SteveWolfer

Lightyearsaway said, "... I just don't believe we're cosmically more important than a cockroach or a cucumber. " I'm glad he was speaking for himself. Me? I believe that Lightyearsaway is more important than a cockroach... I not sure about the cucumber.

Rush Limbaugh was also wise to point out that this isn't over with the vote. As he stated, it will take years to untangle the UK-EU mess and during that whole time the progressives will do everything they can to make the exit into a failure, or paint it as the cause of every negative event that comes along. A surge in STDs? Must be due to Brexit! Global governance, elite bureaucrats free to regulate from a distance with little to no restrictions, open borders, an end to nationhood... those are among some of the Holies of progressivism. They will not lie down. I suspect that Cameron's stepping down will be to enable him to be the leader of an active opposition.

Lightyearsahead wrote, "I favor voluntary human extinction via non-breeding... [and] for humanity to go back to living like the Kalahari Bushmen, with very little footprint." I wish you success in these endeavors and would encourage you to not wait for the rest of humanity.

Thank you, Michael. They are aimed at an audience without your sophistication, but I hope you'll find a nugget or two.

Lightyearsahead, At this point I'll leave you to live with your social consensus, in your invented social reality. You seem to insist on nothing less and I'm not sensing that what I might have to offer is valued there. To everyone else, my apologies. I clearly have been encouraging this more than I should have.

Lightyearsaway, I worked with and studied under Branden for decades. He supervised many of my hours when I interned to get my license. I really do know what he was thinking of when he talked about self-esteem. Here is the full context for your "grounded in reality" quote: "Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may be temporarily induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair. It is not an illusion or hallucination. If it is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through the appropriate operation of mind, it is not self-esteem." Notice that he says what I mentioned right off. Self-esteem is the result of how one operates the mind. It is not a social construct. It is an internal state that is, in effect, the residue of the sum of different volitional exercises of your mind. If you lie to yourself about something, your self-esteem goes down some. If you admit some shortcoming about yourself, to yourself, and it is something unpleasant, your self-esteem goes up some. When he says "If it is not grounded in reality..." that is not part of the definition but rather a way of saying that you cannot acquire self-esteem by collecting compliments, by complimenting yourself, by feeling good from a drug, or by pretending that things are other than they are. You took "grounded in reality" and stuck it in his definition as a modifier of "disposition" - in the definition, "disposition" is synonymous with "tendency" - don't you see how "A grounded in reality disposition" is not the subject of the sentence Branden uses to define self-esteem. You can't take Branden's words from paragraph 3 and stick them into a sentence in paragraph 1, making the a modifier of a word in his definition and then claim that is his definition.

Lightyearsaway,you have made up your own theory. It isn't Branden's. Yours is something that exists "within a socially constructed system of self-esteem" - your words. Branden's theory of self-esteem is totally different. It makes zero sense for you to start with something that is NOT his and then go on to criticize his theory which you clearly don't understand, and then to say what you think he should emphasize.

BaalChatzaf, Thank you for the kind words. I hope you enjoy the books. I think that we have had too much government monkey business in the economy since Teddy Roosevelt started demonizing big business and promoting Anti-Trust legislation. Woodrow Wilson gave us the Fed and the IRS, FDR acted as if the days of limited government were not only over, but forgotten. LBJ showed how we could go great giveaways, lots of new departments AND fight a senseless war (Bush followed his example where he was quite compassionate with our money), Nixon severed the last thread connecting the currency to gold and let inflation start to roar, and Obama took us to new heights of debt, spending, and all around economic and regulatory idiocy. No one alive today remembers what it was like when we didn't have a regulatory state and where to start a business, you just went out started the business.

The thread title was suggested (sort of) by Michael. I emailed him and asked about promoting my books on OL. He chided me for being shy about it. Thank you, Michael. Here's the story: I've wanted, especially as I get older, to make some kind of effort towards changing our country's political trajectory. Each time someone came up with an idea, like Mark Levin's Liberty Amendments (for the constitution), or Charles Murray's civil disobedience schemes, or Thomas Wood's ideas on State Nullification, I'd get excited... for a short time. I'd think, "Yes! Finally, a way to turn things around for a while and give rationality time to catch up." But, in each case, and in every other direction I've looked with fond, but unrealistic hopes, reality would return. For a while I was ready to devote my remaining years to creating a professional, multi-year campaign to put through a series of constitutional amendments. That was my last this-will-get-us-right scheme, but after a fair amount of planning, I got to where I looked at the constitutions of some of the individual states, to see what they required to be able to pass an amendment to the US constitution (one that hadn't originated with the US Congress), and decided that was a non-starter. I gave it up and decided there are no quick fixes. The only path to the kind of change we want is education. A people get the government they deserve and by "deserve" I refer to their level of understanding of political principles. So, I decided to write a series of books intended to present the basic principles that should be understood by a free people. I'm calling them "Wolfer's Primer on..." and the first one takes apart progressivism: Wolfer's Primer on Progressivism. When I started a serious study of progressivism I was stunned at how much I didn't know. Anyway, that book has been written. It is short and to the point (about 80 pages) and available on Amazon.com as either a Kindle eBook, or a paperback. I kept the prices very, very low. Last week I finished all of the little details involved in putting my second book up on Amazon.com. It is "Wolfer's Primer on The Nature of Government". You and I both know about how drastically different the average person's understanding of what government should be and should do is from the Objectivist position. This book is even shorter - about 50 pages (and equally inexpensive). I'll be writing a couple more. My next one will be a little more involved. It will be on Human Nature. After that, my plan is for a book on Liberty - the idea being to paint an attractive word picture of how exciting and benevolent life would be like when living in a free country. Most people alive today don't even know how exciting things are when the economic growth rate is 7 or 8 percent. They have never even experienced a robust economy, much less what it would be like under a system built on individual rights. As a series, I hope they will show the massive level of deception involved in progressivism, and what government is by its very nature, and what human nature is (because that sets the foundation and direction of all the social sciences), and a vision of what life as a free people could be. I'm far from a literate writer and the books are far from eloquent, but I hope they support the key principles in a solid way. I'll get them written and up on the internet, but how to mass market them is still a project I'm unclear on. (More study... sigh) Any ideas on mass marketing would be gratefully received.

Lightyearsaway, First, you put in a definition of self-esteem that you said was from Branden, but it is not. Branden never defined the "disposition to experience oneself" as anything other than an internal experience. We can experience pain, pleasure, joy, sadness, etc. But you added this "grounded in reality" phrase that was never in Branden's definition. You added "fulfillment, success and achievement." Branden was still talking about a "disposition to experience oneself" as competent and worthy. Surely you know the difference between feeling incompetent to do something (nervous, anxious, fearful) because you've not had adequate study, training or practice, and how different confidence feels when you have studied, practiced and mastered something? Self-esteem is like that except that it isn't about a single skill or area of endeavor but rather a background tendency to experience a generalized kind of confidence. Our consciousness is our connection to reality - not just to understand it, but how to take actions, and which actions to take. There is a kind of confidence that comes of using it correctly (and a lot of internal misery if we don't). You said that Branden's theory of self-esteem is grounded in social consensus. That's so wrong. For Branden, self-esteem (high or low) was a result of how the person used their consciousness. It might have been Nathaniel, or maybe it was someone else, who wrote about a cat curled up, napping, on the floor in front of the fireplace. As the fire burned down, the room became colder, the cat experienced discomfort and moved closer to the fire. And if someone threw another log on the fire, and it burned stronger, the room became warmer, and the cat moved away from the fire. Human's have far more options in how they exercise their awareness and self-awareness. We can choose to be more (or less) conscious, more or less accepting of those aspects of ourselves we don't like, and so forth. As we exercise the choices we have in how we are using our consciousness, there is a score-keeper that rates the fit of our usage with reality. That score-keeper is self-esteem. It is like the pain/pleasure mechanism of the cat, but it is tied to a volitional use of consciousness that is so much more complex. Here are the six pillars Nathaniel Branden wrote of: 1.The Practice of Living Consciously 2.The Practice of Self-Acceptance 3.The Practice of Self-Responsibility 4.The Practice of Self-Assertiveness 5.The Practice of Living Purposefully 6.The Practice of Personal Integrity Do you imagine that if you turned your mind off, engaged in denial, rationalization, and hysterical emotionalism instead of focusing your reason, as your normal mode of using your consciousness, that you'd feel more or less competent to meet life's challenges? Clearly there is a spectrum along which we can be aware - and for any given situation some kinds and degrees of awareness are more appropriate than others. People who have formed a practice of avoiding being as conscious of what is happening (inside and outside) are going to pay a price for that. Don't you imagine that a person who is unable to accept who they are or what they have done will be fighting an internal struggle - a struggle that will make it harder to feel worthy of love or happiness? Do you believe that a person can regularly avoid taking responsibility for what they do or what they should do will be able to have as many successes as those who take responsibility? To make a practice of avoiding personal responsibility implies a strong degree of fearful avoidance of aspects of reality - of causality. Do you imagine that if you were unable or unwilling to express yourself, or to be on your own side in a conflict where you believed you were right, or were willing to let people see what you believed that you would experience yourself as more competent to meet life's challenges, or less. Branden once said that self-assertiveness was like letting your inner music be heard. Do you imagine that person who lives in a way that avoids being purposeful is going to have that much success? Think as clearly? There is a major disconnect with reality where we have to act, and actions need to be successful, and that can't even be judged but by comparing results to the initial goals (purposes). Living without being adequately purposeful is always going to diminish ones experience of themselves as competent to deal with what might come up. Do you imagine that if you frequently violated your own standards and principles that you'd experience yourself as more worthy of success or less? --------------------- The concepts of cultural relativity and social constructs as reality are responsible for no end of mischief in modern academia and it is sad to see how fast they are spilling out into the rest of our culture. --------------------- You wrote, "...the very existence of the [six pillars] book bespeaks a social lack - the impoverished self-esteem granting capacity of our culture." Again, self-esteem is an automatic reflection of how we use our consciousness, and has nothing to do with the culture (not directly) and it would be a major concern even if one were alone on an island somewhere. Culture's can't grant self-esteem, but they can encourage a psychic commitment to a delusion. But we all know, or should know, that delusion is an attempt to escape reality. It is like a heavy dose of a mind-altering drug and is no more likely to produce any good results long-term.

Adam, That's what "Will" should have said. He should have said that he had copy-pasted her entire post, with her name at the end, but that before he could edit it to make his new post, a unicorn hit the send button. When I asked "Will" why he signed one of his posts "Eva" he said that he had a granddaughter who liked to sit on his lap while he posted and sometimes she typed her name to his posts. And her name, he said, was Eva. At a certain point even my generous nature felt insulted at being asked to buy that :-)

Hi Michael, I agree with you about the title of Mr. Holzer's book. I misread it in exactly the same way. I was (and still am) hoping that the Liberty Amendments concept catches on. In my mind there aren't many workable paths to Liberty that I can see happening. We appear to have lost this war for individual rights back many generations ago when we failed to see what would happen if the collectivists were allowed to colonize the educational system and now, because of that, we are generations away from correcting the harm done. When I opened my email today, I found another Memorandum from Mr. Holzer complete with an analysis of Separation of Powers, and tying it to Obama actions. I posted it on RoR - here is the link for anyone here that would like to take a look at it (I really love the crisp logic seen all through it): http://www.rebirthofreason.com/forum/generalforum/1993.shtml#1

Henry Mark Holzer has recently put together a series of memoranda for the Tea Party (and others) that he has been sending out to those that register for his Blog Site Update. He has been attaching free lectures on Constitutional law. He is hoping that giving away these lectures on Constitutional law will help to arm those who want to fight the continuing erosion of individual rights. As most of you probably know, Henry Mark Holzer was Ayn Rand's attorney and spent quite a bit of time with her discussing constitutional law and legal philosophy. He was a full-time professor of law at Brooklyn Law School (where he is now professor emeritus). His courses included Constitutional Law, First Amendment, National Security, and Appellate Advocacy. He has also taken hundreds of cited cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, various United States Courts of Appeals, the New York Court of Appeals, various Appellate Divisions of the New York Supreme Court, and in other federal and state courts. At one time he offered three courses that were downloadable. Constitutional Law 101 - the Basics was the first and I don't know where you would get it today. The second course, which I also downloaded and can recommend is Constitutional Law 102: Worst Supreme Court Decisions... And What They Mean For Americans Today. These are available for free at the very bottom of this page:http://www.henrymarkholzer.com/worst_supreme_court_decisions.html The third was Constitutional Law 103: Best Supreme Court Opinions... And Why They Give Hope To America Today. For a time these are also free to anyone to download as PDF files from the very bottom of this page: http://www.henrymarkholzer.com/best_supreme_court_opinions.html. He also has some free audio Constitutional Commentaries that can be downloaded from this page:http://www.henrymarkholzer.com/constitutional_commentaries.html They range from the confiscation of gold, to ObamaCare. I haven't listened to these yet. I've taken all three of the Constitutional Courses, each was fairly short and concise, and I was very happy with the quality of the material. Enjoy!

I basically agree with this. And Steve and I haven't talked in well over a year. So I'm certainly not the only one who sees these things in Beck. Even Yaron Brook and Barbara Branden have common ground here. ... Michael Michael, you have always been an exceptionally perceptive fellow. We should talk more often! ----------- I'm struck by the emotionalism in the attacks on Beck - here in this thread, not just out on Huffington Post. As if a dislike of his entertainment style or his personality or his use of blackboards were elements of intellectual weight in this context. As a side note, I dislike clownishness or the heavy use of sarcasm or ridicule as an accompaniment with philosophical or political arguments and I'm nearly phobic when it comes to religiousity. I mention this to let you know that it took awhile for me cotton to Mr. Beck - but I've become deeply impressed with his effectiveness in the context that matters to us: awakening the voting public to the nature of progressivism, the economic and political dangers we face, the extreme changes needed to reclaim our freedom, the exposure to libertarianism, the energizing via the tea party movement of a political force against big government, and much more. I can't imagine joining with the progressives in attacking anyone that is doing all that he is doing. He has damned the progressives with their own words, watched by millions in video clips. All in all, religious stuff aside, it has been a stunning performance.

Phil, I wrote some of what is on the Wikipedia Self-Esteem article, but only because the article was so lacking when I first saw it. Much of the article had been written by a fan of the view that self-esteem is a bad thing and on "research" which "showed" high self-esteem to be the cause of criminal behavior. Dr. Branden wasn't mentioned. It was a mess. I ran into some opposition in attempting to improve the article, and could see that I would never be able to create a decent article and so, after making a few corrections, I moved on. If you look at the talk pagefor the article you will see some of my comments (search for "Steve Wolfer" or "Steve"), and you can see the article before my changes here. I mention this to point out that Wikipedia is NOT a sound source for research on self-esteem. ------------- If anyone wants to understand Dr. Branden's contribution to psychology look up "self-esteem" in the index of those books published before Dr. Branden's time - do this in compendiums where you'd expect to find important topics in the field discussed. It was NOT considered a subject of great importance. I was a fan of Dr. Branden's before I became a psychologist, but I wasn't star-struck and when I attended grad school I specifically set aside what I'd learned from him - telling myself that I needed to view all of the history, and all of the current understandings, of my new field with fresh eyes... and, that if I wanted, I could then go back and see if Dr. Branden's work had any real weight or importance. If anyone wants to really understand his contributions, just reread the Psychology of Self-Esteem. To this day there is no equal in presenting a philosophy of psychology. And he established self-esteem as the primary force in motivational psychology. You can go back and find this or that Greek philosopher who refers to self-esteem, but that isn't the same. Before Dr. Branden it had just been mentioned in passing - as a fairly minor component. He wrote in the Psychology of Self-Esteem, "When I began practicing psychotherapy in the 1950's I became convinced that low self-esteem was a common denominator in most, if not all, of the varieties of personal distress I encountered in my practice." That by itself is a revolution in the field - something crucial and central to psychology that had never been said before. When he wrote The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem his descriptions of the mechanisms that generate (or diminish) self-esteem in ways that should make any therapist weep with joy. Just as an example, I have an older edition of Kaplan and Saddock (5th Ed - 1989. Even back then it was three large volumes of small type on over 2,000 pages) and there are only three mentions of self-esteem. The first is one sentence in the article on Maslow where self-esteem and the esteem of others are given equal rank. The second is a short mention in an article on personality theory: "Self-esteem or self-respect, in turn, can be defined as a sense of power in dealing with others." That's it for the second mention. The third is a long paragraph on self-esteem, inside of a section labeled "Other disorders," which is under "Psychological and Physiological Factors" which in turn is under "Levels of Consciousness." And one sentence in the paragraph equates high levels of self-esteem with Narcisism. This is a typical mention for self-esteem in the past, unfortunately, the alternative is the more recent "discovery" of self-esteem's importance by people who do major studies and some how don't mention Dr. Branden. There has been a strong tendency in grad schools to view cognitive psychology as the ONLY theory - and all the rest is either ancient history or pop psychology. I like the drive towards emprical verification where possible but the 'movement' has the structure and spirit of a holy crusade, and so much of the research and so many of the conclusions drawn from them is pure dreck. There are strong parallels with the way Objectivism is treated by the main-stream academic philosophy crowd. I've been an Objectivist since the late 60's and I would find it hard to put into words the depth of the admiration I have for Ayn Rand, but to say that she discussed self-esteem in detail would not be accurate. I suspect that she helped Dr. Branden, but her grasp of psychology is not strong enough to have carried him to the heights he attained. I like many of the people at ARI and I like the Brandens - so, shoot me, :-) In a world filled with so many idiots, mystics, thugs and just plain mean-spirited people I can't get very worked up about many of the squabbles inside of the Objectivist camp. Those who pretend that Dr. Branden made no substantial contributions, when they know better, or should, do themselves harm. That's sad, but it's more their problem than mine.

John, I applaud you on your article. I'm disappointed that more members didn't see the value. Michael got trapped in technical details, but his 'instincts' were correct in putting up the article. You were sufficiently clear that your use of the concept "romance" went beyond the feelings a couple might have for one another (as you said, "not in the simple sense of romance towards others"). There is a metaphysical side to romance when seen broadly. It is a key element of human nature. Let me explain like this. Just as fuel is needed to move our cars, emotions are needed to move us. We don't act to gain and keep what we don't value - if that became our modus operandi we would run down, loose energy, become depressed, and eventually come to an end. In the strictest motivational sense, if take away all self-esteem and all emotion, it becomes impossible to act. Self-esteem can be thought of as the emotional fuel that relates to how we feel about ourselves. It is background to all we feel and all we do. Now, the object of any intended goal is likely to have an emotion it triggers. But what if we generalize or average all of our emotions that relate to that which is outside of us and important to us? That would be a generalized sense of the benevolence (or malevolence) of the universe - in a personalized fashion - and, if it is positive and if it is combined with a positive self-esteem it is a romantic view of life. It is an ecstatic feeling of how good it is to be alive. One can be struggling to succeed at something and failing, one can and will encounter personal tragedies, but our experiential background - for life itself - should be "I am capable of handling what life presents me with, I am deserving of happiness, and the universe is knowable and full of things that can interest, excite and enrich me." To be have that as ones experiential relation to life is what I take to be the grand meaning of romanticism. We who are so interested in the abstract, the intellectual, will, too often, not examine our reason for living - the experience of life. If we couldn't feel, what would be our purpose? Mr. Tate said "the meaning of life is romance" - we might quibble about the word "meaning" - but I wouldn't argue if he had said the purpose of life is romance - romance in the sense of that excited, energized, positive experience I've tried to describe above. ------- Mr. Tate's short piece also excited me in his address of liberty. He went from the individual who will be manifesting their desires with action, to the concept of liberty. I would add an element. Just as our capacity to act requires sufficient self-esteem to empower us to act, that we feel a degree of competence and worthiness, it is also important to have a degree of confidence that the universe in which we act is not turned against us. Liberty, generalized as broadly as we have with romanticism, starts with a background feeling-state that action is possible - that in general the universe won't frustrate our actions, if we find the appropriate ones. And our actions are those of an individual. Then, as he said, liberty is what Romanticism requires. If our purpose is to be as happy as possible, then we need to feel passionately, and that feeling won't sustain without acting, and acting requires liberty. Liberty starts as the base feeling but continues through the definition of individual rights, and on to implementation. Then we have liberty. --------- Justice is also a concept capable of expansion, of generalizing in a similar way. Here I may be parting company with Mr. Tate. We all agree, I suspect, on what justice means in the context of government, and I suspect we all recognize that we can speak of justice in an ethical context that does not include government (as in, some things are morally wrong, but should not be illegal). Note that we have a feeling-state that goes along with justice as it is achieved in either of these contexts. It feels good to see justice triumph. What if we go still broader than politics or ethics? Is there a metaphysical/epistemological level at which we can appreciate a sense of justice? I sometimes feel a wonder at things - that they are as they are feels right - that the laws of nature really are laws and the joy at uncovering this or that expression of that. In this sense, at least for me, justice, broadly generalized, has the background feeling-state that completes what starts with romanticism and its requirement of liberty.

I met Ellis at a psychology conference many years ago and we were able to talk for a few minutes between lectures. This would have been in the eighties. I had always liked his theoretical approach compared to Freudian, Jungian, behavioral or many of the 100's of other theories, but felt that his failure to recognize the problems with REBT that Nathaniel had pointed out (in debate and in writing) was disappointing. I remember being struck by what to me was an unhappy little man, somewhat bitter, and a little mean-spirited. When he learned that my clinical orientation and theoretical approach were learned from Branden, he had some very harsh words to say about that. He was not a fan of Nathaniel on that day! It isn't fair to judge someone from such a short encounter, and it isn't logical to judge the content of a theory by the personality of its founder - even if it is a psychological theory. But, my impression at the time was that his theory's flaws seemed to fit his personality, in much the same way that Nathaniel's theory fits his happy and bold personality.

That is true... with a caveat - it is a barometer of those who are Wikipedia editors and that is a unique demographic in itself. As long as that is understood, take a look at the discussion or talk page for an article (click the tab at the top labeled "discussion"). On a hot topic that will be where the arguments and emotions are exposed. That is where the real fighting goes on - fair and foul. If nearly everyone interested in a topic, say "Property is Theft," which is primarily supported by anarchists, is on one side, you won't find many thoughts or arguments of those opposed without going to the talk page - and then, only if there is (or has been) opposition to material in that article. Articles that aren't contested or have very little traffic will have empty or calm talk pages. Look at the talk page for "Ayn Rand" :-) Michael, I don't agree with your last statement, where you say it would be a mistake to do battle on Wikipedia. If all those with a more reasoned approach took that suggestion, Wikipedia's philosophical and political articles would be written only by the fools and of little interest to us. Rational egoists aren't going to pick up the gauntlet to do battle on Wikipedia out of a sense of duty, but if they are enjoying the editing there, and enjoying doing battle anywhere - then Wikipedia is a worthy battle field. It will overwhelmingly become THE educational content of the planet in a very short time and I'd rather not concede that to the subjectivists, relativists, collectivists and idiots in general. Steve

I believe Rand's exclusion from Academia is best seen as psychological - even though the underlying cause is philosophical. Look at the way that she is excluded: the heat, the emotionalism, the personal attacks, the ridicule. You don't have to peer deeply between the lines to read the emotional content. Now, compare that with the disagreements aired between academics... There is no end of bickering, feuding, and squabbling in the academy. But there is a big difference - they don't exclude each other. An unstated foundation of their arguments is that the other has a right to his stupid opinion and to the continuation of his tenure and should be allowed to continue to teach his mistaken theories. Not Rand. With her the strongest and most prevalent component to objections to Objectivism - stated or between the lines - is she does not belong - she can not join us - she must not even be seen as like us. The philosophical premise in Objectivism that lies under their emotional reaction and its focus on exclusion is the call for moral judgment and certainty. That isn't welcome in our institutions of higher learning if it means professors will be judged on their ideas. Rand's very style - written and spoken - conveyed the message, "I am certain." Relativism (and subjectivism) are seen as part of the campus environment, like the air they breath. And they ask their proponents to speak in softer voices. This soft-spoken relativism and ideological diversity lets them teach what they want and only have to observe the current PC rules and not run afoul of assorted faculty politics. They'll never need to rise to a higher level of personal intellectual responsibility. Peter mentioned "Her insistence on the practical importance of philosophy..." That is right on target. To be practical is to anchor one's self to reality and not just air floating abstractions that will never run the risk of being proven right or wrong, much less having actual consequences to ones wrongness. It is just fine that one professor can teach 2 + 2 = 5 and another teach that it equals 6. They can critize each other, denounce each other (up to a point) and measure their lists of published journal articles to see who is bigger. But they don't have to change or acknowledge error - it's all relative. Until someone says this is a practical matter, it is to be applied, the results will show, and judgments will be made.

Jeffery already recommended Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game but I'll repeat it because again and again I've seen it have a powerful effect on many of those who have read it. Not at an intellectual level like Rand's novels, and not anything lasting, but something very specific, I think, to all of us who were very bright as children. That book somehow touches how it is to be a child in a way that would make it worth reading for that reason alone.

Hi Ba'al Chatzaf, I agree that we are the owners of our time, our energy and our bodies - but not with that way of stating it. We need a much more precise approach in defining our moral rights to ensure that good law could flow from our descriptions. And to ensure that any applications of these principles has a good chance of being correct. The words "time" and "energy" need to be thrown out in this context. For example, "time" is a measurement of change and that's not a thing that can be owned. What we own is the right to act or not act - both in general, and on specific tasks. Always a right will be a reference to an action. We don't have any rights that aren't to actions. We have the sole right to decide what actions we will take in the future. So, we do own our "time" but the rights would never be described in a way that used that word. And "energy" would be a problem for a similar reason. It is a reference to either physical/chemical energy (a capacity to do biomechanical work) or to motivational energy. "Mr. Jones, please describe to the court how many calories of your energy you agreed to provide Mr. Smith." Like the issue of our time, our energy is not available to others because we own the right to act in anyway that doesn't violate the rights of others. I would express the property issues related to the body as a bundle of rights (moral sanctions of a kind of action). For example, we have the right to the exclusive use of our body, we have the sole right to make medical decision regarding our body, we have the right to stop any of the life processes (suicide), etc. Although it sounds weird till you get use to it, property isn't the same as the object. That's why Locke says we have a property interest in our body. Property is the bundle of rights that define our relation to a thing and to other people relative to that thing. Property is always a relation not a thing. The most important thing is never getting away from the fact that all values and all rights arise from man's life. If man has the right to life, then he has the right to all take all actions his life requires that are proper to man qua man. That becomes the moral backbone for all rights and their anchor. It establishes objectivity, the tie to human nature and it breaks the false dichotomy of Is-Ought.

I'd say many men are afraid of a woman's anger. Like rejection, a woman's anger is mistaken as a hit on their worth, their experience of themselves as being lovable. Men tend to pull most of their self-esteem out of career and from a sense of identity built on abilities and skills. They are more vulnerable in the side of self-esteem where they experience a sense of worth and the feeling they are desirable. Men are socialized to believe they generate self-worth by accomplishments and that is their implicit offer to their love, in exchange for her love. But if it seems rejected their very worth feels threatened. As I've written this, it is an exaggeration of the underlying feelings and a generalization. On average it would be more accurate to say a man feels a discomfort rather than is afraid. And it is not being passed on to newer generations as strongly as it was earlier generations.

He chose an evil goal and put what was left of his rationalty in service of that goal. By the time he carried out the killings I doubt his corrupted mind could any longer untangle the lies he had been building and nurturing for years. He had been choosing not to examine his loneliness, his insecurities, his fears, his anger, his alienation or the justice of his hatreds. He would have been letting himself believe more and more in his fictional world where everything was the fault of others. He would spend hours and hours living in fantasies where he vented his rages and each time he would let himself believe more deeply that the fantasy was justified. As time went on he would get more and more irrational in his stereotyping as he made others seem less like humans in his mind. All of this time he would be choosing to ignore the other sides of the issues, the other choices available, the other ways of seeing things. Our minds always give us that chance. Each piece of unreality he committed to and refused to examine would warp and twist his rational faculty further and the internal pressures would build. He built his evil step by step with years of evasions and self-made blindness. I'm just imagining that it was something like that. But certainly everyone's first responsibility is to listen when we ask ourselves if we are going the right direction. We get an unbelievable number of second chances on that. To become evil he had to ignore them all.

Well stated, Michael. If moral rights are objectively derived from human nature then we all are born with the same rights - king and peasant both. If our rules of social conduct are derived logically from those moral rights, and only from those moral rights, then we have equality under the law. If those laws are supported by honest and efficient stuctures and applied rigorously, we will have freedom and justice. Conversely, If rights are not derived from human nature and based upon man's life, they will be subjective, arbitrary and collectivist. If anything other than moral rights are used to make law, laws become tools of prejudice, special interest goups, and an accidental hodge podges of unfair rules that violate rights. If the structures of law - the political system, the courts, and police - aren't kept honest and true to their purpose they will be hijacked by special purposes or become impotent from internal contradictions. And we will have neither freedom nor justice.

No, I'm not. I've been here for about a year and it still feels like I'm getting settled in. There are boxes I haven't unpacked (of course, to be honest I'd have to admit that one or two of them are still packed from my move to Hawaii six years ago.) Are you familiar with the Phoenix Objectivist group?