Aggrad02

There is no excuse for that and we all know it. That kind of fanatical crap has to stop, not be given a TV station to spread. The guy is even calling on Muslim pilots to bomb Jewish civilians just because they are Jews.

If that ain't a leftover from Nazism, I don't know what is.

I am all for freedom of speech, but it is shameful—disgustingly, hideously contemptible—to see this crap broadcast over satellites built with Western technology. (I would say the same kind of thing if there were a Jewish version and I do say it against the Objectivist nuke 'em all crowd.)

Michael

Michael,

You are correct. There is no excuse for it. Anti-Israel sentiment that has been produced by the horrors committed to the innocents in Palestine is being funneled by Hamas for fanatic ends. But where is this sentiment coming from? Not because the Israelis are Jewish, but because they are oppressing the Palestinians.

Just because the Nazi's were rascist and committed the holocaust based soley on race/religion does not mean that everyone who is anti Israel is Nazi. It is a fallaci of logic (I might be wrong). But here is the problem as I see it:

1. Nazi commit unspeakable horrors to the Jews in Europe. (Tribe A (Nazi's) persecute Tribe B (Jews))

2. The Jews flee Europe and start settling in Palestine/Israel (Tribe B (Jews) move to the homeland of Tribe C (Palestinians))

3. The Jews with the help of the UK forcefully take sovereignty and land from the Palestinians to form a homeland using the excuse of being persecuted by the Nazis. (Tribe B takes land from Tribe C using the excuse of being persecuted by Tribe A)

4. The Palestinians fight back, and the Israelis being stronger take even more land (Tribe C fights Tribe B, loses and is persecuted even more)

5. thus the Palestinians who are almost all Muslim hate the Israelis who are almost all Jewish.

In 1. and 5. you have Tribes (A, C) who hate Tribe ( B ). But just because the sentiment is the same does not mean that reasoning is the same.

In case 1. the Nazis hated the Jews based on antisemitism, in case 5. the Palestinians hate the Israelis because the Israelis kill them and take their land.

Also you must consider that since the Muslims do not recognize Israel, they cannot call the Israelis Israelis, they must call them something else so they usually call them Infidels or Jews (since they are). Their anger is not directed at Jews for being Jews, but at Jews who are Israelis because the Israelis are persecuting them. Next time you read one of these pieces by a Palestinian/Muslim every time you read Jew, just replace it with Israeli and see if it does not make better since, sometimes it might, many times it will not because regardless of title you should not target civilians.

You also have to look at how Jews are treated in the Muslim world and how non-Israeli Jews are treated by Muslims around the world. Jews in Muslim countries are not treated much different than other people in those countries. In some countries they are treated worse than the Muslims who are the majority, but no different from the Christians or Druze, which while this is not ethical is not being done soley on the basis of them being Jewish, just that they are different. And Muslims attacking Jews in Europe and America is pretty much unheard of.

Finally as you look at this problem you cannot look at it logically if you are looking through Holocaust tinted glasses. Look at the problem as if the Holocaust never happened. You have a group of people who immigrated to a foreign country and started taking it over, angering the natives and this has started a war that has both sides committing atrocities. If you rationalize it through the Holocaust, which had nothing to do with the Palestinians (they were herding goats at the time side by side with Arab Jews), then you are not treating the problem fairly.

--Dustan

Michael,

I don't have any statistics and I certainly could be wrong (and I surely would be pleased to be so), but my guess/intuition is that the majority of Israeli's are expansionist. Their entire history has been almost entirely based on expansion.

--Dustan

EDIT: Incidentally, I have no sympathy at all for suicide murderers of innocents, nor their grievances, nor the fate of their causes. I believe the leaders who promote that practice are doubly evil: they are evil against the innocent Jews that are murdered, and they are evil against the poor saps they convince to blow themselves up.

Heil Hitler!

If these people want to be taken seriously for dialog, they have to stop that crap. I for one ain't listening to them. There is a line of decency that is not to be crossed for negotiating and suicide murder is way over it.

I totally agree. The problem is that people focus on the evil and the killing done by the fanatics, and use that to do the same in return to innocent Palestinians. There are plenty of peaceful Palestinians and Muslims, but more they are killed and the more land that is taken from them and the more they lose their freedom, the less and less of them you have.

I read a book called Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh Ph.d. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari_Nusseibeh.) Dr. Nusseibeh has an undergraduate degree from Oxford in Philosophy and a Ph.d. from Havard in Middle Eastern Studies and now runs the al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. He is also married to an English woman Lucy Austin (Daughter of the Oxford philosopher John L. Austin). They are both nonviolence activist in Palestine and have worked hard to bring peace in Palestine. Once of the problems that he demonstrated over and over again in retelling his history is that every time there was a strong leader for peace inside Fatah the Israelis would either kill them or arrest them, while letting the leader of Hamas (the sheik in the wheelchair) organize and do whatever he pleased. Also peaceful leaders inside Israel where also made irrelevant by expansionist Israeli government. I would highly recommend the book. Not only is it a history, but it has philosophy sprinkled throughout it as Dr. Nusseibeh is a philosopher.

--Dustan

Edit: Here is Dr. Nusseibeh's website, he has several articles that he has written there on this issue: http://sari.alquds.edu/

Dustan,

I have not read the book, so I was not talking about the conclusions of Esposito and Mogahed. I am not sure they even covered differences in Islamic ideology in the Gallup surveys.

I mentioned Nazism in reference to the historical research I have been doing. Normally, I have seen the argument that all Muslims are bad because the Qu'ran says this or that and it says to shoot for world domination through submission. The Gallup figures show clearly that religion is not the main culprit. But something has to be.

I have contended since the beginning that there is something vastly different between the Islamists or fanatics and, at least, the Muslims I have known for years, including a good part of the family of my estranged children (the other part is Catholic).

I don't see the difference as simply being ticked off at imperialism, foreign domination, Western values, etc. Muslims in the Middle East have lived with that for centuries and nowadays Islamic countries enjoy a greater degree of wealth and autonomy than they ever have. And they are saturated with Western values. The tendency is to become more so.

Also there is a strong component of anti-Semitism, an almost hysterical variety, among Islamists that I did not witness among the Muslim people I have known. The Islamists I have looked into are really mean, nasty Jew haters. There is no reasoning with them.

The other Muslims, however, at least the ones I have known, are more into live and let live mode.

I felt there was something causing the divide. However here in the post-9/11 USA, there isn't much awareness of the Muslim world and, with fear running rampant, there are two radical camps basically screaming at each other in the news. It is hard to keep one's independent judgment and look at the facts without being accused of all kinds of things by one side or the other.

Then I came across the Grand Mufti in a documentary on the intellectual roots of Saddam Hussein and started looking deeper. There it was. Hardcore Nazi leftovers in the Muslim Brotherhood, Ba'ath party and so forth. What's worse, we employed them instead of hanging them after WWII. There is also a mix of Communism and Wahhabi-like fundamentalism on the Sunni side peppered in among the Islamists, so it is not pure Nazism. Just the worst parts.

I am not yet familiar enough with the history of the Shi'ite side (Iran) to traced the intellectual influence of the fanatics, but it is definitely there. There are some real nasty hardcore Shi'ite Islamists out there and they are dangerous and anti-Semitic to the core.

I intend to pursue all this over time. Unfortunately other studies have been taking most of my time these days.

Michael

I see. Also I would like to say thank you for doing research into the Muslim/Fanatic/Israel/West issue, I am trying to do the same.

I would also like to add this comment:

Also there is a strong component of anti-Semitism, an almost hysterical variety, among Islamists that I did not witness among the Muslim people I have known. The Islamists I have looked into are really mean, nasty Jew haters. There is no reasoning with them.

I know a lot of Muslims, all of my suppliers are from either Pakistan, India or Iran, as well as have many friends who own businesses in the malls where I also do business. I will say that I agree with you that none of them are anti-Semitic but I would say that about 75% of them are anti-Zionistic. Try talking to the Muslim people you know and see what they feel about Israel and the Israeli's. I bet you will get a different answer than if you asked them how they feel about Jews. None of my Muslim friends have any problems with Jews, they have Jewish friends but they loathe Israel and the way Israel treats the Palestinians.

--Dustan

We asked those 7 percent about why they felt the attacks were justified and, surprisingly, not a single one offered a religious justification. Instead, the responses sounded like revolutionaries; they talked about American imperialism. Instead of piety motivating their responses, it was politics.

I have been trying to document the influence of leftover Nazism on Islamist thinking and here is a good indication that this is the real primary field of battle for intellectual warfare, with religion being secondary, and a distant second place at that.

Where does the Nazism play into the quote from Mogahed? Just because they feel that the US government is exploiting their people through imperialism doesn't mean that it is Nazi related. Or are you just pointing out that religion is not the cause of the anti-Americanism, and that it is just philosophy in general?

--Dustan

I wonder where I can get a suit like that?

Studiodekadent,

In an ideal world, your comments make sense. We don't live in an ideal world, however. Hatred against Jews is a reality, along with the attempts at genocide. If I were a Jew, I would want a Jewish country just to be sure I had a place to run to when things got out of hand where I was living. It has just happened too many times to ignore. After you have been persecuted as violently as they have, you begin to realize that the haters really do want to kill you. Dead.

As far as place goes, any dictionary will tell you that a word has more than one definitoin. I was using place in the sense of country. When I said place to go to, I meant country to go to that would have different rules and laws. A country can be Jewish by including such a condition in the constitution or charter documents.

I agree that our foreign policy needs a serious overhaul. I do not know enough yet to say what that overhaul should be. There are too many hidden interests.

Michael

Michael,

I have seen you say this many times. And n my time (which has been short) I have not seen any such level of hatred of Jews in the Religious sense, though I have seen great hatred for the state of Israel and for Zionism. And furthermore, since 1948 the Jews have had Israel, the problem is that the Zionist continue to expand it, by displacing and killing another ethnic group. The Israelis are doing the same thing to the Palestinians that the Europeans did to the Native Americans in this country. I we do not learn from the past we are failed to repeat it. If the Israelis continue down the path they have chosen they will eventually wipe out the Palestinians, and when they do it will be genocide.

For 20 years, Romania had no national debt, no foreign debt. They paid for everything with taxation. When communism fell, it took about two days and the Ceausecus were hauled out and shot. Most politicians prefer some other outcome.

Michael,

Your explanation does not seem accurate. This is from wikipedia, is it right or is the account that you are giving right?

Despite his increasingly totalitarian rule, Ceauşescu's political independence from the Soviet Union and his protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 drew the interest of western powers, who briefly believed he was an anti-Soviet maverick, and hoped to create a schism in the Warsaw Pact by funding him. Ceauşescu did not realise that the funding was not always very favourable. Ceauşescu was able to borrow heavily (more than $13 billion) from the West to finance economic development programs, but these loans ultimately devastated the country's financial situation. In an attempt to correct this situation, Ceauşescu decided to eradicate Romania's foreign debts. He organised a referendum and managed to change the constitution, adding a clause that barred Romania from taking foreign debts in the future. The referendum yielded a nearly unanimous "yes" vote.

In the 1980s, Ceauşescu ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial production in order to repay its debts. The resulting domestic shortages made the everyday life of Romanian citizens a fight for survival as food rationing was introduced and heating, gas and electricity black-outs became the rule. There was a steady decrease in the living standard (and especially the availability and quality of food and general goods in stores) between 1980 and 1989. The official explanation was that the country was paying its debts, and people accepted the suffering, believing it to be for a short time only and for the ultimate good.

The debt was fully paid in summer 1989, shortly before Ceauşescu was overthrown, but heavy exports continued until the revolution, which took place in December.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu

Also found on another forum:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

Reduced Fortunes

Cayne, who remains non-executive chairman, stepped down after reporting an $854 million fourth-quarter loss, the first in the company's history. He was at a bridge tournament in Detroit last week as speculation about the firm's cash position pummeled the stock.

Cayne ranked as Wall Street's richest CEO, with $1.3 billion of assets, according to Forbes magazine's 2007 billionaire survey. His stake in the firm approached $1 billion last year when the shares reached their peak price of $170. Under the terms of the JPMorgan acquisition, his holdings are now worth about $12 million.

Joseph Lewis, Bear Stearns's second-largest shareholder, has spent more than $1 billion on the firm's stock since September, paying as much as $150 a share. Lewis, a 71-year-old billionaire, wasn't planning to reduce his stake, a person close to him said March 11. He's now entitled to $22 million of JPMorgan shares.

Found on other forum:

Move to Texas. We have a good economy down here.

First of all, Brant's right. I'm 80% in cash, too. The rest is bear plays: TWM, DBA, BEARX, GLD. I sold six ounces of gold coin at $925 and half of my GLD at $980. Not going to buy any more. No doubt that gold will see $1500 or higher this year, but no guarantee of nuthin' any more. Which brings me to the subject of Texas.

I know something about the state. Nice racket in electric power. Plenty of infrastructure and trade, lots of skilled people. You're a bout an inch from civil war between the Haves, Have Nots, and Wanna Haves, all of them armed to the teeth. People underestimate what serious economic trouble will do to our cities, especially Fantasy Island (Houston). Oil is headed down, not up, for several reasons. State taxes will skyrocket.

W.

I don't agree with you here Wolf. We have a lot of haves, but in general they are pretty quite. You can barely tell the millionaires from the guy next door, and usually if someone looks like they are wealthy, they are not. We also don't have the housing problem here like in other parts of the country, there was no skyrocket in prices and houses are still equal or gaining value. You also do not have that much of a problem with foreclosures. And yes a large part of our economy comes from natural resources, but that should continue in the near future, but the other two sectors of our economy are agriculture and trade (like you mention). While Texas has the second largest economy in the US behind California, we have the largest amount of exportation (trade) of any state. One reason is the tax friendly business environment. Also our major agriculture (corn, cotton and beef) products will continue to be in demand keeping the economy here moving forward. You also have to remember since we grow a lot of food here, food is pretty cheap compared to the rest of the nation, ditto with energy, and with housing low, you can live here 10 times better on lower income than you can anywhere in the rest of the nation, especially the east or cali.

On top of that our economy continues to absorb worker. After Katrina, almost 500,000 evacuees came to Texas and any who need employment were absorbed by the economy, also every year we absorb large numbers of illegal immigrants (one reason I believe that our economy is so strong).

While I also believe that the economy in the US is going to go down the toilet in the near future, I think that it will be less hit in Texas. To have a major revolt between the haves and have-nots you have to have high prices which only allow the haves to obtain necessities, but here in Texas we have the lowest prices in the nation for necessities. Also the tax situation that you mention will not come to fruition. In Texas we have a Constitutional amendment against a state income tax, and other tax increases go over like a lead balloon. Also we do not have many large entitlement programs that would have to be cut, which would enrage the have-nots in most other places in an economic downturn, coupled with lower state revenues. Economically, Texans are pretty libertarian regardless of party.

BTW: I have 9 retail business stretched across Texas, and they preforming strong, 5 to 10 percent over last year.

--Dustan

Move to Texas. We have a good economy down here.

Shayne,

There is a component missing in the standard "government prints money" argument. The USA government does not print money as a monetary instrument belonging to the government, but instead as a printing press would in providing service to banks (the Fed, which is owned by banks). The monetary instruments the government prints in its own name are called Treasury Bonds—in other words, IOU's to be paid off by future taxes on assets owned by individuals and legal entities. The government receives—not creates—dollars for the bonds.

Part of the smoke-and-mirrors is that the government acknowledges dollars as legal tender, meaning dollares can be used to settle debts to discharge cases being litigated in court. To state this simply, if I give you dollars to settle an agreement between us, you cannot sue me—and win—to receive some of my physical property instead. You cannot refuse to take dollars as settlement and still have a case the courts will try.

In addition to loans (Treasury Bonds), the government's means of getting money is through taxes, not through printing dollars. There is a lot of smoke-and-mirrors, but that is the essence.

I read somewhere that Greenspan, when asked point blank, was unable to state (or even guess at) how many dollars there were in circulation. This is partly because it is not his business to know (in addition to, of course, the typical whole lot of monkey-business going on with central banks). It is the market needs of the banks that creates the amount of dollars in circulation. If so many loans in the world, including credit cards and things like that, stopped, the dollars in circulation would drastically dry up.

If an accurate view is being sought, all this needs to be taken into account in the "government prints more money so the value of the dollar erodes" inflation argument that is popular among libertarians and Objectivists. The government actually messes with pegs when causing inflation (which are numbers representing value, hopefully to pay off government spending through smoke-and-mirrors), not physical paper or commodities like gold and silver. For bail-outs to banks, the government does not print more money, but instead, prints more IOU's, and it forks over received taxes in its virtual vault.

Michael

Michael,

Doesn't the Fed buy up a large amount of the treasury bonds? And the money that they buy them with is created by the Fed. correct?

--Dustan

I don't see any "joke" and ... you're completely ignorant, and it's not a very funny joke.

Well, once you have to explain a joke, it sort of loses its edge. But here goes.

When the government accepts dollars for gold, it decreases the number of dollars in circulation, thus making each dollar worth more. See, that's the joke. Now, the build up was the part you keep saying you answered, but never have. You do not connect the acceptance of paper dollars at the gold window with an order to print more paper dollars. There is no such connection. That was the first laugh, the set-up. I think the audience saw it coming.

After the banana peel thing, it is true that as the government has sold gold, there is less gold backing the paper in circulation, but again, the sale withdrew circulating paper. As I said, once you have to explain it, it is not so funny.

(Wolf, thanks.)

Mike,

I am sorry but your story only works if the Govt. burns that fiat money (or deletes it off a computer). Instead they go out purchase with it, so there is no decrease in the amount of dollars in circulation.

--Dustan

Okay Michael,

I appreciate your in depth response, and I better understand what you are saying. I wish that you could have made some of these points earlier but that is fine. I would also like to apologize if I was a little harsh. I am sorry.

Now for the things that I still disagree with:

the fact remains that the US Mint sells US gold coins for US dollars. What else would it take for there to be a gold-backed currency?

For the United States to have a gold back currency, the Treasury would have to either exchange paper dollars for a set amount of gold that is determined at the time of the creation of that paper dollar and which does not change, or at the minimum set the dollar to fixed amount of gold which does not change and have on reserve at the Treasury that amount of gold.

And actually they could use any commodity or mix of commodities.

Actually using gold coins for commerce is a bad idea. As they wear, they lose value. Who makes up the loss? It is not inconsiderable. The best solution would be durable tokens exchangible for gold on demand, but not precious in and of themselves.

I agree 100%.

I do not have my "store of value" stolen from me. The govement does what it does and I am cognizant of that and I act accordingly. There are many stores of value from cows to collectibles. I store my values as I see fit.

I would say that you do, we all do. I am not just talking about the money that someone may have saved, but their salaries. When you have high inflation, salaries and incomes do not stay current with inflation, prices rise and your standard of life goes down. When the government needs more than they have, they create money which decreases the value of all other money in circulation (whether computer digits or paper dollars). This is basically theft.

I certainly do not put my faith in the government to protect me. I think my cameo speaks volumes on that issue. We could open another can of worms on whether or not it is even metaphysically possible for the government to do that. That said, I agree with Ayn Rand that the case for legal ownership of handguns is not clear, given the present social context. (Rand assumed that the only purpose of a handgun is to coerce another person.) Moreover, we no longer depend on hunting for food. (I have relatives who do, so I am aware of that.) The purpose for the Second Amendment was to ensure the militias. If you want to own a gun or a rocket-launcher or an atom bomb, join your state militia and report for drills and assemblies when called. Fight floods and forest fires, too, since that is also a task given to the militia. Otherwise, what do you need a gun for?

Well we disagree about guns. And if Ayn didn't think that we need handguns then I think she was greatly mistaken. The reason why individuals should have hand guns (or any other gun they happen to choose) is to protect themselves from people who do have guns or weapons (whether they have them legally or illegally) who wish to do them harm. Take the example of what happened in New Jersey last year. Two burglars followed a woman and her daughters home, broke into the house, tied up the family (father, mother, older daughter, younger daughter) burglarized the place, then raped the mother and older daughter, then set the house on fire before they left, killing everyone but the mother who managed to escape at the end. If the father or mother or both were carry weapons this probably would not have occurred (maybe still though). You can also take the Virginia Tech shootings or the shooting that just happened in Chicago, all gun free zones where even the campus police are not allowed to carry guns and massacres occurred.

Also, if you read the Federalist Papers and the works of the Founding Fathers, they explicitly cited the tyranny of the government as a reason to keep and bear arms. Now with our modern weaponry I highly doubt that a citizen revolution could over through our government militarily, but that was the original purpose of the second amendment, not to hunt, to to protect your self and property and to protect your self from the government. Why do you think that the collectivist that have had such an impact on our government over the last hundred years want to get rid of citizen ownership of weapons? It is not about crime.

There is a deeper truth here, one that I trust you will appreciate. Older forms do not disappear. There was a time when cows were money and about 100 years ago, it was thought that the first coins were made on that standard, 1 gold shekel = 1 cow or perhaps 1 bronze mina = 1 cow. We still see this exchange of (huge) barter lots at the Chicago Merc.

I was also vaguely aware of this connection, here is a site I found, I am sure there are others:

http://www.billcasselman.com/unpublished_w...w_words_one.htm

The size of the government, however, has little to do with fiat money. I will grant you fully that fiat made this painless. The alternatives were painful.

If it makes it less painful then the size of government has a lot to do with fiat money.

THAT is the real cause of big government. People want it. Thus, the challenge to us is philosophical, not political.

It has to be both. If you concede the realm of politics to the socialist or the fascist, then they win. While we are typing away at a computer or writing articles or even books, they win. Now all of those other things are important, but if you do not have people fighting for freedom within the political sphere then we are doomed.

Read the constitutions of the world. They all sound nice. Here in Michigan we have an effort to create a part-time legislature. But I lived in New Mexico, pardner, and I know that a part-time legislature is not a bulwark against socialism. People get the government they want. Period.

I would say that a part time legislature would be helpful. In Texas we have one that meets only every other year, and they have to cut the session pretty much down to the basics. While not the only bulwark against socialism, it is very helpful. I wish our US Congress was only part time.

For instance, I have asserted and attempted to demonstrate here and elsewhere that money can be a Crusoe Concept. Just like morality, alone on an island Robinson Crusoe would need money. Most "Austrians" just quote the Wikipedia in response, but the fact remains.

Sounds interesting. Do you a have a link to any of your articles/essays on this subject, or could you email them. I would gladly read them.

Our disagreement is not so much about commodity money and mostly about Ron Paul.... It's not so much him as his supporters.

This may be our disagreement and it may not. I do not look at Ron Paul as a figure like I look at Ayn Rand, Hayak or Von Mises. Though he has written a lot of books (some of which are very philosophical, like his book on abortion), I see him more as a force for political change, rather than a force for philosophical change. This goes back to what I said earlier about the political arena and the philosophical area. I think Ron Paul is where they merge. I am not sure how much you have been paying attention to the current election, and when I say paying attention, I do not mean watching CNN/Fox News. Ron Paul has shifted the debate within the Republican Party (for instance he had Huckabee coming out for the abolition of the IRS, where previously he hadn't). But more importantly he has created a coalition of freedom minded individuals. I would bet that such a coalition as not been seen within the freedom movement since Ayn and Nathaniel parted ways. There are people that are coming together across the entire country to effect political change in the name of freedom. They come from various backgrounds and have various interest but the main reason they come together is because they want the government to leave them alone. Some are objectivist, some are libertarians, a lot are Christian and a lot are Atheist and Agnostics. This is one area in which I have been extremely disappointed with the mainstream objectivist. Many on this board have given some support to Ron Paul, but others have come out vehemently against him, and I have no idea why other than they either like the war (like Bob) or for some other reason which I cannot fathom. We have a politician who stands first and foremost for the Constitution and for Freedom. What is so bad about that?

Let me give you an on the ground example from my county. I was one of the original members of the Ron Paul Meetup in my county back in June of last year. It started with a small group of about 15 members. Through educating and campaigning we got another 150 people in our county to join the meetup group and identified 400 individuals in total that supported Ron Paul and freedom. We organized these people on a precinct basis and had them get out the vote and to attend their Republican Precinct Conventions on the day of the election. On primary day, we got 70 freedom minded individuals elected as delegates to the county convention. How many of you know 70 people that are freedom minded in your community that are willing to be politically active? With those individuals we should be able to change the political scene in our county. The great thing is, is that similar things are happening all across the county.

You have to realize that not everyone has read Ayn Rand, and most that do who even like her ideas as presented in the book are not philosophically minded. If you want to make a change in our government, then you have to be apart of the political scene in your area. If you stick to just strict objectivist to form alliances with you will not do anything (especially with the rift in the objectivist movement). You must branch out to people who are freedom minded. That is the only environment in which objectivism can flourish, that of a free society.

Let me end this with two example from my county.

1. Before election day we were sitting around making phone calls at one of our supporters house. One new member of our group was a student. I asked her why she supported Ron Paul and she told me that we need smaller government and more freedom. I asked her what she studied? She said that he major was Journalism but that she really enjoyed Philosophy. I asked her if she had heard of Ayn Rand. She shook her head no. The guy who's house we were at, jumped up ran to his room and brought back a copy of Atlas Shrugged and gave it to her. We told her a little about Rand and how he has effected Ron Paul. Without the political meetup for Ron Paul, there is no way we could have spread this Philosophic ideas to her.

2. On election day, we called a supporter and asked her to attend her precinct convention. She said that she could not because she was handicap and night blind. So we found a 17 year old supporter who could not vote. He volunteered to take her to the convention. I want you to imagine this scene. A 17 year old, taking a 70 year old handicap lady to her precinct convention, all in the name of freedom. If we had more of that going on we would not have the oppressive government that we do.

This movement (the Ron Paul Revolution) was not and is not about Ron Paul. It is about the idea of smaller government and freedom. Ron Paul just happened to be the catalyst that brought people together. In this way Objectivist should have been doing flips. You do not understand how much Ayn Rand has been discussed on the Ron Paul message boards. I will almost wager that the grassroots Ron Paul campaign (not the official campaign but those on the ground) has spread Rand (and other like minded people like Von Mises, Hayak, Bastiat) more than all of the objectivist organizations put together.

--Dustan

Here is one theory:

Congress has the right to coin money and fix the value thereof. So, every day, after the calls to order and the prayers, the Congress announces what the current fix will be. For many years, they used the same number over and over. Once, they made a single dramatic change. Lately, they just use the New York and London Spot Prices.

Totally False. If you own any gold coins, which from this conversation I am guessing not, you can read that it clearly has a dollar amount set by congress stamped into the coin. For instance my one ounce gold coins are stamped $50. If I try to pay my taxes with them the government accepts them at the fixed value of $50, if I were to take them to my bank and try to deposit them they would deposit them at $50 the value set by congress. But if I were to take two $20 and a $10 to the government there is no way they will exchange them for a 1 ounce eagle or buffalo.

Also the Constitution clearly says that only gold and silver can be used to mint money. You can also read the Federalist papers and the words of the Founding Fathers themselves on their opinion of fiat currency.

Instead, today, the US Mint strikes US Gold coins and sells them at an open window for US Dollars.

Here you are correct. The US Mint in respect to selling gold/silver/platinum bullion is no different than Credit Suisse or any other independent mint and has no connection what so ever with the fiat currency produced by the Federal Reserve, which is an independent corporation, controlled only partly by the government but owned by the banks that have money on deposit.

My point is that the Gold-Guns-and-God crowd that rails against the Federal Reserve as an agency of evil ignores the obvious fact that gold and dollars are freely convertible. The government has a fiat currency, true. We have gold coins, also true. The plain fact is that the world is not suffering from an international financial conspiracy against hard money.

Man what a collectivist you are. Trying to subtly group everyone who advocates fiscal responsibility, the right to bear arms and theist together.

First of all what problem do you have with fiscal responsibility? Apparently you like having your value store stolen from you and your government overspend by creating money. Or do you have faith the government will be responsible to spend only what they collect and guard the value of your money?

Second what is wrong with wanting to keep arms to defend you self? Are you also going to put your faith in the government to keep you safe.

Third as an atheist I find it very insulting that you lump the above virtues (fiscal responsibility and the defense of your own person) with a mystical faith, it seems like you are the one that has the mystical faith in the government.

Once again you ignore my comparison. My cow is freely convertible into dollars, does that mean that fiat currency is backed by cows?

And the international financial companies did have a conspiracy against hard money and they carried it out, hence we don't have it anymore. Also the size of government as been directly proportional to the amount of fiat currency printed by the government, this has caused great trouble for us (Including social programs and war). If you cannot understand the problems caused by fiat currency in our modern times and through out the ancient then either you need to study more (a good place is the reading list that I gave you), or just give up.

Coins and currency (M-zero) is almost irrelevant. About 5% to 8% of the economy moves in cash, much of that in the underground or off-the-books markets. Gateway and Dell do not need coins and currency to buy chips and boards.

See what you do not understand is that the reason that Coins and currency are irrelevant is not because how people use it (electronic transactions vs physical exchange) but what they represent. You don't seem to understand is that numbers in a computer and a paper dollar bill are equally backed by nothing.

BTW: There is such things as electronic gold. And can be exchanged in the same way.

Again, my point is that the Ron Paul-GGG Faction only engage in mystical incantations about money and do not actually analyze the empirical facts via an internally consistent theory, i.e., they are not Objective about money.

Once again you are wrong and provide no justification for your remark, so either you are intentionally lying (which I surely hope not and doubt) or you are truly uninformed and need to educate yourself.

The whole Objectivist theory of money is taken from Austrian Economics, as pretty much presented by Von Mises. Ayn Rand greatly admired Von Mises and got a lot of her economic philosophy from this group of economist. Ron Paul studied the same economist that Ayn did. As a matter of fact Ron Paul help create the Von Mises Institute. He also traveled to Austria to better study the subject.

Also Ron Paul has written three books on this subject, one for the Congress, to say that he does not Objectively analyze the monetary policy is an absurd statement.

It seems that the only mystical incantations are your ideas about monetary policy and what others; Ron Paul and your GGG group (Does that make them GGGG?), believe about money, because apparently you have not read what they have written because if you had you would not misrepresent their positions (actually you have not misrepresented their positions that would have taken an actual analysis of their positions which you did not do, you just attacked them as mystical with no justification).

--Dustan

You conservatives are so exasperating!

In short, the US Treasury sells US Gold coins pegged to the market price of gold and they accept Federal Reserve Notes (or transfers of same) for their gold coins -- also silver and platinum coins. And they sell several kinds of gold coins, including the new gold Buffalo which is 24kt. Thus, the US has had a working 100% gold-backed currency since 1987.

Michael,

I don't know what you consider yourself. But this strange idea of yours is so exasperating.

From wikipedia:

The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. Under the gold standard, currency issuers guarantee to redeem notes, upon demand, in that amount of gold. Governments that employ such a fixed unit of account, which will redeem their notes to other governments in gold, share a fixed-currency relationship. The gold standard is not currently used by any government or central bank, having been replaced completely by fiat currency.

In economics, fiat currency or fiat money is money that has value primarily because a government demands it in payment of taxes, and that government has credible enforcement of its demand.

The taxing government's choice of the form or origin of money it accepts may be somewhat arbitrary but the unifying feature of all fiat money is that whatever form or origin, the market demand for it is dominated by the taxing government's demand for it in payment of taxes. For example, a gold coin may be considered fiat currency if its face value -- the value it has in payment of taxes -- is higher than its market value as gold metal. There has never been a form money that has retained its value as fiat money once the backing government's tax enforcement powers have waned. Therefore, the term “fiat” money is also often used to distinguish it from representative money, which is pegged or fixed to a quantity or mass of precious metal. While representative money is often associated with a legal requirement that the bank of issue pay in fixed weights of a given precious metal or (in theory) fixed amount of any other precious good, fiat money's value is fixed only to its value in transactions controlled by government authority, such as taxation.

The problem with your little crazy theory is that our money is backed by gold, it is not. Our money is not fixed to a certain amount of gold. When I get dollars in the form of payment there is no set amount of gold that I can trade it for. Our money is fiat.

Now on the other hand I can trade my money for gold, but that value is set by retail seller. The seller decides how much they value their gold compared to how much they value my dollars and if they value them enough they will trade me their gold. But they do not have to or they may want more or less depending on various factors. So you are correct that our dollars are convertible to gold, as that is the definition of money, something that you use to facilitate trade.

from wikipedia:

Money is any token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts

See I can use anything for trade, my cow, a pile of rocks, or even my own labor and demand in trade for those values, gold if my trading partner has it and values my cow or rocks or labor. But that does not mean that my cow or rocks or labor is backed by gold. It is the same with our fiat Dollars.

Hope this helps you,

Dustan

BTW: For more on this subject read:

Ayn Rand: Capitalism the Unkown Ideal

Ludwig Von Mises: The Theory of Money and Credit

or even:

Ron Paul: Gold, Peace and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency

Ron Paul: The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the US Gold Commission

Ron Paul: Ten Myths about Paper Money

Also, I contradict the article of faith that any of "America's problems" are attributable to an "unconstitutional" Federal Reserve Bank and I assert that right now, today, America has a 100% convertible gold-backed currency and has had such for 20 years. In part, this is a result of the intellectual inflluence of Ayn Rand within the Republican Party. It is also largely the result of the failure of that other system which was tried for a few decades, 1933-1987. The point is that the militiamen refuse to admit to simple reality because they have a huge emotional investment in something other than empirical evidence.

First why scare "" (Which I am beginning to agree with Shayne are lame, and in my opinion childish) around America's problems and unconstitutional? You have to be able to express yourself in a more mature manner. There are major problems with our economy, and a lot of it stems from the creation of money by the Federal Reserve and the Congress which has inflated our money and increased the amount of money our Congress can spend which has led to irresponsible spending. And there are questions as to the Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve having to do with the printing of money and concerning the Commerce Clause.

Second, just because we have been able to trade paper money (or anything else for that matter) for gold since 1987 does not mean that our currency is 100% convertible gold-backed currency. That is like saying my cow is 100% convertible gold-back currency. And if you haven't been following the markets our paper dollars are less and less convertible every day.

Third, I think it is dishonest and immature of you to blast Ron Paul's achievements and call him common (which he probably was before this election, I think you will see that change in the near future, maybe not), then cite a great achievement of Ayn Rand as having influence in the Republican Party which led to the legalization of owning gold. IT WAS Rebulican Congressman RON PAUL that was influenced by Ayn Rand and with along with Jesse Helms CREATED the Gold Commission the early '80's that led to the legalization of gold. Ron Paul has clearly said that his major influences where Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek. The sole reason that he decided to leave his practice and run for Congress was because Nixon took us off the gold standard and he new how bad the inflation would get.

--Dustan

With respect to one of the original articles Shayne mentioned:

Whistle-blower site taken offline

BBC News

18 February 2008

I didn't comment on Wikileaks at the time because I was going to supply a set of links around the world where the contents of that site could still be read (among other considerations, which I will get to later). Now I just saw this:

Judge allows Wikileaks site to re-open

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

Yahoo! News

Feb. 29, 2008

What should be noted here is that a judge can only set terms within the jurisdiction of its court. Obviously USA law and USA court rulings do not apply to other countries, so I thought the idea of U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White taking a whistleblower site off the air in the USA was a VERY STUPID THING TO DO.

What on earth was he thinking?

All he could govern was USA installations, not access by users to all the other installations all over the rest of the world. This kind of muscle worked with Napster because a lot of money tied up inside the USA was involved. I presume that Shawn Fanning (Napster's founder) wanted to keep his fortune in the USA and continue being an Internet celebrity. But the Napster debacle did nothing but reroute USA users to other similar services hosted in other countries. In other words, the RIAA wanted to use the government as a bludgeon to scare everyone and make them stop downloading music. Instead it only clobbered one person, then went pfffffft. The rest of the world went merrily on its merry way, the practice grew, and it became obvious that P2P exposure actually increased sales for many artists (see here).

For Judge White to backpedal like he just did (in a little over a week), I have no doubt his own career was on the line. Not only was there First Amendment issues, but it was a hugely dumbass thing to do. It meant absolutely nothing in terms of practical effects except show a really ugly desire for the government to further expand its powers into the intellectual realm. However, there was a STRONG MESSAGE (and a great one) sent to the world with this episode: governments are impotent, even the USA government, at ruling access to public information. Also, last but not least, banks cannot buy USA government censorship protection for their shady deals. Tangibles and specifics have to be on the table like loss of profits, etc.

This is a glorious case of capitalism beating government through sheer competence. Technology advanced much faster than the laws of the different governments did. When the governments finally woke up, it was too late. The technology was in place and there was no way for one country to impose its laws on the other countries. Dictatorships are feeling a real bite into their powers with this and aspiring dictators in America are feeling boxed in.

Strike a huge "Hurray!" for freedom.

This is checks and balances on a scale that our Founding Fathers never imagined.

Michael

Thanks for the update Michael,

WHOOP!!!

Evening:

I spoke to some of my insiders in NH that know all the players.

Fundamentally, NH has one of the highest integrity ratings in terms of elections in the nation [that is a personal and testimonial statement].

I might understand why the challange was mounted as a politicatl technique, but the "absurdity" [my personal opinion] that there was a "cabal", "conspiracy" to "supress" Ron Paul's vote...just does not pass my personal muster which is 99.9999999% accurate when invoked.

These types of inroads on the pathetically corrupt political system are so far off the mark as to be embarrassing.

Sorry, dude, but you are waaaaaay off base on NH.

The best possible # for Ron was between 11 an 16%.

Still taking the 200 to 1 odds on him being the nominee guys.

Adam

Adam,

I personally met the people who are pushing for the recount in NH last year at the Iowa Straw poll in Ames. While they are rather nice people and are doing a great service by trying to bring to sunlight vote fraud, they seem to see fraud in every little detail past what is reasonable, and thereby start to lose their credibility. Also if someone is going to commit vote fraud there are many ways of doing it before voters ever get to the polls, so there is no reason to have to miscount votes.

--Dustan

I was reading this excellent article from the Guardian about Joseph Stiglitz' study of the costs of the Iraq War: The true cost of war

In 2005, a Nobel prize-winning economist began the painstaking process of calculating the true cost of the Iraq war. In his new book, he reveals how short-sighted budget decisions, cover-ups and a war fought in bad faith will affect us all for decades to come.

Further into the article they talk about how the war has led to the economic downturn in the US and I run into this dissonant piece of junk reasoning:

So quite apart from the war, does he think a particular kind of unfettered market has had its day? "Yes. I think that anybody who believes that the banks know what they're doing has to have their head examined. Clearly, unfettered markets have led us to this economic downturn, and to enormous social problems."

What?! A leading economist demonstrates that the war and all the nonsensical decisions of governments have led us to this problem but "unfettered markets" are to blame?! I thought this classical piece of bait-and-switch reasoning had finally been run out of town on a rail. I guess not.

Anybody else find this weird? I was going to buy the book until I read that. Oh well.

Well I would say that he is right but does not see the problem clearly. The banks that he is talking about are the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank. Their policy of printing money and destroying the currency is a major factor in this down turn. But I guess what he not taking into consideration is that the banks (The Fed or European Central Bank) are created as monopolies by the government they are not unfettered. If we had unfettered banks then we would not have huge centralized banks controlled by the government that create money backed by nothing and the solution would be to go back to a commodities based currency.

Now if he does understand the problem, then he considers unfettered as free from overt Government regulation. I guess he wants the Congress or the EU to set interest rates and give home loans. Which is more collectivist propaganda.

-Dustan

He was a man Ayn Rand disliked even hated. She has been quoted as telling Buckley "You are too intelligent to believe in God".

He also published the Whitaker Chamber's review of Atlas Shrugged.

I must admit that before I read Atlas I read and liked National Review. I continued to read him after I read Atlas. He will be missed.

Also in Getting it Right Buckley talked down Objectivism. (Qualification: I have not read the book just the reviews.)

My friend: aggh sound like John McCain!

One of the major issues that I have had for 40 years with "conservatives" and any extension of the concept - liertarian conservatives, evangelical conservatives, moderate conservatives [now there is a linguistic limbo dance] is ceding the primary issue that all forced taxation is theft by the state to advance a specific re-allocation of resources by force rather than reason.

Adam

Can you be a little clearer please? If you say that forced taxation is immoral, then I agree with you 110%. If not please let me know what you are trying to say.

And the purpose of the original post was not to discuss taxes per se, but to point out the psychology of the socialist, and to extreme degree that Obama is a socialist, and how he considers capital as collectively owned, instead of privately owned.

And I agree with you 100% percent, the current war is unconstitutional because the congress did not declare it.

--Dustan

Today I heard a part of an Obama commercial on the radio today. In the part that I heard Obama said that "Tax cuts should not be given to companies that move their operations overseas".

Then later today I was reading F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, and he had this to say about collectivism:

"They [socialist] all regard the capital as not belonging to humanity but to the nation..." pg. 166

And it made me think about Obama's commercial. First I don't think there are any tax cuts that go just to companies which base their operations overseas, so what Obama is really saying is that he is going to raise taxes for companies that move their operations (i.e capital) overseas. Why would you do such a thing? Why base a tax policy on where a company is located in comparison to where they used to be located. Then I read Hayek's paragraph. The socialist like Obama believe that neither the companies production nor its capital belong to those that own it, but to the nation in general, and that by moving it overseas, they need to be taxed (i.e destroyed) in retaliation to punish it for taking away capital from society.

It really made me sick.

I also came across this quote by Upton Sinclair (I had watched There Will be Blood based on Sinclair's Oil and wanted to know more about him):

Of his gubernatorial bids, Sinclair remarked in 1951: "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them."

And that is exactly what Obama is doing, outflanking the conservatives, libertarians and individualist.

So Dunstan, when you are stuck on the freeway everyday for 3-4 hrs averaging 20 mph on a highway designed for 70 mph traffic because of the sheer volume of vehicles on the road what is the "anti-collectivist" solution? What good does it do to build cars with really good gas mileage when they are idling in traffic most of the time?

Are you asking what is the solution for the person that is stuck on the highway or the solution for the planners who built the highway?

If you are talking about the person stuck no the highway, the individual stuck on the highway, then he has many solutions:

He can change jobs so that he does not have to take that particular route.

He can change routes so that he does not get stuck in the traffic.

He can move closer to his job so that he does not have to drive as far.

He can move to an entirely different place that does not have traffic.

He can buy a motorcycle and save fuel plus zip in and around traffic to get through quicker.

He if decides to do none of the above, I would suggest getting XM radio or purchasing audio books and enjoy the trip.

If you are talking about planners, well I would say the traffic problem is probably theirs to blame. Zoning is one of the reasons that all of the jobs are in one place and all of the residences are in another making everyone sprawl outside the city and then have to shift around to work. Also people usually move to the suburbs because to the failure of the planners in the city. Usually when a city starts to get bigger, it becomes more socialist, raising taxes to do more public good, which is usually a disaster and drives people to move into the less taxed, less socialist suburbs. Plus if the planners did not anticipate the increase in growth and build more highways to accommodate the growth then once again the problem is theirs. Public transportation is collectivist/socialist, but I think in our economy probably necessary. I think that as far as efficiencies goes, planners should make the highways efficient as possible for transportation reasons, but not for environmental reasons.

--Dustan

BTW: If you really wanted to stop the sprawl, all you would have to do is to stop building highways and transportation. Once that 4 hrs of commuting turned into 8-10 hrs, people would stop moving outside the city.