Max Eichelberger

I've been taking some notes on your poems, during my free time, and will hopefully find the courage to post my scribbles at one point. I enjoyed the poem, surprisingly. I'm usually not a fan of open poems but it still captured my attention. One question: is Lesbos...? It may seem obvious, and it probably is. But I have a habit of over thinking things and reading too much into small facets of literary works. Thanks Selene!

As a teenager, I can attest to the continued interest Rand's works hold for my age group. Ever since my freshman presentation for English class on The Fountainhead it seems every year more people learn of her books. This year it is no different.

Don't worry about me, every youngster goes through his Rousseau Romanticism. The only question is to what degree. The old bourgeoisie values, of any true value, need the test of young doubts. You can call it the Generation Gap, or anything you want. Merely know that my questioning isn't meant to criticize. It is only meant to enlighten me, it is how I digest information. I will always have more in common with Fox News than MSNBC (even if I only watch CNBC). I am not saying the Free Market, Liberty and Individualism need to be rethought; merely, the way they are presented. America went through eight years of Bush-bashing. Then, with hardly a breath, America has started in on Obama. The consensus is broken, and we well know what happens to a House Divided. The Tea Parties are fantastic, and there is a kernel of truth in them. Yet, as Solo Passion so ardently typifies, those idealized concepts of our Founding Fathers are lost in a din of emotional vitriol. Without the proper utilization they only compound the problem. America cannot move forward merely by having Conservative ideals winning the contest of sounds, and protests. Ideas are where the gold is too be had, and sadly, there are not too many in the effigy burning crowds aside from "Burn Washington, Kill the Bankers, Lynch Obama." The most Conservative principle is that a revolution, no matter how peaceful, and no matter how great an evil is toppled, is ultimately corrupt. I see too many similarities between college students in Chicago (circa 1968), and thirty somethings at these rallies. Any activity that actively seeks to topple our government, even to stop a great evil, is not worth it. That riles every bone in my Social Contract body. One segment of society cannot suddenly seek its own interests, violently, without tearing the fabric as well. I suppose most of it boils down to my inhibition to anything that smells anything like Jean-Jacques. Having a "collective of mavericks," running around the country proclaiming that their way is the "National Will," literally triggers a cacophony of alarms in my mind.

I did not mean to insult your political persuasion Michael, I just have a habit for stepping on toes. There's almost nothing I can do about such a bad habit. ;) My personal persuasion is that Tea Party's are well meaning, but essentially incommunicado with the body politic; what I look for in a political movement. No, the qualities I look for are not 'class' or 'trendiness' or some other "Liberal" buzzword; merely, intelligence, consistency, coherence, principle. I see the divide between you and Perigo typical of the movement. Too much animosity for consistency, too much difference for coherence, he lacks intelligence and the only area where both of you agree is principle. Actually, your the first time I heard someone specifically address calls for Obama's death as a bad thing... Through the prism of the Tea-Party movement. I have to thank you for that, it's made me rethink the Tea-Party movement. I'm Conservative, just not populist enough; I suppose.

Thank you, you two! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.

What makes a hate site, a "hate" site? Can you really be against one, solitary, individual and be deemed a hate site? That said, I largely agree. Objectivism isn't here to channel the frustration of tea-party "Libertarians."

To me, it typifies fetish behavior, wallowing in wampum and a pain in the arse. Bah! Humbug! Ba'al Chatzaf Like I said, it's everything to everyone. ;)

You must excuse some of us, we've largely fallen into two camps of cynicism. Some, like me, just didn't know. Others, especially the scarred veterans running about, know the habits of new members a tad too well. They come, they say hello, they post an article, they leave. I'll stop by at the article later this morning.

I bet the pig wouldn't say anything - he might grunt or something. ;) Point taken. Of course, if you'd just take along your decoder ring...

That's the great thing about Christmas. To Objectivists it typifies commercial hedonism. To Communists it typifies communal wealth giving. To Conservative it typifies morality. To Liberals it typifies frivolity and community enhancing ACLU lawsuits. Christmas, like America, is everything to everyone. And I can't think of a better compliment, for any holiday, than calling it American.

What are the chances that you would refer to the Late Senator Goldwater as AuH2O? As luck would have it, that's the theme of my current shirt! As politicians sacrifice principles for political expediency, it's no question if we'll be joined by disenchanted Americans of all political stripes. I honestly did not consider county, municipality, or a slew of other devolved levels of government. Certainly, if one considers the U.S. Constitution a contract, then it would logically follow that the same applies to State Constitutions. But for that, I never truly considered, even, my daily contract with my government applied water and power monopoly. I think another problem, and one I am just realizing, is that some people do not consider the Constitution contract. Instead, they consider it 'merely' the Supreme Law of the Land. I'm not sure, I have total respect for the document and do believe it is the Supreme Law of the Land, yet still a contract. Can a contract be the Supreme Law of the Land? I don't think they are mutually exclusive terms, but I'm stumbling my humble way through. Recalling a Congressional Representative? As a Californian who holds a varying respect for Voter-Initiatives and recall elections, and I may not be conceptualizing what you're saying accurately, I'm curiously open to the idea of pulling a Congressional Representative back from the Beltway pork barreling. Yet then, knowing how out of control Californian ballot initiatives have gotten already. I'm unsure if I want to expand the insanity to even more levels of the political process. Even if the process is horribly corrupt, so is recall elections. Imagine if everyone did do that. It would be very interesting how the state bureaucracy would handle it. Not very well, I can imagine, but certainly; if millions withdrew their taxes... Though I can already imagine the New York Times' headline: "Millions Refuse to Pay Taxes: Minorities, Women, Worst Hit." It'd be "tea-bagger," styled coverage all over again.

No one would confuse me with an Objectivist, so on matters of 'purity,' I'm not a good consult. However, as a random Joe off the street; I like this site more than that other, silly, one.

King's means and ends were just a smarter, more trendy, version of the forces he was battling. Southern Segregationists maintained that to not segregate would degrade Southern Culture, while King argued the exact opposite with the same evidence. Neither Thurmond's concepts of "protecting white womanhood," or King's "bank of justice," carry much weight. On one side, only someone who is horribly illiterate would ever read both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then think they are the same idea. Yet that is what King does. Then Dixiecrats ride down with barely concealed racism, then make a mockery of state's rights. In any event, I give credence to MLK's ability to refrain from violence. Certainly, the South often employed nonchalance to deadly effect on the enthusiasm of Freedom Riders, but there was always that eccentric super-traditionalist sheriff who whacked about some NAACP carpetbagger. Thereby giving MLK another few percentage points of approval. Certainly, history is written by the victors and usually for a good reason. For that rule only, I'll always give Martin Luther King and his associated enterprises a warm nod. Yet I'll always be too contrariwise to give them a complete pass.

"Man is important to man?" This guy was onto something. I bet if you asked a pig, if pigs were important to him, he'd say the same thing. The important concept is connecting why our concept of man is important to more than man.

Americans have arrived at the point where, as a people, we are paralyzed with indecisiveness as our leaders happily discuss the systematic destruction of our nation’s health. Ironically, that colloquialism is not merely figuratively true but physically true. Most Americans agree (see WSJ/NBC poll) that Obama is not the right president for the job, and that Obamacare is the wrong prescription for our healthcare woes. Yet, many representatives seem willing to go ahead with a policy and a president the people disapprove of. The people they are to represent. This is all done under the auspicious authority of the Constitution. A document, I remind my reader, that is a contract, a contract between “we the people.” The question that unerringly jumps to the front of my mind is when the contract is not forming a “more perfect Union,” what is America to do? When the county is not on a path to “secure the Blessings of Liberty,” do individual themselves have authority from the Constitution? I believe yes, the Constitution has only the authority you place in it. Like all contracts, the Constitution only exists at each party’s agreement. These two parties are you, the individual, and the Constitution embodied in the Federal Government. If one no longer wishes to be apart of such a contract, then even the weakest has the ability to remove themselves from its auspices. To live out your life, in your house, without the intrusion of the Federal Government, should be the ultimate stick to which we hold our government accountable. The wording makes it clear that the Founding Fathers never had the intention of binding future generations to an inviolable document. In addition, the concept of “Natural Rights,” in any interpretation, cannot be construed to mean the US Constitution applies to US Citizens merely by existence. Quite simply, like all contracts, US Constitution cannot be seen as supported by all US Citizens merely because they exist, and have not openly rebelled against the US Government. Instead, the US Constitution, like all contracts, requires the explicit approval of every individual within the country. Just like one is not obliged to buy a house your great-grandfather bought, merely because you exist. One is not obliged to accept the concept of the Constitution merely because a very dead, distant relation (or for new immigrants, no relation at all) signed for it. Critics of this theory argue that the US Public has no choice in the matter. Such a statement is a moral dead end. What makes a contract, a contract, is its sanctity. Locke declares that when the government stops acting in coordination with society, “the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.” That is the principle upon which our Constitution's sancticty was written on. The principle that this contract is, at any time, useless without our consent. Many times people understand in some abstract way that “the people,” have the ability to topple our government. Yet more often than not, the “why,” is left unanswered. The “why,” is self-evident: the Constitution is the contract of mutual authority. The authority of our mutual agreement. The authority granted to it by ourselves. Socrates explained to Crito why he must remain in prison and accept the death penalty; not because of the jailers decision, but what should be Crito’s. The argument is the theoretical ground for the distinction between duty to society and duty to government, the distinction that permits an argument for resistance without anarchy. Locke, and later Jefferson, all built off of this first dissertation. The wording is implicit “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The only reference to later generations is not more than an aspiration. These men knew their Natural Rights, and they knew later generation’s Natural Rights. The concept of signing away someone’s ability to manage their own affairs; abridging the ultimate sanctity of a private contract, is not within our Founding Father’s intellectual ‘vocabulary.’ In the beginning of the paragraph, it directly mentions “We the People of the United States.” This is not “We the People of the United States of all eternity,” it is a specific group of men coming together to ensure certain freedoms for themselves at a certain time. The Founding Fathers understood the importance of what they were crafting, and understood that countless other countries had fallen because of their inability to change the essence of their national government. They, and I, believe that the Constitution is not so much so, that it is so by only being so. One of the criticisms that has been raised against this line of reasoning is if one believes the contract, which holds our union together, is void: why not fight? The answer is simple. If I was a Third-Wave Feminist, one who did not believe in killing rapists, would I then be implying rape is acceptable? Of course not. Implied consent is much more than not shooting the local IRS agent. Further yet, such an attitude of “love it, or blow it up,” invites a Nietzsche dystopia. What I, and so many others like me, seek to accomplish is reform. A peaceful, loving recalibration of the body politic.

Objectivism has a pathology of viewing the government through the use of Force, but this should be refined. The government is about the monopoly of force, most of it irrational, so that society can better express itself. Yet, what about the government employing individuals for no reason other than to create dependents? Where is the force in disseminating false information? Both of those two activities require no force, against anybody, on anything. Yet these two activities are lies against society. What we need to see the government as is the monopoly of the unjustifiable. Not merely unjustified force, but a collection of unjustifiable impulses. Just my two cents.

I understand the ability, but the questions that jump to the front of my mind are: is he better than other artists (even if they take longer, and need to view the landscape longer)? And, is he offering a service that is better than a camera (a question I pose to all non-Dutch landscape painters)? Isn't there the consideration that he is not applying any, how would one say... Morality?... Onto his paintings.

Hello. Welcome to Objectivist Living.

This is so scary on so many levels.

Say "I love you," mean it and (above all) understand why you have said it.

My guess is the the birds react to those birds closest to them and in view. I suspect the "rules" of interaction are close to determinstic, but in the aggregate yield chaotic behavior. About 45 years ago, a meteorologist, Ed Lorenz developed a set of deterministic non-linear differential equations to describe convection and air flow. He (re)discovered that the result was very non-linearly dependent on the initial conditions for the equations. He (re)discovered the theory of chaotic dynamics which was previously pursued by Henri Poincare about 1905. The main difference is the Lorenz had a computer and Poincare did not. Thus was reborn the science of chaos. Since then many people have discovered that systems with very simple rules both deterministic and non-deterministic produce highly non-linear and non-predictable behavior. See the relationship betwee the Sierpinsky Sponge and the Conroy Chaos Game on a triangle. The rules are so simple that a five year old could comprehend them, but the results are dazzling. Ba'al Chatzaf "A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Hebrew Hammer = Yaron Brooke? You couldn’t mean Stossel, I’m not sure but I don’t think he’s Jewish. I think it's been made fairly clear, but no; I do mean John Stossel. Though, for better or for worse, you do make the point about how Stossel does not push a Zionist agenda (in any sense of the word). You seem to enjoy him, but have no inkling of his heritage. That just re-affirms another amazing aspect of the guy. More seriously, you'll be suprised how many Neo-Conservatives are Jewish; almost exclusively, NeoCon intellectuals are Jewish.

I think that's the point of the government. To oppress man and certain qualities in him that need to be oppressed. The reason the state exists is so that it can do the unjustifiable. I do not believe, on any moral level, in murder. However, I believe in the death penalty. I do not believe, on any moral level, in stealing, or in kidnapping or in telling people what to do. However, I believe that some limited taxation, jails, and accompanying police organs are required. It may lead to tyranny, but it is still a "neccessary evil."