Aggrad02

My god. This man has an American PR firm. He tells us exactly what we want to hear. He's very, very dangerous. Judith Judith please explain why you feel that way. Thanks, Dustan

Where exactly does it lay it all out. There are many articles on that site. This is a quote from one of them about Israel's existence: Denial of the obvious. The questioning by the Moslems of Israel’s right to exist is particularly strange in view of Israel apparently being the major preoccupation of all Arab countries and of most non-Arab Moslem nations, Iran prominently among them. And how can the Arabs possibly question Israel’s existence since they have been involved with Israel in at least five major wars, in all of which they were decisively defeated. Nobody questions that if results had been reversed in any of these encounters, Israel would indeed have ceased to exist and most of its inhabitants killed. How is it possible, one wonders, that despite the decisive military defeats that the Arabs have suffered, they still wish to deny Israel’s existence. It is an almost unbelievable act of mental acrobatics to deny the existence of a country that has inflicted such severe and repeated punishment on them. When it becomes inevitable for the Arabs to mention Israel at all, they always refer to it as “the Zionist entity.” The basic argument is Israel can exist as a Jewish nation because they took the land and are stronger than anyone else. "We won the war so we get the spoils". This sounds like something that Bob wrote. What information on that site led you to believe the Palestinians have no case? This is what I have found out so far about the history of the formation so far (this is in a nutshell so if there is anything wrong about it please let me know) which lead me to believe that Palistinians have a case: Around 1870 the area is almost entirely Arabic (even the Jewish population), the Jewish population is around 20,000 compared to half a million Muslims and Christians. The Rothchilds sponsor Jewish immigrants from Russia to settle in Palestine. This was the first Aliyah. In the late 1800's and early 1900's Jews are persecute by Anti-Semites in Europe strengthening a desire for a Jewish homeland (Zionism). At this time three-fourths of the Jewish population lives in Europe. The land of Palestine is still 90% Arabic. 1917 in response of the lobbing of Chaim Weizmann and the Rothchilds, Britain pronounces the Balfour Declaration, which states that Britain supports Zionist desires for a home in Palestine, but promises not to infringe on the rights of the current residents of Palestine (Arabs). WWII, more antisemitism in Europe and the Holocaust. More Jews flee to Palestine. Palestine still 80% Arab. 1945, Britain leaves Palestine. League of Nations divides Palestine between Jewish population and the Arabs, without any input from the inhabitants of the land. Palestine object and begin to revolt, Zionist retaliate, and take 77% of the land. Take by force the best land in Palestine. It seems to me that the Palestinians have a very strong case. Their homeland was invaded by European Jews through immigration (which is fine, I don't like to use the word invade here, but I can think of another). When Britain left, the Jewish community (who was in the minority) demanded their own state. Why? The Palestinians (Muslim and Christians) revolted at what was Jewish occupation of their land. They lost and had even more property taken from them. What is moral about this? Thanks, Dustan

Chris I understand. You don't have to apologize for disagreeing with me, that is what these boards are for. Intellectual discussion should never be personal and the ones that occur on these boards very rarely are. If we all agreed, all of the time discussion would be pointless. But I think Barbara's post was purely to stir emotions. What was the point of it? Was there any discussion about why the Palestinians are doing what they are doing? Was there any discussion about how money is given to the terrorist in Palestine? Is the government directly financing them, or is it individual donors from with in Iran (much like Israel receives donations from American citizens, does that mean that the US is responsible for everything the Israeli's do?) Was it pointed out that that this young woman was killed in 2002, when Ahmadinejad wasn't even part of the federal government? Or that he is not the most powerful person in the Iranian government? From wikipedia: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad[1] (born October 28, 1956)[2] is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He became president on 6 August 2005 after winning the 2005 presidential election by popular vote. Before becoming president, he was the Mayor of Tehran. He is the highest directly elected official in the country, but, according to Article 113 of Constitution of Iran, he has less total power than the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iran and has the final word in all aspects of foreign and domestic policies I think Barbara's comment about the picture was incorrect: There is a lot more that needs to be said! Talked about, discussed. I have no feelings either which way in this conflict, I want to find the truth. And I am sorry if I will not be spoon fed my information by our main stream propaganda machines. So I intellectually challenge everyone on these boards to look into this issue to try and find the truth. Who here will accept this challenge? I recently bought the following books to do research: The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy Mearsheimer and Walt Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid Jimmy Carter Interventions Noam Chomsky Once Upon a County Sari Nusseibeh The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot Naomi Wolf The last two do not say anything about the Middle East conflict other but are about US Foreign Policy and how it is formed. I am also doing research on the web. So will anyone else join me in this quest? The first thing that needs to be discussed are the events that led up to the formation of Israel prior to 1945 and the ramifications that those events had on the formation of Israel. Remember before this time there were not many Jews in Palestine, In 1890 there were only 20,000 Jews (all Arab) to a half a million Arab Muslims and Christians. So how did we get to the point in 1945 that 608,000 Jews declared independence from Palestine and 1.2 million Arabs and took control of 77% of the territory by force? Why did the Jewish population not decide to form a free Palestinian democracy composed of all ethnic/religious groups (Jews, Muslim and Christian) which is what the Muslims and Christians wanted? This is from the archive of the American Jewish Committe written in 1945. It is a letter from the president of AJC, Joseph Proskeur, to the Secretary of State John Byrnes: http://ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/I22.PDF The immigration of a substantial number of Jews and the growth of the Jewish settlement in Palestine would not be hostile to the interests of the Arabs of that country or of the entire Near East. There is no irreconcilable conflict between Arabs and Jews; rather it is to the interest of both and of their continued progress to cooperate in the promotion of increased living standards and democratic selfgovernment in the Near East. With good will on both sides, supported by a firm attitude on the part of the United Nations, the two communities can live side by side in harmony and peace. In the past the intimate working together of Arabs and Jews brought forth priceless contributions to civilization. So can it be again. This is not what happened. Lets try to find out why. I think we need to seriously look at these issues. Dustan

Terrorism is horrible. But we must remember that this is occurring on both sides. For every poster like this one, there can be three made with Palestinians on it. --Dustan

I agree with Brant, Bob. If pleasure is your primary goal then that is dangerous. If you attempt to understand why something is pleasurable and then to decided rationally that that pleasure stems from an activity that is in your self interest, then that is different. If that is what you meant then I am sorry that I took you out of context. Our emotions and feelings stem from an unconscious cognitive process. We should try to understand them to know what the underlying motive fueling them is. If we can determine what the motive is, then we can rationally decide what actions to take, if we can't then it is better to ignore those emotions, or at least put them aside until more information can be considered. --Dustan

Pretty much. The only role for govt. in regards to businesses is that it should protect the rights of people and other businesses. For example, if one business contracts with another business, and one or the other default on the contract, then the govt. should come in and enforce compliance through our court system. or Another example, if a business is polluting the water source, then private citizens should be able to sue that company to have it pay damages and fix the problems. I in general have some problems with the legal entities of corporations in the first place. I think that an entity that has no liability for its actions is dangerous. --Dustan

Educated Leadership? First Education: What values? what contents? Who decides? Does the public decide by democratic vote? Or is it decided by a power elite? Leadership: As in the Fuehrer Prinzip? In a free society we have Leaders? Or do we have people exercising authority within the the laws and customs? In a free society the last thing I would want are Leaders. I am a one man parade. I don't need no steeenking leaders. Maybe in a war, but not in peacetime. Ba'al Chatzaf Bob well we finally agree on something. Someone has to be in charge of our government operations, but I want them to have as little authority as possible. -_Dustan

No, globalism is not "one of the most powerful forces for liberty", it is the process of indebting every nation in the world, every man, woman, and child, to the IMF, World Bank, and other international banking organizations so they can suck the lifeblood, every drop of wealth, out of every human being on the face of the planet. Once we are all on that treadmill, the debts are structured so that repayment schedules are always greater than the resources available to repay them, so that they can never be repaid: perpetual debt, perpetual servitude. This is a recipe for disaster, and its end result is first, chaos, next, war, and then, tyranny. I suggest that this is the opposite of what you wish to accomplish. Thanks Steve, I was trying to move to point this out. But I first wanted to know why he thought globalism was a powerful force for liberty. Also remember that not only will there be Global banking institutions, but expanded global government (UN, EU, NAU), which are not going to be democratic or representative, which are going to strip countries of their sovereignty. --Dustan

For anyone who is interested here is the video from Columbia from today with Ahdmadinejad. http://wcbstv.com/video/?id=103767@wcbs.dayport.com

Yes, they were born into a free society. I bet for every CEO you could find a store clerk who had a similar upbringing and vice versa. Who cares what they vote. They are a company owned by share holders. The only people who should care about this are the people who hold shares and they get to vote for the directors. --Dustan

Jordanz, Where do you get your information? This is important, as how reality is presented to us will affect how we perceive it. BTW: Pulling out of the discussion because I have a different perspective from you is very troubling. Isn't thats what these discussion boards are for. Isn't it for people with similar values to come together and to try and understand ideas and the world better? To try and become better educated? Thanks, Dustan

Are disagreeing with my interpretation of Ahmadinejad on the conflict? Or are you disagreeing with my feeling toward our (the US) involvement with Israel. Thanks, Dustan

How did he clearly identify himself as being the opposite of honest and reasonable? Also does that mean you trust the information that the Bush administration is feeding us on this conflcit? When the Bush administaration has clearly identified itself as dishonest and unreasonable. Are you blind to the war propaganda spewing from this administration. This may be a stupid comment but I will stick by it. Right now if I had to pick who was closer to Hitler: Bush or Ahmadinejad. I would pick Bush hands down. --Dustan

I started watching it midway through his speech, but I heard about the introduction in another forum. I think the introduction was extremely uncalled for, extremely unprofessional and I as an American was extremely embarrassed by it. One thing that I have learned through life is that if you invite someone to your house, you do not insult them as soon as they walk in. If the president of Columbia didn't like Ahmadinejad, he should have just said: "Now speaking the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad". My impression of Ahmadinejad: I think he is a very very smart man. And he came off as a very sincere person. He was very rational, and spoke more rationally than Bush does on this subject. I think he also is a very religious person as well. He denies wanting to attack the US and says that Iranians just want to have sovereignty over their own county and to be able to decide democratically what happens in Iran. In regards to Palestine/Israel, he asked a very good question: Why do the Muslim Palestinians have to pay the price for what Germany did to the Jews in Europe? He wants the Palestinians to have a say in the government of the region. I inferred that instead of having Jewish state, he supports a nonsecular Palestinian government for that entire region composed of the Jews, the Muslims and Christians all having equal vote in government. He gave an example of the Jews living in Iran (the second largest Jewish community in the Mid-East behind Israel). He said that even though the Jewish community in Iran does not have enough of a population to qualify for a representative, they are given one anyways. I also think this is where his comment about wanting to get rid of Israel are taken out of context. I don't think he wants to kill or annihilate Israel, but wants to abolish Israel as a country and to replace it with a nonsecular government. As far a Nuclear Power/Weapons. He gave very good legal arguments as to why Iran should be able to pursue nuclear power. He cited that Iran has continued to cooperate with the IAE. And that they are welcomed to do inspections at any time (Bush has prevented them the last 4 times from going by the way). When asked about weapons he said that Iran does not need nuclear weapons because they do not have any ambitions on attacking anyone. I believe that he is serious about this, but he will not be president for ever. If Iran gets nuclear power, there is every reason to believe that eventually they will make a weapon. That still does not justify invasion. As far as the Holocaust. He was questioned on why he thought there should be more research into the holocaust. He gave a very good answer to this. He said that why should we ever stop learning and researching history or anything else for that matter. He said that he does not understand why we continue to study all the rest of history but no one is allowed to try to get different/additional analysis on the holocaust. As far as homosexuals: I thought he said that there is no homosexuality (not homosexuals) in Iran. Which is slightly different. I think he said this for political (back home) reasons. He would not be the first politician to say something like this for the religious constituent (which is just about his whole country). As far as letting him speak: Most definitely!!! We should engage every one in dialog. Ideas are always more powerful than force. How can we expect to resolve the conflict without understanding the view points of those that we disagree with. There is no good reason not to engage them. My overall impression is not that he is a hateful person or a crazy person. I came away with the idea that if we would just engage Iran in dialog this issue could be settled very easily. I also think that George Bush is on the war path and that Bush/Cheney/AIPAC are the main instigator in this conflict. I don't think that his government is supporting attacks against the US (this does not mean that Iranians are though, because he is not the most powerful person in Iran). I think that if people would take the Israel goggles off and look at this situation in a rational manner, I think that we could settle the conflict there in an rational and logical way. But I don't think that is the goal of Bush or Israel. I think right now the Bush administration is the most dangerous thing to our country and to the world. I am saying this considering my self a conservative Republican who voted for Bush twice. I also believe that our relationship with Israel is also dangerous and immoral (towards our own citizens, not based on anything that Israel does). I am currently reading the Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy and it is really enraging me. This was all off the top of my head so I am sorry if it is rambling. --Dustan

What exactly do you mean by Globalization? I mean increased trade across national boundaries, increased immigration across national boundaries, and an increase in business entities integrated across national boundaries. Jim How can we accomplish this without global government which is what I think is the biggest enemy of liberty. --Dustan

As far as government and defense. A person cannot give up his right to self defense, it is an inalienable right. I think Ayn's word choice of "delegate" was very bad. It may or may not be what exactly she meant. A better idea would be the idea that we "entrust" our government to protect us, while preserving our own right to defend our self. That way if the government oversteps its authority we can revoke that trust. Or if you don't trust the government you can prepare accordingly. This was the idea of the founding fathers and the reason for the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment was designed to ensure that the individual right of self defense was no infringed and to protect the populace from government gone astray. The tax to support such a military should either come from voluntary taxes or indirect taxes such as sales tax. --Dustan

To hell with what is given to society, that is not what the CEO or the store clerk is doing the job for. The CEO and the store clerk are trading values with the company it works for. Companies apparently value the work of CEOs over clerks, and therefore compensate them more for their employment value. Also the clerks believe that they are getting the best value for their work or they would work somewhere else or at another job, same for the CEO. Also if the company believes it can get cheaper clerks or CEOs it certianly would, for instance if it could hire CEOs at the same price as clerks and get the same value of work, you can bet that they would. I have a very very hard time believing in this. If anything I would believe the exact opposite for various reasons. One thing that I have noticed and that is almost always true is that a person doesn't not give a nickname to people they don't like. Usually a nickname is given as a sign of affection (even in Ayn's books). Another reason why I believe this is that from reading Nathaniel's book and reading other post about the objectivist movement is that Ayn usually pushed away people who did not "tow the obj. line" rather ferociously, from reading Greenspan we can tell that he was not totally sold, but Ayn kept him in her company. Ayn also stood next to Greenspan as he was sworn in as chairman of the the Council of Economic Advisors for Gerald Ford. If Ayn disapproved of Greenspan intellectually or personally, I doubt she would have made a public appearance with him, i.e. validating him. And lastly, I haven't heard of anyone ever not liking Greenspan as a person, from reading his book and what others have said about him and even listening to him, he seems extremely likable and seems to posses a huge amount of charisma. Look at his relationships with women. He dated Barbara Walters and then married Andrea Mitchel. --Dustan --Dustan

I try to make my decisions based on what is rationally in my self-interest, opposed to an itch or my emotional fancies. Basing your decisions on itches, fancies, emotions, or desires without understanding how they effect your self-interest in the long run and in the short run is very animalistic. What about rape Bob? If you see a beautiful woman and are aroused do you scratch your itch and treat her how you would want her to treat you? --Dustan

What exactly do you mean by Globalization?

I agree with you in most part. But I don't think you use language to define concepts but to describe concepts which is a little different.

No longer speaking.

Language maybe democratic, but concepts are not. This fails on its own miserably. How do you decide what you want, or what you value, so that you can make sure you apply that standard to the others you interact with? You still need a system of ethics for you system of ethics. --Dustan

I haven't watched the series. (I don't watch too much t.v., too much reading to do). But I got to do stand-in and extra work for a day on the show. It was a lot of fun. I got to see Wade Williams (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931898/) perform, and he was very awesome and it was very educational for me, it was better than being in a theatre. --Dustan

Thank you Roger great post, Dustan

Today I prefer strawberry to chocolate. Tomorrow I may prefer living to dying. Different details, but the same process. Preference and choice. Since it does not involve any second parties it is not an ethical matter at all. Ba'al Chatzaf What if the strawberries were picked using slave labor? Seriously though, Isn't ethics about values? And when making choices we weigh our values. --Dustan