Ukraine and Endless War for Profit

[Peter]

2 hours ago, Marc said:

Was it not you Peter who stated that a person who comments on another Country that that person is a terrorist? 

Oh yeah. It says so right in the Oxford English Constabulary Book of Friction. Any country that calls its money loonies and toonies is a bit off. And just imagining those very same Canadians yelling across the border. And with pirate doubloons hiding in plain sight? It's scary. Brrrr.

Notes. Canada has pretty much the same denominations that the U.S. has: Cents (that don't buy much, and which nobody picks up off the ground just like in the U.S.,) nickels (not much purchasing power either), dimes, quarters, dollars (called "Loonies" because the standard design depicts the bird called a Loon,) and two-dollar bi-metallic coins (called "Toonies," apparently named in honor of the one-dollar coin of which Canadians are very fond). The various Canadian coins are all the same sizes as their U.S. counterparts although they are made of very different metals.

[anthony]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:35 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Peter,

... is hatred of Putin only or a consistent adherence to principle...

 

Michael

Interesting, that "consistent adherence to principle" has been the theme Putin - a lawyer, btw - and Lavrov and others have constantly raised.

This goes for you but not for me...

On international relations, shouldn't the world be looking for objectively principled rule of law among governments, not subjective "rule by men" (the Gvt. officials)?

In effect, what goes for "you", the West (e.g your unquestioned prerogative to respond as you see fit to potential or actual threats, on your borders, in neighboring countries or half-way across the world) but disallowed to anyone else, is called "rules-based order". Since who makes the "rules"? Never an unfavored nation, but the powerful, self-serving, in-group of nations.

Obversely, Putin has often posed an international "law based order". Where one's standing/status/strength, etc., as a nation is immaterial. (He is more objective than some would believe, especially in foreign affairs. What I'm seeing - a lot more objective than the present Western leaders).

Much of the world is beginning to move in that rough direction, a grassroots rebellion against domination or interference by outsiders, (for better or worse). If only in retrospect, this had to happen.

(A dictatorship, of course excluded from that "law-based order"; and before the response by anyone -- Russia is no longer a dictatorship)

[Peter]

6 hours ago, anthony said:

Russia is no longer a dictatorship)

From “Apocalypse Now:” You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. 

From the site “1945”: The former speech writer elaborated: “The Russian economy is deteriorating,” Gallyamov said. “The war is lost. There are more and more dead bodies returning to Russia, so Russians will be coming across more difficulties and they’ll be trying to find explanation why this is happening, looking around to the political process and they’ll be answering themselves: ‘Well, this is because our country is governed by an old tyrant, an old dictator.’” Additionally, Gallyamov outlined how Moscow’s abysmal war efforts in Ukraine are creating tensions among Russia’s military leadership.

[Marc]

18 hours ago, Peter said:

Oh yeah. It says so right in the Oxford English Constabulary Book of Friction. Any country that calls its money loonies and toonies is a bit off. And just imagining those very same Canadians yelling across the border. And with pirate doubloons hiding in plain sight? It's scary. Brrrr.

Notes. Canada has pretty much the same denominations that the U.S. has: Cents (that don't buy much, and which nobody picks up off the ground just like in the U.S.,) nickels (not much purchasing power either), dimes, quarters, dollars (called "Loonies" because the standard design depicts the bird called a Loon,) and two-dollar bi-metallic coins (called "Toonies," apparently named in honor of the one-dollar coin of which Canadians are very fond). The various Canadian coins are all the same sizes as their U.S. counterparts although they are made of very different metals.

We don't have pennies anymore boss.

The one who you love the most, PM Trudeau and his Dad Pierre Trudeau ( probably your most favourite political figure ever ) abolished the penny a few years ago.

 

 

[anthony]

On 7/14/2023 at 6:28 AM, Peter said:

Russia initiated force in Ukraine. Period. Ukraine did not invade Russia.

 

See, the trouble is like everyone informed by MSM, you noted and paid attention - only - to the latest dramatic act of "force".

Horrors! Russia attacked and will occupy innocent Ukraine! Next, comes the attack on Europe! 

That nothing exists outside of what one has seen and been told and outside one's emotional prejudices, is subjectivist. 

To make it simple, a mental diagram.

1. "Big arrow" assault from West to East: 2014 until now.

----> (Kyiv's army  trained/equipped by US/UK against the Donbass).

 

2. Big arrow assault from East to West: Feb 2022 until the present.

<----- (Moscow's limited counter-assault into - mainly- the Eastern oblasts

3. A counter-assault from Kyiv with NATO help, eastwards/southwards since 2022, to newly "liberate" the Russian-"liberated" land. 

4. Defensive line of contact by RF forces in front of the liberated oblasts, against which the last UAF army is taking heavy losses .

5. Who knows? Where it ends and at which new borders?

To be impartial, who "initiated" the "force"? One does NOT have to cross a border to be the first user of force.

What many people who actually live there in the East all report (ex-Urainians who still remain from the millions who ran into Russia for safety), for them this has been an ongoing 10-year conflict. The MSM deliberately kept a lid on the Ukraine civil war and now had the West believing hostilities began just last year. Out of sight, out of mind.

I.e. Russia "did it" (for no sense or provocation!)

By Kyiv breaking the terms of a formal multi-national treaty** and continuously attacking and trying to invade those oblasts and overthrow Russian-Ukraine dissidents (now for almost 10 years) -  because they are ethnic "Russians" -- and likely (when victorious) continuing the aggression up to Russia's borders - yes, it can be said that Nato-ized Ukraine presented the threat of further aggression into Russia, itself.

They might have invaded Russian territory, encouraged by their victory over Ukrainian-Russians.

But that's futurist, if plausible, conjecture. Putin's invasion stopped that. Clear though, Crimea, without Russian resistance, would definitely have been attacked and fallen to this large force.

The main thing, the 1-2 assaults - their order and timing. 

In brief: Kyiv was and is repressing, then killing (still) their own people whose sin was they were ethnic Russians. Unchecked, they were soon going to murder/expel even more.

Make an objective, moral case out of that.

[**Everyone knows now the Minsk treaty was a time-wasting stratagem to halt the conflict for a while, obviously, to build up the UAF for its conquest of the East with Nato's input.

But by what special "rules" and official permission NATO was active inside Ukraine, a non-member, from 2015, and aided a non-democratic regime in a conflict is still not clear to me.]

 

[anthony]

19 hours ago, Peter said:

 

From the site “1945”: The former speech writer elaborated: “The Russian economy is deteriorating,” Gallyamov said. “The war is lost. There are more and more dead bodies returning to Russia, so Russians will be coming across more difficulties and they’ll be trying to find explanation why this is happening, looking around to the political process and they’ll be answering themselves: ‘Well, this is because our country is governed by an old tyrant, an old dictator.’” Additionally, Gallyamov outlined how Moscow’s abysmal war efforts in Ukraine are creating tensions among Russia’s military leadership.

Wrong, wrong, false and false and partly true (there will always be tensions in the military command during wartime).

I hope there's a special place in Hell for the paid stooges and compromised media who've urged Ukrainians to keep feeding their lives into the War Machine ("because Russia's going to collapse. Just you wait!"). 

[Peter]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

(because Russia's going to collapse. Just you wait!). 

So, the best moral outcome would be for Ukraine to surrender and be occupied by Russia? Ukraine was invaded by Russia and I am not implying that Ukraine is holier than thou. But an invasion is what occurred and a belligerent country like Russia just may want to expand their territory as did The Soviet Union. Hence the countries near Russia are joining NATO, Not to invade Russia but to protect themselves from Russia. Sweden, Finland . . . who's next? The news has some whoppers circulating that Putin's generals want to get out of Ukraine and will depose Putin unless he buggers off. Hopefully that will occur. Russia does not need another Czar and the world doesn't need Putin.      

[Marc]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

So, the best moral outcome would be for Ukraine to surrender and be occupied by Russia? Ukraine was invaded by Russia and I am not implying that Ukraine is holier than thou. But an invasion is what occurred and a belligerent country like Russia just may want to expand their territory as did The Soviet Union. Hence the countries near Russia are joining NATO, Not to invade Russia but to protect themselves from Russia. Sweden, Finland . . . who's next? The news has some whoppers circulating that Putin's generals want to get out of Ukraine and will depose Putin unless he buggers off. Hopefully that will occur. Russia does not need another Czar and the world doesn't need Putin.      

If the 2020 US election was not rigged, this would not have happened.

You said folks should let the election stand and look towards 2024 as you saw no proof of the rigging.

Now you are complaining about what the world has become after the rigged election that you want to stand.

This is exactly the reason why The People are still fighting 2020.

 

 

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

So, the best moral outcome would be for Ukraine to surrender and be occupied by Russia?     

Russia is not going to "occupy" Ukraine. Never wanted to and cannot do it. One can take that to the bank.

Logically, they would never try to impose an occupation on people ideologically opposed to all Russians . e.g. Galicians and the western regions.

While nothing here is for certain, the consensus which most makes sense is that inhabitants of those regions who will vote to leave Ukraine and secede to Russia, with a wide strip that provides a protective DMZ for those regions from missile/guerilla attacks, will be the RF's outer range of conquest. At that point presumably they'll talk terms, which might mean (the remaining) Ukraine's regime change; no doubt there'll be formalized security guarantees for both countries, agreed to by NATO. What Putin was always after...

Ukraine has already lost its legal, moral and sovereign rights to rule those - once loyal - citizens whom they'd been trying to kill and evacuate off their land.

One might say those inhabitants have permanently lost their faith in Kyiv.

What comes first, people or territory? Who has the primary moral right but the people in and of that land? Even if Ukraine -could- take back the lost territory, they would lose the people they'd mistreated.

Kyiv had its chances, Zelensky and his sponsors should have taken the first, quite fair and reasonable (Minsk 2) deal on offer. But he apparently got carried away with the delusions of grandeur he was fed by everyone.

Sad that this will reach the point where either side will have to capitulate, and if the reality had been firmly held to by other governments and militarists involved, they'd have admitted early on, that most unlikely would it be Russia. 

[anthony]

Good show, Stephen Gardner with Larry Johnson

[Peter]

Trey Gowdy is on Fox News at 12:44. He mentioned that President Biden insisted that Ukraine will eventually join NATO. But Trey pointed out, Ukraine must therefore win their war with Russia first.

Other gruesome news.

From Ukrainska Pravda: 500 Russians killed in Ukraine and dozens of vehicles destroyed Yesterday 1:21 AM Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed 500 Russian occupiers and destroyed 5 tanks and 18 artillery systems. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces from 24 February 2022 to 16 July 2023 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]: ・approximately 237,680 (+500) military personnel;  ・4,107 (+5) tanks;  ・8,026 (+7) armored combat vehicles; end quote

From The Guardian: Two killed in bridge 'emergency', governor of Russia's Belgorod region says Two people from Russia’s Belgorod region, a mother and father, were killed in the “emergency” on the Crimean bridge and their daughter was injured, the region’s governor has said on Telegram. “This morning we all started with information about the emergency that happened on the Crimean bridge. We all saw a video on the internet of a damaged car with Belgorod number plates,” Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote. “The girl was injured, moderately injured … The hardest thing is that her parents died, dad and mom.”

[tmj]

I think Trey meant end the war, winning is a way to end it but not a likely outcome.

Russia, not just Putin but all elements of the Russian state, have been saying for decades that NATO in Ukraine is a redline they would treat as an existential threat and that sentiment was reported/shared/acknowledged/understood by US/west and 'we' still championed the idea of Ukraine as a member to NATO.

It doesn't seem like Russia will face much in the way of domestic opposition in 'the Donbass' or Crimea while incorporating those regions into their fold, so minus a full fledged NATO/US backed total war effort, why would Russia relinquish the territories? And so what? Annexing those territories works to ensure the Black Sea Fleet operations. Historically when the Russians get uppity various European powers and the Ottoman Empire would maneuver and restrict or deny Russia the warm water ports, denying them access in a post nuclear weapon era is a harder task.

Keeping Ukraine as a buffer state between NATO and Russia would probably have been safer for the Ukrainian people safer for sure than goading Russia into an invasion.

As a person I feel horrible for the death and destruction war brings to actual people, as an American I don't see why I need to give two fucks about Eastern Europe, well except possibly those who have nuclear missile armed submarines and best not to piss them off , unless you are forced to and this doesn't seem like that.

[anthony]

Substack general roundup from Seymour Hersh

FEAR AND LOATHING ON AIR FORCE ONE

SUBSTACK.COM

---

Biden’s anxieties over the Ukraine War and the election in 2024 come into view

 

[anthony]

"Petal mines" fired into Donetsk dating *before* the invasion, but the contrived - "projected" - msm narrative that stuck, in world public opinion is: "Russians dunnit!" (to terrorize their newly "liberated" civilians, if you'd swallow that).

The West is silent as Ukraine targets civilians in Donetsk using banned ‘butterfly’ mines — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

ON.RT.COM

 

[anthony]

On 7/17/2023 at 5:30 PM, tmj said:

I think Trey meant end the war, winning is a way to end it but not a likely outcome.

Russia, not just Putin but all elements of the Russian state, have been saying for decades that NATO in Ukraine is a redline they would treat as an existential threat and that sentiment was reported/shared/acknowledged/understood by US/west and 'we' still championed the idea of Ukraine as a member to NATO.

It doesn't seem like Russia will face much in the way of domestic opposition in 'the Donbass' or Crimea while incorporating those regions into their fold, so minus a full fledged NATO/US backed total war effort, why would Russia relinquish the territories? And so what? Annexing those territories works to ensure the Black Sea Fleet operations. Historically when the Russians get uppity various European powers and the Ottoman Empire would maneuver and restrict or deny Russia the warm water ports, denying them access in a post nuclear weapon era is a harder task.

Keeping Ukraine as a buffer state between NATO and Russia would probably have been safer for the Ukrainian people safer for sure than goading Russia into an invasion.

As a person I feel horrible for the death and destruction war brings to actual people, as an American I don't see why I need to give two fucks about Eastern Europe, well except possibly those who have nuclear missile armed submarines and best not to piss them off , unless you are forced to and this doesn't seem like that.

Yes, and so said Stoltenberg. Not possibly just after any negotiated armistice, no, your NATO membership depends on "a victory". Which means they will never get it. And many more men to perish in the attempt. To beat Russia, Zelensky is desperately counting on that NATO membership now, that instantly invokes Art. 5, and then - what? Ukraine would not exist any more. The scumbag 'leader' betrayed his country, that is, alll of his Ukraine citizens, and is as much culpable as anyone for its destruction.

"Safer", certainly. I wonder how many Ukrainians now are waking up to the realization they ( their Gov anyway) made an awful blunder. Firm neutrality - was their single path to peace and prosperity . They would have benefited richly from both Europe and Russia, in that location.

The trend is towards non-aligned neutrality all over the "Developing Nations".

"You are either for us or against us!" - the false alternative - will gradually become old history.

[anthony]

On 7/17/2023 at 7:00 AM, Peter said:

 

Other gruesome news.

From Ukrainska Pravda: 500 Russians killed in Ukraine and dozens of vehicles destroyed Yesterday 1:21 AM Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed 500 Russian occupiers and destroyed 5 tanks and 18 artillery systems. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Details: The total combat losses of the Russian forces from 24 February 2022 to 16 July 2023 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses – ed.]: ・approximately 237,680 (+500) military personnel;  ・4,107 (+5) tanks;  ・8,026 (+7) armored combat vehicles; end quote

 

You'd have readers believe the wish-list figures in Ukr Pravda, from the Ukr General Staff but not from experienced US military observers with contacts on the ground, like Col. McGregor and many more?

Gotten worse, several analysts report that casualties have jumped to a 10:1 ratio since this counter-offensive. The UAF is committing suicide against the Russian defense line. Anecdotes of desertions and surrenders by untrained conscripts shoved to the front, increasing. 

[tmj]

McGregor and other military strategists and tacticians typically cite a 3 to 1 loss ratio between armies of equal strength and capability , meaning the army attacking a defensive position will suffer the loss of three combatants against the loss of one defender.

None of the “numbers” can be believed as they are ‘officially’ generated by belligerents in the conflict , strategy and tactics notwithstanding.

[anthony]

The numbers (with healthy skepticism) are more readily believable from the Russian side. Simply, they have little 'to prove'. Their reports are hardly seen outside and restricted in several countries. Minimal to zero, compared to the MSM disinformation and lies global reach. They even report their battle setbacks. Also I'd say the more realistic Russian population, from long experience, is not so easily taken in and indoctrinated by their state media. Ukraine (et al) has to keep the victory-fiction running, or Western support will fall away. No one likes and backs "a loser". The vast human or resource sacrifices/self-sacrifices will be vindicated and morally justified - these utilitarian-consequentialists sense - only by victory or 'symbolic victories'.  

https://youtu.be/DsqIm3F02Rc

 

[anthony]

An ordinary repressive day under dictatorship.

 

[anthony]

On 7/10/2023 at 6:14 AM, Peter said:

From “Objectivism The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Leonard Peikoff. The Initiation of Physical Force as Evil. Rationality requires the exercise of volition, which is the metaphysically given faculty of reason. Human beings must exercise reason (and therefore volition) in order to live. Because thought is an individual and not a collective process, different individuals may draw different conclusions about how to live. Two or more people who disagree about this issue have only three ways to resolve the dispute. The first is simply to go their separate ways; the second, to use persuasive argumentation; and the third, to initiate direct physical force (or its indirect version, fraud), which renders the victim's reasoning irrelevant and therefore impotent. Because individual human life is the standard of value and the individual's own reasoning and property is his proper method of sustaining that value, the initiation of physical force or fraud against the individual or his property is the basic moral wrong and evil. This holds true even if an individual's conclusions about how he should run his life eventually prove to be self-destructive, since he is the exclusive owner of his life and he alone will pay the price for his own mistakes. end quotes

For all this is a very well-reasoned argument by Peikoff, I was dismayed at one excerpt: "Because individual human life is the standard of value..."

Again, there is ambivalence and misunderstanding of "standard" which created confusion for O'ists. I can't resist picking it out again.

Exact words matter.

Rand was specific: while the individual's life is his/her's supreme value, what is the standard of this value?  "Man's life" is the standard of value for Objectivist ethics.

That's like leaping from the concrete to the abstract and back again.

A metaphysical standard, man's life, is an abstract measure - a gauge - by which one (individual) estimates one's level of application (right, by "the exercise of volition") to all the values/virtues - reason...integrity, etc. - in one's concrete existence.

She thereby sets an *objective* justification for her ethics. Briefly - practice all the virtues and - you llve as "man".

We'll get various subjectivist interpretations and acts from - your own life - being "the standard of value", which would morally justify all manner of deception, thieving and cheating and preying on others, etc. --in order to preserve and sustain your own physical life.

Anything goes to stay alive, no?

Then, Rand's system of ethics is just one more predatory "egotism".

From which, making (or not preventing) a needless, not self-defensive conflict which you have the power to stop at little cost to you, but perhaps you see 'gain' in it, is irrational, immoral, and by the standard of value, anti-man's life. Those humans are other lives of the same species who have value in themselves, whether objectively explicated in an ethics, or usually not. 

 

[Peter]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

From which, making (or not preventing) a needless, not self-defensive conflict which you have the power to stop at little cost to you, but perhaps you see 'gain' in it, is irrational, immoral, and by the standard of value, anti-man's life. Those humans are other lives of the same species who have value in themselves, whether objectively explicated in an ethics, or usually not.

Currently The World is experiencing a serious, nuclear problem with North Korea. Their chief potentate shoots his mouth off and also shoots off rockets that could contain nuclear war heads, and they could reach much of the globe. What can one country do, other than threaten retaliation killing him and his family and a million North Koreans?

It is a tough dilemma, and not to sound too Scifi, I worry about this scenario being the end of the world "as we know it." I wonder why the universe of intelligent beings is not out there communicating with other entities? Could it be reaching the threshold of creating nuclear weapons is what kills off civilizations? That may be too pessimistic, but currently with several nuclear level countries I think the risk is steadily increasing.

Woe is me. And everyone else.

      

[Peter]

From BBC: Nine countries currently have nuclear weapons: the US, UK, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

From Bing: In addition, Iran is suspected of actively seeking nuclear weapons.

From U.N. Agency: Speaking at a conference on tightening controls against nuclear proliferation, Mohamed ElBaradei said more nations are "hedging their bets" by developing technology that is at the core of peaceful nuclear energy programs but could quickly be switched to making weapons. ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called them "virtual new weapons states." The warning came amid heightened fears that North Korea's nuclear test explosion and Iran's defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment could spark a new arms race, particularly among Asian and Middle Eastern states that feel threatened. ElBaradei did not single out any country in his warning, but was clearly alluding to Iran and other nations that are working to develop uranium enrichment capability, such as Brazil.

Other nations, including Australia, Argentina and South Africa, have recently announced that they are considering developing enrichment programs to be able to sell fuel to states that want to generate electricity with nuclear reactors. Canada, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Taiwan, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania are among nations that either have the means to produce weapons-grade uranium if they chose, could quickly build such technology, or could use plutonium waste for weaponization. All are committed non-nuclear weapons states, and no one has suggested they want to use their programs for arms.

[anthony]

On 7/21/2023 at 8:41 PM, Peter said:

Currently The World is experiencing a serious, nuclear problem with North Korea. Their chief potentate shoots his mouth off and also shoots off rockets that could contain nuclear war heads, and they could reach much of the globe. What can one country do, other than threaten retaliation killing him and his family and a million North Koreans?

It is a tough dilemma, and not to sound too Scifi, I worry about this scenario being the end of the world "as we know it." I wonder why the universe of intelligent beings is not out there communicating with other entities? Could it be reaching the threshold of creating nuclear weapons is what kills off civilizations? That may be too pessimistic, but currently with several nuclear level countries I think the risk is steadily increasing.

Woe is me. And everyone else.

      

Peter, a saying goes - "if you're not part of the solution, you could be part of the problem". That applies I think to the West's poor handling, a huge overreach, of Russia, and somewhat to China. Rather than a show of strength, with Ukraine, what has become apparent to outsiders is how incredibly the West has sacrificed itself. The major problem is identifying Russia and China as joined together, a combined Asian geopoltical threat/peer competitor which needs containing/subsuming, one after the other. (There are big differences, the first being ideology). That's alluded to by generals and politicos as 'we have to make a final "example" of Russia's invasion to send the message to others - they cannot do the same'. I think this is dangerously short-sighted. What it does is notify China that they are likely next, raising alarm there. All of their leaders want their countries to be treated with respect - and, failing that, for NK, apparently with fear. That is where statesmen and diplomatic envoys enter. They don't have to approve of the regimes and leaders, just acknowledge that they know e.g. N Korea has its needs and security worries, as do their own countries, so cut out the attention-seeking display of missiles. A little carrot goes far, with the implicit stick not shown. But diplomacy seems to be a lost art. The perception is today that it is a sign of weakness - appeasement - to deal with dictators and authoritarians. I consider it a sign of character, dedication to reality and value in all humankind. The efforts of treating them as rational beings often reduce tension. The thing is to realize that nations cannot be coerced into some kind of perfection, but people volitionally change along with new generations born, they have to find their own way and the world wlll not be a Utopia.    

[Peter]

On 7/22/2023 at 7:48 PM, anthony said:

The efforts of treating them as rational beings often reduce tension. The thing is to realize that nations cannot be coerced into some kind of perfection, but people volitionally change along with new generations born, they have to find their own way and the world wlll not be a Utopia.    

Well said Anthony. I searched my saved documents for the word “extinction,” and I found a speech by someone famous. I just quote a couple of her thoughts. Peter

Barbara's lecture delivered in 2006 at The Atlas Society summer conference (the link, posted elsewhere on OL by Ed Hudgins, to this article on The Atlas Society's own website has been broken). Objectivism and Rage by Barbara Branden. A lecture presented at the TAS 2006 Summer Seminar, July 4, 2006, Chapman University, Orange, CA

. . . How much more difficult it is to see into other people’s minds. We cannot know precisely what information they possess or how their minds dealt with that information. We cannot know the degree of their intelligence or their context or their life experiences. We cannot know how or why they have arrived at ideas that we may find abhorrent and irrational. Yes, we may feel, when an opponent seems invincibly ignorant: “The world is racing toward disaster and we all face extinction because you refuse to think!”—but our emotions are not tools of cognition. Justice demands that we withhold moral censure where we do not have certainty. Life would be much simpler if the line between honesty and dishonesty, between intellectual integrity and evasion, were self-evident. But that line is not self-evident.

. . . My own understanding of maturity is that it requires the ability to live with uncertainty. Because no matter how much we know, how much we learn, we always are faced with many uncertainties—uncertainties about ourselves, about other people, about the world. No one can once and for all tie reality into one pretty parcel for us and tell us we need never doubt or wonder again. If we cannot accept this fact, and live comfortably with it, we are in very deep trouble indeed. How wonderful it is to find answers in an area where before we had only doubts and questions and uncertainties. And it can be equally wonderful to find new questions where before we thought we had certainty—and then to leap into the unknown in the search for knowledge. Surely this is a substantial part of what the richly lived life is all about.

[Peter]

I continued to look for “extinction” and I found a page of quotes from some guy. What was his name? All of the following quotes are from President Ronald Reagan.

“Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.” “One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.” “Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.”

“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.”

 “We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much” “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”  “Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” “Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.” “Man is not free unless government is limited.”

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”

“Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer.” “They say hard work never hurt anybody, but I figure why take the chance?”

“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”

“We need you, we need your youth, your strength, and your idealism, to help us make right what is wrong.” “Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known.” “Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.” “These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. . . . You can run but you can't hide.” “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” “When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.” “To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last -- but eat you he will.” “There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.”

“Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.” I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp. (February 10, 1982)”

“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder” “There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.”

And I guess everyone remembers the one about tearing down that wall. Peter