moralist

I know... I'm one of them. I'm a VFW. Greg

...and on the topic of Jews. You just have to see this movie, "The Infidel". It's a good natured comedy about a Muslim who discovers he was born Jewish and adopted by Muslims, so he prevails on his neighbor to teach him how to be Jewish. You will laugh out loud at this one. Here's the trailer...

No, I don't. Repeating (I think this post was overlooked, since it appeared just a couple minutes before one of Carol's): Eddie told Dagny to leave without him and that he didn't want to go. Ellen Thanks for the reminder, Ellen. While I didn't remember the content of the exchange between Dagny and Eddie, I would have remembered if she had betrayed him because it would have seemed to be out of character. Greg

No, I don't.

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life. The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level. Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow. (edited to expand on a few ideas). A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people. --Brant That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie. The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one. And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard. Greg I know you have a train for those tracks because the top of them is shiny. --Brant did it break down and you didn't know how to get it going again?--did a wagon train come down your street which you refused to join? My train is human powered...

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life. The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level. Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow. (edited to expand on a few ideas). A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people. --Brant That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie. The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one. And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard. Greg I know you have a train for those tracks because the top of them is shiny. --Brant did it break down and you didn't know how to get it going again?--did a wagon train come down your street which you refused to join? My train is human powered. The "ugliness" I see is outcome-based elitism founded in self-serving circular logic. You've managed to succeed despite overbearing government, so therefore everyone can, and government is not really a problem to anyone at all. Yes. If I can with only limited skills and no education to speak of... anyone else can. Each person's experience of government is created by how we live. It is only an opportunistic agent of self inflicted suffering caused by our own failure to properly order our own lives. Angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) the government as if it's our enemy does nothing to change anyone's life for the better. It can only make things worse. Anyone who changes how they live will automatically change their experience of government.

Our own inevitable deaths are certainly ample proof of that. However, we do have the choice to rule over our own nature for the time we are alive.

So you feel that Eddie was betrayed?

This is religion in its ugliest form: narcissistic self-exaltation. You're the person who survives a mall shooting, walks up to the nearest camera and declares, "God has a plan for me!" as the preschooler and Sunday school teacher who were standing next to you at Dippin' Dots are wheeled past their grieving family members in body bags. The only difference is government is the gunman who has (so far) spared you from its rampage. It's rank egocentrism gussied up with a Tony Robbins endorsement and knock-off Objectivist dust jacket for marketing to secular audiences. It's doctrinaire self-help rubbish, and it doesn't bother me emotionally; it's an affront to the intelligence of your audience who are capable of recognizing shades of gray. What good is it doing your own life to misascribe to me views and attitudes that I don't actually hold? Why fabricate things that aren't true just to argue against them? There's also another difference between our two views, Robert. When I see others aspiring to become better people I see beauty and not ugliness. My wife and I watched an exquisite movie about just that last night. It's called "Buck". It's about someone who became a good man. The wisdom and moral character he learned to develop in himself are truly remarkable. It's well worth your time to watch it. Greg

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life. The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level. Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow. (edited to expand on a few ideas). A mouse in a maze may exult in its choices but that's ignorance. I have a more expansive view of human being and activity, moral suasion and gravitas than you seem to. I don't object to your general approach--for you--just don't find it very interesting, but it takes all kinds and many kinds are still possible even in the United States of Obama. Ayn Rand may have made a mistake if she conflated individualism with a theorectical person's lack of need for other people. We are all social animals, but the amount and type of need for that is all over the human interactive map. I remember once hiking in the Grand Canyon coming on an old mining camp's remnants. That people had been there decades before digging mine shafts was much more interesting to me than the canyon itself. I love old railroad beds and no longer used rr tracks. Such things are a handshake with the human productive past and represent social gratification of one of many types to me. I once stopped at a rr crossing in New Mexico. I got out and sat on the hood of my car and waved at the train engineer who waved back as the diesel locomotive and a long train of boxcars went slowly past. Freedom destroys the exoskeleton of slavery and would be enslavers enabling human expansiveness and benevolence even for those who don't appreciate it, but freedom has to be fought for, protected and won by someone/somebodies somehow or the maze simply gets smaller and smaller thanks to indifferent and bad people. --Brant That's interesting, Brant. I don't see Ayn Rand as implying not needing people, just not needing government. Even the iconic highly idealized individualistic characters in AS relied heavily on the honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness of others who shared their moral values... like Dagny relied on Eddie. The only way I know to preserve the rights I inherited from those who came before me is to honor them by living a life deserving of those rights. Ayn Rand's openly expressed love of American Capitalism inspired me to become one. And I share your love of the wistful beauty of abandoned rail right of ways... enough to scale model one on in my yard. Greg

I now know what bothers me about your philosophy - thank you for bringing it into focus with these latest comments. It's black-and-white absolutism married to a dogmatic faith in just deserts. In your simplistic worldview, everything happens for a reason directly tied to a person's own faults or virtues: if someone is successful, it's because they're a good, smart, proactive person and deserve the good fortune; if unsuccessful, it's because they're a bad, dumb, reactive person and got what was coming. There's no allowance for natural variation in outcomes, no acceptance that, in the real world, bad things can happen to good people or the opposite. It's moral utopianism adopted for your own emotional and intellectual convenience. Hey, you've done alright, so it's obviously because of your overwhelming virtues and cleverness. Others struggle, but they have only themselves to blame for it, so pay them little heed. It's self-indulgent theistic hogwash based on a willful ignorance of the inherent arbitrariness of life. The nature and tenor of your response defines another difference between us. Other people's philosophies don't bother me, because that's their own free choice. They made their choice just as I did. And they're the ones who get the consequences they deserve by their own free choice just as I do. I'm not exempt from the moral law of gravity. No one is. The playing field is perfectly level. Everything that happens does serve a reason and a purpose, and that reason and purpose is to teach us how to become better people. And just as you are free to deny the causality of the consequences of your own actions, I'm just as free to affirm it. So we each already have our personal choice and everything that unfolds from it already within our own lives. It's not so much what happens to us, but what we do about it that makes all the difference. For the consequences of our choices today determine the basis from what we will chose tomorrow. (edited to expand on a few ideas).

You're right. I have absolutely no sympathy for people who gave the government their sanction to become its victims. They stick their head in the noose and then whine about rope burns. So many people have literally pissed away their freedom in their need for the government to make someone else pay their bills. The government is only what people have demanded it to be. And each individual's own personal experience of getting the government they deserve is the direct consequence of how they are living their life. So if you feel that you are not getting the government you deserve, change how you are living, and you will. I don't know yet why you're trying to ascribe a view to me that I don't hold, especially when I've said nothing about foreign countries.. I'm sure there is a reason, but I don't see it yet. Gee... thanks for your good wishes, Robert. I don't think you understand the ramifications of that attitude, because if you did, you'd have dropped it yesterday and wouldn't still be holding onto it today. Greg

I agree to the extent that one should not be a willing martyr for liberty. Where I think your agorist philosophy runs aground is with the assumption that you can outrun statist incrementalism indefinitely if only you are clever enough. The reality is if you ignore the problem long enough and allow government to grow, it will come after you and your business eventually. Or if it isn't done overtly, it will wreck your local economy and neighborhood so there is nowhere left to hide or do business, as happened in my home state of Rhode Island. Try doing business with no customers. I found this old piece of wisdom to hold true: "For every temptation, there is a way of escape." Catastrophes are never uniformly distributed, and neither is statist incrementalism. In fact, the more bloated and convoluted the bureaucracy, the more cracks there are through which to fall. There are always boundless opportunities to creatively adapt to the changing world around us, but that creative adaption demands that our attention be placed upon the micro moral choices which impact our lives far more than any government ever could, because only those small nuances have the power to set into motion the beneficial circumstances which form the foundation for the next choice. In business, catastrophes are also never uniform. There are always Capitalists who know how to immunize themselves against economic and political plagues, and these are the people with whom I do business. Among the finest vaccines known are decency, responsibility, productivity, solvency and frugality. These moral principles work together to create a healthy immune system which is strong enough to protect us from a "dirty" world. The government is not the enemy. It is only the creation of millions of fools who expect someone else to pay their bills. If there is any real enemy, it is to be found in how I live, so that is where I place my attention. Every large event is always preceded by a string of small omens. If our attention is diverted away from our own lives, we miss those omens and expose ourselves to becoming collateral damage.

I can name him... And I'm a distinct minority at the other side of the spectrum because over the years I've found that secret manipulative cabals and international banking conspiracies have almost no effect on my daily life when compared to the personal moral choices I make. Those macro issues can become emotional distractions which can divert attention away from the personal failure to properly address the micro moral issues in life. A man I know said: "It's more important what you do in your house, than what they do in the White House." So while global events are great for their entertainment value and I enjoy them immensely... only the small stuff really matters.

Greg, Sigh... I don't work that way. But let's play it your way for a minute. What is an HONEST exaggeration? All exaggerations are lies if you want to do semantics. You're right, Michael. It wasn't meant to imply a semantic loophole. There is no such thing as an honest exaggeration. Everything I posted is true. Real world business experience accounts for my regard for Jews I know personally.

Greg, I have no problem with blessings. And I even resonate with your enthusiasm. I, too, go overboard when I feed gratitude. My issue is making exaggerations that lead others to hatred or that pokes a stick at the wounds of their hatred. Exaggerations never work in the long haul for getting rid of it. They actually increase the hatred and strengthen it. But the truth can be devastating when enough people stand by it. Michael That may hold true for dishonest exaggeration, except that I'm not engaging in that behavior, Michael. When I started my own business 34 years ago, the very first man for whom I did work was Jew. He liked my work and recommended me to his relatives, his friends, and his business associates. My whole business originated from one man. To this day I have never spent one penny on advertising or promotion in any form, as all of my business is solely by recommendation from one person to another. Since people with shared moral values associate with each other, I'm blessed with an abundance of people with whom I do business, all of whom also share my moral values. In business, trust is the invisible glue which holds everything good and right and true together. So when the trustworthy uphold the trust of those who are worthy of their trust, the wealth creating engine of Capitalism achieves perpetual motion because it has no internal friction. Today I am completely financially independent and never need to worry about money for the rest of my life... and everything unfolded from one Jew who blessed my life. Greg

Fair enough, Michael. Thanks for allowing me to offer my minority view of positive bigotry as a counterpoint to the prevailing negative bigotry. My favorable disposition toward Jews ( that should be qualified as decent Jews) is the result of over 30 years of personal business experience. So it was not arrived at lightly. It was not a view which was reverse engineered from a theory, but rather from the overwhelming weight of direct personal evidence confirming a pre existing fact. They have blessed my life. Greg

They can do more than know how much money you have in the bank. They can take it out. So what? A mosquito can bite you and kill you with malaria. Should I continue with more examples? I freely chose not to live like that a long time ago. However, you are free to if that is your wish.

Wow... this thread itself validates the point that the Jews are God's chosen people far better than I ever could. What other tiny group of people could possibly possess the power to capture so much attention and cause such an outpour of emotional energy from so many people? The Jews even caused the creation of the United Nations whose the sole purpose for existence is to sanction Israel. I rest my case.

Yes. It offers no end of personal satisfaction to be rewarded handsomely for literally making people's dreams real. It is the highest compliment for a Capitalist to be paid happily by a satisfied client.

See I am confused by citing an old occult book and transporting it into a piece of evidence in our current arguments. It is definitely thousands of years old, and the meaning is certainly occult to some. And it elicits two basic antithetical reactions. Love or hate. Rather than a response to anyone's arguments, it is just a description of a principle which I found to consistently ring true time and time again by my own direct personal life experience. But since personal experience is purely anecdotal and not transferrable to others, you are perfectly free to offer your own life experience as proof of its invalidity for you.

He certainly could have been. I was solely commenting on the source of the verse, not on it's perceived veracity. That is purely a personal choice which has absolutely nothing to do with others.Veracity is a personal choice? No. Not veracity. Perceived veracity. It's purely a personal choice either to love truth or to love lies and call them truth. And each of us gets the consequences we deserve in our own life as our teacher to patiently show us moment by moment which is which.

(God says to Abraham) 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you with abundant increase of favors and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing dispensing good to others. 3 And I will bless those who bless you and curse him who curses you; in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed and by you they will bless themselves. (Genesis 12:2.3) The Jews are God's chosen people. They have blessed my life in uncountable ways, and I consider it an honor to serve them. Most people don't realize what they set into motion by their own actions. When they curse the Jews they're cursing their own life.

It's in the New Testament and it is a reference to Christ. John 1:1 Amplified Bible (AMP) 1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word ([a]Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [b]Himself. The original language of the Gospel according to John was Greek. "Logos" is the Greek word translated as "Word." "Logos" was an embracing term, encompassing "ordering principle" generally.How do the Amplified Bible people arrive at this term being equated with Christ? In a quick and unsuccessful Google to try to find some background on that interpretation, I came across this discussion of the differences between John and the synoptic gospels http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/john.html The material is part of a Connecticut PBS "Frontline" series From Jesus to Christ.Ellen That is not the only New testament source referring to Christ as the Word of God. Here is a far more graphic direct reference to Christ: Revelation 19:11-13 11 After that I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse [appeared]! The One Who was riding it is called Faithful (Trustworthy, Loyal, Incorruptible, Steady) and True, and He passes judgment and wages war in righteousness (holiness, justice, and uprightness). 12 His eyes [blaze] like a flame of fire, and on His head are many kingly crowns (diadems); and He has a title (name) inscribed which He alone knows or can understand. 13 He is dressed in a robe dyed by [c]dipping in blood, and the title by which He is called is The Word of God. ...and getting religious information from secular leftist government subsidized PBS is like getting information about the Holocaust from Amahdinejad. No, it is not. That is an outrageously false analogy. This difference between our two views defines where we each put our trust. I don't trust secular liberal government grant funded sources... and you do.

Of course not, Ellen. That's because you need to ask your question of those who translated the Amplified Bible. I can't speak on their behalf... only for myself. Greg