Prometheus

Capital "M" Man forever outnumbered by men, you say. And if it is forever then real men are undone. You are reifying abstractions, a sure and certain perscription for brain rot and an essentially Platonic approach. Since the reality is what is, the only solution is to change the reality. In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt and his associates changed the social, economic and political reality by removing themselves. That is concrete action which produced (in the fictional context) concrete results. I am afraid Man (with a capital "M") never existed outside the heads of some people. Men (the plural) do exist. There are over six billion of them (us, actually, and you are included too). You may be overlooking the fact that humans are extremely adaptable. That is good news and that is bad news. It is good news because we can change our procedures and alter the material conditions of the world (with the scope of physical laws). It is bad news because it means we can adapt ourselves to less than ideal conditions of life. In short, people can learn to put up with a lot of sh*t. Since most people can render themselves sufficiently comfortable in the world of altruism and since most people apparently do not really care what happens after they are dead, it looks like altruism and un-freedom has a built in advantage. Staying free requires constant struggle. Most people do not like to struggle. You might want to consider this. Even if we win back our liberty in our lifetime (or your life time, since I am an old coot) it will be dissipated again in three generations. It is a battle that is difficult to win even for a short time and easy to loose over longer time spans. The only solution I can see is to breed a new type of human who for genetic causes is incapable of altruism and self sacrifice. We need to become Vulcans. A highly unlikely outcome since we do not nearly understand our genetic makeup. If you think of entropy as drift toward the more probable state and away from the less probable state, I think we lose in the long run. Actually we do lose in the long run. In the long run, we die. Ba'al Chatzaf Of course the only alternative it to change what reality is. I was never advocating anything else. My observation that Man is outnumbered by men is not a Platonic, subjective abstraction. It is an objective fact that I am outnumbered by what we call "society", or what I call men. So long as collectivism is the primary philosophy on Earth, that fact will remain. Individuals do not recognize the primacy of We, but society today does. This pits any arbitrary collective against any one person. Only until we act, and create the change to which you allude, will I no longer be outnumbered. I will then be an equal with every man, and he will have the same relationship. Genetics will not decide our fate; ideas will. Ideas which are based on truth, and which are advanced. Society must crumble for all to see the lies on which it was founded. You are right to say that our newfound freedom will quickly dissipate, but that does not mean we surrender. Those fleeting moments, in which the statist rock is rolled off the individual's chest, are worth fighting for. As much as tyranny is the natural and entropic state, freedom is the natural state in the mind of any individual. It matters not how many times tyranny smashes freedom, for it can never be truly vanquished so long as men aspire to attain it! Death is not a defeat. It is the immoral world disappearing from our senses. If liberty is not open to Man, vanishing from a tyrannical world is no loss at all.

Mr. Kelley, I must say that your response is thoughtful, and very similar to my own current feelings. After I had posted in here earlier, I got to thinking. Ninth Doc was slamming Beck for his Big 3, and so I asked myself: What is so wrong about these things, if carefully applied in the correct context? I could not find a negative, and I think you wonderfully described why there is not. I think Beck is an easy target for intellectually lazy people, who are more interested in name calling than they are refuting his ideas. Limited gov't is an idea that NEEDS to go mainstream, and I will never join a circular firing squad against anyone who seeks to limit the state, while freeing my to pursue my interests. I would tolerate a parade of Beck's over another single sniveling collectivist. I am confused as to how he remade himself, and it is not the path I would have chosen. But I do not have a problem with someone having faith in something so long as it is private, as he does.

A fat lot of good this provision has done. The American body politic is shot through with collectivist garbage. Ba'al Chatzaf It is shot through with collectivist garbage because the entire Western world has accepted and applied altruism for thousands of years. Only in brief, golden eras has the West thrown off these shackles and matured into Man. The natural state of things is tyranny; it is why we must fight so furiously. Most people on Earth do not think. Just envision what a staggering burden that places on mankind, and then add the weight of subjective, whimsical, mystical and altruistic tendencies. However, this doesn't mean we start attacking the Constitution, and declaring it antiquated when the reality is that Man is forever outnumbered by men. Sbeau, i quite like your originalist attitude. We need more like you.

A world of masturbators and homosexuals? In Lectures on Ethics, Kant condemns "onanism" as an "abuse of the sexual faculty without any object," a practice that is "contrary to the ends of humanity and even opposed to animal nature. By it man sets aside his person and degrades himself below the level of animals." (Kant apparently never saw Chimpanzees in a zoo.) Kant's condemnation of homosexuality is similar. When there is "homogeneity instead of heterogeneity" in sex, "this practice too is contrary to the ends of humanity; for the end of humanity in respect of sexuality is to preserve the species without debasing the person...." This is way off topic, and deliberately so. The Obama qua Kenyan theory is a crock, and even if it were true, I wouldn't suggest anything be done about it. Any attempt to dethrone Obama on this basis would generate a constitutional crises of the first magnitude, especially given that he is the first black president, and it would only reinvigorate Obama's supporters. Let the guy hoist himself by his own petard via his policies and actions, not his supposed place of birth. That Constitutional provision is antiquated in any case, and should be amended out of existence. Ghs Ghs; Ayn Rand and Kant seem to be on the same page about homosexuality We are on the same page about Obama. I was not referencing Kant's position on these topics, and frankly this seems like a random addition of something Kant said. I would further like to argue that in no way is the citizen requirement provision antiquated. Any time anyone of any persuasion seeks to smash the Constitution, the first utterance that passes their lips is "how antiquated" the Constitution is. There is nothing wrong with wanting the president to know of this place, and of our ways. I agree that this issue is a dead letter when it comes to Obama, and it should be dropped, but that does not mean we just eliminate the provision. It was designed to prevent alien ideas from infesting the American body politic.

GS, Of course they knew! But they realized that most people are ignorant of such things as details of the eligibility requirements of the Constitution for President. They know that Obama was a valuable person for their purposes. He was well educated and eloquent. He was intelligent and crafty. He shared the establishment premises and know how to cash in on them. They knew he was a more appealing candidate than Hilary and could easily beat McCain. They appointed many judges who would not hear challenges by using the lack of standing argument. Specious to be sure but it has worked so far. I can't believe you people. The bad guys in this game are truly evil and willing to use lies and deceit to achieve their goals. Why Obama is even willing to argue in public that his health plan will require individual mandates to raise the money to make it work. He has said in no uncertain terms that without such mandates it will not work. There are accepted mandates such as having auto insurance, compulsory public education, taxation for which there is evidently no actual law. They have us or most of us being compliant or in favor of their agenda. The media is in their pocket as are the courts and the public schools teachers and the university professors. The ideological foundation for their agenda is in place. They have been getting away with their interventions for decades with virtually no opposition of any strength. "electoral authorities!" Give me a break! The only individuals who are interested in the truth are a handful of individuals to whom the truth and the Constitution matters. I was kind of hoping there might be a few here on OL. I am not going to go to Washington D.C. to march although I will be there in spirit. One must choose one's battles. I will be watching closely. In the meantime I am submitting a Resolution to the House of Delegates of the Massachusetts Medical Society next week at their annual meeting to oppose Obamacare and to press the Attorney General and the State House to sue for nullification. I believe 38 other states are in some stage of advocacy of the nullification process. Not too late for you to take possession of gold and silver bullion coins. The rise in price of gold is just at the beginning of a long term bull market given the debt crisis in the world and Bernanke's inclination to respond by rolling the printing presses as he has been doing. SIlver will do better given its smaller market, enormous industrial demand, short supply and its role as money in addition to gold. Check out www.APMES.com to see what is available and to follow the prices. Beware of high premiums on rare coins rather stick to bullion coins. www.campaignforliberty.com 231,258 Succinct and accurate. I only wish we could wake up from this Kantian nightmare, but as you stated, we are living in era where they control the entire apparatus. How wholly unfortunate. Did you even read the article I linked to? It puts the natural born citizen argument raised here to bed and it was written way before this controversy - so it's free of a pro or anti Obama motive. It's just the facts - and they're very well referenced. If you want to keep your head in the echo chamber, be my guest. Before you start arguing with me about how evil Obama is - I'm only responding to the article you posted regarding Obama's eligibility to be president. I'm not debating you on health care reform or any issue. If this isn't enough and you want to argue that the author and everyone she referenced and the legal communty were all Pro-Obama in 1988 - it could be argued that because Obama Sr. had not divorced his first wife before taking a second then because of the bigamy law Pres. Obama was born in the US to a single parent who was a US citizen. This is just as far fetched as the argument above, I know - but you seem to like conspiracy theories. Ian I will say I am weary of this citizenship question. To me it is irrelevant, because things are being done to individuals in this country; this is reality. All that can be done now is to fight, tooth and nail, against the further erosion of our rights and liberties.

Here’s one vote against. Beck now attempts to define the nation’s virtues as Faith, Hope and Charity. “Observe Reagan’s futile attempts to arouse the country by some sort of inspirational appeal. He is right in thinking that the country needs an inspirational element. But he will not find it in the God-Family-Tradition swamp.” Ayn Rand, The Sanction of the Victims Mutatis mutandis? I’ve only seen excerpts of Beck's show, some were good, but some were just screamingly awful. And his persona is so clownish. I’m sure I could dig up some Keith Olbermann clips that are consonant with Objectivism, but it wouldn’t represent the total of what he stands for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OEaz1gK2FM Well, what you say largely rings true. Beck is a recovering alcoholic who was able to right himself under the auspices of faith. Obviously, I reject such things, as Beck could have just as easily found his own internal strength and used that to change his life. He instead chose to offer his spirituality to God in return for divine action to improve his life. He outsourced his destiny to something outside of his control, and yet somehow took control of his life, which is a bewildering dichotomy that splinters his mind and body. As for Olbermann, I can guarantee that the man has never uttered a word in defense of the individual, or Man in general. He is obsessed only with the appearance of Men. Groups and collectives of all sorts dominate his irrational and immoral mind. All he sees is race, gender, sexual orientation, etc and how they relate to advancing a statist agenda through victimization politics.

Phil, The ARIans are the ones who have package-dealt making a point about Objectivism with airbrushing away the contributions of anyone who no longer enjoys Leonard Peikoff's personal approval. For many years, they've been highly proficient at making Objectivism look bad in public. They've needed no help from those who might be inclined to criticize their policies and practices. They've managed to recruit into the "generation long feud" persons who never met Ayn Rand, even some who were not yet born when she died. No one is going to have the last word about Ayn Rand's ideas, unless those ideas are no longer of interest to anyone but an isolated antiquarian. There is no last word in an ongoing conversation. But unless I am grossly misreading your comments, you seem to be saying that to smooth the way for general cultural acceptance of Objectivism, everyone must defer to those who have received the ARI imprimatur and desist from criticizing anything they do, so they can put all of their energies into doing Rand's work. I expect the ARIans will heartily endorse your recommendations; I doubt they will appeal to anyone else. Robert Campbell I can't stand more than 2 minutes of Peikoff's podcasts. His voice is annoying and preacher-like. While i agree his voice is rather grating, I find the content of Peikoff's podcasts to be very interesting, and they are a nice companion as I set about my work.

GS, Of course they knew! But they realized that most people are ignorant of such things as details of the eligibility requirements of the Constitution for President. They know that Obama was a valuable person for their purposes. He was well educated and eloquent. He was intelligent and crafty. He shared the establishment premises and know how to cash in on them. They knew he was a more appealing candidate than Hilary and could easily beat McCain. They appointed many judges who would not hear challenges by using the lack of standing argument. Specious to be sure but it has worked so far. I can't believe you people. The bad guys in this game are truly evil and willing to use lies and deceit to achieve their goals. Why Obama is even willing to argue in public that his health plan will require individual mandates to raise the money to make it work. He has said in no uncertain terms that without such mandates it will not work. There are accepted mandates such as having auto insurance, compulsory public education, taxation for which there is evidently no actual law. They have us or most of us being compliant or in favor of their agenda. The media is in their pocket as are the courts and the public schools teachers and the university professors. The ideological foundation for their agenda is in place. They have been getting away with their interventions for decades with virtually no opposition of any strength. "electoral authorities!" Give me a break! The only individuals who are interested in the truth are a handful of individuals to whom the truth and the Constitution matters. I was kind of hoping there might be a few here on OL. I am not going to go to Washington D.C. to march although I will be there in spirit. One must choose one's battles. I will be watching closely. In the meantime I am submitting a Resolution to the House of Delegates of the Massachusetts Medical Society next week at their annual meeting to oppose Obamacare and to press the Attorney General and the State House to sue for nullification. I believe 38 other states are in some stage of advocacy of the nullification process. Not too late for you to take possession of gold and silver bullion coins. The rise in price of gold is just at the beginning of a long term bull market given the debt crisis in the world and Bernanke's inclination to respond by rolling the printing presses as he has been doing. SIlver will do better given its smaller market, enormous industrial demand, short supply and its role as money in addition to gold. Check out www.APMES.com to see what is available and to follow the prices. Beware of high premiums on rare coins rather stick to bullion coins. www.campaignforliberty.com 231,258 Succinct and accurate. I only wish we could wake up from this Kantian nightmare, but as you stated, we are living in era where they control the entire apparatus. How wholly unfortunate.

If you keep watching Beck, your brain will atrophy. He said it himself: “I say on the air all the time, 'if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.’“ Mr. Beck is, after all, "a rodeo clown." I get the point he's making here though. I feel the same way about health care reform. I personally was for reform, but I wouldn't help push it unless congress agreed to be the first to change its plan. I guess I took this comment to be Obama's attempt at empty populist rhetoric, which I don't like in and of itself, but nothing more menacing than that. When I watch Beck I wait for the rubber coated feeding spoon to pop out of my television screen. "Goo goo gaa gaa, mmmmm." Ian I find Obama's statement to be part of an extremely congruous pattern. I agree with you that Beck is not a sage, but I find it disconcerting that you go out of your way to slam him as a propagandist while making Obama's heinous statement seem like an innocuous platitude. I do not think it was empty at all, rather it was full of meaning; a rare moment when the mask slips and his real character is on display. It is clear, and it has been for some time, that Obama is no friend of free markets, or free men.

Hello everyone. I have come across this board while doing research on various things, and I thought it a good idea to join. I am not really sure what to say other than I look forward to discussing matters with all of you. For a quick background, this should suffice. I am 25, and I first read Atlas Shrugged around 2 years ago, and it was an awakening (I'm sure thats been said before.) But it so elegantly and thoroughly described the way Man should be. I always held a good deal of these beliefs, but my philosophy was never fully crystallized. In fact, our education system is engineered to keep people away from the "encumbrances" of a moral philosophy (better that they learn only to follow the group). Since I read Atlas, I have moved on and read many other of her works. I do have a couple of friends who are like minded, but it would be nice to hear from others, and I look forward to such things.