galtgulch

Adam, What difference does it make to you whether I meant that or not? Instead of coming after me all over this forum with your vicious demands that I respond to satisfy your curiosity why don't you at least make a relevant comment about the item I posted? Here we have Judge Napolitano in an interview with a U.S. Senator who tried valiantly to amend a bill with HR1207 which exposes the other lawmakers with their fickle "procedural" concerns. Have you nothing intelligent to add to this? Evidently not! I am not the only one who is annoyed by your antics. I would appreciate it if you refrained from commenting on my posts unless you have something relevant to contribute rather than your ad hominem rants. gulch

www.campaignforliberty.com 11 Jul 5 PM 180,611 That's about eight thousand more in just three days! Plus 260 cosponsors of HR1207. I think 290 would be veto proof! Eight cosponsors for the Senate version S.604 which is almost one tenth of the Senate! gulch

Adam, Aren't you impressed that the membership was 165K a week ago and is now 9 July 6PM 178,437, 7PM 178,507? There appears to be an acceleration of membership growth. If this keeps up there is no telling how large it will become in the near future or the distant future. I would like to think that this pro freedom, pro oath keeping movement, this pro Constitution movement, this pro individualism movement might reach historic proportions and might just be powerful enough to restore the ship of state to its rightful, pun intended, course. Regarding your query there is a germ of truth to it. I read posts on any subject and do try to see if I can find a segue to justify a post. And where there is a post of mine there is usually an update. Yes I am obsessed because our founders were obsessed. That is not the only reason. We all know that this country is heading towards a totalitarian dictatorship. It might not happen in Obama the Usurper's reign but he is hastening the establishment of a tyranny here. Depending on who takes the reins in the future it might be a theocracy or a more secular version. Either would be anathema and equally abhorrent. Given that we know what is underlying this and the realization that it might seem to be inevitable given the premises which prevail, if anyone values his or her own life and freedom and is willing to fight for his or her own freedom, now is the time to join the struggle while it is still a battle of ideas which can be won with our better ideas. For example, I encountered a gentleman at work who came by to do a job and I haven't seen him for months. We stopped to chat. After pleasantries and asking him how he is doing... I asked him if he had heard of the Campaign For Liberty. I told him I joined it last summer when there were 6000 and now there are 175 thousand. I told him these are people who take the Constitution seriously and the oath of office seriously. I will not elaborate. He thanked me most sincerely. I had mentioned the Austrian school of economics too. I mentioned HR1207 and the 250 cosponsors. It is not all I think about. I do my job too. I am good at it and it has nothing to do with this movement. I am not alone in this. I have 178,500 plus compatriots who are hopefully doing what I am doing to recruit others to the cause. Once we reach a critical mass what ever that proves to be, say one million members, that should get media attention. There is nothing that will stop us in any case. After all this is not Iran where protesters are arrested and punished, tortured and killed. I think we will only get one chance at this. Keep in mind that although there are those who support everything Obama and Pelosi are trying to get away with with their puppets in the Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court, still there is a younger generation coming up who are hearing the truth and are stirred to action in more and more colleges and universities and even high schools. When will you ever realize that this is really happening and is worth joining and influencing? gulch

Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina (6) Armenia (1) Aruba Australia (59) Austria (2) Azerbaijan Bahamas (1) Bahrain (1) Bangladesh Barbados (1) Belarus (2) Belgium (17) Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia (1) Bosnia and Herzegovina (3) Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil (13) British Indian Ocean territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria (2) Burkina Faso (1) Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada (264) Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile (6) China (12) Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia (4) Comoros Congo Congo, Democratic Republic Cook Islands Costa Rica (6) Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Croatia (Hrvatska) (3) Cuba Cyprus (1) Czech Republic (7) Denmark (14) Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador (2) Egypt (1) El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland (6) (3) France (17) French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany (66) Ghana (1) Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam (1) Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti (1) Heard and McDonald Islands Honduras (1) Hong Kong (7) Hungary (2) Iceland (3) India (18) Indonesia (3) Iran (2) Iraq (3) Ireland (27) Israel (5) Italy (12) Jamaica Japan (11) Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya (2) Kiribati Korea (north) Korea (south) (9) Kuwait Kyrgyzstan (1) Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania (3) Luxembourg (1) Macao Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic Of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia (1) Maldives Mali Malta (1) Marshall Islands (1) Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico (7) Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal (1) Netherlands (29) Netherlands Antilles (2) New Caledonia New Zealand (14) Nicaragua Niger Nigeria (2) Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway (16) Oman Pakistan (9) Palau Palestine Panama (2) Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru (2) Philippines (2) Pitcairn Poland (17) Portugal (4) Puerto Rico (8) Qatar (2) Réunion Romania (9) Russian Federation (7) Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia (1) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1) Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia (2) Senegal Serbia and Montenegro (4) Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore (12) Slovakia (3) Slovenia (6) Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa (2) S. Georgia and the S. Sandwich Islands Spain (12) Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden (33) Switzerland (15) Syria Taiwan (6) Tajikistan Tanzania (1) Thailand (9) Togo (1) Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey (1) Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine (1) United Arab Emirates (1) United Kingdom (97) Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela (1) Vietnam (2) Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (US) (1) Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zaire Zambia Zimbabwe (3) www.campaignforliberty.com 9Jul 7AM 175,913; 10Jul 6AM 179,173

Barbara, That's telling them! Good for you! I am reminded in this context of Thomas Szasz's The Manufacture of Madness. I think it is because certain abilities are being attributed to you, e.g. that you can cause cherries to soften, and can keep certain people away from the discovery of Objectivism. These are capacities attributed to one with the power of witchcraft. As Szasz points out it was once believed that since God had come to the Earth in the form of a Man that men were immune from possession by demons. In the same Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by witchhunters, the Malleus Malefactorum, were documented the pathognomonic signs of possession such as the presence of a mole on the skin which results as the demon enters the body as the skin sizzles. Funny but I have a couple myself! No surprise! www.campaignforliberty.com 9Jul 6:15AM 175,746, 6:20AM 175,755 I find it hard to believe that twenty one people got up this morning between 5AM and 6AM and joined the C4L already. But then again it is a worldwide movement so maybe they are people who are wide awake elsewhere in the world. On the other hand the pace of increase in membership in this decidedly profreedom movement is picking up as anticipated. Let the redoubling begin! 175K, 350K, 700K, 1.4M, 2.8M, 5M, 10M, 20M, 40M, 80M It can be done. We have reason and reality on our side. If you simply tell someone you encounter about the existence of the Campaign For Liberty you are part of the movement! Don't keep it to yourself! gulch

I get to operate the guillotine. --Brant Gulch: The FOLLOWING statement is the only one that I desire an answer too, please. Don't you realize I just find things to post to give me a chance to update the C4L membership for you all to see? Adam Adam, "No blindfold please!" www.campaignforliberty.com 9Jul 5AM 175,725, 7AM 175,852 Wow! 10 Jul 10PM 180,195 gulch

Here is the link to the four minute youtube video: youtube is "down for maintenance and will be back shortly" Senator DeMint tried to attach the Senate version of HR1207 to a Senate bill which was blocked for procedural reasons. He says he will continue to attempt to attach HR1207 to other Senate bills. He mentions that despite the fact that over half the House has cosponsored HR1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, that Speaker Pelosi will keep it from being voted on in order to enable Obama to continue to implement his agenda using the Federal Reserve. www.campaignforliberty.com 8Jul 9PM 174,267, 11PM 175,171 gulch

Here is the link to the Yahoo Finance article entitled, "Ron Paul Is Right! We Should Audit the Fed" http://tinyurl.com/ncwvcj It includes an interview with Charles Ortel, managing director with Newport Value Partners, an independent research firm. The interview is only four minutes in length. www.campaignforliberty.com 8 Jul 6PM 172,695, 9PM 174,161; 10Jul 10PM 180,195 going up by over two thousand members each day, over one thousand in just three hours this evening! gulchhttp://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=edit_post&f=17&t=7335&p=74637&st=

The Revolution: A Manifesto written by Ron Paul and a New York Times Best Seller with a bibliography which includes Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand It is an ideological r3VOLution and entails that those who join read a whole bunch of books on Austrian economics by von Mises, Rothbard etc and if I have anything to say about it, also the essays and non fiction of Ayn Rand as well. www.campaignforliberty.com 7 July 10PM 171,200; 8 July 6PM 172,619; 10Jul 5AM 179,173 plus 256 cosponsors of HR 1207 & 6 for S.604 Sorry if I spoiled your amusement. You are losing your freedoms whether you noticed it or not. I have yet to have anyone of those who scoff at me tell me just what they are counting on to change the course of this country. In addition to going to work everyday I also engage in recruiting if I encounter someone who seems to be a worthwhile addition. Sort of similar to what the fictional character does in getting select individuals to join his strike. But this is the real world and the only thing which will save it is if and when enough individuals share certain ideas, values and perspective and are willing to pass the torch until there are enough of us to make a difference. gulch

Brant, It takes all kinds. I am sure that there will even be a role for the likes of you in the coming revolution. Don't you realize I just find things to post to give me a chance to update the C4L membership for you all to see? gulch

Barbara, Brant, Bill P., I like to make people laugh and appreciate you enjoyed this fantasy. However I really would be happier if it turns out that there are enough fellow citizens of all ages who really do think our representatives should be keeping the oath of office to uphold the Constitution. By taking the oath the politicians give the appearance of loyalty to the principles of the Constitution but their behavior demonstrates their betrayal of it. In the last twenty four hours the number of members of the Campaign For Liberty has grown by five thousand individuals! From 165k to 170K. I only hope that each of them takes the trouble to read the books recommended by the movement which includes Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as well as the works of the Austrian school of economics which Rand recommended to us fifty years ago. I know that one's own happiness should not depend on the actions of others but it is encouraging to know that since we are stranded on this planet with other creatures of our own species most of whom are ignorant of the proper philosophy the survival of our species requires, that the number who are being made aware of Objectivism is growing. www.campaignforliberty.com 7Jul 5PM 170,579, 6PM 170,756, 7PM 170,829, 10PM 171,200; 8Jul 00:14AM 171,396, 5AM 171,536 gulch

Jonathan, Regarding Palin's adherence to principle, we know that she is so religious that when she discovered that she was pregnant with a potential human being with Down's Syndrome, she considered it to be a gift from God. Instead of doing what the vast majority of pregnant women do under those circumstances, which is to abort and try again, she chose as if she had no choice. It was one thing before amniocentisis when one found out at the moment of birth but... I am most troubled by her decision based on her religious convictions which did not require her to give the matter any thought. As an atheist myself from the first moment I gave the issue any thought at about the age of six, at the prospect of a Palin presidency, my reaction is to say, "Heaven help us!" Now someone is bound to think that my choice, Ron Paul in the last election, is no better given his religious positions and policies. At least his candidacy sparked an intellectual movement among many but mostly the young who will read the books by Rand and Mises and are aware that the Emperor Obama is naked. www.campaignforliberty.com 6 July 5PM 165,980, 10PM 166,120 gulch

"Money by Ayn Rand [from Atlas Shrugged]. "Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave its owners a counterfeit pile of paper... (Extract from Atlas Shrugged)." <<<"Give me control of a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws." (Mayer Amschel Rothschild 1743-1812) " I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies". Thomas Jefferson In 1811, under President James Madison, Vice President George Clinton broke the tied vote in congress to cast the bankers out refusing to renew the charter for the bankers. Unfortunatly it was President Madison who proposed a second United States privately owned Central bank and it came into existence in 1816 However, in 1836 President Jackson, overriding Congress, closed it commenting, "The bold effort the present bank had made to control the government are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it." (we now have another one like it.) 1913, the year after Woodrow Wilson was elected president of the United States. Prior to his election he needed financial support to pay for his campaign, so he reluctantly agreed, that if elected, he would sign the Federal Reserve Act, in return for that financial support. In December 1913 while many members of Congress were home for Christmas, the Federal Reserve Act was rammed through Congress and was later signed by President Wilson. At a later date, Wilson admitted with remorse, when referring to the Fed."I have unwittingly ruined my country". ">>> The above quote is from a comment in response to an article in the U.K. Telegraph entitled: "US lurching towards 'debt explosion' with long-term interest rates on course to double" Here is the link to the article: http://tinyurl.com/ppv8cp I think we can be sure that those who have their hands on the levers of power are well positioned to benefit personally from the havoc they are sowing. www.campaignforliberty.com 6 Jul 1PM 165,876, 5PM 165,980 Hmmm! Over one hundred in four hours on a Monday afternoon! gulch

Brant, But do we have months to do as you suggest? According to Fekete, at some point permanent backwardation occurs in the gold and silver markets which means that no one will part with their gold, not even the gold mining companies, for any amount of paper currency. I assume that would happen if it becomes evident to those who hold or mine gold, or silver, that the currency is on its way to perdition. Would you sell your gold coin for any denomination of the Zimbabwe dollar? Just as it is hard to believe that other humans really believe in the supernatural it is just as hard to believe that there are those economists with doctorate degrees who do not appreciate that gold and silver are money. They have rejected the gold standard and think that gold has nothing to do with the paper currency. They may say it is simply backed by the "wealth" of our country, much the same as Geithner responded to Backmann's question seeking to know where in the Constitution he found the authority to do all the things he was doing and he responded initially by referring to the powers granted to the Fed and the Treasury by the Congress but ended by referring to "the laws of the land." At some point in the near future you will not be able to buy gold or silver with paper dollars. As simple as that. And if they are smart businesses will begin to refuse to sell any of their products for anything but gold and silver coins. gulch

http://www.professorfekete.com/articles%5C...heGoldBasis.pdf "A paper presented at the Santa Colomba Conference on the International Monetary System at the Palazzo Mundell, July 2009. " Antal E. Fekete San Francisco School of Economics E-mail: aefekete@hotmail.com <<<" The gold basis is defined as the difference between the nearby futures price and the cash price of gold in the same location. A positive basis is called contango; a negative one, backwardation. Since there were no organized futures markets in gold prior to 1971, the history of gold basis is confined to the last 35 or so years. Gold futures trading started on the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange in Canada in 1971 at a time when ownership and trading of gold was still illegal in the United States. Upon becoming legal the bulk of gold futures trading moved to New York and Chicago. For all these 35 years the gold markets have been in contango (with minor exceptions due to temporary friction in the delivery mechanism). The basis cannot theoretically exceed the carrying charge (the lion’s share of which is interest, usually calculated on the basis of LIBOR). If it did, speculators would be able to pocket risk-free profits in buying the cash gold and selling the futures contract against it. This arbitrage would quickly push the basis back to the level of carrying charge. By contrast, should the market ever go to backwardation, there is no theoretical limit below which a negative basis could not fall. One should see clearly the economic significance of gold backwardation. It is an unmistakable indication of shortages of deliverable supplies. On the face of it, backwardation in gold would be a rank aberration of the world economy as most of the gold produced throughout the ages is still in existence in marketable form. For this reason profit is to be made by selling cash gold while replacing it through buying the much cheaper futures contract. If people hesitate to do it, there must be a reason. Indeed, the reason is the lack of confidence on the part of people controlling gold (including the central banks!) that paper gold can be exchanged for physical gold at maturity as specified by the futures contract. The basis for agricultural commodities shows a clear annual cyclical pattern that closely follows the crop year. It starts with contango just after harvest, and ends with backwardation when supplies are drawn down just before the new crop is brought in. 2 The behavior of the gold basis lacks this cyclical pattern characteristic of the markets for agricultural goods. Contango obviously follows the fluctuations of the interest rate up or down, the adjustment being practically instantaneous. But, in addition, there is a rather curious phenomenon that can be described as the secular vanishing of the gold basis. This means that, as a percentage of the carrying charge (interest) the gold basis has been steadily eroding and by now has all but reached zero. Reversals in the trend, if any, are minor and temporary. It is difficult to imagine any combination of circumstances in which there could be a major reversal in the trend of the gold basis, unless there was an explosion of interest rates. It is incumbent upon economic theorists to explain the peculiarity of the secular vanishing of the gold basis, which is not observed in the case of the basis of other non-agricultural commodities such as the base metals, for example. The overwhelming fundamental fact about gold during the past half a century is the steady and relentless absorption of new supplies from the mines through individual hoarding demand. Half a century of gold production at peak rates of output has disappeared without a trace and is by and large unaccounted for. This is more gold than had ever been produced previously. At the same time also absorbed was whatever monetary gold governments and central banks have in their wisdom dishoarded. It can hardly be doubted that if further supplies of monetary gold were dishoarded, it would be easily absorbed as well, and any setback in the price of gold on that account would be temporary. One should also remember that net dishoarding of gold by governments and central banks is a thing of the past. Countries such as China, Russia, Brazil, to mention but a few, are on record as wanting to buy all the gold they can without unduly disturbing the price. This means that the combined net private and official demand for gold will be insatiable for the foreseeable future. This is in full agreement with the secular vanishing of the gold basis. The burning question is what happens when gold markets go to permanent backwardation, as is likely if present trends continue. Clearly, the gold futures markets will be no longer viable as they are presently constituted. The main source of gold for investment purposes will be permanently shut, as a negative gold basis means that all offers to sell cash gold have been withdrawn. To see this we have only to remember that paper gold promising future delivery can no longer be trusted under the regime of a negative basis, as explained above. The huge volume of trade in paper gold would disappear with the advent of permanent backwardation. The demise of the paper market means that governments and central banks have abruptly lost their power to control the price of gold. They would no longer be able to sell unlimited amounts of futures contracts. Paul Volcker has admitted in public that he made a mistake as Chairman of the Federal Reserve in allowing the dollar price of gold to rise as far and as fast as it did in 1979-1980. By implication, he and his successors have learned from his “mistake” and succeeded in subsequently driving down the dollar price of gold during the period 1981-2001, or to contain increases during the period from 2001 onwards. They did it through offering unlimited amounts of paper gold in the futures markets. As we approach the landmark of permanent backwardation, the question arises how will the Federal Reserve control the gold price once the facility of gold futures trading is gone. Another question is how the gold mining industry will react to the disappearance of the futures market. There is a possibility that they will stop selling gold against dollars altogether until normalcy returns to the market. However, an announcement to withdraw the offer to sell newly mined gold would make the upheaval in the gold market even worse. The implications for the international monetary system, in which the U.S. dollar is supposed to play the role of ultimate means of payment and extinguisher of debt, are devastating. The international monetary system is facing its greatest crisis for the past forty years as it confronts the threat of permanent backwardation in gold. Yet there is no sign that the financial press, or academia, let alone the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, take notice. They appear to think that the futures price of gold has no more relevance to the international monetary system than that of frozen pork bellies. They are under the illusion that gold has been demonetized. It has not. Not by the people anyhow, who had monetized it in the first place. This crisis is a gold crisis, just as the last one in 1968 was. If anything, this one is the more serious of the two. In 1968 the crisis could be “papered over”, literally, by making the dollar irredeemable. Debt could still be liquidated in paper dollars because paper gold was still available. Presently this availability is the residual extinguisher of debt. Without it the debt markets could not function because bonds would, in effect, become irredeemable. In 1968 policy-makers at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve were granted a “breathing space” during which they could devise a new international monetary system that would provide for orderly liquidation of debt. One hopes that they have used this breathing space fruitfully, and they have by now contingency plans ready for implementation when permanent gold backwardation engulfs the system and paper gold is no longer available, effectively removing the last “pacifier” from the debt markets. It is not an encouraging sign that the planning, if any, has been done behind closed doors. There should have been an open debate on the debt crisis that threatens the world as gold markets go to backwardation. A blueprint for a new international monetary system should be drawn up publicly, with the participation of economists of all stripes and persuasion. Monetary reform should not be the exclusive turf of Keynesians and Friedmanites, according to whom there are compelling reasons to dismiss the gold standard out of hand as unfit, both conceptually and in practice, to play any role in a future international monetary system. They argue that its “disciplines” would be politically unacceptable in today’s world. However, there is no way of telling what is politically acceptable and what is not in the throes of a great depression, with double digit unemployment, past the teens, when law and order is about to break down. Our debt crisis and the threat of gold backwardation are not unrelated. Aggregate debt as it exists in the world today is comparable to a runaway train on a down-sloping track. The train started picking up speed back in 1971 when the golden brakes were disabled. By now it is accelerating beyond any safe speed limit, and a crash appears inevitable. In order to slow the train down one needs an ultimate extinguisher of debt that is universally acceptable as a means of payment. The dollar no longer answers this description. Gold does. Everything else has been tried “to paper over” debt, all in vain. Already, the debt crisis wiped out an enormous amount of wealth indiscriminately, causing great economic pain. We ought to remember that if all the remaining paper wealth is wiped out, gold will still survive intact. It is the only financial asset that has no counterpart as a liability in the balance sheet of someone else. That is its main excellence, a property lacking in all other financial assets. The hour is late. It calls for statesmanship. This is no time for finger- pointing and rancor. Having recognized the threat of gold backwardation for what it is: the greatest financial crisis in all history, we should act responsibly. If we do, it will be our “finest hour”. June 23, 2009. ">>> I wonder if you folks will let this pass without comment too! www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 11PM 165,770; 6Jul 8AM 165,817; 7Jul 6AM 167,670 gulch

Dragonfly, I would say your comments are quite harsh but everything you say is true. Actually I think that pigs and hogs are among the most intelligent of vertebrates but I get your point. Bush was also among the more ignorant of our species. What comes to mind is an amendment to the Constitution adding a few criteria perhaps in the realm of science and economics, not to mention the meaning of the oath of office. www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 3PM 165,638 gulch I agree, Ron Paul is unfit for the presidency. There's something really off about him. I can't put my finger on it, though. Michelle, I thought this thread was about Sarah Palin not Ron Paul. If only the other Congressmen shared his dedication to adherence to the Constitutional limits enumerated in Article 1 Section 8. It is instructive to observe or to encounter people, usually democrats who are statists, whose interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause at the end of Art 1 Sec 8 is that the government may simply ignore those limits to which the clause refers, instead that the govt may pass any laws it wishes to achieve whatever goals it wants. It is maddening to try to argue with such characters who smile and laugh knowing that the establishment sees it their way not the way the Founders intended. I know that there are 10000 youtube videos of Ron Paul's speeches and interviews. I haven't listened to them all by any means. It is painful for me to hear him speak at Liberty U and reveal that he was saved at 16 when he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Equally painful that he thinks the Theory of Evolution is just a theory implying that he accepts that a supernatural deity created all creatures in the Garden of Eden. Egregious to me is his position that a fertilized ovum is a person. Still his judgment about the Federal Reserve is on target as is his advocacy of the Austrian school of economics. To me he would be infinitely preferable as president than the current crop of pretenders to that throne including our present usurper. From your comments I assume that you haven't listened to many of Ron Paul's speeches or interviews. He was interviewed during the campaign by John Stossel who let him finish answering and threw many soft ball questions to give him a chance to explain himself. http://www.whoisronpaul.name Regarding his foreign policy he is not an interventionist but did propose that the Congress vote to declare war before going into Iraq rather than to delegate the authority (which is not an enumerated power) to the president. He is all about adhering to the Constitution. www.campaignforliberty.com 5Jul 9 PM 165,733 gulch

I am curious that no one responded to this. It appears to be the case that industrial production has dropped faster and deeper than in the early stage of the Great Depression. If this is a portend of things to come, together with the whopping inflationary printing underway at the behest of the Fed, we are on the verge of the most inflationary depression ever to visit the world! Given that those in power are causing this with their ignorance of economic principles and driven by their mystic, altruistic, statist ideology, the worse it gets the more they will resort to the very poison which created this crisis in the first place. Not to mention their lust for more and more power for the State. That might mean suspension of individual rights and totalitarian dictatorship right here in America. A Brave New World. www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 3PM 165,641 gulch

Dragonfly, I would say your comments are quite harsh but everything you say is true. Actually I think that pigs and hogs are among the most intelligent of vertebrates but I get your point. Bush was also among the more ignorant of our species. What comes to mind is an amendment to the Constitution adding a few criteria perhaps in the realm of science and economics, not to mention the meaning of the oath of office. www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 3PM 165,638 gulch

Rand said Galt's radio speech could be shortened to three or four minutes. Barbara I suppose it would need to be. Since the massive story is going to be severely compressed anyhow, they can turn Galt's laundry list of the society's philosophic failings into a somewhat general statement of fundamental principles. I just hope they are rational about this. They could stuff the movie as full as possible with stuff from the book, and make it into one of those crappy movies that you can only make odds-or-ends of if you already know the book's story from the source material in detail. Or... they could realize that a movie is more like a short story or a novelette than a novel and that it is meant to be digested in one setting, and make something slimmer but far superior by only focusing on the essential aspects of the story. Still, I hope they'll give the movie a good 2.5 - 3 hours of running time. Even slimming down the story that much, there is still quite a bit to depict on the screen. I really hope they release it this time. The film, if well-made and well-marketed, will really make an impact on people who are baffled by the current political situation, and get more people to pick up the novel. I wonder if Ayn Rand is turning over in her grave at the prospect that John Galt's Speech will be cut to three or four minutes! After all her response to Bennett Cerf, who told her that Random House wanted her to shorten the speech was to ask, "Would you cut the Bible?" I read Atlas about once a year for several years after it was recommended to me in 1968, and a few times since but I think it is time I read it again. This time I might wonder as I read it how it might appear on the large screen with actors of my own choice in the roles, or indeed whether particular scenes could be cut altogether. Might be fun. gulch

Please give an example for objective value. If I may chime in. I have not been following this thread but just read your question. It occurs to me that in order for a human being to take the actions his life requires it is necessary for him or her to have acquired the requisite conceptual knowledge. Now it may be true that something can be both an objective value and a subjective value at the same time, such as choosing to focus one's mind in order to acquire conceptual knowledge. So there it is. For a human being, and this is not original with me, although I guess that in a sense each of us comes to appreciate the necessity to learn so much in so many fields, the language, grammar, arithmetic, history, geography, philosophy, art, religion, economics and politics, athletics, manners, customs, and so on, that each of us realizes that in order to do so we need to focus our minds to do so. It happens once we set our mind to the task in response to the desire to acquire knowledge, "I want to learn this!" and we do it. It is implicit in our mother's admonition, to pay attention to the teacher in class. We may take pleasure in the process and its success as we learn and do well on tests to see if we did learn what is taught. It may become a subjective value to us to learn and to go on learning. But the action required of us in order to learn is to focus our mind on the conceptual level so that the sounds the teacher is making or that the little lines we see in print on a page of a textbook have conceptual meaning to us. Thus in order for us to live well and to know what actions to take in our lives as human beings it is objectively true that we focus our attention. Does that make sense to you? Is it not an objective truth and value that humans focus their minds on the conceptual level to learn and then to think, and then to abstract choices, and then to decide what to do, and then to attend to the doing after considering consequences and choosing a path and a goal. www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 1PM 165,619 gulch

Adam, If she does indeed step down then her record will show that she did not even serve one full term as governor of a state thus she would not have proven that she can govern. That would be used against her if she throws her hat in the ring to try to get the Republican nomination for president. It is not clear from her last fling that she has a deep enough grasp of economic facts and principles to be able to argue or discuss the fallacies in Obama's policies the consequences of which should be manifest in earnest during the next presidential campaign. The pundits are suggesting even now that the recovery is starting to take place. However unemployment is growing, more foreclosures are imminent with resultant reduction in demand for all manner of goods and services which will cause more job losses, lowered demand for production, more layoffs and undoubtedly that will lead to more urgent government stimulation with Obama holding his foot down on the accelerator of the printing presses to make more paper currency. I was born at the end of the last Great Depression which my parents lived through as young adults with two babies. Fortunately it was a deflationary depression and prices were low. The one already "baked in" for us will be an inflationary depression with rising prices and decreasing purchasing power of the dollar even for those who are still employed. Should be quite an experience to which I am not looking forward. Please tell me I am incorrect in my outlook. www.campaignforliberty.com 5 July Noon 165,606 gulch

Do you track people who change their minds and drop out? Ba'al Chatzaf Ba'al, Certainly you are kidding! Objectivists should realize that once one "sees the light" one does not inflict blindness or ignorance upon oneself. Assuming that one is drawn to the pro individual freedom movement for the right reasons based on a modicum of enlightenment regarding our government and how it has drifted away from its role of protecting and enforcing the rights of the individual in so many ways, one does not decide to become a statist afterall. Much of the C4L movement is within the high school and college generation. If you explore the website under education you will see that the movement depends on each of us increasing our understanding of a variety of issues. Ron Paul did recommend Atlas Shrugged and there are at least a couple of Objectivists within the movement to encourage others to read AYn Rand's essays as well. I am confident that Objectivists who are truly so, do not give it up to become something else when it comes to the fundamentals of it. Likewise with membership in the Campaign For Liberty. However I may be mistaken. Maybe someone didn't realize what they were getting into in the first place and discovered something about it which turned them off. So perhaps it is so but not likely to be in great numbers. The mainstream of growth of the C4L is stronger than ever and promises to become a torrent which will hopefully inundate the countryside. On the other hand there are those who are so ignorant and closeminded that they might be unreachable. But the beauty of our cause is such that we don't need everyone to succeed. Just a majority of those who come out to vote. www.campaignforliberty.com 5 Jul 8AM 165,582 gulch

sbeaulieu, My recollection is that there were only a couple of dozen cosponsors of HR1207 when I first became aware of it a few months ago. C4L was created when Ron Paul suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination for president after the last primary. I joined it when there were almost 7000 members. The membership is now over 165,249 on 3July. There is no doubt in my mind that the efforts of the C4L supporters, by emailing and calling their congressmen, and by generating petitions of constituents which were sent to the offices of their congressmen which kept pressure on their congressmen to become cosponsors led to the unusual growth in cosponsorship now up to 245. That is more than enough to keep it from dying in committee. Now the focus is on the Senate where the HR1207 bill is known as S.604. and there are 3 cosponsors. www.campaignforliberty.com 5 July 6AM 165,574 gulch

Since moral codes can be only subjective, there exists no such thing as an "absolute" moral code. And indeed, it is the illusionary belief in an absolute moral code which often leads to war. Many of those wars are examples of one fallacy figthing another, like e. g. Christianity versus Islam. Xray, Have you read Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness? The moral standard of Objectivism is Man's Life on Earth. Nothing subjective about that. By that standard using your own judgment is good and not thinking but accepting the judgments of others is a big mistake especially when it comes to your understanding or accepting a view of existence and a code of ethics. www.campaignforliberty.com 3Jul 6 AM 165,249 gulch