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So Phil bares part of his soul, does his honest best, and gets viciously savaged for it. Why? Shayne

I have created a new thread to discuss George's bad faith behavior: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11345 Shayne

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11341&view=findpost&p=145799 George H. Smith has explicitly admitted that his sole purpose in engaging me is to provoke me, that he purposefully refuses to engage in any discussion of ideas with me. For example, he uses his stature as a noteworthy author (well, somewhat noteworthy; his Wikipedia page has been under threat of deletion) to declare me to be a "crank," as opposed to substantively analyzing whether or not that epithet is well deserved or not. If I criticize this behavior, he accuses me of being a "whiner" or "squealing like a stuck pig." Since this post is also critical of him, I'm sure that it will be called "whining" too. But can anything be more subversive to a rational, healthy discussion ideas than George's bad faith behavior here? Is there any line at all that should not be crossed at a forum that is devoted to reason? Is George H. Smith's behavior merely immoral, or does it cross the line into psychopathy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy)? Should an explicit admission of a purpose of relentlessly attacking, not bad or wrong ideas, but a person as such, constitute grounds for at least a warning from the moderator? Given that George has not actually physically threatened me, what he's doing is not harassment per se, but clearly what he is doing could be called intellectual harassment, and I think he should be banned from doing it. He should either be engaging in terms of true and false, right and wrong, or not be engaging at all. Shayne

Interesting value hierarchy. But not exactly true. You learned that you could not face me in debate, that much is true. The ugly motive you reveal here though is cover for far uglier motives. I think it is good that Michael lets a somewhat freewheeling debate go on here at OL, but this is where I would draw the line. It is blatantly against any reasonable forum etiquette to engage in the kind of bad faith behavior that George admits to here. And Brant plays the good cop to George's bad cop routine. I used to think of Brant as a good guy, but he's always very supportive of George, even after George admits to things like this. Shayne

Ironic. Shayne

Where? The only trick you know is ad hominem. And you spend a great deal of energy on it too. If I was really the man you claim I am, you'd ignore me. Evidently I'm so important that you must spend considerable time and energy trying to make it appear that I don't know what I'm talking about. Given that at the same time, you absolutely refuse to engage about what I'm talking about, that should tell any intelligent reader everything they need to know about your motives, though one can only speculate on the specifics here. Shayne

"But you, sir, are no Leonardo da Vinci." A very predictable response by George. I almost added this prediction. Note how he ignores the principle I underscore in order to pursue his ad hominem. He's an alpha male in attack mode, and really nothing more. George is like the Pythagoreans: they love geometry, so they come to believe that everything must be reducible to it. George has spent his whole life studying the works of others. Therefore he measures virtue in accord to how many dead people you have read the works of. As it happens, I've read a considerable number of works by dead authors. I've read a good deal of Aristotle, all of Rand (and all of the works done by those associated with her), enough Murray Rothbard, Locke, a lot of contemporary libertarian literature, Hume, Nock, Paine, the list goes on. I have gotten considerable value from most of these authors (I'm not fond of Rothbard). As it happens, I've also read quite a bit of George H. Smith. I find him to be rather boring. I can imagine why that might be. Shayne

We aren't talking. In fact, that's a defining characteristic of both Brant and George -- they refuse to face an actual dialog in terms of substantive discussion. Brant is far more polite about it though, so I prefer him. What's really going on here is that I'm rubbing George's nose in his hypocrisy while at the same time he persistently engages in it. I guess it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Shayne

Actually I've read quite a lot. I just deny the principle you want to assert: that it is my duty to have read a lot. A human being has a right to think, he doesn't need permission from you. This would be more accurately called a Leonardo da Vinci complex: Shayne

Cowardly retreat. Not all of us want to spend their lives reading and commenting on the works of others George. It's your job, as a human encyclopedia, to point me to the closest instance of my ideas in history, and to accurately place them where they belong in the history of ideas. Instead you beat your chest, foam, misrepresent, spew ad hominem. You aren't doing your job. And you don't do the work of a theorist either. So I wonder what your purpose in life is. Shayne

Rights must be grounded in morality (human nature), but a libertarian can do a pretty good job merely referring to human social existence. It's not a strong philosophical grounding a la what Rand tried to do, IMO, but there is less case for importing mathematics into philosophy than importing them into Austrian economics. --Brant You bemoan "where have all the intellectuals gone", but you make these pronouncements, and then never engage regarding their veracity. That kind of hypocrisy gets boring after a while. In any case, you've blundered here. Shayne

Actually you haven't corrected anything, you just called me ignorant. And all you're doing here is yet more chest beating ad hominem. This is a good substitute for actually addressing my ideas when you're too incompetent to do so, presuming my "alpha male" theory is correct. If you were correct that I'm not only wrong, but wrong in a very simplistic, idiotic way, then it'd be very easy for you to nail me. But you've done everything but that. Precisely what about my view of rights is wrong George? It should be simple to answer. Shayne

To reiterate what I've already written earlier in this thread: I ground rights in human action, biology, teleology; I then use ethics in order to argue that it is wrong to violate a right. My approach leads to a very scientific, precise conception of rights, one that can't be refuted on the grounds of them being in some manner ethereal, mystical, etc. This is akin to grounding mathematics in counting, and then using ethics to argue that adhering to the rules of mathematics is good for human life. Shayne

Given that I gave my answer to how rights relate to ethics in this very thread, what's clear is that you are the one who is dishonest. Clearly I think there is an important relation of rights to ethics, but that is different from saying that rights are grounded in ethics. To attempt to ground in ethics leads to right libertarianism. This is of course a point with some nuance, so I understand why you can't handle it. I like your "Taz" image George, very accurate. Spinning and kicking a lot of dust into the air. Shayne

Another sample of right libertarian alpha male behavior is Stephan Kinsella: https://plus.google....sts/bzbvHDcdDE5 Note the inability to deal with nuance, and the attempt at domination of presumed subordinates, as well as the expulsion of presumed subordinates who will not fall in line. These are all features of right libertarians. I've not noticed left libertarians behaving in this "protect my territory at all costs" manner. I'm sure that relates to their anti-authoritarian anti-hierarchy point of view. Shayne

Observe the right-libertarian mentality. Instead of behaving like a scientist would, and inquiring why I think such and such, he rudely lurches into attack mode and pretends to be able to read my mind. Also, very ironic behavior from the author of ATCAG. His behavior is very typical of ARI Objectivists. Given his prior writings aimed at countering Objectivist dogma, his behavior is ironic, but understandable. George seems to get his self-esteem from being the alpha male, so if someone seems to challenge his status, he goes into attack mode. His goal, apparently, isn't to exchange ideas (unless with subordinates), it's just to try to make an apparent challenger appear to be smaller. Apparently not. Please, do tell us the alternative. Shayne

No, actually that's a right libertarian way of putting it. The real problem is simpler: neither side grounds their beliefs in reason. Since Objectivism is the only philosophy in recent history that ever even tried to do so, I can simply point out their view on (say) patents. They cling to it, regardless of the fact that they can't ground it in reason. And I can easily show that if they can't ground it in reason, then it is immoral to proffer it as if it is true. But they don't care. They have their dogma and that's that. We need a true return to the spirit of the Renaissance. Objectivism was a false start. It pretended to take reason as the only absolute, but didn't actually. That's why it fell on its face and fragmented into a half a dozen pieces, probably with the majority of actually reasonable people throwing their hands up in the air and not participating in any of these various fragments. And now, there is actually no movement anywhere, to my knowledge, that tries to combine an explicit respect for reason with political philosophy. Objectivism is still pretending that it does but that is a total fraud. But there are no others that even pretend besides Objectivism, to my knowledge. There are individuals that pretend, but qua organization, they don't pretend that what they're about is reason. Shayne

The antisemitic charge is asinine. http://occupywallst.org/article/tonight-vigils-across-america-scott-olsen-marine-v/ Shayne

Selene, Perhaps I got something not quite right with their views on property, the left tends to be more difficult to characterize since they are unprincipled. I think "classical liberal" is a good general category. For me, individual rights is a formal science, not a branch of morality as it is for Rand, but its own separate branch that is at the foundation of the law. I see it as moral to found the law on individual rights, but individual rights are not per se formally part of morality; I use morality to say "individual rights are good, it is good to respect them", but not to define what they are. I define what they are by reference to biology/teleology using a scientific process, analyzing human action in terms of whether it does or does not interfere with another human's action (the right vs. crime distinction in Chapter 1 of my book). I don't know of anyone else who conceives of rights in this way. Shayne

Generally speaking, left libertarians are against patents and copyrights (some right libertarians are as well), they are also against any kind of hierarchy, like a management hierarchy, even if it is consensual. They tend not to like any social distinctions, even not male vs. female. They are, or tend to be, anti-corporation not only qua state-created/supported entity, but as such. This is related to their anti-principle approach--they are for property rights for individuals, but if the individuals exercise their property rights to create a business, then they tend to be against property rights. They tend to want an entirely egalitarian society, with no hierarchy or power structure, even if it was formed through consent (they would tend to claim that if you pay someone to do something, then that is "coercion"). Right libertarians are typically oblivious to the state supported aspects of large corporations, tending only to focus on aspects where government puts limits on big business (and they see this as an unqualified bad thing because they are oblivious to the state supported aspects). They usually have tyrannical views of property rights, such as not having a sensible idea of what constitutes abandoned property, or thinking it is morally proper to grab and hold large chunks of real-estate in a non-Lockean fashion. Related to this tyranny is some right-libertarians' support of patents. Right libertarians tend to not use ethics or rights to determine whether something is just, they tend to solely focus on economics. All this support of injustice of course only eggs on the left libertarians. Left libertarians tend to be opposed to US government involvement abroad, while not really having an answer for what to do about tyranny abroad. Right libertarians are generally very inhumane compared to left libertarians, and only see US involvement in terms of increased taxes or some such, not in terms of injustice to foreigners. Right libertarians tend to be nationalistic power-mongers; left-libertarians tend to be anarchic. Anarchist right-libertarians have their own forms of power centers they advocate, usually on economic rather than moral grounds. These are just general observations because there are always exceptions. It seems quite difficult to budge a left libertarian or a right libertarian toward a more sane point of view. They both tend to be quite stubborn and don't want to perceive some aspect of merit in respective views. So what unites these types is a kind of unintelligent, unscientific simple-mindedness. Shayne

Selene, Left libertarians have a disdain for rational principles. They are "touchy-feely", just like the stereotypical left. Right libertarians have just as much disdain for reason as do left libertarians, but rather than openly admitting it, they deny it and pretend that the facts are different than they are. Left libertarians characterize a rational, principled argument as "authoritarian." Right libertarians are happy with a rational argument that matches their preordained conclusions (usually as enunciated by some authority figure that they have chosen to worship), but if it contradicts it, they characterize it in the worst possible way and are incapable of seeing any element or aspect of the argument as at least having a grain of truth. Let libertarians appreciate nuance but reject any definitive claim; right libertarians disdain nuance and consider any fact that goes against their dogma to be irrelevant. Of course, left libertarians are just as dogmatic regarding their rejection of rational absolutes. This is of course the same old dichotomy that Rand already identified. It's too bad that she and her followers succumbed to it. Shayne

I find it interesting, and tragic, how Objectivism started with admiring Marilyn Monroe's benevolent sense of life, and now has degraded to worshipping Bill O'Reilly's very malevolent sense of life. It's quite poetic. Dennis is quite right. The ARI drumbeat is very much in line with Bill O'Reilly. Shayne

Insight into why Dennis and I don't get along. I think O'Reilly represents the worst of the American sense of life (Not that I've really watched much of O'Reilly, but what I have watched I find so awful that I think I get the general idea.) O'Reilly isn't standing up for capitalism, he's standing up for the status quo. Eventually I think that will become completely untenable, but we'll have to see. I think I come across as a left-libertarian at OL, but when I've spoken to actual left-libertarians, I get accused of being a right-libertarian. It is interesting that the left/right phenomenon exists. It's also a bit annoying that it exists. Shayne

Bill O'Reilly at his best: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370183/january-06-2011/bill-o-reilly-proves-god-s-existence---neil-degrasse-tyson Shayne

"]http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-criticized-for-flashes-of-anti-semitism.html?_r=1#h[] “To put someone out there to say, ‘This is who the group is,’ is about as dishonest as you can be,” Mr. Smith, who is also Jewish, said. “It’s yellow journalism.” Indeed. I can't believe people get sucked into believing anything O'Reilly says. And we have capitalism? That's even more nutty than the idea that OWS is antisemitic. Shayne