Charles R. Anderson

I'll second the recommendation for Hedrick Smith's The Russians. It was well-written and very informative.

Kat, For those of us who think Objectivism is an open system or a still evolving philosophy of life, it is fair to question whether the man is always right. In my near 34 years of marriage, my wife has thought she was right about 90% of the time when we disagreed, after we compared notes. I am more likely right about 60% of the time. Some of the difference has to do with us as unique individuals and some with the nature of the kind of things that most often come up for discussion. I usually shrug off the disagreement faster than Anna does as well. My list of things it is not worth being upset about is longer, but that also sometimes contributes to the appearance of irritations, since some actions or thoughts do not get as much forethought from me as they should in her mind. In the end, she appears to get over these little irritants, but it is good to limit their numbers. That would be harder to do if I really did assume that I was always right. It helps to come from a large family as I did. When you are one of six kids, it is harder to grow up thinking you are always right and that even when you are, there are many things which are not so important that they require a fight. Judging what is important and what is not and when to fight for something and when to put it aside requires a constant attention to context. The most important part of the context is why do you love the one you disagree with. Remember that and the value being fought over can be placed properly on a hierarchy of values. In most disagreements with a loved one, many, many values are at stake, but maybe only one relatively unimportant one is the cause of the disagreement. Charles

Victor, It sounds as though you are totally bewitched, enthralled, and thoroughly happy about it. Isn't life wonderful when you have the love of a great woman? Well, enjoy it to the hilt. I hope your January week together will turn out to be what heaven should be. Charles

I believe a number of you are being too cynical. Are there companies and business managers and politicians who take advantage of public ignorance and apathy for the sake of monetary gain and power? Yes, there are many of them. There are plenty of businessmen who are eager to scoop up every subsidy they can and who will work long and hard to sell a new market or labor protection scheme or to have government provide a special interest subsidy or tax preference. Yes, we supposedly have farm subsidies to save the family farm, but most of the subsidy money goes to fairly wealthy farmers and ADM. There are many politicians who know that a minimum wage law is only destructive, but it is easily sold to the public, so they happily sell one. There are others who pretend to be very concerned with fundamentalist Christian morality in those parts of the country where that sells well, but live their own lives as hypocrits to the principles they publicly proclaim. These flaws are common in many politicians and businessmen, and they are common among many voters also. But, I think that in most cases in which governments exercise power in the USA, the primary cause of the action is the result of an idea, which is held in substantial part by the politicians, the businessmen, and the voters of America. Special interests often have important impact on policy, but they usually get it by highjacking an idea that has already gained considerable momentum as such in our society. We should examine the money trails and try to figure out what effects that winds up having on policy. You would think that if the purpose of the farm subsidies was to save family farms and you find that the money goes to ADM and very wealthy farmers, that one should put an end to the farm subsidies as we know them. Similarly, where companies are having too much influence in keeping us in Iraq, we need to reduce that influence. But, I seriously doubt that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld took us into Iraq to provide easy money for some American companies. I do not find that plausible. I do think that they recognized the fundamental importance that oil has for the US and world economies. I do think that they wanted to try to secure open access to that oil. I also think they were tired of letting Saddam take pot-shots at American pilots and of him declaring war on us with no response from us. They saw this as encouraging Islamic fanatics, as it certainly did. They saw the need to be strong and to act with certainty. They simply did not see just how much of a primitive mess Iraq and its people were. As is common, the Iraqis were viewed as more like us than they are. That was the big miscalculation, but it is one that we can learn a lot from as we continue through the next several decades to deal with Islamic fanatics and terrorists. For those who believe that there was a calculation that we would take over the Iraqi oil fields or have a few American companies with connections to Bush and Cheney do it, I would point out that we have actually put surprisingly little effort into getting the oil to flow again out of Iraq. Actually, we have done much too little. If we had made a much greater effort there, we could then readily use the oil money that would result to buy off most of the unrest in Iraq. The thugs and the tribal and religious factions could very likely be pacified. But, I suspect that this was not done because our government wanted to make sure that no one could readily claim we invaded Iraq only for oil. Perhaps, given even the above tendency to explain all things in terms of conspiracy, they did not have that option. Well, without it, there is no solution to Iraq, except to partition it or get out. Perhaps it is just that they should stew in their own juices. There are too few who want a civil mode of government, though there are a tragic number who no doubt do. They will wind up with rule either by a religious theocracy, or a warlord, or several of each. We did give them their choice and they seem to have made the general direction of their choice clear. Unfortunately for us and the future of the war with Islamic fanatics, they will feel successful and will push their agenda harder. We will retreat and recoil from any strong action as we did from Vietnam until the Reagan presidency and we will be badly pushed around for a long while into the future. I expect more Americans to die in America due to Islamist bombings and other terrorist acts than have in Iraq to date over the next 10 years. I sure hope that I am wrong about this. But, when we criticize a policy, it is commonly wise to think out the alternative. In that light, I believe all we can do is a quick partition of Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite parts and then leave. What will happen will happen. We will say we gave you a chance for a better future as a unified Iraq and you proved too parochial for that. We will leave you with one last chance with three separate countries, each of which will make its own choices and may have to survive wars with the others. It is your destiny and you will decide it. We wish you the best of luck.

The only reason to use a radioactive poison such as polonium 210 is if you want the means of death to be discovered and you want everyone to know that it was done by someone with high technology at hand. In this case, it was a clear pronouncement that Russia did it and they wanted to rub it in that they could get away with it. If you have a few dissenters, a vicious leadership is likely to make them quietly and mysteriously disappear. If you have many dissenters and you are determined to hold onto power, then you send blatant messages about the deadly cost of dissent. This is what Russia is doing. They also have made the calculation that the US is too distracted and no longer has the will to make much of a fuss about what they are doing. Given Democrat control of the House and Senate, their calculation no doubt rests on solid ground. Classic bullies like the Russian leadership and fanatic Islamists respond with better behavior only when confronted by determined and certain strength. Their response to uncertain and weak action is to push harder to take advantage of it. We will see Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and others who sense the same weakness pushing hard to take advantage of the USA's loss of will power over the next few years. The world will become still more dangerous.

Angie, It is a delight to see you so happy. It is also really nice, given how much I think of you, that you have said such nice things about me. Thank you. And yes, my Anna is a very good woman and a great love. When once you create a great love, it takes a great deal of nourishment to keep it great. In the rush of life, with career and children and all, try to always maintain time to nourish your love. It comes easy now when love is fresh and blooming, but just never come to take it too much for granted. When it must, it can glide along for a while, but never let the glide times become long, no matter what the pressures. When you have a great love, the things that put the pressure on, even children, have to give way at times to the care of your love. Now I do not mean to say that love is all work. It is more like keep a mindset and the time to have fun in your love. You know we 34 year married folk have to claiim some pedantic rights! Victor, You are really great at saying all the right things about Angie and about being deeply in love. You have given me high hopes that you will continue to make her a very happy woman and realize your own happiness long into the future. You seem to be a serious guy, who nonetheless has a penchant for fun, when you do not let your armor get in the way. Some Objectivists, no many Objectivists, have too much armor and it isolates them from life. Sometimes it is better to take a chance that might lead to a wound or two if that allows you to become fully immersed in life. Then count on the serious healing powers of the mind and body and plunge back into life. Men of true self-esteem are not those who are unhurtable, they are the ones who know that they can and will heal the hurts and move on. It looks as though Angie was just the prescription to bring some life past your armor. Sure, I do not know you well enough to be sure I am right here, but it is the sense I get of you. You have been given a great gift and you have had the sense to realize it. I am looking forward to getting to know you better.

Angie and Victor, Having long been on bread and water while denying myself the pleasures of visiting OL to concentrate on my busiest season in the lab, I have just tonight read through this thread. So, it is time for me to finally offer you both my best wishes for your romance and your developing love. As an optimist and a romantic, reading of your love and your excited anticipation of the future together, gives me warm and fuzzy feelings. It also reminds me in many ways of how my love for my wife Anna started about 34 years ago. Anna and I met when I was a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University. I put an ad in the school paper asking people to give me a call if they were interested in Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Anna was one of about six people who responded. We talked a while on the phone and I found out that she had graduated from CWRU and was working as a microbiologist at The University Hospital. As it happens, the hospital was about a 3 minute walk from the Physics Building, so I very often ate dinner there so I could return to my lab as quickly as possible. We arranged to meet there for dinner one night and we talked about philosophy, politics, and generally serious stuff for the first few times we met. Well, we eventually talked more about life experiences and just started doing things together to share the fun. Thinking back, I was very lucky. Before the Internet, what were the prospects of meeting someone who would share your philosophical outlook, when one is so strange as to be an Objectivist? Well, I met only about 10 women before the Internet who would have vaguely fit this bill and many of them were much too intellectually flaky! Some had severe personality problems. A couple were nice and intelligent, but just not too sexy. So, here we see Victor and Angie, able to get to know so much about one another and loving so much of what they know and with the knowledge that they had not just searched through Providence, RI and Cleveland, OH (as I did), but had searched far and wide across Canada and the USA. What a wonderful position to be in! They have every good reason to be excited about what they have found in each other. Of course, those of us who are optimists and romantics love all this potential and, yes, we tend to favor a great outcome for them. But, all projections of power control, evil intent, the will to damage aside, some other people are pessimists. Some are not romantics. Some may have become cynical as they suffered damage in a society in which their philosophical beliefs are still a rarity and where rejection by many otherwise reasonably desirable mates is often met with rejection. Two young lovers should just shrug off this pessimism and jadedness and enjoy their love. It is unlikely you will convince the pessimist to become an optimist. It is also unlikely that the hurt will be healed on a thread at OL. Well, sure some little hurts can be healed, but not the kind that lead to a loss of joy upon seeing romantic love. When that is the case, one is severely damaged. But, pessimists and hurt people are not necessarily bad people. They just have a lessened ability to enjoy seeing romantic love. Victor started posting here soon before I took my sabbatical, but I have had the fortune of getting to know Angie a bit. She is bright, very funny, high-spirited, and good company. Seems to me that Victor is a very fortunate guy! Since Angie is so smitten by him, Victor must be a very good man. I sure hope you continue to bring great joy and happiness to each other. It gives great pleasure to all romantic souls!

Thanks for your thoughts on life and death. I found them interesting and your essay was very well written. As a leading edge baby-boomer, I have no expectations of being able to watch you slide down the mountain alone from its top. I fully expect to slide down a shade behind you, possibly at a very slightly slower rate. The human system is extremely complex and very individual. While knowledge of medicine is rapidly increasing, a good part of that knowledge is acknowledging how complex the human body and its proper functioning is. Many of the easy gains in extending life have been made through those periods of life when one or two subsystems are breaking down at a time. When one reaches 90 or 100, there are more commonly many subsystems breaking down and wearing out at once. What it takes to fix one may often put added strain on another. We will continue to make progress, especially if the Federal government does not take over the health system from top to bottom, but those gains will come grudgingly. Meanwhile, I have to admit to having few thoughts of dying. I am too busy thinking about all the things I want to do and am doing. If my thinking ability has decreased, the use of my added experience and knowledge has allowed me to fool myself into not noticing it. Food still tastes great and sex is as heavenly or more so than ever! When I have problems with these things, I will search hard for other things to provide the joys and pleasures of life. If I do not find them, then I suppose it will be time to walk off alone into the woods as the old Indians did of old. Assuming I can walk anyway! Maybe that will be the last problem I will have to solve.

Thanks, Roger. Loving the right good person helps us to know better who we are and who we want to become and they make it possible for us to enjoy the recognition of them and the sharing of that recognition with them.

If we buy into Dragonfly's Classical Physics Deterministic Mind Theory, nothing we do is our fault! If some people are more susceptible to becoming alcoholics for genetic reasons, I suppose it is not entirely beyond the pale to suppose that maybe some people are more in need of having a god to watch over them. When I was 15, I can remember feeling very close to God and having the feeling of something rather like a runner's high. Since the latter is a mind state of a very different chemistry, I would not be at all surprised to find that people who become very wrapped up in their religious belief are experiencing a rush of soothing and reassuring chemicals.

In one of the lost posts in this thread, I noted that I had found one of Ayn Rand's early short stories extremely funny. I could not remember the name of the story and I was away on vacation so I could not look it up. I thought I had heard that some Objectivists objected to this story about the kidnapping of a spoiled rich girl. Robert Campbell chimed in that he had found Good Copy to be very funny and it was his favorite Rand short story. He said he could not see why an Objectivist should not enjoy this story. Indeed, this was the very story I was thinking about. If you think Ayn Rand had no humor, you really should read this story. It is great fun.

Ellen, Young people develop an interest in sexual matters over a very wide range of ages. I have a friend who had romantic relationships with girls in the 1st grade and who had sexual relationships at a very early age. On the other hand, there are people who discover an interest in sex in their 20s. A fair number of teenagers simply have their minds on developing in other ways than sexually. So if Dagny is pictured as being behind the curve you were on, she was still well before it relative to many other teenagers. As one who was behind your curve or even Dagny's, I can tell you that this does not mean that one does not eventually catch up or even surpass the knowledge of many of the early starters.

Robert, Having your own corner at Objectivist Living is recognition well-deserved. You have done great work and The New Individualist is fantastic. You are one of the good guys of Objectivism. Thanks for carrying the banner well and resolutely.

Barbara's post is an enchanting treasure. Too bad the many appreciative responses to it have been lost. I still love it and the spirit of the woman who wrote it.

It is great to be able to visit my many good and respected friends on OL again. I was really disappointed on the couple of days when I tried to visit and found it down. Thanks Kat and Michael for all of your efforts to create this great online Galt's Gulch! Thanks for bringing it back better than ever. I really would like to trottle that hacker. I was on vacation from 16 July to 24 July and entertained myself with an unusual number of posts. I also read some very good posts by others in that period. Yes, this malicious hacker is one very sick puppy. He has not taken to house training at all.

Paul, It is about time I got back to you on this discussion! You observed that you tend to trust someone until you become guarded and Shauna is guarded until she comes to trust someone. On this I am more like you. This is a natural thing that is likely related to my being from a large and loving family and having generally good experiences with most people from a young age. It is also a choice. If I have to become guarded in my relationship with someone, then it is harder to find values to share and/or trade with them. If that is the case, the best thing is simply to minimize contact with said person. I have better things to do. You observed that in certain negative moods, Shauna will "abstract qualities from my lesser attributes and create a distorted, negative caricature of me." I thought that was simply a wifely duty to keep us from acquiring heads too big to squeeze into a Texan's ten-gallon hat! My wife does the same thing. Loves me one hour and swells my head with the pride of her love, then smashes me with a comment that I never do such and such, when, yes, I every now and then forget to do such and such. Isn't this just one of those womanly duties we men will never understand, especially since the Feminist Age? I hardly ever forget the context of my love, but women seem to do this easily. I expect some blasts from the women here in response to this comment. I allow that I may be over-generalizing. Your response will better calibrate me on how many women are brazen enough to claiim to be an exception! I am teasing you a bit, but only a bit. Any real exceptions will be greatly appreciated. It really will be wonderful to know that you exist. Of course, it might be a frustration given that my wife is not one of such a rare breed of woman. My daughters also complain about this trait of hers, but then they often exhibit it themselves. Paul, I agree that people do this, but it is not the only alternative to your empathic, subjective/relative orientation. I can be an observer of another person, but not be remote in the way that many people are. I am more remote than you in that I never lose the perspective that they are a different person. I am aware of that to the point that I allow that I cannot put myself completely into their position/experience/mind. I understand that I am different and that when I try to take on their perspective, I am at best simply blending it with mine. I can feel something of someone's joy or despair, but it is never the completely genuine article they are feeling. I recognize that another human being is likely to be sufficiently complex that I cannot break their behavior into fully understood objective elements, which leads me to be very careful about speculating about what the cause of their behavior was or is. I am willing to understand the limits of my understanding. There are many human actions which are not easily classified as good or bad. There are many actions which are simply an expression of the individual, who may have many personality traits which are neither good nor bad. It is not bad to be an introvert or to be an extrovert. It is not bad to prefer poetry to novels or vice versa. It is not bad to enjoy sales or to be a physicist. There are some things that are bad to be and to do. I try to be sparing in naming these things, but there are many human actions which are despicable and which are dangerous to others. For the most part, while I do not applaud self-destructive behavior, I do not tend to condemn it much. A person has the right to self-destructive behavior. So yes, I have the perspective of an observer, but it is not the perspective of one who is eager to classify every act as moral or immoral and it is not all that distant. As I have observed elsewhere, I have to be careful about watching tragic movies. They drain me emotionally to the point that I ofttimes cannot function well for a day afterwards. When the hero loses the lovely, spirited, intelligent wife to cancer at an early age, I lose my wife as well. This perspective is not so psychologically insulating. So I understand that some people do as you are suggesting, but others need not be so remote, "process information about the world through a fixed causal filter, and process information about the assumed causation through a black and white evaluative filter." Your observations on the "flowing experiental model of a game's events" were very interesting. I have just been reading an article in Scientific American about ideas of how the minds of experts work. They especially have examined the minds of chess masters. The description of how they are believed to think seems to contain aspects of what you are talking about in your soccer playing and which you, rightly I think, expect is true for a good quarterback. The article is The Expert Mind by Philip E. Ross in the August 2006 issue. I developed some such abilities playing football, basketball, handball, and racketball, though had I played each game with similar intensity longer than I did, I expert that sense would have been much better developed. Again, you are not being fair here to many of those who recognize the otherness of others. We can be a great deal more understanding and much more puralistic than some who you are characterizing here. You empathic people sure can get on your absolutist white horse and condemn those who recognize that many acts and many characters are gray, but still other than themselves! I hope you can see that I have some right to tease you here. And watch out for the yellow rose of the Center of the Universe. That yellow rose is perfect and you are not to sully it in any way. That rose never wilts, they have those ten-gallon hats to water it with! Since their heads will not fit in the hats, it is good that the hats have good use as watering vessels. Fair enough. I am sure that some people are biologically either pure heterosexual or homosexual. Since I am comfortable with my sexuality and however much I may be able to imagine myself in different sexual modes, I never really lose my identity, I do not experience this as you do. I would not care to imagine being something I thought was evil, but I do not think of heterosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality as evil. They are simply one of the many variations that give humans a rich individuality. I think this is a wonderful thing, when we exclude the use of force from among us. I can sense the joy of others in experiencing their sexuality fully, as I wish to experience mine fully. Furthermore, I believe that individual sexualities are much more varied than most people seem to think they are when it comes to human nature. Far too much of the modern view of sexuality has been dictated by the Judeo-Christian and Muslim religions. Quite frankly, they have a pretty sick view of sexuality. Before these religions took hold, there was a much freer expression of human sexuality in many cultures. These religions largely corrupted human ideas on sexuality and it is very hard to escape that in our society. I think we as rational people need to make a very concerted and courageous defense of the variety of human sexuality and the earth-bound pleasures that its expression and development can provide people. Far too few people actually know much about their sexual potential. The exception is those people at the Center of the Universe. They are totally on top of their game.

Gary, Being a dyed-in-the-rawhide Texan, I know you have tried all the 10-gallon hats available so Texans can carry a summer water supply good for about 2 hours. Are you serious that your head is too big for any 10-gallon hat? I'm no longer a hop, skip, and a jump away from The Center of the Universe. Oklahoma still owns the Red River, by the way! Remember the Red River Bridge War!

I find that I am a Benevolent Inventor. Some details: Confidence 88 Openness 82 Extroversion 46 Empathy 96 Trust 70 Agency 98 Masculinity 82 Femininity 4 Spontaneity 80 Attention to Style 38 Authoritarianism 18 Earthy/Imaginative 42 Aesthetic/Functional 10 Mostly this is reasonably accurate. I was not aware, however, that I am 18% Authoritarian. That was a surprisingly high value there. If my masculinity score was 82 and my femininity score was 4, where is the other 14% of me? Actually, I am not too enamored of describing personality traits as masculine or feminine anyway, so I guess this does not matter too much. Now I do put an emphasis on the functionality of many things, but I think it was the nature of their questions that resulted in my being only 10% Aesthetic. That was an exaggeration. They had no questions about my appreciation of the feminine form, sunsets, healthy animals and plants, a marvelously engineered material, beautiful buildings, and many of the other beautiful things I appreciate. Another part of the problem here is that sometimes things are beautiful because of their functionality. To choose an example: A highly functional and healthy woman is generally more beautiful than a highly dysfunctional, unhealthy woman.

Didn't we have 3 discussion threads under Metaphysics before the software change. I have some vague recall of having several cycles of a discussion of whether we knew the mind to be completely a system of classical physics determinism with Dragonfly and Paul, primarily. This somehow grew out of a post about energy in a system of entities. B)

I am looking forward to seeing Barbara's talk in print. I have high expectations for it based on her commitment to reason and her practice of thinking. Her detractors have not shown such a commitment. It really makes a difference!

Jody, I think a gazillion is even larger than that. Isn't it about the number of irrational thoughts that the world's population has in a month?

Paul, I have been desperately busy at the labs. We tend to have busy seasons and slow seasons. January through March tends to be slow, then things heat up in April, usually. Then July and August are usually slow and September through December is furious. Well, we had a late spring speedup this year. My specialty of surface analysis became really busy only in late April and other parts of our business heated up through May and June. I remain incredibly busy even now in July, but I am commited to making my annual family visit to Oklahoma this weekend. I hope to have some time on vacation to post here during this coming week. I should have posted this note long ago, but I was afraid to even come to this very addictive site for the duration.

Michael, Thanks for making this effort to recognize David Kelley's work. He deserves the highest praise from those who want an Objectivist philosophy for living their lives with a total commitment to reality and knowing reality by examining it with our rational faculty as independently-minded human beings. By the way, it is The Atlas Society and The Objectivist Center, rather than The Atlas Center.

I have written on this before, but I would like to make more coherent reply than the sum of my earlier comments. That will take more time than I have now. I like Jenna's approach in putting down her thoughts and then going back and reading everyone else's and commenting on some of their ideas. But this is a task for tomorrow.

Mikee, I read this and decided to wait before responding. I am glad I did. It was a pleasure to read your remarks on it. My thoughts are cast a bit differently, however. While the government has the responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizens, it does this by asking for volunteers to take on the risk of their life to protect the lives of American citizens. In the real world, not the theoretically perfect world of some libertarians and ARI people, America's soldiers will necessarily die in combat to protect Americans. Someone has to be brave enough and confident enough of their fighting skills and the weapons they will be supplied with to take on this responsibility and the attendant risk. However, as I see it, there is nothing wrong with the Epstein statement. He is right on this part, but we must remember that the fact that the government has a responsibility does not mean that it is always possible to prevent the loss of all life. I agree with this, as stated. A lot depends upon how threatened our freedom must be. Epstein seems to think much more threatened than either Mike or I do, from the larger context. With respect to the weapons through tactics part, the word possible must be thought about. We should make a very great effort to do this, including eliminating all sorts of subsidies and welfare programs to ensure that as many of the tax revenues as possible go to the constitutionally mandated provision for the national defense. No matter how you cut it however, it is not rational to provide the military with everything possible. We would then be a military police state and there would be no freedom for them to protect. Yes, we want a strong military, but we also want it over the very long haul. The way you get that is to maintain our strong private sector and keep taxes low, so the American economy can continue to grow and spin off the means to support the military at a high level of readiness, but at a low percentage cost to the economy as a whole. This strategy has worked very well for America. It is very peculiar to hear Epstein make the argument that the military should be so overwhelmingly superior that we have made every effort to protect the lives of our soldiers. During the Clinton years, the military and the intelligence agencies were badly neglected and greatly abused and disrepected by the Clinton Administration. Where were ARI and Epstein then? They were not nearly as vociferous about his truly humanitarian missions. When they backed Gore and Kerry against Bush, did they really think those men were more inclined to give the military and intelligence agencies the resources they needed in amounts that came close to what Bush has tried to give them? Wouldn't they have continued Clinton's absurd police actions against terrorists and left many Americans far more vulnerable to future 9/11s? What kind of about-face is this on their part? It strikes me as extremely dishonorable. So, Mike is right that our military is the envy of the world. Epstein is right that it should be still better. But, it is clearly disingenuous that Epstein and ARI are making such an argument when they promoted men for President who were so extremely weak on defense and intelligence issues. Apparently, the all-knowing ARI crowd did not anticipate 9/11. Well, OK, that was not good. After 9/11, to support Kerry was insane if one really believes that "The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one of its citizen's lives." I suspect, along with Mike, that the real consequence of the Epstein viewpoint would be to place the bar on military action so high in terms of our superiority, the magnitude of the threat to us, and the requirement to kill many non-American civilians, that we would wind up ignoring threats and appeasing over and over until it was too late. When it was too late, our military would no longer know how to fight and they would no longer have the will to fight. What's more, if ARI chose the President, they would have nothing to fight with. Ah, but words are so cheap. Back your words with action ARI. Make it a priority to help elect politicians who will prepare the military and intelligence agencies, rather than to defeat them. When they are elected, how about offering constructive criticism at least. But no, constant criticism is the ARI path to gaining attention. How they crave attention. Rather overmuch like very little children.