Ayn Rand Weeps

[pippi]

Roger Bissell-great posts!

btw-Wo hui shuo ydiar putonghua. Ni hui shuo putonghua ma?

(pinyin bu hao. dui bu qi. xie xie)

[pippi]

Selene that video was funny but it almost was too realistic.

Here is another sort of haha:

[Selene]

The empty city section starts at about 1:13

[BaalChatzaf]

If Obama bows a little lower he can suck the Red Dragon's cock.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

I agree about national suicide being evil.

btw - You sure have changed. I remember when you openly preached that the best response to the possibility of an Iranian threat was to nuke Tehran preemptively to radioactive glass and ask questions later.

Has your opinion mellowed, or does this part of national suicide not count?

I've changed? How? I certainly haven't stopped beating my wife!

Your memory is better than mine. I assume you're referring to Barbara Branden's 2007 thread "THE LEPERS OF OBJECTIVISM," in which we discussed the problem of what to do about Iran, short of the stock ARI/Peikoffian "solution" of deliberately bombing population centers without warning. So I re-read that entire thread twice and didn't find anything like what you're attributing to me. If there is ~some other~ thread you have in mind, please guide me to the relevant thread(s) and post(s).

First of all, in that LEPERS thread, I don't detect any signs of myself "openly preaching" anything, as opposed to forthrightly advocating things I believe to be good or true. Is "openly preaching" code for firmly, clearly, at length, and without apology stating something others disagree with? Is it code for sounding to others like a clueless, dogmatic blowhard? Please clarify.

More importantly, I don't see any indication that I advocated using nuclear weapons against "possible threats" -- only against people who have attacked us or assisted those who have attacked us or ~actually~ threatened to attack us. Iran certainly belongs in that category, even though they have not (yet) declared war or sent an army or air force against us. The ARI/Peikoff analysis is absolutely correct up to this point.

And I believe that I only advocated using nukes if that is the minimum sufficient use of force, to get the other country to stop attacking us, while protecting the maximum number of American lives (don't use bodies when you can use inanimate objects). Again, I think this squares with the ARI/Peikoff line, as well as with the policy followed to end World War 2.

Nor do I recall saying we should pre-emptively attack anyone and only "asking questions later." In regard to Iran, ~unlike~ Peikoff et al, I suggested a 48-hour advanced warning to allow any innocent parties not wishing to die for their aggressor leaders to leave the area of Ground Zero -- and I revised that to one week, as a reasonable concession for practical and humanitarian reasons.

My position on this has ~not~ changed or "mellowed." I stand by it today. And as Iran gets closer and closer to having deliverable nuclear weapons, I think it's likely that we will be drawn into an actual nuclear ~war~, with our country and Israel being the prime targets, and millions of Americans to die as a result of our not having taken effective action sooner.

Why? Because Fundamentalist Religionists with nukes are not as likely to be deterred by "Mutual Assured Destruction" as were those "godless atheists" in the Kremlin during the Cold War. If a few hundred million Muslim civilians have do go to Allah in the process of destroying "The Great Satan" and "The Little Satan" -- well, the glory is in serving Allah.

I fear the likelihood of a nuclear exchange with Iran much more than I do one with China, for instance. China, like the Soviets prior to the 1990s, has "a lot more to live for" than do Fundamentalist Religionists who are glad to sacrifice millions of their own citizens' lives as a means to mass murder of their enemies. (This is the same reason I would be horrified at the prospect of a Fundamentalist Christian as President of the United States.)

Now -- how this all relates to "national suicide" (e.g., becoming more and more a redistributive, statist regime and bowing to other heads of state and apologizing for the greatness of one's country) being evil, I don't understand. Just as I think that national suicide is evil, so do I think that it is evil not to carry out the appropriate form of national self-defense.

We may disagree as to what is the proper form of the latter, but surely we agree in principle that national self-defense, "choosing to live" as a nation, is good -- just as national suicide is evil. Should countries on an evil path ~not~ engage in national self-defense? (That's a rhetorical question, of course.)

So, I don't see any inconsistency, and I don't see any "mellowing." If you do, please explain.

REB

[Martin Radwin]

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/05/so-iran-gets-nukes-so-what.html

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/04/morality-humanity-and-civilization.html

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I looked it up and was going to post a long answer, but your last post reiterated what I objected to back then. First I want to say my memory was faulty. Steve Reed (Greybird) was the one who used the term "radioactive glass"--several times in fact. That wasn't you. My apologies.

If you are interested in looking this stuff up (or other stuff), unfortunately OL's present software package only allows you to look up stuff going back a year or two. Changing it involves some complications that are just no worth it. Later I will resolve this in a permanent--uncomplicated--fashion. But, for now, you can Google a lot of stuff since most of the OL pages are indexed. Here is the code I used for you:

site:objectivistliving.com +Bissell +Tehran

With that out of the way, here is the main part I object to in your view (and I am writing as a friend who wishes only good things for you, not as a hostile foe):

More importantly, I don't see any indication that I advocated using nuclear weapons against "possible threats" -- only against people who have attacked us or assisted those who have attacked us or ~actually~ threatened to attack us. Iran certainly belongs in that category, even though they have not (yet) declared war or sent an army or air force against us.

. . . . .

Nor do I recall saying we should pre-emptively attack anyone and only "asking questions later." In regard to Iran, ~unlike~ Peikoff et al, I suggested a 48-hour advanced warning to allow any innocent parties not wishing to die for their aggressor leaders to leave the area of Ground Zero -- and I revised that to one week, as a reasonable concession for practical and humanitarian reasons.

My position on this has ~not~ changed or "mellowed." I stand by it today.

First, I strenuously object to using nukes on civilians as a response to a threat. I don't care who promotes that idea. In my view, nukes are weapons of last resort, not first or even middle resort.

Second, your generous upping of the time to get out of Tehran before being blown to smithereens (from 48 hours to a week) is still unrealistic for a city of 14 million inhabitants. I have lived in a city with a population slightly larger than that and I can assure you that your alternative is no alternative at all. The traffic jams I witnessed--caused by things far less serious than being nuked--were Homeric.

You alternative reminds me of a story my father used to tell me about two bullies he knew in Coeburn, Virginia (a small coal-mining town) around the 1940's. The two bullies were friends and they would approach a victim. One bully would ask belligerently, "Are you a Democrat or a Republican?" The victim, sensing he would get beat up if he gave the wrong answer, asked Bully 1, "Which are you?"

Bully 1: "Democrat."

Victim (to Bully 2): "And which are you?"

Bully 2: "Republican."

The outcome was that the victim was beaten up either way.

In your scenario, the bulk of the population would get bombed even if they tried to take your alternative.

In that sense, I see no difference between what you say and the stuff Peikoff, Brook, etc. were preaching back then. If giving the illusion of an alternative makes you feel better, that's only on your side. It has nothing to do with an actual alternative in reality.

My deepest objection of all in this entire issue--and this only occurred to me recently, but the objection has been there smoldering underground since the beginning--is all this mental rehearsing for killing innocent civilians that goes on in the Objectivist subcommunity.

Several Objectivist writers and speakers make a point of shoving in the public's face how indifferent they are if they have to kill innocent people (since they claim that all the moral guilt is on those who threatened them). And they keep repeating this mantra as if practicing a musical instrument for a concert.

I find this really creepy.

Kill innocents if you have to. There are cases where this has to be done. But, for God's sake, don't try to tell people that this is a good and moral thing to do. Even Rand says morality ends where a gun begins. You do what you gotta do--even if it means killing innocents--so you can get back to morality. You don't kill innocent people to practice it.

That's my view and I do not expect this ever to change.

With respect to China, it is a Trojan Horse of the first order. And people are letting the horse on in and talking about what a fine unobjectionable present it is. Our fearless leaders here in the USA are doing it because they exported the USA inflation to China for decades as they spent like there was no tomorrow. And the public is buying the story the media is producing.

People now look at China's government leaders and forget all about China's military leaders. Did those gentlemen suddenly change their minds about the policies they used to promote just because some Chinese government leaders did? Did they miraculously wipe out their own memories--their very history--and how they got to be military leaders in the first place?

Heh.

I know of no military in any country in the world that works like that. And I think a group of disgruntled hawkish military leaders is a very dangerous thing. Especially when they have their own nukes to play with.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

China is the angel and the USA is the devil? Gimme a break!

Has your reading comprehension failed, or had you simply not had your coffee yet?

Steve,

My reading comprehension goes deeper than just a surface message.

I recognize slant when I see it. To paraphrase you:

• The USA has all the money in the world to spend on wars, military empire, etc., and China--at least--does not.
• The USA does its military empire evil in other countries and China--at least--keeps all its own military empire monkey-business internal (except for North Korea).
• Some folks now need USA-imposed "Heimatsicherheitsamt permission to fly, as well as be sexually molested" which China--at least--does not practice.
• Ayn Rand wrote in "semi-hysteria" about China and the USA.

If need be, I can quote your own words and even give you statistics on how many times you outright bash the USA and qualify China in the same breath. If I decide to really go for it, I know I will find a lot more. I admit, that was a nice touch saying Rand was semi-hysterical so as to try to discredit her views on this.

When anyone keeps that kind of slant going, after a while a very clear message comes through, even if you don't explicitly state it. In other words, to quote myself, the hidden message is: "China is the angel and the USA is the devil." Angel with a dirty face, maybe, but still an angel by comparison.

See? I read quite well. I even read the words in focus so this kind of hidden message doesn't fool me.

Michael

[william.scherk]

If you are interested in looking this stuff up (or other stuff), unfortunately OL's present software package only allows you to look up stuff going back a year or two. Changing it involves some complications that are just no worth it.

Are you sure about this? I just did an OL search of Roger's posts with "Tehran" and "Teheran" as search terms. I chose a date range back to 2005, and the search did its job.

I would give the Iranian government 48 hours to surrender (and innocent civilians to move to safety), and then I would nuke Teheran and Qum. Heavy leafletting of the "liberal," "Westernized" population, to give them a chance to rise up against their leaders and take down the regime from within -- but if they don't take responsibility (or at least get out of Dodge before H-hour), they go down with the regime.

One annoyance of the upgrade (which I think you may have already explained) comes in searching via Member pages. If you try to look up Mr Soandso's posts this way, the results are truncated.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

That's great news.

I have had complaints before about people not being able to search far back, but probably it was only to view the posts of a member.

I'm still going to resolve this permanently, though. Anything I do right now with this company (as I have done in the past) gets overwritten when there is an upgrade.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It gets worse by the day:

Chinese Pianist Plays Propaganda Tune at White House

US humiliated in eyes of Chinese by song used to inspire anti-Americanism

By Matthew Robertson

Epoch Times

Jan 22, 2011

From the article:

Lang Lang the pianist says he chose it. Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into

, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to

The film depicts a group of “People’s Volunteer Army” soldiers who are first hemmed in at Shanganling (or Triangle Hill) and then, when reinforcements arrive, take up their rifles and counterattack the U.S. military “jackals.”

The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades.

I couldn't even read the whole thing...

Michael

[fight4thefuture]

It's so difficult for me to figure out what is going on with China. We're both mixed economies. A professor came to my school to give a lecture on her book "The Dragon's Gift"--China's decades long influence in Africa. She explicit said that Chinese foreign policy was "non-altruistic" and more of a business-like approach while ours was altruistic and detrimental to Africa and ourselves. A professor asked her to elaborate on her use of the term altruism and she just stuck to her argument and terminology.