. George W. Bush was responsible for the death of more American soldiers than that, not to mention at least 100,000 Iraqis who have died in the war. OBL is now dead. George W. Bush lives on in luxury, with a lifetime of taxpayer provided secret service protection. OBL has received the ultimate justice for his crimes. George W. Bush will never have to face justice for his crimes. Martin

I'm not pissed off at you, and I am not, by the way, "celebrating" OBL's death. I am simply pointing out that the logic of your argument is that nobody should ever celebrate anything, which is why I suggested that you should "relax." That is all. The world can be a pretty bleak place, and there aren't that many unalloyed "good news" events out there. Many men and women who voluntarily joined our military made a day like yesterday possible. Some of them died because of this asshole. Why rain on the celebrations/parades of those who wish to celebrate the unalloyed good news that this asshole is dead, especially given the sacrifices necessary to make such a thing happen? The fact that you wrote your earlier post in such a way as to stake out the moral high ground on this fairly straightforward matter is the only reason I thought your post in need of a reply. Of the thousands of American soldiers killed and wounded in wars fought since 9/11, almost none of them suffered this fate because of "this asshole" Bin Laden. The majority of casualties have been in Iraq, a war fought for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 but using 9/11 as a justification by a bunch of sociopaths who were looking for an excuse to invade Iraq. It is not Bin Laden who was responsible for their deaths and injuries. The responsibility lies instead with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the various other architects of this criminal war. These sociopaths are also responsible for the death of at least 100,000 Iraqis, but who cares about them anyway? They will certainly not get any justice as the victims of Bush and his cronies, who will live out their lives in oppulent luxury. None of these sacrifices were necessary to bring about Bin Laden's death. There were previous opportunities many years ago to have Bin Laden killed, which have been well documented. So go ahead and celebrate the fact that this asshole is now dead. No changes in U.S. foreign policy will occur as a result of this, any more than the defense budget was cut after the collapse of the Soviet Union, mocking those who actually were hoping that there would be a "peace dividend" associated with the Soviet Union's collapse. Instead, the defense budget reached new, unprecedented heights, and new missions were created for Nato to justify its existence after the very reason for its existence, protection against the Soviet Union, was no more. The U.S. will continue fighting multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and wherever else the murderer in chief decides to keep launching new wars. The powers enshrined in the government by the Patriot Act will never go away. The TSA will continue to abuse passengers at airports. And the DHS will continue to give its best effort to scaring the shit out of as many Americans as it can, for reasons long ago documented by Mencken. Martin

http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/27/obamas-brith-certificate-revea "So long Birthers. It wasn't nice knowing you. And yes, White House, let's get on with the discussion of how the America-born Barack Obama is effectively enacting a third Bush term, pursuing virtually of that bum's bad policies (war, massive government spending, expansion of already-unsustainable entitlements, disinterest in civil liberties, you name it) under the banner of hope and change. As that conversation gets all the focus, you may wish that you never closed out this inane topic."

Martin, As far as I can tell, this is an opinion. You want me to take it as fact? I know a little, not much, but a tittle about the secondary oil market from having watched it up close. This was outside the USA, granted, but I was involved with real players. What I have seen doesn't align with your opinion. Nor is it as simple as you are putting it. But essentially, the following is true--when the bribes flow and the dictators in oil countries are killing their folks with USA support, we get long stretches of pretty cheap and stable gasoline prices. About whether Objectivist this or Objectivists that, I don't play that us-against-them game. I thought I have made that clear over several years posting online and running one of the most renegade outside-the-box sites on Objectivism on the Internet. Also, I am not a friend of Neocon policies like several prominent Objectivists are, and I have been open about my disagreements, so I have no reason to defend them. Nor do I play the one wrong justifies another game. Sorry. I am of the same opinion as before for the reasons I gave. Michael I know that wiggling, squirming, and retreat into meaningless rhetorical flourishes like "us-against-them game" and "one wrong justifies another game" were not really what you were hoping for here, Martin. But in all honesty, what else could you have expected? My congratulations for your usual eloquence and my condolences for what it led to. (At least we didn't have to sit through any incoherent rambling about "haters" or "bullies.") JR Jeff, Thank you very much for your compliment on my writing. I didn't really expect it to lead anywhere, and in that respect I'm not disappointed. I just felt that the position Michael had laid out was so absurd and, in addition, immoral, that it just required some kind of refutation. I feel better for having written it. Martin

Martin, As far as I can tell, this is an opinion. You want me to take it as fact? I know a little, not much, but a tittle about the secondary oil market from having watched it up close. This was outside the USA, granted, but I was involved with real players. What I have seen doesn't align with your opinion. Nor is it as simple as you are putting it. But essentially, the following is true--when the bribes flow and the dictators in oil countries are killing their folks with USA support, we get long stretches of pretty cheap and stable gasoline prices. As I've previously pointed out, oil and gasoline prices are quite high now, so all of these multiple wars presently being fought by the U.S. government don't seem to have provided us with the utopia of cheap gasoline. In fact, gasoline prices are near record highs. As to your speculation about gasoline prices in an ideal laissez-faire marketplace, there is obviously no way to establish this empirically, since this is about as opposite from the actual situation in the world as we can get. But Brant (in post #27) provided some good reasons why, in such a truly free marketplace, oil and gasoline prices would probably be lower. And in addition to the cost of oil, one must also factor in the cost of these wars and military occupations, which are now costing Americans trillions of dollars. But, again, let's assume, hypothetically, that you are right, and that the U.S. government getting into bed with dictators has lowered oil and gasoline prices. Suppose that the U.S. government were to end all foreign aid, close down all military bases, and end all wars. Suppose that it were to adopt a strict policy of neutrality and non-interference in the affairs of all other nations. Now suppose, as a result of this, that oil prices were to double, leading to roughly a doubling of gasoline prices. If this were to be the result, would you support such a laissez-faire policy? Or would you insist that the U.S. government must maintain its wars, its occupations, its military bases, its aid to foreign dictators, in order to keep oil prices lower? If you would support present U.S. government policy based on keeping oil prices lower, how would you morally justify such a position? Or do cheap oil prices trump all moral justification, such that it's okay to support such a policy on strictly utilitarian grounds, despite its immorality? I'm essentially repeating the question that I posed in my previous posts, in a slightly different form. How many innocent foreigners is it okay for the U.S. government to kill in its wars and military occupations in order to hypothetically keep oil prices low? How many innocent foreigners must live under brutal, U.S. government supported dictatorships in order to hypothetically keep oil prices low? Why am I not surprised that your opinion has not changed as a result of my arguments? My main purpose in posting here is not to convince anyone of anything, since I realize that this almost never happens. It is just to speak the truth as I see it, and to refute positions that I see as both ill-informed and as morally unacceptable. At best, I can hope that maybe a few people reading these posts might just stop to consider the arguments I am making. But I'm ultimately just doing it for my own enjoyment. Martin

Martin, Well... When using the us-against-those moral scumbags tone of voice... Yeah... That's fair to say. Unless you can come up with a source of gasoline not produced with blood in the pump. Then you can drive without being a hypocrite by your own standards. (You asked...) Michael My previous post was in response to the following statement that you made: "In the same manner, I can't help but see stuff, and I see people who are opposed to USA Middle East military interventions all too happy to fill their cars with gasoline from those efforts if the price is cheaper." In my post, I pointed out that these military interventions have absolutely nothing to do with making the price of gasoline cheaper. Just compare the price of gasoline before the Iraq war to the price of gasoline now, with the U.S. government fighting multiple wars around the world, and it becomes pretty obvious that all of these wars have not made gasoline prices cheaper. I also pointed out that the actual purpose of these multiple wars is to extend U.S. government geopolitical dominance over the globe. And I pointed out that, even if these multiple wars somehow resulted in cheaper gasoline for Americans, which they clearly don't, would this somehow provide a moral justification for them? If, hypothetically, these wars could be shown to lower gasoline prices, how many Iraqis should die so that we can buy cheaper gasoline? You did not respond to any of these substantive points. You write "Unless you can come up with a source of gasoline not produced with blood in the pump". The only reason gasoline is produced with blood in the pump is the U.S. foreign policy of multiple wars associated with it, wars that contribute nothing to the actual production of oil or gasoline. Without these wars, oil would continue to be produced, sold to the U.S., and refined into gasoline, probably at a lower price than we are paying now. So, am I being a hypocrite for buying gasoline for my car because there is blood unnecessarily associated with it, when I an opposed to all of these wars, especially given that I am probably paying more for gasoline as a result of these wars than I would otherwise, not to mention having to pay for the cost of the multiple wars? Or are objectivists hypocrites for claiming to be defenders of individual rights, then arguing that it is morally justifiable for the U.S. government to fight multiple wars which result in the deaths of untold tens of thousands of innocent people, just so that we can buy cheaper gasoline, which is not actually cheaper anyway? Martin

So, in other words, those of us who are opposed to USA Middle East military interventions should just stop driving? Otherwise, we are being hypocrites? Never mind the fact that most of our oil comes from either Mexico, Canada, or Venezuela. Never mind that Middle East countries are happy to sell us oil, since they have rather more than they can use themselves and since it is a primary source of their wealth, so that it is totally unnecessary to go to war and to occupy Middle East countries in order to insure that they sell it to us. Never mind that, even given the ridiculous premise that all Middle East oil producing countries decided to stop selling us oil, this would have essentially no impact on us, since oil is a fungible commodity that others could purchase from them and then resell to us. Never mind that the net effect of war is to destabilize these countries, raising the price of oil, as we've just seen with the oil price spikes after the U.S. military strikes on Libya. Never mind that the purpose of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East has nothing whatever to do with insuring our access to oil via the marketplace but is all about the U.S. government seizing political control of oil producing regions as a military/corporate objective. Lets assume, for the sake or argument, that these military interventions really do increase our access to Middle East oil, lowering the price of gasoline for us. The question then becomes, how many Iraqis are you willing to see die so that we can have cheaper gasoline? How many dictatorships that enslave their own citizens but have governments friendly to the U.S. are you willing to support, so that we can have cheaper gasoline? How many nations are you willing to have live under permanent U.S. military occupation, so that we can have cheaper gasoline? If this is the modern objectivist idea of egoism, bombing, occupying, and participating in the enslavement of foreigners so that we can buy cheap gasoline, then by this standard I am a proud altruist. I would rather pay $10 a gallon for gasoline than to support the U.S. government going to war with Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and destroying the lives of millions. Martin

You kill your own argument. Nuns and Priests are not laymen(women). Therfore, in most cases at least, this is an individual's choice. Muslim women cannot choose not to be muslim women - certainly not in a muslim country and practically not in a muslim family. You really like to make generalizations that are true in some cases but are certainly nowhere close to being universally true. Muslim women cannot choose not to be muslim women in a muslim country? Is this true of all muslim countries? What about Turkey or Malaysia? If a muslim woman from Turkey or Iran or Iraq or Indonesia or Malaysia decides not to practice Islam, is she necessarily going to be stoned to death? Your generalization may be true in a few muslim countries dominated by Wahhabism, such as Saudi Arabia, but it is hardly universally true. And it's certainly not true in France, which of course in not a majority muslim country. Muslim women cannot choose not to be muslim women if they grow up in a muslim family? Again, you are grossly generalizing, assuming that all muslim families are of the most extreme fundamentalist variety, such that they would murder their own daughter for repudiating their religion. Granted, such fanatic families exist, but are you really going to argue that all muslim families are like this? So the fact that Hassidic jewish men wear a particular style of clothing that they would never wear if they did not grow up under the influence of Judaism, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that their choice is coerced and not free? What about Indian women who wear saris? I've never seen anyone other than Indian women wear saris. So it's pretty fair to conclude that, had they not grown up in an Indian influenced culture, they would never wear them. Is their choice to wear saris coerced? What about Siek men who wear long beards and wear their hair in a turban? Have you ever seen anyone other than Siek men dress this way? Obviously, their choice of dress would never be made without their religious influence. Is their choice to wear long beards and to wear their hair in a turban coerced? As for muslim women who wear the burka, can you not imagine that not all of them are doing so because they are coerced into it? Don't you think that at least some of them wear the burka as a symbol of their devotion to their religious beliefs? Or even possibly as a sexual turnon for herself and her husband? If a woman claims to wear the burka because it expresses her feeling of devotion to Allah, should we automatically assume that she is lying, and that her real motive for wearing it is to avoid having her husband kill her? And if there is in fact evidence that her husband is threatening to kill her if she chooses not to wear the burka, is this not grounds to arrest the husband, rather than to fine or arrest the woman being terrorized by a murderous husband? Now, you're just being ridiculous. Symbols are in the eye of the beholder. There is no universal symbolic meaning for anything, including burkas. I am sure that there are radical feminists around today who would argue that wedding rings are a symbol of women being bound to men as their property. Undoubtedly, there are some men who view wedding rings in precisely this way. So is the government justified in banning wedding rings as a symbol of female oppression? If we're going to start banning things that are sometimes symbols of oppression, I can think of a whole list of things that become immediate candidates for banning other than just burkas. Personally, I don't care to grant the government this power. It's true that libertarians argue that an individual can't willingly submit to slavery, and I agree completely with this argument. But drawing an analogy between voluntarily wearing an item of clothing with a symbolic meaning you don't like, and submitting to slavery, is absurd. Martin

Here's a little inconvenient "fact" for you Martin. In virtually every instance in a free society where Islam is not present now or in the past, almost every single woman who is alive now OR has EVER lived, has NOT chosen to dress in a manner with only her eyes showing. Sure there are religious orders that dress in ways approaching this, but the point is that outside of coercive pressure, women basically NEVER, EVER choose this. Therefore, the possibility that these women actively and properly (by your definition) choose this Objectively approaches zero. Bob The type of dress we have been talking about is specifically an Islamic type of dress. In a society in which Islam is not present now or in the past, noone living in the society would be raised according to Islamic customs. So why would you expect a woman not raised in an Islamic family to wear this type of dress? Similarly, in a society without Catholic influence, there would presumably be no nuns or priests wearing the type of dress associated with these jobs. And in a society without Jewish influence, there would presumably be no men wearing the traditional clothes worn by Hassidic jews. Can we extrapolate from this that nuns and priests and Hassidic jews do not choose, of their own free will, to wear the type of clothes that they wear? Martin