moralist

(shrug...) So what if she bought it with Frank. That doesn't invalidate my point. Greg

You got it, Brant. Arguments are just one pointless impotent virtual intellectual idea pitted against another pointless impotent virtual intellectual idea. They resolve NOTHING. Whereas the validity of my point of view is made by the results of what I actually DO in the REAL WORLD. Every blessing I enjoy in my life today is the result of just ONE thing... doing what's morally right. That's God's promise which He keeps to anyone who does what's morally right... regardless of whether or not they believe in Him. God doesn't need your belief. Doing what's morally right isn't for His benefit... ...it's for your own good. Greg

Sorry, Brant... not me. I'm not a collectivist government teatsucker who needs "mommie" to take care of me. I'm an autonomous independent private sector American Capitalist who produces FAR more than I consume. That's the secret of wealth... producing more than you consume. At 69 I'm still active in my regular business which I started from scratch 38 years ago, as well as entrepreneurial side ventures I do for the fun of it. I pay income, business, sales, and property taxes for my fair share of government and public inrastructure use. I didn't need the government to educate me, for my education came from the real world of business. I don't need the government to employ me, because I create my own jobs. I don't need the government to feed me, for I earn the money to buy my own food and also grow my own food on my own land as well. I don't need the government to house me, for I worked to earn the money to build my own house. I don't need the government underwrite my debts, for I don't owe anyone... not even one cent. I don't need the government to indemnify me against calamities, for I don't need insurance because I have enough capital to self insure. I don't need the government to take care of my health, because I maintain my own health at my own expense. So now... what do ALL of these activities have in common? They are ALL individual activities independent of the government. Ayn Rand worked to earn the capital to build this: I worked to earn the capital to build this... To me, Ayn Rand's words aren't just impotent virtual intellectual fantasies only to be studied and pored over like a blind bureaucratic scribe... ...they're REAL concrete ACTIONS... because I MADE them REAL. Greg

I love Zerohedge. It's like an economic Drudge Report... and an ideal soapbox for Project Veritas. Geg

Brant, the size and growth of government could never determined by just one man. Big government is solely driven by how a critical mass of the population lives... and they are all suckling on government benefits. This is what creates big government... ...parasites. Greg

What Bob's liberal groupspeak "we" is really saying it that HE isn't a Capitalist... and that HE feeds off of a welfare state with some market elements. What Bob will never understand is that American Capitalism is not collective in nature, but is the product of productive independent sovereign self motivated individuals who share the same ethical values... and not a useless group of weak collectivist bureaucratic pinheaded pencilpushing teat suckers. My being an American Capitalist is independent of Bob's collectivist "we"... however, I do count on other independent productive Americans with whom to do business... but only because they share my values. Greg

This is something to which the musically cultured Ellen is tone deaf. While airy fairy artsy stuff evokes gushes of emotion, the real heroes who put their lives on the line to keep evil people from destroying her freedom to gush receive only liberalesque spoiled entitled ingratitude. Yuck. Ingratitude... the ugliest of human sentiments. Greg

They were alive when their actions earned my gratitude... which continues to endure long after they're dead. Gratitude is the foundation for happiness, and happy people make the world better because they are better people for being happy. There are no more unhappy people than spoiled entitled ingrates. Only ungrateful angry blamers do evil. Greg

Excellent point. It's good to have concern for others. There's no need for that concern for others to eclipse your own unless you understand beforehand that acting on that concern improves your moral character. Only then is it in your own best interest to do so. Greg

Good... neither do I. I get my news off the internet from sources I choose as alternatives to secular liberal statist network TV news. Greg

That's not my local community. It's also something over which I had no control. While I cast one vote, I had absolutely no control over how other people voted. In fact in my state a leftist c**t got 3,000,000,000 more votes than the President got. You seem to be having difficulty making distinctions between things which are obviously not the same. Are you able to realize there is a difference between the reality of what goes on in my local community and the fantasies of ratings driven commercial network TV news? You don't notice how TV news molds your view of the world because you both belong to the same secular poitical religion. It's preaching to the choir. Greg

Baloney. When I want to know what's going on in my local community, I simply talk with my neighbors. Greg

Yeah... like human caused catastrophic global warming! That's a lie tailor made for government worshipping secularist suckers... and they lap it up like dogs on vomit. TV news constantly moves from crisis to crisis in order to keep people angry upset and fearful... because that's how it keeps them watching. And it's always about things over which they have no control. It's important to keep people feeling like helpless victims so that they'll cry to their mommie government for it to care for them like little babies. TV news is insidious because it hides lies inside truths to further the media's agenda of promoting the political religion of secular statism. Greg

While that's ah accurate description, Arkadi... ...a distinction still hasn't been made. So the two remain regarded as moral equivalents when in reality they are not. Novels aren't lying to you about being real. TV news is lying to you about being real. Of what good is it for you to waste your time watching TV news even if you were to know it's lying to you? Fake TV news is for fakers... for it fosters nurtures protects and defends the lies they love. Greg

Not really, Arkadi. Reading or watching fiction is done with the tacit understanding that it is a dramatic portrayal which is not real... ...whereas TV news sells itself to the viewer as being reality... when it couldn't be farther from it. The whole point of TV news is to upset the viewer in order to keep their emotionally captured attention fixated to the screen. It's agenda is to promote the secular political religion of liberalism. Greg

Yes, Peter. For idiots. Television news is "a proctologists view of the world". --Dennis Prager TV news is entertainment ratings driven and designed solely to make you upset, angry, outraged, and afraid of things over which you have no personal control and for which you have no personal responsibility. This is because your attention can be captured by your own need to be emotionally upset. Television news operates on the principle of emotionally captured attention. And whatever you give the power to emotionally upset you... controls you. Greg

Bob the Blob has decreed what is and isn't fasting. I've been doing carrot juice in the morning with an evening meal each day just to see how it works, and haven't had any ill effects or lack of energy to dig holes to plant trees and tend the garden. My wife had cancer and after her operation was told that without radiation and chemotherapy the cancer would return with a vengeance within two years and kill her. With diet and fasting she's been cancer free for over ten years. Our bodies have an innate cellular intelligence... which when not impeded, can reestablish proper order. While the pharmaceutical chemical model has the empirically proven ability to alter symptoms... ...belief in medicine as a god is a secular religion. Greg

Peter, it's impossible for you to realize the truth that TV is indoctrinating you while you're immersed in its images! TV fosters nurtures promotes and defends the amoral liberal secularist view of the world, because that's the dominant political religion of the entertainment industry. Believe me, I know... because I live right smack dab in the middle of it! I don't subscribe to that view so there's no need for me to watch it. Television is for idiots. Greg

Sorry, Peter. I don't watch television. It's for people who heed to be told how they should see the world. I have no such need. Greg

Thanks for your kind words, Brant. That's a unique identifying characteristic of heroes, Brant, to never see yourself as being one. You can only see others as heroes. Whether you would have been better or not if you were more heroic would all depend on how you personally define heroism... for the definition you chose will either agree or disagree with the objective reality of what a hero truly is. I'm not the objectively perfect ideals I write about. In fact, I could never become them. I can only subjectively aspire to emulate them as best I can. My life is the sole indicator which lets me know how well I'm doing, and there's always room for improvement. So it'a not about arriving at a Perfection I'll never be, but rather about constantly moving towards It. And even though I'll never reach It, I love It nonetheless. This is because, as subjective being, I can never BE objective reality (God). It can only either agree with God or disagree with Him. So I found by trial and error over the years that it's better for me and my life to act in agreement with Him rather than to stubbornly disagree thinking my way is best. There is a proper relationship of a subjective being to an objective God... and it is that of a son to a Father. There are so many rewards that overflow into a life just for doing what's morally right, that they could never all be written down. And it is the compassion and mercy of those gifts so freely given which make love for what's morally right grow and grow and grow... ...like living in a garden in Eden... I looked at the fort freedom archives, and a question of what makes a Freeman a free man was asked? It reminded me of the Dune novels which referred to "the Fremen". I loved reading those books because they touched on the core of what it means to be a man. No man is free. We are all slaves who get to choose our master. There is only One Master Who frees from the evil in the world, every man who chooses Him. Greg

That they do, Brant. I simply acted on Ayn Rand's advice because it made sense to me... and it works like a charm. The much larger story than just mine is that everyone here already knows whether what they believe is the truth or just a bunch of worthless lies... ...simply by looking at their own life and assessing the results of what they have DONE with what they believe. That's where the objective rubber meets the reality road. Everything else is just irrelevant intellectual fluff. Greg

Ayn Rand succeeded as far as I'm concerned... simply because I successfully followed her advice. What anyone else chooses to actually DO with what she wrote and spoke is completely up to them because they are the only ones who are completely responsible for the results they set into motion by their own actions. Greg

...and our own lives are the laboratory in which is demonstrated the empirical results of our experiments in applied philosophy. If what we subjectively believe to be true is objectively true, the results are a happy decent meaningful productive life of health and prosperity, by earning your own freedom from the corruption of this world... ...and if what we subjectively believe to be true is objectively lies, the results are the slow emotionally painful death of an upset angry offended failure who blames others for what you alone have inflicted upon yourself. So you see... each of us already has empirical proof in our own lives of whether what we believe is truth or lies. Greg ...

Your vapid empty contentless responses give you away, wolf. I got your number. You got nothing. Greg

You still chose not to realize that legalisms are only a part of how what you do returns to you. And even that denial itself set into motion consequences you fully deserved... just as my affirmation of that same truth set into motion consequences I fully deserved. So although the same law applies equally to both of us... the difference between what each of us got in our lives is the result of each of us living by two different sets of moral values. Greg