Matus1976

I accused him of *wanting* to do that you knucklehead. You rationalists can draw conclusions like crazy, but it's only because you are crazy. That still makes no sense you knucklehead - that's the point. How can you accuse me of wanting to force people to be free when you now profess such a thing makes no sense? The reason is either you hold an incorrect definition of freedom, or I do. You presented no evidence suggesting what my definition of freedom was, and I have been the one arguing from the very start that you can't force people to be free, that such a thing is contradictory, and yet even after that you still insisted that forcing others to be free is what I 'want' to do. I have explicitly stated my definition of freedom from the very start, a definition which is completely incompatible with your charge, and you have explicitly ducked stating your definition throughout this entire thread. The only thing that makes any sense here is that you hold a bad definition of freedom in your mind early on and to you it made sense to accuse someone of 'forcing others to be free'

Oh yeah Shayne, AND I think I've given you far too many chances to prove whether or not you are sane. Boy you love those vague exaggerated insults. Well, I've given you far too many chances to prove you are rational. I've given you far too many chances to prove you can make a logical argument, or defend your positions, or make love to a woman, or pee while standing up, or that you are not retarded, or that you have more than one brain cell, or that you are not one big poopy head, etc etc. Now let's pretend you've called me lots of silly names too, and I got all indignant as well, and then we've moved on to productive discussion. How about those definitions and logical proofs of my forcing freedom on others and evidence for my embracing a definition of freedom where that statement even remotely makes sense?

Wow, I can't even get an answer to a simple standalone question without it going through the Matus Mindwarp. I simply asked: and you've muddled this simple, stand-alone question with everything that came before. This is, yet again, why I can't bother with all of the other twisted BS you're spewing. I think I've given you far too many chances to prove whether or not you are sane. Oh I did not anticpate you not being able to make this particular conceptual step. To answer your question, no, I would not accuse you of denying the law of identiy. To which you would have no doubt stated something along the line that you were just telling me what particular logical fallacy I was embracing and not that it was something you yourself believed. To which I would have responded in the manner that I did above, it's clear that this is something you believed was logical because you directly equated it with forcing someone else to value what I value; a completely logical statement. In other words, to you my 'forcing others to be free' was the same thing as 'forcing others to value what I value' You can not state that the former was not logical and not representative of your ideas of freedom while stating that the latter was logical and comes from your understanding of values and coercion, yet also state the two were the same thing. Remember, you first said I was forcing others to value what I value, and then simplified that as 'forcing others to be free' and NOW you are implying that your accusation of my forcing people to be free did *not* represent your understanding of freedom and coercion, even though one was just simplified restating by you of the other. But hey, maybe I am wrong, WHY were you asking that if not to go in this obvious direction? please elaborate and I will answer your questions singularly without responding to the direction I think it is obvious you are going to go. This whole thread has been twisted BS from you, first I'm forcing people to value what I value, and then I'm forcing people to be free, then you say that's not a logical statement, then you say it's not what you believed anyway, and was only what you thought I was advocating, then it wasnt based on your defination of freedom, even though you never offered one, then you dragged your feet before acknowledging you are more free than a North Korean, then you dragged before acknowledging the legitimacy of making collective assessment of freedoms, then you were obsessing over grammar and wasting valuable bits on the web, then obsessing over hurt feelings, on and on. Just come out with it, what is your definition of freedom? Can someone force someone to be free? What is your logical argument showing I advocate such a ridiculous position? Demonstrate even remotely what evidence you have suggesting I embraced a definition of freedom which would even make this make sense? I clearly defined freedom in the context of this discussion very early on and once I did your charge of my forcing freedom on others went from what you thought I was actually doing (which necessarily included your definition of freedom and that statement being a logical one) to a merely pointing out an alleged logical fallacy I was committing, without showing any reason for believing that or any evidence supporting it. Just come out and admit it all ready so we can move on, your definition of freedom at first was wrong, or not clearly identified, and originally forcing freedom was logical to you, and now after further discussion it is not. This is absolutely the simplest explanation to this thread full of vague insults and obfuscations by you.

ooh, oh, ouch, I'm hurt!

You need to stop nitpicking small irrelevent points because you can not defend any of the ones you've made. You need to stop being so presumptuous. I can defend all my points or at a minimum give a coherent reason for them. Funny that you profess to be so concerned about uncessary comments on an objectivist forum, like your definition of freedom, yet obsess over grammatical errors. Here you feel the need to post (rather unecessarily) that indeed you *could* defend your points. Gee, thanks for the notice, now go ahead and defend them all ready, any day now, or give a coherent reason for them. Stop talking about how great your defense and arguments will be and start making them. I'm well aware of that. It's a blatant contradiction. That's why I said it *and attributed it to you*. Yeah, nice try, too bad you've all ready established that you feel your assessment of my attitude about freedom is logical. Your little attempt to pretend you didnt mean what you actually meant presented below: is wholly underscored by the fact that you said my "forcing others to be free" was also my attempt to "force others to value what I value" IN FACT you said the latter FIRST here and then later starting saying forcing others to be free. So which is it, were you telling telling me "you want your cake and want to eat it too" or were you telling me that I am trying to tell others what to do, by force. Since you explicitly said the latter, it's pretty clear what you meant. It's also clear that was based on your incorrect definition of freedom. You are trying really hard now to avoid admitting that. What twist will you pull out next?

You need to stop nitpicking small irrelevent points because you can not defend any of the ones you've made. Perhaps I do need to priotize more, I'll take that as constructive criticism. Your operating definition of freedom was such that you could say "you want to force freedom on others" the objectivist definition of freedom is not conducive to this. You keep just saying "I use the objectivist definition" but in reality you have never even paraphrased that or re-iterated it to your own understanding. The fact that you said someone can 'force' others to be free is a clear indication to me that you are NOT using the objectivist definition of freedom. STILL you try to evade having to state explicitly what you mean by freedom. Don't even play this ridiculous 'this is an objectivist forum bla bla' card, were both talking alot of crap that could be left off this forum as unecessary, to suddenly get militant about writing the definition of freedom out to save a few of those scarce bits on the the internet is obviously yet another attempt at obfuscation (that is, hiding and clouding the fact that you don't have one) Plenty of definitions are here, none of which make any sense when used to in "forcing others to be free" http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/freedom.html For example "you are forcing others to be [in a political context absent of physical coercion] " You would not have accused me of forcing other to be free unless by your definition of freedom that made some sense. I've asked you a few times to spell it out. The fact that you have ADD shouldnt be a fault of mine. I'll tell you exactly where it was. I said, in post 41 to which you responded and by post 49 you had solidified this opinion of me To which I responded in post 52 And so it goes... So feel free to spell it out. There is nothing subtle about your connection, it is merely illogical. Show us your logical argument proving that I advocate forcing others to be free. And tell us what that means and how that even possibly makes sense.

I agree with you about this. Unfortunately, the proliferation of cheap weapons of mass destruction is probably an unstoppable trend. How is your proposed solution of massive US government military intervention going to address this problem? Thanks for your reply Martin, that is an excellent question and not a easy or short answer. As a member of the Lifeboat Foundation I was recently invited to meet and speak with the Navy War College's Strategic Studies Group in San Francisco, and I talked at length on this very topic. First, we acknowledge that technological growth allows weapons to become more powerfull and thus as time goes on it will enable fewer people to kill more and more people with ever smaller expenditures of resources. What should be done about this? Well, what makes people want to kill other people? 1) The vast majority of killing this century has been governments killing their own people, where almost 4 times as many people were killed by their own governments than were killed in wars. This has always come from the centralization of power and in the worst cases control over the economy. The more free individuals within a nation are, the less internal violence occurs within the nation and the fewer wars that nation engages in, and the more limited those wars are in extent. For starters we should foster the growth of liberal constitutional representational governments. 2) Violent intolerance of other opinions as demonstrated by radical islamic fascists, christians, and radical anarchists / communists represents the worst growing threat, as these individuals as time goes on will be able to kill more and more people. These murderously intolerant people tend to come from the existence of totalitarian and theocratic oppressive hell hole regimes who through forced indoctrination, brutal political oppression and stifling economic regulations promulgate generations of angry, poor people with an ax to grind who think killing millions is their path to eternal glory. 3) The last point I'd make is that natural disasters, are always made worse by these regimes. Whether a mudslide, drought, or pandemic, the problems are always made much worse by the closed and oppressive nature of these regimes. It may very well be that a global pandemic spreads primarily from one of these nations. SARS killed virtually no one in any western nation (except 1 person in Canada, I blame their socialized medical system) but killed dozens in China, compensation for population their infection and death rates were an order of magnitude higher than the US and Britain. China refused to acknowledge the existence of this disease and did what it could to hide it's presence, thus making it spread to more people and kill more people. It's poor and stagnate infrastructure which comes from political and economic control amplified this problem. The conclusion is obvious, a long term rational directed plan must be implemented, preferably by a coalition of liberal constiutional democracies (the freest, richest, and most militarily powerful part of the world) to move every nation on the planet toward ones of fundamental civil liberties and representational governments, probably through a progressive series of steps ending invasion. You might object, (as an Admiral at this meeting did) that this would incite the very terrorism it is trying to stop, and to that I repeated author Robert Wright's suggestion to "Take your bitter medicine early" Terrorism incited today, or in the next 10 or 15 years, will be much more limited in it's capacity to kill and maime than terrorism on 25 or 50 years will be able to. In acting in a manner fostering the creation and successful continuation of liberal constitutional democracies, we might incite terrorism in the near term, where the threat it poses is not as great, but virtually eliminate it in the long term, where it poses a much greater threat. The existence of these murderous regimes does no one any good. The wars needed to fight and stop them kill far fewer people than those regimes do themselves. The terrorists they create kill tens of thousands now, and can just as easily kill many millions in the future. The pathetic infrastructure and secretive government of these nations promulgates deadly diseases and exacerbates natural disasters. It is simaltenously a valid humanitarian cause and in our own long term rational self interest to work in a practical and salient manner to get rid of these regimes. It is disegenous to associate the ability to kill ever more people with ever fewer resources to only weapons. Biotechnology and nanotechnology will certainly enable mass murder on entirely new avenues. So this relates back to what drives this murderous intolerance and what best should be done to get rid of it. Even in the absence of totalitarian and brutally oppressive regimes, there will still be people who are terrorists. I worry about the threat, in the long term, that anti-technologist luddites pose, we see a popular best seller "The world without humans" which talkes about how the cities will crumple if all humans just dissappeared. We see the "Voluntary Human Extinction movement" as an attempt to rid the earth of humanity. How much further will the Ted Kaczynski's of the future go? So you asked how will we pre-emptively identify and stop all terrorists. The answer might be a form of universal recipricol survailance which people are referring to as sousveillance. Consider the proliferation survailance cameras and of mapping programs and aerial photographs, and satelitte imagery. Computers get perpetually smaller and lighter, MIT has been working on a project they refer to as "oxygen" which they hope will intergrate computers into our daily levels as regular as oxygen is. Many researches propose things like "smart dust" which will be computers so small as to simply float around in the air, yet record audio video and presumably other things. What is left is a sophisticated piece of software to intergrate all of this information, if it is just as accessible to citizens as it is to the government, the possiblity of government abuse and oppression through this system (which would truly be a horrific 24/7 thought policing) would be limited. As a libertarian (except in foriegn policy) I am uncomfortable with this kind of survailance, but the fact of the matter is that it WILL happen, and what we need to do is to make sure that it works both ways, that people can keep an eye on their government (only feasible in liberal constitutional representational govnmt nations) just as much as government keep an eye on people, hopefully looking for terrorists. In light of my above comments, I ask you to reconsider this assessment of Iraq. No one ever suggested Iraq would be steaming a battleship up the hudson, but in this day of technological globalization that is not at all necessary to kill many people. As a murderous totalitarian government, Saddam's Iraq was using one of the worlds largest oil supplies (that which nearly everything runs on) to, surprise, murder people and invade other nations. Removing the control of a source of energy from a murderous tyrant to a liberal constitutional democracy is a valid thing to do. Had Iraq been a legitimate government in any way shape or form, such a thing would have been unjust. But Iraq, even by the UN's own standards, had violated numerous conditions the UN stands to which a nation must abide by to be considered a legitimate state. Even so, the larger picture is what we are talking about. The biggest threat humanity faces right now it terrorism and totalitarianism. For the past 50 years it was Stalinistic Communism. The biggest source of of both of these is the middle east, which is a steaming rotting shit hole of absolute murderous oppression. 21 or the 23 nations in the middle east are ranked by Freedomhouse as completely unfree. To make the best blow we can against the worst enemy we face, we had to start somewhere. Because of the military history with Iraq, its continual egregious human rights violations, it's violations of no fly zone, its continual refusal to allow UN inspectors un restricted access, it's domination of a major world energy supply, UN resolution demanding 'severe consequences' and the UN's own standards by which Iraq was no longer a legitimate nation, it was a decent place to start. The best blow we can deal against this kind of totalitarianism and terrorism is to spread the very thing which almost completely elimates it, liberal constitutional democracy, to those areas. Perhaps Iran was a better place? Maybe Saudi Arabia? Who knows, but could a case be made to garner public support for those? If Iraq becomes a halfway decent democracy and develops a thriving economy, it will undermine absolutely everything every shitty murderous tyrant in the middle east has been preaching for the past half century, and they know that, which is why Syria and Iran have played a strong roll in trying to make sure Iraq does NOT become a succesfull democracy.

Your sloppiness combined with your arrogance combined with your ignorance combined with your refusal to take responsibility for mistakes makes for a huge waste of time. Go ahead, cut and paste this back at me like a little child. The point of copying and pasting comments like that back to you is to emphasize (obviously with too much subtlety for you) the worthlessness of such statements. If I can say the exact same thing back to you, and it makes just as much sense, then the comment you made in the first place was a huge waste of time. Such as: Do you think I really care if you think I should come down? As if I was 'worked up' in the first place. Do you think anyone on this thread cares if you 'tire quickly by untangling my confusion' or my 'emotionalism' Or your accusation that I am indulging in irrationality? You love throwing around vague accusations, which are worthless and vague enough to be thrown right back at you and make just as much sense. Show me some concretes where I am being irrational or engaging in 'emotionalism' Otherwise, just stop pulling punches and go ahead and call me a big poopyhead so your real level of maturity will show through. The simple fact is, as this conversation clearly shows, you have no good conception of freedom and have contradictory positions because of that, and were caught unable to defend your rediculous position. But lets go back and start from the basic principles of this discussion. When did I say I would 'force people to be free' please quote me. by accusing me of this, you must necessarily think such a statement is possible and logical, by what definition of freedom can I force someone to be so? You said freedom was individual rights - How do I force someone to have individual rights? All you ever responded was "I dont know, you said it" but of course I never said such a rediculous thing. Feel free to retract your sentiment. I think you're just coping out because you can't defend your position and were starting from an unclear definition of freedom in the first place, and now you are just hiding behind hurt feelings about my alleged intentional misunderstanding of your points. Perhaps you are not making your points clearly? I make no effort to intentionally misinterpret something and communication problems can certainly come from both parties not being clear enough or through legitimate unintentional misunderstanding. Your continual refusal to answer simple questions even when asked multiple times, usually by trying to change the topic or drop the point, suggests to me, and I think any objective observer, where sloppiness is originating in this discussion. My point in this discussion is to understand your idea of freedom and how it relates to foriegn policy, so I can hopefully form a clearer understanding of that relationship myself. You've hardly done more than repeat a few bromides and act all indignent.

Out of all the comments that's what you choose to focus on? Fine you implicitly agree that the US is better than North Korea. What about your repeated accusations that I am 'forcing' people to be free? Back that up. As I said above: Your charge of me 'forcing freedom' on others is evidence of this, as the clear context of the first time you said this was that by your understanding of freedom I am advocating 'forcing' it on other people, and apparently upon reflection and discussion it seems you have come to agree that no meaningful definition of freedom can include 'forcing' it on someone and yet be logical, so instead you have replied with only vague evading remarks saying that "I" am the one advocating it, even though clearly you thought I was based on your understanding of freedom. Your false dichotomy of relative vs absolutist recognition of freedom is more evidence of this. Your refusal to define freedom is further evidence of this. As for "obfuscation" Dictionary.com says: 1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy. 2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information. 3. to darken. This is exactly what you are doing, intentionally making things unclear. You are doing this to hide the fact that you have no working definition of freedom and that you have't quite worked out your apparent contradiction between assessing the 'relative' freedom of nations and judging whether any particular individual freedom is respected. Additionally, you are trying apparently to hide the fact that your accusation of my 'forcing freedom' on other people was completely rediculous and unfounded, and it was only one that made sense to you because you had no decent definition of freedom worked out. Learn the English language

Are you insane? The answer is obvious. Then answer the question, you certainly love obfuscation. You are a relativist and are ashamed to admit it!? This is an Objectivist forum, Ayn Rand already defined individual rights, I told you that's what I meant by freedom, so this comment of yours is simple dishonesty or incompetence, just like most of what you've written. Ayn Rand despised doing the thinking for other people. In your own words tell us what you mean by freedom or individual rights. Or keep obfuscating to hide the fact that you can't answer the question in your own words. What are you asking me? How does one force someone to have individual rights (a contradiction) or why I think *your* position is tantamount to forcing someone to accept the idea? That is exactly my point Shayne, you CAN NOT *force* someone to have individual rights. Everyone has rights, always. You can act to prevent people from taking those away from those people, but you can not force them to be free. What is your position exactly, I am forcing people to respect individual rights? (damn right I am, that is the proper role of a government, stopping violations of rights) Or am I forcing an individual to recognize that he himself has individual rights? Am I holding a gun to their head and saying "Damnit, you've got a right to life!!! Listen to me or I'll Shoot!!!!!" Your position is rediculous. It makes no sense. It's contradictory. You are the one which charged ME with "FORCING SOMEONE TO BE FREE" you did NOT charge me with "Forcing someone to recognize they have individual rights" You change your mind alot and mix words often. Am I forcing someone to be free? Am I forcing someone to have rights? Am I forcing someone to Respect Rights? What is it? Since YOU are the one who proposes to force people to be free and not me you should be telling me how You accused me of this, without ever once even identifying what you mean by freedom. Now you act like I am the one who is claiming to be forcing people to be free? Your are either being extremely disingenous or just outright lying. Lets do that, You said on freedom in America - post 40 - "America is the biggest threat to the spread of freedom throughout the world" post 48 - "This (America) is not a free country, not even close. You have to be quite brainwashed to think otherwise. The best we can tout is free speech. Freedom of speech is a lot, but it is not freedom" post 67 - "I do not know who the least oppressive nation is, it probably depends on what you as an individual want to do with your life. I'm sure the USA qualifies for many, including me" You acknowledge America is the freest nation on the planet, you deride the 'relativist' assessment which leads you to that conclusion, you implicitly acknowledge that America is freer than North Korea, yet you feel America is the single biggest threat to freedom in the world. Yet you live in America. You love it and hate it. Must be difficult being you with such a powerful case of schizophrenia. On 'forcing people to be free' post 42 - ""I extend that courtesy" is a euphemism for forcing others to value what you value" Post 49 - "Since you evidently believe in forcing people to be free " post 67 - "Since you're the one who proposes to force people to be free I don't know why you are asking me." To which I respodnded: Post 52 - "You can not "force" people to be free, you can only prevent other people from oppressing those people or forcing them to do something against their will. Please give me an example of how I might force someone to be free." post 52 - "So, please tell me, how is it that I can force liberty, or the freedom from coercion on someone. HOW CAN I FORCE SOMEONE TO BE FREE FROM COERCION" post 61 - "To be free, in a proper political sense, means to be without coercive force. You still have yet to show me how I can FORCE someone to not be subjected to FORCE" Post 65 - "How do I 'force' someone to be free?" Not one single time have you even offered a remote concretization of how I might 'force' someone to be free. Nor even explained why my position necessarily leads you to draw that conclusion. You keep repeating it, it means nothing, you know it means nothing. It makes no sense. It's just a pandering comment used by alleged supporters of 'freedom' to defend their lack of support of other people who yearn for freedom. TELL ME how I can force someone to be FREE, or drop the rediculous argument. Merely repeating it over and over again, and then trying to pretend like you don't know why you charged me with that in the first place is no excuse. WHEN did I say I want to force people to be free? Show me. It's amazing how brazenly you misread. I never said it was the freest. It's among the freest. But that is patently obvious. If you thought I didn't think that the US was among the freest then you shouldn't have been talking me anyway because obviously I'd have been nuts. You say least oppressive, I say freest, you say tomahtoe, I say toemayto. 'Among' the freest, whatever, the point is the same. You have simaltaneously suggested that you can not rank countries based on their freedoms (because then you are a relativst) AND acknowledge that America is "among the freest" Are you a relativist then? Or can you rank countries by their freedoms yet not be a relativist? Of course you can, Let me repeat this important point you appear to be confused by. - For every single individual measurement and tangible manifestation of freedom, the 'scale' is only absolute. You are either free to speak your mind or not, you are either free from being forced into military service or not, you are either free to sell your body for use to someone or you are not. Yet the amalgamation of all these is a relative scale, where no tangible manifestations of freedom are respected and protected by a government, the people in a nation are "not free" where some tangible manifestations of freedom are respected, the people in a nation are "partly free", where all tangible manifestations of freedom are respected, the people within a nation are free, and that nation is a 'free nation' The US respects more tangible manifestations of freedom than North Korea does, and as such is "more free" (or less oppressive) than the DPRK. Recognizing that one nation or one system respects more tangible manifestations of freedom is rational and proper, ignoring all nations as equally oppressive unless they respect all manifestations of freedom is rediculous. Well obviously it's important to know what the best countries are if you intend to move there, and obviously no one would want to move to North Korea. You are seriously off the tracks in reading what I've written, and you should have known that. Over and over again you have derided the very concept of ranking nations by their relative levels of respect for freedom. You have insisted essentially that unless every single freedom is respected, every single nation is just as bad as every other. Regardless of free speech, rule of law, representational governments, etc. After pressing, you finally acknowledge that the US is 'among the freest' and is certainly better than North Korea. Are all nations just as bad as every other (after all, you don't judge your freedom by watching other slaves, which is explicitly what you said) If this is not your position, state it? Can you look at others and judge how well you are treated compared to them? Can you prefer one level of treatment over another? What does that level of treatment relate to except to the extent of tangible freedoms a nation respects? Defining freedom and recognizing the role and the degree which various nations respect freedom is vitally important in guiding all US foreign policy, including of course the middle east. We can not talk about self defense without talking about rights and freedoms. Frankly I don't care Shayne, I've learned nothing from you except a vague twisted idea of freedom lacking any concretizations. Your charge of me 'forcing freedom' on others is evidence of this, as the clear context of the first time you said this was that by your understanding of freedom I am advocating 'forcing' it on other people, and apparently upon reflection and discussion it seems you have come to agree that no meaningful definition of freedom can include 'forcing' it on someone and yet be logically, so instead you have replied with only vague evading remarks saying that "I" am the one advocating it, even though clearly you thought I was based on your understanding of freedom. Your false dichotomy of relative vs absolutist recognition of freedom is more evidence of this. Your refusal to define freedom is further evidence of this. You have repeatedly charged me with 'forcing' freedom on others, I have repeatedly attempted to explain why this makes no sense. The onus is on you to explain why anything I said is rationally interpreted as 'forcing others to be free'. Ultimately I think our largest source of disagreement is just that you would not call a nation free until it respected all tangible manifestations of freedom, while I might call one free when the majority of freedoms, or the most important tangible manifestations of freedom, are respected (free speech, representational government, free markets) Even so, you seem to loosely acknowledge now that it is important to recognize the degree and extent to which a nation recognizes manifestations of freedoms, since you don't want to live in North Korea.

So you use a relative scale rather than an absolute one. You'll deny that I suppose but that's what you're doing. Not that it matters. I still don't see your point. I don't see the connection between the fact that you're a relativist and the arguments I was making. What does all this have to do with Ron Paul's position that we shouldn't be in the middle east? Is America freer than North Korea? Yes or no? Again, the problem is you lack concretizations of freedom. You offer no definition of freedom, and no recognition of tangible manifestations of it (except, perhaps, the restrictions in starting a new business) Your assessement of my position is a false dichotomy, for every single individual measurement and tangible manifestation of freedom, the 'scale' is only absolute. You are either free to speak your mind or not, you are either free from being forced into military service or not, you are either free to sell your body for use to someone or you are not. Yet the amalgamation of all these is a relative scale, where no tangible manifestations of freedom are respected and protected by a government, the people in a nation are "not free" where some tangible manifestations of freedom are respected, the people in a nation are "partly free", where all tangible manifestations of freedom are respected, the people within a nation are free, and that nation is a 'free nation' The US respects more tangible manifestations of freedom than North Korea does, and as such is "more free" (or less oppressive) than the DPRK. Recognizing that one nation or one system respects more tangible manifestations of freedom is rational and proper, ignoring all nations as equally oppressive unless they respect all manifestations of freedom is rediculous. "Freedom" as I use it is a shorthand for individual rights. I accept the Objectivist definition. So how do I 'force' someone to have individual rights? Stop obfuscating. What is freedom? How do I force someone to be free? What is a right then? I'll be more than happy to offer my definitions, but you are the one that keeps asserting I can force someone to be free. Concretize that. Tell us exactly how I might do that. Tell me, in your own words, what it means to be free. Oh, so I guess you are a relativist when it comes to freedom. I'm sure the USA qualifies for many, including me (but I don't rule out, say, New Zealand being better for some Objectivists). I don't think the question is important. You only consider it important because you are a relativist. Shayne So you acknowledge that the US is the freest nation on the planet, but you are not a relativist. All manifestations of freedom are important, you act like none are until ALL are respected, which is rediculous. My right to free speech is still valuable to me even if I dont have a right to engage in prostitution. Perhaps you can understand now why this relativist vs absolutist dichotomy is false when we are talking about tangible manifestations of freedom, and how many of those tangible manifestations are achieved is worthy of recognition and respect. If you don't think it's an important question, would you move to North Korea or Iran?

Thanks Shayne, but I must say, given that you think like a 5-year-old, it's certainly appropriate for you to act like one. "Reality is my God, Rationality is my Altar, Reason is my Religion, Passion is my Method, Life is my Purpose" You worship reason as if it were an idol but use emotion as your method? Yeah, sounds about right. Reminds me of Feynmann's cargo cult science... If you don't understand how passion can be guided, and indeed amplified, by reason, I don't think you have come to a decent understanding of objectivism. Feynman's cargo cult islanders were guided only by passion, passion without a rational guiding principle is like courage in the name of tyranny, it's just brutish violence or obsessive mysticism. Reason with out passion is nihilistic determinism. What is your definition of Freedom? How do I force someone to be free? What is the freest nation on the planet? Why? Have you started a business?

No, it is to recognize the relative difference of freedom that different nations respect, and base whether a nation is legitimate or not on that, and to use that recognition to help promulgate even more freedom. If you ignore the fact that one nation is significantly freer than another, even while acknowledging both are still oppressive in many ways, you lose any ability yourself to recognize tangible improvements in liberty. What is your definition of Freedom? How do I 'force' someone to be free? What is the least oppresive nation on the planet? why?

Thanks Shayne, but I must say, given that you think like a 5-year-old, it's certainly appropriate for you to act like one.

Steps toward freedom?! You think America over the past 100 years as been making "steps toward freedom"? I completely agree with you here, in many aspects "freedom" has certainly regressed in America, however, in many areas it has progressed. But lets move this discussion in a productive direction, how about some metrics? How about identifying different kinds of freedoms, then rating them in importance, which is most important? Is being taxed on income the same thing as being indefinately imprisoned until being tortured to death? Is having to register a business name with your town the same things as not being allowed, by law, to get a job? America since 1900 individual freedom of expression - progressed free speech - progressed freedom of religion - progressed freedom of association - progressed right to self determination - progressed significantly (slavery, segregation abolished, draft abolished) right to control one's government - progressed (women's suffrage, blacks able to vote, etc) right to bear arms - regressed right to own property - progressed in some areas (more people can own more land, all people are free to acquire the necessities of life) regressed in others (eminent domain) Feel free to add or elaborate, I am interested in what tangible manifestations of freedom you are talking about. To be free, in a proper political sense, means to be without coercive force. You still have yet to show me how I can FORCE someone to not be subjected to FORCE. I would argue that the right to property, the ability to acquire the material goods, and keep them, to provide for your own existence is the first and most important freedom. That is, you can acquire food and property without someone restricting non pejoritive acquisitions with force. It is the first thing communist totalitarian states take away, one of the first things the Bolshevieks did was make the PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF FOOD *ILLEGAL* in such a 'state' your very existence comes at the whimsical approval of a tyrant. The Soviet Union killed some 20 million people by no longer respecting this freedom, China some 50 million people. Even in the worst of the totalitarian right wing dictatorships backed by the US (what, Pinochet's Chile?) people still had the ability to get food and eat freely as long as they didnt piss of said tyrant. We were obviously not free from coercive force in the US in 1900, but we are more free now than we were 100 years ago, where we had to worry about the Draft and extremely corrupt political structures, unions, and companies which manipulated the law. Living in a society with Rule of Law, and Free Speech are extremely important and I would prefer to live in a nation which respected these, and property, than one which did not respect those yet had a lower income tax rate. It's easy to rank these freedoms, just ask yourself, which would you rather have, freedom of speech or freedom to acquire food? I'd take the latter first, and the former 2nd, but would prefer both. This is exactly my point, you equate, say, the need to register your business with your town in the US, with filing 50 petitions and getting 30 licenses and filling out 250 forms that one need do in say India to start a business. And actually in the US you can start a business without even doing that, since everyone based on the social security number provided at birth can operate as a sole proprietorship / schedule C. These restrictions to starting a business are not the same thing, to think they are is utterly absurd and that is nonsensical. Obviously YOU have never tried to start a business or done anything of significance (that's just a guess) and you certainly have never tried doing so in any other country nor talked to people who have. America is one of the EASIST and FREEST nations to start a business (Hong Kong is better) Even so, starting a business is a pain in the ass (indeed I have started a business in the US, have you?) You are focusing only on the existence of a impedence to freedom, and not at all on the degree of that impedence. Like I said, to do so will undermine any solid progress toward more freedom. To NOT recognize it is easier to start a business in the US than it is to start one in Brazil is to undermine any real progressive steps toward that freedom. I can in fact start a business without doing it 'their way' in this country, unless 'my way' includes assaulting or robbing people, in which case in fact I can not do it any way other than thier way. So you are making no sense here. I actually think your questions don't matter. I'll point out one flaw: It's not "nations" that promulgate freedom. That's not their role even in the ideal, and they certainly don't do it at all nowadays. America qua "nation" does the reverse. America on average is fighting to eliminate freedom. Fine, drop the question of promulgating. Shayne, WHAT IS THE FREEST NATION on the PLANET. Or, what is the LEAST OPPRESSIVE nation on this planet? Are they ALL equally unfree? Is that what you are saying? Where do you live? Why do you live there? Would you live in North Korea? Why not? The problem, I think, is that you still hold freedom as a floating abstraction, you havenet made any concretizations of WHAT a freedom is (evidenced by your rediculous "forcing someone to be free" comment) You whine about the difficulties in starting a business in the US, while in many countries doing so is punishable by death. Since you are so damn sure you are completely unfree, and that one can 'force' someone to be free, perhaps you can now provide us with a clear definition of what *you* mean when you say "freedom"

Shayne, You need to calm down and look at what I've actually said. I'm going to tire quickly of untangling your confusion between what I've actually said and what you in your emotionalism attribute to me. Irrationality is the root of all evil, stop indulging in it, and stop adopting this "holier than thou" attitude when you clearly can't control your own emotions. Matus <yawn> Bigger <yawn>

Shayne, You need to calm down and look at what I've actually said. I'm going to tire quickly of untangling your confusion between what I've actually said and what you in your emotionalism attribute to me. Irrationality is the root of all evil, stop indulging in it, and stop adopting this "holier than thou" attitude when you clearly can't control your own emotions. Matus

The point is, to you, a 1% tax is no different than a 90% tax, such an attitude is absurd and undermines real pragmatic progress toward true freedom. I don't debate you that in the sense that I consider Freedom and you probably do as well, the US is not a "Free" nation, but to not acknowledge that it is less oppressive by orders of magnitude than most other nations is rediculous, and it sabatoges all real progress toward freedom that is ever made in the world. Unless you acknowledge, recognize, and encourage every step, even marginal, toward freedom, you'll never get anywhere. A nation which has Free Speech is much freer than a nation which has none but to you these nations are no different. Of course, you're just paying lip service to this, what nation do you live in now? Would you move to North Korea? I said "America is the biggest threat to freedom" which wasn't completely precise. What I mean is, the policies we have been following in America are the biggest threat. Shayne My question still stands, I am asking your opinion, what nation has the best policies toward freedom in the world? What is the 'freest' nation? What nation is doing the most toward promulgating the growth of individual freedom in the long term?

First and foremost, I believe that setting the example is the most important thing. Of course, the favorite refuge of the isolationist. Of course you favor that, because it doesnt require you to do anything. Additionally, merely trading with oppressive regimes is seen by many people in those non-free nations as supporting those regimes. Conversely, NOT trading with them is seen as hurting the people inside those regimes. As an 'isolationist' which is it, do we trade with brutally oppressive shit holes or do we not? There mere existence of the US and it's products angers people enough in the world to committ violent terrorist acts. In Iran, the US is referred to as Satan, because classically, Satan was a TEMPTOR, and every tyrant with half a brain knows that given a choice people choose to adopt many aspects of western culture, throwing out most of their own culture in the process. Thus the Taliban banned dancing, singing, music, Leonardo DeCaprio Haircuts (Titanic is absurdly popular in Afghanastan) The mere presence of a pro free culture which celebrates (loosely) individuality and self determination is offensive to most fundamentalist idealogies. What do we do, enforce embargo with military blockades to make sure no copies of titanic make it into shitty middle easter nations? The "Example" you love setting is the example the murderous oppressive tyrants of the world despise and the fundie wannabe tyrants want to kill us for. There is NO SUCH THING as ISOLATIONISM in a completely globalized economy. Possibly, unless that principle was naive isolationism, in which most of the world which be controlled by crumbling and murderous Stalinist regimes. You can not "force" people to be free, you can only prevent other people from oppressing those people or forcing them to do something against their will. Please give me an example of how I might force someone to be free. We threaten them daily with violent repercussions if they invade Taiwain. China is opening up economically, but is cracking down on political freedoms. By trading with them, we are helping to perpetuate their oppressive and murderous regime. How is trading with China consistent with your policy of 'isolationism' or 'no entangling alliances' lets suggest we cut off all Chinese imports and see how much of an entangling alliance trade is? You can not "forcibly" spread freedom. Freedom is used popularly to refer to material freedom, political freedom, metaphysical freedom, and physical freedom. Material Freedom is the desire to exist without any material sustenence, e.g. requiring food is an example of 'oppression' this is used popularly by marxists. Metaphysical Freedom refers to the ability to achieve anything with a mere thought, from flying through space to bringing about world peace, and though loved by hippies and parapsychologists, does not exist. Physical Freedom refers to the physical actions someone takes and the limitations that the physical laws place on their existence. Killing someone else is a manifestation of "physical freedom" as it refers only to the ability to move around and act on things. Many anarchists consider "physical freedom" to be the most important form of freedom. Political Freedom is what is useful and meaningful to the context of this discussion, and that is freedom from coercion. The word Liberty is more appropriate, or the Greek Word Eluethera, because this freedom (from oppression) is so easily confused with all other kinds of freedom. So, please tell me, how is it that I can force liberty, or the freedom from coercion on someone. HOW CAN I FORCE SOMEONE TO BE FREE FROM COERCION The more free a nation is, the more it's people prosper, the less wars it starts, the less internal violence it perpetuates, the famines occur, the less pathogens spread and decimate the population, the less it breeds terrorists, the less it threatens the existence of the whole planet. Fostering the growth of POLITICAL FREEDOM which requires Rule of Law and Democratic Representational Governments is the absolute BEST thing any rational person can do for their OWN *LONG TERM* self interest. Not giving a shit who comes to power, murders who, oppresses who, buys what guns or sells what bombs is the absolute WORST thing someone can do and certainly the WORST foreign policy any rational long term mind can come up with. Might as well just be an ostrich.

In no particular order: The war on drugs, the IRS taking about half of your income every year, social security and welfare, the federal reserve, antitrust laws, public education, zoning regulations prohibiting running all manner of businesses, taxes and prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco, ... I could go on and on. This is not a free country, not even close. You have to be quite brainwashed to think otherwise. The best we can tout is free speech. Freedom of speech is a lot, but it is not freedom, and it means zilch if you're too brainwashed to exercise it except in defense of the status quo. Shayne Many countries are much more oppressive about drug laws than the US is, and ours are more objective than most (they don't change from day to day based on the opinions of corrupt politicians or law enforcement officials) The drug laws are easily identifiable and easily avoidable, never the less, I oppose them in principle. Many other countries take a much larger percentage of taxes than the US does. From - http://www.ekonomifakta.se/en/Facts_and_fi...The_tax_burden/ Antitrust laws, public education, zoning laws, etc, are all the norm in virtually every partially socialist nation. Many are much more draconian in these laws than in the US. Perhaps you are right that by your definition of 'freedom' the US is not 'Free' BUT by NO definition of Freedom is the US the LEAST free nation, THAT is still absurd. The US is one of the MOST FREE nations on the planet, in the top single digits by virtually every individual measurement and certainly by and conglomerations of measurements. You said What nation is the best friend of freedom in the world? What is the "most free" or "least oppressive" nation, surely you have a clear idea since you know so positively that it is NOT the US.

I agree with that. Tell me in what why Ron Paul will act to promulgate the freedom of other people in the world? This is not just a humanitarian issue, non-free nations start all the wars, cause all the famines, will be the source of the spread of international contagions because of their pathetic health care infrastructures and oppressive policies, and will breed the murderous terrorists of the world because of their totalitarian brain washing and economic oppression.

The best way to promote freedom is to actually practice it. The USA doesn't anymore. America is the biggest threat to the spread of freedom throughout the world, because its own citizens are killing it from within. Now *that* is funny. By what standard are you measuring "freedom"? Freedom house (www.freedomhouse.org) ranks, politically, the US with it's highest scores along with some 30 other nations. The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom (http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/) ranks the US in the top 10 economically free nations on the planet. (http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/topten.cfm) Hong Kong is #1 Where do you rank it? Why? What are your standards? Where is North Korea? Burma? Laos? Iran?

As a "Freedom Lover" I love freedom so much that I extend that same basic courtesy to all people of the world. Paul, like most libertarians, couldnt give a shit about freedom as a philosophical principle, only as something pragmatic that he and a few others adopt and get to enjoy. His Foreign policy (which consists of having no policy) is idiotic, and if it had been adopted throughout this century, we would today be living in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Amerika, where people like Paul, and all of his supporters, would have been killed as counter revolutionaries years ago. There has never been a greater threat to human liberty and freedom than Soviet Communism. Today the largest threat it faces is Islamic Terrorism and the incompetance and aggresion of totaliarian states.

Every one of those 'noninterventionist' nations would have been a totalitarian soviet communist hell hole if it werent for the US and its "hundreds of overseas military bases, an arsenal of thousands of nuclear and conventional weapons, a huge active duty and reserve military, and a government that spends more money on its military than the rest of the world combined" As has been pointed out many times, the GNP of Western Europe greatly exceeded that of the Warsaw Pact nations. Indeed, I have heard estimates that up to 60% of the GDP of Russia was used in military spending. Considering that today the population which made up the former Soviet Union equal about 6% of the worlds population yet only 3% of the Worlds GDP, while the US alone has about 6% of the Worlds Population and 30% of the Worlds GDP, this seems a reasonable assessment. Economically, the soviet union absolutely could not compete with the US, the SDI program essentially completely bankrupted it. But you don't need to outspend the US to kill a hell of a lot of it's people, you don't need to dominate the worlds GDP in order to brutally enslave and oppress hundreds of millions of people. You act like if the US just curled up and ignored the rest of the world, the Soviet Union would have just imploded on it's own rather peacefully and early on. This is utterly rediculous. Had we not helped South Korea defeat the Chinese Communist backed and Soviet Communist backed invasion from North Korea, the whole Korean penninsula today would be communist, how long before Japan would have been invaded and conquered? Tawain? Shortly there after no doubt the Phillipenes would have been attempted. On this I agree, the US should have always pushed as much as possible for Nations to be able to stand on their own and defend themselves, or at least through allieances with neighboring nations to put up one hell of a fight. Again I agree, to a point. Was South Korea capable of defending itself against North Korea armed by The Soviet Union and Staffed with millions of chinese soldiers? No. But South Korea has been mooching off us for about 30 years too long now. With the attempted and possibly successful conversion to communism of the Korean penninsula and the Indochina penninsula (halted significantly of course by our arming and helping Vietnam) how long would it have been before India and Pakistan were targeted? The explicit goal of the Bolshieviek revolution was to overthrow every single non communist nation in the world, and it actively worked toward this goal. The global efforts by the US to contain this spread, where communism has been the single greatest threat to liberty humanity has ever faced, was an absolutely just cause. Whether every individual action was just is debatable, but the overall effort seriously delayed the spreading of communism, made it much more costly in lives and economies than had it not been, and was the right thing to do. Remember, you are suggesting that the US should have NEVER been involved in any of these conflicts, never even supplied military aide to nations fighting against communism, never supported leaders, tyrants or freely elected, in their fight against communism. Absent this global effort of containment by the worlds only superpower, how long do you think it would have seriously taken communism to have engulfed most of the world? Sure, it would have probably eventually imploded, but may have lasted another hundred years before it did so, and cost hundrends of millions of more lives. This fantasy land where the Soviet Union takes over one or two countries, then shrinks until imploding in a few years, is utterly rediculous and typical of libertarian fantasies. You are suggesting, lest you forget, that no nation ever assist another nation in defending itself against the soviet union. The absolute stupidity of this should be obvious, and the only 'brilliant' strategic advance the Soviet Union need embrace would be to simply invade only one nation at a time. All the while, as these nations fell one after another, as the Soviet Union subjugated millions of more people at each step, instituted counter revolutionary purges and murder quotes, and took control of tremendous additional resources (even though it would use them inneffeciently) you anti-interventionist would be crying every step of the way to 'mind our own busienss' and 'leave them alone' I never suggested that the Soviet Union would *defeat* the wealthy western nations, they never could as long as the wealthy western nations FOUGHT TOGETHER, which is something you explicitly don't think they ever should have. In that case, conquering one nation at a time would have been easy, what SINGLE western nation in 1950 could stand up to the Soviet Union, besides the US? Answer, none. Adjusted for inflation this is untrue, at the height of WWII military spending as a percentage of GDP rose to almost 40%. Today is is around 4% I agree that many should be abandoned, but some are necessary to fight the greatest threat human liberty now faces, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism. No doubt partially true. Martin, do you primarily judge the threat something poses purely by it's economic status? Do you guage an attacker yielding a gun as less of a threat if he appears poor than if he appears wealthy? Rapid technological growth has allowed more and more people to be killed with fewer and fewer resources, a nation can be an 'economic basket case' yet still easily kill millions of people. In the future a single person will be able to kill millions of people.

That's an easy Monday Morning quarterbacking assessment to make, Mike, but absent Omniscience you really don't know if you would have done any better. Absent Omnipotence, you would still have to dealth with all the petty backstabbing and corruption that plagued the US and the countries it was involved in, and all the mistakes and misdirections that came from it. Put yourself into the exact same situation, at some particular level of influence, in the context of the era, and ask yourself what decision you would have made in that case, and could you have gotten anyone to follow your decision? Wolf like's to imagine a perfect world where everyone is perfectly Wolfish and everything turns out perfectly Wolfian, but the real world is far more complex and difficult to work in than our 30 second alterna-histories fool us into thinking.