BaalChatzaf Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 8 hours ago, Peter said: You are always psychologizing. “Gaze into the Mirror” by Guru Dash Greg. Touting your personally achieved self-governance is not that good an argument, and when it is your chief argument it is repetitious, like one of those new-age, self-help books. What will you do if there is a knock at your door and a guy hands you a paper and says, “You have been served” . . . ? Tell him you do not recognize any authority but your own, then go check your ammo supply just in case. What malarkey. In the land of the free and home of the brave, it is assumed you will live within the law of the land. A lot was made over the fact that Ayn Rand accepted Social Security and Medicare. She probably even obeyed the jay-walking laws. Did you ever get a license for a car or a business? Swami, do people say you are more like your father or your mother? Peter As Prince sang to Porter Wagner: How can you just leave me standing? Alone in a world that's so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold Maybe I'm just like my mother She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied) Why do we scream at each other This is what it sounds like When doves cry Greg will tell you that his customers pay his freight. He does not pay taxes. His customers do. So what is his signature doing on the tax check he sends in on April 15? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 17, 2017 Author Share Posted April 17, 2017 3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said: Greg will tell you that his customers pay his freight. He does not pay taxes. His customers do. So what is his signature doing on the tax check he sends in on April 15? Bob, as a government trained monkey who is now a government pension check cashing parasite, it makes perfect sense that you would know absolutely nothing about being a Capitalist businessman because you never had the personal initiative to do anything on your own. Here, dummy. Read this... if you can. Businesses Don't Pay Taxes, They Collect Them http://www.aei.org/publication/business-dont-pay-taxes-they-collect-them/ Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 17, 2017 Author Share Posted April 17, 2017 23 hours ago, Brant Gaede said: I have one acre--and rattlesnakes. --Brant We also have Rattlers up here. It's a fact of life living next to 10K acres of wild Chapparel. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 On 2017/04/16 at 8:08 AM, moralist said: Yes, Brant. It's the Conservative American Capitalist producers versus the European liberal socialist parasites. Individualists versus Collectivists... ...and I already won. Greg Right, "Individualists vs. collectivists" is the consequence of irrational thinking witnessed more blatantly in the West than probably ever before. Though, to be precise, I think the split is between the "rugged" individualists vs. altruist-collectivists. There never were Christians (especially in the US) I believe, as altruistic as we now see from secularists anywhere in the West. My view is that Christians took very seriously "Love thy neighbor as thyself". While the present Left commands: "Love thy neighbor". Period. (And if he refuses our "love", well, it will have to be forced on him by the State. Ha.) The distinction between the two is quite enormous when the value,"self", disappeared. So, the advent of Capitalism would have stood no chance in the present ideological climate, I think is inarguable. Christians (in the main) then and today do not look to the State, anything as much as do Progressivists, to impose their morals on everyone else. But that highlights the fundamental shortcoming in religion. In it, one has the certainty of an old, tried and tested moral structure, but without a rational base. Not to claim that the religious can never be very rational. And out of it? Once people became 'smarter' and 'scientific', conviction in God and the immortal Soul - which I think underpinned rugged individualism, and the capability to judge evil (eg.... murder...) - has dissipated in favor of a selective sort of 'reason' and logic. With that, nearly all conviction was lost as well, almost like it's a personal liability. Not all, since mankind has very plainly needed to find himself several other dogmatic outlets - in other gods (the State, the People, and so on) to satisfy his latent religiosity. And to try to replace his greatest need, of conviction-purpose. In consequence, he only exchanges one irrationality for another even greater error, the uncertainty of skepticism ("who can know anything for sure?"), the avoidance of judgmentalism, so moral relativism plus an unrestrained altruism-collectivism. Many such people in general, will face a long wait for science and scientists to find for them the certainty every man and woman can't do without. Best they don't hold their breath. Rationality and reason - and with selfish certainty - eludes the majority, since that would entail objectivity and identification and making value-judgments, coupled with - god forbid - "selfishness". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 7 hours ago, moralist said: Bob, as a government trained monkey who is now a government pension check cashing parasite, it makes perfect sense that you would know absolutely nothing about being a Capitalist businessman because you never had the personal initiative to do anything on your own. Here, dummy. Read this... if you can. Businesses Don't Pay Taxes, They Collect Them http://www.aei.org/publication/business-dont-pay-taxes-they-collect-them/ Greg Nazis didn't kill Jews, they collected them. --Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 On 2017/04/16 at 4:38 AM, wolfdevoon said: Well, no. For a couple hundred years, it was widely understood that the U.S. Constitution had to be interpreted through the lens of common law. That's very much like saying it has to be interpreted as an English-language document, so fundamental and implicit was common law at the time it was written. Some of it is quite explicitly common law, pertaining to due process, trial by jury, counsel of your own choosing, etc. Law is not run by people, so much as the notion of fundamental fairness in a court of law. I suppose it's important to mention equity, because James Otis was remembered for arguing in Boston that "an Act against natural equity is void," which started the whole No Taxation Without Representation colonial movement. When Thomas Paine ridiculed the fat Pennsylvania Quakers and insisted that we could win independence from "foreign" rule, the die was cast. I dislike quarreling about law. Whether you conceive it as individual States (confederated or united by ratifying the U.S. Constitution) or as a national system of justice, it remains that common law courts treat you and the Government as equals before the bar. It doesn't matter a great deal who the judges are or how they are selected. The meaning of law is due process, fair public trial by jury, especially in civil matters, Mr. A versus Mr. B., two parties equally presumed innocent of wrongdoing. Get it? -- the rule of law has nothing to do with your right to liberty, a separate matter you have to decide for yourself, ex parte and extralegal. Your expertise in the law as it exists and its antecedents I have no interest to 'quarrel' with, well above my pay grade. It is rather the ~purpose~ of good law, I am keen on. What makes it 'good'? What makes it bad? Undoubtedly, when it's contra reality and man's mind, which is all to do with his liberty. So I must add, what you say of the rule of law which has nothing to do with right to liberty, strikes me as wrong. (As it stands now in the USA, perhaps?) I took the page out of the AR Lexicon for explanation: Law, Objective and Non-Objective ¶ All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what constitutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it. ¶ The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas. If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws. ¶ When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat’s whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown “influence” will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all—and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow “public policies,” integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun. Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves. ¶ That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation—not in a free country, not if we are to have “a government of laws and not of men.” An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others. ¶ It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear. ¶ An objective law protects a country’s freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will—his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor—on disarmed, defenseless victims. ¶ The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please—blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please—in any issue, matter or circumstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 2 hours ago, anthony said: Your expertise in the law as it exists and its antecedents I have no interest to 'quarrel' with, well above my pay grade. It is rather the ~purpose~ of good law, I am keen on. What makes it 'good'? What makes it bad? Undoubtedly, when it's contra reality and man's mind, which is all to do with his liberty. So I must add, what you say of the rule of law which has nothing to do with right to liberty, strikes me as wrong. (As it stands now in the USA, perhaps?) I took the page out of the AR Lexicon for explanation: Law, Objective and Non-Objective ¶ All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what constitutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it. ¶ The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas. If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws. ¶ When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat’s whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown “influence” will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all—and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow “public policies,” integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun. Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves. ¶ That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation—not in a free country, not if we are to have “a government of laws and not of men.” An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others. ¶ It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear. ¶ An objective law protects a country’s freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will—his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor—on disarmed, defenseless victims. ¶ The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please—blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please—in any issue, matter or circumstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance. There is nothing in the laws of physical nature that will determine what law shall other than no law shall require or forbid that which is natural to our species according to our biological and physical natures. Any law that contradicts physical reality is absurd and should not be a law at all. Also, laws have to be logically consistent. Then cannot require AND forbid any thing or any act at the same time under the same circumstances. Other than the logic and physics have nothing further to do with determining law. Law is a human artifact from beginning to end, from the top to the bottom. Rand's notion of law has no factual relation to the way our law evolved. Our law is mostly a derivative of English common law except in the State of Louisiana where the default law is the Code Napoleon. Louisiana used to be French territory before the Purchase, and its ancestral human stock is Acadian (Cajun) rather than English. The Code Napoleon is a derivative of Roman Law. Rand had as much to say authoritatively about Law as she had to say anything meaningful about physics. She was a scientific ignoramus although she admired science. Rand was brought up in Russia which culturally was far removed from English culture which begat our common law. If you think Law can be derived strictly by logic, you are quite mistaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Ba’al wrote: Rand's notion of law has no factual relation to the way our law evolved. end quote Interesting turn. Maturation? Children growing older? Tragedy? Volition? Mental evolution? More knowledge and the disproving of supposed facts as within Science? What causes personal *change*? I did not appreciate the theme to Star Trek Voyager when it was played back in the late 1990’s. Now I like it a lot. A person can learn more about music and come to appreciate it like I also did with classical music after I learned to appreciate Rachmaninoff, yet I think liking things you once disliked, shows the evolution, and not just the aging, of the human brain. The ethos of a country. The evolution of laws and a Constitution. The changing of a philosophy. The environment and interest on a web site like Objectivist Living? Change may be inevitable but I want it to happen at my pace. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Bob: Historical determinism. The 'necessity vs, contingency' dichotomy applies well to you. Do you believe everything (made) HAD to occur the way it did? Certain individuals thought up the good laws according to a rational morality and good metaphysics - and they could have done otherwise, or been ignored or over-ruled, etc.- by other men. The evolution of existing law could have taken root sooner, or far later. You are guilty of an 'after the fact' rationalisation/fatalism. It 'had' to happen...so it did. Rand came from Russia -- so that's why! Nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 34 minutes ago, anthony said: Bob: Historical determinism. The 'necessity vs, contingency' dichotomy applies well to you. Do you believe everything (made) HAD to occur the way it did? Certain individuals thought up the good laws according to a rational morality and good metaphysics - and they could have done otherwise, or been ignored or over-ruled, etc.- by other men. The evolution of existing law could have taken root sooner, or far later. You are guilty of an 'after the fact' rationalisation/fatalism. It 'had' to happen...so it did. Rand came from Russia -- so that's why! Nonsense. I have no idea what "historical determinism" means. And no, some inventions could have come about several different ways in several different forms. Humans invent things. Things to do not invent themselves. Facts do not determine theories uniquely. There are an infinite set of theories that will "explain" or be consistent with a finite set of facts.Albert Einstein, a theorist of no small fame, once said that theories are a free construction of the human intellect. And I am "guilty" of historical accuracy. Something of which you and Ayn Rand are innocent. I am a stickler for establish historical fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 23 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said: I have no idea what "historical determinism" means. You'll work it out. I have faith in you. Take historical facts. Apply to them your normal disposition to physical determinism - et voila: Things had to transpire the way they did (in disregard of human volition). Or did they? ;) I know, I've heard you. You have "facts". In the true Humean fashion, they are all you need.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 3 hours ago, anthony said: Things had to transpire the way they did (in disregard of human volition). Or did they? ;) I know, I've heard you. You have "facts". In the true Humean fashion, they are all you need.. It is only from facts that we learn how the world works. The enemy to understanding nature is the dogmatic a priori. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf DeVoon Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 10 hours ago, anthony said: The Objectivist Newsletter, July 1963, 25 Not unfamiliar with her body of work. I regard Miss Rand as a great pioneer of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but it did not occur to her that the philosophy of law might be a separate science unrelated to ethics. In the Preamble to the Freeman's Constitution (2001) I explained the distinction as follows: Quote Moral inquiry pertains specifically to the interests, powers, and dilemmas of an individual, epitomized by the question: "What shall I do?" Legal philosophy addresses impersonal administration of public justice, litigation among parties in dispute, the combined might of a community, and custodial guardianship of certain individuals who are unable or legally prohibited to conduct their own affairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 12 hours ago, anthony said: I think the split is between the "rugged" individualists vs. altruist-collectivists. The altruist-collectivists liberals lay claim to being the most caring and compassionate, because they can only be the most caring and compassionate with other people's money. In America it's very easy to live free of government: DON'T NEED IT Don't need it to guarantee your debts. Don't need it to give you grants. Don't need it to fund you. Don't need it to educate you. Don't need it to employ you. Don't need it to insure you. Don't need it to take care of your health. Do all of these things for yourself and you will live free of government. Because when you genuinely don't need the government, and aren't just an empty poseur... ...the government LEAVES YOU ALONE. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 11 hours ago, Brant Gaede said: Nazis didn't kill Jews, they collected... ...lampshades Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 12 hours ago, anthony said: My view is that Christians took very seriously "Love thy neighbor as thyself". I take that Bible quote as a statement of objective reality, because my working definition of love is "doing what's morally right". You can only do right by others to the same degree as you do right by yourself. It's an equation: love others = love yourself Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 On the subject of what might be called institutionalized ritual cultural murder. Grab some popcorn and siddown and enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf DeVoon Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 2 minutes ago, moralist said: my working definition of love is "doing what's morally right" Apparently, you've never been in love. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 41 minutes ago, moralist said: 12 hours ago, Brant Gaede said: Nazis didn't kill Jews, they collected... ...lampshades Ouch... Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Excellent thinking Lobo. And thanks to Jts for that superb link. It’s after midnight. I return to my cavern to sleep and what should appear to create such a clatter . . . why Wolf comes up with a startling truth, You don’t fall in love because it is moral. Yea and nay, says I. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said: Ouch... Michael Reminds me once again of the bromide that the Jews killed Christ. NO. The Romans killed Christ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 4 hours ago, wolfdevoon said: Not unfamiliar with her body of work. I regard Miss Rand as a great pioneer of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but it did not occur to her that the philosophy of law might be a separate science unrelated to ethics. In the Preamble to the Freeman's Constitution (2001) I explained the distinction as follows: Rand tied every human volitional, cognitive activity to ethics and morality, especially the law. Atomistically treating law as the end all be all of a philosophy pretty much ruined libertarianism. But you're taking the libertarian position one further step in the wrong direction. Philosophy is not a science nor can it be. There is the philosophy of science or scientific methodology or--as Bob might say--facts plus logic. However, there are facts and logic in philosophy that do not appertain to science. The general commonality is reason. As a physicalist Bob cannot be refuted with physicality if you attempt to go outside his physical facts loop. If sometimes he himself does he always retreats to his safe ground when challenged if he bothers to reply at all. Ultimately a physicalist is a determinist. All philosophers are explicitly or implicitly free willers--even those that deny free will. (See "The Contradiction of Determinism" by Nathaniel Branden.) I suspect the reason Bob is so against philosophy--aside from his affirmation of logic--is the threat of the objectification of an ethics and politics as true. He's denying the possibility of this for there goes the pure physicality of his basic position. Regardless, he continually admits he hasn't the brain for it--the soft "sciences"--on the one hand while lecturing us about it on the other with his own non-scientific opinions. --Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 4 hours ago, wolfdevoon said: Apparently, you've never been in love. That ain't love, Wolf! Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 1 hour ago, Peter said: Reminds me once again of the bromide that the Jews killed Christ. NO. The Romans killed Christ. There's no weak wimpy limpwristed effiminate liberal style victim here. Christ allowed Himself to be killed in order to fulfill the Law. He said, "I will destroy this temple that was made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands." ...and that's exactly what He did. There is no longer anything between us and our Conscience. We are now directly connected. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 14 hours ago, wolfdevoon said: Not unfamiliar with her body of work. I regard Miss Rand as a great pioneer of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, but it did not occur to her that the philosophy of law might be a separate science unrelated to ethics. In the Preamble to the Freeman's Constitution (2001) I explained the distinction as follows: I am too not unfamilar with her works, but this article was new to me. It's worth repeating (often): "...and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected from them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does follow "public policies", integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun. Non-Objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves". ['Vast Quicksands' :Oist Newsletter '63] Does this look familar to you? Maybe the consequences of non-Objective law are not so bad in the US, but this is a reproduction of what life and society looks like in other places. Europe, and here. Staleness, dullness. Self-conformity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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