Max Eichelberger

I say "Fight the power." Whatever you think is right; you don't see your manager in the mirror. You see yourself.

God knows how much I love the "Hebrew Hammer," as I like to call him. Too bad I'll be in school, but nonetheless: I'll be thinking of him. He's amazing, on so many levels, and one of the main reasons all I watch these days is Fox for political commentary.

Look at Palin; she's hot, sexy, the highest definition of a woman who is working her ass off at empowering other women. Certainly, there's pages (e.g. her book) of stuff I don't see eye-to-eye with her on. Yet, even still, I can realize that what she is doing for women. Telling them they can still be, in essence, very womanly and still be taken seriously. Look at Clinton; she's ugly, masculine, and tells women with every ounce of her existence that the only way you can be taken seriously is if you give up every bit of woman in you. Now, who's supposed to be the "Women's Rights Activist?" Yeah, if this Leftist world view isn't destined for the Humor section; nothing is.

Awesome! I love that Hebrew Hammer.

I'll join. Looks like a project I can get behind.

Does He Lie? I was certainly a fence-sitter on the issue until I read this. Unless RealClearPolitics has decided to lie themselves, I see no way around this.

A smashing little file you have. May I print it out and distribute it to my classmates?

Helen Keller jokes, never get old. Always interject with the punchline Chris, and you won't have to deal with them. Ever.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, my illegal logging business succeeds." - Stephen Colbert "The three fundamentally leftist revolutions, those that spawned France's democracy, Russia's international socialism, and Germany's national socialism, formed and fashioned the history of the last two hundred years and established the 'Centuries of the G' — guillotines, gaols, gallows, gas chambers, and gulags." -Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn Austrian anti-communists, you can't beat them. Pseudo-Conservative TV personalities: just as amazing.

This is the third day of having used my quota of positive points, without having given one out. It must do with my status as a newcomer to the board. I'll continue until I can give a point out.

Max: Ahh, a compatriot. I have been in politics for 5 decades. I specialize in field organization. When we were brought into a campaign as the field organization consultants from New York City... there was that dead silence in the room because they knew that we took no prisoners. A political campaign cannot win without ground troops or, as the military will confirm, boots on the ground, bayonet to the throat and then victory. It is basically war without artillery and air power. Pretty much hand to hand on election day. There is no greater high than the last 72 hours of a campaign. Only naps are permitted. "Luck" comes to the well prepared. There is also no substitute for victory, it is that simple. You should e-mail me off the forum, I am sure we will have some rather interesting discussions. Adam The two gentlemen from Mary Bono's office were more than happy to get our boots marching. It was a hit. I hope not to run for a major office, I'm afraid I have a fond attachment to my backbone, but to help people who possess the required moral ambiguity sounds exciting. To put it in its most simplest terms. They also explained how Bono is facing a stiff re-election from Palm Spring's Democratic Mayor Steve Pougnet. As I said, I wouldn't support her in the primaries but she's better than any Democrat by definition. So we'll do our part. Voter registration, poll watching, the whole show. They'll be coming in later to keep us in the loop. I'll cook something up. Tactics are my favorite drink. No problem, the second mouse eats the cheese.

This was a great read. I would vote it up, but I seem to have used my quota of positive points for today.

Nothing feels better than to be vindicated by a cushing electorial route of your opponents.

Makes sense, the reason I'm here is because I have a urge to express and read more than my school provides. A true college cannot possibly be so inadequate.

I humbly disagree with Sir Wilber. A few little summaries of the book indicate I cannot go where he is going. To me, the only dimension that has legitimacy, is physical.

The convenient thing about old, dead, white guys Selene is that their work is easily downloadable and free. Ironic, really. Worth its weight in gold, intellectually, but literally just worth the paper it is printed on. Speaking of politically active organic Conservatives - I am one. This year will be our school's first Teenage Republican Club, (Chapter? Branch? Whatever it is these days) courtesy of your's truly. Me and a dozen close friends to be exact. A dozen close friends, a sister and a girlfriend if it's going on the record. Mary Bono Mack's campaign organizer is coming out tomorrow for a meeting to hand out supplies for 'Club Rush' on Wednesday. The annual day in which clubs get membership during a large festival at lunch. My opinions on her? I promise to support her during the election but if a better candidate, who won't vote for cap and trade, arrives: it'll be another story. Thanks Brant, I'm glad you didn't find it an appalling effort. Which is all I'm asking for. Especially from someone who saw the man, the legend, Goldwater. If I was but older...

Here's a boost to the discussion. Objectivism and Transcendentalism are both prominent movements marked by their salient points concerning the supremacy of the individual and the inherent beauty of Reason. Reason with a capital 'R.' Rand projects upon man the claim that he is 'sovereign' because he is. "I am. I think. I will." Anthem famously asserts. Transcendentalists also make a similar claim, "The sublime is excited in me," as Emerson rules, "by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself." For there lies the crux of their belief: that Man is also endowed with a certain Holiness. They are, essentially, the same. There is certain squigglyness when one takes two carbon copies for comparison. Transcendentalism, at times, reeks of mystical aspersions when it mentions the 'Tree of Unity.' Both have different interpretations of the world around us: Objectivism falls in line with most capitalistic thinking when it says the world is absolute and A is A. Transcendentalism declares the world a illusion, different aspects of the same spiritual coin (remember, Tree of Unity). You're likely wondering "where the hell is he going with this?" And my answer is: they both look at the accruing of knowledge, wisdom, insight - in the same way. That, I believe, is where the answer lays. In this overlap. You can judge for yourself. The single statement which must be accepted, from which everything follows like clockwork, is that the world around you is an extension of yourself. What you gain through your mind, and what Nature gains for herself, is mirrored in the other. As an aside, I find it inconsistent within Transcendentalism to claim most knowledge starts in the world around you. How can one find something new in something you are a part of? The world only seems to limit yourself from seeing the similarities you hold with others and by extension: limits you from knowledge. If the world is an illusion, how can an illusion provide truth? But enough of my ponderous questions. Though through them, Objectivism fills in the gaps. Nature (viz., the world around you) is, to quote from Divinity School Address, the "raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splending products." That from the "shadow of the soul" stems the wisdom we synthesize as our own. It is Experience, a facet Transcendentalism emphasizes, which gives our mind the food to eat, the water to drink. That without that Experience our mind would be as refreshed by our introspection, as a desert is by a picture of water. It is through action and calm Reason based Judgments that we derive the material for which our introspection builds. Objectivism's definition of reason, one says, is faulty because it does not allow for more Judgments beyond categorization of stimuli - I say that introspection, Judgments, even Reason itself without that stimuli, that Experience, is false. That Reason does not exist within a vacuum, that Reason is the world around us and the value judgments we place upon it. That Reason restricted, is reason within ourselves. That true and free Reason is not only a twin to the applied Reason of our World, it is indistinguishable. Introspection for the sake of introspection, without the world around you, without acknowledging reality is obviously a strawman argument I manage to avoid; it is clearly wrong. My main point is that even a small influx of introspection, not based upon reality, does not merely lead to false conclusions. It does not exist. Created within a vacuum is something Reason is not. "The world.... [is] the key which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself," and to take the point to my own ends: beyond the door, which the world unlocks, lies Reason. To unlock that door one must use the Five Senses to discover the most important object: the key. The key to Reason and what shape that key takes. Its dimensions are of invaluable importance and to possess a perfect key you, and only you, create a perfect key. Through, not introspection or needless worry, Experience. Through the world. 3/4ths whole with Experience, 4/5ths whole, even 5/6ths whole is of little value; it may as soon not exist at all. You must construct immutable access out of the knowledge and judgment around one's self. Only that. To reach Reason and for Reason to reach you: you must look at the world as it is completely, not as what you wish it to be. The material is built by the Five Senses for "He and he only knows the world." Everything of Reason is a contingency founded in that simple phrase. That it is not "He and only he knows himself, thus the world," but instead the emphasis is on the world around you. For the world is an extension of your mind, that anything you receive from it, Experience, is what you need. Experience is what you need to be a "Man Thinking." (More Divinity School Address) For to be Man Thinking you do not look to yourself for transmuting life into truth, you look to the world around you and that is where (for those still following and remembering my previous questions) Objectivism meets up with our Transcendentalism. For the world around you is absolute, that it is where the Great Truths reside; not within your brain, nor within rote introspection, but instead through the acknowledgement of Nature. The categorization and judgment of your world. That to sit in cloistered seclusion, caught not in books but merely the love of books is not knowledge. It is not Reason or wisdom. For he shall see as he studies the world around him and categorizes it: "that Nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part." That to dismiss or not include a endless feed-back loop: your mind, studying your mind, studying your mind and only your mind is not merely prudent. It is Reason. Which, for me, wraps up the question nicely. Only your senses can create Reason.

Hello, I'm seventeen. More importantly, is everyone alive in this neck-of-the-woods?

I'm staying in California until it collapses, then I'm writing a book about it. It'll be a smashing success. My moniker is from Milton. I found his essay against censorship not only inspiring but also amusing in a quirky, anti-Catholic, way. Certainly it has intellectual value to ruminate, on what we find to be a 'Natural' Right, through the lens of tyranny. Yet I found his claim that censorship is a inherently 'Catholic' import, from Spain I'm supposing, and should not be copied was so randomly politically incorrect I couldn't help myself. I fell in love. Nothing personal against Catholics, of course. I do love BMW and the Pope. Sorry Chris, I'm just bad with greetings - I suppose.

I'm Max. I'm 17. I'm male. I'm in California. Mary Bono Mack represents me in Congress. I'm a Conservative. I'm not sad, depressed, moody, or even happy; I'm complicated. Chicks dig that, you all understand that but those who don't: once you're older. Trust me. I love Nixon and Goldwater; Law and Order, in my book. A is A seems like a fairly strong statement. I am against spirituality of all sorts, I am for tradition of all sorts. I sincerely believe I am going to Hell, along with the majority of History, and that it is close to useless to understand anything of the mystics beyond that. I think militant atheists are irritating. I enjoy amusing atheists. Man is not perfect, man is naturally and rationally a corrupt individual. He has fallen from Grace, or evolved that way - regardless, going against God or Darwin will result in nothing aside from failure. Man is not and cannot be perfect. Most people shrink from responsibility, I am for responsibility. I believe in a responsibility for things, not from things. That about covers it? I enjoy Austrian anti-communists. Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn, Thomas Hobbes, John Milton and Mill are my favorite authors of the not-so-contemporary. Jonah Goldberg, Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard capture my attention for the quite-so-contemporary. I've read through Rand's Playboy Interviews, Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Anthem and We The Living. Never knew she was quite so verbose in the non-fiction 'til I met my girlfriend's room. Interesting. That's all.

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) cannot be dismissed as a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Reims, it cannot be dismissed a pile of stones, it cannot be dismissed as a pile of superstitious nonsense. For where the kings of France were once crowned electrifying spirit still haunts the halls, the shiver up the spine as one walks into the heart of Europe's Divine Mandate is not from the chill air. The dark air does waft down, across the streets with the tenacity of the Headless Horseman, and with he piercing power of a depleted uranium round. Through coats it cuts, around doors it flanks and hats, scarves, mittens- right out. There is little hiding from this Beast, from its decentralized, casually cruel mentality that ravages the happiness of most, inconveniences the rest. Yet it does not blow into Notre-Dame de Reims for in spite of all its chill energy, its selfless appetite for heat, the dark wind hardly reaches the first steps before imploding upon itself, dying in an attempt to evade the virtuous, vivacious energy of the church. Like a fireplace, a great exporter of heat Our Lady of Rheims uses instead of wood or material burning, the the heat of life, of history, of the souls it houses within its ancient confines. Especially today, most especially today. For today is All Saints' Day, Hallowmas, and people are streaming in. Tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people. Red, yellow, white and black; courageous, cowardly. Intelligent and quick as lighting, possessing the mental capable of a doorknob. There sit funny looking people and there sit aesthetic angels, a few have deformities and a few contain the beauty of death. More contain the healthy vitality of life, many in the deepest throes of love, passion while a few sit silent in their sorrows, feeling the spasms of life’s inherent dread slowly pluck the last remaining hope from their system. For love is so fleeting and precious, like a flower plucked from its stem. Vibrant and strong, yet even the most simplest of children can understand that it will not last, nothing ever lasts and beauty, life and love more so then anything. Among this crowd, sits a fellow more depressed then most and less hopeful then all. He’s crouched within himself, a slumped over and huddled body indicating to all that he is suffering internal battles to rival the best of Napoleon, the best of Wellington. For he knows that who sits across from him is none other than the devil incarnate, Olivier Besancenot. Internationalist, socialist, French and a stain upon the Glorious France’s flag, a stain that could only be purged by judicial application of French blood. More specifically, by the Bulgarian made Arcus 98DA. The weapon is a full-size, short-recoil, locked-breech pistol with the added benefit of being cheap, reliable and fairly accessible within French Ghettos while both modern, unused, untraceable. Chambered in a 9x19 Parabellum with a frame, slide and barrel CNC machined from steel forgings the gun fits easily within his right coat pocket. The gun features stippled rubber grips that provide a very slip-resistant surface that will help prevent it from squirming out of his stressed, weeping, hand. The matte blue finish, while not fine, is evenly applied, and there were no sharp edges to give it completely away as a weapon. In his mind the whole act was already accomplished, in his mind he calmly takes out his gun, shoots Besancenot in the back of the head, in front of the nation in front of his family in front of God before slowly turning the trigger to his own temple while he utters a final prayer before pulling the trigger once more. Effectively turning himself into a martyr, a True Believer and an assured spot in God’s Holy Kingdom, if not that then at the very least the history books which was – he admitted to himself – just as good. Yet he can’t, he just can’t. He thought he was ready, he knew he was ready, it was all coming according to the master plan; he paid off a guard to skip the search of his baggy pockets, implying to honorable worker that he planned to do no worse then pull out some silly string in some sort of militant atheistic defiance. He had left a stash of goodbye cards, shoutouts, to everyone in his life at his apartment. He had taken a sampling of the finest food, the best cars, the greatest wines and yet – here he sat, not petrified but merely unable. He saw no comfort in suicide, he saw no happiness in his actions nor greatness because he felt nothing. He had turned off his emotion perceptions because, frankly, those perceptions were repeatedly overwhelmed by the mass expulsion of pure humanity every time he considered ending a life, before ending his own. The problem was, and he was startled to realize this, was that he couldn’t stop thinking of his girl, that wonder. He never thought of himself as the sentimental type, instead he had always had both eyes on the future, on fame, fortune and the rest. Yet here he was, about to enter the history books, about to fulfill one of the last obstacles to France’s inevitable triumph back to the universe’s cherished denizens. Yet he was completely unable to move. “Ah, well, that’s life.” He mumbled to himself as he steeled himself once more to take the plunge into the abyss, regardless of life; everything. With one last glance at his watch he realized that he was dramatically late and was about to have his decision yanked from his sweaty palms by Time, the cruelest mistress. Any second now, something would change and this chance would be lost forever. With a creeping sensation that there existed beyond him a world not entirely his own, that beyond The Man With the Gun's struggled breathing. There was another noise, just noticed. The intake, the gasping intake, of the man across the aisle. A disheveled individual who was even now crying in great heaping, choking, sobs as he pulled out the largest knife in the world. Well, obviously not the biggest, likely not even ranked but to the round, innocent eyes of The Man With the Gun, it was massive. More interesting still, this new threat was merely a few steps from the bowed visage of his truly, Besancenot. Who was either fast asleep, always a probability, or so deeply enthralled with God that he did not yet realize the threat to his personage; of course he could be pretending which would be much worse. Attempting to not hear, see or feel the world around one’s self was much worse than not having the temporary ability through a religious epiphany of the highest order. With no little satisfaction, the silently weeping man snakes down the few feet to the French “anti-capitalist,” the French “anti-imperialist,” the French “stain.” He can see the situation so crystal clear, so devilishly insightful for he has thought through all the angles, he sees through all the forgery and deception. This man is here to make sure the job gets done, the people who see him believe he is merely overcome by religious feelings – embarrassing, surely, but that merely aggravates the ease in which he slips by. Embarrassing people are so easily dismissed, it takes true will to stare at someone so unabashedly out of his mind. The killer stopped and put a hand to his forehead where he leaned a aisle away from Besancenot, seemingly deep in an complete mental breakdown. “Tu me casses les coquilles,” The Man with the Gun whispered ever so slightly, indecipherably silent, across the way. Sighing, he stood up. Discreetly, he found no need to bring attention to himself as surely as he found no need to want to watch this façade anymore. God's Will would be done, with or without him, so as he walked slowly out of the chapel hearing the first screams – two gunshots – his heart touched the sterile edges of the calm certainty that he did right. He wouldn’t kill to kill, wouldn’t kill to fulfill some demented madman’s aspirations, he just wanted to go home to his girl; sit down in front of a movie for two and half glorious hours, then fuck her brains out. Not a lot to ask, all things considered. ((Thoughts, comments? Not explicitly Objectivist, just a random play by my Muse onto the keyboard.))