Martin Radwin

You are making wide generalizations regarding "common techniques" and attributing these to my arguments and that's inappropriate. The law in France applies to adult women. The crux of the argument is whether adults should be free to make their own uncoerced choices. By bringing up the hypothetical of 15 year old children, this changes the nature of the argument, because the same rules do not apply to children as to adults. This may not have been your intention, but this type of argument is used all the time by the opponents of free choice in adults. It has led to the rather sarcastic rejoinder, "But what about the children?", made against people who use children to argue against the freedom of adults. This type of argument is used all the time by people who justify limiting the freedom of adults because of the hypothetical hazard such freedom may pose to children. The issue with regard to individual liberty is not whether or not the choice is "tainted" but whether or not the choice is coerced. One can argue that all kinds of choices are "tainted", based on the previous influences to which people have been subjected as children. Based on this criterion, pretty much an infinite number of a person's choices are "tainted". If a person becomes a practicing Jew or Catholic or Mormon, this choice was probably influenced by their upbringing. Are we then justified in passing a law banning the practice of Judaism, Catholicism, or Mormonism, because the individuals practicing these religions have made choices that are "tainted" and thus, not truly free? If she was locked in a basement, the police should have arrested the sob parents who did this to her, something that they would have far more resources available to do if they weren't going around fining women for their choice in dress or busting people for a wide variety of other victimless crimes. Your solution to the problem of children being abused seems to be to fine or arrest them for the choices they make after they become adults, rather than going after the people who abused them in the first place. Once you deny that choices are freely made by adults when they have been abused as children, there is no limit to the number of choices you can argue are not freely made, for there is no shortage of physical and emotional abuse committed against children. And thereby you create endless justifications for government to interfere in the personal liberty of adults. You're inclined to say no? So you're not sure if women and men who have sex in exchange for money, along with their paying clients, should be arrested, prosecuted, and locked up in jail? Just whose body and whose money is it, anyway? It's interesting that, on the one hand, you seem to imply compassion for people whom you view as victims of abuse. On the other hand, you're still debating the question of whether or not their lives should be ruined by being locked up in prison, just as you argued above that you support the law in France that would fine women for wearing Islamic clothing, so that the same women who have supposedly been victimized by their own families should also be victimized by the police. This is the kind of compassion that victims of abuse do not need or deserve. Martin

Complete nonsense. "Has it ever occurred to you that the women who dress this way choose to do so of their own free will?" The same argument is used to describe 15 year old girls in plural marriages - both irrational. This nonsense in no way justifies abuse. It is foolish to believe that just because "free will" can be snuck into the scene that these women have "chosen" this path. The standard libertarian position is that consenting adults have the right to make their own choices in life, as long as they don't violate the equal rights of others. This applies specifically to adults, not to children. By bringing up the case of 15 year old girls, you have employed here a common technique used by those opposed to consenting adults having the freedom to make their own choices in life, by implying that the potential abuse of children constitutes a valid reason for violating the liberty of adults. For women wearing this kind of dress in Saudi Arabia, you would be right that their consent cannot be inferred, being as they live in a ruthlessly oppressive society that severely punishes them for dressing in any other way. But in France, women have the right to dress in any damn way they please. The only way lack of consent can occur there is if the woman's husband or family are using coercion by physically threatening her if she doesn't dress according to their wishes. In such case, the proper solution is for anyone threatening the woman with physical violence to be arrested. It is not to arrest, fine, or otherwise harass the woman. The fact that some women may be physically coerced into dressing in a certain way doesn't justify the assumption that all of them are, such that the government may pass laws limiting their freedom to dress as they choose. For adults, any actions they take are a choice, unless they are being coerced. These are not "so-called choices", they are real choices. Just because you don't like the choices they make, or think that they are somehow degrading, does not mean that they are not real choices. Your argument that they are not real choices has been used over and over and over again to justify victimless crime laws, imprisoning people who have violated noone's rights, using the theory that these people's rights are not really being violated, since what they are doing is not really their free choice anyway. In your original post to which I responded, you advocated the French law that would fine women for dressing in a particular way that you find offensive. All in the name of protecting them, of course. Martin

Well, it's hard to deny the traditional French "challenges" with racial issues - Quebec too of course ("l'argent et le vote ethnique..."). But I strongly support secular human rights trumping any religious or cultural practice. Dressing women in ninja-suits and treating them like crap is not acceptable - anywhere, anytime, period. Drawing a line is a good thing. Bob "Dressing women in ninja-suits"? The very way you worded this implies that the women are dressed, like so many children, rather than that the women dress themselves this way because they choose to. Has it ever occurred to you that the women who dress this way choose to do so of their own free will? The type of assumption you have made is common among both "liberal" and "conservative" statists, who use it to justify all kinds of oppressive laws against behavior they disapprove of. For example, surely no woman would ever choose, of her own free will, to work as a prostitute. No, the only explanation for her career choice is that it is not a choice at all, that she is being compelled to work as a prostitute by the evil, much more powerful men around her. And so prostitution is made illegal, and women who choose to work as prostitutes are not infrequently arrested and put in jail, all for their own good, of course. And no person would ever voluntarily, of their own free will, choose to use illegal drugs. No, they must be being coerced into using drugs, either by other people or by their own loss of free will due to the drugs themselves. And so the war on drugs goes on and on and on, and illegal drug users and arrested and put in jail, all for their own good, of course. And the prisons are filled with victimless criminals. Enough of this paternalistic bullshit! Government has absolutely no right to tell people what drugs they can put into their bodies, who they may have sex with on what terms, or how they may dress. This is a despicable form of totalitarianism in the personal realm. That you defend it, all the while thinking that you are upholding human rights, is truly pathetic. Martin

I don’t support the war in Iraq, but our (misguided) purpose in fighting it was a warped view of our own self-defense. That's nonsense. The purpose of fighting the war had nothing whatever to do with self-defense, warped or otherwise. War with Iraq was advocated by the Project for a New American Century during the Clinton administration. 9/11 provided the justification the war advocates had long been seeking. The actual purpose was to replace Hussein with an American friendly puppet government and to establish military bases in Iraq for use as a forward area for further American influence in the Middle East. That purpose has been achieved beyond the warmongers' wildest dreams, as the U.S. has constructed massive military bases in Iraq which it intends to occupy with a permanent garrison of American soldiers. The war has also enriched the military industrial establishment, all at the expense of the American people who will have to pay for this entire war crime. Of course it was a war of aggression. The only moral justification for going to war is self-defense. Since the war had absolutely nothing to do with self defense, it was a war of aggression. The U.S. government attacked a nation that was absolutely no threat whatever to it, leading to over a hundred thousand Iraqis being killed (exact death toll unknown, some estimates are as high as one million), an unknown but undoubtedly huge number of Iraqis wounded from the war, over two million Iraqis driven from their homes and turned into refugees, many of whom fled Iraq to Jordan and Syria, and massive destruction of Iraqi infrastructure. Iraq was carpet bombed ("shock and awe") and attacked with lethal weaponry, including white phosphorus and depleted uranium. All of this was done with no justification whatever, just to enrich the U.S. empire. According to your twisted definition of "pacifist", a pacifist is anyone who is opposed to starting wars of aggression. "America" is not evil. The U.S. government is evil for engaging in this war crime. You commit the all too common fallacy of equating the U.S. government with America, as though they are one and the same. Using such rhetoric, anyone who criticizes the U.S. government can be accused of being anti-American or of hating American, since, of course, they are treated as identical. A perfect argument from intimidation to stop anyone from criticizing the U.S. government, no matter how criminal its actions. Your question is idiotic on its face. The U.S. government didn't just get rid of Hussein. It launched a war that led to a mini holocaust. You don't just push a button and get rid of an evil dictator, without this little thing called "collateral damage". A good analogy would be if Russia launched a nuclear attack against Washington, killing hundreds of thousands of Washington residents, including Obama, in the attack. The Russian president, to justify this attack, could say, "You really think Russia is evil for getting rid of Obama?", ignoring the fact that he also killed several hundred thousand innocent people in the attack. Your argument is even more absurd, given that Hussein was a one time U.S. government ally. How many Americans are even aware that the U.S. government aided Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, a war which led to the death of about one million Iranians, all with assistance from the U.S. government? So we had to start a war in order to remove a brutal dictator whom we helped in another war. This is consistent with various other instances of brutal dictators who were one time allies of the U.S. and who the U.S. subsequently removed after they turned against us. Manual Noreiga was a one time U.S. ally who was on the CIA payroll. Bush ended up launching an invasion of Panama in order to remove this dictator whom the the U.S. government had at one time supported. There are other such examples. How many Iraqis would you like for the U.S. government to have killed? One million? Five million? Ten million? Maybe we should have just nuked the entire place, killing every man, woman, child, dog, and cat, leaving nothing behind alive but cockroaches. That would have been a really excellent "final solution". All launched against a country that never threatened us and never could threaten us. That's interesting. I always thought that objectivism was a philosophy based on ethical individualism, in which people are only held morally responsible for their own actions, and in which there is no such thing as collective guilt. To say that they allowed their country to be run by a dictator implies that individual Iraqis somehow had the power to overthrow their dictator. Now, of course, if millions and millions of Iraqis banded together against Hussein, they could probably have overthrown him. But, from the perspective of an individual Iraqi, should he/she try to overthrow Hussein alone, he/she will almost certainly end up being run through one of Hussein's shredders. Since an individual has little power to convince millions of others to join the rebellion, choosing to do this on one's own is certain suicide. But let's go along with your assumption that individual Iraqis are somehow morally responsible for living under a brutal dictatorship. Does this responsibility extend to children and infants too? During war, lots of children and infants are killed as well as adults. Are the children and infants fair game, sharing moral responsibility for the crime of living under a dictator? Since you don't give a rat's ass about the Iraqis, you presumably don't give a rat's ass about the children and infants killed either. Your compassion, humanity, and just plain decency are noted. Ayn Rand lived in the Soviet Union under a brutal communist dictatorship. Was she responsible for this fact? Would it have been morally justifiable to kill her too, since she allowed her country to be run by a madman? Lets take your moral principle a little further. If Iraqis are morally responsible for living under a dictator, such that it is morally justifiable to massively kill them and to feel indifferent to this loss of human life, wouldn't we Americans also be morally responsible if we lived under a dictator, such that it would be morally justifiable to kill us? Of course, we're not living under a dictatorship, at least at this moment. But a future dictatorship is more than just a hypothetical possibility. One more terrorist attack here and the president could declare martial law, commandeer the state national guards, and establish a totalitarian dictatorship in the United States. If this were to happen, suppose that a Russian objectivist, espousing exactly your philosophy, were to argue that it's okay to nuke the United States, even if this means killing millions of Americans, since they are morally responsible for living under a dictatorship with a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Would you agree with this reasoning? It is somehow much easier to concoct moral justifications for killing other people than to concoct moral justifications for other people to kill us. Of what point is your “basic arithmetic” if you’re killed by a suicide bomber? You're still dead. Will those who care about you be sitting around saying, “Oh, it’s okay. To defend ourselves, we killed lots more of them than they did us. We are still ahead of them in the numbers.” My point is very simple. Your whole argument hinges on the absurd idea that attacking Iraq was somehow an act of self defense. Well, my point is that, by any objective analysis, the U.S. was much more of a threat to Iraq than Iraq ever was to the U.S. Not only has the U.S. killed far more Iraqis than Iraq has killed Americans, but the U.S. has orders of magnitude more fire power than Iraq. So, if you're going to justify a "preventive attack" on Iraq, based on what it might do to us, than Iraq would be far more justified in launched a "preventive attack" on the U.S., given the relative risk of attack faced by each nation against the other. So talk of our occupying Muslim territory is tantamount to insanity? Does this mean that we're not actually occupying Muslim territory, or that it's insane to talk about it? Of course, if Iraq built a huge, heavily fortified embassy in an American "green zone", built permanent military bases, and garrisoned thousands of soldiers in their military bases on our land, you would probably think that we were under occupation by Iraq. But, of course, it's just wrong to apply the same standards to us as to them. We're special! We're Americans! They're just so much dirt under our feet. They should give us candy and flowers for being nice enough to show such a special interest in their country. The ungrateful bastards! I'm glad you can have a sense of humor about all of those dead, wounded, and homeless Iraqis. Yeah, that's really funny. Of course, it's easy for you to laugh about it. You can sit here safe in your cocoon, watching the devastation your government has inflicted on a people who live far, far away. And in your spare time, you can write moral justifications for this carnage. And you can pretend to be a highly moral person, an exemplar of the highest principles of objectivist morality, a believer in freedom, liberty, and individual rights. Except for those other nonpersons, that is. Martin Obviously no one is laughing at the “dead, wounded, homeless Iraqis.” (I’m touched that you only care about the Iraqis. I guess you can ignore the Americans who lost their lives because they are the evil servants of the Great Satan.) There are endless jokes made about any and every war that has ever been fought, and they are often told by the men and women fighting them. To suggest that such humor amounts to “laughing at the dead” is just sick. People are laughing at the irony and absurdity of life. If attacking others while twisting reality into that kind of ugly perspective makes you feel like a "moral person," please don't expect anyone to give a damn about meeting your wacked-out moral standards. I'm touched that you care so much about the Americans who lost their lives, not to mention those who are permanently wounded. Of course, had the war never been started, as I have clearly advocated, all of those Americans would be alive and uninjured today. Because of people like you who come up with moral justifications for going to war, these Americans were sent into the meat grinder of Iraq to fight and die for nothing. And why shouldn't you be "laughing at the dead" Iraqis, being as you have stated quite explicly that you don't give a damn about any of them. Martin

More "sick, twisted sub-species" on video: video links deleted It just doesn't get any lower or more despicable than this. Thanks so much for helping us innocent souls to see the depravity and evil that lurks all around us. What exactly is your point? That the obvious fact that some people tell tacky or even despicable jokes somehow justifies Ted's joke about what has been a murderous war crime by the U.S. government and a human tragedy for the Iraqi people? Martin Your pacifist viewpoint in opposition to present United States foreign policy is the sort of bizarre, dopey moral crusade one might expect to encounter on the Huffington Post or Code Pink or some other left-wing touchy-feely webforum. You are obviously free to advocate loving those who want to kill us or whatever foolishness strikes your fancy, but to post your hopelessly misguided views here and then proceed to mount a vicious personal attack on Ted was totally absurd. The fact that you (and that pompous libertarian "scholar" you admire so much) substitute stale, rude, overwrought invective for arguments just underscores the fact that you cannot logically defend this happy pacifist horsecrap. You really ought to look up the word "pacifist" in the dictionary. I am not and never have been a pacifist. The fact that you think that opposing and morally condemning a murderous, non-defensive war launched by the U.S. government that has brought about the death of hundreds of thousands of people and that has turned 10% of the entire population into refugees, constitutes pacifism, shows how utterly distorted your view of pacifism is. This may come as a revelation to you, but the majority of countries in the world today manage to provide for their own defense just fine without launching murderous wars of aggression against other countries. It has been a rather long time since Switzerland last fought in a war. If you think that the Swiss are pacifists, I suggest you gather together an army and try launching an invasion of Switzerland. You'll see first hand just how pacifistic the Swiss are. As to your view that they want to kill us, why don't you try doing some basic arithmetic. Add up the total number of Americans killed by Muslims. Then add up the total number of Muslims killed by Americans. See which of the two is greater. When you're done with this exercise, add up the total amount of American territory occupied by Muslims. Then add up the total amount of Muslim territory occupied by Americans. See which of the two is greater. Perhaps, after you have gone through this exercise, you will come to realize that a more logical conclusion would be for them to believe that "we" want to kill them, rather than for us to believe that "they" want to kill us. Furthermore, I have never advocated that we "love" the Iraqis. This is a false dichotomy, that we must either love them or murder them and occupy their country. How about we leave them the hell alone, stop killing them, stop occupying their land, and get the hell out of their country? I'm glad you can have a sense of humor about all of those dead, wounded, and homeless Iraqis. Yeah, that's really funny. Of course, it's easy for you to laugh about it. You can sit here safe in your cocoon, watching the devastation your government has inflicted on a people who live far, far away. And in your spare time, you can write moral justifications for this carnage. And you can pretend to be a highly moral person, an exemplar of the highest principles of objectivist morality, a believer in freedom, liberty, and individual rights. Except for those other nonpersons, that is. Martin

Martin, although I entirely agree with your appraisals of political leaders and their culpability for war crimes and murderous atrocities, I have to note that you are making an unwarranted generalization here. Many more than you see posting actively are not part of the neocon/neolib consensus for war and Empire that dominates what many post about. They just don't talk about their opposition. Much of it comes from a practical truce, in effect, to allow bringing up other topics with those same people. It's compartmentalizing of thought, true enough. Yet if that weren't done, no substantive discussion would get accomplished. I know that I rarely bring up matters of war and the culpability for it, because I'm tired of derision, context-dropping, and State-worship being proffered in lieu of argument. That happens in all discussion venues, though at Objectiv-ish ones, those anti-discussion traits are often put across with a distinct air of asserted moral superiority. It's as if the concrete evidence of abuse of individual rights and reasoned discourse is irrelevant, if the moral virtue of institutions one likes or endorses is asserted. You're expecting a questioning of the motives and practice of a sprawling statist institution that, in terms of following Rand's exaggerated worship, is excused from any serious moral blame due to what it supposedly was founded upon. Well, that skepticism isn't going to be expressed very often, not here, anyway. It creates more battles against irrationality than many of us have the stamina to fight in a single day, or a week, or a month. I never thought that the travails of Sisyphus, rolling that rock up only to be dashed down again for the gods' amusement, were worth emulating on a discussion board or list. For "gods," read: privileged discussion parties. This venue has them, both formally and informally. So does every other. Observing those facts and — generally — avoiding collisions accordingly doesn't make for fear-ridden discussants. No more so than admitting to and dealing with the greater (literal) firepower of the IRS makes one a moral coward. Steve, Thanks for pointing out the problem in the way I worded my post. I have no way of knowing how any any particular poster feels about this issue, unless they explicitly state their views about it. Noone is obligated to post on any particular subject, and the fact that they don't post on a particular subject cannot be used as a basis for extrapolating their position on that subject. Since most posters here on OL have not explicitly posted on this subject, I have no basis for drawing such generalizations. However, going back to the example I gave in my previous post, if I told a joke about the people burning to death or jumping out of windows after the 9/11 attack, what do you suppose the reaction here on OL would be? I'd imagine that any number of posters here would be screaming at me at the top of their lungs and calling me every obscene name they could think of. The fact that I can make a post about the tragedy of the Iraq War, Ted responds with an inane joke about it, and noone here at OL responds to his joke, doesn't this tell you something about the relative attitude that posters here have about 9/11 versus the Iraq War? Isn't the implication that, at least for those many posters who would savagely attack me for my joke and yet remain silent about Ted's joke, their attitude is that 9/11 is a far greater crime against humanity that the Iraq War, so that it's obscene to joke about the former but okay to joke about the latter? Martin

Thanks, Ted. But you are the only poster I have ever seen on Objectivist Living who, when confronted with the reality of the destruction of a country and the mass murder of its citizens, responds by telling cheap jokes, as though this were somehow something to laugh about. You are one sick, twisted sub-species of humanity. Martin More "sick, twisted sub-species" on video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_9ECWIaIoY&feature=related It just doesn't get any lower or more despicable than this. Thanks so much for helping us innocent souls to see the depravity and evil that lurks all around us. Obama's joke was indeed despicable, but what made it despicable was the fact that Obama is actually ordering drones to launch missiles at innocent people in Pakistan. Obama has already demonstrated that he is a war criminal and a mass murderer. The strong implication from his quip is that he is actually not joking at all, that he really might comtemplate murdering anyone who dares to approach his daughters in a manner which he disapproves. Obama has already taken the position that he has the right to murder any person anywhere in the world, including American citizens, should he deem them to be a terrorist threat to the security of the U.S., the extent of the threat to be determined by none other than the president himself, without any evidence, charges, or trial for the target to be murdered. What exactly is your point? That the obvious fact that some people tell tacky or even despicable jokes somehow justifies Ted's joke about what has been a murderous war crime by the U.S. government and a human tragedy for the Iraqi people? Suppose that someone here on Objectivist Living posted about the tragedy of 9/11, about the people crushed or burned to death or suffocated, about the people jumping out of windows to their death to escape the inferno. Suppose that, in response to this post, I posted a joke about the whole tragedy, as though it were the funniest thing in the world. I suspect that my joke would be followed by a rather justifiable barrage of moral outrage by many posters, who would label me as a sick, twisted, loathsome bastard for making a joke over such a horrible tragedy as the 9/11 attack. If I were then to respond to this barrage of condemnation by posting a bunch of nasty jokes told by various politicians and celebrities, would this somehow justify my behavior? Would it make my joke any less despicable that other people had told similarly despicable jokes? The reason that I would get pounced on for joking about 9/11, while Ted can tell a joke about the Iraq War and get no reaction from anyone here (other than me), is that most people, including most of the posters here on OL, don't consider the Iraq War to be any kind of a major tragedy, despite the fact that a hundred times as many people have died in the Iraq War as in the 9/11 attack. The Iraqis either deserved what they got, they're nothing but a bunch of savages anyway, the U.S. government was somehow justified in starting a war that resulted in all of these deaths, or it was all Saddam Hussein's fault, thereby absoving the U.S. government of any blame for the tragedy that ensued. And so the slaughter continues, as Americans continue to deny any culpability of their government for its crimes against humanity, or as they continue to deny the humanity of the victims. And people like Ted feel free to tell jokes about it all as the human carnage proceeds. Martin

Thanks, Ted. After I wrote the above post suggesting that you have the perspective of a sociopath, I figured I'd have to dredge up some of your old posts to prove my point. You've now made that quite unnecessary, proving my point in your single, one line response. There are quite a few self-identied objectivists, including many here on Objectivist Living, who don't seem to be the slightest bit disturbed that their own government is going around the world bombing the shit out of a bunch of countries, killing, maiming, and destroying the lives of untold thousands of people, in a seemingly endless series of evil, senseless wars. Some even attempt to justify this, using a twisted interpretation of objectivist ethics. But you are the only poster I have ever seen on Objectivist Living who, when confronted with the reality of the destruction of a country and the mass murder of its citizens, responds by telling cheap jokes, as though this were somehow something to laugh about. You are one sick, twisted sub-species of humanity. Martin

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire? I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it. If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus. Martin You speak the truth, Martin. Those who speak the truth aren't terribly popular around here (fantasies about checks and balances, the Republican Party, and Glenn Beck are far more widely acclaimed), but there are a few of us who do appreciate seeing it (the truth) on our screens. Bravo! JR Jeff, Thanks very much for your kind words. They mean a lot, coming from a distinguished libertarian writer and scholar like you. As for Ted's subsequent nasty reply to you, I'll say this about Ted -- the man has the perspective of a sociopath, at least with regard to his views of foreigners. I still remember, some time ago, making a post in which I pointed out that the Iraq war resulted in the likely deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqis, the creation of at least two million Iraqi refugees driven from their homes, the massive ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Iraqi cities, and massive destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, all to replace a previously U.S. government supported dictatorship with a brand new more U.S. government friendly dictatorship. Ted's reply (and I paraphrase here, because I can't remember his exact words and I can't locate the exact post) was something like, "Ha! Ha! The Iraq war is over. We won!". To respond like that, and not even to give the slightest acknowledgement of the horror of the war, or the terrible injustice and tragedy of so many innocent people killed and wounded, driven from their homes, their lives destroyed, and not even to feel the slightest degree of sympathy or sorrow for the suffering of the victims, is indicative of a person with a depraved indifference to human life. I see that Ted has now joined the just started torture thread. Naturally, he is a strong advocate of U.S. government torture as official policy. He seemed practically giddy with excitement at the very thought of it. Martin

If duly elected and with a genuine "electoral mandate" to move towards laissez faire? I think that's a fantasy. You can't beat the house when the house sets the odds; you will always end up losing. Politics is a rigged game. The rules of the games are set by the ruling class to insure that, no matter who is nominally elected to office, they will always win and we will always lose. We can't beat them by playing their game. Politics is a bottomless sewer draining the energy of anyone who participates in it. If liberty is ever to be achieved, it will be achieved from the bottom up, not the top down, by a critical mass of people who have figured out how to ignore the state and to replace its functions with voluntary, market based institutions. I am not optimistic enough to expect that this will happen during my lifetime, but it will ultimately happen either this way or not at all. Getting an objectivist/libertarian god elected president of the United States in order to turn the US into a libertarian paradise is a prospect no more real than Santa Claus. Martin

Galt/Rearden '12? Apparently whoever created this bumper sticker either never considered or didn't care that Galt was offered in Atlas Shrugged a position in many respects equivalent to the modern American presidency -- head of the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources or, as Mr. Thompson described the position, "economic dictator of the nation". Not surprisingly, Galt declined the offer. So why should anyone with any familiarity with Galt's character even contemplate that Galt would accept the position of political/economic/military dictator of the U.S., otherwise known as the presidency? Martin

I live in Cupertino, CA., right in the heart of silicon valley, about an hour's drive south of San Francisco and a five minute drive from the world headerquarters of Apple. Martin

Actually, it was $10,000 that Rearden gave to his louse of a brother Philip, who then proceeded to insult Rearden for it and to assert his own moral superiority to Rearden. But, as you indicated above, $10,000 at that time was probably worth several hundred thousand dollars today, given the extent of inflation. Martin A ten multiplier will give you the best idea, assuming mid-1940s. You guys are assuming a 30 multiplier. In the last 100 years the dollar has lost between 95% and 98% of its value. By that metric gold today is about 40% over-valued, but it's hardly that simple to say the least. Gold as money, because of mining issues and ratio to increasing populations and greater wealth, should be able to buy more and more--goods and labor--over time in a deflationary environment. The tremendous amount of gold flowing into Spain from the New World had an inflationary impact on Europe centuries ago. This will never again happen. Production is declining. Peak gold happened already. Central banks can sell it and cause some price suppression, that's all. People and states generally want one thing from their currencies today: inflation to wipe out debt. Those that don't want inflation have savings, not debt. Those savings should not be mostly in paper currencies. Gold, silver, equities paying +3% dividends--but generally not bonds; bonds are debt instruments the inflationists are trying to cheapen. Buying a house might be a good idea today if one can put down at least 10% and get a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. If one has a low net worth one should not, generally speaking, have a high level of equity in a home because that represents a severe lack of diversification. If one's income is problematic one should be renting. And please remember that what I've written here is not enough information on which to base one's investment and housing decisions. I do not know you. There are other, complicating factors. A lot about the future is just not knowable. --Brant The rate of inflation is obviously just a weighted average over a huge number of different products and services. As I recall, in the mid 1940s, gold was selling for $42 an ounce. It is now selling for about $1400 an ounce, which is about 33x. Of course, gold prices may have reached a temporary peak and may perhaps experience a major decline in the next several years. Then again, maybe not; predicting the future is not easy. One thing that has exploded in price is California real estate, even after the recent price declines. My parents bought a townhouse in Culver City, CA. in 1965 for $30,000. It is now worth about $500,000, a 17x increase. Real estate prices in other areas have increased even more. On the other hand, you can now buy a personal computer for $500 that is more powerful and a lot more user-friendly than a mainfrain computer costing millions of dollars in 1960. Technology has created an immense array of electronic items at ridiculously cheap prices that could not be had for any price in the 1940s, because they simply didn't exist. Martin

Actually, it was $10,000 that Rearden gave to his louse of a brother Philip, who then proceeded to insult Rearden for it and to assert his own moral superiority to Rearden. But, as you indicated above, $10,000 at that time was probably worth several hundred thousand dollars today, given the extent of inflation. Martin

Very good reply! Atlas Shrugged was all about the theme of talented individuals deciding to become "unjobbers" by dropping out of the corrupt society in which they lived and working the most menial jobs they could find, generating just enough income to support themselves with nothing left over for the rest of society. There's nothing at all wrong with an individual making a personal decision to work a minimal amount and to enjoy a maximal amount of leisure, as long as he/she does not end up subsisting on government money. Working hard at a job should be something a person does for his/her own enjoyment, not some kind of a quasi-religious obligation. Some hard-core libertarians, such as Claire Wolfe, have made a conscious decision to live exactly this type of lifestyle, so as to free themselves from the government regulation/taxation grid. By doing this, they are refusing to support the increasingly corrupt, dictatorial, murderous government under which we are now living. Martin

No. I have been to ground zero and I know what some Muslim youths can do. Ba'al Chatzaf Given what I know I choose the fact over your hyper stimulated hopes. Fact. Sufficiently motivated Muslims males youths hijack planes and strap on the explosive. They say Allah Hu Akbar and then they die. Taking many good people with them to Paradise. The goes your Muslim; different mountain, different god. Ba'al Chatzaf Ah yes.. Another one of those "I learned everything I need to know about Islam on 9/11" people.. The willfully ignorant.. I'm not sure what made you such a bitter and hateful old man but I'm quite sure it' can't be healthy. Why should over a billion Muslims be held accountable for the actions of 19 (plus their support)? --Brant You mean you didn't know that collective guilt, the principle that people are morally responsible for everything that any member of their race, religion, or tribal affiliation does, is the central principle of objectivist and all other individualist ethical systems? Since Ba'al is a profoundly individualist thinker who loathes any form of collectivism, isn't it obvious that he should support this ethical principle above all others? Martin

Happy birthday George! You've proven that it's possible to be a high school dropout with no formal academic credentials, yet at the same time to become one of our generation's greatest philosophers/scholars. Martin

"If U.S. civilians die in attacks like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, that is the fault of the U.S. government that provoked the attack. In this case, the responsibility for U.S. civilian deaths is with the U.S. government and not Al Qaeda. Your concern for civilians (while understandable) ignores the wider context of the threat to Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia posed by the U.S. government." Imaginary quote from Osama bin Laden Oh yes, U.S. forces are terribly hindered by their rules of engagement! So far, at least a hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed in Gulf War 2. Some estimates are much higher. Millions of Iraqis have been driven from their homes and turned into refugees. Whole sections of Iraq have been ethnically cleansed of Sunnis. Why don't you do some research on the Fallujah massacre carried out by U.S. forces before bleating about the horrible restrictions imposed by the rules of engagement? All to fight a damnable war of aggression that the U.S. had no right to fight, a war fought without even a pretense of being fought in self-defense. Martin

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/05/so-iran-gets-nukes-so-what.html http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/04/morality-humanity-and-civilization.html

George, Wendy was practicing "Reichian therapy"? Did she have any training in this area? I know of one branch of therapy that was largely based on some of Reich's work on emotions and their relationship to the body. It is called Radix. As I recall, Nathaniel Branden was himself an advocate of Radix therapy and had at least a casual friendship with Charles Kelley. Many years ago, I actually took a couple of Radix workshops and was very impressed with what I saw and experienced. The Radix Institute offers training programs for Radix teachers. I think these are two year training programs. After watching the work of an experienced Radix therapist, I do not think that this kind of work could be competently performed by someone who had not had at least a year or two of training. On the other hand, your description of "pinching and punching nude bodies" does not sound very much like what an experienced Radix therapist would do. Where did Wendy get the idea that she was qualified to perform this kind of work? Martin I'm sure George can provide a more thorough answer than I can. However I am not aware that Wendy had or has any formal training in psychology or psychotherapy of any kind. Since I actually am a psychologist (with a Ph.D. and many years of college teaching), I understandably look askance at such behavior. As for how she got the idea that she was qualified, George will have to answer that. I can only tell you what people I knew were saying about her in the early 80s--that when she was dating a psychologist, she fancied herself a psychologist; when she was dating a poet, she imagined herself to be a poet; when she was dating a historian (George), she decided she was a historian. She has, to my knowledge, no formal training in any of these areas. Sharon, As a professional psychologist, have you studied Reichian types of therapy involving body work? If so, what is your opinion of this type of therapy? Do you think that it is a valid type of therapy that has at least the potential to produce good results? Or do you think that it is basically worthless? Martin

George, Wendy was practicing "Reichian therapy"? Did she have any training in this area? I know of one branch of therapy that was largely based on some of Reich's work on emotions and their relationship to the body. It is called Radix. As I recall, Nathaniel Branden was himself an advocate of Radix therapy and had at least a casual friendship with Charles Kelley. Many years ago, I actually took a couple of Radix workshops and was very impressed with what I saw and experienced. The Radix Institute offers training programs for Radix teachers. I think these are two year training programs. After watching the work of an experienced Radix therapist, I do not think that this kind of work could be competently performed by someone who had not had at least a year or two of training. On the other hand, your description of "pinching and punching nude bodies" does not sound very much like what an experienced Radix therapist would do. Where did Wendy get the idea that she was qualified to perform this kind of work? Martin

Phil, I can't imagine how you drew such a conclusion from George's story. What happened to George has absolutely nothing to do with politics. George was the victim of a violent, deranged, psychotic nutcase who was looking for someone to blame for his daughter's problems. Such violent people will always exist in any society, no matter what its political system. Not surprisingly, despite the fearsome size and power of the multiple branches of our government, no government agents were there to protect George against the psycho who attacked him. Protecting people is not and never has been a priority of government police. For confirmation, just read the work of Radley Balko or "Radgeek" Charles Johnson. They have been meticulously documenting police abuses for many years. Martin

The Big Bang Theory has no center – neither does my theory. Red dwarf stars would have no relationship to the existence of a hypothetical center or centers to the universe. I mentioned red dwarf stars because though the Big Bang Theory has expected specific chemical signatures no first generation red dwarf star has been found though they should be super abundant and many would still be in their youth. I apologize for asking this question, since I would know the answer if I actually kept up with the updated literature in astronomy/cosmology. According to the best estimate of the "official" Big Bang Theory, the BBT happened about 13.7 billion years ago, corresponding to the hypothesized age of our universe. So if you wanted to find a first generation star, you would have to locate a star that is about 13.7 billion light years away. Red dwarf stars have a very low luminousity even compared with our sun. Is it actually possible to detect a low luminousity red dwarf star that is over 13 billion light years away, in order to be able to analyze its chemical composition? I would think that it would be rather difficult to even do this to a red dwarf star in the Andromeda galaxy, let alone a star that is 13 billion light years away. Martin

Perhaps I misunderstood you. In your previous post, you said that, according to your model, the speed of light itself was slower in the past than it is now. This is different than saying that the speed of the passage of time has changed. If the speed of light itself keeps getting slower as we go back in time, then there's a problem, because there is a limit to how slow the speed of light can be -- 0. So, in other words, if the speed of light in our present universe is =~ 186,000 miles/sec, and it was slower than this one billion years ago, and presumably still slower 100 billion years ago, eventually you reach the point where the speed of light is 0, or you approach some asymptotic limit. Martin

Is your cosmological model based on an assumed universe of infinite age? If so, then if your assumption that the speed of light keeps increasing with time and was slower in the past is true, then if you keep going back far enough in time, you would reach the point at which the speed of light was zero, unless you assume a minimum speed of light that you approach asymptotically as you go back in time. Alternatively, if the age of the universe is assumed to be infinite, and if the speed of light has been increasing all of this time, then the speed of light should now be infinite (increasing in speed for an infinitely long time), unless you again assume that there is a maximum speed of light that can only be approached asymptotically. But the assumption of asymptotic upper and lower limits to light speed doesn't seem to be make sense in the context of an infinite universe of infinite age. Martin