Jonathan

Also, the scent of insecurity. I have no problem with criticism of Rand and her views. It's the making shit up or believing and repeating false shit without investigating it that is so weak. J

KLAVAN: Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivism’ Is Not Conservatism Ian Waldie/Staff via Getty Images By DAILY WIRE August 31, 2019 On Wednesday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” Klavan answers a listener's letter requesting that Klavan share his opinions of Ayn Rand and her philosophy, Objectivism. Video and partial transcript below: Unmute Pause Current Time 0:19 Loaded: 99.56% Duration 0:29 Fullscreen Rand Paul Reveals Part Of His Lung Was Removed In Wake Of 2017 Assault LETTER: Lord Klavan, destroyer of ease and master of the multiverse. "Master of the Multiverse" is the correct way to approach me. LETTER: Recently, Ben had Yaron Brook on his Sunday Special to discuss Ayn Rand and Objectivism. I can tell already this question is going to get me in big trouble. LETTER: As a Catholic, I fundamentally disagree with Rand on certain claims. Yaron made the claim that Judeo-Christian values are not Western values. How would you respond? Additionally, I would love to hear your thoughts on Ayn Rand and Objectivism in general. Thanks! ... Before I answer this question and step in it, which I'm about to do, let me first say that I did not watch this interview. I did not see Yaron Brook on Ben’s show, so I'm not responding to what he said. I'm responding to what you say he said. Ok, that's important, because I don't want to take the guy on if I'm not even talking to him. I think Ayn Rand sucks, ok. I think her writing sucks. I think her books are unreadable. I think "Atlas Shrugged" — I mean, look there's one speech in "Atlas Shrugged" that is worth reading. It's made maybe 15 times. The book is thousands of pages long. You know, I skimmed it. "The Fountainhead" is more readable, more exciting — but none of her characters are real. They all have those Nazi names like "Roark" and "Galt" ... and all the bad guys are a mooch. She's not trying to write reality, she's trying to write her philosophy into fiction, and largely I hate that. There are a few successful books that do that — "1984" is one of them. But even "1984" is a great work of art, so that it can. Even though it's about the Left, even though "1984" is a condemnation of the Left — it becomes a condemnation of tyranny because it's art, so it's above politics and higher than politics and it actually goes beyond politics. [Rand's] books, like once you get her philosophy, her books — I just find them so boring and so stiff and so hard to read. Some of her nonfiction is a little bit more interesting, but no more true ... She really understands money. She would have that clip of [a] dollar bill. She really gets money. Everything she says about money is in a book by Frederic Bastiat, who was Reagan's favorite economist. [Bastiat] wrote a book, I think it’s called “The Laws,” and it's 70 pages long. It's very readable. It's very simple and everything. Ayn Rand knows, I don't know if you just took it right out of that, or if it came true through some other path, but everything she knows, she gets from Frederic Bastiat. And all you need is those 70 pages instead of her four-thousand page unreadable diatribes. That is what I think. Secondly, obviously, while she does know about about money and the economy and capitalism, her moral and artistic judgments are insane. They are insane. I hear ... she fell in love with some like serial killer at one point, from a distance ... That's not surprising to me. I wouldn't just pick on her for it personally, but her moral stances are insane. The idea that you put your happiness above all and that capitalism solves all problems is ridiculous. She claims that the only proper system for an Objectivist is capitalism, as if capitalism were an outgrowth of Objectivism, but I believe that Objectivism is actually an outgrowth of capitalism. She thinks that this system is the bee's knees. This is her religion, and it's going to solve every problem. And of course it doesn't. The morals — decisions that people make in "The Fountainhead" — are absurd. Blowing up an orphanage because you can't get it the way you like it is an absurd moral choice. Putting your happiness first, putting profits above everything, she says you should seek your own self-interest — putting profits above everything. I mean, look at it — look all you have to do, is you look you know ...They just got a judgment against Johnson & Johnson for selling opiates. And this is a complicated case, and lawyers are vultures and sharks and they go after these companies because that's where the money is. But somewhere along the line, someone peddled these opiates to people knowing that they were addictive. This did happen at some point. Now maybe it's the government's fault. I don't know why the government passed on these things ... but somewhere along the line, there was a conversation where [Johnson & Johnson] said, "Well, you know, tough. We've got to sell these things to make our money back, so let's do it, and let's never mind the addiction and the trouble it's going to cause." That's good Objectivism. That's profit, that's making yourself happy. So what? So that our cars explode when people drive them? It'll cost us less to get sued by the people whose parents have died than it will to recall the cars, so we won't recall the cars. I mean, that's the kind of thing that would happen in Ayn Rand world. Her artistic judgments, like against Shakespeare, make no sense because her view of humanity is stilted and wrong, and her idea of morality is stilted and wrong. Now, if Yaron Brook said that Judeo Christian values are not Western values, that's just historically ridiculous. That is historically ridiculous. Western values, even classical values — that pre-date Judeo-Christian values — come to us through the filter of Judeo-Christian values. And you cannot think that a civilization that was called Christendom when it started is not a Christian civilization. It is. It's formed by — everything we think is formed by all the philosophers from Kant to Nietzsche, who rejected it — were dealing with the Christian inheritance. They all were. So it's ridiculous to say that those are not our values and that Objectivism, somehow, are. You know, capitalism is a system. It's a great system. It's the best economic system, but it needs to be hemmed in by morals. It needs to be hemmed in by altruism, and by love of neighbor. And without that, Ayn Rand, believe me, would get nowhere in life. https://www.dailywire.com/news/51233/klavan-ayn-rands-objectivism-not-conservatism-daily-wire?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro

Yup. They've already beaten it to death, and keep beating. So angry. As is often said, the left can't meme. J

...or funny. Watching the left's reactions to these little things is very interesting, though. Their concept of humor has been distorted by their hatreds. J

And questions that you can't answer, no matter how politely asked. J

Hmmm. Bob never grasped the South Pole thing, did he? Wow. J

Hey, Billy, did you watch any of the DoomFest on CNN? Population control and lists upon lists of punishments. Yay! Fun stuff. Plus Uncle Joe got a bloody eye. Biden's eye fills with blood during CNN climate town hall by Julio Rosas & Joseph Simonson | September 04, 2019 08:39 PM Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have a blood vessel burst in his left eye while participating in CNN's town hall on climate change. A broken blood vessel in the eye, also known as a subconjuctival hemorrhage, can be caused by several things, including high blood pressure, bleeding disorders, blood thinners, or even excessive straining. Biden, 76, has long been plagued by health issues. In 1988, he suffered an aneurysm that burst and required him to undergo emergency surgery. The then-senator was so close to death that a Catholic priest began preparing to administer the sacrament of last rites. Months later, surgeons clipped a second aneurysm before it burst. Biden then took a seven-month leave from the Senate following the surgery. Describing the operation, he once said, “They literally had to take the top of my head off.” Jill Biden said in her recently released autobiography Where the Light Enters that, at the time, she feared her husband would never be the same. "Our doctor told us there was a 50-50 chance Joe wouldn't survive surgery," she wrote. "He also said that it was even more likely that Joe would have permanent brain damage if he survived. And if any part of his brain would be adversely affected, it would be the area that governed speech." Doctors removed a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996. In 2003, Biden had his gallbladder removed. He suffers from asthma and allergies and takes a prescription drug to lower his cholesterol. He has also taken medication for an enlarged prostate. Biden hasn’t disclosed his medical history since 2008, when doctors found he had an irregular heartbeat. Biden has also raised eyebrows for the increasing number of verbal blunders he has made so far on the 2020 campaign trail, the schedule of which has been markedly lighter than his main rivals. Those close to Biden nevertheless maintain that he is "a picture of health," according to a former aide who spoke to the Washington Examiner in April. Were he to win the 2020 presidential election, he would be the oldest president ever to be inaugurated.

Totally. And the right needs to get its own mascots. It's missing out.

The right should get themselves a spokeschild. One that's cuter, younger, and even more hypocritical and transparent than Greta. OMG, isn't it adorable how self-contradictory our spokes child is? Don't you dare criticize her! She's just a child. And then the left would go even younger and cuter, but the right could be ready for that, and would switch to kittens and puppies. J

Heh.

Tasty steamed humans in the near future? It's settled science. It's what we need to do in order to Save The Planet™. Isn't it exciting, Billy? First it will be voluntary, but, eventually, the virtuous wokescolds will have to decide who will be sacrificed for the greater good. SWEDISH BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST SUGGESTS EATING HUMANS TO ‘SAVE THE PLANET’ The “food of the future” may be dead bodies. Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars.com - SEPTEMBER 4, 2019 A Swedish behavioral scientist has suggested that it may be necessary to turn to cannibalism and start eating humans in order to save the planet. Appearing on Swedish television to talk about an event based around the “food of the future,” Magnus Söderlund said he would be holding seminars on the necessity of consuming human flesh in order to stop climate change. Environmentalists blame the meat and farming industry for a large part of what they claim is the warming of the earth.According to Söderlund, a potential fix would be the Soylent Green-solution of eating dead bodies instead. He told the host of the show that one of the biggest obstacles to the proposal would be the taboo nature of corpses and the fact that many would see it as defiling the deceased. Söderlund also acknowledged that people are “slightly conservative” when it comes to eating things they are not accustomed to, such as cadavers. The discussion took place accompanied by a graphic of human hands on the end of forks. Lovely. Another proposal to save the earth which has been promoted by numerous mass media outlets and environmentalists is only somewhat less disgusting – eating bugs. No doubt Greta Thunberg and Prince Harry will be first in line for when cockroaches and human flesh is being dished out at the next international climate summit.

Damn. This will make it harder to punish people. New NASA Data On Forest Fires, Deforestation Refutes Climate Alarmists Newly released data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) refutes claims made by climate alarmists that forest fires are becoming more prevalent as a result of climate change and that the world is losing its forests... https://www.dailywire.com/news/51285/new-nasa-data-forest-fires-deforestation-refutes-ryan-saavedra?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro

Tasty steamed octopus! What a surprise! J

Hi Billy, Did you see above that I had posted a new version of my set of questions in an effort to communicate more clearly? Do you understand the questions? Snubbing isn't working. J

The deniers deserve to have their property destroyed. We don't have time to wait for the fucking deniers to agree with us. We're reaching the end. Running out of clock. Pretty soon, we're going to have to take serious measures, like butchering the fucking deniers. We have the right to do it. The deniers are putting our lives at risk. They're trying to get us all killed. So it's self defense for us to disembowel them. It's virtuous. Destroy! Kill! Former Canadian Prime Minister: I Hope Deadly Hurricane Destroys Trump’s Home Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images By HANK BERRIEN August 30, 2019 On Thursday, the only woman to ever serve as the prime minister of Canada issued a horrifying tweet in which she stated she wanted the deadly hurricane Dorian to strike President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida. In response to a tweet from a scientist warning that Dorian was a major hurricane threat to the East Coast this weekend and that Florida was in the hurricane’s crosshairs, Kim Campbell tweeted, "I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!" I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago! https://t.co/cA14KQvjpC — Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 28, 2019 Fox News reported on Thursday, "The strengthening storm churned over the warm, open waters of the Atlantic on Thursday, upgrading to Category 2 strength late in the day, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. Forecasts showed Dorian tracking toward Florida’s east coast …Forecasters believe the storm will strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane by Friday, and stay well east of the southern and central Bahamas before making a turn toward Florida by Sunday afternoon." When someone pointed out to the unrepentant Campbell, "What the heck is wrong with you. There are real people who live and work there," Campbell snapped back, "get a grip," tweeting, "As there are in Puerto Rico- sorry you don’t get snark- but Trump’s indifference to suffering is intolerable! We'd also help if he tackled climate change which is making hurricanes more destructive! Instead, he will remove limits on methane! Get a grip!" After the resignation of Brian Mulroney in 1993, Campbell served for roughly five months as prime minister. She currently serves as the chairperson for Canada's Supreme Court Advisory Board. The Conservative Party of Canada, founded in 1867, changed its name to the Progressive Conservative Party in 1942. After Campbell, a Progressive Conservative who was serving briefly as prime minister, lost in the 1993 election, the party changed its name back to the Conservative Party; the party regained the leadership in 2006 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who governed until 2015, when Justin Trudeau was elected to the position. After the party changed its name back to the Conservative Party, Campbell, complaining about the fact that the party did not subscribe to her environmentalist views, said, "Well, I’ve never joined the Conservative Party of Canada; I think (former prime minister) Joe Clark expressed it that he didn’t leave the party; the party left him. It is not the Progressive Conservative party. You know, our party was the party of the acid rain treaty, the Montreal protocol. I’m sorry; I have no time for climate deniers and anybody who is trying to pussyfoot around it." Asked whether she thought the Conservative party was "weak on that," Campbell answered, "Yeah, I do. They pussyfoot around, they don’t really come out and say, commit themselves to dealing with it, and they’ve produced a plan that has no target. It’s really a sop I think … if certain issues aren’t taken seriously, we don’t have time to hope for people, and if they’re saying things because they’re playing to a recalcitrant base, in theory, they’ll do differently, whatever, sorry, that’s too much of a risk."

In an attempt at conversation and graciousness, I’ll give it another shot, and ask my questions in yet another way: What was the hypothesis that has been “settled"? Wasn't it that mankind’s activities are the primary cause of global warming — that global warming is happening due to mankind’s activities, and it would not be happening without those activities? That’s what it seems to have been? Was it that if mankind produces X amount of CO2 over time period Y, then the result must be temperature Z, and temperature Z will mean changes in climate, and catastrophic consequences? Here are the questions: How many years’ of data of CO2 emissions and temperatures were determined — prior to gathering that data — to be needed to be recorded in order to confirm the hypothesis, and why that amount of time? What duration of time was established as a falsification limit, after which the hypothesis would be considered to have failed if the predictions did not come true in reality, and why that amount of time? What other criteria were identified, ahead of testing, as falsifying the hypothesis? Why those criteria and not others? Or were none identified? Which one of the many climate computer models has succeeded in predicting future temperatures reliably and repeatedly? When — what date — was that single model proposed as one whose predictions were expected to succeed in reality? When did it become active, and its predictions began to be put to the test and compared to data collected in reality? Was the model unaltered, or, during testing, did it receive any revisions or updates? If so, on what grounds were those modifications deemed to be acceptable rather than as invalidating the original model? On what date was the conclusion determined that the model had met all of the criteria that had been established before testing, and that it had succeeded, had avoided falsification, and had been independently repeated and confirmed? Prior to all of that, how was it determined what the global temperature should be were it not for mankind’s activities? By what means and reasoning have natural drivers of temperature been accounted for and eliminated as affecting outcomes? More to come. But, please, start with the above. J

I think Billy's use of the term "William-Whisperer" is meant to be something like a dog whisperer or horse whisperer. J

You can cop to not having answered my questions. Please visit the first few posts on the Part 2 version of this thread. Read the many different ways that I've asked the questions. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in accepting the possibility that you haven't understood what I've been asking during all this time -- you haven't grasped my questions. I'll accept part of the blame for that. Please read the questions, and ask questions in return if you don't understand. I'll then do my best to try to explain what I apparently haven't succeeded in explaining so far. I had asked your friend Brad the same questions. He was sure that the information was out there and easy to find, and he was going to get right back to us with it. He never came back. In addition to those old questions that have been asked, re-asked, re-worded and asked again, only to be ignored or misunderstood or whatever, there is now an additional question that I would appreciate your answering, and that is the one about the libertarian group and its analysis of the false claim that 97% of scientists believe that mankind's activities are the primary driver/cause of global warming. Do you agree or disagree with their position? Why? Explain, please. J

Clearly, Billy is stumped. He's in, like, double checkmate right now. He doesn't know what in the hell to do. He won't let go of his beliefs, so his next-best option is to continue as usual with the same tired tactics. He's probably searching for another Meatball to come and try to save him, and maybe even hoping that NASA will come out with a statement about being caught in the 97% lie and offer up enough of an authority pose that Billy can repeat it while wishing really hard to believe in it. "Are you a scientist? No? Well, we ARE scientists, we're fucking NASA for Christ's sakes, and we say that it's totally scientific for us to throw out the 7,930 papers. In fact, now that we mention it, fuck you, we're going with 100%, because we just decided to throw out all of the papers except for the ones that take the position that we want to be true. Eat shit and die, science-denying fuckers!" J

"Many people deal with this by hiding from contentious conversations. That's fine, and in certain circumstances it may even be the right thing to do. However, it's only..." Damn! Just when it was getting to the good part. I need to know! Billy, what's the rest of the sentence? What's the rest of the thought? Shit, I forgot, you wont answer because you're hiding from conversations with me. One thing that I hope the book covers is the standard notions of leading by example, practicing what one preaches, etc. -- showing that you are open to changing your beliefs, and that you're comfortable admitting to having been mistaken. J

Thanks so much for sharing. Looking forward to your practicing all that you learn from the book. Cheers, J

How well do you think that Climate Doom would have sold as a Narrative if instead of the lie that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that we're fucking doomed, Gore, Obama, DiCaprio, et al, had pushed the real number of 32.6 percent (which is actually still an exaggeration considering the additional factors outlined by the libertarian group who is going after NASA)? Heh. J

It gets even worse when they have a government-paid position to nurture and protect. J

Yup. Actions versus words. Obama knows that the rising seas doom is total bullshit. He doesn't believe it. J

Billy? No? No opinion on the methodology used in the 97% lie? No curiosity about it? No comment? J