Martin Radwin

Howard Roark dynamited his own housing project after it was modified without his consent, in violation of the signed contract. Rand was also furious when she discovered that several words of her play had been modified without her consent. If Rand were alive today, I wonder just how she would react to discovering that Mayhew had radically altered some of her answers in a published book, without even any kind of attribution or admission that he had done such a thing. Fortunately for Mayhew, he will never have to find out. Then again, if the hypothetical now living Rand were to discover that Peikoff had named his objectivist institute after her, against her express wishes that this not be done, she would probably throw him down a flight of stairs. Martin

It's nice to know, Ted, that you think it's funny that an American citizen was tortured in Kuwait with the assent of the U.S. government, put on the no-fly list, and denied reentry to his own country. Hopefully, you will keep us entertained with your laughter as the United States continues its path toward becoming a totalitarian state. You can do all this while continuing to assert your commitment to the objectivist virtues of freedom, individual rights, limited government, and the rule of law. That should give the rest of us something to laugh about too. Martin

"We've already covered just how bad the Defense Department is at protecting whistleblowers, but this goes way beyond any of that. The message being sent here is that, even if your intentions are to expose wrongdoing, the military may lock you up and torture you for months without end and with no due process. This is not what America is supposed to be about. We're not supposed to support torture. We're not supposed to ignore due process. We're supposed to encourage whistleblowing. Instead, we're locking it up and torturing it with no trial or conviction." This is what America is now about. Torture is now official U.S. policy. The president now has the legal authority to murder anyone anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, without charges, trial, proof of guilt, or any kind of legal due process. Since 9/11, congress has passed the Patriot Act, Patriot Act 2, Protect America Act, and the Military Commissions Act. All of this legislation has established the legal framework for the future creation of a totalitarian state. It's really sad. I feel as though the author of this piece is still in denial, longing for an America that is gone, probably forever. In terms of at least some of our history and morality, we are not supposed to have a government that supports torture or ignores due process. But that's not the reality of the government that actually exists today. The top echelons of our government are inhabited by conscienceless sociopaths, people who have no regard for human life. Their only interest is in expanding their own domination and control over the world, both here and abroad. This is a very hard thing for most people to accept. It requires a rather massive "paradism shift" for the majority of people, who are accustomed to thinking of their government as a benevolent institution that is there to help take care of them and to protect them against the dangers of the outside world. To accept the reality that their government is actually a cold, heartless monster that tortures and murders without pity, is just not something that they are prepared to do. And yet, the first step toward dealing with the monster is accepting its reality. Truth is the first step toward freedom. Martin

Do we really need what? Evidence? Is it the unshaven rap artist or the body builder with his shirt off that you find objectionable? Or is it the examples of Peikoff's manliness? Can you be more specific as to the object of your puritanism? Yes, we most certainly do need evidence. As far as the evidence of Peikoff's sanity or lack thereof, I think that we have way more than enough evidence already. Fortunately for Peikoff, thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. Thomas Szasz, we no longer have involuntary commitment for crazy people. So Peikoff can continue to safely run around issuing his crazy pronouncements. I hope Peikoff remembers to thank Szasz. Martin Martin

I'll try my best to explain it to you. I'm going to go real slow, just so you don't miss it. The Wikileaks bashers have consistently argued that Wikileaks is horrible because it is potentially putting in danger Afghani contacts to the U.S. government and, as a result, the entire American war effort. Well, we now learn that, among other things, the American war effort is funneling billions of dollars into the pockets of child rapists and practitioners of sex slavery. We may also notice, as a result of these revelations, that the same people who are fuming with moral indignation about the horrors of Wikileaks, don't seem to have the slightest amount of moral indignation about U.S. taxpayer dollars subsidizing such activities. But perhaps this is not surprising. If they experience not a shred of regret or apology about a U.S. foreign policy which has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, and if in fact they continue to support such a policy, why should they experience even a pang of conscience about U.S. support of child rape and sex slavery? Martin

"This just in: The Iraq war is over, and Bush won. Ha ha ha ha ha" Brilliant analysis Ted. Never mind the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and wounded. Or the millions of Iraqi refugees driven from their homes. Or the massive ethnic cleansing of Sunnis in many formerly mixed Iraqi cities. Or the destruction of the infrastructure of an entire country. Or the thousands of Iraqis who will in the future contract cancer and other diseases as a result of exposure to depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and other toxic chemicals shoved down their throats by the American invasion. Never mind the thousands of dead and the tens of thousands of wounded American troops, or the trillions of dollars this war is going to cost the American taxpayer. Never mind any of that. "The Iraq war is over, and Bush won. Ha ha ha ha ha." I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you take a trip to Iraq. Find an Iraqi mother whose husband and children have all been killed from the war. Or find a child whose parents have been killed from the war. Walk right up to them and, with a smile on your face, say "The Iraq war is over, and Bush won. Ha ha ha ha ha." Of course, you'd never actually condescend to do this. To you, Iraqis are far less than human. Killing them or destroying their lives is like exterminating so many insects. So instead, why don't you go to a veterans hospital, find a soldier who just got his legs blown away or suffered permanent brain damage from an exploding IED. Or find a family whose son just committed suicide after his third tour of duty. Walk right up to them and, with a smile on your face, say, "The Iraq war is over, and Bush won. Ha ha ha ha ha". Have some fun with it. Martin

The heroes Rand wrote about in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were architects, writers, industrialists, engineers, scientists, philosophers, and artists. Not one among them was a bureaucrat or politician. The government officials in Atlas Shrugged were all objects of withering contempt. One could almost have concluded from Atlas Shrugged, given the novel's utter contempt for the government, that Rand was a quasi-anarchist (she of course was not, but one could certainly draw this inference from her portrayal of government). Two of the greatest villains in Atlas Shrugged were Dr. Robert Stadler and Dr. Floyd Ferris. Stadler was the unwitting inventor of Project X, an ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Ferris was behind the creation of the torture machine labeled the Ferris Persuader. Apparently, Rand did not think too highly of torture and mass murder. This is in contrast to many of the existing generation of objectivists, such as Peikoff and Tracinski, who glorify torture and mass murder, provided it is committed by our government against people deemed to be subhuman by them. Would Rand have been repelled by these modern day exemplars of objectivism? Maybe not the old Rand. As she got older, she became more and more a conservative rather than the radical who penned Atlas Shrugged. But it's hard to imagine that, at the time she was writing Atlas Shrugged, had she been able to look into the future and see what her philosophy had mutated into, she would not have been filled with revulsion. Martin

The idea that the New York Times is attempting to undermine existing U.S. foreign policy is almost the exact opposite of the truth. What actually happened regarding the published Wikileaks documents is that the Times produced a very distorted and misleading version of the actual document, which left out critical information redacted at the request of the Obama administration, in order to deceive its readers about the actual content, in order to promote the administration agenda. The distortions of the Times story are only apparent by comparing its printed version to the original Wikileaks documents. This is the same New York Times that years earlier reproduced verbatim the lies spread by the Bush administration in order to justify the subsequent invasion of Iraq. But despite this, the idea persists that the Times is a left wing organ designed to sabotage the U.S. government. Here is an account of what actually happened with the Wikileaks story: http://www.counterpunch.org/porter12012010.html A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability. In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea. But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document. The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side. The Times, which had obtained the diplomatic cables not from Wikileaks but from The Guardian, according to a Washington Post story Monday, did not publish the text of the cable. The Times story said the newspaper had made the decision not to publish "at the request of the Obama administration". That meant that its readers could not compare the highly- distorted account of the document in the Times story against the original document without searching the Wikileaks website. As a result, a key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defense policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has instead produced a spate of stories buttressing anti-Iran hysteria. The full text of the U.S. State Department report on the meeting of the Joint Threat Assessment in Washington Dec. 22, 2009, which is available on the Wikileaks website, shows that there was a dramatic confrontation over the issue of the mysterious BM-25 missile. The BM-25 has been described as a surface-to-surface missile based on a now-obsolete Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile, the R-27 or SS-N-6. The purported missile is said to be capable of reaching ranges of 2,400 to 4,000 km – putting much of Europe within its range. The head of the U.S. delegation to the meeting, Vann H. Van Diepen, acting assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation, said the United States "believes" Iran had acquired 19 of those missiles from North Korea, according to the leaked document. But an official of the Russian Defense Ministry dismissed published reports of such a missile, which he said were "without reference to any reliable sources". He observed that there had never been a test of such a missile in either North Korea or Iran, and that the Russian government was "unaware that the missile had ever been seen". The Russians asked the U.S. side for any evidence of the existence of such a missile. U.S. officials did not claim to have photographic or other hard evidence of the missile, but said the North Koreans had paraded the missile through the streets of Pyongyong. The Russians responded that they had reviewed a video of that parade, and had found that it was an entirely different missile. The Russian official said there was no evidence for claims that 19 of these missiles had been shipped to Iran in 2005, and that it would have been impossible to conceal such a transfer. The Russians also said it was difficult to believe Iran would have purchased a missile system that had never even been tested. U.S. delegation chief Van Dieppen cited one piece of circumstantial evidence that Iran had done work on the "steering (vernier) engines" of the BM-25. Internet photos of the weld lines and tank volumes on the second stage of Iran's space launch vehicle, the Safir, he said, show that the ratio of oxidizer to propellant is not consistent with the propellants used in the past by the Shahab-3. That suggests that the Safir was using the same system that had been used in the R-27, according to Van Dieppen. The Russians asserted, however, that the propellant used in the Safir was not the one used in the R-27. Even more important evidence from the Safir launch that Iran does not have any BM-25 missiles was noted in an authoritative study of the Iranian missile program published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) last May. The study found that Iran had not used the main engine associated with the purported BM-25 to help boost its Safir space-launch vehicle. If Iran had indeed possessed the more powerful engine associated with the original Russian R-27, the study observes, the Safir would have been able to launch a much larger satellite into orbit. But in fact the Safir was "clearly underpowered" and barely able to put its 27 kg satellite into low earth orbit, according to the IISS study. The same study also points out that the original R-27 was designed to operate in a submarine launch tube, and a road- mobile variant would require major structural modifications. Yet another reason for doubt reported by IISS is that the propellant combination in the R-27 would not work in a land- mobile missile, because "the oxidizer must be maintained within a narrow temperature range". Van Diepen suggested two other Iranian options: use of the Shahab-3 technology with "clustered or stacked engines" or the development of a solid-propellant MRBM with a more powerful engine. The Russians expressed strong doubts about both options, however, saying they were sceptical of Iranian claims to have a missile with a 2,000 km range. They pointed out that the longest range on a missile tested thus far is 1,700 km, and that it was achieved only by significantly reducing throw weight. Van Diepen cited "modeling" studies that showed Iran could achieve a greater range, and that adding an additional 300 km "is not a great technological stretch". But the Russian delegation insisted that the additional length of the flight could cause various parts of the missile to burn through and missile could fall apart. The head of the Russian delegation, Valimir Nazarov, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, said Russia believes any assessment of the Iranian missile program must be based not only on modeling but on "consideration of the real technical barriers faced by Iran". One of several such barriers cited by the Russians was the lack of the "structural materials" needed for longer-range missiles that could threaten the United States or Russia, such as "high quality aluminum". The Russians maintained that, even assuming favorable conditions, Iran would be able to begin a program to develop ballistic missiles that could reach Central Europe or Moscow only after 2015 at the earliest. The Russians denied, however, that Iran has such an intention, arguing that its ballistic missile program continues to be directed toward "regional concerns" – meaning deterring an attack on Iran by Israel. The U.S. delegation never addressed the issue of Iranian intentions – a position consistent with the dominant role of weapons specialists in the U.S. intelligence community's assessments of Iran and their overwhelming focus on capabilities and lack of interest in intentions. Michael Elleman, the senior author of the IISS study of the Iranian missile programme, told me the report of the U.S.- Russian exchange highlights the differences in the two countries' approaches to the subject. "The Russians talked about the most likely set of outcomes," said Elleman, "whereas the U.S. side focused on what might happen."

O'Reilly would think that anyone defending Natural Rights was a lunatic too. I think this is more a case of a broken clock being right twice a day than O'Reilly actually having a rational thought. Shayne On O'Reilly's show, Peikoff was not discussing his philosophy of natural rights. He was discussing Iran. Specifically, he advocated nuking Iran. This was too much even for the neocon O'Reilly, who probably thought that Peikoff was certifiably crazy for openly and enthusiastically advocating a policy that would lead to the death of hundreds of thousands or millions of Iranians. How pathetic is it that, under the auspices of an institute named after Ayn Rand, Peikoff is openly advocating a policy that entails the mass murder of innocent people? Given Peikoff's fascination with and open advocacy of using weapons of mass destruction, and given ARI's massive rewriting of Rand, it's almost a miracle that Peikoff hasn't decided to make some major rewrites to Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps he should start with Dr. Robert Stadler, creator of Project X. In the rewritten version, Dr. Stadler becomes a hero for creating this wonderful weapon for killing terrorists. John Galt and the strikers are of course the terrorists, being as they are working to cause the society to collapse by going on strike. Dr. Floyd Ferris discovers the nefarious scheme, moves Project X within range of Galt's Gulch, and wipes out the entire valley. As Galt and the other terrorists are killed by Project X, the strike ends, and everyone lives happily ever after. The government writes a no bid contract with a "defense" company to produce several thousand Project X death rays, enough to cover the entire United States, as well as about a thousand U.S. military bases around the world, thereby insuring that the entire world will exist in a permanent state of peace and stability, courtesy of the Thompson Harmonizer. Peikoff can even claim that it was Rand's secret desire to have Atlas Shrugged rewritten this way. I hope I haven't given Peikoff any ideas ... Martin

In other words, all of these U.S. government officials screaming about how these document releases are so terrible because they endanger innocent lives are spewing bullshit. Here, the government is being given the chance to review the documents and redact portions that may endanger innocent lives, and they refuse to do it. Apparently, they have other priorities. Unfortunately for us, the government does not respect natural law rights. It does whatever the hell it wishes to do, backed up by the muzzle of a gun. Should we really be surprised by this? Wikileaks tries to minimize harm to innocents, because Assange actually has a conscience and cares about human life. For this he is condemned as evil by some of the resident objectivists on this site and elsewhere. Should we really expect the U.S. government to give a damn about the lives of people who may be killed as a result of the document releases, when it has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent others in pursuit of its imperial ambitions? To hear U.S. government officials proclaim their concern for innocent human life is the most loathsome, despicable hypocrisy. Actually, many self-identified objectivists are far worse than run of the mill neocons. Witness the appearance of Leonard Peikoff on Bill O'Reilly's show. Even the neocon stooge O'Reilly thought that Peikoff was speaking like a lunatic. Martin

So far, there is no evidence that even one person has died as a result of the document releases. There is abundant evidence, however, that hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died as a result of U.S. foreign policy over the last 20 years. Are our rulers who have implemented this foreign policy and killed all of these innocent people at least as guilty as Julian Assange, who has killed noone? You obviously think that it's just nifty that he will have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder as U.S. or other governmental agencies try their best to assassinate him. Of course, this will not be a problem for the murderous war criminals Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama. They will receive lifetime secret service protection, paid for by all of the taxpayer suckers. Martin

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/11/23/tsa-gestapo-empire/ TSA Gestapo Empire by Paul Craig Roberts November 23, 2010 It doesn’t take a bureaucrat long to create an empire. John Pistole, the FBI agent who took over the Transportation Security Administration on July 1 told USA Today 16 days later that protecting trains and subways from terrorist attacks will be as high a priority for him as air travel. It is difficult to imagine New Yorkers being porno-screened and sexually groped on crowed subway platforms or showing up an hour or two in advance for clearance for a 15 minute subway ride, but once bureaucrats get the bit in their teeth they take absurdity to its logical conclusion. Buses will be next, although it is even more difficult to imagine open air bus stops turned into security zones with screeners and gropers inspecting passengers before they board. Will taxi passengers be next? In those Muslim lands whose citizens the US government has been slaughtering for years, favorite weapons for retaliating against the Americans are car and truck bombs. How long before Pistole announces that the TSA Gestapo is setting up roadblocks on city streets, highways and interstates to check cars for bombs? That 15 minute trip to the grocery store then becomes an all day affair. Indeed, it has already begun. Last September agents from Homeland Security, TSA, and the US Department of Transportation, assisted by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, conducted a counter-terrorism operation on busy Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, Georgia. Designated VIPER (Visible Inter-mobile Prevention and Response), the operation required all trucks to stop to be screened for bombs. Federal agents used dogs, screening devices, and a large drive-through bomb detection machine. Imagine what the delays did to delivery schedules and truckers’ bottom lines. There are also news reports of federal trucks equipped with backscatter X-ray devices that secretly scan cars and pedestrians. With such expensive counter-terrorism activities, both in terms of the hard-pressed taxpayers’ money and civil liberties, one would think that bombs were going off all over America. But, of course, they aren’t. There has not been a successful terrorist act since 9/11, and thousands of independent experts doubt the government’s explanation of that event. Subsequent domestic terrorist events have turned out to be FBI sting operations in which FBI agents organize not-so-bright disaffected members of society and lead them into displaying interest in participating in a terrorist act. Once the FBI agent, pretending to be a terrorist, succeeds in prompting all the right words to be said and captured on his hidden recorder, the “terrorists” are arrested and the “plot” exposed. The very fact that the FBI has to orchestrate fake terrorism proves the absence of real terrorists. If Americans were more thoughtful and less gullible, they might wonder why all the emphasis on transportation when there are so many soft targets. Shopping centers, for example. If there were enough terrorists in America to justify the existence of Homeland Security, bombs would be going off round the clock in shopping malls in every state. The effect would be far more terrifying than blowing up an airliner. Indeed, if terrorists want to attack air travelers, they never need to board an airplane. All they need to do is to join the throngs of passengers waiting to go through the TSA scanners and set off their bombs. The TSA has conveniently assembled the targets. The final proof that there are no terrorists is that not a single neoconservative or government official responsible for the Bush regime’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Obama regime’s slaughters of Pakistanis, Yemenis, and Somalians has been assassinated. None of these Americans who are responsible for lies, deceptions, and invasions that have destroyed the lives of countless numbers of Muslims have any security protection. If Muslims were capable of pulling off 9/11, they are certainly capable of assassinating Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, Condi Rice, Kristol, Bolton, Goldberg, and scores of others during the same hour of the same day. I am not advocating that terrorists assassinate anyone. I am just making the point that if the US was as overrun with terrorists as empire-building bureaucrats pretend, we would definitely be experiencing dramatic terrorist acts. The argument is not believable that a government that was incapable of preventing 9/11 is so all-knowing that it can prevent assassination of unprotected neocons and shopping malls from being bombed. If Al Qaeda was anything like the organization that the US government claims, it would not be focused on trivial targets such as passenger airliners. The organization, if it exists, would be focused on its real enemies. Try to imagine the propaganda value of terrorists wiping out the neoconservatives in one fell swoop, followed by an announcement that every member of the federal government down to the lowest GS, every member of the House and Senate, and every governor was next in line to be bumped off. This would be real terrorism instead of the make-belief stuff associated with shoe bombs that don’t work, underwear bombs that independent experts say could not work, and bottled water and shampoo bombs that experts say cannot possibly be put together in airliner lavatories. Think about it. Would a terror organization capable of outwitting all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control, the Pentagon, and airport security four times in one hour put its unrivaled prestige at risk with improbable shoe bombs, shampoo bombs, and underwear bombs? After success in destroying the World Trade Center and blowing up part of the Pentagon, it is an extraordinary comedown to go after a mere airliner. Would a person who gains fame by knocking out the world heavyweight boxing champion make himself a laughing stock by taking lunch money from school boys? TSA is a far greater threat to Americans than are terrorists. Pistole has given the finger to US senators and representatives, state legislators, and the traveling public who have expressed their views that virtual strip searches and sexual molestation are too high a price to pay for “security.” Indeed, the TSA with its Gestapo attitude and methods, is succeeding in making Americans more terrified of the TSA than they are of terrorists. Make up your own mind. What terrifies you the most. Terrorists, who in all likelihood you will never encounter in your lifetime, or the TSA that you will encounter every time you fly and soon, according to Pistole, every time you take a train, a subway, or drive in a car or truck? Before making up your mind, consider this report from Antiwar.com on November 19: “TSA officials say that anyone refusing both the full body scanners and the enhanced pat down procedures will be taken into custody. Once there the detainees will not only be barred from flying, but will be held indefinitely as suspected terrorists . . . One sheriff’s office said they were already preparing to handle a large number of detainees and plan to treat them as terror suspects.” Who is cowing Americans into submission, terrorists or the TSA Gestapo?

You would have a big following over at The Huffington Post, I'm sure. Obama's drones kill more women and children than terrorists Marvelous insight, there. Of course, we all know that the lives of women and children are intrinsically more valuable than those of men. Perhaps we should modify the post name to "Obama's drones kill more innocent men, women, and children than terrorists". There. Is that better? Here's a description of some of the wonderful results of U.S. government intervention in Pakistan: http://www.winnipegsun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/05/17/9482521-sun.html "PARIS -- Pakistan finally bowed to Washington's angry demands last week by unleashing its military against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) -- collectively mislabelled "Taliban" in the West. The Obama administration had threatened to stop $2 billion US annual cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan's political and military leadership and block $6.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into Pakistan's turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier. The result was a bloodbath: Some 1,000 "terrorists" killed (read: mostly civilians) and 1.2 million people -- most of Swat's population -- made refugees. Pakistan's U.S.-rented armed forces have scored a brilliant victory against their own people. Too bad they don't do as well in wars against India. Blasting civilians, however, is much safer and more profitable. Unable to pacify Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes (a.k.a. Taliban), a deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to Pakistan's media, the rest civilians. Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world's largest tribal people. Fifteen million live in Afghanistan, forming half its population. Twenty-six million live right across the border in Pakistan. Britain's imperialists divided Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line (today's Afghan-Pakistan border). Pashtun reject it. Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947, provided much of their homeland be autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat only joined Pakistan in 1969. As Pakistan's Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan, U.S. drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger. I have been to war with the Pashtun and have seen their legendary courage, strong sense of honour and determination. They are also hugely quarrelsome, feuding and prickly. One quickly learns never to threaten a Pashtun or give him ultimatums. These are the mountain warriors who defied the U.S. by refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden because he was a hero of the anti-Soviet war and their guest. The ancient code of "Pashtunwali" still guides them: Do not attack Pashtun, do not cheat them, do not cause them dishonour. To Pashtun, revenge is sacred. HAM-HANDED Now, Washington's ham-handed policies and last week's Swat atrocity threaten to ignite Pakistan's second worst nightmare after invasion by India: That its 26 million Pashtun will secede and join Afghanistan's Pashtun to form an independent Pashtun state, Pashtunistan. This would rend Pakistan asunder, probably provoke its restive Baluchi tribes to secede and tempt mighty India to intervene militarily, risking nuclear war with beleaguered Pakistan. The Pashtun of NWFP have no intention or capability of moving into Pakistan's other provinces, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. They just want to be left alone. Alarms of a "Taliban takeover of Pakistan" are pure propaganda. Lowland Pakistanis repeatedly have rejected militant Islamic parties. Many have little love for Pashtun, whom they regard as mountain wild men best avoided. Nor are Pakistan's well-guarded nukes a danger -- at least not yet. Alarms about Pakistan's nukes come from the same fabricators with hidden agendas who brought us Saddam Hussein's bogus weapons. THE REAL DANGER The real danger is in the U.S. acting like an enraged mastodon, trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad's military to make war on its own people. Pakistan could end up like U.S.-occupied Iraq, split into three parts and helpless. If this continues, at some point patriotic Pakistani soldiers may rebel and shoot the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington's payroll. Equally ominous, a poor people's uprising spreading across Pakistan -- also mislabelled "Taliban" -- threatens a radical national rebellion reminiscent of India's Naxalite rebels. As in Iraq, profound ignorance and gung ho military arrogance drive U.S. Afghan policy. Obama's people have no understanding what they are getting into in "AfPak." I can tell them: An unholy mess we will long regret." Did you get that? 700 Pakistani Pashtun killed by CIA drones, only 6% estimated to be militants, the rest civilians. 1.2 million refugees driven from their homes in Swat. This is what your taxes and mine are going to pay for. Are you happy about this? Does it make you proud to be an American? What an excellent false dichotomy. Apparently, according to you, we have only two choices -- to bomb the hell out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and all these other wonderful places where the U.S. government has been engaged in endless bombing compaigns, or to send our young men and women to die in combat. How about this for a third alternative -- stop bombing all of these countries and get our soldiers the hell out of these countries at the same time, so that no more of them have to die. Sure, it's a radical concept, not having the U.S. at war with half of the entire world, but maybe it's just worth giving it a try. By your logic, the U.S. government can murder people around the world with impunity, all in the name of self-defense, even though the people it is killing are no threat whatever to the people of the U.S., just as the Iraqis or the Pakistani Pashtun are no threat to Americans at all but have been and continue to be slaughtered by our government. And there it is. You and Michael both identify as objectivists. Barack Obama has been systematically destroying this country via his multiple horrible policies, from ObamaCare to trillion dollar deficits to massive inflationary destruction of the dollar, to continued destruction of our civil liberties on a massive scale, to his declaration that he has the right to murder anyone anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, to his continued support of torture, to his vile escalation of the Afghan and Pakistan wars and his vile murdering of Pakistanis via escalated drone attacks. And yet despite all this, you thank God than Obama is president rather than Michael. Michael just hasn't demonstrated sufficient blood lust to satisfy you. Martin

Michael, You assume that I like the Idea of killing women and children. I am simply recognizing the reality of war. In war you do not win by killing more of the enemies soldiers than they kill of yours, you win by making war so unstomachacheble the enemy no longer has the will to fight. How did we win against the Japanese? We made war with us impossible. The reality is who makes war possible? is it a state? is it an army? no, a state must be able to pay for its armies. This is why I am also for arming every dissident in Iran. So long as a population goes along with the state (ie does not openly and physically oppose) the population is not "innocent". to demonstrate my point. If a US soldier in Iraq is in a fire fight with an enemy combatant and that enemy comes out holding a woman as hostage and is still firing on the soldier that soldier should return fire with the intent to kill even if it endangers the life of that soldier, even if that soldier knows he will take the woman's life. It has nothing to do with that woman, it has to do with the rules of war. If your enemy knows that holding a woman hostage will not stop you from killing him you will find women dont get held hostage. when you go to war total war is the only option I ask this question with no agenda. Have you ever been a soldier in a war and been in battle? I'll take a shot at speculatively answering this question, even though I don't personally know the degenerate to whom the question was posed. Of course he's never been a soldier in war or been in battle. It is almost always the most cowardly chickenhawks who scream the loudest about total war, killing the enemy without remorse, and salting the earth with them. Easy words coming from a sociopath who has never experienced the hell of life in a war zone. This pathetic excuse for a human being would piss in his pants if he were ever in such an environment and heard bullets flying by him and bombs exploding. Martin

The issue is not "granting marriage." Government does not grant marriage. It uses guns to force people do do things. The only purpose of this farce is to use guns against private third parties in order to establish a social agenda. So, since government does not grant marriage but instead uses guns to force people to do things, do you favor the immediate abolition of government granted heterosexual marriage? I posed this question to you in a previous post, and you never answered it. Since you have repeatedly railed against government granted homosexual marriage but have never spoken out against government granted heterosexual marriage (at least, I've never heard you speak out against the latter), it seems reasonable to extrapolate that you oppose the former but not the latter. Since you've stated that government granted marriage is somehow the equivalent of using guns against private third parties, your support of government granted heterosexual marriage would imply that you have no problem with government using guns against private third parties in support of heterosexual couples but not homosexual couples. In fact, government granted marriage by itself does not involve use of government force against anyone. Rather, it is a basket of contractual rights granted to the couple, such as next of kin, inheritance, child custody, right of hospital visitation, right not to testify against ones spouse in court, right to eventually get permanent resident status for a non U.S. citizen whom one marries, etc. None of these contractual rights involves the use of force against anyone. They are contractual rights that could mostly be established individually via written contracts, probably with the assistance of an attorney. Government granted marriage is simply a convenient way of granting this basket of rights automatically without having to hire an attorney to write individual contracts to establish them. Your previous examples of government use of force were related to non-discrimination laws, which force people to associate with other people against their will, such as in hiring, renting, etc. But these laws are conceptually and legally distinct from marriage laws. It's possible to have legal marriage laws but no non-discrimination laws, such that, for example, homosexuals can legally marry, but this gives them no special privilege against private discrimination. Similarly, it's possible to not have legal marriage for homosexuals but to still have laws against private discrimination against them. Insofar as one is against laws forcing people to associate with others against their will, one should oppose such non-discrimination laws. But this has nothing to do with marriage laws. Martin

This is a bizarre perversion of language. No person is prevented from getting married because he is gay. The government not providing you a certificate to reflect a private act is not the equivalent of its preventing you from acting. Government is the use of force. Either force will not be used regarding "gay marriage", in which case the idea of legal gay marriage is a farce, or it will be used, in which case, at whom will the guns be pointed? What's next, the legal right of nuns to marry the church? The purpose of government is not to issue vanity license plates. So you favor the immediate abolition of government established heterosexual marriage, right? Because government is the use of force, and should not be issuing certificates to reflect a private act. Since the purpose of government is not to issue vanity license plates, government established heterosexual marriage should be abolished. Right? Martin

So far, there is no evidence that anyone has been killed as a result of the release of these documents. But it's certainly nifty that the U.S. government has suddenly become so concerned about the death of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, considering that its wars of aggression have led to the death of at least a hundred thousand Iraqis (and possibly several hundred thousand. We don't do body counts). Not to mention its previously applied sanctions in Iraq, which are estimated to have killed about half a million Iraqis. Not to mention its support of Saddam Hussein in the Iran - Iraq war, in which about a million Iranians were killed. Not to mention the thousands of deaths in Afghanistan, and the ongoing bombing campaign with drones and hellfire missiles in Pakistan, which is destroying huge sections of the country and creating untold numbers of Pakistani refugees. Never mind any of the above. The U.S. government is terribly concerned about the death and suffering of innocent people, just as claimed by Pentagon spokesmen. You do believe them, don't you? Perhaps, after we're finished trying Assange for the non-existent deaths associated with his release of documents which reveal some of the range of war crimes committed by the U.S. government in its prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could even get around to trying some of the U.S. war criminals who have carried out these crimes. Perhaps we could even feel a fraction of the moral outrage against these war criminals and the death and torture they have inflicted, as we do against those who have the courage to reveal the ugly truth that the powers that be do not wish us to see. Nah! That's just crazy talk! Martin

Here's an aspect of the story that has not gotten any exposure in the mainstream media. If anyone wonders why the psychological profession is frequently held in contempt, here's a pretty good explanation. http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/14/therapists-to-miners-well-come

It is force. That is sufficient reason for a believer in Ayn's philosophy, which I also follow, to oppose it. Additionally, as both Brant, Ted, Tony and others have pointed out eloquently, there are substantial private and religious contracts that accomplish the protection of all the rights that are allegedly being sought by the "gay marriage" lobby. I prepare ante-nuptial [pre-nups] agreements, as well as ante domestic union contracts where domestic union contracts are statutorily enacted. Finally, where the statutes are silent, I prepare contracts between two co-cohabitants which, when registered with the county clerks office, will generally stand up to judicial review. Therefore, the entire "gay marriage" agenda, when enacted into law, Connecticut courts just validated "gay marriage" last week, can only be enforced by the state gun. Very, very wrong. Adam In exactly what way is gay marriage enforced by the state gun, but straight marriage is not? Martin The state has an interest in protecting children, who are born of man and woman. All else is show. When they come to collect the fine assessed a landlord who refuses to obey the anti-discrimination laws, that is where the force comes into play. The state has no business participating in make believe. For an objectivist to talk about the interests of the state is rather sad. Oh, please. In a minimalist republic, the state is simply people. You know, you really are sounding more and more like a statist. First, you talk about state interests in certain types of relationships among people, as though it's any of the state's business what kinds of voluntary relationships exist between people. Now, you bring up the old collectivist canard that the state and the subjects that it rules over are one and the same. This nonsensical equation is used by advocates of big, intrusive government to justify all types of governmental intrusions into people's lives. "How can you object to the government dictating what kind of medical insurance or medical care you receive? After all, the government is simply the people, including you." And by the way, please let us know when we're actually living in a minimalist republic. My fantasies? You're the one who seems to be fantasizing that we live in a minimalist republic, and that the state is risking its life for me and enforcing laws for my benefit, as opposed to the reality that we are actually living in a disintegrating empire ruled by a criminal class of predatory sociopaths. I don't know which people you think would be burdened by the existence of gay marriage, but you apparently don't think that heterosexual marriage imposes equivalent burdens on anyone. Somehow, heterosexual marriage is not about heterosexual self-esteem, but homosexual marriage is all about homosexual self-esteem. I happen to be a heterosexual, married man. It is not and never has been my fantasy to marry another man. Nor do I think that the state should be involved in marriage in any way. I would be perfectly willing to support gender neutral civil partnerships with default contracts for those who choose them. What I vehemently object to is the state offering marriage to heterosexuals and some alternative, lesser arrangement for homosexuals. This violates the fundamental principle of equality under the law. Homosexuals have been putting up with this bullshit of being treated as second class citizens by government for years now. I find it really bizarre that you, as an objectivist and, presumably, a supporter of equal individual rights for all, would support this kind of second class citizenship, especially in view of the fact that you have a male partner. Martin

It is force. That is sufficient reason for a believer in Ayn's philosophy, which I also follow, to oppose it. Additionally, as both Brant, Ted, Tony and others have pointed out eloquently, there are substantial private and religious contracts that accomplish the protection of all the rights that are allegedly being sought by the "gay marriage" lobby. I prepare ante-nuptial [pre-nups] agreements, as well as ante domestic union contracts where domestic union contracts are statutorily enacted. Finally, where the statutes are silent, I prepare contracts between two co-cohabitants which, when registered with the county clerks office, will generally stand up to judicial review. Therefore, the entire "gay marriage" agenda, when enacted into law, Connecticut courts just validated "gay marriage" last week, can only be enforced by the state gun. Very, very wrong. Adam In exactly what way is gay marriage enforced by the state gun, but straight marriage is not? Martin Martin: You are absolutely correct. The state gun is also used in enforcing straight marriages also. The difference is that they have a scheme that utilizes the doctrine of In loco parentis in the place of the parent. I am personally opposed to this doctrine, but the way the power agenda is structured presently, it is a losing position. The state overreaches completely in interfering with child rearing. The building of the child protective statism and the savage enforcement of agenda driven cases which do not protect children at all, but divide and destroy families is despicable. Adam Adam, I agree. The state's influence in family life and child rearing has been horribly destructive; its main benecifiaries have been the bureaucrats and social workers who administer the system. That's why objectivists and libertarians should be fighting to dismantle this system, not to argue against gay marriage while simultaneously defending heterosexual marriage. Martin

It is force. That is sufficient reason for a believer in Ayn's philosophy, which I also follow, to oppose it. Additionally, as both Brant, Ted, Tony and others have pointed out eloquently, there are substantial private and religious contracts that accomplish the protection of all the rights that are allegedly being sought by the "gay marriage" lobby. I prepare ante-nuptial [pre-nups] agreements, as well as ante domestic union contracts where domestic union contracts are statutorily enacted. Finally, where the statutes are silent, I prepare contracts between two co-cohabitants which, when registered with the county clerks office, will generally stand up to judicial review. Therefore, the entire "gay marriage" agenda, when enacted into law, Connecticut courts just validated "gay marriage" last week, can only be enforced by the state gun. Very, very wrong. Adam In exactly what way is gay marriage enforced by the state gun, but straight marriage is not? Martin The state has an interest in protecting children, who are born of man and woman. All else is show. When they come to collect the fine assessed a landlord who refuses to obey the anti-discrimination laws, that is where the force comes into play. The state has no business participating in make believe. For an objectivist to talk about the interests of the state is rather sad. This is the language of fascism, not of objectivism or libertarianism. I don't recall Rand ever saying anything about the interests of the state. Insofar as the state has any business protecting children, this protection should only extend to protecting them against severe physical or psychological abuse. Unless you can demonstrate that children being raised by a gay couple constitutes severe abuse by itself, the state should have absolutely no right to interfere in the parental rights of a gay couple raising children. Regarding your point about anti-discrimination laws, this is a freedom of association issue having nothing directly to do with marriage, gay or straight. Since the laws as presently written forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, these laws would also forbid a gay landlord from discriminating against a straight couple on the basis of their sexual orientation. So the force employed by the state is applied equally against both homosexuals and hetersexuals. It is therefore ridiculous to use this as an argument against gay marriage, unless you also wish to use it as an argument against heterosexual marriage. But in doesn't follow in either case, since your objection is specifically to the anti-discrimination laws, not against the institution of marriage. Martin

It is force. That is sufficient reason for a believer in Ayn's philosophy, which I also follow, to oppose it. Additionally, as both Brant, Ted, Tony and others have pointed out eloquently, there are substantial private and religious contracts that accomplish the protection of all the rights that are allegedly being sought by the "gay marriage" lobby. I prepare ante-nuptial [pre-nups] agreements, as well as ante domestic union contracts where domestic union contracts are statutorily enacted. Finally, where the statutes are silent, I prepare contracts between two co-cohabitants which, when registered with the county clerks office, will generally stand up to judicial review. Therefore, the entire "gay marriage" agenda, when enacted into law, Connecticut courts just validated "gay marriage" last week, can only be enforced by the state gun. Very, very wrong. Adam In exactly what way is gay marriage enforced by the state gun, but straight marriage is not? Martin

Martin, Did that make you feel better? Yes, as a matter of fact, it did. Peter has been posting this crap for years now, starting on the old Atlantis forum, then moving to the Atlantis II forum, then moving here to OL. In case you didn't notice, Peter said that all anarchists are criminals and scum, who engage in extortion, gold scams, and other unsavory activities. Never mind such distinguished, brilliant thinkers as our very own George H. Smith, who, as far as anyone knows, has never engaged in any of these activities. I could name many other anarchists, some famous, some not so famous, none of whom happen to be criminals. Peter doesn't let such a reality check get in the way of his idiotic smears. Normally, I ignore Peter's insipid posts, because they're not worth responding to. With this particular post, he decided to attack Ross Levatter, a man whose name he can't even be bothered to spell correctly. He suggested that Ross may not even be a real physician, even though Ross has been a practicing radiologist for many years, something that Peter could easily have learned if he bothered to spend just a few minutes doing research. About what one would expect from Peter, given that he thinks that all anarchists are criminals, despite the huge number of counterexamples. Peter doesn't let reality intrude on his delusional existence. I was particularly disgusted by his smarmy attack on Ross Levatter, because Ross is now in jail, due to his involvement in a victimless crime. His medical license has been temporarily suspended. His life has been wrecked because of an evil law that locks people in cages who have violated noone's rights. One would think that a self-professed believer in objectivism, a philosophy one of whose central tenets is that it is wrong to initiate force in violation of the rights of any person, would be outraged about the injustice that Mr. Levatter has suffered at the hands of the state. Instead, Peter Taylor decided to launch cheap smears against Mr. Levatter, just as he decided to launch cheap smears against all anarchists. A particularly loathsome thing to do against a person who has suffered through everything that Ross has had to endure. So, yes, Peter deserved precisely the response I gave him. I don't know whether or not Ross gave much thought to the possible risks of what he was doing. I just don't know a lot of the details about his case. But whether he was fully aware of these risks or not, the fact remains that he is the victim of a terrible injustice. He has been imprisoned for engaging in an activity that violated noone's rights, an activity for which noone should have their freedom taken away. It would be nice if you would at least acknowledge this fact. Unless you believe it's okay to imprison people involved in any way in victimless crimes such as prostitution. For the record, Ross is not my personal friend. I have never met him. He used to be an occasional poster on Atlantis II, and he has written many articles for Liberty magazine. I first learned about what happened to Ross from a post on Wendy McElroy's blog. My purpose in responding to Peter was not to defend Ross. Rather, it was to expose Peter Taylor as the stupid, smarmy bastard that he is for attacking Ross the way he did. I have no specific links to provide regarding Ross Levatter. Anyone interested in learning more about his case can google his name. This will bring up some links. Martin

You are an idiot. People who engage in gold scams and extortion are criminals, not anarchists. As for prostitution, it is a perfectly legitimate business, as long as it involves only consenting adults. You probably don't know more than a handful of actual real world anarchists, and none who meet your above description. But that doesn't stop you from smearing them as a group based on supposed attributes that they don't have. Regarding Ross Levatter, you really ought to learn to spell his name before making allegations about his moral character. Despite your insinuations to the contrary, he is a real doctor, a specialist in nuclear medicine, something that you would have known if you had bothered to spend five minutes researching him. He is also a distinguished libertarian writer and thinker, something you are not and can never hope to be. He was sent to jail for his involvement in a victimless crime that should not be a crime at all. While he sits in jail, you get to piss on him in your exalted ignorance. Take your moronic moral righteousness and shove it up your ass. Martin

You have not defined and cannot define what you mean by infinity. I have no idea where you're getting this idea. Infinity is a well defined term. The concept of infinity is used frequently in mathematics. For example, the set of all integers between 0 and 1000000 is finite, but the set of all integers is infinite. The set of all rational numbers is also infinite, as is the set of all real numbers. In mathematics, the distinction is also made between countable and uncountable. Thus, the set of all integers or the set of all rational numbers are countably infinite; the set of all real numbers is uncountably infinite. In mathematical analysis, there is a thing called a Hilbert space, which is an infinite dimensional space. Various mathematical theorems have been developed pertaining to Hilbert spaces. What is meant by infinite is not at all ambiguous. It is another term for unlimited. Thus, the set of all integers is infinite, because the number of such integers is not limited; no matter how many integers you select, there are always more. With regard to the physical universe, there is also nothing ambiguous about the term. An infinite universe is a universe with an unlimited amount of space, matter, energy, etc. Thus, in an infinite universe, if you were an immortal space traveler, no matter how many regions of space you explored, there would always be new regions to explore, without limit. New regions of space would just go on and on forever. Please note that this is not the same as a finite, unbounded universe, in which you would eventually explore every possible region of space and then start returning again to the previously explored regions. I never said that math is not applicable to reality, since I most certainly do not believe this. What I said is that the particular mathematical analogy you were using about dividing by zero had nothing to do with the issue of whether the universe is finite or infinite. You're correct that, if the universe is infinite, then the ratio between the size of the universe and the size of any particular entity within the universe cannot be expressed as a real number. Infinity divided by any real number is still infinity. Where you're wrong is in assuming that this mathematical fact would entail any physical or philosophical contradictions. All entities within the universe are themselves finite, and their physical and mathematical relationships between each other are unaffected by the finitude or infinitude of the entire universe. For example, suppose that we have two entities, a and b, with masses of 1kg and 2kg, respectively. Suppose that they exist within a finite universe with a total mass of 10^100 kg (This is a ridiculous, made up figure. I'm just using it for purposes of illustration). Well, in this case, the ratio between the mass of entity a and the entire universe is 1/10^100, and the ratio between the mass of entity b and the entire universe is 2/10^100. The ratio of the mass between entities a and b is 1/2. Now suppose that these two entities exist in an infinite universe with infinite mass. The ratio between the mass of either a or b and the entire universe is now zero (1/infinity = 2/infinity = 0). However, the ratio between the mass of entity a and entity b is still 1/2. Similarly, the other aspects of the relationship between entities a and b are no different for these two cases. For example, the force of gravitational attraction between entities a and b is unaffected by whether the universe is finite or infinite. You state that "It is only if the size of the atom in relation to the size of the universe is equivalent to zero that the universe is infinite. But then the ratio is undefined, and all statements about the universe in relation to any real life objects are equal to equations where you divide by zero, and anything goes, and you are stating a contradiction." I still cannot make any sense out of this statement. Can you give me an example of a statement about an infinite universe in relation to a real life object that would not make sense and entail a contradiction? Martin