I want this on record

[Barbara Branden]

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an

example of 'empire building' by George Bush. He answered by saying,"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young

men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is

enough to bury those that did not return."

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an

example of 'empire building' by George Bush. He answered by saying,"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young

men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is

enough to bury those that did not return."

Barbara

They went to Iraq to fight for oil by George Bush. They thought they were fighting for freedom. Bush didn't have the slightest idea about that except for some propagandistic rhetorical flourishes. If he did he wouldn't have been screwing over Americans with his left hand while screwing over Hussein with his right. I do admit that this was a step up from LBJ who sent Americans to die in Vietnam to give the Vietnamese the right to vote themselves into communism--a right abrogated by Eisenhower, btw, in the 1950s.

--Brant

[Judith]

They went to Iraq to fight for oil by George Bush.

Mmm hmmm. That's why the price of gas went over $4 per gallon this summer. All that Iraqi oil we fought for.

Judith

[kiaer.ts]

They went to Iraq to fight for oil by George Bush. They thought they were fighting for freedom. Bush didn't have the slightest idea about that except for some propagandistic rhetorical flourishes. If he did he wouldn't have been screwing over Americans with his left hand while screwing over Hussein with his right. I do admit that this was a step up from LBJ who sent Americans to die in Vietnam to give the Vietnamese the right to vote themselves into communism--a right abrogated by Eisenhower, btw, in the 1950s.

"They went to Iraq to fight for oil by George Bush"? This sentence (well, the whole post) makes no sense. Kind of like the whole imperialism/Bush Lied-People died-Fish Fried/Blood for Oil nonsense.

What is "oil by George Bush"? If we fought for Oil, to whom did we lose it? Who is this they that thought they were fighting for freedom? The US military objective was to overthrow Saddam Hussein and install a popular government. unfortunately, Saddam is still in power, and all we have for our effort is all that oil we seized. (That's irony, Bob. )

This arbitrarily stated, unspecified, and undefined nonsense is so convoluted and meaningless it makes even those who spout it incoherent.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ted,

One day you should look into the concept of broker chain and oil.

It's an eye-opener.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I'm comfortable letting my post stand on its own two feet without further elaboration.

People qua politicians are too stupid to run a country as big as the United States. Dissolve the Union into its constituent States (and Texas by 5). The terrorists will never figure out who to terrorize. If one state gets too statist just move to another. Let France save the world. Not such a hard job if the United States isn't screwing it up.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

But for a consolation prize, you get to pay in taxes and in inflation, for the rest of your life ... After all, there's no such thing as a free lunch, you can't consume more than you have produced, and someone's got to pay for all of that national greatness.

Thank you for playing "If we're an empire, how come I'm not getting rich?"!

Martin

Thank you, Martin. Anyone with an interest in free market economic theory from an Austrian perspective might want to read a short book called Imperialism by Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter explains that imperialism originates not with businesses, but with masses of people who expect their governments to go overseas and loot other people for their benefit and then distribute the largess at home. Of course, it does not work that way, has not historically, and -- from the Austrian a priori assumptions -- cannot work that way.

For a clear picture we all have seen, I offer Spain's looting of the Americas. Why was Spain not the capital of a glorious renaissance? All that silver, all that gold, free (nearly) for the taking, mines in Bolivia and Mexico run on slave labor at the lowest possible costs. Why, instead, did all that loot go to finance the Northern Renaissance of the Netherlands and England? Why was Spain poorer and poorer with each shipload of silver and gold? -- and by "Spain" of course we mean the actual living suffering persons -- individuals -- of that place over those long centuries... from 1492 to 1821, when Spain's colonies broke away. Over three hundred years -- five, eight, ten generations -- of grinding poverty as a reward for silver and gold at the lowest possible cost.

Anyone who has studied physics ought to be able to figure that out.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[BaalChatzaf]

Anyone who has studied physics ought to be able to figure that out.

I am trying to fit your example to a system with lots of Gibbs Free Energy. It is the system with lower entropy that is capable of doing mechanical work. I am not quite sure what you had in mind, so could you clarify your remark? Thank you.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Good God! We have supposed Objectivists -- Craig Biddle et. al. -- recommending that we bomb mosques and schools in Iran, and now ... editing out of Ayn Rand's work what they prefer she had not written...

Barbara

Ideas do matter, but the salient question is: Which ideas? We all have had the experience of getting along alot better with people who are liberals, post-modernists, religous, unintellectual, and a hundred other et ceteras. Rand called it "sense of life." It is ironic that Lindsay Perigo launched Sense of Life Objectivists (SOLO) and that Barbara Branden was the angel on his highly ornamented Christmas tree. What changed? I believe that neither Lindsay nor Barbara changed. In fact, I wonder to what extent anyone ever "changes" -- and what we mean by that. Rather than changing, each revealed herself and himself. We all do this in interaction, communication, intercourse, trade, conflict. We begin with signs and calls -- among humans the complex semata of spoken or written abstractions. How we dress and address speak volumes that do not need to be written as metaphysics or politics. By "dress" I mean more than the mere clothing styles -- although there can be that -- but the adjectives and adverbs with which we adorn our speech.

"Address" gets closer to the problem, perhaps. Very seldom do two Objectivists disagree by asking questions. Nuances are deployed and arrayed as ordances. When you see the enemys' bayonet above the trench, you do not need to know the name of the manufacturer -- or the name of the man who carries it -- or why he is there. Even if her uniform is the same color as yours, you can still spot the insignia far enough away to sight in on it. Neo-con... imperialist ... empire-hater ... anarchist ... I always like using the pun "govern-mentality." ... collectivist ... mixed premise range of the moment context dropping muscle mystic ... It's almost poetry.

The worst part is that if you are not wrong, then I must be. A or non-A. Either-Or. To compromise is to surrender your values. So, to avoid being wrong -- at least in my own mind, if not in public -- I must defeat your arguments ... even if you are not arguing.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael,

The ideas ARI is trying to edit out of Objectivist history are documented elsewhere on the airbrushing threads.

I agree with you about the all-or-nothing form of arguing that surrounds us on all sides. It's silly, it's irritating and it's dangerous at times, but it exists.

I don't think the problem is ideas alone or even context. I see ideas wedded to vanity and ideas used to nurture personality cults as a source of real nasty actions by otherwise good people.

Obviously, for these folks, vanity and personality cult take priority when they clash with the ideas, so in that case they simply change the ideas and rewrite them or airbrush them to fit their self-image and projections on others.

Part of Rand's genius lays in the fact that, even though she was not totally successful in escaping the effects of this, she laid such a solid foundation for sticking to ideas over vanity and tribalism that real egoism—the fact that a person can morally claim the right to his own thinking without bowing to intimidation and peer pressure—keeps popping up within this really weird subcommunity of ours based on her work. (Incidentally, these independent thinkers are the sparks I look for and identify with.)

Her strong defense of selfishness appeals to vain people and attracts them like flies on a sugarloaf, but it also appeals to genuinely independent individuals. The history of the Objectivist movement is practically a nonstop clash between these two types, with some great ideas thrown in to confuse the issue.

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

I'm comfortable letting my post stand on its own two feet without further elaboration.

People qua politicians are too stupid to run a country as big as the United States. Dissolve the Union into its constituent States (and Texas by 5). The terrorists will never figure out who to terrorize. If one state gets too statist just move to another. Let France save the world. Not such a hard job if the United States isn't screwing it up.

--Brant

And, since Russia will absorb Alaska first, and only slowly work her way down to the 5,000 communes of California, and over to The Former People's Republic of Massachusets, the idiot anarchists will have plenty of time to agitate against self defense - and then flee for such evul dictatorships as maybe Britain (although it will be Britaniyya) which still believe in their own right to exist.

And people expect Americans to vote Libertarian!

Why not, while you're at it, tell your bodies cells that "Organism is Statism," and disband?

[Brant Gaede]

I'm comfortable letting my post stand on its own two feet without further elaboration.

People qua politicians are too stupid to run a country as big as the United States. Dissolve the Union into its constituent States (and Texas by 5). The terrorists will never figure out who to terrorize. If one state gets too statist just move to another. Let France save the world. Not such a hard job if the United States isn't screwing it up.

--Brant

And, since Russia will absorb Alaska first, and only slowly work her way down to the 5,000 communes of California, and over to The Former People's Republic of Massachusets, the idiot anarchists will have plenty of time to agitate against self defense - and then flee for such evul dictatorships as maybe Britain (although it will be Britaniyya) which still believe in their own right to exist.

And people expect Americans to vote Libertarian!

Why not, while you're at it, tell your bodies cells that "Organism is Statism," and disband?

This is just a think piece by me. I'm not actually advocating it--not right now, immediately. Someday in a somewhat different world there may be a change from the United States to a confederation. As for Russia, it will have a hard time holding on to Siberia. And as for terrorists, they are usually state-sponsored and the states that sponsor them should be summarily dealt with.

--Brant

[kiaer.ts]

I'm comfortable letting my post stand on its own two feet without further elaboration.

People qua politicians are too stupid to run a country as big as the United States. Dissolve the Union into its constituent States (and Texas by 5). The terrorists will never figure out who to terrorize. If one state gets too statist just move to another. Let France save the world. Not such a hard job if the United States isn't screwing it up.

--Brant

And, since Russia will absorb Alaska first, and only slowly work her way down to the 5,000 communes of California, and over to The Former People's Republic of Massachusets, the idiot anarchists will have plenty of time to agitate against self defense - and then flee for such evul dictatorships as maybe Britain (although it will be Britaniyya) which still believe in their own right to exist.

And people expect Americans to vote Libertarian!

Why not, while you're at it, tell your bodies cells that "Organism is Statism," and disband?

This is just a think piece by me. I'm not actually advocating it--not right now, immediately. Someday in a somewhat different world there may be a change from the United States to a confederation. As for Russia, it will have a hard time holding on to Siberia. And as for terrorists, they are usually state-sponsored and the states that sponsor them should be summarily dealt with.

--Brant

No problem. Let's hope you're right about Siberia - but the only problem I see therte is China taking it, not the Nivkh, Chukchi, Yukaghir, etc. declaring a free state.

[Barbara Branden]

Brant: "People qua politicians are too stupid to run a country as big as the United States."

This may be true but I don't think it's the problem. The real problem is not the size of the country but the size of government -- that is, the nature and complexity and variety of the activities and areas in which the government now makes decisions. I've often thought that no one man can possibly be an effective president -- that no one man, however brilliant and dedicated he may be and however many and accomplished his advisors, can possibly hold in his head all the elements necessary to make all the decisions he must make. It's very like the problem von Mises pointed out with regard to economic calculation, and why no economic calculation is possible under socialism: the complexity involved in deciding what millions of people will need and be willing and able to buy, and how to organize an entire economy so that the goods and services necessary are available when and where they are needed, makes centralized calculation and prediction impossible, Similarly, to decide what is the best system of government health care and how to sneak a Supreme Court appointment past Congress and what to do about Medical's huge deficits and how to balance the budget and whether to send more military equipment to Afghanistan and how the most recent bailout money should he apportioned and who will he best able to head the equally complex Federal Reserve, and so on ad infinitum, is an impossible task. The greatest genius on earth could not handle it. And the same is true of Congress. We are electing people to do jobs that no one man and no group of men can conceivably do with any hope of a successful outcome.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Great post, Barbara. But the bureaucrats would disagree with you. They think they are up to it if only they get more money and more power.

--Brant