NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

I dont know who to suggest but why dont we post the names of current Democrats and Republicans House of Representatives and Senators you think should join the Libertarian Party, also former office holders and even some other well known persons.

Sooooo how far towards the libertarian ideal do you think we should go? I mean, I like my streets and streetlights and firetrucks and teachers and hospitals. And the libertarians say that private business will somehow fund all that. Not sure I have the faith in man that the libertarians do. Or could their politicians be trying to get some for themselves?

Sooooo how far towards the libertarian ideal do you think we should go? I mean, I like my streets and streetlights and firetrucks and teachers and hospitals. And the libertarians say that private business will somehow fund all that. Not sure I have the faith in man that the libertarians do. Or could their politicians be trying to get some for themselves?

[gives cookie]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

Wait. "Pushed for Clinton's impeachment". "Interested in what is right". Something doesn't follow here.

[gives cookie]


Can I call you a San Franfreakan?
91601 area code here :)

I used to live in Santa Cruz. Loved it but hated SF. To damned cold and windy. When you have to wear your field jacket in the middle of the summer it IS TOO COLD!:mad:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

That's a bit of a backflip then. A libertarian wouldn't care what Clinton did with an intern. Previously he couldn't have been a libertarian. Or then again, he could be saying he is a libertarian, as he thinks that will help him get re-elected, even though he doesn't hold libertarian views.

My experience with Barr was that he was generally a "tax cuts first last and always" kind of guy with a pretty good side dish of civil liberties--though as some have pointed out, he wasn't above setting that aside when it was convenient a la the Clinton impeachment. That makes him no more or less honest than any other politician. The ACLU thought enough of him to put him on their Board a few years ago, which made me happy because it gave me yet another thing to toss into the faces of the "ACLU is a bunch of commies" crowd, not that they ever listened--why would they?

Sooooo how far towards the libertarian ideal do you think we should go? I mean, I like my streets and streetlights and firetrucks and teachers and hospitals. And the libertarians say that private business will somehow fund all that. Not sure I have the faith in man that the libertarians do. Or could their politicians be trying to get some for themselves?
The private sector already provides most of these services. I mean, my dad is a civil engineer for the city [so he plans the streets and bridges and stuff] but who do you think actually mixes the cement, builds the streetlights, and puts in the curbs? Contractors. The idea that they'd stop doing it overnight [because the need to feed oneself doesn't just vanish if ODOT didn't exist tomorrow] if the government didn't come in and hold their hand through it is just ridiculous.

A little over a decade ago when those tremors hit California it fucked up some roadways and the state government freaked out because it had to repair a lot of road really fast. It didn't have the manpower to do it all by itself, so it sold contracts for rebuilding to various private enterprises. In an effort to quicken the process, they added monetary [gasp!] incentives to the crews that happened to beat their deadlines. The contractors beat every single deadline by a matter of [i]months, and the L.A. municipal road maintenance crews looked really bad because they were still only like halfway done and they were jsut working on the exit ramps.

Private schools and hospitals also exist and in the wide majority of cases they are far superior to their state-run counterparts. Also, libertarians don't have "faith in man": you're right about that because faith means that you beleive something will happen with no evidence onhand to suggest that it's even a remote possibility. Faith is a belief or conviction that isn't based on what you've actually seen; rather what you feel. A better way to say it would be that we have confidence that these services would still be rendered by the private sector, because in most cases either they're the ones doing it anyway; or they do an uncomparably better job when they do. We've seen it work so "faith" is a gross misnomer.

To answer your question: All the way. Well, except for that BS about "political amorality," that's just tripe.

Private schools and hospitals also exist and in the wide majority of cases they are far superior to their state-run counterparts.

and they achieve this by taking more funds from people than the government would take, so the point is yeah they will do better unless your poor of course...

…I just hijacked a thread and argued with a mod. I am soooo doomed :(

and they achieve this by taking more funds from people than the government would take, so the point is yeah they will do better unless your poor of course...

They take it from people who are going to go there. Unlike governments, which take it from every fucking person in the nation. Maybe some poor people wouldn't be so poor if they didn't have to slave away 1/3rd their life to pay for government-funded education that they don't even USE. Ya think?

They take it from people who are going to go there.

so fuck those who go there and can't possibly afford the expensive treatment?

Unlike governments, which take it from every fucking person in the nation.

oh noez teh ebil government is accepting the lower classes contribution to society and understanding that maybe they will need help with things in life in return (and if you still don't agree with me I suggest you go buy some property to defend and maintain yourself since surely the poor are just leeching off you)

Maybe some poor people wouldn't be so poor if they didn't have to slave away 1/3rd their life to pay for government-funded education that they don't even USE. Ya think?

Yeah cus its not like poor kids can rise above there parents poverty is it :rolleyes:

I really wouldn't call Barr a true libertarian. He may be libertarian on tax issues and privacy, but what about other social freedoms?

Edit: According to wikipedia: Bob Barr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barr)

*Apparently a family values proponent - not in line with libertarian principles (at least the laws surrounding them)
*Pro-life - fine by libertarian principles
*Proponent of the War on Drugs - not in line with the Libertarian Party
*Against USA PATRIOT Act - fine by libertarian principles

The two biggest things he has going against him are his support for the war on drugs, and the traditional conservative "family values" stance. I wouldn't consider him libertarian if you ask me.

and they achieve this by taking more funds from people than the government would take, so the point is yeah they will do better unless your poor of course...

…I just hijacked a thread and argued with a mod. I am soooo doomed :(
They might take more but they a) ask first and b) do a better job with it. Compare the cost:result ratio as they apply to public schools nationwide versus private schools nationwide. Private schools charge a fee for a service like any other private institution.

The corner you need to think around when dicussing private vs. public schooling costs is that the money structure for public schooling allows the state government to take money from families who don't make use of said services. The only reason private schools "take more" is because they actually seek payment from the people using the service--and there's nothing wrong with that. The government actually takes a whole hell of a lot more than they do, but they "defray" the expense by charging everyone; and not just the people using the schools. I can't say as I'm a big appreciator of paying for a service that I'm not using.* Having been through the public school system myself I can safely say that the wide majority of it is just filler anyway; and that what I was taught in twelve years could have easily been done in six or seven. I lost all faith in public schooling at the tender age of ten when I realized that we had to read Gary Paulsen's Hatchet twice in as many years; and also when it occured to me that we spent three full years on long division.

School is not meant to teach our kids how to prepare for the real world. School exists so that the bulk of our nation's youth are occupied whilst their parents are at work. The basic knowledge necessary to get through life [basic math, learning where your country is on the globe, etc.] is incredibly simple and everything that I've had to use since I've learned it could have been taught to me in about half the time.

And obviously you can't pay for private schools if you're poor; but in most cases if you're that badly off the equivalent public school wouldn't be much better [which is why we have all the asbestos horror stories and the investigative reporters in inner-city public schools].

Pointing out that some folks are impoverished does not a point make. The lyrics quoted in my sig below are [as with most political and social issues] almost eerily apt here.

*But, then again I'm not really paying for it right now since I'm not a homeowner and I'm not subject to the property taxes which fund schools in most districts.

and also when it occured to me that we spent three full years on long division.

Think that's bad? In the 3rd grade at the school in this town, we didn't even begin learning division. I transferred to a school in the Rio Grande Valley at the half-year mark, where I was told that they had been doing division since the beginning of the 2nd grade, not to mention multiplication near the end of the 1st.

Not only is public school broken in the sense that cirriculum is so inflated with filler, it's broken in different places in different schools, even in the same district, much less the same state.

The private school I went to taught my utterly nothing, except in the area of pre-algebra in 7th and 8th grade. It was not really well-funded to tell you the truth. The public school I now go to, which isn't the best school either, has taught me more stuff than the private school could ever do. And I'm not particularly fond of that school either.

Is the problem public schools, or funding and efficiency in running the school?

so fuck those who go there and can't possibly afford the expensive treatment?

They can go elsewhere where they can afford it.


oh noez teh ebil government is accepting the lower classes contribution to society

I like how you turned "the government takes 1/3rd of the income from even poor people" into "the government is accepting the lower classes contribution to society."

Next up: A mugger accepts his victim's contribution to his well-being!

and understanding that maybe they will need help with things in life in return

Har. Yeah. Cuz taxes goes to things that help with my life - like killing Iraqi civilians! I'm sure that would help me a lot if I was poorer. Unless I lived in Iraq, I guess.

Yeah cus its not like poor kids can rise above there parents poverty is it :rolleyes:

...

I don't believe you are actually reading things I write. Therefore, writing anything here is futile.

The private school I went to taught my utterly nothing, except in the area of pre-algebra in 7th and 8th grade. It was not really well-funded to tell you the truth. The public school I now go to, which isn't the best school either, has taught me more stuff than the private school could ever do. And I'm not particularly fond of that school either.

Is the problem public schools, or funding and efficiency in running the school?
Well, a school being private doesn't guarantee that it's good: the same law applies in other areas of economics as well. Observe, for instance, how badly Ticcketmaster sucks. Likewise, it's possible to have capable, dedicated people in public education--I've met many of them.

Education-wise* the biggest problems facing our country might not have to do too much with where the money comes from, but rather how the subject matter is taught. In the wide majority of cases [and especially with History] subject matter is taught perceptually: your teacher may arrange, say, an excersize describing how Eskimos foraged for food, but there's seldom any follow-up: learning in public schools for the most part does not teach concepts--only sensory "tidbits" without any conceptual link to the "big picture." We're taught to approach large, far-reaching issues on a singular, sensory basis. They tell you how Eskimos got berries and fish, but they don't tell you why they settled there instead of moving south; they don't describe tribe dynamics or gender roles or social norms. I'm not saying this is the case in one hundred percent of public schools; and I'm not saying the correct approach is deployed without fail in private schools. I'm just saying that this is the reason why America's youth has a hard time thinking--a fact that is depressingly manifest whenever I hear one of them try to talk politics.

*Morally, however, where the money comes from is a big issue.

The corner you need to think around when dicussing private vs. public schooling costs is that the money structure for public schooling allows the state government to take money from families who don't make use of said services.

ah but just because you are not involved in the said service doesn't mean you don't benefit from it (hence why compulsory education was introduced in the first place)

Not to mention the fact that lack of education and crime tend to go together (the greatest fear of a 18th century landowner!)

I can't say as I'm a big appreciator of paying for a service that I'm not using.*

Ah but one day you might have kids or even grandkids and this is when all that money you paid will come back I think of it like monthly instalments on having a doctor as a son

I lost all faith in public schooling at the tender age of ten when I realized that we had to read Gary Paulsen's Hatchet twice in as many years; and also when it occured to me that we spent three full years on long division.

But maybe you were one of the more clever ones I never got that feeling in school (then again odds are we come from vastly different national school system) and I fail to see what is wrong with drilling in very important life skills

School is not meant to teach our kids how to prepare for the real world. School exists so that the bulk of our nation's youth are occupied whilst their parents are at work. The basic knowledge necessary to get through life [basic math, learning where your country is on the globe, etc.] is incredibly simple and everything that I've had to use since I've learned it could have been taught to me in about half the time.

So your saying let kids out to work even earlier?

And obviously you can't pay for private schools if you're poor; but in most cases if you're that badly off the equivalent public school wouldn't be much better [which is why we have all the asbestos horror stories and the investigative reporters in inner-city public schools].

Ah but if we don’t educate the poor that just leaves them in an endless cycle of poverty and thus growing social inequality and the one thing that came with social the massive inequality in the 20’s was social upheaval!

Pointing out that some folks are impoverished does not a point make.

Pointing out that getting folks out of being impoverished is not only good for business but good for pretty much everything a point does make though

edit: that took me a rather long time...

Ah but one day you might have kids or even grandkids and this is when all that money you paid will come back I think of it like monthly instalments on having a doctor as a son

Surely, you're not serious? I was in public school long enough to realise that only three or four kids in the entire Elementary school would have the mental capacity to become doctors.

It differs region to region, yes, but the fact remains that it's not standard for every school, thus debunking what you said.

They can go elsewhere where they can afford it.

We learnt many things from the 16th century one of them was that when the poor go to the old herbal lady because they can’t afford proper medical treatment they don’t tend to get better and in some cases just get worse.

Not to mention the fact that if your poor you will tend to ignore health problems more which can be real trouble In some cases

I like how you turned "the government takes 1/3rd of the income from even poor people" into "the government is accepting the lower classes contribution to society."

I must of must read you then I thought you was complaining about how a third of your income goes to helping the poor I do apologise if this is the case

Next up: A mugger accepts his victim's contribution to his well-being!.

Yes because tax is in fact theft here’s a clue:

When the a mugger takes something the people have to give it
When the government uses taxes you can emigrate to somewhere more fitting (as many folk are doing)


Har. Yeah. Cuz taxes goes to things that help with my life - like killing Iraqi civilians! I'm sure that would help me a lot if I was poorer. Unless I lived in Iraq, I guess.."

Your tax money goes to defence spending yes but considering the tax paying public voted your representatives and they chose to go to war in your best interest its not the systems fault it’s the people who made that decision (alternatively you can look at the military force of lets say Israel during the Yom Kippur War which was a good investment for the people)

ah but just because you are not involved in the said service doesn't mean you don't benefit from it (hence why compulsory education was introduced in the first place)
I don't think I can think of many things you could say that could possibly be more morally irrelevant than this. Whether or not something benefits me, the simple fact remains that I should have a choice if my resources are supposed to make it possible--anything else is theft. Just because it might be good for me in some roundabout way does not automatically mean it should be done.

Not to mention the fact that lack of education and crime tend to go together (the greatest fear of a 18th century landowner!)
I don't think our crime statistics are an accurate reflection of the successes of public schooling. I'm not sure what you think I'm getting at but I didn't actually suggest that we not educate people. I'm just suggesting we find a way to make it work without engaging in theft.

Ah but one day you might have kids or even grandkids and this is when all that money you paid will come back I think of it like monthly instalments on having a doctor as a son
I don't plan on sending my kids to public school if I can help it.

But maybe you were one of the more clever ones I never got that feeling in school (then again odds are we come from vastly different national school system) and I fail to see what is wrong with drilling in very important life skills
Ummm... I've been in the "real world" for some time now and I can't think of a single time I've had to use long division. Granted, there's still plenty of time but I don't think it's very likely that someone's going to give me a list of figures to divide at work and say "you're not allowed to use a calculator." It might come in handy at some point but long division and book reports are not what I would call "Very important life skills."

So your saying let kids out to work even earlier?
Well... not in that post; I don't really know how you picked this up but I was just pointing out how horribly inefficient our system is.

Incidentally, I happen to think we should probably be doing this which is why I'm a little less pissed than usual about people putting words in my mouth. A job would have done me and just about everyone else I know a hell of a lot more good when I was 15 than falling asleep on my desk in a puddle of drool.

Ah but if we don’t educate the poor that just leaves them in an endless cycle of poverty and thus growing social inequality and the one thing that came with social the massive inequality in the 20’s was social upheaval!
You've obviously never debated with me before...

I'm going to say this once and only once: Our legislative framework regarding economics does about ten times more for poor people than education ever will. If, for example, you're a poor person in a country that educates the bejesus out of you but doesn't let you work for your own benefit, we're back at square one. There aren't really many poor people in this country anyway: I live in the first civilization in human history where overeating kills more people than starvation: poor people in this country have easy access to food, water, color TVs, and microwaves. God I love capitalism. Standards have been on the rise primarily as the result of the availability of new products and technology--you can see this trend starting as far back as the Renaissance.

Pointing out that getting folks out of being impoverished is not only good for business but good for pretty much everything a point does make though
That's all well and good; but it's one thing to say "hey these people need a leg up" and it's something entirely different to knock on my door with a pistol and say "give these people a leg up or I'll throw you in a goddamn cage." I call it moral cannibalism; since you're basically attempting to enrich society by consuming substantial portions of it.

The government is notoriously inefficient with my money, and I'd prefer to make more direct contributions under the circumstances.

We learnt many things from the 16th century one of them was that when the poor go to the old herbal lady because they can’t afford proper medical treatment they don’t tend to get better and in some cases just get worse.

Something we learnred from the centuries on is that a free market creates variety. That would include health services.

Not to mention the fact that if your poor you will tend to ignore health problems more which can be real trouble In some cases

Well, who's fault is that? Jeez, you shouldn't ignore health problems no matter what your income is.


I must of must read you then I thought you was complaining about how a third of your income goes to helping the poor I do apologise if this is the case

OK.

Yeah, my point was that everyone gives at least a fourth or a third of their income - meaning, a fourth or a third of their life - towards the government. Maybe if they didn't have to, there wouldn't be nearly as much poverty.

Yes because tax is in fact theft here’s a clue:

When the a mugger takes something the people have to give it
When the government uses taxes you can emigrate to somewhere more fitting (as many folk are doing)

Isn't this sorta the same argument that I've given for health services? If a person doesn't like the prices of one place, they can go to another.

Except the analogy isn't nearly apt. Because emigrating to a new country is a whole helluva lot more expensive, time-consuming and life-changing. More than, say, shopping at place X rather than place Y.

And yes - even allowing for emigration, you HAVE to give taxes. If you don't, they put you in prison. Trust me on this. It operates on the principle of threat of force, the same one used by the mugger.

Your tax money goes to defence spending yes but considering the tax paying public voted your representatives and they chose to go to war in your best interest its not the systems fault it’s the people who made that decision

It's the system's fault that depending on what some representatives decide, my money can be used to kill people. Not just mine, either. The poor people you like to think you're championing.

And really, I'm not impressed with the "vote" or the "best interest." The vote is more or less meaningless when there's only two choices: socialist republicans and socialist democrats. And if they honestly think killing Iraqis is in my best interest, then they just plain don't know what's in my best interest. To those people I am supposed to entrust up to a third of the income I will make in my entire life?

The two biggest things he has going against him are his support for the war on drugs, and the traditional conservative "family values" stance. I wouldn't consider him libertarian if you ask me.

Is there any politician in the Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian parties that supports the party line 100%? I think not. I think we need to evaluate the candidate on the issues we feel are the most important to us as an individual and vote for him or her.

There are issues that I don't agree with Rudy Giuliani, gun control, abortion, and gay marriage, however I would vote for him for President in spite of that. I fully realize that as President, he cannot change any of those things but he can use his influence to try to have Congress change them. Besides, those issues are, in my opinion, not the most important ones.

Is the problem public schools, or funding and efficiency in running the school?

Part of the problem with public schools is efficiency in running the schools. They are usually bloated with administrators. Part of the reason for that is the only way teachers can "move up" is to move into administration. The teachers unions steadfastly refuse to consider anything like increased pay for excellent and outstanding teachers. There is no financial incentive for them to do a better job. :(

It differs region to region, yes, but the fact remains that it's not standard for every school, thus debunking what you said.

I don't see what your getting at are you suggesting we don't let some kids have the chance of becoming doctors (Albert Einstein had trouble in school but I think you will agree that education was worth it)

I don't think I can think of many things you could say that could possibly be more morally irrelevant than this.

You dismiss arguments based on your morals :confused: (I think this is the core thing we are going to have here as replying to all your points I come back to this)

Surely for something as important and as competitive as national government morals must be sacrificed for practicality no?

I don't think our crime statistics are an accurate reflection of the successes of public schooling.

The up and downs of crime rate have tied in fairly well with schooling though especially when you consider that it does keep kids occupied in a time sense at least


Ummm... I've been in the "real world" for some time now and I can't think of a single time I've had to use long division. Granted, there's still plenty of time but I don't think it's very likely that someone's going to give me a list of figures to divide at work and say "you're not allowed to use a calculator." It might come in handy at some point but long division and book reports are not what I would call "Very important life skills."

It would be essential if you become lets say a builder or need to see if that complicated special offer is really worth it

Well... not in that post; I don't really know how you picked this up but I was just pointing out how horribly inefficient our system is.

Generalisations really they tend to work like a charm on NSG for some reason…(and yes the system is horribly flawed in terms of what we should be learning)

Incidentally, I happen to think we should probably be doing this which is why I'm a little less pissed than usual about people putting words in my mouth. A job would have done me and just about everyone else I know a hell of a lot more good when I was 15 than falling asleep on my desk in a puddle of drool.

Ah but child labour laws get in the way as well as a lack of demand for children nowadays

I'm going to say this once and only once: Our legislative framework regarding economics does about ten times more for poor people than education ever will. If, for example, you're a poor person in a country that educates the bejesus out of you but doesn't let you work for your own benefit, we're back at square one.

Alas I no little of American legislative framework so I can’t really debate that without stabbing in the dark with a tooth pick but I can say that the only growing Job market in the future will be I.T which requires considerable education to pull off especially if there is competition from around the world



There aren't really many poor people in this country anyway: we live in the first civilization in human history where overeating kills more people than starvation

But I can say 4.4 million more people in this America are living in poverty (source CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/22/news/economy/poverty_overview/index.htm))

that’s actual poverty not just a little money trouble

poor people in this country have easy access to food, water, color TVs, and microwaves. God I love capitalism.

All where invented though (and considering unions help to keep those wages good you in fact love Social democracy)

That's all well and good; but it's one thing to say "hey these people need a leg up" and it's something entirely different to knock on my door with a pistol and say "give these people a leg up or I'll throw you in a goddamn cage." I call it moral cannibalism; since you're basically attempting to enrich society by consuming substantial portions of it..

Again morals and the fact that the guy who owns the pistol is not as well of as you and may actually need you to guarantee that money for the leg to be raised

The government is notoriously inefficient with my money, and I'd prefer to make more direct contributions under the circumstances.

I don’t trust people giving to charities myself especially when we see it go to things like animal care when there are people who need care

...the biggest problems facing our country might not have to do too much with where the money comes from, but rather how the subject matter is taught. ...learning in public schools for the most part does not teach concepts--only sensory "tidbits" without any conceptual link to the "big picture." ...this is the reason why America's youth has a hard time thinking--

This type of learning creates problems for the students who go on to a technical school or college. They cannot connect the dots and it makes learning for them very difficult.

Using conceptual methods of instruction is not difficult. It requires more How and Why teaching and less memorize and regurgitate teaching. It also requires a little more work on the part of the teacher.

Something we learnred from the centuries on is that a free market creates variety. That would include health services.

what we Europeans have learnt however is that it runs better on Social democracy

Well, who's fault is that? Jeez, you shouldn't ignore health problems no matter what your income is.

ah but people are stupid and cheap lets say you have chest pains now if you wanted to save money you would say “oh well I will see if it goes by the morning” too bad you will die of a heart attack in the night though (got that off a sign of all places that really shook me up)

Yeah, my point was that everyone gives at least a fourth or a third of their income - meaning, a fourth or a third of their life - towards the government. Maybe if they didn't have to, there wouldn't be nearly as much poverty.

Every government with at least a turnips intelligence won’t tax those who can’t afford it though (and if your on the line of poverty you really can’t afford any taxes at all)

Except the analogy isn't nearly apt. Because emigrating to a new country is a whole helluva lot more expensive, time-consuming and life-changing. More than, say, shopping at place X rather than place Y.

Ah but national laws are (should be) made by the majority its like smoking in a hospital when there is a smoking hospital across the road

And yes - even allowing for emigration, you HAVE to give taxes. If you don't, they put you in prison. Trust me on this. It operates on the principle of threat of force, the same one used by the mugger .

I’ve never heard of this tax ones built into the transportation yes but tax for leaving the country?

And really, I'm not impressed with the "vote" or the "best interest." The vote is more or less meaningless when there's only two choices: socialist republicans and socialist democrats. And if they honestly think killing Iraqis is in my best interest, then they just plain don't know what's in my best interest. To those people I am supposed to entrust up to a third of the income I will make in my entire life?

You know there are other parties to vote for…

Barr, a member of the United States Libertarian Party, was an adamant proponent of the "War on Drugs". Prior to his work in Congress, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. He served from 1986 until 1990. Despite being an ardent drug warrior, Barr opposed the RAVE Act
...
While Congressman Barr supported and voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, he was one of the chief architects of the 'sunset clause' which requires most new powers granted to the government under the act to be renewed by Congress in 2005[citation needed]. Since leaving Congress in 2003, he has become a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act and has stated that he regrets voting for it, and opposes any attempt by Congress to renew many of its provisions in 2005.


I would assume that if he is joining the Libertarian Party that his views on the drug war have changed (can anyone point me to a source to confirm this?) and that his change of heart regarding USA PATRIOT is genuine (although I'm more tempted to feel something like: "Oh, you're sorry? That's nice..." **sound of hangman's noose snapping taut anyway**)

Sorry for the skepticism, but the Libertarian Party seems to be developing a taste for social/economic nationalism (http://www.2006gov.com/issues001.html) and support for (http://www.2006gov.com/issues005.html) the drug war (http://www.2006gov.com/issues012.html). Granted, these examples are of a single candidate, but that single candidate was endorsed by the California state party, and if I understand correctly (Southern) California is a Libertarian powerhouse (among the .000000002% of the population who actually know what "Libertarian" is, anyway)

The Libertarian Party's fetish for conservative Republican politics does not impress me. Neither do congressional scum who think they can help destroy my liberty and then suddenly go "I've done seen the light!" when they think political opportunity is knocking elsewhere. If he honestly thought a "sunset clause" was going to restrain the federal government's use of USA PATRIOT act, obviously he's a damn fool (at least Ron Paul had the balls (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml#N) to do the right thing the first time. Even Dennis Kucinich (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml#N), etc... ).

Oh well, if the Libertarian Party wants to recruit traitors and seditionists (opponents of constitutional rights and democratic order...) into their ranks, that's their business. I've switched over to the "No Selection" party, at least until the real libertarians decide they want to have a party again.

Can I call you a San Franfreakan?
91601 area code here :)

I used to live in Santa Cruz. Loved it but hated SF. To damned cold and windy. When you have to wear your field jacket in the middle of the summer it IS TOO COLD!:mad:

I love SF partly because I love the chill, give me more June Gloom. ;)

GET OUT OF MY PARTY SATAN!!!


Had to be said.

I would assume that if he is joining the Libertarian Party that his views on the drug war have changed (can anyone point me to a source to confirm this?) and that his change of heart regarding USA PATRIOT is genuine (although I'm more tempted to feel something like: "Oh, you're sorry? That's nice..." **sound of hangman's noose snapping taut anyway**)


Yeah, kinda my opinion as well. People ask me if I'd ever vote for a Republican, if they were a "good republican." I reply that in my opinion, all the good ones left years ago. Plus, supporting the whole big mess over Clinton getting a blowjob is enough for me to dislike any politician.

Not that I'd vote for a libertarian either though.

Yeah, kinda my opinion as well. People ask me if I'd ever vote for a Republican, if they were a "good republican." I reply that in my opinion, all the good ones left years ago.

I'd consider voting for Lincoln Chaffee if he were running for something like governor.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

Yes - because what is really important to the man with access to the most weapons in the world... is what he does with his genitals.

It always bewilders me that (some) people see it as okay to impeach a president for shagging, but find screwing with constitiutional rights acceptable.

Yes - because what is really important to the man with access to the most weapons in the world... is what he does with his genitals.

It always bewilders me that (some) people see it as okay to impeach a president for shagging, but find screwing with constitiutional rights acceptable.
It's all a matter of what's important to you, I guess.

It's all a matter of what's important to you, I guess.

But, that suggests there are a group of people out there, who consider it more important who strangers 'play' with, than whether basic fundamental human rights are observed....

But, that suggests there are a group of people out there, who consider it more important who strangers 'play' with, than whether basic fundamental human rights are observed....

There is. They're currently a subset of the Republican party.

To answer your question: All the way. Well, except for that BS about "political amorality," that's just tripe.

Tripe? How can you actually claim that ANYBODY who runs for political office isn't out to get his own? Err hur hur hur... It's axiomatic. Power corrupts. POliticians have power. Politicians are corrupt :)

And Melkor, all those services you claimed were provided by contractors...who is actually irganizing, deciding they need to be done, and then paying said contractors?

A strong central governemnt does two things taht are important ina country: It decides what needs to be done and organizes resources to get them done and it attempts to make sure said resources are spent fairly. I have never seen an example of private indutry being uncontrolled and acting wisely. (If you can give me one example of an industry, service or any private corporation that doesn't charge everything it can for it's services, I'll give you a cookie. That mentality means they will very quickly overhwlem their customers and charge what they will, not what is reasonable. No thanks. I'll stick with what we have. LIbertarians are just another way for business to rape me.

It always bewilders me that (some) people see it as okay to impeach a president for shagging, but find screwing with constitiutional rights acceptable.

Lest we forget or revise history; it was for purgery.

Lest we forget or revise history; it was for purgery.

Riiiiiiiight. :rolleyes:

I'd consider voting for Lincoln Chaffee if he were running for something like governor.

How do you feel about Bloomberg?

He's *thinking* about tossing his hat in the ring. I'm conflicted about him personally, but he does seem a lot more on the ball than the average politico. And, despite the Guliani hype, he's about the best Mayor the city has had since LaGuardia.

Lest we forget or revise history; it was for purgery.

Unfortunately, as Clinton's sexual activities with Monica Lewinsky had nothing to do with Whitewater, he could not have legally committed perjury in that case.

Well, at least one of them saw the light...

But I can say 4.4 million more people in this America are living in poverty (source CNN)

that’s actual poverty not just a little money trouble

Poverty is subjective. The average person living below the poverty line in the US has more living space than their unimpoverished counterparts in many European cities, owns a television, and owns a car. (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm) Does this sound like the lifestyle of someone living in poverty? I think not.

*Apparently a family values proponent - not in line with libertarian principles (at least the laws surrounding them)

This depends - if he takes a laissez-faire attitude, he may well still remain libertarian and regard family values as important; he will simply think they are the individual's prerogative though, and not for government to enforce. If, however, he believes these should be legislated, then he isn't libertarian.

You dismiss arguments based on your morals :confused: (I think this is the core thing we are going to have here as replying to all your points I come back to this)
Uhhh.. yes, I do. Most of us do. That's what we [or at least I] are talking about here--what is right and what isn't; and just as importantly why.

It's probably more accurate to say that I dismiss arguments based on reason--since that's the basis for morality. If I have an idea about something that turns out to be unreasonable, it's overturned in favor of the more reasoned alternative.

Surely for something as important and as competitive as national government morals must be sacrificed for practicality no?
I barely even know where to start with this. I'll try to answer calmly. To put it bluntly [and to spare you the tediousness of what I'm about to write] I reject the dichotomy between practicality and morality entirely.

My philosophy as such is structured around living in and interacting with reality in a harmonius fashion. If something is impractical--if it doesn't work or if the [meta]physical limitations are too severe --then it isn't a functioning component of reality and as such deserves no place in it. As usual, someone [Leonard Peikoff] has already said it so I'm going to quote a portion of one of his books for added clarity:

"The concept of 'practical' is not restricted to the field of ethics. It pertains to the adapting of means to ends in any field. If knowledge is one's goal, observation is practical, prayer is not. If the conquest of typhoid is the goal, immunization is practical, the beating of tom-toms is not. If human efficacy is the goal, the wheel or the computer is a practical invention, a perpetual motion machine is not.

"The 'practical' is that which reaches or fosters a desired result. Since the concept denotes a type of positive evaluation, it presupposes a standard of value. The standard is set by the result being pursued...

"Moral codes, too, qualify as practical or impractical. Most of those that have been offered to the human race are impractical. These codes prescribe ends and/or means which clash with the requirements of man's life. To the extent that men observe such codes, they are led to contradiction, frustration, failure; the essence of their failure is their inability to eat their life and have it too. The most blatant example is the theory of altrusim. If the principle guiding one's actions is to sacrifice--first to esteem an object, then to give it up--one's approach to the realm of choice enshrines the antithesis of practicality; it praises and guarantees the loss of values.* Such a life seeks out defeat.

"Despite the notions they espouse, men in the West are influenced by a better (Aristotelian) heritage. People in the civilized world still want to live, to prosper, to be happy. By this standard, ethics, the ethics they officially profess, is hopeless. Hence the universal acceptance of a disastrous idea {which you have insinuated above--M}, one taken nowadays as self-evident: the idea that there is an inherent clash between the moral and the practical.

"According to this idea, every man faces a basic alternative: to dedicate himself to the good, the right, the noble, to be an 'idealist,' in which case he must be unworldly, unrealistic, doomed to defeat--or to pursue success, prudence, that which works, to be a 'realist,' in which case he must dispense with ideals, absolutes, moral principles. (In philosophy, Platonism reccommends the first of these choices, pragmatism reccommends the second.) The alternative is: be good without earthly purpose, or seek ends while ignoring the necessary means. In other words: commit yourself to virtues or values--to causes or to effects--to ethics or to life.

"Objectivism rejects this dichotomy completely.

"The moral man's concept of the good, we hold, is his fundamental standard of practicality. Such a man experiences no conflict between what he thinks he ought to pursue (self-preservation) and what he wants to pursue. He defines all of his goals, fundamental and derivative alike, by reference to reality. As a result, he pursues only objects that are attainable by man, consistent with one another, and possible to him: he uses his mind to discover the means (including the principles) necessary to reach these objects; and he applies his knowledge in action, refusing to evade what he knows, to drift purposelessly, or to sacrifice his interests...

"In the Objectivist approach, virtue is (by definition) the means to value. The notion of a dichotomy between virtue and efficacy is, therefore, senseless. To pursue rational goals by rational means is the only way there is to deal successfully with reality and attain one's goals.* To be moral in the Objectivist definition is to be practical, and it is the only way to be practical."

To drive the point home [and I'm sorry I'm taking so long with this, but the idea that we have to "sacrifice morals for practicality" represents everything on this planet and in the minds of other men that I stand against] I should point out that most people regard the practical as "what works" and the impractical as "What doesn't." This is exactly what I described about the school system in one of my previous posts: it's a sensory reaction to the idea of practicality; it does not countenance the conceptual identity of practicality, as it applies to morals and ethics. I mean, it's not wrong to say that the practical works and the impractical doesn't--but there's more to it than that; and the issue of practicality as it pertains to securing values is an important and all too overlooked one.

The up and downs of crime rate have tied in fairly well with schooling though especially when you consider that it does keep kids occupied in a time sense at least
I'm sure it could be used as an inverse to juvenile crime; but I'm no less likely to go bananas at work and punch out my boss tomorrow because I sat through 12 years of college prep.

It would be essential if you become lets say a builder or need to see if that complicated special offer is really worth it
Even in those cases I imagine the builder isn't required to do the operation by hand, show his work, or whatever else. Like I already said, I don't think my [or anyone else's] boss is going to forbid the use of, say, calculators. Same thing applies to "complicated special offers."

That said, we're kind of getting sidetracked here. I'm not really complaining that they taught us long division; like I said I'm sure it can come in handy sometimes; my main point is that it's not a concept worth spending three years on; and it's certainly not what I would call a "staple" of knowledge needed to live successfully within reality.

Generalisations really they tend to work like a charm on NSG for some reason…(and yes the system is horribly flawed in terms of what we should be learning)
Oh, don't give me that BS. Generalizations are used because they have to be; they're used because if we're discussing morality as it applies to, say, six billion people the idea that we systematically avoid generalizations in order to spare people's feelings is quite ridiculous. No matter what generalization you make [and even if it's true] someone will complain about it.

Ah but child labour laws get in the way as well as a lack of demand for children nowadays
Child labor laws are bullshit.

That's right, I said it.

Alas I no little of American legislative framework so I can’t really debate that without stabbing in the dark with a tooth pick but I can say that the only growing Job market in the future will be I.T which requires considerable education to pull off especially if there is competition from around the world
Well, it won't be the only growing job market, but it will certainly be the main one, yes. I agree that knowledge is [obviously] necessary for such a trade. That doesn'thowever, mean that state-approved syllabi are the only means by which this knowledge can be attained.

But I can say 4.4 million more people in this America are living in poverty (source CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/22/news/economy/poverty_overview/index.htm))
4.4 million is just over 1 percent of this country's entire population. I'd say that's a pretty good percentage, especially when in other countries it's a lot closer to, say, 100%. Also, like I've mentioned before [and someone since has also] "poor" people in this country have access to products and services that were only availible to the absolute richest people in the country as recently as 15 years ago. A VCR cost like $800 in 1982; but now even the "poorest" of us is likely to have one. The market has done more to put resources in the hands of our population than any atrificial redistribution program could ever hope to.

All where invented though (and considering unions help to keep those wages good you in fact love Social democracy)
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Unions do not dictate wages and never have; the market controls them just like it controls the price of the product [or service] that wage produces. Unions take money from their members; they do not give it. I happen to have a professional opinion on the matter, being as I'm a Teamster. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the benefits they negotiated but they're not going to go away overnight if the union disappears tomorrow. Paying them on a monthly basis now is tantamount to paying a plumber $50 a month just for the hell of it, after he has already fixed your pipes. Unions perform a service once, and then they make their members pay for it for the rest of their natural lives; they may still defend us in the workplace or make it harder for us to be fired, but I'd still rather have the money back [since I'm losing enough of it to taxes anyway]. I don't really have anything against people getting together to defend their rights, but trade unions [like the Teamsters] that require you to join and pay dues have no business being in any workplace. If I'm going to work somewhere, I should have the freedom to negotiate my own contract. I should not be obligated to accept a stock contract because a bunch of old, fat men who haven't had an honest day's work in twenty years decided it was a good deal.

Again morals and the fact that the guy who owns the pistol is not as well of as you and may actually need you to guarantee that money for the leg to be raised
You may have... misunderstood what I was trying to say: the guy knocking on my door with a pistol wasn't a beggar; he was supposed to be a policeman. Although your short-circuit here raises an interesting point: it doesn't really matter who the guy holding the gun is: he doesn't earn any virtue by not harming me if I comply with his demands. A burglar cannot claim he is a virtuous person for letting his victim survive. Likewise, the government doesn't earn virtue by letting me keep a whole 66% of my check [gee, thanks...]. You don't just get to say "well, we could have taken it all": that's not how morality works. A zero cannot hold mortage over a value.

I don’t trust people giving to charities myself especially when we see it go to things like animal care when there are people who need care
And I don't trust people taking my money and spending it on whatever they should happen to deem necessary. I won't deny that people routinely donate to boneheaded charities, but it's still more honest than just up and taking the money from me with the ethereal promise that I'll eventually see it again, or that the money's even doing what they say it's doing.

*Emphasis mine.

i understood every word you said. I also happen to disagree with every word of it. Sadly you have a theoretical position that reality has shown to be untrue. Corporations never do things because it is right or because customers want it. They do things taht will make them the most money. All too often these two ideals are mutually imposible. If it is a choice between allowing you to keep all 100 percent of your money, or guaronteeing that our society takes care of the people at the bottom rung, you lose. If it is a choices between your private corporation which as al the rights and none of the repsonsibilities of a human being, being allowed to kill people i norder to make money, you lose (we don't REALLY need to provide examples of all this to prove my point do we?). A strong federal governmenty does far too many things that corporations will never do in a reasonable fashion. Of course, you guys are welcome to buy an island or sommat and try it out. Like the hippies and their communes, I suspect it won't last long, because it won't work.

I DO agree that our government has gone to far in wasting money. Line items should be worked on, as should corporate funding of elections. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater ain't the way to do it. nowwutimean, Vern?

Corporations never do things because it is right or because customers want it. They do things taht will make them the most money.

You're half wrong, half right. Corporations in fact do things that the customers want. How else would they make money if they created a product, or offered a service nobody wanted? And since we live in the free market, a corporation will do its best to make a profit by nature of the system we have.

Tripe? How can you actually claim that ANYBODY who runs for political office isn't out to get his own? Err hur hur hur... It's axiomatic. Power corrupts. POliticians have power. Politicians are corrupt :)
I don't follow. What does that have to do with me wanting a smaller, less intrusive government?

And Melkor, all those services you claimed were provided by contractors...who is actually irganizing, deciding they need to be done, and then paying said contractors?
Do you really think getting me to say "city planners" actually defeats my point? I believe I mentioned that my father is actually the guy who does this in my city, so asking questions you already know the answer to is sophistry. My point, as such, was that the work would still need to be done if the government agency in charge of it vanished overnight; and since the private sector obviously already knows how to build and maintain roads I think it's something of a longshot that our transportation infrastructure would vanish immediately if the government stopped drawing the plans. I... um... actually already said that, but as usual I'm repeating myself since you obviously either didn't understand, or chose to ignore that part for whatever reason.

A strong central governemnt does two things taht are important ina country: It decides what needs to be done and organizes resources to get them done and it attempts to make sure said resources are spent fairly. I have never seen an example of private indutry being uncontrolled and acting wisely. (If you can give me one example of an industry, service or any private corporation that doesn't charge everything it can for it's services, I'll give you a cookie. That mentality means they will very quickly overhwlem their customers and charge what they will, not what is reasonable. No thanks. I'll stick with what we have. LIbertarians are just another way for business to rape me.
Yeah, business is really "raping" you. Totally hardcore. Who do you think made the computer you're looking at? The chair you're sitting in? The TV you watch?

This might seem like a non-sequitur at first but bear with me: consider Thomas Edison and the light bulb. The theory for electric light had existed for a while but it just sat there [along with things like Da Vinci's plan for a helicopter] until someone found a way to make it for a buck and put it in every house in the country. People who know nothing about capitalism assume that it's based on the idea that people be gouged to the highest extent possible; when in fact the opposite is true--capitalism is all about making heaps of money which isn't possible if you exclude 99% of the market by making your product or service prohibitively expensive.

No one in human history has made a shit ton of money by making a product or service availible to the fewest amount of people possible and at the highest possible price. Capitalism is all about making things availible en masse so that everyone can afford them.

i understood every word you said. I also happen to disagree with every word of it. Sadly you have a theoretical position that reality has shown to be untrue. Corporations never do things because it is right or because customers want it. They do things taht will make them the most money. All too often these two ideals are mutually imposible. If it is a choice between allowing you to keep all 100 percent of your money, or guaronteeing that our society takes care of the people at the bottom rung, you lose. If it is a choices between your private corporation which as al the rights and none of the repsonsibilities of a human being, being allowed to kill people i norder to make money, you lose (we don't REALLY need to provide examples of all this to prove my point do we?). A strong federal governmenty does far too many things that corporations will never do in a reasonable fashion. Of course, you guys are welcome to buy an island or sommat and try it out. Like the hippies and their communes, I suspect it won't last long, because it won't work.

I DO agree that our government has gone to far in wasting money. Line items should be worked on, as should corporate funding of elections. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater ain't the way to do it. nowwutimean, Vern?
If you care to examine the economic performance of the United States [which is the closest thing we have on this planet to full capitalism, by the way] and the standard of life which has been created here I think you'll find that it does work. America just so happens to have largely free market policies and the fact that we seem to be doing so well [except in foreign policy of course...] is just a coincidence? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. It seems to work better than anything else we've tried out so far.

If you care to examine the economic performance of the United States [which is the closest thing we have on this planet to full capitalism, by the way]

What about Hong Kong, or Singapore?

If you care to examine the economic performance of the United States [which is the closest thing we have on this planet to full capitalism, by the way] and the standard of life which has been created here I think you'll find that it does work. America just so happens to have largely free market policies and the fact that we seem to be doing so well [except in foreign policy of course...] is just a coincidence? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. It seems to work better than anything else we've tried out so far.

So you're saying that our power infrastructure was paid for by business? Didn't happen. It was a federal act. Interstate hIghway systems? Feds. Waste disposal? State and federal. In fact, the larger as a group we grow, the more federal infrastructure becomes necessary. As silly as it sounds, Terry Pratchetts description of the fire depertment and insurance companies in discworld are pretty good decsriptions when we allow corporations to take over the control of the really important infrastructure. And the majority of losses in 9/11 are a result af the communications infrastructure among NY's emergency services problems. Instead of being centralized and folloing a sane pattern they were allowed to be developed by the open market, which of course sold 16 different systmes, none of which coul doperate together.

It's great that your dad is a city planner, (MY wifes is a landscape architect and they interact a lot--he's helping rebuild NO now) but he is still limited in what he can do by the government of the city and state he works in. THEY decide what the parameters will be, he finds a way to fmake it happen. I don'thave a problem with things being farmed out, but the central control of most infrastructure parameters should be centralized. To allow private business to decide these things is criminal and has cost enough lives over the years that I am surprised anyone would argue for it.

as for my reply about your "tripe" comment--you applkied that to my argument that politicians are by nature crooked, whether they be libertatrian, Republican, or democrat. Yours are just as crooked as mine, and mine are as crooked as theirs. THe question is: which will do the most damage if allowed. IMHO yours will, because by their nature they want to allow corporations free reign under the assumption that corpirations are out for the common good, which is pattently false.

*pauses for breath*

and before you get all pissed off, I apologize for my poor typing. I've basically given up trying to not type dyslexically in this forum. We go through ideas that are too comple.x for me to attempt correcting myself with. you guys shoudl install a spellcheck lol!

My philosophy as such is structured around living in and interacting with reality in a harmonius fashion. If something is impractical--if it doesn't work or if the [meta]physical limitations are too severe --then it isn't a functioning component of reality and as such deserves no place in it. As usual, someone [Leonard Peikoff] has already said it so I'm going to quote a portion of one of his books for added clarity:

"The concept of 'practical' is not restricted to the field of ethics. It pertains to the adapting of means to ends in any field. If knowledge is one's goal, observation is practical, prayer is not. If the conquest of typhoid is the goal, immunization is practical, the beating of tom-toms is not. If human efficacy is the goal, the wheel or the computer is a practical invention, a perpetual motion machine is not.

"The 'practical' is that which reaches or fosters a desired result. Since the concept denotes a type of positive evaluation, it presupposes a standard of value. The standard is set by the result being pursued...

"Moral codes, too, qualify as practical or impractical. Most of those that have been offered to the human race are impractical. These codes prescribe ends and/or means which clash with the requirements of man's life. To the extent that men observe such codes, they are led to contradiction, frustration, failure; the essence of their failure is their inability to eat their life and have it too. The most blatant example is the theory of altrusim. If the principle guiding one's actions is to sacrifice--first to esteem an object, then to give it up--one's approach to the realm of choice enshrines the antithesis of practicality; it praises and guarantees the loss of values.* Such a life seeks out defeat.

There are two points worthy of note here.

1. Many aretaic theories of right, including this one, don't really understand the nature of moral duty. Most people don't behave in a moral manner solely because they think it will make THEM happy or because they think it will guarantee THEM a good life. They do so because they value the lives and happiness of OTHERS - or because, for whatever reason, they hold fast by moral principles they see as justified absolutely, irrelevantly of personal good.

2. Even going with the model of trying to define a human end along the lines of happiness and fulfillment and then seeking, through reason, the best method to fulfill it, there is no assurance that we will not get a kind of altruism based upon that framework. Indeed, every aretaic theory of right that I can think of, except for Objectivism, does include altruism. The Objectivist obsession with mindlessly categorizing altruism as sacrifice is one of its chief weaknesses.

"Despite the notions they espouse, men in the West are influenced by a better (Aristotelian) heritage. People in the civilized world still want to live, to prosper, to be happy. By this standard, ethics, the ethics they officially profess, is hopeless.

Of course. But they do not ONLY want to prosper and be happy, and the ethical systems they advance are not based upon prosperity and happiness. Why should they be?

The only way to destroy the distinction (not necessarily the conflict, but the distinction) between the moral and the practical is to distort the moral. Caring for one's children, to choose one particular example, may incidentally make people happy and prosperous, but anyone who only cared for her children for the sake of making herself happy and prosperous would be widely (and rightly) called depraved.

"In the Objectivist approach, virtue is (by definition) the means to value. The notion of a dichotomy between virtue and efficacy is, therefore, senseless. To pursue rational goals by rational means is the only way there is to deal successfully with reality and attain one's goals.* To be moral in the Objectivist definition is to be practical, and it is the only way to be practical."

What is meant by a "rational goal"? Clearly some goals are achievable and some are not; is that the only relevant distinction? If so, then Objectivist morality, under this interpretation, is contentless, because it does not deal with ends. It fails to tell us what our overall goals ought to be - and thus I can combine it freely with any other moral framework, including ones Objectivists find loathsome, like Utilitarianism.

(Of course, my guess is that there's a hidden assumption here - "rational means to rational goals" where "rational" presupposes an ultimate self-oriented objective of happiness and fulfillment. Which is just begging the question.)

Corporations in fact do things that the customers want.


This is true a lot of the time. The rest of the time they buy politicians, favorable legislation, and recieve bailouts and subsidies (including trade protections). Which is why...


And since we live in the free market...


...this isn't true. I would assert that so long as the biggest actors in the economic process are defined by, and enjoy a close relationship with, the law it won't be true (which is really why these actors go to such lengths to not make it true; the idea that the private sector stands for or desires competition or market enterprise is simply laughable).

How do you feel about Bloomberg?

He's *thinking* about tossing his hat in the ring. I'm conflicted about him personally, but he does seem a lot more on the ball than the average politico. And, despite the Guliani hype, he's about the best Mayor the city has had since LaGuardia.

I'm really meh toward Bloomberg--I'm a partisan, and make no pretenses otherwise. I mean, sure, you can make the argument that because Bloomberg is ridiculously rich, he's beholden to no one, but the flip side is that he'd essentially be trying to buy the presidency, and I've got some distaste for that.

As for Giuliani, he may have been the best mayor the city had seen in a long time, but he was also a douchebag who was willing to cut the heart out of the Brooklyn Museum because he didn't like their artistic choices. Someone who's eager to impose his choices in art on the public is not someone I want running the country. I consider it a major weakness, because it speaks to an authoritarian streak I'm very uncomfortable with.

Not that I'd vote for a libertarian either though.

I wouldn't mind voting Libertarian given that the candidate in question actually was one.

This is true a lot of the time. The rest of the time they buy politicians, favorable legislation, and recieve bailouts and subsidies (including trade protections).

It could be argued that companies do this because of the restrictions placed on commerce and trade by the government. And about subsidies; if we were in a truly free market then the government would not interfere in the working of the market and corporations in financial trouble would go bankrupt, or be bought without any government bailouts to fall back upon.

...this isn't true. I would assert that so long as the biggest actors in the economic process are defined by, and enjoy a close relationship with, the law it won't be true (which is largely why these actors are go to such lengths to not make it true; the idea that the private sector stands for or desires competition or market enterprise is simply laugable).

So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that its not in a corporation's intrest to have a true free market system?

I wouldn't mind voting Libertarian given that the candidate in question actually was one.

I just don't get the attraction. The ideology is based on a pipe dream at best.

I'm really meh toward Bloomberg--I'm a partisan, and make no pretenses otherwise. I mean, sure, you can make the argument that because Bloomberg is ridiculously rich, he's beholden to no one, but the flip side is that he'd essentially be trying to buy the presidency, and I've got some distaste for that.

As for Giuliani, he may have been the best mayor the city had seen in a long time, but he was also a douchebag who was willing to cut the heart out of the Brooklyn Museum because he didn't like their artistic choices. Someone who's eager to impose his choices in art on the public is not someone I want running the country. I consider it a major weakness, because it speaks to an authoritarian streak I'm very uncomfortable with.

I'm not very good at expressing myself I guess. I was really saying that Bloomberg was better than Guilani, despite the hype.

Still, thanks for the honest answer.

Though as I think about bloomberg is only a technical republican. He used to be a dem, and only left because the NYC party wouldn't support his run for the mayor.

I'm not very good at expressing myself I guess. I was really saying that Bloomberg was better than Guilani, despite the hype.

Still, thanks for the honest answer.
He very well may be--I haven't been in New York in a really long time, so I couldn't say. I could see voting for Bloomberg if, say, John Kerry somehow won the Democratic nomination again. I'm certainly not voting for anyone who could win the Republican nomination, but if the Dems give me that turd, I'd be very tempted to go outside the party, especially with the Congress as it is. But I doubt I'll have that problem.

It could be argued that companies do this because of the restrictions placed on commerce and trade by the government.


And govenments create these restrictions because....? Some guys in a back room somewhere just instituted a tariff or such just because?

Get on the Federal Elections Commission website and look up PAC and individual contributions, and the companies and corporations which these PACs represent or which employ said individuals. Politics: follow the money.


So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that its not in a corporation's intrest to have a true free market system?


As true free market systems are defined by free and plentiful competition, they tend to drive up supply, which in turn drives down price. Of course, pressure to drive prices down is also pressure to drive income, and thus profits, down. Increasing profits thus requires constant innovation, which also means constant costs. Ergo, it is actually in the interest of business to eliminate competition and monopolize and control markets, in order to maximize profits and minimize costs. And this is why business is best buddies with the state (again simply observe the lobbying, campaign contributions, etc). The free market system is totally irrational from an economic perspective. The free market system, however, is a required component of any economic/political regime which wishes to be considered moral. Unfortunately, economic benefit does not necessarily coincide with moral, and those who prefer economic benefit happen to have the most power and the most access to the halls of government.

I just don't get the attraction. The ideology is based on a pipe dream at best.

That would be the definition of "ideology," so the Libertarians are hardly alone in that respect. That said, I would assert that the most obvious obstacle the Libertarians face is their own assumption that the "private" sector is on their side. The fallacy of said assumption is staring them right in the face, but they fail (refuse?) to see it (edit or their obsession with "OMG ev1l soc1alizm!!!! :O" is causing them to try to sweep it under the rug...)

No one in human history has made a shit ton of money by making a product or service availible to the fewest amount of people possible and at the highest possible price. Capitalism is all about making things availible en masse so that everyone can afford them.

I'm gonna argue you here. Chanel and the other Haute Couture houses (although, admittedly, several have moved to be more mainstream in recent years), Ritz-Carlton (specifically pre-Mariott buyout), Bentley, Crystal Cruises, Bombay, Rolex, Johnny Walker Blue, etc. These are all companies and brands that market themselves to only the elite few, and charge accordingly. Is there a signifigant difference between a Fossil and Rolex watch? Not really. Yet both are powerful companies within their market division.
There is the aspect of snob appeal, in which a company will only be successful if it makes itself appear to be superior or "chic" for the elite, while restricting themselves from the general population

The free market system, however, is a required component of any economic/political regime which wishes to be considered moral.

Why?

Soheran; I'll get to you in a couple hours; I'm about to run some errands. Good post though.

So you're saying that our power infrastructure was paid for by business?
Um, no, I didn't say that at all. I'm aware of the extent of Federal planning.

It's great that your dad is a city planner, (MY wifes is a landscape architect and they interact a lot--he's helping rebuild NO now) but he is still limited in what he can do by the government of the city and state he works in. THEY decide what the parameters will be, he finds a way to fmake it happen.
Obviously.

I don'thave a problem with things being farmed out, but the central control of most infrastructure parameters should be centralized.
Redundancy. A central control of infrstructure is, by defenition, centralized. I'm not saying these things shouldn't be coordinated to a reasonable extent; I'm suggesting that they can be built, operated and maintained without resorting to extortion. Business has put light bulbs, refrigerators, and cars within the boundaries of nearly every abode in the nation; I see no reason to believe why this would cease to be the case if they managed roadways.

Look, I know who built the roads and why--and that's part of the reason why it's such a difficult position to argue, because it's definately not feasible to totally change this all overnight: the government planned out our roadways for better or for worse. Since it's more or less a fait accompli at this point I'm more or less restricted to debating my points in principle. I'm not actually suggesting that we hand over control of the interstates to private corporations overnight; I'm suggesting that it would have been more efficient and thoroughly done if they had done it in the first place.

To allow private business to decide these things is criminal and has cost enough lives over the years that I am surprised anyone would argue for it.
"Cost enough lives?" What the hell kind of bullshit is that? I will gladly answer for the crimes of capitalism, if someone else out there is prepared to answer to the crimes of statism.

as for my reply about your "tripe" comment--you applkied that to my argument that politicians are by nature crooked, whether they be libertatrian, Republican, or democrat. Yours are just as crooked as mine, and mine are as crooked as theirs.
Nononononoooooooo I think we crossed a wire here. You asked "how far towards the libertarian ideal" should we progress [or something to that effect, and I replied that I thought we should go pretty much all the way; with the caveat that I don't care for the libertarian position of "political amorality." It suggests that we can detach ethics from politics; an idea that we would do well to avoid.

I will totally agree with you that politicians are scumbags--that's why their politicians. Politics is the business of power. I'm not exactly a libertarian, but I tend to defend their basic tenets because in most cases they're fairly well in line with mine. I don't actually belong to the LP and don't plan on enrolling; I just vote for them from time to time because they seem to be interested in not taking my money. Part of the reason I kind of like them is they're the first political entity I've seen in this country that ostensibly seeks to limit their own power. Whether you agree with that or not is your business but I had to clear that up.

THe question is: which will do the most damage if allowed. IMHO yours will, because by their nature they want to allow corporations free reign under the assumption that corpirations are out for the common good, which is pattently false.
I'm not suggesting that corporations are out for the "public good" and frankly I'm appalled that you gleaned that from [i]anything I've ever written. Corporations are in it to make heaps and heaps of money: I know that much and I'm acting accordingly. I happen to think making money is a good thing and it should be encouraged rather than discouraged. Apparently some people seem to think that wealth is a bigger problem than poverty is, which is why so many of us are insisting that wealth be redistributed [nevermind that it was the public that made said accumulation of wealth possible in the first place--now they want it back?].

and before you get all pissed off, I apologize for my poor typing. I've basically given up trying to not type dyslexically in this forum. We go through ideas that are too comple.x for me to attempt correcting myself with. you guys shoudl install a spellcheck lol!
No worries. It's 2 am and I loaded trucks at UPS today for the better part of eight hours. I'm surprised I'm typing as well as I am.

And I think there is a spellchecker somewhere, or at least there used to be. I don't know though, I could just be thinking about RMB posts and TG spellcheckers... coulda sworn there was one on the forum though.

plenty pf companies out here have made a product then made the market. It's basic business actually. Henry Ford made the market for cars with his Model A and changed the world forever.

and in quick reply to your reply to me: business has aso refused to change the way cars are made because they don't think it matters and they will lose money. An obviously open ,arket for safer, fuel efficient cars has been ignored. Seat belts are a great example. I think ther eis a problem with allowing corporations to decide what and how much aof a thing will be made, when it is a necessity. If I can't live without it, the free market will and does rape me. It happens every day, and especially when we deregulate (Enron) I mean, in answer to all of your arguments, we can basically answer: Enron. it was an era of deregulation and business stole all they could as we buckled under the costs of their grabbing whil ethey could.

Part of the common good is defense. That doesn't just mean militarily, I believe. I am not a socialist, or communist, I like capitalism. WIthin limits. Human nature is to screw everybody else and get while you can. I can name a thousand examples offhand when there is no controling body. I'm betting you can't name TEN examples of no cotrolling body and corporations not taking advantage. Not sure i can think of ANY where corprations don't steal cheat and murder every time they can, simply to increase their profits. Amoral might as well be immoral, eh?
I think we did cross wires. I think it was me-I wasn't getting you and mistepped there. I am glad to see you don't totally believe in letting them go hog wild. I think we differ in degree, not in basic agendas. I just happen to think that corporations don't have the common good in mind, and somone has to organize them to make use of them for actually helpful things (like electrica power grids)

And of course some things don't beling in the private sector like the military. We subsidise a huge amount of the R&D that goes on, and I think that is just good sense, or else they reallyu would go ape with our dollars.

Soheran; I'll get to you in a couple hours; I'm about to run some errands. Good post though.

You can wait if you want; I'll be surprised if I have time for another substantive post before tomorrow afternoon.

Why?

Substitute "voluntary association" where necessary, with the understanding that I do not assume a particular form of property ownership, or lack thereof. I would consider collective organizations/ownership a natural component, result, or option available to any truely voluntary society. Contrary to the behavior of other supposed advocates of "market" economics, I don't consider scrubbing the communists out of existance as a necessary part of moral political/economic ideologies.

I'm gonna argue you here. Chanel and the other Haute Couture houses (although, admittedly, several have moved to be more mainstream in recent years), Ritz-Carlton (specifically pre-Mariott buyout), Bentley, Crystal Cruises, Bombay, Rolex, Johnny Walker Blue, etc. These are all companies and brands that market themselves to only the elite few, and charge accordingly. Is there a signifigant difference between a Fossil and Rolex watch? Not really. Yet both are powerful companies within their market division.
There is the aspect of snob appeal, in which a company will only be successful if it makes itself appear to be superior or "chic" for the elite, while restricting themselves from the general population
Yeah, you've got a point there, but we need to remember that those are not the only products those companies make: they're the "top tier" products as offered to those who can afford them. They are not, however, the primary moneymakers for that company. I would guess that more money is made off of Johnny Walker Red than Johnny Walker Blue.

That's not to say that a company can't exclusively make high end products [Bentley does]; but for the most part these companies we're talking about are mainly producing frills rather than basic amenities. Swansons, for example, wouldn't make a dime if they charged $25 for a TV dinner. When I defend capitalism on the grounds that it makes resources widley available to the populace, I'm not so much talking about the Johnny Walker Blues and the Rolexes in our market; but rather the Swansons and the Fords, which try to make their market as large as possible. "Snob appeal" exists within our market sure enough, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

EDIT: Soheran--I'm pretty sure it'll take me a good hour and a half to write a response, and being that it's 2:30 I think I'll take you up on that waiting bit.. I have to go to work early tomorrow so I doubt I'll get anything together until tomorrow night.

"Cost enough lives?" What the hell kind of bullshit is that? I will gladly answer for the crimes of capitalism, if someone else out there is prepared to answer to the crimes of statism.I just did a research paper on pesticide regulation. There's been some pretty big bullshit pulled off in the name of making money. Did you know that up until 96 it was explicitely legal for pesticides to be fatal or permanently injure a certain number of people if they made enough money? Likewise, you had companies like Ethyl make money solely off of pumping neurotoxins into the air and blocking any scientific evidence of it. It's not bullshit, it's pretty real.

I just did a research paper on pesticide regulation. There's been some pretty big bullshit pulled off in the name of making money. Did you know that up until 96 it was explicitely legal for pesticides to be fatal or permanently injure a certain number of people if they made enough money? Likewise, you had companies like Ethyl make money solely off of pumping neurotoxins into the air and blocking any scientific evidence of it. It's not bullshit, it's pretty real.
Yeah? Hows that stack up to things like, say, the Holocaust, Stalin's show trials, or the war in Iraq? My point is that the crimes of capitalism [and they do exist] pale in comparison to the crimes committed by people who were ostensibly interested in "public welfare."

Frankly, I'm surprised someone took the bait.

Yeah, you've got a point there, but we need to remember that those are not the only products those companies make: they're the "top tier" products as offered to those who can afford them. They are not, however, the primary moneymakers for that company. I would guess that more money is made off of Johnny Walker Red than Johnny Walker Blue. In most cases you're right...Actually, at second look, I'm not sure if I can argue that with any of the examples I provided (sorry, I'm typing this as I look them up. My browser keeps crashing, and am just trying to get a response typed)...it would seem that Bombay is a part of Bacardi, Crystal is owned by a Japanese shipping line, Bentley is owned by Volkswagen...and of course, go figure, the only example in that list is the last one I check. It seems that Rolex only produces high-end watches. How disappointing. However, you defeat this point in your next paragraph. I'll keep thinking. Doubt I'll find anything that isn't a frill and is high end though...

That's not to say that a company can't exclusively make high end products [Bentley does]; but for the most part these companies we're talking about are mainly producing frills rather than basic amenities. Swansons, for example, wouldn't make a dime if they charged $25 for a TV dinner. When I defend capitalism on the grounds that it makes resources widley available to the populace, I'm not so much talking about the Johnny Walker Blues and the Rolexes in our market; but rather the Swansons and the Fords, which try to make their market as large as possible. "Snob appeal" exists within our market sure enough, but that's the exception rather than the rule.Incredibly true. I just tend to have more fun finding the exceptions than the rules themselves.

Yeah? Hows that stack up to things like, say, the Holocaust, Stalin's show trials, or the war in Iraq? My point is that the crimes of capitalism [and they do exist] pale in comparison to the crimes committed by people who were ostensibly interested in "public welfare."

Frankly, I'm surprised someone took the bait.Okay, I'm going to call double bullshit here. First of all, to put the Iraq war in with the Holocaust and Stalin's show trials is the worst kind of exaggeration. It's rhetorical garbage, since you're putting two of the worst crimes of the last century up against what is essentially a minor war.

Secondly, you're playing a slightly clever word game here with Stalin and Hitler by saying the crimes they committed were committed by people who were "ostensibly interested in 'public welfare.'" Nobody with an ounce of sense believes Stalin and Hitler were interested in public welfare, and you'd like to think that dropping the word "ostensibly" in there allows you to link their crimes to the crimes of statism. It doesn't. Stalin's and Hitler's crimes were theirs, and not necessarily those of the idea of statism. There is certainly an argument to be made along those lines--that states are responsible for more death than capitalism--but you're making it dishonestly right now.

Yeah? Hows that stack up to things like, say, the Holocaust, Stalin's show trials, or the war in Iraq?

I'm not sure that this is a fair comparison, as capitalism is an economic ideology, and none of above three items are really economic policies (Iraq comes closest from the "it was for oil" perspective, but I don't really buy that because if it was for oil the United States should have invaded Saudi Arabia or Canada).

One might assume certain political institutions being in place in addition to capitalism, but "statism" and "capitalism" are not necessarily opposites of each other. Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, not to mention China (edit: or Vietnam), have developed (or are developing) capitalist/market economic systems, and a competitive presence on the associated world markets, through the careful use of statist policies and often authoritarian government (edit: most significantly, high tarrif walls aimed at developing export-oriented economies in the case of Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore). One may assert that a particular anti-statist understanding/definition is the most moral, rational, or whatever; one cannot assert that it is the only understanding or definition as others have existed, and continue to exist.

In addition to what I have said already in this thread, another obstacle standing in the way of Libertarians is their tendency to confuse and incorrectly mix their economic ("capitalism") and political ("anti-statist") concepts. People observe reality around them and answer with an electoral "O RLY?" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_2004#Election_results)

Yeah? Hows that stack up to things like, say, the Holocaust, Stalin's show trials, or the war in Iraq? My point is that the crimes of capitalism [and they do exist] pale in comparison to the crimes committed by people who were ostensibly interested in "public welfare."

Frankly, I'm surprised someone took the bait.Indeed. This excuses them how exactly? If it was ok for kids to become braindamaged, we'd still be using leaded gas. What you're doing is excusing things like manslaughter and assault on the grounds that others commit genocide. It's not a very good defence.

Okay, I'm going to call double bullshit here. First of all, to put the Iraq war in with the Holocaust and Stalin's show trials is the worst kind of exaggeration. It's rhetorical garbage, since you're putting two of the worst crimes of the last century up against what is essentially a minor war.
Call it all you want, that doesn't mean you're making an ounce of sense. Hitler, Stalin, and Bush [not that I'm actually comparing the weight of their deeds: merely the auspices under which they were carried out] were statesmen and only the latter of them could even attempt to call himself a capitalist.

Secondly, you're playing a slightly clever word game here with Stalin and Hitler by saying the crimes they committed were committed by people who were "ostensibly interested in 'public welfare.'" Nobody with an ounce of sense believes Stalin and Hitler were interested in public welfare, and you'd like to think that dropping the word "ostensibly" in there allows you to link their crimes to the crimes of statism. It doesn't. Stalin's and Hitler's crimes were theirs, and not necessarily those of the idea of statism. There is certainly an argument to be made along those lines--that states are responsible for more death than capitalism--but you're making it dishonestly right now.
They were quite interested in the public welfare, in their own twisted fashion: Hitler obviously sought to make life better for Germans by annihilating what he perceived to be their enemies. Stalin is a harder nut to crack; because he was just plain goddamn nuts. People hear things like "public welfare" and assume the concept can't possibly be corrupted. They assume that "public welfare" means exactly what they think it means; ignoring the possibility that once or twice in a century we might have a nutball like Stalin or Hitler decide that the "public welfare" is something we've never considered before.

That said, I can't possibly fathom how you can say "Stalin's and Hitler's crimes were theirs, and not necessarily those of the idea of statism" with a straight face. These crimes could not have been carried out without the apparatus of the state behind them. Period. Hitler could not have committed the Holocaust himself [which is part of the reason why we had the Nuremburg trials]; therefore the idea that the crime is "his" makes me want to laugh until I can't breathe anymore. He also happened to have a public administration that was more or less down with what he was doing --at least in the cases where they knew about it. If they disagreed secretly [like Albert Speer claims to have] and weren't able to express it; is it not a crime of statism that this viewpoint was deliberately and ruthlessly supressed?

EDIT: Also, philosophically, the German obedience to Hitler's outrageous orders owes itself to a basic tenet of philosphy to which men of dubious intellect have clung desperately for centuries: the idea that a person's life and interests be subordinated to those of the state. The German "orders are orders" defense was a classic example of this absurd philosophical tendancy. Statism preaches that men forsake their interests in favor of those espoused by $LEADER or $COMMITTE. It was this mechanism that allowed men to reach into the darkest depths of their souls and commit their crimes.

Sure, they were nuts; and I'm not trying to imply that all statists are this crazy; but I have a hard time believing that a true capitalist would want to kill 5 million people. Seems like it'd be bad for business.

but I have a hard time believing that a true capitalist would want to kill 5 million people. Seems like it'd be bad for business.

One of them died recently. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochet) (edit: note again the additional example of capitalist-oriented reform via authoritarian statism)

Pinochet was no more a true capitalist than any of our polticians are. He was close [like ours] but the differences are there. He still taxed his population. Therefore: Pinochet != true capitalist.

Swing and a miss.

i sudden;y find myslef quite drunk and am gong to bed. I'll check in tommorrow and beat you to death Melkir. In the meantime, nice to run into someone who doesn't get all wound up over a debate:D

Pinochet was no more a true capitalist than any of our polticians are. He was close [like ours] but the differences are there. He still taxed his population. Therefore: Pinochet != true capitalist.


All modern states instituting or creating capitalist market economic systems also institute some kind of system of taxation. Even the most prosperous and economically powerful of them. Again, I fail to see how the two concepts are necessarily opposed to each other, considering how in reality they appear to coexist just fine (edit: Yes, there may be cases of excessive or otherwise harmful taxation, but this does not necessarily encompass all taxation entirely). Ergo, I fail to see how "no taxation" is a necessary condition for being a "true capitalist;" the condition is not reflected in the observable cases.

Edit: In other words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman


Swing and a miss.

What you said.

What you said.Then again, forcing people to buy your wife's products at gun point is hardly free market capitalism, so perhaps Pinochet isn't a good example.

Then again, forcing people to buy your wife's products at gun point is hardly free market capitalism, so perhaps Pinochet isn't a good example.


INTERVIEWER: You don't see Chile as a small turning point then?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: It may have been a turning point, but not because it was the first place to put the Chicago theory in practice. It was important on the political side, not so much on the economic side. Here was the first case in which you had a movement toward communism that was replaced by a movement toward free markets. See, the really extraordinary thing about the Chilean case was that a military government followed the opposite of military policies. The military is distinguished from the ordinary economy by the fact that it's a top-down organization. The general tells the colonel, the colonel tells the captain, and so on down, whereas a market is a bottom-up organization. The customer goes into the store and tells the retailer what he wants; the retailer sends it back up the line to the manufacturer and so on. So the basic organizational principles in the military are almost the opposite of the basic organizational principles of a free market and a free society. And the really remarkable thing about Chile is that the military adopted the free-market arrangements instead of the military arrangements.


**shrugs**

edit: But of course...


INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control.

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn't it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.


Mr. Friedman still seems to acknowledge, however, that Pinochet's military government was oriented toward free-market economics, which was only later its own undoing. I don't argue that capitalism must be authoritarian/statist/etc. I only argue that it can be, and in the beginning of many cases often has been. Thus the idea that "capitalism" is the opposite of or necessarily opposed to "statism" is false, or at least a severe oversimplification.

That's a bit of a backflip then. A libertarian wouldn't care what Clinton did with an intern.

No, but we do care about perjury, when the line of questioning involved had a material influence on a case being made against someone against a legitimate law.

All modern states instituting or creating capitalist market economic systems also institute some kind of system of taxation.
Which means they're not actually capitalist, though it may be convenient to call them that.

QED.
Again, I fail to see how the two concepts are necessarily opposed to each other, considering how in reality they appear to coexist just fine
Because they don't. They're mutually exclusive. If taxation exists, it is *not* capitalism no matter how close it appears to be.

Call it all you want, that doesn't mean you're making an ounce of sense. Hitler, Stalin, and Bush [not that I'm actually comparing the weight of their deeds: merely the auspices under which they were carried out] were statesmen and only the latter of them could even attempt to call himself a capitalist.


They were quite interested in the public welfare, in their own twisted fashion: Hitler obviously sought to make life better for Germans by annihilating what he perceived to be their enemies. Stalin is a harder nut to crack; because he was just plain goddamn nuts. People hear things like "public welfare" and assume the concept can't possibly be corrupted. They assume that "public welfare" means exactly what they think it means; ignoring the possibility that once or twice in a century we might have a nutball like Stalin or Hitler decide that the "public welfare" is something we've never considered before.

That said, I can't possibly fathom how you can say "Stalin's and Hitler's crimes were theirs, and not necessarily those of the idea of statism" with a straight face. These crimes could not have been carried out without the apparatus of the state behind them. Period. Hitler could not have committed the Holocaust himself [which is part of the reason why we had the Nuremburg trials]; therefore the idea that the crime is "his" makes me want to laugh until I can't breathe anymore. He also happened to have a public administration that was more or less down with what he was doing --at least in the cases where they knew about it. If they disagreed secretly [like Albert Speer claims to have] and weren't able to express it; is it not a crime of statism that this viewpoint was deliberately and ruthlessly supressed?

EDIT: Also, philosophically, the German obedience to Hitler's outrageous orders owes itself to a basic tenet of philosphy to which men of dubious intellect have clung desperately for centuries: the idea that a person's life and interests be subordinated to those of the state. The German "orders are orders" defense was a classic example of this absurd philosophical tendancy. Statism preaches that men forsake their interests in favor of those espoused by $LEADER or $COMMITTE. It was this mechanism that allowed men to reach into the darkest depths of their souls and commit their crimes.

Sure, they were nuts; and I'm not trying to imply that all statists are this crazy; but I have a hard time believing that a true capitalist would want to kill 5 million people. Seems like it'd be bad for business.
In other words, I'm wrong because you're never wrong, and you're never wrong because you say so. Whatever. I wasn't trying to debate you on this, because this is your style, and I've learned that over the years--I was simply calling bullshit on you so everyone else could see it, and I think I accomplished that.

In other words, I'm wrong because you're never wrong, and you're never wrong because you say so.

I see you use the same style, so it looks like pot, kettle, black to me, LOL

Wasn't Barr the asshole who wrote the defense of marriage act?

Lest we forget or revise history; it was for purgery.

Even if the witchhunt hadn't already been in full swing (which makes the perjury idea nothing more than flimsy excuse-material that wouldn't have satisfied anyone not already IN the hunt), the fact that a President lied about who sucked his cock pales into insignificance against a President who unilaterally decides constitutional rights are optional, and at his discretion.

The really sick thing is that anyone would try to defend the constitution-raping president, whilst simultaneously attacking the consenting victim of fellatio.

The really sick thing is that anyone would try to defend the constitution-raping president, whilst simultaneously attacking the consenting victim of fellatio.


"Victim of fellatio". ROFLMAO...

In other words, I'm wrong because you're never wrong, and you're never wrong because you say so. Whatever. I wasn't trying to debate you on this, because this is your style, and I've learned that over the years--I was simply calling bullshit on you so everyone else could see it, and I think I accomplished that.
Looks like you bit off more than you can chew. You seem genuinely surprised that I defended my points. What did you seriously expect? That I'd just say "Oh, yeah you're right?" Please.

Looks like you bit off more than you can chew. You seem genuinely surprised that I defended my points. What did you seriously expect? That I'd just say "Oh, yeah you're right?" Please.

I'm not surprised in the least--I know your style, Melkor. I'm also not surprised you considered that a defense. It's your standard operating procedure. It's still bullshit, no matter how you try to dress it up otherwise.

I'm not surprised in the least--I know your style, Melkor. I'm also not surprised you considered that a defense. It's your standard operating procedure. It's still bullshit, no matter how you try to dress it up otherwise.

Gee, that sounds just like your Standard Response #2 that you give me...

All modern states instituting or creating capitalist market economic systems also institute some kind of system of taxation. Even the most prosperous and economically powerful of them. Again, I fail to see how the two concepts are necessarily opposed to each other, considering how in reality they appear to coexist just fine (edit: Yes, there may be cases of excessive or otherwise harmful taxation, but this does not necessarily encompass all taxation entirely). Ergo, I fail to see how "no taxation" is a necessary condition for being a "true capitalist;" the condition is not reflected in the observable cases.
Like just about everyone else that's ever posted here, you're completely forgetting the first half of the phrase "free trade." Genocide != free. If you want me to get into my whole "free minds and free markets" spiel fine; but don't assume Pinochet is worth defending from a capitalist viewpoint because he happened to agree with an admittedly healthy portion of our economic policies.

And it's not a "no true scotsman" fallacy because true capitalists actually exist. I am one. I've met many others. We just don't happen to be prominent politicians.

What you said.
Right back atcha.

*snip*
This is the first time I've seen you since I got back...we have to have a smoking debate again some time :)

Melkor, I'm a little confused.

At one point you say that your morality comes from practicality or pragmatism.

You also say you love capitalism.

You also say that a true capitalist system would not tax its citizens.

How does these work together?

You can't love capitalism because you've never seen true capitalism. You have never seen true capitalism because it has never existed.

Why not? Maybe because it's impractical.

It just seems like a contradiction to me.

Melkor, I'm a little confused.

At one point you say that your morality comes from practicality or pragmatism.
I think you may have misunderstood the passage. Pragmatism reccommends that we seek practical actions yes; but it attaches itself to the morals-practicality dichotomy which I've rejected. The source of morality is reason; and the practical is the rational.

You also say you love capitalism.

You also say that a true capitalist system would not tax its citizens.

How does these work together?
Easily: citizens keep the money they work for and use it to enrich their lives, or someone else's if that's their cup of tea.

You can't love capitalism because you've never seen true capitalism. You have never seen true capitalism because it has never existed.
That's ridiculous. I can be attached to a philosophical idea that hasn't been put into practice yet. You don't have to physically see something to develop an attachment to it; which is why so many of us adore celebrities. Few of us have actually seen them but in some cases our devotion to them is nonetheless fanatical--like John Hinckley. To complete the analogy: we've all seen them in movies--much like I've seen my ideas in theory; and it is from this familiarity that we derive our attachments. We might actually like them less when we actually see them, which may explain my lukewarm feelings towards the Libertarian Party.

Why not? Maybe because it's impractical.
Actually, the idea that citizens be free to turn $1 into $2 is a relatively new one. I mean sure; Businesses have existed for centuries throughout human history, but for the most part they have been little more than apparatus of the state until about one or two hundred years ago. The development of small business and the explosion of the middle class have both largely taken place within the last century.

Widespread economic, social, or political change rarely happens on this scale overnight. I'm not saying free market capitalism is guaranteed to even be tried at any point in human history, but if it is it's probably not going to be implimented immediately. The notions of subservience to the state, and practices like taxation have been regular fixtures for the majority of civilization. They won't disappear quickly [or quietly]: you know what they say about old habits.

It just seems like a contradiction to me.
How? I see a few questions and a general rehash of some of the things I've said, but the concepts are not linked together at all and the "contradiction" is not explained. Please enlighten me.

Yes. I was unclear.

I will put it this way:

You seem to have three things that seem contradictory when all three are believed:

1. Pragmatic and practical is good.
2. Capitalism is good.
3. True capitalism has never existed.

How can capitalism be good if it has never existed and therefore has never shown itself to be practical?

I just can't see how you can believe all three of these things simultaneously.

Yes. I was unclear.

I will put it this way:

You seem to have three things that seem contradictory when all three are believed:

1. Pragmatic and practical is good.
2. Capitalism is good.
3. True capitalism has never existed.

How can capitalism be good if it has never existed and therefore has never shown itself to be practical?

I just can't see how you can believe all three of these things simultaneously.
OK, I see what you're getting at now. It's really only the second or third really viable point I've seen in this conversation.

Basically, it comes down to this: most of my philosophical ideas have been put into place somewhere, and under certain conditions, but it's never been tried as a whole. Probably the closest we came in this country was during the Industrial Revolution: and I do not consider it a coincidence that it just so happened to be the most prosperous and productive period in human history (*lubes up throat, prepares for twenty people to jump down into it*).

Free market policies have been implimented here and there--and have demonstrated themselves to be practical and efficient within reasonable bounds--although the attendant mistakes that were mixed in with them [like, say the railroads getting all buddy-buddy with the State in order to buld the Transatlantic; or the establishment of a 'free' market with ridiculous personnel and labor restrictions] muddied their real success. So far, we've done a better job when we've half-assed my philosophical tenets than we had previously.

In a broader sense, my unifying point is that the most productive, enlightening periods of human history have also just happened to be the freest. There are exceptions yes; but compare the Renaissance to the Dark Ages, or the Industrial Revolution to the European welfare state circle jerk of the 20th century.

To answer your question, my moral stipulations have proven themselves practical piecemeal--we just haven't succeeded in implimenting it yet as a whole.

The more republicans that jump into the toilet of libertarianism, and the votes that follow, the better.

9/11, never forget. Never forget that the money and time wasted persecuting William Jefferson Clinton could have been used to prevent 9/11.

Which means they're not actually capitalist, though it may be convenient to call them that.


Redefining reality to suit one's own peculiar ideology or purposes doesn't demonstrate anything. The simple fact remains that the vastness of socieities instituting private ownership of capital and market economic systems of exchange also happen to institute some form of taxation. So what we have is the vastness of objective practice and empirical reality against the ideological assertion of exactly 2 individuals. The evidence is against you.


If taxation exists, it is *not* capitalism no matter how close it appears to be.

The existance of taxation is not an "all or nothing" characteristic; such is not built into the accepted definition either as an abstract concept or in actual practice (as simple observation demonstrates). The assertion I respond to is simply a blatent 'no true scotsman' fallacy. One may as well claim that if I cut off my thumb, I cease to be of homo sapiens sapiens.

Like just about everyone else that's ever posted here, you're completely forgetting the first half of the phrase "free trade." Genocide != free. If you want me to get into my whole "free minds and free markets" spiel fine; but don't assume Pinochet is worth defending from a capitalist viewpoint because he happened to agree with an admittedly healthy portion of our economic policies.

And it's not a "no true scotsman" fallacy because true capitalists actually exist. I am one. I've met many others. We just don't happen to be prominent politicians.


But the "free" capitalism which rejects practices like genocide is simply one instance or subset of an entire class; by far a more morally acceptable, reasonable and rational subset, absolutely, but still only a subset. The scotsman fallacy occurs in the attempt to treat the subset as the exclusive ideology in entirety. (edit: that subset not being the standard accepted definition, no less: "We just don't happen to be prominent politicians") I'm not forgetting "free" trade (review of my posts and daily issue choices will demonstrate that I understand and advocate the concept quite strongly, actually), I just don't pretend that it is the one and only.

Pasting "true" to the front end of a word only serves the purpose of subjectively redefining terms in order to try to avoid the less comfortable aspects of objective reality.


Right back atcha.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

I'm not surprised in the least--I know your style, Melkor. I'm also not surprised you considered that a defense. It's your standard operating procedure. It's still bullshit, no matter how you try to dress it up otherwise.
How is his style "bullshit"? If you honestly and truly believe it to be so, address the points he made. Otherwise I would say you're attempting an argument from intimidation - ridiculing his arguments to get him to back down without engaging them.

The existance of taxation is not an "all or nothing" characteristic; such is not built into the accepted definition either as an abstract concept or in actual practice (as simple observation demonstrates). The assertion I respond to is simply a blatent 'no true scotsman' fallacy. One may as well claim that if I cut off my thumb, I cease to be of homo sapiens sapiens.
I would consider so abject a violation of the basic tenets of Capitalism (i.e. the initiation of force to compel individuals into action) to be more than simply cutting off one's thumb; rather, let's consider it a decapitation of sorts. It would be tantamount to calling the USSR a communist utopia (rather than a collectivist system more generally). Keep in mind, Rand goes as far as arguing voluntary association with the government in a fully capitalist system - not exactly taxation.

Melkor, I only recently started reading Rand but now I can understand your fascination with Objectivism.

But the "free" capitalism which rejects practices like genocide is simply one instance or subset of an entire class; by far a more morally acceptable, reasonable and rational subset, absolutely, but still only a subset. The scotsman fallacy occurs in the attempt to treat the subset as the exclusive ideology in entirety. (edit: that subset not being the standard accepted definition, no less: "We just don't happen to be prominent politicians") I'm not forgetting "free" trade (review of my posts and daily issue choices will demonstrate that I understand and advocate the concept quite strongly, actually), I just don't pretend that it is the one and only.
So... what? People can fuck up capitalism? Big news. Most politicians could fuck up a wet dream. I'm not subsuming Pinochet's chosen ideology as a completely different one, I'm just saying he fucked up.

Pasting "true" to the front end of a word only serves the purpose of subjectively redefining terms in order to try to avoid the less comfortable aspects of objective reality.
OK then: Here's one, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Hill) and here's another one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford)

'Dem look like Scotsmen to me.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
ALT + E Down Down Down Enter Alt + E Down Down Down Down Down Enter

First of all I just want to say that it's refreshing to finally run into an argument from someone who actually understands what I'm saying. For the most part people here don't so much debate philosophy as they debate ethics. Soheran, I'm going to be blunt: I respect you a lot more after having read this than I had previously.

There are two points worthy of note here.

1. Many aretaic theories of right, including this one, don't really understand the nature of moral duty. Most people don't behave in a moral manner solely because they think it will make THEM happy or because they think it will guarantee THEM a good life. They do so because they value the lives and happiness of OTHERS - or because, for whatever reason, they hold fast by moral principles they see as justified absolutely, irrelevantly of personal good.
If you're pursuing a particular set of morals, it should be a foregone conclusion that it's a value to you. If you are pursuing this value--even if that value is the well-being of others--you are doing so in an attempt to do the right thing or be a good person. Regardless of how altruistic your actions are, they are derived from a selfish intent to live a morally upstanding life. Morality in and of itself does not compel men to certain action by its existence alone, which defeats the concept of "moral duty" at its very base. "Moral duty" [to borrow the term] is self imposed; which is mutually exclusive to it being a duty as such. A more correct term in my estimation would be "moral ambitiousness."

2. Even going with the model of trying to define a human end along the lines of happiness and fulfillment and then seeking, through reason, the best method to fulfill it, there is no assurance that we will not get a kind of altruism based upon that framework. Indeed, every aretaic theory of right that I can think of, except for Objectivism, does include altruism. The Objectivist obsession with mindlessly categorizing altruism as sacrifice is one of its chief weaknesses.
Objectivism did not brand the term "sacrifice" to altruism; the proponents of altruism have been using that exact language for centuries.

A sacrifice is giving up a value for something of lesser value; anything else would be a trade or even a gain. It's impossible to claim that someone else's physical [or monetary] well-being is more valuable to you than your own; so it's impossible to term the moral transaction as a trade or a gain. If altruists didn't care whether I hoarded money or gave it away, I wouldn't have to argue with them about Welfare or income tax all the time. But, things being as they are, altruists seem to prefer that I give it away, since my attempts to defend the practice of hoarding have been reviled many times by the very public that are presently reading these words. Trying to detach the idea of sacrifice from altruism is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. You can't tell me that it's a moral imperative for me to pay income tax and then turn around and say that you're not asking for sacrifices. $10 is worth more to you in your pocket than it is in someone else's.

Of course. But they do not ONLY want to prosper and be happy, and the ethical systems they advance are not based upon prosperity and happiness. Why should they be?
A system based on prosperity and happiness [and accordingly built to facilitate their existence] strikes me as being nominally superior towards one built on, say, malaise and sacrifice. Malaise because we're supposed to feel like bad people if we spend huge chunks of cash on things we want rather than things we need; sacrifice for the reasons outlined above.

The only way to destroy the distinction (not necessarily the conflict, but the distinction) between the moral and the practical is to distort the moral.
True. The Objectivist definition of the moral is for the most part radically different than the postulates that have been offered by other philosophies. You seem to understand that Objectivism challenges conventional philosophy at it's root; and the structure of the entire philosophy is based around this change. This dichotomy was introduced because philosophers never thought it could be possible to actually live a completely moral life; at least in a spiritual sense. Objectivism suggests that morality is not some otherworldy, unattainable force; but that it's a reasonable goal that is within the capabilities of the reasoned mind.

Caring for one's children, to choose one particular example, may incidentally make people happy and prosperous, but anyone who only cared for her children for the sake of making herself happy and prosperous would be widely (and rightly) called depraved.
I'd tend towards the viewpoint that caring for one's children does provide a profound happiness; this all goes back to what I said earlier about pursuing values. Sure, people have to do things they don't want to do in the course of raising thier children; but they accept the whole of the responsibility in a bigger-picture kind of sense. Having and raising children is certainly [i]not done for any direct personal gain; I'll grant you that much.

Still, I have a problem with this argument. The impulse to reproduce and care for one's young is a natural biological process that probably has more grounding in instinct than in reasoned moral evaluation [which is why perfectly intelligent people can fuck their lives up real fast by getting married at age 19...]. As such it's a potentially tricky game to get into the morality of raising children [at least in this sense].

That's not to say I don't understand what you're saying--people do things that they don't want to do all the time, and certainly raising a child can include a lot of that. People put up with all kinds of troublesome things in order to maintain a value--be it their child, their home, their job, or whatever else is important enough to them to justify the hardship. Most people seem to have an interest in raising well-adjusted children, so the reason they get up in the middle of the night to change diapers, or why they drive 45 minutes to a piano recital is because it's worth it in the end to that person; whether they accept Objectivism, Platonism, or Pragmatism as their moral code. Whether it's worth it to them in a personal sense or in some kind of cosmic sense I can't answer to; but the child is clearly a value to the parent if the parent seeks to keep it.

I'm not trying to imply that the parent doesn't also maintain that particular value for her son/daughter's sake--but its ludicrous to assume based on that example that people should seek value for the sake of others; since most other people don't happen to be close relations.

What is meant by a "rational goal"? Clearly some goals are achievable and some are not; is that the only relevant distinction? If so, then Objectivist morality, under this interpretation, is contentless, because it does not deal with ends. It fails to tell us what our overall goals ought to be - and thus I can combine it freely with any other moral framework, including ones Objectivists find loathsome, like Utilitarianism.
A rational goal is obviously dependent on the circumstances under which is it drawn up, enacted, and acheived. A lot of people assume that because Objectivism deals with absolutes it means we advocate an ironclad "Ten Commandments"-like approach; that's not necessarily the case. I'm assuming based on reading this passage that you're seeking some kind of 'commandment' type thing; since [thanks to religion] thats what people have come to expect from moral objectivists. Rational goals are attainable , consistent with one another [i.e. not 'I will pick up a girl at this dinner party' and 'let's wear the camoflauge pants and plaid shirt combo'], and do not require a breach of ethics to acheive [i.e. 'steal from the rich, give to the poor'].

(Of course, my guess is that there's a hidden assumption here - "rational means to rational goals" where "rational" presupposes an ultimate self-oriented objective of happiness and fulfillment. Which is just begging the question.)
Good guess. Objectivism has a tendancy to overhaul a few things that most people consider philosophical [i]conventions; while it may not be the first philosophy to suggest that we're all "looking out for number one" it is in my view the first philosophy to do so consistently since most other philosophers [Nietzsche I'm looking at you] tripped up somewhere. The only reason we pursue values is because something within us is compelling us to. A truly 'selfless' person would have no recourse but to eschew the pursuit of values--even moral ones--because attaining any kind of value for oneself is a selfish impulse.

A rational goal is obviously dependent on the circumstances under which is it drawn up, enacted, and acheived.
I believe a rational goal according to Objectivism is firstly one's survival (the overarching goal), and subordinate to this, all goals contributing to this first goal. The "rational" element is that which requires moral consistency (distinguishing it from Nietzsche's advocacy of egoism) and that the goal specified is actually achievable.

Another thing ; Rand argues that in order for one to be happy (and make others happy), that one must value themselves first and foremost - she argues that any relationship in which one sees themself as of inferior value to the other party will not be one that gives pleasure, little more than parasitism.

Feel free to correct me, as I've only began reading up on the philosophy recently.

you may be right about her dogma, but she was worng about people.

I am nowhere as good as my wife. I work my ass off to deserve her. She feels the same about me. IMHO that is the best basis of any relationship, and any society. Gratitude is always a better place to start than pride.

you may be right about her dogma, but she was worng about people.

I am nowhere as good as my wife. I work my ass off to deserve her. She feels the same about me. IMHO that is the best basis of any relationship, and any society. Gratitude is always a better place to start than pride.
You basically just said you constantly work to remain of value to her (and she likewise). How does this invalidate what Rand said? Constant self-appraisal and self-improvement is a part of self-esteem - bloated, blind pride is its unjustified alternative. You improve your value to her because she is of such value to you.

A sacrifice is giving up a value for something of lesser value; anything else would be a trade or even a gain.

Sacrifice means to forfeit, relinguish or give up something, usually for something of greater value. The word sacrifice comes from the a Middle English word meaning 'to make sacred' connecting it to religion. Religious sacrifices are/were given to get on a deity's or deities' good side. In chess I sacrifice some pieces so ultimately I'll win. A synonym for sacrifice would be opportunity cost.

You basically just said you constantly work to remain of value to her (and she likewise). How does this invalidate what Rand said? Constant self-appraisal and self-improvement is a part of self-esteem - bloated, blind pride is its unjustified alternative. You improve your value to her because she is of such value to you.
RAnd said that self value comes first. Love comes after. Feed yourslef, the group can have the leftovers. That isn't really love, that's just what we Modernists have taught ourselves to believe love is.

The love comes first, then the self. Not at ALL what Rand said.

RAnd said that self value comes first. Love comes after. Feed yourslef, the group can have the leftovers. That isn't really love, that's just what we Modernists have taught ourselves to believe love is.

The love comes first, then the self. Not at ALL what Rand said.
Not quite. Rand says your happiness comes first. If a loved-one is of value to you, then they are included in this concept. In fact, she even mentioned in The Virtue of Selfishness that if a person kills themself for a loved-one, they may do so because they place value on that person, and because life without them would be unbearable. That is what Rand said.

Not quite. Rand says your happiness comes first. If a loved-one is of value to you, then they are included in this concept. In fact, she even mentioned in The Virtue of Selfishness that if a person kills themself for a loved-one, they may do so because they place value on that person, and because life without them would be unbearable. That is what Rand said.

Oh dear lord. Rand was a forerunner of the me first generation. THey did enough damage to the world. Move on. Buy a snowcone, find someone nice, make babies, and get old wit them. And in the meantime try not to let Ms Rand's insanity affect your judgement.

Oh dear lord. Rand was a forerunner of the me first generation. THey did enough damage to the world. Move on. Buy a snowcone, find someone nice, make babies, and get old wit them. And in the meantime try not to let Ms Rand's insanity affect your judgement.
I plan on doing all the above, minus the procreation, none of which Ms Rand's "insanity" will hinder me from doing.

Good day.

Sacrifice means to forfeit, relinguish or give up something, usually for something of greater value.

Thats complete bullshit. Find me a Thesaurus that lists "Sacrifice" and "gain" as synonyms and I'll show you an editor who's out of a job.

Observe:

sac·ri·fice [sak-ruh-fahys] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -ficed, -fic·ing.
–noun 1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim*
4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.
5. a loss incurred in selling something below its value.
6. Also called sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit. Baseball. a bunt made when there are fewer than two players out, not resulting in a double play, that advances the base runner nearest home without an error being committed if there is an attempt to put the runner out, and that results in either the batter's being put out at first base, reaching first on an error made in the attempt for the put-out, or being safe because of an attempt to put out another runner.

–verb (used with object)
7. to make a sacrifice or offering of.
8. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
9. to dispose of (goods, property, etc.) regardless of profit.
10. Baseball. to cause the advance of (a base runner) by a sacrifice.

–verb (used without object)
11. Baseball. to make a sacrifice: He sacrificed with two on and none out.
12. to offer or make a sacrifice.

* Note the use of the word claim and not value.

I plan on doing all the above, minus the procreation, none of which Ms Rand's "insanity" will hinder me from doing.

Good day.

You're going to buy a snowcone? Why?

Thats complete bullshit. Find me a Thesaurus that lists "Sacrifice" and "gain" as synonyms and I'll show you an editor who's out of a job.

Observe:

sac·ri·fice [sak-ruh-fahys] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -ficed, -fic·ing.
–noun 1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim*
4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.
5. a loss incurred in selling something below its value.
6. Also called sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit. Baseball. a bunt made when there are fewer than two players out, not resulting in a double play, that advances the base runner nearest home without an error being committed if there is an attempt to put the runner out, and that results in either the batter's being put out at first base, reaching first on an error made in the attempt for the put-out, or being safe because of an attempt to put out another runner.

–verb (used with object)
7. to make a sacrifice or offering of.
8. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
9. to dispose of (goods, property, etc.) regardless of profit.
10. Baseball. to cause the advance of (a base runner) by a sacrifice.

–verb (used without object)
11. Baseball. to make a sacrifice: He sacrificed with two on and none out.
12. to offer or make a sacrifice.

* Note the use of the word claim and not value.

Something that has higher claim has more value. If someone sacrifices income so they could have children then it is because they value children more. If I sacrifice some current consumption so I can invest in stock its because I can increase my consumption in the future. In chess I'll sacrifice any piece so I can win. Winning the game and higher future consumption have more value.

If someone sells something at a loss, in monetary terms, then its because they valued something else more. If I build my brother house at a loss then it is because I want my younger brother and his family to have a nice home and he has few savings and I have a lot. Providing him a home is of higher value than the money I'd have. I may sell my friend my used car for less than the market rate it is because I value him having my car more than the money I could have made. If I sacrifice my life for my kids its because them living is of more value to me than my own life.

What is sacrificed is not synonymous with gain, its synonymous with the cost.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sacrifice

sac·ri·fice Pronunciation (skr-fs)
n.
1.
a. The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person.
b. A victim offered in this way.
2.
a. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
b. Something so forfeited.
3.
a. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
b. Something so relinquished.
c. A loss so sustained.
4. Baseball A sacrifice hit or sacrifice fly.
v. sac·ri·ficed, sac·ri·fic·ing, sac·ri·fic·es
v.tr.
1. To offer as a sacrifice to a deity.
2. To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.
3. To sell or give away at a loss.
v.intr.
1. To make or offer a sacrifice.
2. Baseball To make a sacrifice hit or sacrifice fly.

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10 results for: sacrifice

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
sac·ri·fice /ˈsækrəˌfaɪs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sak-ruh-fahys] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -ficed, -fic·ing.
–noun
1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.
4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.
5. a loss incurred in selling something below its value.
6. Also called sacrifice bunt, sacrifice hit. Baseball. a bunt made when there are fewer than two players out, not resulting in a double play, that advances the base runner nearest home without an error being committed if there is an attempt to put the runner out, and that results in either the batter's being put out at first base, reaching first on an error made in the attempt for the put-out, or being safe because of an attempt to put out another runner.
–verb (used with object)
7. to make a sacrifice or offering of.
8. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.
9. to dispose of (goods, property, etc.) regardless of profit.
10. Baseball. to cause the advance of (a base runner) by a sacrifice.
–verb (used without object)
11. Baseball. to make a sacrifice: He sacrificed with two on and none out.
12. to offer or make a sacrifice.
[Origin: 1225–75; (n.) ME < OF < L sacrificium, equiv. to sacri- (comb. form of sacer holy) + -fic-, comb. form of facere to make, do1 + -ium -ium; (v.) ME sacrifisen, deriv. of the n.]

—Related forms
sac·ri·fice·a·ble, adjective
sac·ri·fic·er, noun

—Synonyms 8. relinquish, forgo, renounce.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source
sac·ri·fice (sāk'rə-fīs') Pronunciation Key
n.

1.
1. The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person.
2. A victim offered in this way.
3. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
4. Something so forfeited.
5. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
6. Something so relinquished.
7. A loss so sustained.
2.
1. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
2. Something so forfeited.
3. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
4. Something so relinquished.
5. A loss so sustained.
3.
1. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
2. Something so relinquished.
3. A loss so sustained.
4. Baseball A sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.


v. sac·ri·ficed, sac·ri·fic·ing, sac·ri·fic·es

v. tr.

1. To offer as a sacrifice to a deity.
2. To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.
3. To sell or give away at a loss.


v. intr.

1. To make or offer a sacrifice.
2. Baseball To make a sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.



[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; see sacred + facere, to make; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.]

sac'ri·fic'er n.
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Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
WordNet - Cite This Source
sacrifice

noun
1. the act of losing or surrendering something as a penalty for a mistake or fault or failure to perform etc. [syn: forfeit]
2. personnel that are sacrificed (e.g., surrendered or lost in order to gain an objective)
3. a loss entailed by giving up or selling something at less than its value; "he had to sell his car at a considerable sacrifice"
4. the act of killing (an animal or person) in order to propitiate a deity
5. (sacrifice) an out that advances the base runners

verb
1. endure the loss of; "He gave his life for his children"; "I gave two sons to the war"
2. kill or destroy; "The animals were sacrificed after the experiment"; "The general had to sacrifice several soldiers to save the regiment"
3. sell at a loss
4. make a sacrifice of; in religious rituals

soooo... what time do you get off Melkior? I have a bottle of ripple I can "sacrifice" for a "good" time...;)

Whya re we even on the subject of Ayn Rand? She's 50 years dead and thank god for it.

First of all I just want to say that it's refreshing to finally run into an argument from someone who actually understands what I'm saying. For the most part people here don't so much debate philosophy as they debate ethics. Soheran, I'm going to be blunt: I respect you a lot more after having read this than I had previously.

Well, in several of our prior conversations, we were pretty much talking past one another. This one seems to be going better.

Edit: And, actually, reading your reply - both the "refreshing" part and the "respect" part are reciprocated. I spent a good two hours on this post, and unlike usually, I don't feel as if I've wasted my time.

If you're pursuing a particular set of morals, it should be a foregone conclusion that it's a value to you. If you are pursuing this value--even if that value is the well-being of others--you are doing so in an attempt to do the right thing or be a good person.

Not exactly. I can obey the moral law not because I want to be the kind of person who obeys the moral law, but because I feel the moral law is something that ought to be obeyed - period. Similarly, I may not care whether it is me or someone else who helps Person X, as long as Person X is helped. (If I really care about Person X's welfare, why do I care who helps Person X, as long as it is genuine help? This cannot be construed as anything but altruism - at least under any reasonable definition of that.)

Regardless of how altruistic your actions are, they are derived from a selfish intent to live a morally upstanding life.

Yes and no. I may seek to be a moral person, but if the sense in which I mean "moral person" involves a person who seeks the welfare of others, I must see some value in the welfare of others independent of its value to me. This is part of declaring altruism to be moral. I will never reach the conclusion that altruism is moral unless I see intrinsic value in other human beings.

Morality in and of itself does not compel men to certain action by its existence alone, which defeats the concept of "moral duty" at its very base. "Moral duty" [to borrow the term] is self imposed; which is mutually exclusive to it being a duty as such. A more correct term in my estimation would be "moral ambitiousness."

But from where do we derive this moral ambition? Merely from the recognition of certain precepts as our moral duty.

Moral duty is a "duty" only in that we recognize it as an imperative we OUGHT to fulfill. It is "self-imposed" only in that this recognition comes through fundamental aspects of ourselves that we cannot alienate - our rationality, or our moral sentiment, or our natures, or whatever.

Objectivism did not brand the term "sacrifice" to altruism; the proponents of altruism have been using that exact language for centuries.

A sacrifice is giving up a value for something of lesser value; anything else would be a trade or even a gain. It's impossible to claim that someone else's physical [or monetary] well-being is more valuable to you than your own; so it's impossible to term the moral transaction as a trade or a gain.

But you are engaging in a false dichotomy.

I don't need to value anyone else's well-being as more valuable than mine in order to accept altruism. This is a slavish mindset, not an altruistic one. If it were the mindset altruism required, Objectivism would be right about it.

But altruism does not require us to subordinate ourselves to others - it does not say that they are more valuable than ourselves. It merely says that they have some value. I'm with the Utilitarians and hold that they have equal value, but that is hardly a universal tenet of altruists. Certainly almost no one insists that they have MORE value - except in a limited sense that I will reference later.

If I see a woman drowning in a river, and I'm an excellent swimmer who's perfectly capable of rescuing her with ease, it doesn't take a slavish mindset to say that I should rescue her. Consider the exchange - I lose a little convenience, and she gains her life. Even if my life is much more valuable than her life (and some theories of altruism wouldn't object to that categorization, putting sacrifices of life in the supererogatory category), it seems absurd to say that my temporary convenience is.

We should give to the needy, because what we give to the needy is far more valuable to the needy than to us. We need not just go around giving to everyone. That's slavish, and pointless.

Of course, the one perceived exception might be aretaic theories of altruism, which sometimes go further. Such a theory might insist, for instance, that for our personal fulfillment it is best to sacrifice material goods for some greater gain, and thus we should willingly give to anyone who asks - even if they are not at all needy. But, of course, this too is only superficially sacrifice - we sacrifice x for the greater benefit y. We are not being masochists.

None of this means that sacrifice is never necessary with altruism. Of course it is - in some theories of altruism. (Though, again, it's not that sacrifice is a good in and of itself - helping others is a good, even if it involves sacrifice.) But what I was referencing in my earlier post was the view of altruism held by those who subscribe to a similar theory to yours - one that, like yours, asks: "What do we do to achieve the kind of personal fulfillment and happiness necessary for a good life?" My point was that there were plenty of altruistic answers to that question, too - at least semi-altruistic, because it could be argued that any such question presupposes selfishness.

The problem with Objectivism that I was referencing is that it moves from "we ought to pursue self-oriented goals of happiness and fulfillment" (or, at least, that it is in those terms we should define our "oughts") to "we ought to always behave like profit-maximizers." I'm going to borrow and modify slightly an example from Alasdair MacIntyre's book After Virtue to illustrate the point.

Imagine a game of chess. Attached to the game is a monetary reward for the winner. I have to choose whether or not to cheat to win. It seems as if pure selfishness (ignore for a moment the kinds of negative rights advocated even by people like Rand) would tell us to cheat, if we can get away with it, and thus get the monetary reward. But the question is not really that simple. There are internal goods to chess - benefits we derive just from playing the game, ignoring any external rewards to any particular outcome. If I cheat, if I break the rules, I threaten those internal goods - usually, games are a whole lot less fun if one cheats to the point that they become easy. So if I go with the path advocated by profit maximization, if I seek the monetary reward at all costs, I am incapable of receiving those internal goods.

I'm not saying that Objectivism mandates that we only play chess for money; I doubt it. I'm just using chess as an example of a more general principle - that by obeying certain rules, by paying attention to certain principles that may seem to deny us certain kinds of gratification, we may in fact be going along a more fulfilling road than the one which insists that we maximize our personal profit at all times.

The applications of this kind of logic are very widespread. I might be nice to others, and cultivate relationships of kindness and compassion with them, even if this requires certain kinds of sacrifices on my part, because I know that if I neglect this, some of my fundamental desires may be thwarted. I might seek the common good, as opposed to just my personal good, because I know that fundamentally what I really seek is not just to live a good life, but to live a good life in a community of people living good lives. I might cultivate a set of virtues that enable me to find the internal goods in the behaviors that define my life, even at the cost of external, material rewards, because I realize that there are more valuable things. And suddenly the person who pursues her personal fulfillment and happiness no longer looks very much like the profit-maximizing capitalist, but rather much more like the altruist or even the ascetic. For the person who is always looking at ways to make a monetary profit necessarily misses a great deal of potential for value elsewhere.

Edit: I should note here that not only is the profit-maximizing capitalist incompatible with this vision, but the consequentialist saint is as well - if I am always seeking to maximize the good, I am similarly incapable of truly living a flourishing life. To me this doesn't matter, for reasons I touch on later in this post; I hold that there are more important things. But I'll concede to you that the basic framework advanced by Objectivism is indeed incompatible with my kind of altruism. It's just not incompatible with all kinds of altruism.

f altruists didn't care whether I hoarded money or gave it away, I wouldn't have to argue with them about Welfare or income tax all the time. But, things being as they are, altruists seem to prefer that I give it away, since my attempts to defend the practice of hoarding have been reviled many times by the very public that are presently reading these words. Trying to detach the idea of sacrifice from altruism is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. You can't tell me that it's a moral imperative for me to pay income tax and then turn around and say that you're not asking for sacrifices. $10 is worth more to you in your pocket than it is in someone else's.

I know you don't like people deleting parts of your posts, but I think I've responded in full to the points here already. If I've missed anything, please point it out to me.

A system based on prosperity and happiness [and accordingly built to facilitate their existence] strikes me as being nominally superior towards one built on, say, malaise and sacrifice.

Sure, I agree.

Malaise because we're supposed to feel like bad people if we spend huge chunks of cash on things we want rather than things we need;

But only if we are neglecting the "prosperity and happiness" of others in the process.

This is not malaise for its own sake. It is malaise for the sake of other people's happiness and prosperity. In a society where everyone was equally happy and prosperous, there would be no need for it.

sacrifice for the reasons outlined above.

But, again, altruism is not built on sacrifice. It can involve sacrifice, but only so that others suffer less. It seeks, overall, to minimize suffering and maximize prosperity and happiness. It just enlarges the group of people who should be prosperous and happy to all human beings (or all sapient beings, or all sentient beings), instead of just ourselves.

True. The Objectivist definition of the moral is for the most part radically different than the postulates that have been offered by other philosophies.

Well, it is fairly close to the definition of "moral" offered by many philosophies in the Aristotelian tradition of telos-oriented virtue ethics. That's why I've been attacking it somewhat from that direction, despite my personal disagreement with such moral theories.

You seem to understand that Objectivism challenges conventional philosophy at it's root; and the structure of the entire philosophy is based around this change. This dichotomy was introduced because philosophers never thought it could be possible to actually live a completely moral life; at least in a spiritual sense. Objectivism suggests that morality is not some otherworldy, unattainable force; but that it's a reasonable goal that is within the capabilities of the reasoned mind.

But where is our guarantee that this is in fact the case?

Sure, it would be convenient if it were, but why should fulfilling our moral obligations be an easy task? I agree with most moral philosophers (and probably with you) that they must be achievable in theory; that is to say, if we pursue them strongly enough, we must be capable of fulfilling our moral obligations. But I see no reason why they need to be such that many people will pursue them that strongly.

I'd tend towards the viewpoint that caring for one's children does provide a profound happiness; this all goes back to what I said earlier about pursuing values. Sure, people have to do things they don't want to do in the course of raising thier children; but they accept the whole of the responsibility in a bigger-picture kind of sense. Having and raising children is certainly [i]not done for any direct personal gain; I'll grant you that much.

Still, I have a problem with this argument. The impulse to reproduce and care for one's young is a natural biological process that probably has more grounding in instinct than in reasoned moral evaluation [which is why perfectly intelligent people can fuck their lives up real fast by getting married at age 19...]. As such it's a potentially tricky game to get into the morality of raising children [at least in this sense].

What of it? A good deal of altruism is biologically grounded. Altruism has been observed in numerous non-human species, even. The fact that altruism is natural does not make it any less altruism.

It's true that this kind of altruism is not derived through reason, but as I think I've said before to you, I don't think any end is grounded in reason. Ends are emotional; they are things to which we are attached. It is means that are in the realm of reason.

That's not to say I don't understand what you're saying--people do things that they don't want to do all the time, and certainly raising a child can include a lot of that. People put up with all kinds of troublesome things in order to maintain a value--be it their child, their home, their job, or whatever else is important enough to them to justify the hardship. Most people seem to have an interest in raising well-adjusted children, so the reason they get up in the middle of the night to change diapers, or why they drive 45 minutes to a piano recital is because it's worth it in the end to that person; whether they accept Objectivism, Platonism, or Pragmatism as their moral code. Whether it's worth it to them in a personal sense or in some kind of cosmic sense I can't answer to; but the child is clearly a value to the parent if the parent seeks to keep it.

Agreed. And the fact that the child is a value to the parent means that the parent is acting altruistically, not selfishly. Why should the parent care about her happiness and fulfillment? Her child is so much more important.

On what basis can you tell her to stop? From what you've said, you wouldn't - but then you are moving back towards the contentless form of Objectivism I referred to in my last post. For if you have no problem with people seeking value, even if that value is value found in the well-being of another, then you cannot oppose altruism, which is just viewing the well-being of others as valuable. You are left with a kind of normative relativism - whatever values a person pursues is okay for that person. You cannot even protest if another person imposes his values upon you, for he undoubtedly is just pursuing some value through that imposition. To refer to the earlier example of the income tax, perhaps he values the welfare of the poor, but not property rights, and thus is okay with forcing you to give away your property to fulfill his value.

I'm not trying to imply that the parent doesn't also maintain that particular value for her son/daughter's sake--but its ludicrous to assume based on that example that people should seek value for the sake of others; since most other people don't happen to be close relations.

That wasn't the intention of my argument. The intention was to illustrate a difficulty I see with Objectivism - that when it comes to actions based upon altruism, you have no place from which to critique them. Clearly some people value some things more than personal fulfillment and happiness; on what basis can you tell them that that's bad? You can tell them all day that it involves sacrifice, malaise, and so on, that it means they will always be slavish, and never be capable of pursuing their personal fulfillment and happiness; but what if they don't care?

A rational goal is obviously dependent on the circumstances under which is it drawn up, enacted, and acheived. A lot of people assume that because Objectivism deals with absolutes it means we advocate an ironclad "Ten Commandments"-like approach; that's not necessarily the case. I'm assuming based on reading this passage that you're seeking some kind of 'commandment' type thing; since [thanks to religion] thats what people have come to expect from moral objectivists.. Rational goals are attainable , consistent with one another [i.e. not 'I will pick up a girl at this dinner party' and 'let's wear the camoflauge pants and plaid shirt combo'], and do not require a breach of ethics to acheive [i.e. 'steal from the rich, give to the poor'].

But isn't there a kind of circularity in that last one? Isn't the whole point of the idea of "rational goals" that what is unethical is irrational, that is, is not a rational goal? If that's the case, and if "steal from the rich, give to the poor" is achievable and consistent (and I don't see why it isn't), how can you object to it?

Again, it seems to me that there's an assumption here that's missing.

Good guess. Objectivism has a tendancy to overhaul a few things that most people consider philosophical [i]conventions; while it may not be the first philosophy to suggest that we're all "looking out for number one" it is in my view the first philosophy to do so consistently since most other philosophers [Nietzsche I'm looking at you] tripped up somewhere. The only reason we pursue values is because something within us is compelling us to. A truly 'selfless' person would have no recourse but to eschew the pursuit of values--even moral ones--because attaining any kind of value for oneself is a selfish impulse.

But "selfless" does not mean that one does not pursue one's own values - it merely means that the values one pursues are values like the well-being of others or adherence to abstract moral principles, as opposed to selfish values like "more money for myself" or "more pleasure for myself."

Of course everyone pursues values, but both altruism and selfishness are not defined in terms of that pursuit, but in terms of the CONTENT of those values. Again, if Objectivism merely comes down to "it's okay to pursue your own values," then it collapses into normative relativism - it cannot object to altruism, which is just valuing the welfare of others.

To me, a sacrifice is any general forfeiture. What the sacrifice is for has no bearing on whether it is a sacrifice.

However, since no rational person would allow such a loss if not for the sake of something they value more (I sacrifice my free time so that I can eat and have shelter, I wouldn't sacrifice my free time for the hell of it), it can be said that a sacrifice is a forfeiture for an alternative gain.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236921,00.html

This is good news. Now, if only more Republican would see the light maybe we can elect some people who are more interested in what is right than doing whatever to get re-elected.

I always liked Barr. He might make a viable third party candidate.

Might be okay, Newt would be better. Barr doesn't have the real spirit of Libertarianism. I've seen him and he's really just a conservative Republican. You won't find him abandoning a 'right to life' stand or the 'war on drugs' anytime soon.

You basically just said you constantly work to remain of value to her (and she likewise). How does this invalidate what Rand said? Constant self-appraisal and self-improvement is a part of self-esteem - bloated, blind pride is its unjustified alternative. You improve your value to her because she is of such value to you.

Hold on.

Remember, Rand was a philosopher--primarily an epistemologist, but also an ethical philosopher. And ethical philosophy is normative, not descriptive. So there's no need to bother trying to show how his actions conform to Rand's philosophy, since Rand wasn't trying to explain how people DO act (that is the realm of sociology and psychology) but how they SHOULD act--so, if there are people who act in a manner different from Rand's philosophy, that does not constitute evidence of the invalidity of her philosophy.

Hold on.

Remember, Rand was a philosopher--primarily an epistemologist, but also an ethical philosopher. And ethical philosophy is normative, not descriptive. So there's no need to bother trying to show how his actions conform to Rand's philosophy, since Rand wasn't trying to explain how people DO act (that is the realm of sociology and psychology) but how they SHOULD act--so, if there are people who act in a manner different from Rand's philosophy, that does not constitute evidence of the invalidity of her philosophy.
True. Even so, with some rationalisation it was possible to demonstrate how the behaviour he described is not entirely different to that which Rand proscribes.

Why does it matter?

I'm sure he knows his own motives better than you or I do. Just take him at face value. If he wants to be evil, let him.

*snip*
I wonder, are any of these questions Soheran posed going to be answered? I'd like to see how an Objectivist would answer them.