Francisco Ferrer

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Everything posted by Francisco Ferrer

  1. Francisco Ferrer
    I think a large part of the "heinousness" is due to the fact that "Romantic Realism" doesn't translate well to media other than literature (and a lot of people don't like it as literature), especially when it's twisted to fit the present rather than leaving it as an alternate reality from a different time. If you're going to speak Rand's words as an actor, you're going to have to be willing to do some old school heroic posing and gesticulating without embarrassment. In today's context I think that that would come across more as Romantic Melodrama than Romantic Realism, but speaking the words without posing and gesticulating comes across either wooden, a clash of styles, or "heinous." Then again, perhaps some of the shock of the clip's oddly wooden melodrama will be absorbed by the establishing of context and pace within the actual film. There were cringe-worthy moments in the previews of the first two films that were less heinous when seen within the entirety of the films. J If only "old school heroic posing" has been the problem. In fact, there was no style at all--not in terms of dialogue or performance or lighting or composition or editing or anything else that serves to give a film an identity. If I had to give the look of Atlas a name, it would be Small TV Market Six O'Clock News.
  2. Francisco Ferrer
    There are times when trailers fail to do a movie justice. In the case of Atlas I and II, the pitch was better than the product.
  3. Francisco Ferrer
    "Shall establish post offices" and "shall have the power to establish post offices" have very different meanings. Consider that the Constitution says the President "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur." If we took that optional authority as an absolute requirement to act, then every President, once elected, would have to search the globe for some country, any country, to make a treaty with.
  4. Francisco Ferrer
    Not sure about this, however, require amending the document. I think we have had this discussion before on OL, and I think I was wrong then too! A... Post Script: Article I Section 8: A criminal judge has the power to impose a sentence of death. He need not exercise that power. The Congress "shall have power to lay and collect taxes . . . To borrow money on the credit of the United States . . . To establish Post Offices and post Roads . . . To declare war . . . " Congress is not obliged to exercise all powers delegated to it and at all times. We don't always have to be at war or in debt. Especially debt due to a money-losing stinker like the USPS.
  5. Francisco Ferrer
    Based on my experience in independent films, I am certain I could make a far better movie than Atlas I for less than the $20 million that was spent on it. Why don't I? 1. I don't have $10 million. 2. I don't have the permission of the copyright holder. That said, I'd like to challenge that idea that only skilled artists are qualified to render judgments about works in their field. With no knowledge of welding, casting or stone-cutting, I personally would not be able to render an outdoor sculpture on the scale of the object above. But I do know there are there contemporary sculptors who can do better: And that is the only fact that matters.
  6. Francisco Ferrer
    Let us suppose the following: 1. Citizen A lives by Country X's laws. 2. Citizen A is free to free to try and change all laws in Country X that infringe on A's individual rights. If both 1. and 2, are true, how do we reach your conclusion that "After that initial agreement to establish a Government, would implied consent be moral for all those living here freely? Most emphatically yes!"? Citizen A's living by the laws may merely imply he does not wish to spend any portion of his life in jail. Citizen A's attempts to change the laws through legal channels may merely be an admission that at present violent actions to overthrow the government are suicidal. In short, avoiding arrest and death by government bullets implies no degree of consent at all--only common sense. "Yet our current freedom in the United States is what our freely given protests logically presume." Presuming we are free to protest is hardly the same thing as presuming that the government in power is legitimate or has rightful authority over us. "And all citizens give their consent by remaining and not joining an armed rebellion." By that logic the only people who are actually being robbed by Obamacare are those that are engaging in an armed rebellion. The rest of us (by not picking up a rifle and heading for the hills) have surrendered our inalienable rights to private care. The conclusion must be that socialists in Washington have a moral right to our lives and our fortunes.
  7. Francisco Ferrer
    This is a case where the taxpayers would be better off by seeing government property given away. Don't bother trying to sell it. Just give the whole damn thing to the postal workers. I'd rather see federal property fall into the hands of syndicalists than spend one more dime on the loser monopoly.
  8. Francisco Ferrer
    To be accurate, no place has been a utopia, because human behavior is simply too erratic to fit preplanned models. But look at the Preamble of the Constitution: it bears in every phrase a promise of a society that approaches the ideal--which is precisely what every other utopian experiment has been organized to achieve, be it Brook Farm, New Harmony, or your sister's college commune. Here's what George Ripley, founder of Brook Farm, said was his intention: Our objects as you know, are to insure a more natural union between between intellectual and manual labor ... guarantee the highest mental freedom, by providing all with labor, adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry ... thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent, and cultivated persons, whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life, than can be led amidst the pressures of our competitive institutions. There was no promise of perfectionism in his plans, but like the Founder's compact, there was a hope for the creation of a "a more perfect Union" by breaking with the past.
  9. Francisco Ferrer
    Like Wolf, James Kunstler has a gift for exploding state-manufactured mythology in light, seemingly effortless prose. I highly recommend his novel World Made by Hand. Not a libertarian, Kunstler does exhibit an unfortunate blind spot now and then. The article above, for example, reveals his weakness for peak oil theory. But like many great political writers, he's always fun to read, even when terribly wrong.
  10. Francisco Ferrer
    The most famous historical example of a utopia that failed to live up to its written promise was the United States of America.
  11. Francisco Ferrer
    I've read Strauss's book and heard him talk a number of times. What's in the Seasteading proposal that's inconsistent with Strauss's ideas on how to start your own country?
  12. Francisco Ferrer
    The most relevant similarity is that both wars were unconstitutional.
  13. Francisco Ferrer
    I suppose there would have been cheering among some readers if Atlas Shrugged had ended with the 1st Armored Division rolling through Galt's Gulch. No threat to national sovereignty can be allowed.
  14. Francisco Ferrer
    The Seasteading Institute's Communication Director and Author Joe Quirk answers: "What Do Seasteaders Want?" "The United States hasn't invaded the Cayman Islands. Malaysia hasn't invaded Singapore. Small island nations, if they set a better example, often change the course of old, large nations." YouTube link.
  15. Francisco Ferrer
    You mean war of secession. I have already said that the war and its atrocities could have ended years earlier had Lincoln been willing to negotiate with Southern emissaries. You cannot destroy a state's transportation infrastructure, factories, storehouses, and a large portion of its crops and livestock (already strained because of the war) without having a significant impact on its mortality rate. The battle dead do not tell the whole story. Let the poor people answer whom they have deprived of every mouthful of meat & of their stock to make any. Our mills, too, they have burned, destroying an immense amount of property. --from the diary of Georgian Dotty Lunt Burge quoted in Walter Brian Cisco, War Crimes Against Southern Civilians.
  16. Francisco Ferrer
    Years ago, I remember someone suggested a Nixon dollar. On the front there would be Tricky's face. On the back there would be his other face.
  17. Francisco Ferrer
    John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt created a political storm exactly seven years ago with their study of the "Israel Lobby." A shorter version of the book is here. Should a true individualist care? True individualism means that every person has full autonomy over how each of the dollars he has earned is spent, including what percentage of his wealth goes to foreign governments.
  18. Francisco Ferrer
    That's interesting because the stragglers in Sherman's army, also known as "Sherman's bummers," have been widely recorded. Those weren't combat troops. Those were scavengers. A rapist is not part of Sherman's army. Ergo, Sherman's army did not rape. Neat.
  19. Francisco Ferrer
    British soldiers didn't do to American colonists what the U.S. did to Japan. Technology has made mass killing quick, easy, and relatively cheap. The button is sitting right there on the desk. Why not press it?
  20. Francisco Ferrer
    I certainly don't want to get squished under your paw. And I appreciate your concern for those who are locked in the past with no access to such modern developments as vaccines, Facebook, and Obamacare. Therefore, when we discuss the Civil War, shall we not use any primary source older than a year or two?
  21. Francisco Ferrer
    I'm not aware that raping is more time-consuming than burning cities and destroying rail lines. And even an invading army led by Mother Teresa would have been unconstitutional
  22. Francisco Ferrer
    That's interesting because the stragglers in Sherman's army, also known as "Sherman's bummers," have been widely recorded.
  23. Francisco Ferrer
    Wow...really? Were there rapes of slaves the week before Appomattox? The month? Got any of those numbers? Where is your mind? A... Tell you what. I'll work on getting the numbers for Union army rapes, and you work on getting the number for rapes of slaves.
  24. Francisco Ferrer
    Wow, so now your sorry ass shifts to the Violence Against Women Act [VAWA]! <<<<A semi satirical statement... Hnm do you think those perfectly pretty proper Southern "ladys" were not in "fear" of "rape" by the down home plantation "nigras?" They only were concerned about blue uniforms? I have to say, sir, you are getting tedious. A... I'm sure your words are well intended and the product of deep thought. However, if the content of my contributions fails to improve in the upcoming weeks, you may want to consider the ignore option.
  25. Francisco Ferrer
    The recent work of Harvard historian Cystal Feimster shows that rape of both white and black women was not uncommon during the Union occupation of the South: "Whether they lived on large plantations or small farms, in towns, cities or in contraband camps, white and black women all over the American South experienced the sexual trauma of war . . . Southern women’s wartime diaries, court martial records, wartime general orders, military reports and letters written by women, soldiers, doctors, nurses and military chaplains leave little doubt that, as in most wars, rape and the threat of sexual violence figured large in the military campaigns that swept across the Southern landscape." Pullease! We are talking about Sherman's March to the Sea and this impossibly broadens everything out and would destroy the thread with this gigantic dog leg. You did the same thing with your first post here. If you are against the War Between the States--me too, me too! Now you can just say so. But that's also another thread. --Brant There has been no attempt to broaden the discussion, only to support my claim that violence against women was among the crimes that Sherman's troops in Georgia committed. Professor Feimster's argument is that the "threat of sexual violence and the fear of rape were common to Southern women and central to how they experienced the Civil War." Now, if such violent acts were common in the war torn South, then there is no reason to suppose that an exception was made by Sherman's men in occupied Georgia. In fact, Feimster specifically cites a Georgia case. Of course there was "a Georgia case." 60,000 men marching 60 miles wide for 300 miles. Your implied case is Sherman's army raped its way through Georgia. Adduce your evidence. --Brant now Sherman's men "occupied Georgia"--I thought they just went through Georgia, so why would they leave anyone behind?--the harassing Confederates would have chopped them up Kim Murphy has recently done a study of over 400 Union Civil War rape cases (in an era when rape was severely under-reported due to prevailing mores): I Had Rather Die: Rape in the Civil War. I'll have the Georgia numbers for you later. Occupation is what any locale experiences when an invading army is in the area. Google: "The action, state, or period of occupying or being occupied by military force." (Two years after Sherman departed, Congress ordered a military administration for Georgia and other rebel states: "Georgia, along with Alabama and Florida, became part of the Third Military District, under the command of General John Pope.")