caroljane

But Tony , it is you who inflicts "subjective egalitarianism" on "intruders", in that they equally forfeit all rights, whenever their killers subjectively determine them to be intruders. We are straying somewhat from the particular case in point. Martin intruded into no one's home, nor was he armed. As I understand you however, because Zimmerman thought him a threat and followed him, he deserved to die.

Sports are a game. In a game some lose and some win (except perhaps some games I haven't heard of). In business there's not always one winner in a single field (like Gary Cola who should be the richest as his metal (Bainite Steel) is the best, but doesn't even have his own foundry as he's being ignored). I don't consider economics to be a game. In rational business (whether it be industry, art, etc) Its not important whether or not you beat others, its important that you achieve that which you rationally decided and set out to achieve. In other words using sports as a metaphor for economics is fine so long as you don't overstretch the metaphor. Every single thing is not exactly like every single thing, metaphors can only represent to limited degrees. Sports are not exactly like economics. They certainly are not and I wish you would tell that to the NHL.

I'm just saying that both sides have their examples, and no example has any meaningful effect on the debate. I'm sure there's tons of contradicting statistics out there, too... but none of this is relevant. We're talking about right and wrong... Is it right for someone to be able to defend themselves? Yes, obviously. Is it right for someone to use a gun to defend themselves? You say never. If someone breaks into your house, they are forcing you into a dangerous situation you did not want to be in... You have the right to exit this situation however you can. If killing someone is what it takes to avoid an innocent person getting a broken bone, then that's justice... You have no right to tell an innocent person, "Just let them do whatever they want to you. They don't deserve to die because they don't intend to kill you. You don't know that, but statistically..." You can't empathize with both parties... you can choose either the victim or the criminal... You choose the criminal because you think life is more important than money or injuries. I empathize with the innocent; they should not have to deal with danger they did not ask for, and if 1000 criminals died in defensive shootings during home invasions, that's completely justified to save even one innocent person's life. Do I misunderstand your side of the debate? No, you don't misunderstand me, in the main. I hold the standard of morality to be individual human life, the highest value. Your position is that one individual's property is more valuable than another individual's life, when each may be threatened. You uphold a standard of 'criminal" and "innocent" which is entirely subjective in each individual circumstance. You have said explicitly that some human lives are of more value than others, a very traditional viewpoint which obtained throughout most of the "barbaric" and even civilised ages in our human history. I don't believe in capital punishment or an armed citizenry, following on my core beliefs, and my views are derived from pragmatic and , yes, statistical evidence, that fewer lives are lost through accident or insanity or carelessness, when guns are unavailable, than when they are. It's the stoplight and speed limit argument, really: until all the roads are private, I'd rather travel them on less peril than more. You may think I misunderstand the American welding of guns and liberty, but I actually don't. I just deplore it.

Before we abandon the examples (which I am happy to do) let's get them straight. Trayvon Martin did not break into anyone's house. I don't know what bludgeoned dead Canadian you are referring to , so I can't see how the two examples balance out. You are right that it is about morals.

In addition, Zimmerman's injuries are not inconsistent with self-infliction either, as the prosecution might note. There was a time lag enough to support this theory.

WND is a niche version of the Enquirer etc, except that when it comes to the crunch WND cannot verify its stories .Its constant themes are that Obama is gay and a drug addled Communist, and it has harped on them forever, WND was also a main source of the Egypt crucifixion hoax, amongst other agitprop balloons it is eager to set aloft at the behest of its "anonymous sources".

What difference could this make? The principle is enshrined in law already, that an American has the right to kill anybody on his property, or in his neighbourhood, that he feels suspicious of. H e has only to say that he felt threatened, even by his own son in disguise as in Connecticut, and go free. The dead of course, remain free to be dead, however mourned or vilified.

I don't know what they mean, but I have always thought the second Hillel quote to be the strongest urging for self-esteem--and deeply depressing to procrastinator

,,,in which the Men of the Mind stride forth to till the soil, freed at last from looters and moochers, but somewhat hampered by an absence of working ploughs or seeds.

I do. It is the last war that we won. Ba'al Chatzaf Fondness? I can't, because it took my father's youth, although it left him alive, and obviously I would not exist if he had been killed before he could marry. And this war was so woefully necessary, the world if Germany had won would have been so evil, so wicked that no sane person would want to live in it. But you do remember Baal, that "we" was not America alone. You joined in 1941, against strenuous internal opposition, the British and Commonwealth forces who had been fighting and dying for two years.

Short wait! Brother Brant, you are stained, stainted indeed. Go thou and sin no more. Some more. Some more. --Brant working hard Ah, you call upon the very St Augustine who is patron of this thread, and implore the Lord to make you good, but not yet. Soon you shall join the Blessed William of Vancouver in the Etholimbic Antechamber, to be delivered in November before All Souls Eve.

Short wait! Brother Brant, you are stained, stainted indeed. Go thou and sin no more.

Why, a strong wind while filming Marilyn M.,fear not -- no lascivious interpretations could ever be put upon such a circumstance by OLers, whose strength is as the strength of ten, because their hearts are..well, you know.

So well presented wss, and it so confirms my impression of how Canada and the US have mirrored each other in those social undergarments we habitually wear, -- yet we think of them so differently. And wash them in public, with such aplomb or indignation. I wonder if it is not the very individualism that we all share here on OL, I think, that yet makes us so different in how we characterise our political leaders. The main Founding Father of our country was after all, not a noble patriot general of unimpeachable honesty and integrity and courage, just a canny Scots politician of unusual intelligence, who was usually drunk. We were led through the second World War, through six long weary years, by another canny politician who took all his decisions in consultation with his dead mother and his even deader pet dogs, via seance.We have no tradition of reverence or even excessive admiration for our politicians, we just put up with them and hope to hell they will do a decent job. And to their credit, (current Ontarians excepted) they have tried to, and to our profit, the workmanlike Pearsons and the insouciant Trudueaus, have succeeded in much.

Well Mikee, I can tell you right now that that straw man story is a lie and a calumny, Canadian women do not construct straw men around harvest time for their own selfish pleasure, especially not in urban areas, and we do not burn them up afterwards in wicker baskets or anything. Eel, cockle and mussel season is later in the year.

Use moral always facts faux in a sentence; mix well; serve up a juxtapsosition

Sophisticated? Mmm, I detect sarcasm. Are you trying to say the video is childish? C’mon, don’t hold back, let's hear it. I know how different it is in Canada, up there you never have to worry about suddenly finding yourself at the mercy of a bureaucrat with a full bladder. Try mentally putting yourself in the place of a 21st century Yank, I know you can do it...it's just like how you put yourself into the mind of a 19th century Englishwoman when you reread (for the umpteenth time) all about Dorothea in Middlemarch. For the same reasons I didn't like your original, daunce was delighted by it (probably wet herself). She loathes Romney, he has committed the unpardonable sin of achieving wealth and success. She is smug in the certainty that her pet Obama, the "people's choice" (poet's choice?), will be re-elected. Her characterization of "sheeple" is most certainly her opinion of Romney supporters. Including those on this forum. I was not delighted with the original, if ytou mean the Shogun clip, I loved Shogun and remember the scene. I did not click on it or any of the other images. My comment was as 9th inferred about childish urological humourin general which I dislike. Although I do know a really funny British joke about a milkman. I do not loathe Romney, I do not loathe anyone for achieving wealth and success, and I defy you to find anywhere I ever intimated that I did. Perhaps you don't hate Romney or anyone for achieving wealth and success. I have a problem with your socialism. I believe if you were not keeping yourself in a state of willful ignorance you could not remain a socialist. Perhaps you don't "hate" Romney because socialists need people like Romney, they need people with ability and ambition to finance their schemes. But they also have to hold them up at the point of a gun to get this financing. To avoid facing this fact you say "I hate guns", well "handguns" you say. You justify your socialism by thinking that people of achievement and wealth don't "care" about other people, they don't have "feelings" except for their own selfish interests. This is analogous to artists who say about scientists that they are unfeeling about the beauty of nature, they are only interested in facts and statistics and numbers and experiments and theories. As if, as Richard Feynman pointed out, having the curiosity about nature to think about it enough to actually know something about it means you can't appreciate the beauty. The contrary is true. The same for politics and economics, if you took the trouble to actually read the arguments and analysis the results of these "socialist experiments" of the last hundred years you would realize the misery they cause far outweighs any individual gains you might be able to find here and there. You dismiss intellectuals on the right (and objectivists) as unfeeling about other people, only interested in their own theories or profits or the status quo. You are a master at wordcraft, quite amazing, I have deep admiration for your abilities, your poems and stories, your sense of humor. But when referencing anything serious I hear mocking and derision. Those are my impressions and the reason for my criticism. Mikee, I have answered this in part on the other thread; I will just say briefly that art and science, are not analogous with politics and economics, as both latter disciplines acknowledge that they are not sciences, and only arts in the hands of those who wield them. And I thank you so much for your compliment on my writing. I greatly enjoy writing on here, and it is wonderful to think that other members enjoy it also,

Daunce: I assume you know I was jesting and jousting with you. You are incapable of falsehoods, as far as I can tell, even when making your point with a well-phrased reductio ad adsurdum. And since I was in the Marines, I felt comfortable making the distinction about Brant, who honorably served our country during wartime--something which, thankfully, I was never required to do. To be more serious, however, and to try to make a point more pertinent to the issue at hand, I do think it would be difficult for somebody who has not lived their lives as Americans in the American culture to appreciate how annoying the generation of the first questioner types are in our midst. To Americans of a certain age, we have seen almost an entire generation of American males turn into beta-males: (think the Jim Halpern on The Office), with slumped shoulders, sing-song diction in which nearly statement out of their mouths ends with equivalent of a question mark, very little common-sense, and a very high level of expectation about what society owes them. I have employed these types, unfortunately. I have seen them on juries. I have relatives married to them. If they haven't actually had life handed to them on a silver platter already, they expect society to do so, and soon. The people of my father's generation would never dream of thinking that the government owes them a job. The people of my son's generation not only have such expectations, they have no shame in saying so. On national TV. The fact that Ms. Crowley picked this young man to ask the first question of the debate speaks volumes about the trajectory of our country. I did not see the debate, I have had TV and computer problems, nobody knows the trouble I' ve seen, or my sorrows or triumphs over the overworked staff at the tech store, where I just paced up and down alternately scowling and weeping. You are right PDS, I cannot really comprehend a young man who feels entitled and distentitled, or that he should feel that in America of all places his own future is out of his hands. If you have come to this in one generation , given my own bias,i th I would blame the apocalyptic media who encourage them to think so. My own sons were able to find niches in the world of work through their own efforts and I am grateful for this fold in national and economic history. I am intrigued that you were a Marine, I have always thought it to be the most disciplined of the services, is that what sparked your zenness? The rising inflection, the question-mark end of a declarative sentence, is something I have only so far seen in women here, or very young boys. If it is coming to the men, I too am prepared to despair,

Carol, the comments you are referring are in post #23 of this thread: http://www.objectivi...topic=12631&hl= Evidently you have no experience living in a non-socialist society and cannot imagine surviving any hardship without the "help" of benevolent government agencies. As Margaret Thatcher said (paraphrase) "What happens when you run out of other people's money?" "You" refers to govt schemers, not you personally. The uncle who raised me did have to quit school after the eighth grade and go to work on his step fathers farm after his own father committed suicide. He was the most honest and hardest working man I've ever known. He also started and ran several successful small businesses in his lifetime. I cannot imagine him ever saying something he did not know was true. Note this is different than not just deliberately telling a lie. If he did not know something were true with certainty he would not tell someone it was true. He never spoke in absolutes. I honour the uncle who raised you, but that such a good man should have to quit school.....I was only saying, that in another sytdem, such good men did not have to, nor have to sacrifice their honesty either.

And furthermore Mikee. On another thread, I have forgotten where it is or I would have answered you there. You deplore my socialism because you say I deny the reality of the "socialist experiments" which have caused more death and misery than anything else in history. First, I am not a Communist. The experiments you reference, I assume to be the graveyards of Russia and China, which have no more to do with socialism as I understand it, than the perpetrators of these murders understood it. Stalin was a psychopath with no political ideology except the power of fear and killing. Mao developed a policy of "permanent revolution", unsustainable and purposefully destructive, for who knows what reason? They were despots who wreaked their will. My reality is that of growing up within a socialist experiment, in a western country already civilised, and able to sustain national healthcare and education support and old age pensions and the like. I did not see any business stifled (in fact I saw them encouraged and propped up by governments-- Bricklin anybody?)I did not see any death or misery, except the negative misery of one family of my cousins, ten children growing up on a hardscrabble farm, who would have had to quit school at 15 and go to work, if there was any, or emigrate, -- except they had to keep on at school, sustained by the Baby Bonus and their mother's iron will, and they all went on to college or university or professional training, every one. They were home schooled in music by their mother, two are now professional musicians, one an award-winning international organist. All have succeeded, and some have created jobs , and they have kept their skills in the country that nurtured them.

I apologise to Brant, I will claim alien ignorance. We don't have Marines here that I know of, it is just army or navy, I do not know where I got the impression he was in the marines. Maybe his gung-ho ness in certain situations, or his refusal to be told things that he could not rationally accept. As to my other falsehoods, go ahead and try to prove some negatives.

I respect that unreservedly. Friendship is sacred, while cauldrons cool and boil at whim.

Dear Diary, Things are settling down. The papers are all about the American debates and no more pictures of us have come out except with clothes on. I am glad I do not have to debate anybody, only make speeches. One can then use one's "zingers' when one wants and not have to wait for an opportunity. I got in a rather good one when darling K and I visited the English World Cup side, those bloody overpaid spoiled wankers. At the end I said, " I would like to cry, 'God for Harry, England and St George'!, but I would not like to lower the tone by bringing my brother Harry into it." Everyone laughed like drains. You will be surprised where I got that one, it was from the Archbishop of Canterbury! I did not know he was a football fan, but apparently he supported QPR in his youth --sad, that. Anyway it was a jolly good line. One thing about having to go to church all the time, you do find out these nuggets when chatting after the service. When I was most cut up about that awful intrusion by the unspeakable Telephoto Froggie, the rector at Anglesey mentioned to me that King Richard II and his Queen both had to bare their breasts at their coronation to be anointed with the holy oil! That was a facer and reminded me that Things Could be Worse, of course there were no paparazzi back then, and only the nobles would be looking at you, but it would have been much colder in the cathedral also. What my ancestors faced I must prepare to face also, although I hope I will not be deposed and murdered... I try not to worry about Harry, staff assure me that there are no female soldiers under his direct command, and the other lady squaddies and medical personnel in Afghanistan are mostly married. And one place where Harry (and I) have always drawn the line is at married women, we have grown up with the Awful Example of Great-Uncle David and, well, there was Papa but he has not had to give up the throne because he has not got it, and since those days we have all learned from history and experience, even Archbishops. Ich dien, William

I'm hoping for an update on Love in Bloomington. How's the cauldron of unholy loves stirring these days, O far-voyaging Aeneas?

Meh, I'm sure Rand could hold her own. Barring that she could always strangle him with her strong peasant hands. Rand was brought up in a Jewish middle class family in Russia. ruveyn So no peasants tainted the ancestry? Snob!