algernonsidney

I wonder if they will ever remove that essay from future editions of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. The book will certainly survive without it. It's also the only Rand compilation that has a lot of stuff from Branden. It has to be pretty embarrassing now. Murray Rothbard always insisted that Greenspan was a Keynesian. He definitely got it right. Back in 1996, Liberty had a panel discussion on Rand that aired on C-SPAN. Lester Hunt, Barbara Branden, John Hospers, and RW Bradford were on the panel. I still remember Barbara saying: "I know Alan Greenspan very well.... He didn't want to go into government." The question of why do people like certain people is always intriguing. While many Objectivists are extremely judgmental and critical of most other people, there are certain people who get a free pass for some reason. Greenspan definitely got a free pass.

I've seen them at other times in small towns. This sounds like the very immoral concept of Lockean "tacit consent." It's a blank check. Do I also agree to random searches of my car by driving on the road? There is a monopoly in many cases. When I lived in Washington with my red car, I was once pulled over for seemingly no reason at all. The first thing the pig mentioned was that I didn't have a front license plate. I pointed out that many states do not. It was West Virginia in my case. Then he asked me what I was doing out there. He asked if I was in the military. I told him I was out there for six months on a job. It was pure harassment. Eventually he let me go. The point is that he didn't have a leg to stand on. At the time, Washington had one of the highest license fees in the country. Coincidentally, the phony terrorist plot of two years ago is currently collapsing. A British jury refused to convict the eight suspects of terrorism. You may remember that this phony plot caused the feds to outlaw bringing liquids into the secure area of airports. Well, the plot collapsed. Meanwhile, the security apparatus is still in place. By the way, Phil, have you read anything at all about the Duke lacrosse non-rape case?

Pray for Levi. If the guy doesn't have enough brains to put on a condom, then he doesn't have enough brains to be a dad. I bet that guy's had at least ten girls.

You're in South Carolina. I just remembered you could have voted for Stephen Colbert: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/21/s...meet-the-press/

You probably need to read The Game by Neil Strauss. Look him up on Wikipedia. I also have a challenge for you. Approach 70 females in the next 30 days.

There was only one Presidential candidate this year who wanted to get the USA out of the UN. His name is Ron Paul. On several occasions, he has introduced bills to do this.

It's one thing that needs to be changed. I'm not surprised that it's that way around the world. That's all most people do here is mouth slogans. And blue jeans, Pepsi, and Coke--yes I agree with you. I certainly know that. We have certainly cleaned up enough messes that the British and French helped create. There is also a lobby in Washington called AIPAC. The involvement does not benefit us. It is not in the rational self-interest of this country to involve itself in this way. What happens is that we sometimes end up taking sides in Hatfield-McCoy feuds. The Ossetians wanted Russia's help--they got it. The Georgians wanted American help--they got cash. And, of course, Georgia wanted Russia's help back in the 1790's as protection against the Turks and Persians. The feuds in Africa that gave men to the slavetraders probably weren't much different. Sometimes it's the "leadership" that wants our help in putting down rebellions or whatever. Saakashvili shuts down opposition TV stations and then takes money from the US. When the Georgians run him out of there, he will have a job waiting for him at the American Enterprise Institute.

The churches have always been untaxed. Of course, more and more of them (specifically Protestants) are violating their 501c3 status by preaching politics from the pulpit. How about just reducing the tax burden on everyone else instead of adding some new tax? If you are advocate a new tax, then please advocate removing some other ones. Ultimately, this is why I am against most schooling per se. It simply teaches people to bow to authority figures. Thomas Paine always liked to point out that Quakers were largely anti-authoritarian because they had no priests. Schools aren't much different from churches. Here's a cool article from Robert X. Cringley about technology and its impact on the schools. He complains "they are ready to dump our schools." http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pu...321_004574.html I hope they do.

I checked out the numbers. Only about 15% of Bolivia's is of full European descent. The rest are mestizos or Amerindian. The good news is that population increases 1-2% per year. If poor people want to get their revenge on the rich folks, this is one way to do it. Finally, I can't think of Bolivia without thinking of the "world's most dangerous road." Check out the slideshow. Up until 2006, it was actually used by motor vehicles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yungas_Road http://www.gravitybolivia.com/gallery/slid...stDangerousRoad

The Founding Fathers were very much against primogeniture. I think they even outlawed it. By forcing the estates to be split up among all the children, there was competition. Land was distributed over time. That's why I have often not been all that troubled by inheritance taxes. Dead people do not have rights. And if these landowners do kill teachers, it is quite obvious that the only way to deal with them is to kill them. That is totally moral. History teaches us that rich people generally have no qualms about initiating violence against poor people. They do it because they think they can get away with it. You can not reason with people who only speak the language of violence. The other thing here is that the Spaniards stole the land from the people who were living there at the time. Their descendants are still living there. Bolivia has a large indigenous population. A lot of the land is also mountainous. USA foreign policy does that all over the world, not just in South America. When you understand this, you understand why people in foreign countries cheered when the WTC was attacked. Switzerland does not do this. The result is that nobody attacks them. Many of these people mistakenly associate corporate welfare with capitalism. It does not help matters when scumbags like American neo-cons claim to be advocates of capitalism. It does not help matters when genocidal maniacs like Yaron Brook claim to be in favor of capitalism.

It's hard to believe now. But back in the late 1990's on We The Living, Ted actually did make a lot of sense. I'm naturally wondering how one can reconcile being a "radical for happiness" and being someone who advocates slaughtering millions of people in the Middle East.

I had assumed that you were writing about dance classes at TAS seminars, not dance classes in the real world. I took a lot of dance classes back in Ohio. I found that either men actually outnumbered females. I also found a lot of women who were old enough to be my mother. Take an acting class. You will meet good women there. More importantly, women let down their bitch shields. An acting class forces them to do that. Even more important is that there is no stigma for being there alone. If you go to a dance class alone, women will ask: "Why is this guy alone?" In an acting class, that does not come up. I soon realized that it's easy to understand why so many actors hook up.

Here is an interview with Jim Rogers: http://www.business-standard.com/india/sto...p?autono=334370

If that is the case, then it seems kind of silly to have dance classes at all. The guys who do not have partners will hate it. The other two will not care.

Well, what is the movement? How do you decide who is in it and who is not? What is an "active" and an "inactive" Objectivist? I don't know how long you have been involved with TAS. I was making observations. I am curious to hear from others about this. What kind of people are attending their summer seminars? What kind of people attended them in the past? What kind of people attended lectures at NBI? I think these questions are valid. Seminar attendance was rising from its founding up to 1996. The 1995 seminar had about 120. The 1996 seminar had about 200. This was also the first time they went west of the Mississippi River. Since then they have alternated between east and west locations. Attendance also leveled off around 200. I have heard attendance this year was about 150. In summary, who is the Objectivist movement?

I first met Phil in 1995 at IOS. While I have had minor disagreements with him, his overall contributions to the movement have been positive. He's started clubs. He published his own newsletter for a while. He is an articulate speaker and is easy to listen to. I think Phil will disagree with me, but the support for American imperialism is one big sign of decline. But there are others. This is a story I heard from one of Doctor Branden's colleagues. Apparently when Branden showed up at the IOS seminar in 1996, one of his first reactions was: "What happened to the women?" If you look at some of the photos of the "collective", you will see a pretty even split. Even from the seminar in 1995 to the seminar in 2001 (only there for one day), I could see a decline in the percentage of women. I also noticed that the seminar got older. This is perhaps an even worse trend than the decline of females. Students have become pretty rare on boards like this. Observe that this year TAS actually gave people the option of staying in hotel rooms instead of dorms in Portland. This would be easy to prove or disprove if someone simply does a count of the people who attended the seminars. Try comparing IOS 1995 to TAS 2008. If you attended the seminars and still have your old roster lists, check them out and see what conclusions you can draw. Phil could possibly do this. I naturally wonder if TAS has kept any of this kind of demographical information. It would be pretty easy. It is very foolish not to keep it. It would certainly be easy to keep as well. Even when I was at _Liberty_ magazine, we did polls of the readers.

Who is the Objectivist hero? Is he a policeman? Is he a solider? Is he a relief worker? He hardly is. In real-life terms, the hero can be represented by many things. Rand came to America because America produced many such heroes in its short history. The hero is: Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm Orville and Wilbur Wright getting their plane off the ground for the first time Henry Ford driving his new Model T, while people were laughing at him George Washington Carver finding dozens of uses for the peanut James J Hill building a railroad from Minnesota to Washington Thomas Edison saying "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into his phonograph Commodore Vanderbilt building his shipping empire Lamar Muse and Herb Kelleher launching Southwest Airlines after FOUR YEARS of "business harassment" by other airlines Paul Allen using his Microsoft fortune to fund experiements in private space travel Robert Jarvik inventing his artificial heart Jonas Salk creating his polio vaccine Steve and Steve launching Apple computer Nikola Tesla building his electric motor

This was before the Objectivist movement entered the Bizarro World.

You also have to keep in mind the gradual federalization and politicization of police work. There was a time when police officers did not have unions. Now they do. This unionization protects the corrupt, the lazy, and the incompetent. There was also a time when police officers resented outside interference, especially from the feds. If a crime was committed in his town, the sheriff regarded the town as his turf. He certainly didn't want to deal with federal goons. He rightfully considered such interference to be an insult to his authority. This has gradually decreased over time and especially since the WTC.

I would love to know more about the high price he paid. That would give me hope for Objectivists. I haven't questioned his sincerity or honesty on this board, yet. He's done some good work on environmentalism. Some of his stuff on criminal justice is worthwhile. He is also drowning all that out by being the biggest neo-con imperialist in Objectivism. I consider him worse than Yaron Brook. It's all on his blog for everyone to see. He got his 15 minutes of fame back in 1988 thanks to his Willie Horton article. He has been riding on that for years. Does he still write for _Reader's Digest_? I do know that he completely burned his bridges with FEE. It seems that he's essentially ghettoized himself with some of the losers at the Atlas Society. When he had good relations with FEE, he got to associate with people like Bettina Bien Greaves and Israel Kirzner. That is a really big step down. It should fit right in here. All I am doing is being a mirror.

That happened because nomination required a 2/3 majority. If they had kept this rule, the party might not have drifted to socialism the way that it has.

We knew it would come to this eventually. A so-called Objectivist would rather vote for a communist than a capitalist.

He doesn't have any campaign debts.

When and where has Ron Paul ever said anything about evolution? I find it especially interesting that the neo-con Bidinotto condemned Ron Paul for his position on abortion. His Ron Paul obsession was rather silly. Yet now he is head over heels in love with Sarah Palin. At least his new Palin obsession may have replaced his Ron Paul obsession. That's a typical Objectivist--act on whim, then rationalize. He isn't the first Objectivist who has his brain between his legs. The war mongers don't care about those things. Taxes and the Fed make the war possible. Civil liberties are a threat to the war. Chris Grieb misquotes everyone on this board. I am through with him. He once claimed to correct my spelling of the word "course." I had never written such a post. It doesn't matter what is true to him. He just acts on his immediate whims. Have you considered that these people were just fakes? It's certainly a possibility.

Have you ever convinced any of these pro-war Objectivists of the folly of this war, Adam? Can you show me that reasoning with these people has worked? Name me one person. The evidence against American imperialism is overwhelming. American imperialism has failed for well over 100 years now. It has done very little good. It has indirectly lead to much harm. Even Rand herself was against American imperialism. You can not make an ostrich raise its head from the sand. You can not make the blind see. People hear what they want to hear. They believe what they want to believe. You can not force people to think. They feel what they want to feel. Even before the WTC, I knew some so-called Objectivists who were easily the most stubborn people I had ever met. They were not rational beings, although they had claimed that rationality is a virture. I have known many so-called Objectivists who are great rationalizing beings. The sad truth is that people who are alleged champions of reason and reality are in fact the people who are least receptive to reason and reality. In the past few years, I've seen these genocidial maniacs actually praise the massacre of Filipinos over 100 years ago. More recently, I am seeing these same people praise police harassment of peaceful demonstrators. There is even a thread on this board praising a loser who will go down as one of this country's worst Presidents. Right now, this same federal government has spent probably a trillion dollars to bail out incompetent and corrupt mortgage and finance companies. Even if the war and the WTC had never happened, Bush2's legacy would have been a bad done. And these so-called champions of reason and reality would be pointing this out if there was no war. However, they love Bush and worship him because Bush has committed mass murder and torture against thousands of people that are different from them. How is the empire and genocide that these so-called Objectivists love going to be paid for? Blank out. Just as American communists who worshipped Stalin and Mao deserve no respect, these people do not deserve it either. In some respects, they are even worse. While even John McCain's and Sarah Palin's sons are in the empire's military, these keyboard jockeys are just cowards who want to cheer on the war from the comfort of their living room as if they are watching the Super Bowl. Even before this war, I believed that many Objectivists are cowards. It's even more true today. This explains why so many Objectivists are what I call different-phobes. They are people who simply fear anything that is different from them. I remember back in Madison (IOS seminar) in 1995 when some nutcases were bitching at me because I didn't like a Frank Lloyd Wright house. That, of course, was rank heresy to these so-called champions of reason. To them, any Frank Lloyd Wright has to be good just because Rand declared that he was the greatest architect who had ever lived. Thus, no criticism of him in any form can be tolerated. That's what you get for being a truly independent thinker.