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[Rich Engle]

Interesting thing over at www.twainquotes.com (one of my favorite haunts):

Communism is idiocy. They want to divide up the property. Suppose they did it -- it requires brains to keep money as well as make it. In a precious little while the money would be back in the former owner's hands and the communist would be poor again.

- Mark Twain, a Biography

SILAS TIMBERMAN, by Howard Fast,

a 1954 novel wherein Twain's works are accused of being Communist propaganda.

Edited November 19, 2010 by Rich Engle

[Brant Gaede]

Brevity...

"NUTS!"

General McAuliffe. One of the Greats!

Ba'al Chatzaf

I've heard that that's not what he really said. It had to be sanitized. Other than that, I have no info.

--Brant

Brant, I never thought about it being sanitized, but it does make sense.

"It seems to have died out, but at one time 'NUTS!' meant something like, 'Go NFBSK yourself!'"

This was posted on a military forum about that McAuliffe quote.

Adam

Go 'Not for Bristish School Kids' yourself?

--Brant

[kiaer.ts]

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.

- Publius Terentius Afer

[kiaer.ts]

If you could understand "crazy" it wouldn't be "crazy."

- Splice

[DavidMcK]

All men are brothers, of one blood, of one human race.

They are brothers in one imperative desire to live, in one

desperate necessity to combine their energies in order to live.

Any man who injures another, injures himself, for human

welfare is necessary to his own existence.

Many men do not know this fact. It is not the first fact

that men have not known, nor the only one that they do not

know now. There are still people who believe that the earth is

flat. Because it is not flat, because it holds them to its surface

by the attraction of its spherical mass, they can behave, within

limits and for short distances, as if it were flat. Rose Wilder Lane

I believe this quote is out of 'The Discovery of Freedom' but I'm not sure. I liked that book though, and I got out of it that human beings are and always have been 'free' (volitional) even though she didn't give the kind of sophisticated philosophical arguments that Nathaniel Branden did in 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem'. I also like the Karma idea in this quote, that whomever hurts someone else hurts everyone (including themselves eventually). Karma may not work with mechanical-like necessity but it works often enough to be suggestive. This is the selfish basis of community.

[Peter]

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it. - Spock, “Star Trek 6.”

[kiaer.ts]

I believe this quote is out of 'The Discovery of Freedom' but I'm not sure.

Ever heard of google?

A truly evil book, BTW.

[Rich Engle]

I also like the Karma idea in this quote, that whomever hurts someone else hurts everyone (including themselves eventually). Karma may not work with mechanical-like necessity but it works often enough to be suggestive. This is the selfish basis of community.

Dangerous territory! They will be coming for you on that one!

rde

Basic UU 101 on that one.

[kiaer.ts]

How sad for Objectivism that challengers are deposed rather than debated.

[DavidMcK]

I believe this quote is out of 'The Discovery of Freedom' but I'm not sure.

Ever heard of google?

A truly evil book, BTW.

I won't react to your sarcasm, and I don't regard books as evil, there are books that I have gotten a great deal out of and some which I haven't.

Also, the other principle or idea that is worth thinking about from Lane's quote explains why people can be so wrong and still function in the world: notice that believing that the world is flat (or that the sun goes around the earth) doesn't necessarily make for any practical problems, it creates an upper limit to your understanding, and to the limits of your culture. A culture that believes the earth is flat is far less likely to explore the world in ships than one that assumes the earth is round. There are many ideas in 'The Discovery of Freedom' that make re-reading it a real pleasure. Here's another quote from 'The Discovery of Freedom' in which she was arguing with people objectivists would probably call 'tribalists' about American Individualism:

They questioned me shrewdly. I staggered myself by mentioning

taxes; I had to admit that an American pays the tribe

for possession of a house. This seemed to concede that the

American tribe does own the house. I was routed; their high

opinion of my country was restored.

Rose wilder Lane

Edited November 22, 2010 by DavidMcK

[kiaer.ts]

I believe this quote is out of 'The Discovery of Freedom' but I'm not sure.

Ever heard of google?

A truly evil book, BTW.

I won't react to your sarcasm, and I don't regard books as evil, there are books that I have gotten a great deal out of and some which I haven't.

Also, the other principle or idea that is worth thinking about from Lane's quote explains why people can be so wrong and still function in the world: notice that believing that the world is flat (or that the sun goes around the earth) doesn't necessarily make for any practical problems, it creates an upper limit to your understanding, and to the limits of your culture. A culture that believes the earth is flat is far less likely to explore the world in ships than one that assumes the earth is round. There are many ideas in 'The Discovery of Freedom' that make re-reading it a real pleasure. Here's another quote from 'The Discovery of Freedom' in which she was arguing with people objectivists would probably call 'tribalists' about American Individualism:

They questioned me shrewdly. I staggered myself by mentioning

taxes; I had to admit that an American pays the tribe

for possession of a house. This seemed to concede that the

American tribe does own the house. I was routed; their high

opinion of my country was restored.

Rose wilder Lane

"Ever heard of google" -- Google is the place to go with a statement whose source you want to find. I don't think it did occur to you to check the quote there, did it? That's hardly biting irony on my part.

As for books not being evil, well, no, not if you think of them as bound sheets of ink-stained paper. But if you consider the ideas contained therein, of course they are good or evil or some mixture thereof.

Wilder's book is pretty poison.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Ted Keer

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is a quote I have enjoyed from time to time. "No good deed shall go unpunished". It think it originated with Oscar Wilde.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's an aid:

The Discovery of Freedom

Michael

[DavidMcK]

I'll ignore your sarcasm too Michael and point out what I took from this book: that people can believe the earth is flat and still function until culture progresses to the point where you can no longer believe it without selecting your point of view for extinction. There is an evolution of ideas and truth (or a reality map) that trends ever closer to approximating reality without perhaps ever totally matching reality exactly (or it wouldn't be a map). That is what makes Rose Wilder Lanes idea so interesting and important...we were always free just like the earth was always round: we just had to discover it.

[Selene]

The more I learn about Abe the more I admire him.

"The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to

overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!"

Abraham Lincoln

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'll ignore your sarcasm too Michael and point out what I took from this book:

David,

Not sarcasm. Just horsing around.

I have not read the book, but from what I have read of Rose Lane Wilder, I do not consider her to be evil, nor do I believe she had evil intentions against individuals (like, say, Marx did).

There is a metaphorically true saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I am not so sure this is her case. I will put this on my reading list.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The more I learn about Abe the more I admire him.

"The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to

overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!"

Abraham Lincoln

I didn't know you could learn ignorance.

--Brant

[Selene]

The more I learn about Abe the more I admire him.

"The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to

overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!"

Abraham Lincoln

I didn't know you could learn ignorance.

--Brant

Now that statement confuses me. Can you clarify? I know it is not a compliment! lol

[DavidMcK]

He may be speaking from the revisionist point of view; those libertarians or anarchists that come from the Austrian School and have put forth the idea that the Civil War was really about tariffs; that the war was started because the North was basically making the South subsidize Northern manufacturing by raising tariffs through the roof. The South was especially hurt since the South was an exporter, and they minimize the slavery issue. They point out Abraham Lincoln put people in jail for criticizing his policies or the war (thousands) and suspended habeas corpus, subsidized the transcontinental railroad...you get the drift. Honest Abe was in their view one of the leaders of the expanded state.

[kiaer.ts]

Here's an aid:

The Discovery of Freedom

Michael

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Brilliant. Absofuckinglutely brilliant.

I haven't laughed so hard since seeing Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. I will send you the bill for aggravating my hernia by snailmail.

[kiaer.ts]

I'll ignore your sarcasm too Michael and point out what I took from this book:

I have not read the book, but from what I have read of Rose Lane Wilder, I do not consider her to be evil, nor do I believe she had evil intentions against individuals (like, say, Marx did).

There is a metaphorically true saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I am not so sure this is her case. I will put this on my reading list.

Michael

The book is beautifully written. It stands up there with God of the Machine in that respect. But Lane lets her metaphors run away with her, and mixes in some disastrously pernicious nonsense with her fancy prose.

[Brant Gaede]

He may be speaking from the revisionist point of view; those libertarians or anarchists that come from the Austrian School and have put forth the idea that the Civil War was really about tariffs; that the war was started because the North was basically making the South subsidize Northern manufacturing by raising tariffs through the roof. The South was especially hurt since the South was an exporter, and they minimize the slavery issue. They point out Abraham Lincoln put people in jail for criticizing his policies or the war (thousands) and suspended habeas corpus, subsidized the transcontinental railroad...you get the drift. Honest Abe was in their view one of the leaders of the expanded state.

The war was necessary to preserve the union as such. Slavery had a lot to making the war possible via the abolitionist movement plus the Southern states were gradually being overwhelmed in Congress because of the westward expansion with the free state/slave state controversy and conflict as to which new state would be when admitted to the Union. It was all part and parcel of the federal system overwhelming the individual states going on still today. I don't agree with a pure economic explanation of the conflict. It was much more complicated than that. South Carolina firing on Ft Sumter really got things going and Lincoln, in his only-to-me defense, didn't know what he was getting into in terms of cost, time and lives. Most wars seem to be like that.

--Brant

[kiaer.ts]

'You have to choose your future regrets' -Christopher Hitchens http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/14/christopher-hitchens-cancer-interview?intcmp=239

[DavidMcK]

Here's another, I hope I didn't cut and paste it from here or it will be old news to some:

A practical observation on the risks of stupidity was made by the German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in Truppenführung, 1933: "I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"

[DavidMcK]

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.--Ambrose Bierce