We Erred Rand

Amigo, you show uncommonly good sense, as well as good taste. I approve!

But not every traffic accident that took a human life is deemed a crime. Even in cases of manslaughter, there is a "mens rea" requirement ("a guilty mind"). In the case of a traffic accident, it makes a whole lot of difference if the unintentional taking of life occurred because lightning struck a tree, causing it to fall into the middle of the road, and causing a driver to veer suddenly; or if the unintentional taking of life occurred because the driver had been drinking, or texting, or was in some way simply inattentive to the road, and is thus, partly guilty. Same with miscarriages. If it's simply a spontaneous abortion of the pregnancy because the body sensed something wrong, that's one thing; if it miscarriages because the woman is a crack addict, a smoker, a drinker, or intentionally took undue physical risks, that's another. Additionally, it's often difficult enough establishing "mens rea " in manslaughter traffic accidents; it is even more so in miscarriages. The law often looks the other way in the many instances in which it is simply a matter of practical impossibility to establish guilt. And finally, the law often sees the unintentional loss of a fetus as punishment enough to a woman who engages in risky behavior like drinking, smoking, drug/substance abuse, etc. Marotta copied his rhetorical question above from an old blog-post by economist George Reisman. Reisman was wrong then, just as Marotta is wrong now.

Honestly, Stewed, it's difficult to do the former without simultaneously doing the latter on a site like this. Apparently, you prefer contributors who dumb themselves down in order for you and other regulars to protect your egos, and keep your fragile self-esteem intact. Sorry if I can't accommodate that. I'm selfish enough to believe that other people's self-esteem is best kept intact by them, not by me. Of course, if you're trying to find a subtly oblique way of asking for a reading list that you would find both interesting and enlightening, I'd be very happy to accommodate you. Most happy, indeed! Anyway, you seem to believe that if little Bobby beats the crap out of little Sammy on a playground in order to steal his baseball glove — or simply for the fun of it — that this is the same thing as being a "natural born leader." Quite incorrect. Leadership rests on persuasion, not threat of force. And the point, of course, is that there are different models of "human nature", Freud's being only one. Golding accepted that model as an accurate description of reality. Do you?

Any evidence for that claim? Additionally, 1) If nothing is preventing Huckabee from walking away from the GOP and forming a 3rd party, it's equally true that nothing is preventing young people, entrepreneurs, and Hispanics from forming a 3rd party. Interesting that they don't do so. 2) Hispanics tend to be Catholic and socially conservative. They are predominantly against gay marriage and abortion. Obviously, since they are here rather than in Mexico or Guatemala, they are in favor of open immigration and amnesty for those who sneaked across the border and came to the U.S. "without documents", i.e., illegally. Third parties are ineffective in the U.S., including categories like "Independent." The GOP should stick together and work out their differences, which is not impossible, except for the fact that most its politicians are simply not very smart, and most of them agree with the basic idea of the welfare state and rent-seeking. It's a fairly straightforward argument that if one is against abortion (to take one key issue), they key to reducing it radically is to get the federal government out of it entirely. Many individuals are against abortion and therefore many state's would ban it or strictly limit it — e.g., North Dakota is considering a bill to ban the procedure entirely. So if a North Dakotan lass gets herself knocked up and wants to murder her fetus, she can go to California to have it done. California could use her money. If government got out of the marriage business entirely, marriage would return to being a covenant, and not merely a state-enforced contract with a secular-property aspect to it, and without doubt, many churches and synagogues would simply decline to perform same-sex unions at the insistence of its members. If a member dislikes the policy, he is free to leave and to join a church or synagogue that more closely conformed to his values. Many people, including self-styled Objectivists, seem to be unaware that minorities such as blacks used to be overwhelmingly Republican. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, was a Republican his entire life. The reason is that, to blacks, the Democratic Party had been the party of pro-slavery in the 19th century, and the party of pro-segregation, Jim Crow laws in the 20th. White labor unions were strongholds of the Democratic Party, and they were anti-black (and anti-woman) to the core.* Allegiance to the GOP began to crumble only with the LBJ administration and the implementation of various "Great Society" welfare programs. The Democratic Party essentially bought the allegiance of blacks by convincing them that all of their problems were traceable to discrimination by whites, which could be alleviated by "special consideration" (welfare payments, affirmative action) guaranteed to them by the federal government. The only way to wean people off of getting "free stuff" from government is to convince them that they'd do even better without the government; that government is actually standing in their way of better opportunities. It's absolutely true, of course, but it's a hard sell, and it usually requires someone as knowledgeable, politically deft, and charismatic as a Reagan to pull it off. Someone like Rand Paul might have it. We'll see. * In fact, it was labor unions that originally advocated the implementation of the federally-mandated minimum wage. The purpose was to find a way of making potential competition in the field of unskilled labor — women, children, and blacks (i.e., those just starting to enter the workforce) — too expensive for an employer to hire given their lack of experience compared to a union member. In other words, unions lobbied (eventually successfully) on behalf of imposing the equivalent of a domestic tariff on low-priced, unskilled labor.

So much for man's life being the standard of value. Clearly, Marotta believes that only some men's lives serve as standards of value; other men's lives, by definition, have no value at all.

No, it isn't true to human nature; it's true to one specific model of human nature, namely, Freud's model. William Golding accepted Freud's mechanistic division of the human psyche into an Id, an Ego, and a Super-ego, and the characters in the novel are modeled after that division. The novel isn't just fiction; it's allegorical fiction, with the characters being symbolic representations of abstractions.

Yes, he must have had the requisite DNA since we still have them. Nipples are part of an organism's overall body-plan or architectural shape. Current understanding in biochemistry today is that DNA does not specify an organism's body-plan. DNA does not specify that a structure called an arm goes here, a structure shaped like a leg there, and a structure like a nipple somewhere in between. Those specifications appear to be done by something else, still unknown. DNA is a macro-molecule that stores information on protein synthesis in a 4-symbol chemical code; the symbols are the four nucleotides (Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine, or AGCT), and the code is their sequential order along the sugar double-helix (composed of ribose). Each triplet of nucleotides (called a "codon") symbolically represents some amino acid in the cell cytoplasm. Thus, DNA is a storage molecule — the "hard drive" of the cell — for storing and transmitting hereditable information regarding protein synthesis. But it appears not to have anything to do with questions regarding "phenotype", i.e., why is a human arm shaped the way it is? Why is there an opposable thumb? Why are there nipples? etc. Botanist and biochemist Rupert Sheldrake has long claimed that the overall shape of an organism is determined by the biological equivalent of a "field" which he calls the "morphogenic field." The significance of his assertion — which has generated more heat than light in scientific circles — is mainly the admission by him, and by the majority now in biochemistry, that even a full understanding of DNA will not lead to a full understanding of living organisms. The important role of DNA is now seen as quite limited. So even if we have the same DNA as Adam, that still doesn't explain why we or Adam have nipples, nor does it explain why nipples appear where they do, nor why they have the shape they do. It simply explains that the particular proteins necessary for nipples get stored and transmitted generation after generation.

The only thing an independent observer observed in this study was the raw data, comprising answers to questions by the study participants. It wasn't up to the researchers to observe the study subjects in their daily lives in order to determine "objectively" if something "objectively definable" as "bullying" was occurring or not. The only thing that matters is whether the subjects believed themselves to have been the victims of "bullying". That's the basis on which they will answer the question; i.e., what the subjects believe about their own experiences, not what the researchers believe about those experiences.

The participants in the study didn't think so. And that's all that matters. Just "dominant."

Maybe you're a woman. You did answer "Not Telling" in your profile for gender.

That would also apply to any definition of "bullying", including your use of the phrase "normal dominant and submissive personalities." The point, of course, is to define the term clearly, and in such a way that participants in the study understand it and can answer the question. Terms do not require "medically objective" definitions to be valid; they just need to be defined and understood by the research team, the study participants, and by those reading the final results. Thanks! Like you, I'm "arrogant and accommodating" when necessary.

I'd be delighted to answer! I clean latrines at a transgender escort service in a major city in "Middle America" inhabited by the "rural poor." And although your picture doesn't do you justice, I can't help but inquire: Haven't I seen you before? Are you one of the regular patrons? Or are you one of the irregular "gurls?" (Hope you enjoy those studies I linked to. Greatly looking forward to reading your usual pithy, trenchant analysis.)

The author explains how he controls for it. By "control" he means, a question that can be answered by a respondent, and then quantified as part of the pool of raw data. He explains it immediately after the sentence you put in red bold and underlined. Additionally, I controlled for having been bullied*, ... the measure for which was asked as follows: “While growing up, children and teenagers typically experience negative interactions with others. We say that someone is bullied when someone else, or a group, says or does nasty and unpleasant things to him or her. We do not consider it bullying when two people quarrel or fight, however. Do you recall ever being bullied by someone else, or by a group, such that you still have vivid, negative memories of it?”

I see. You broached the episode in AS about Ragnar's handing a bar of gold to Rearden, claiming that it was done with the exhortation, or at least the implied intention, that Rearden spend the bar of gold "on consumption", i.e., on his own pleasure. I then asked, "And did he?", meaning, "And did Rearden in fact spend this bar of gold on his own pleasure?" You answered above, "Yes. On Dagny . . . The pear-cut ruby…" As if to claim that the episode with the pear-cut ruby occurred after the episode with Ragnar and the bar of gold, as well as an effect of that meeting. But according to my edition of Atlas Shrugged — hardcover version, Random House, 17th Printing, and autographed by Miss Rand to me personally ("To We Erred Rand — Cordially, Ayn Rand") — the bit about the pear-shaped ruby occurs on page 367, and the long bit about the gold bar from Ragnar ends on page 584, more than 200 pages later; obviously, my TechnoGoth friend, the latter event could not have been the cause of the former. Additionally, the long episode with Ragnar ends with this: "He bent, picked it up and walked on" "He" is Rearden; "it" is the bar of gold wrapped in burlap. Nowhere in the novel does Miss Rand tell us what Rearden did or did not do with that bar of gold. That's why I asked originally above, "And did he?", i.e., and did Rearden, in fact, spend that bar of gold on nothing but consumption and his own pleasure? You answered confidently, "Yes." In fact, the only intellectually honest answer consistent with what's in the novel (as opposed to what you're projecting in your head) is, "We don't know. Miss Rand doesn't say." You noticed that? You're sharp! The fact is, I don't think you have any character whatsoever.

Not only did it not "plunge humanity into hundreds of years of stagnation" (an Enlightenment-era stereotype of the so-called "Dark Ages") but it made further advance possible by (among other things) carefully preserving what it could of classical learning. >>>The whole strict adherence to the scriptures thingy, or do I misunderstand history? You misunderstand history. Read: "Inventing the Middle Ages" Norman F. Cantor http://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Middle-Ages-Norman-Cantor/dp/0688123023/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365072045&sr=1-1&keywords=inventing+the+middle+ages and, "The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries" James J. Walsh http://www.amazon.com/Thirteenth-Greatest-Centuries-James-Walsh/dp/0979660726/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365072194&sr=1-1&keywords=the+thirteenth+greatest+of+centuries

What are physical processes other than things of which we are conscious? That "X" correlates with "Y" clearly means that "X" is not to be identified with "Y". Read or reread "Biology Without Consciousness (and Its Consequences)" in the Objectivist, by Robert Efron, M.D.

To be against excess is different from being against the acquisition of personal stuff. To be against gluttony is different from being against eating. You're as "acquainted" with Calvin and Luther as you are with Sowell. "Teleological" means "directed toward a goal; purposeful." It doesn't specify what the purpose is, or what it ought to be. Consumption is one purpose; glorification of God to prove one is a member of the "Elect" is another. Both are perfectly consistent with the truth about teleology. Both are perfectly consistent with economics. Neither economics nor teleology has anything to say on the matter in terms of judging which one is preferable. . And does he? Calvin urged the idea of a "calling", not merely labor: i.e., a unique kind of work suited to each individual, and to which the individual feels strongly compelled to contribute. Sounds like Howard Roark. I know. That's why you're a fantasist. From the standpoint of the non-existent Utopia you mentally inhabit (I'll bet it's called "Galch's Gulch"), a mythical place called "middle America" is populated by mythical beings called "the rural poor." You have a lot to learn about a lot of things that actually exist. And yet when it comes to defending homosexuality, polygamy, polyandry, polyamory, bestiality, incest, and sex with children, the only evidence you offer is that you claim to personally know some people who practice one, some, or all of these things. Sounds biased to me. (In fact, as the original Regnerus study points out, that's what was precisely wrong with many earlier studies of gay parenting. Not only were the samples small, but many of them were "convenience samples," i.e., samples personally known by the researchers.) Unfortunately for you. I'm not your personal research assistant, so I'm not going to post emendations to Wikipedia. Obviously, you've never gone past reading "Cliff Notes" and Wikipedia summaries of books that you should have read, and which you now lie about — to yourself and to others — by arbitrarily asserting that you're "acquainted" with the book, when in fact, you're only "acquainted" with the titles and some brief summaries compiled by anonymous others and stitched together at Wikipedia. Hey, nothing wrong with that . . . so long as you're content to remain a second-hander in scholarship. Judging by the length of your posts and the silliness of your statements, you have lots of time on your hands. Why not make good productive use of it by actually reading Sowell and Weber instead of skimming predigested summaries by others and spitting them back on your posts mixed with heaping amounts of arbitrary opinion? (Or does that whole approach sound too laboriously Calvinist to you?) Your life's "intellectual project" is to destroy a thesis that you barely grasp, by an author you barely know, in a book you've never read, but whose summary by others on Wikipedia you're "acquainted" with??? Congratulations! You are this year's winner of the coveted Peter Keating Award. (Please don't make a long "thank-you" speech, OK? Just bow, thank a few people, and get off the stage.) Instead of holding onto your preconceived, subjective, arbitrary opinions about these issues, and cherry-picking supportive statements from Rand, the Bible, Atlas Shrugged, Calvin, Rand, and Rand — a procedure known as "Confirmation Bias", and justly rebuked in another thread by that great intellect, Michael Stewed Kelly — wouldn't a more profitable approach be to ask yourself, "I wonder what all the fuss over Max Weber and is about? I think I'll read his book over the summer and try to find out for myself!" But then, why bother reading it when you already know that you disagree with it. Here are links to Regnerus's original study and his reply to critics; Schumm's study; and a reader-friendly article on gay-parenting which appeared in that conservative propaganda magazine of right-wing pro-family bigotry, National Review (eye roll), which I provide for your convenience, in case you're too busy surfing Wikipedia summaries. Enjoy! Regnerus Study 1: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610 Regnerus Study 2: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12001731 Schumm Study: http://tinyurl.com/chpsrmk National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302319/gay-parenting-bad-kids-charles-c-w-cooke

Quote Michael Stuart Kelly wrote: >>>I'm interested in seeing this evidence as I mull over the fact that I don't know of any serial killers or bloody dictators or destructive cult leaders or suicide bombers who had homosexual parents (to mention one non-heterosexual alternative). http://www.americanclarion.com/11930/2012/09/03/gay-activist-science-deniers/ "Woe to any scientist with an interest in objectively researching and reporting on “LGBT”-related issues. If your findings fail the left’s socio-political “butterflies-and-rainbows” litmus test, the “progressive” establishment will try to destroy you – guaranteed. Thus, on these matters, honest scientific inquiry will require courage. Kansas State University, July 2010: Family Studies professor Dr. Walter Schumm releases the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of homosexual “parenting.” Published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the study determined, among other things: Children raised in “gay” households are up to 12 times more likely to self-identify as “gay”; Of those in their 20s – presumably after they’d been able to work out any adolescent confusion or experimentation – 58 percent of the children of lesbians called themselves “gay,” and 33 percent of the children of “gay” men called themselves “gay.” (Contrast these rates with current studies indicating that around 3 percent of the general population is homosexual.) University of Texas-Austin, June 2012: Dr. Mark Regnerus leads a team of researchers on another peer-reviewed homosexual “parenting” study labeled: “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.” The study was published in the journal Social Science Research. Its website FAQ page summarizes the findings: “[T]he data show rather clearly that children raised by gay or lesbian parents on average are at a significant disadvantage when compared to children raised by the intact family of their married, biological mother and father.” Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink distills the research: “According to [Regnerus'] findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.” Again, you could’ve set your watch to the liberal response. They went ballistic." See, also: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57451777-10391704/kids-of-gay-parents-fare-worse-study-finds-but-draws-fire-from-experts/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I don't know about statistics regarding homosexual parents and serial killer children, but there is a link between homosexuality, per se, and serial killers: http://www.adherents.com/misc/hsk.html Gay/Homosexual Serial Killers Jeffrey Dahmer murders: 17 1978, 1988-91 homosexual cannibal. He was killed by another inmate while in prison. Andrew Cunanan murders: 5 1997 killed fashion designer Gianni Versace Luis Alfredo Garavito murders: 140+ Gay serial killer who murdered over 140 boys in Columbia. Randy Steven Kraft murders: 65 (est.) "Score Card Killer" Michael Swango murders: 35 - 60 "Doctor of Death" -- killed hospital patients Andrei Chikatilo murders: 52 Russia Fritz Haarmann murders: 40 (est.) "Butcher Of Hanover" John Wayne Gacy murders: 33 until 1978 bisexual; 27 of his victims (young boys he seduced) were found buried in crawlspace under his house. Executed in Joliet, IL. Patrick Wayne Kearney murders: 28+ gay cruising areas of Hollywood Wayne Williams murders: 27 1979-81 Gay serial killer who preyed mostly on young black male hustlers. Elmer Wayne Henley murders: 27 Bisexual. Victims were young boys who he kidnapped and tortured. [see link for more, including list of lesbian serial killers.] "Although homosexual murderers of single victims are too numerous to list here, a number of particularly famous ones include: Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (the wealthy and academically bright gay Chicago couple who murdered a boy in 1924 just for fun; their story became one of the nation's most famous murder cases, and was the basis for many movies, including Hitchcock's film "Rope"); Armin Meiwes (the sexually deviant German cannibal known as "Der Metzgermeister" - The Master Butcher, who met a victim over the Internet who he ate and killed); John E. du Pont (the gay member of the wealthy du Pont famil who shot Olympic wrestler David Schultz to death); Gary Hirte(Waupaca, WI high school senior who admitted to killing 37-year-old substitute teacher Glenn Kopitske); Karla Homolka (Canadian lesbian who murdered her own sister). Other notable gay violent criminals include Kenneth Parnell(paid $500 to "purchase" a young black boy named Steven Stayner, who he then raped and kidnapped); John Wojtowicz (whose bank robbery inspired the movie Dog Day Afternoon)." Also, see: http://www.familyresearchinst.org/2012/01/are-homosexuality-and-violence-linked/ - Yearly domestic violence reports are disproportionately homosexual - Married adults reporting domestic violence: men = 0.04%; women = 0.24% - Homosexually-partnered adults reporting domestic violence: gays = 4.6%; lesbians = 5.8% * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * http://crime.about.com/od/serial/a/dahmer.htm "Jeffrey Dahmer was responsible for a series of gruesome murders of 17 young men from 1988 until he was caught on July 22, 1991, in Milwaukee. First Kill Unknown to anyone, Jeffery Dahmer was mentally disintergrating. In June of 1988, he was struggling with his own homosexual desires, mixed with his need to act out his sadistic fantasies. Perhaps this struggle is what pushed him to pick up a hitchhiker, 19-year-old Steven Hicks. He invited Hicks to his father's home and the two drank and engaged in sex, but when Hicks was ready to leave Dahmer bashed him in the head with a barbell and killed him. He then cut up the body, placing the parts in garbage bags, which he buried in the woods surrounding his father's property. Years later he returned and dug up the bags and crushed the bones and disbursed the remains around the woods. As insane as he had become, he had not lost site of the need to cover his murderous tracks. Later his explanation for killing Hicks was simply, he didn't want him to leave." In September 1986, he was arrested and charged with public exposure after masturbating in public. He served 10 months in jail, but was arrested soon after his release after sexually fondling a 13-year-old boy in Milwaukee. He was given five-years probation after convincing the judge that he needed therapy. His father, unable to understand what was happening to his son, continued to stand by him, making certain he had good legal councel. He also began to accept that there was little he could do to help the demons which seemed to rule Dahmer's behavior. He realized that his son was missing a most basic human element - a conscience. Murder Spree In September 1987, while on probation on the molestation charges, Dahmer met 26-year-old Steven Toumi and the two spent the night drinking heavily and cruising gay bars, then went to a hotel room. When Dahmer awoke from his drunken stupor he found Toumi dead. Dahmer put Toumi's body into a suitcase which he took to his grandmother's basement. There he discarded the body in the garbage after dismembering it, but not before gratifying his sexual necrophilia desires." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Below is an interesting — and infamous — "underground" history of homosexuality and Naziism, "The Pink Swastika." http://www.thepinkswastika.com/5201.html Excerpt from Tab: "HMX Roots of NP": It was a quiet night in Munich. The people moving along the streets in the heart of the city were grim. They walked heads down, hands deep in the pockets of their frayed coats. All around, the spirit of defeat hung like a pall in the evening air; it was etched on the faces of the out-of-work soldiers on every street corner and in every café. Germany had been defeated in the war, but it had been crushed by the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Everywhere the people were still mired in depression and despair, several years after the humiliating surrender of Kaiser Wilhelm. In this atmosphere the purposeful stride of Captain Ernst Roehm (pictured above) seemed out of place. But Roehm was accustomed to being different. A homosexual with a taste for boys, Roehm was part of a growing subculture in Germany which fancied itself a superior form of German manhood. A large, heavy man, Roehm had been a professional soldier since 1906, and, after the war, had temporarily lent his talents to a socialist terror organization called the Iron Fist. On this night Roehm was on his way to meet some associates who had formed a much more powerful socialist organization. At the door of the Bratwurstgloeckl, a tavern frequented by homosexual roughnecks and bully-boys, Roehm turned in and joined the handful of sexual deviants and occultists who were celebrating the success of a new campaign of terror. Their organization, once known as the German Worker’s Party, was now called the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, The National Socialist German Worker’s Party — the Nazis. Yes, the Nazis met in a “gay” bar. It was no coincidence that homosexuals were among those who founded the Nazi Party. In fact, the party grew out of a number of groups in Germany which were centers of homosexual activity and activism. Many of the characteristic rituals, symbols, activities and philosophies we associate with Nazism came from these organizations or from contemporary homosexuals. The extended-arm “Sieg Heil” salute, for example, was a ritual of the Wandervoegel (“Wandering Birds” or “Rovers”), a male youth society which became the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The Wandervoegel was started in the late 1800s by a group of homosexual teenagers. Its first adult leader, Karl Fischer, called himself “der Fuehrer” (“the Leader”) (Koch:25f). Hans Blueher, a homosexual Nazi philosopher and important early member of the Wandervoegel, incited a sensation in 1912 with publication of The German Wandervoegel Movement as an Erotic Phenomenon, which told how the movement had become one in which young boys could be introduced into the homosexual lifestyle (Rector:39f). The Wandervoegel and other youth organizations were later merged into the Hitler Youth (which itself became known among the populace as the “Homo Youth” because of rampant homosexuality. - Rector:52).

It doesn't, unless one is trying reduce consciousness to nothing but matter. However, given that our conceptions of physical matter rests on our perceptions of physical matter — light, color, hardness, softeness, texture, weight, etc. — and that there are no percepts without consciousness, I think it would be more accurate to say that physical matter depends on consciousness.

>>>>I did not repeat the same imprecision. I merely disagree with your arguments — such as they are. Most of what you've posted, however, appears to be straw-man arguments. I've specified "classically liberal", too. However, the term at issue is not "liberal" but "conservative." You claimed that conservative values have gone on about the evils of greed; I corrected you, because you distorted the historical record. Ayn Rand didn't endorse greed, either. Specifically "the grasping" kind of greed. She also didn't approve of it throughout Atlas Shrugged when presenting businessmen who acquired their fortunes through the extortionary method of rent-seeking rather than production. The profit-making "greed" was approved by Calvin, as it was by Protestantism in general. Read "The Protestant Work Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber. See, especially, the quotes Weber has culled by Benjamin Franklin extolling the morality of profit-making. Please discard your unintelligibility. What a careful thinker and writer would have said is, "And Progressivism has a long history of desiring the State to administer and enforce social and behavioral reform in the individual, as opposed to social conservatives' preferred method of achieving individual reform, which was generally to keep the state out of it altogether, and, rather, to strengthen ties that were natural to the individual — i.e., family, church, etc. — in order to foster a voluntary change in the individual BY the individual." If Progressives' method was to ban alcohol, and Conservatives' method was to seek "counsel" of family, minister, etc., that they both had the similar of goal of decreasing the number of drunks on the streets scarcely means they two ideological camps overlapped in their long histories. What you *asserted arbitrarily with no supporting examples or evidence." was that the values of social conservativism are anti-tech and anti-science. Um, prove it. Provide some concrete examples. >>>Social conservatives often express horror and revulsion at biotech (Leon Kass is a great example) No he isn't. Good grief, you have no sense of proportion. Kass (and many social conservatives) object specifically to 1) cloning of human beings, and 2) the killing of human embryos in order to farm "pluripotent" stem cells from them. You apparently take those two things and make the blanket claim that he expresses revulsion at "biotech" in general, which is utter nonsense. The "incidental" component being industriousness, future-orientedness, and that institutions that support it: family, children, etc. Read Max Weber's work on the Protestant Work Ethic. He didn't think it these things were incidental. I agree with him. Apparently, so did Ludwig von Mises, a secular Jew. And I agree with him, too. The only intelligibility I can see to your use of the term "incidental" is "yes, I agree it happened to have worked historically, but I personally don't like these aspects of Christianity . . . . because it interferes with fun stuff I like to do, such as have lots of promiscuous sex with lots of people of both genders because, hey, sex is enjoyable!" Aside from that, I see no meaning in your use of incidental. . No it isn't. I can tell that you're not even superficially acquainted with Sowell's book. Like Ayn Rand's trashing of Rawls's book on ethics without having read it, you give a thumbnail sketch of Sowell's book either based on some other review you've read or on word of mouth. Sowell admits very early on that he's arbitrarily dividing an ideological continuum and that there are admixtures of both elements within the systems of many intellectuals both from the left and from the right. Secondly, he's not taking sides on this issue; he's merely illuminating what pure positions are so that one can more accurately judge a historical figure, or a contemporary system. He does no such thing, and I have the book in front of me. The only consideration is that IF we grant the existence of a human nature (irrespective of what we think it is), then we deny that it is also infinitely malleable in the crucible of invented social institutions (e.g., education). Sowell himself makes no claim about mankind being inherently good, or evil, or fallen, or not fallen, or smart, or stupid. The only claim is that whatever, the nature is, the constrained vision claims that the most manmade institutions like education can do is "sharpen" that nature a little bit in one direction; it cannot actually alter it. And Sowell, of course, does point out that views on human nature held by precisely those enlightenment thinkers you admire: Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers of the US, etc. Yes, so the polyamorous and homosexuals tell us, but there's little evidence for it, and it remains an arbitrary assertion. So far as raising children is concerned, there is evidence that anything outside of traditional heterosexual couple marriages is psychologically harmful to children (including, of course, single parent families). Naturally, the left doesn't want to hear this, and neither do gays. Additionally, one could also marry one's mother, father, sister, brother, or household pet. The question is: do most people want to live in a society with social units consisting of mothers and sons (or mothers and daughters) married to one another; or a polyamorous father with his own daughter and his own niece; not to mention a unit comprising a boy and his dog; or would most normal heterosexual married couples find it simply disgusting (as Ayn Rand averred about homosexuality), and just plain unacceptable? Moreover, one can forge a society that is tolerant of deviant behavior (up to a point, of course) without declaring such deviancy to be "just another choice, as good as any other choice" and then try to mainstream it by teaching courses on it to children.

You first admit that you used words imprecisely. Then you repeat the same imprecision as before (except with slightly different words). Then you conclude by saying "Hope that clarifies everything!" Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive social values that have gone on about the evils of greed. Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive values — especially enshrined in, e.g., pro-labor-union policies, that have expressed suspicion of technological innovation. You haven't paid attention to the ongoing skirmishes regarding minimum wage legislation: it's been clear for a long time that as the minimum wage is increased, many employers replace workers with machines. This is very common, especially in retail stores, many supermarket chains, etc., which now have "automatic checkout" lines. It simply requires one or two employees to keep a watch on things, or to help a customer with scanning his items and pushing the right buttons to complete the purchase. The progressive-left hate this trend . . . blaming it all on the pure greed of the employers who won't simply swallow a loss of X-dollars per hour per marginal employee. This is all the sophisticated left/liberal/elite-educated city-dwellers who are making these arguments, not the imaginary "rural poor" of Wichita. Precisely. That's the beauty of it, and that's the beauty of capitalism: by following one's self-interest, the unintended (but inevitable) upshot is that the rest of society benefits, too. At this point, I suggest you read, or reread, Thomas Sowell's brilliant little book, "A Conflict of Visions," in which he contrasts liberal and conservative (uh, I mean "rural poor") by reference to terms corresponding to their ultimate beliefs about human nature: the "unconstrained vision" vs. the "constrained vision". "Unconstrained" refers to the libs' belief that human nature is infinitely malleable . . . if only he and his co-ideologues had control of certain key institutions that inform a person's values, e.g., education, family, religion, the media. Human nature is, in his view, "unconstrained." The unconstrained view of the "rural poor" is that human nature is what it is, and so long as humans remain human, will always be what it is: human nature has an identity that is not malleable, only capable of being influenced in small amounts in one direction or another. In a hyper-rarified theoretical way, I suppose so. The fact is, when individuals are focused on the future as an important goal for its own sake, the tendency will be to incorporate other values that complement and support it: i.e., marriage, fidelity, family, children. I don't know where you got the idea that "Don't be selfish, be humble! Don't think for yourself" are examples of conservative social values. Would you mind providing evidence? Sounds to me as if you have the Amish in mind as "typical examples" of middle America, rather than, e.g., a typical Protestant family in Fargo. This is all fantasy on your part. LOL! Since the reality is that it is overwhelmingly conservatives — many of them religious conservatives — who home-school their children. Liberal/progressives believe in public education. Swinging, polyamory, promiscuity, same-sex marriage, early-childhood sex education, etc., obviously work against strengthening family bonds. The whole idea is to pull children away from families and into the loving arms of the State. One way of doing that (though not the only way) is to sexualize them very early on, so that the association with "sex" is only to "self pleasure" and to nothing else. Then they can rely on the State for birth control; they can rely on the State for sex-change operations; they can rely on the State for abortions; they can rely on the State for lifelong HIV treatments (all of which being parts of ObamaCare today). One can, but one wouldn't. Why waste time laboriously teaching children at hoe what they would already get in public school with no effort on your part except to pay a few property taxes to the school system? Odd, then, that we never see it. The value of "have a good time, all the time, TODAY" would lead, and has led, to policies that simply divide existing wealth instead of producing more of it. I love how you jump to unwarranted conclusions. Lots of MDs today practice "alternative medicine" as part of integrative, or complementary, medicine. You don't have to be "counter-culture" for that. >>>Seventh: Atheistic, Rationalistic and Libertine.... well, the Atheistic Rationalistic cultures of the Soviet Union were HARDLY libertine. I never claimed NKorea was libertine. The "and" in my sentence was meant simply to include cultures that had one or more of these characteristics, not necessarily all three simultaneously. And I'm simply saying that is typical of any economy rebounding from tyrannical statism, IF they don't want to wait many decades to deepening their own capital. That should be obvious, so I fail to understand why you even bring up Japan and China. If African nations were smart, they would adopt the same sort of "poaching" so they could join the rest of us in the 21st century. These "micro-finance" policies might be nice in a touchy-feely sort of way, but they'll never help them raise wages by raising their productivity. Huh? Farm subsidies — like any subsidy — might be incompatible with strict laissez faire, but they aren't incompatible with "more free markets." We don't have socialism just because we have farm subsidies or tariffs on sugar. Those policies hamper the normally smooth functioning of capitalism but they don't undercut the entire system. Additionally, you lump everyone together in a convenient pigeon hole (saves time and mental effort). It's not "middle America" that embraces farm subsidies, but, specifically, FARMERS and their influential lobbies. Thanks to capitalism, farms are so productive per acre today, we don't actually need too many of them to feed the entire country (and much of the world). In the late 18th century, over 90% of the workforce had farm-related jobs; today it's less than 2%! That's hardly a big swath of "middle America." Rather, it's a small influential special-interest group. The rest of the country — including the "rural poor" of "middle America" — hate it. I guess because they don't like it when the homeland is attacked. Lots of liberals, for example, secretly side with jihadists, since both are anti-capitalist. They don't. They don't fear "less restricted" immigration; they dislike ILLEGAL immigration. You see no difference? I do. So do most people. Furthermore, they learned from Milton Friedman that you cannot have a policy of open immigration if you're a welfare state. Do you include Milton Friedman among the "rural poor"? >>>And of course, free markets in drugs and porn scare them. The barrier between social and economic issues is in many ways a completely artificial separation. Regulated markets in drugs and sex are incompatible with laissez faire, but not incompatible with "more free markets" as you phrased it above. And while it's obviously inconsistent with a full commitment to individual liberty, I also don't think we're missing much in terms of "future-orientedness" and innovation by regulating them. My own problem with regulating them is not that we'd gain some sort of great social value by leaving them freely accessible; it's that the opportunity cost of policing these things is much too high, and people's hard-earned capital would be better redirected elsewhere.

No it doesn't. You fail to understand how the CIE Chromaticity Diagram was constructed. That line corresponds to blackbody illumination and represents the colors on the chart the test subjects could perceive as white. The middle of the chart, at (x=0.33, y=0.33) is "equal energy white," but anywhere along that line is also "white." The orthogonal lines are "isotherms," which give a correlation between that point and some other color on the chart. The greens and magentas therefore have "correlated color-temperature." Obviously not. If you're looking at the CIE diagram on a printed page, for example, under incandescent illumination, the lime green at the top of the chart, or the cyans, it means those wavelengths are already in white light, and are therefore being produced by heating the black filament to "x" degrees kelvin. The issue in perception is that a blackbody (like a filament) always produces R/G/B at all times and at all temperatures — there are no spectrum gaps, merely different biases toward Red, Green, or Blue. There is no temperature that corresponds to lots of lime-green wavelength sans red and blue at the same time. The lime green wavelength is produced by the blackbody — that's why you see it on the printed page under the sad little bare bulb in your doghouse — but the high amounts of "red" also being produced would cause both the "red" and the "green" cones in the fovea to fire, causing you to see "yellow." Something that absorbs red — a blue-green filter, or a chemical property of the ink used in printing the CIE diagram — would be necessary in order to view the lime green. But if you're seeing the lime green, it's by virtue of the fact that it's already in white light produced by a heated blackbody. By definition, as shown above, they are already "in" white light from a blackbody. That's why you see them when the printed page (or backlit computer monitor) is illuminated. The horseshoe-shaped curve at the top has numbers around it representing the correlated wavelength used to generate that colored light for the test subjects. The exception is not the greens or the cyans, but the "line of purples" at the bottom of the chart, which, as your master could plainly tell you (since you appear to have problems reading), has no single wavelength numbers correlated to it (i.e., they don't even exist in the prismatic spectrum of sunlight. They are "extra-spectral". That means they correspond to no single wavelength, and can only be achieved by mixing two or more wavelengths. Surprisingly, I was wrong about purple. Unsurprisingly, you were wrong about everything. Someone should tell your master to clean up the data-dumps you've been leaving on this thread in amusing canine attempts to dodge my replies to your arbitrary assertions regarding precise duplicability of natural contexts such as a beach scene. Someone should really clean those up in a pooper-scooper. As they say in the U.K.: you're fouling the footpath.

>>>That's not true. Color-matching can be achieved mechanically using filters and a densitometer, including by a blind person. Wrong. The blind person would still need to see a color as a reference, first to calibrate the densitometer, and then to compensate for color-constancy issues and metamerism between similar hues under different lighting sources (which would incorrectly tell the blind person the hues were different), or different hues under different lighting sources (which would incorrectly tell the blind person the hues were identical). Densitometers measure density, not color. You earlier made an arbitrary assertion about "duplicability": The context was that you claimed the entire beach scenario was perfectly duplicable in principle irrespective of technical difficulties in moving the sun, earth, clouds, etc., back into their original positions at "t=0". I pointed out that this is impossible in principle, and not merely technically difficult: the exact position of the earth at "t=0" can never be recaptured at a later time "t=n" because there is no fixed point in space relative to to which you could claim the earth had been returned. The earth could be in the approximate position relative to the sun after a year; the sun-earth system could be in a similar position relative to the rest of the solar system after "x" years; the solar system could be in a similar position relative to the Milky Way after "y years," etc., etc., but these would only positions relative to something else; it wouldn't mean the earth was literally in the same spot as it was at "t=0", which is the first condition that needs to be met for your claim regarding duplicability. Additionally, weather conditions at "t=0" have aspects about them that are stochastic — irreproducible because unique at "t=0" and only at "t=0". Since weather would obviously affect ambient lighting at the beach, that rather means that entire scenario could only be approximated "in the eye of the beholder." That removes the blind man entirely. Another way of putting this is that there are no blind swimwear photographers (at least, not at "Sports Illustrated"). You mean, you never wondered why? You made a big deal earlier in this thread regarding the ability to precisely duplicate the beach scenario, maintaining that the problems were merely practical in nature, and not physical or mathematical. Then you ducked the entire issue and never responded. Still waiting patiently.

Sorry, but if all matter is coalesced into a single point (as is claimed by Big Bang Theory), there is no motion to measure. By your own definition, therefore, time wouldn't exist. Since according to you, time is a measurement of motion — i.e., motion of entity A relative to entity B — it requires at least two entities. If there's only one entity comprising the universe, there's nothing to measure, and therefore, no time. And by your own terms, there would also be no space.

But the idea of life arising from merely chemical and physical properties inherent in matter (perpetually "as yet undiscovered") is beyond chemistry and physics, specifically, the 2nd law.