Francisco Ferrer

FF, I disagree. This issue of William's lies about his past is not an unreal or fictional scandal. It is a real scandal. There are other scandals, too, but that's a real scandal. It exists for real. Michael They should fire Williams and replace him with a reporter who has an unblemished record of parroting the Establishment line. Then we can all go back to business as usual.

Old saying about the Luce Empire: "Life is for people who can't read. Time is for people who can't think."

You are, of course, within your rights to use any word in the language in some idiosyncratic, arbitrary or "broadened" sense. What I objected to was being told that my use of "communism" was in error and needed to be replaced with a non-standard use of "fascism." Your teeth are fine--for you, not me.

I've placed Brant Gaede's words in large type because it is the central issue in the Brian Williams setto--and naturally it is the very thing that all but a few are ignoring. The problem is not the fact that a photogenic anchorman (who is paid $10 million per annum) has embellished his experiences, but that every day his employer and every other major media outlet in this county serve as mouthpieces for for government policies, both domestic and foreign. The real scandal is not Williams's lies about himself but the lies he routinely tells on behalf of his masters.

You say Stalin was a communist, but earlier you took issue with my statement that "Communism has killed more people in the past century than typhus." Israel is not fascist, you say. Then by your own logic it must not have a government, for you have already stated that "Fascism is what fascism does. It is not at the base an ideology at all. It's the essential nature of any government--force, as Geo. Wash. said." If your goal is to tie the left up in knots, you won't succeed if anyone on the left has a passing knowledge of the rise and fall of fascism in Europe. You are taking a term with a specific meaning and context and applying haphazardly and carelessly to tar any government you disapprove of. This is a linguistic fallacy. One would be committing the same ahistorical nonsense by referring to Attila the Hun as an early Nazi warrior, or Woodrow Wilson as a neoconservative president, or Aristotle as a Greek philosopher of Objectivism. Communism's death toll is far worse than fascism's. You're not doing history or the freedom movement any favors by claiming that it was not communism that killed people but fascism. That would be a lie.

It's because the Moralist has lived such a decent life that he has Barack Obama as his president.

Well, yes, you might say Williams is helping NBC--and ABC and Fox--more than anyone could have predicted.

It wouldn't make sense to place fascism within the category of communism for the same reason that communists don't fall within the ranks of fascists. Both ideologies have some overlapping beliefs but are different in key philosophical and historical respects. Class conflict, central to communist doctrine, played little role in fascist movements. In fact, in Italy, Germany, and Spain fascist movements were helped by popular fear of the complete restructuring of society that the Bolsheviks had undertaken in Russia. Given the democides that followed communist takeovers in Russia and China, I agree with Mises that fascism in Italy was a far better outcome than the communist alternative. That would also apply to Spain and perhaps even to Germany. To argue that fascism is the essence of all governments requires one to ignore any differences between 20th century fascist regimes, the governments they replaced and those that followed. To call both Hitler and Ludwig Erhard "fascist" is to reduce the word to gibberish. If you seek a term that would encompass both communism and fascism, try "totalitarianism."

By the same token we can broaden "communism" to include fascism, the New Deal, Obamacare and the Golden Horde. We can also say "ugh" to cover everything that displeases us and thus save ourselves the trouble of having to be specific.

That doesn't mean they weren't fascists. Just that there wasn't a label for it yet. They were mass-murdering communists who believed in the Communist Manifesto's call for class war and dictatorship. You can call them "fascists" if you're worried about the label "communist" getting a bad reputation.

Where in Atlas does Rand say that the mental processes being described came from an emasculated bureaucrat? Where does the author state that the man who got a bullet was a castrato?

Ayn Rand was surprisingly prescient in predicting the consequences of the increasing number of weak spineless emasculated liberal males in America. And this nation is presently reaping the economic and social results of abandoning the strength of American values. Greg Where in the published works of Ayn Rand can one find this "prescient" prediction of "the consequences of the increasing number of weak spineless emasculated liberal males in America"?

Of course. What I meant to say is, given that it was not communism but fascism that has caused more deaths in the past century than typhus, shouldn't we vaccinate the public against the fascists by banning their works? To be included would be writings advocating fascism called "communism," but excluding non-fascistic communism. We would obviously exclude Lenin and the Bolsheviks because their revolution occurred before the term fascist was even invented.

Communism has killed more people in the past century than typhus. Should people be "vaccinated" against Marx's ideas by banning his writings?

It sure is, Frank. And you already have proof that the government is an instrument of perfect moral justice... ...because it's exactly the government you deserve. God punishes the evil-doers and rewards the do-gooders (Obama) through His instrument of perfect justice.

The U.S. government is led by a "weak feminized male." The U.S. government is an "instrument of perfect moral justice." Hooray for weak feminized males!

On the contrary, I applaud Washington for releasing his slaves from bondage, but criticize him for reviving a recently rejected form of bondage, the hated internal tax. Rejection of British authority had grown largely because of the public's opposition to the Stamp Tax of 1765 on internal documents and transactions. Now Washington was imposing a tax on whiskey even higher than the one on tea. The whiskey tax was followed by the new president's use of a 13,000-man army to suppress tax refusal. Self-governance is an admirable virtue, but few, I think, practice it from a prison cell.

Go... A... I don't have a fresh idea, but quite an old one: "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example."

Actually, you do not get it. Being prepared to act globally is part of a defensive strategy. Not going to add straw to your man. Certainly did not state that invading places around the globe is part of that strategy. What is your solution? A... Walker is a superb politician, so when he says, "We need to have an aggressive strategy anywhere around the world,” only someone determined to misunderstand him would take the word "aggressive" to mean, well, aggressive, or "anywhere in the world" to mean just anywhere in the world. Can't a reasonable observer see how much more freedom and less terrorism the world has since our spectacular military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq? And, therefore, what young lad or lass could resist joining the globalist in sowing new Afghanistans, Iraqs, and Libyas over the rest of God's green earth? My solution? Why, the solution to having to pull our troops out of one hellhole is to find a brand new hellhole for them to crawl into. And anyone who says it ain't defense is just being cynical or not well invested in military industry stocks.

I get it. America is under threat because we haven't been aggressive enough around the globe. America, invade the planet, transform the world. The Neocon Jacobins ride again.

People are not any more perfect than the government they created in their own image by how they live. Your Post #40: Government is an "instrument of perfect moral justice." Your Post #58: "The government can only be as 'perfect' as the people it governs." Ergo, if the government is perfect, the people whom it governs (including union members, liberal college professors and radical feminists) must be perfect too. You would make an excellent propagandist for the Democrats. Straw man. Cite one instance where I have said that "government creates people in its own image." Yes, Obama and his whole family (including the mother-in-law) are being made to suffer for their sins by having to live in the White House which has a bowling alley, a movie screening room, basketball courts, a jogging track, a putting green, and servants galore, including a 24-hour cooking staff. We have a vengeful God. No, as I've shown with examples, when people attempt to live outside the control of Washington, they are murdered or placed in a cage and their property confiscated.

I must say that MSK has brought a great deal of clear thinking to this emotionally charged issue.

I've done your homework for you and linked to a transcript of the interview below: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-gov-scott-walker/story?id=28605893&page=9

For the sake of avoiding irrelevancies let us stipulate that on whatever scale is important to you Scott Walker is not below Martha Raddatz. With that in mind, what sort of foreign policy road would a President Walker lead us down? World News Videos | ABC World News At about 2:45 he clearly says, “We need to have an aggressive strategy anywhere around the world.” The "isolationism" of U.S. military deployments in "150 countries around the world, with nearly 160,000 of its active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories and an additional 88,000 deployed in various contingency operations"* just isn't working for the Republican globalist. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments

From the link: Unfortunately, this trivialization of liberty is not just an isolated phenomenon but a mushrooming national problem. In the most recently completed session of Congress, legislators introduced more than 20 bills invoking “liberty” and more than 150 in the cause of “freedom,” including such gems as the Internet Poker Freedom Act, the Letting Insurance Benefit Everyone Regardless of Their Youth (LIBERTY — get it?) Act, and the Television Consumer Freedom Act. Marketers tell us that smoking, drinking, eating potato chips and watching Netflix are vital expressions of our personal freedom. And of course we want government off our backs, except when it sends out Social Security checks, builds highways or kills terrorists. In other words, if you claim the right to gamble (spending your own money in a game of chance), you are "trivializing" liberty. Nope. If it's your money, then how you spend it is strictly your business. So are "smoking, drinking, eating potato chips." The trivializing here is being done by Mr. Newman, who thinks that individual preferences are not terribly important and that certain decisions in life should be left to busybodies like him.