Francisco Ferrer

I've asked this on another thread; in order to best serve the security interests of its own citizens, what specifically should the United States government do with regard to Russia, Crimea and the Ukraine? How much U.S. blood and treasure should be gambled in order to put the Russian leader in his place? Furthermore, how much credibility does the "leader of the free world" have, when his own government has a history of turning the landscape red in order to bring secessionist pieces back into the fold?

You mean the same way the U.S. attempted to kill Saddam to avert a full scale war, but didn't succeed? Or the numerous attempts on Castro?

Of course not. She doesn't need to when the moochers and looters will bring down the welfare state by their own unproductive dead weight. Ayn Rand showed people how to free themselves from their self imposed slavery. Ayn Rand did show people how to be free, but it was not through silence. Above all, she was not an advocate of letting America fall into ruin. She explicitly and consistently called for a moral defense of capitalism in the arena of public opinion. She did not tell her followers to retreat to a gulch but rather to engage the enemies of reason and freedom and fight for the conscience of America: The need for intellectual leadership was never as great as now. No human being who has a trace of personal worth can be willing to surrender his life without lifting a hand—or a mind—to defend it, particularly not in America, the country based on the premise of man's self-reliance and self-esteem. Americans have known how to erect a superlative material achievement in the midst of an untouched wilderness, against the resistance of savage tribes. What we need today is to erect a corresponding philosophical structure, without which the material greatness cannot survive. A skyscraper cannot stand on crackerbarrels, nor on wall mottoes, nor on full-page ads, nor on prayers, nor on meta-language. The new wilderness to reclaim is philosophy, now all but deserted, with the weeds of prehistoric doctrines rising again to swallow the ruins. To support a culture, nothing less than a new philosophical foundation will do. The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophy's impotence, but the proof of philosophy's power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state—it is only philosophy that can lead them out. For the New Intellectual, p. 50 Ayn Rand's best students have now taken up that call and are fighting for her vision of a laissez-faire America in the classroom, the boardroom, the break room and the family kitchen. Ayn Rand called for people to free themselves by intellectually defeating the enemies of freedom. Rand said it was not the lack of actions, but of words and ideas, the proper ideas, that was causing capitalism's demise: By their silence—by their evasion of the clash between capitalism and altruism—it is capitalism's alleged champions who are responsible for the fact that capitalism is being destroyed without a hearing, without a trial, without any public knowledge of its principles, its nature, its history, or its moral meaning. It is being destroyed in the manner of a nightmare lynching—as if a blind, despair-crazed mob were burning a straw man, not knowing that the grotesquely deformed bundle of straw is hiding the living body of the ideal. "Introduction" to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal This is why you'll never be free. I figured that you'd be unwilling to back up your claim that I didn't know what Rand meant by Galt's Gulch. That's an even better reason why you'll never be free. You don't understand that freedom is the ability to live a good and happy life in this world just as it is right now. I see. Why worry about barbed wire, firing squads, and cremation pits as long as people can enjoy life "just as it is"? Can anyone then explain why Rand would flee to the United States when all along she had the ability to live "a good and happy life" in the Soviet Union, "just as it was"? And that is why you will remain a slave waiting for the world to change... and only because you failed to change yourself.Greg Oh, but I have changed myself: from one who at 15 was complacent about the world "just as it is" to one who today believes that a free market would benefit all levels of society and greatly enrich life on earth. Furthermore, I am following the prescription that Ayn Rand wrote: In an intellectual battle, you do not need to convert everyone. History is made by minorities—or, more precisely, history is made by intellectual movements, which are created by minorities. Who belongs to these minorities? Anyone who is able and willing actively to concern himself with intellectual issues. Here, it is not quantity, but quality that counts (the quality—and consistency—of the ideas one is advocating)... If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the default of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell. But time is on our side—because we have an indestructible weapon and an invincible ally (if we learn how to use them): reason and reality. "What Can One Do?" in Philosophy Who Needs It?

It's a perfectly natural reaction to infer that the person who holds the other view that you had rejected could only have done it through a severe failure of perception like a beam in the eye. So it is only the reality of how each of our lives unfold that is the final judge of the validity of each of our respective views. So you already know how well the view you chose is working, as you're the one who knows your own life. ...except Ayn Rand actually DID something about it. Ayn Rand did not bring down the welfare state. It got bigger and bigger even as she fought against it. What she did was promote a positive view of laissez-faire capitalism in the realm of ideas. This is exactly what her students and admirers, Objectivists and libertarians like myself, are doing today. Then why don't you just interpret that portion of the novel, "The Utopia Of Greed," for us? It's funny how that for which you have so much contempt and derision is the actually the real solution! I've expressed no contempt or derision at all. Where are you reading that? I'm delighted when anybody can elude the clutches of the federal government and its tax collectors. (Although we both know some people have no wish to deprive Moloch of a portion of their income.) I am merely observing that it is not possible for 300 millions Americans to rent a condo in Galt's Gulch--just as millions of European Jews couldn't just hop on an airplane or ocean liner to New York in order to escape Hitler. Economic freedom means the ability to keep 100% of what one has earned. This is a freedom that will never exist as long as the income tax remains a fact of life in America. If I have to spend, what?--$100,000 or $1,000,000?--to escape tyranny, to buy my freedom, that's a transaction cost. That's a loss of one's property and one's freedom.

What would a McCain-Palin administration have done to deter/prevent Russia from invading the country of Georgia in 2008 or the Eastern Ukraine, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is harbored and which is populated predominantly by Russian nationals?

It's more of a statement of fact than an admission. My words are just as completely powerless to change anyone's chosen view as everyone else's because no one's view can be changed by words on a monitor. Only real life can do that. "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Do realize the statement you just made is utterly devoid of any creative innovation? No one gets into Galt's Gulch without it. The critical point, which you blissfully ignore, is that the author of Galt’s Gulch did not live there—but instead in the largest, most liberal city in America. She was not interested in keeping her head down or her mouth shut. She wanted her adopted country—the whole country—to return to the original promise of the Founders. And towards that goal she stayed in the public eye and did a hell of a lot of blaming and complaining. I’m not just interested in saving the people who can easily buy their way out of the impending catastrophe of welfare/warfare statism or have already dug their own miniature gulch. I’m interested in the bulk of the population, people like myself: average, principled, hard-working Americans who didn't create Big Brother and shouldn’t have to live in a spider hole to escape his tyranny. Instead of ducking and evading the Gonif-in-Chief, we should be watching him on trial in a court of law. Yes, there are very clever, very specific ways one can pay fewer taxes, dodge the drug prohibition warlords, and live beyond the scope of the EPA, OSHA, TSA, NSA and the other Obamaite commissars. I know a few of those tricks myself. In the 1970's we called it "Browneing Out," after my late friend Harry Browne, author of the self-liberation book, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. But there is a profound difference between merely surviving Big Brother and destroying Big Brother. It is the difference between getting a few people out of a concentration camp through a tunnel and shutting the whole hellish place down and clamping the guards in irons. The long-term goal of everyone who understands the philosophy of individualism and the genius of the free market should be the complete dismantling of the welfare state. For only such a development can free the great majority of the population and promote a humane, productive, prosperous society. Browne himself realized this and became more active politically in his final years. But those who do choose to Browne-out have no business scoffing at the effort of those who are working to create a culture where the flame of liberty can glow brightly. ...only if you take action to refine your own life first. I tell you, if you changed how you live you could be free. If I can do it with no higher education and only a simple blue collar skillset... anyone else can certainly do it also. Your idea of freedom and mine are quite different. You gladly pay tribute to Washington for the privilege of living in the "paradise" of Obama’s America. By contrast, I regard taxation as the very essence of what is unfree about America. Taxation is the means by which wealth is transferred from the productive, creative class to the fraudulent, parasitic criminal class. Taxation is the process by which good people are made weak and evil people made strong. My idea of freedom is a society in which not one red, white or blue cent is paid for tribute. I was tempted to say, anyone who believes in paying taxes deserves what he gets, for that is what he truly is inside. But my position is that taxation is always evil, even when it is imposed on its apologists. It was the actions behind those words, Frank. And that explains why the Founders secured their freedom. while you're still a slave complaining about the chains forged by your own hand. Greg The actions behind my words are the same as those of the Enlightenment progenitors of the Revolution: using one’s knowledge of human nature, economics and history to develop a coherent philosophy and a plan for a just social order, and using one’s persuasive powers to win others to the cause. This is what the essential philosopher John Locke and those who followed him were doing a century before Bunker Hill. Furthermore, no one can state with certainty that words being written and spoken today will have no positive effect tomorrow or next year—just as no one in 1775 could state with assurance that the American rebels would eventually win. This point I’ve made before, but perhaps you’ve been too busy responding to my posts to read them first. Forging my chains with my own hands? This is an example of what Ayn Rand called "taking the blame for the evils caused by the government." If the victims of statism are the guilty parties, then those who brought socialism to America (union organizers, Theodore Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair, Woodrow Wilson, FDR and LBJ) must be innocent. Once more we can say, if people deserve what they get, then murderers, rapists, and molesters should be freed from prison, for they were only performing divine retribution for what the victims "truly are inside." Yes, it is true that I complain and blame when it comes to taxes. I prefer that position to paying them with a smile and declaring that I’m free. It’s called fidelity to objective reality. I am not an original philosopher, as Ayn Rand was, but someone who can contribute on a more modest level over the long term to the transformation of society from collectivism to individualism. Essential to this transformation is to bring injustices to the fore (complaining) and to expose the root causes for our society’s economic and cultural decline (blaming). Ayn Rand wrote, The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society’s course by transmitting ideas from the “ivory tower” of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street. ("For the New Intellectual" in For the New Intellectual, p. 27) I am the assistant field agent, the guy arguing on the street corner, just as Rand herself once was in 1940.

So? Virtual words on a monitor have absolutely no power to change anyone's view. Only real life possess that power. It's only an opinion, and just one of many others freely expressed here. You have just confessed that your words on this forum are impotent. No. I'm certainly not exempt from anything I say. On the contrary, what I talk about is drawn from real life lessons learned by my own real life experience. You have just summed up the fundamental basis for our differences, Frank. I make judgments on what is happening now. If that is true, there is no point in keeping murderers and rapists in prison. After all, they are not murdering or raping anyone now. The answer has been right in front of you for over 50 years. Gee... now just what was Ayn Rand's most fundamental lesson in Atlas Shrugged? SHRUG Those who shrugged in Atlas had a hidden valley in Colorado to retreat to. It is not feasible for everyone who is suffering under Obamacare or the IRS or the Fed or the BATF to move into a little enclave in the Rockies. Furthermore, the author of Atlas herself did not go into hiding. On the contrary, she wrote non-fiction books, essays and speeches complaining about the state of American culture and politics. She did everything in her power to spark an intellectual revolution. Please take another look at my words for you will never find my telling you not to complain. I've only stated that complaining without action can't free anyone because there is nothing real behind it to back it up. I also said that instead of blaming others, I take appropriate action to free myself. Expressing complaints, specifically using words, facts, and logic to show that the present regime in Washington is based on falsehoods, fallacies, erroneous history, and bogus economic theories, is action. It is no different than the Enlightenment and its magnificent complaints about tyrannical government. It was the verbal actions--the ideas--of Enlightenment thinkers that made the American revolution possible. Similarly but regrettably, it was the words, the ideas, the complaints of Karl Marx that made the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia possible. Those who are caught in the Obamacare trap of their own making are the very same ones who demanded to be indemnified against every possible calamity known to mankind... and all at the expense of someone else. Just what did you expect would happen when everyone expects someone else to pay their bills? I have already answered this point previously and more than once. The people I know who are suffering from the tyranny of Obamacare never asked Uncle Sam to pay their medical bills. It is not a trap of their own making because they have been consistent opponents of all federal encroachments into the healthcare field: Hillary's, Romney's and Obama's. You must not have any children, for if you did you'd already know that parents are morally responsible for their under age kids. But aside from that point... yes, I know that everyone's personal experience of government is getting exactly the government they deserve... because they created in their own image. You must be saying that since it's not kids that are morally responsible but rather their parents, then it's only the parents that suffer under Obama, Hitler or Stalin. The kids must live in some sort of protective bubble, immune from the effects of socialism. But if in fact the kids do suffer, then your theory that how the government treats us is solely determined by what we truly are inside is exploded for the wishful thinking it is. It is each individuals own personal responsibility to learn how to stand morally upright so that their neck will never see the underside of a boot. When Jesus sent out his Disciples into the world, He gave them good advice which applies right here and now: "Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; be wary and wise as serpents, and be innocent, harmless, guileless, and without falsity as doves." (Matthew 10:16) Anyone living here and now in America who takes Him at His Word will never find their neck under anyone's boot. Greg Then, according to your doctrine, any people slaughtered by the government are getting "exactly what they deserve" (Post #166). You would have it that it is person's "own personal responsibility to learn how to stand morally upright so that their neck will never see the underside of a boot." Too bad for those who are slow learners, such as children. For after all, it is what the person "truly is inside" that is "the sole determinant of how the government treats" him, including, apparently, the 176 kids killed by U.S. drones. By this doctrine, why should any government thug have to go on trial or face prison time for slaughtering unarmed civilians? After all, aren't the government-paid assassins just delivering divine retribution for what the victim "truly is inside"? Why should any rapist or child molester go to jail? Isn't he just giving the woman or girl what she deserved?

Sorry, Frank... I have absolutely no control over nor responsibility for how other people choose to live their lives. That's not any of my business. Each individual has to work out their own life for themselves, for they're the ones who get the consequences of their own actions, just as I get what I deserve for mine. Just a reminder that you've gotten yourself stuck in the dead past again. Fixation on the dead past can be an indicator of a poorly tended present. The past is also where the blamers go to accuse others in their minds. It can get caught in people's heads and go round and round like an endless tape loop. "Each individual has to work out their own life for themselves," you say. "That's not any of my business," you say. Yet you are quick to call others "helpless blaming victims" and what they write "impotent complaints." Are your doctrines intended only for the consumption of others? As for fixating on the "dead past," I make judgments based on what has gone before. I trust people based on their past behavior. If we followed your advice, we would, apparently, have to treat Obama and the ruling progressive elite like any average Joe, for what they've done in the past is dead. That is for others to learn how to change their lives so as not to become a victim of the government they deserve today. I can only assume the personal responsibility for refining my own life and can only do what is within my power. Really? How is a business operating on the margin supposed to keep all of its full-time employees when Obamacare is practically forcing it to make its staff mostly part-time? How is a church-supported institution such as a hospital or college supposed to remake itself in order that it does not contribute payments towards providing abortion? Furthermore, if you "can only assume the personal responsibility for refining [your] own life," then why don't you spend 100% of your time refining it instead of telling others not to complain, not to blame, not to live in the "dead past," etc.? We each see that from different points of view... Where you see weak helpless spineless innocent victims of the government, I see immoral people getting the immoral government they had created in their own immoral image being shoved down their throats just as they deserve. They demanded the government they deserve to indemnify them and to make them whole for every calamity known to mankind by making others pay their bills. Surprise!... they're getting screwed by the very same monster they created to screw others. "What goes around comes around." If you think that the only people hurt by big government are the ones that created it, then you must must think that everyone in America including children under 10 was an active advocate for the welfare state and had a hand in creating it. Even if we took only what the Cato Institute estimates as the number of libertarians in America, there are about 20 million people opposed to big government. The federal government is anything but in their own image. Furthermore, what happened to the idea that "what you truly are inside" is the sole determinant of how the government treats you? Most of the people I know are peaceful, pious, small-government Christians. Yet Big Brother has not taken his boot off their necks. In fact, he's leaning harder on them than on the rest of the population. Impotent wordy demands mean nothing, for it is only what you are inside that determines how the government treats you. Then the 176 children killed by U.S. drones must have been truly horrible creatures inside. And in those four decades have you learned how to free yourself from it? Here's how you can know for yourself. Are you still complaining about how the government is oppressing you? Part of freeing myself includes changing minds. Ayn Rand said, "A revolution is the climax of a long philosophical development and expresses a nation’s profound discontent." I am pushing for that discontent and that revolution by changing one mind at a time. Sorry, man... I can't do anything for you. You need to work this out for yourself. I can only free myself. I already told you how I did it. But I can offer you this little joke by Bill Cosby. This is actually a parable that can show you the way to free yourself from the government if you have the discernment to understand its meaning. Your idea of freedom is not mine. You work on the government tax farm. Freedom for me is no legalized robbery. Check your premises, Frank... for objective reality is at odds with your own theory that what you are inside has absolutely nothing to do with how the world is treating you right now. Just did a quick check. The insides are in perfect moral order, thank you. Now I'll take a look-see on the internet to find out if the welfare state is still here. ...except those weren't weak spineless powerless helpless blaming victims. They were men of God who took action to free themselves from the government of England. So why not find the balls to free yourself? My idea of freedom is not paying taxes, which you said in Post #102 is part of the cost of enjoying living in America. But anyway, thanks for taking time away from your own business to help me work out my life for myself.

False. Read The Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of your "Judeo-Christian" country. It is full of complaints. Ah, but they were not just impotent complaints of helpless blaming victims. They were statements of fact responded to by men of virtue. (more later...) Greg I see you are now backing away from your assertion in Post #166 that "Complaining will never free anyone." But your current attempt to draw some specialized distinction between the complaints of The Declaration of Independence and complaints I've written on this board is baseless. Every criticism I've posted about Obama's government is just as factual as Jefferson's list of particulars on King George's government. But what of the Declaration's supposed potency? No one could possibly know whether the Declaration would be impotent or effective at the time it was written. For one thing, there had been criticism after criticism of British rule going back a generation with no good result. Secondly, independence seemed laughably remote when, up to that time, no British colony had managed to overthrow the mother country. Finally, when the Founders launched their rebellion, the odds against them seemed overwhelming. They all might have ended up dead in a vicious slaughter like the one 30 years earlier at Culloden. Bear in mind, there were 16 rebellions in Ireland before the final, successful Irish War of Independence. Let's consider Ayn Rand’s novel of life in the Soviet Union, We the Living, written a half century before communism fell. Is that book and others critical of Soviet life valid and valuable only now in retrospect after we know the Soviets were vulnerable? Or, more pertinently, consider that in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Rand was specifically critical of antitrust laws and government regulation of the airwaves. Now since all those regulations are still on the books, should we regard Rand's criticism as just the "impotent complaints of a helpless blaming victim"? No one can possibly know whether or not present critiques of the U.S. welfare state will have a positive effect in the long run. People once thought that the military draft and the prohibition of gold ownership would be permanent too. You might say that every complaint in the history of mankind is impotent until the moment when it finally is successful.

Complaining will never free anyone. False. Read The Declaration of Independence, one of the founding documents of your "Judeo-Christian" country. It is full of complaints. The Anti-Slavery Society of Great Britain repeatedly published reports about the cruelties of slavery and played a key role in its final abolition in 1833. It's impossible for a person in hell to believe that another could be in Paradise. He can only believe that hell is all there is because that is all he sees. I suppose there is some consolation to be found in a slave believing that someone else is a slave like he is. In the light of this, you're welcome to hold on to your belief.But the reality is that I'm free... I'm free to make money doing business with others who share my values. I'm free of debt, and don't own anyone even one cent. I'm free of angrily blaming (unjustly accusing) others because I take complete personal responsibility for the quality of my own life. And the government doesn't bother with me because I don't need it. So I'm free to do as I see fit to enjoy my life, my liberty, and to pursue my happiness. The fact that you don't feel bothered by the government does not mean that the government's treatment of others is not invasive, aggressive and criminal. Many Old South slaves refused to leave their masters at the time of emancipation. It does not logically follow from that that slavery in general was not a moral outrage. Nor does it follow that the slaves who did suffer were in some ways not "decent" or somehow deficient in "what they truly were inside." Nor does it follow that everyone is the sole determinant of how the government treats him. So what?It simply becomes just another cost of doing business that gets passed on to the end users. I think paying a small fee for not buying insurance is a way better deal than buying insurance. The fact that you are not suffering under Obamacare does not mean that Obamacare does not impose enormous costs and disadvantages for many in the rest of the population, Nor does it follow that those who will pay dearly for Obamacare are in some ways not "decent" or somehow deficient in "what they truly were inside." Nor does it follow that everyone is the sole determinant of how the government treats him. They could only do that because people demand a radical socialist regime in the United States... and I'm all for people getting exactly that they demand... because it is also exactly what they deserve. So let them choke on it. I did not demand a radical socialist regime. I have being fighting socialism for four decades. Furthermore, I am decent. "What I truly am inside" is good. Yet I am one of those who is choking. So much for the theory that my inner self is the sole determinant of how the government treats me. You believe that you are decent. You believe the government doesn't treat you as decent as you are. What you regard as a theory is actually reality. Right now, the government is treating you exactly as decent as you are. False. The government is punishing this person for fighting against a radical socialist regime by making him live under a radical socialist regime. You will never be free as long as you cling to playing the role of helpless government blaming victim. In the role of blamer, it is impossible to ever assume full responsibility for the just and deserved consequences of being what you are inside. Because it is only what you truly are inside which grants the government your sanction to be its victim. If someone breaks into my house and steals my coin collection, should I blame myself for not being decent, for not being sufficiently good in the area of "what I truly am inside"? Or should I blame the thug? If a rapist breaks into my house and attacks my wife, should I aim the shotgun at him, or just allow her to enjoy the "just and deserved consequences of being what she is inside"? There is no moral difference between the home invader and the government. Why do you insist on having the victim blame himself? You have the free choice to assume the personal responsibility of learning how to refine your own life in such a manner so as not to make yourself fair game for the government to loot... or you can just go on impotently blaming the government.What you choose is totally up to you and has absolutely nothing to do with me... because I already made my own choice, and it has absolutely nothing to do with what anyone else chooses. Greg But "learning how to refine your own life in such a manner so as not to make yourself fair game for the government to loot" is not at all the same as reforming yourself inside. What you have said all along is not that we must learn how to better evade the government but to be "decent." Remember? You said that it is what we are on the inside (not how well our stash is hidden) that is the sole determinant of how the government treats us.

Hope Beck asked them about this: Leaked NSA documents obtained by The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013 included Google in the list of companies that cooperate with the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, which authorizes the government to secretly access data of non-US citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant. Following the leak, government officials acknowledged the existence of the program. According to the leaked documents, the NSA has direct access to servers of those companies, and the amount of data collected through the program had been growing fast in years prior to the leak. Google has denied the existence of any "government backdoor" .

Have you ever stopped for a moment to notice just how impotent your complaints are? Just to offer a contrast between your your approach on those issues you listed, and how I deal with them: I don't buy any health insurance at all and simply pay cash directly for all of our healthcare needs. This is how I operate entirely outside of the whole insurance system, because it's just a bunch of people all of whom expect someone else to pay their bills. So I pay my own bills, thank you. You also would never find me sitting like a useless inert lump in any nannystate subsidized University because that's where the failures are, instead I choose to get a real education out in the real world. And dope is for adolescents, not for adult men and women. The protest of any slave may be impotent while he still is in captivity. But calling his enslavement a "paradise" doesn't make him any freer. Starting in just 35 days this "Judeo-Christian paradise" will impose a tax penalty for not purchasing healthcare. This penalty will be imposed on everyone who falls into the IRS's net, regardless of "what you truly are inside." I am delighted that you don't spend any time in tax-supported institutions of higher learning. And it is admirable that you don't get upset when your tax dollar is spent to to support professors like Eric Foner, Richard D. Wolff, Samuel Bowles, Erik Olin Wright, and many others who are attempting bring a radical socialist regime to the United States. I am sure there were minds who expressed a similar serene indifference in the early days on the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. Yes, that's true. But it doesn't mean that Americans can't enjoy their lives. It all comes down to this: How do you learn to live a good life in an evil world? The solution is to build a good world. First within yourself, and then around you within your sphere of personal influence. Then evil becomes displaced outside the borders of your personal influence even though you can still watch it from a safe distance on network television news. The government does NOT treat everyone uniformly. Surely you can see that, can't you? Please let me know whether or not you see the truth that each individual's direct personal experience of government van vary widely from others, because this point determines the utility of continuing the discussion. Your inner self does not think and mull over and make a decision on how you ~feel~ you ~ought~ to be treated by the government. What you ARE inside has already set into motion how the government treats you. It can only respond to what you truly are inside, because it is subject to exactly the same moral law that you are. If this were true, only evil men would suffer from the government's aggression. And yet everywhere I encounter good, decent people who are victimized by government regulation and theft. Thus either your theory is incorrect or my eyes are lying to me. Well, in my view it doesn't, so we can just agree that we each see that from different points of view. Not ~should~. This is not a matter of what you think and feel ~should~ be. It is just what IS. Let's deal with just what is. I am decent. The government doesn't treat me as decent. The theory that "what you truly are inside" determines how you are treated is false. Well... then all I can say is go for it, Frank. Just go right ahead and indulge yourself in angrily blaming the government because you think that it does not treat you how you ~feel~ you should be treated... for all the good that it won't do you. But at least consider the possibility that there is absolutely no possible solution to be found in the attitude of blaming others. Greg It's not about how I feel. It's about a moral code. That code can be found in your Bible. It includes the law, "Thou shalt not steal." If a looter breaks into my house and steals my silverware, I'm not going to blame myself for "what I truly am inside." I am going to blame the looter. Today the biggest looter in the country is the government. If you think the government's looting is in accordance with "Judeo-Christian values," then Obama surely qualifies for sainthood.

But don't you see that the indecent have demanded everything you are describing? I guess not. Everything on your laundry list of complaints is simply the just and deserved consequence of there not being enough decent Americans living in America. In Post #89 you wrote, "What you truly are inside is sole determinant of how you're treated by government." Therefore, if I have decided that I do not wish to be forced to buy more health insurance than I want or to subsidize Marxists in the state university or to finance DEA raids on drug dealers, then I alone should control what happens to any portion of the income I earn and should be able to stop the product of my labor from being spent on those government activities. But now you are saying that the statism is the "consequence of there not being enough decent Americans living in America." What does the number of decent Americans have to do with the ability of my inner self to determine my treatment by the government? This contradicts your statement that what I am inside is the sole determinant. But I am not indecent. I have obeyed the Ten Commandments. I treat everyone I meet with respect and consideration. Therefore, according to your own words, the government should treat me "exactly as decent as I am." Whatever you may wish to believe, the government does rob me--and robs me to further the advent of full blown socialism.. As I said earlier in the thread, there is no fit between your theory and history. Well, our two disparate views demonstrate that two individuals can live in exactly the same world... ...and one lives in Paradise... ...while the other lives in Hell. Greg It may be true that one decent person lives in paradise while another lives in hell. What has not been shown is any evidence for your claims That what we are truly are inside is sole determinant of how we're treated by government. That people deserving of God given rights enjoy them. That the government treats people exactly as decent as they are. If you pay taxes to the federal government, a portion of that money goes to fund federal regulation of commerce, energy, medical care, banking, campaign donations, stock sales, agriculture, food, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, transportation and hundreds of other human endeavors. Now if the government's use of the product of your labor to maintain a massive regulatory state and to promote the growth of that state by hiring Marxists and progressives to indoctrinate the young into voting for future Obamas is your idea of paradise, so be it. It does not follow, however, that other decent people are going to be as complacent about a forced march down the road to serfdom

Thanks. Didn't have time to catch this during its theatrical release. By the way, HBO did a terrific documentary on the Dodgers, now available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Al28IM9QU

Here's some food for thought: The US needs to retire daylight savings and just have two time zones one hour apart

That would all depend on the reason why it is "seized". Property routinely goes up for public auction when the owners fail to pay property taxes on it. Property that is seized for non-payment of taxes is stolen property, just as taxes themselves are a form of theft. Stealing is a violation of the Ten Commandments, an essential part of the "Judeo/Christian moral values" that you think this country was founded upon. That's because it's morally wrong to take from others what does not rightfully belong to you. Then clearly the government is morally worse than a petty thief, because its theft is on a massive scale. Everyone pays for what they do here. You just don't always see it. If your second sentence is true, how can we possibly know your first sentence is true? We each have a very different view on this. You believe that you should be able to enjoy living in America without paying any taxes, and I don't. I do not believe in socialism nor in the idea that the welfare class should be able to use the police power of the state to live off of the productive class. At this stage, our supposedly Judeo/Christian government has adopted nearly half of Marx and Engels' key proposals for moving a bourgeois country towards socialism: 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State 10. Free education for all children in public schools No, I do not enjoy paying the government to implement socialism. I didn't vote for Obama either... and right now there's a lot of people who are regretting that they did! People demanded the government to serve them and make them feel safe and secure and "cared for" by indemnifying them against every possible contingency known to man... and all at the expense of someone else... and now they're getting exactly the government they deserve shoved right up their asses. But even though the government does not represent me I'm not treated unfairly. I turned down everything the government offered to me because I neither needed nor wanted it, because I understand the strings attached to everything. It's a trap. ..so I simply avoid it. I have never accepted a government handout, but that does not keep the government from robbing me to pay for others' handouts. I've never accepted food stamps, federal loans, federally-backed insurance or any of the thousand other giveaways. None of that keeps the government away from me on tax day. In Post #89 you wrote, "What you truly are inside is sole determinant of how you're treated by government." But each year the government, despite my wishes, seizes a large portion of the income I earn from corporate bonds and from the sale of stocks I own. How can it be said that I am the "sole determinant" of how I'm treated, when the government is doing quite the opposite of what I want? Your own experience of getting the government you deserve is directly connected to the values by which you are living. And by moral law, you can only be robbed as you rob others. So I'm suggesting to you that it is a matter of your own perception. Everyone's experience of getting the government they deserve is different, because everyone lives by different values.I have no complaints with how the government treats me. I don't rob others, and the government doesn't rob me. The government treats me exactly as decent as I am. And I'm suggesting to you that if you were to take another look, you just might discover that it does exactly the same to you. Greg I am glad the government is treating you well and is not using any of your tax money in ways you would disapprove of. However, my particular branch of the federal government is using its power to tell employers what they must pay employees, to tell each citizen how much health insurance he must buy, to tell manufacturers what kind of light bulbs they may not sell to U.S. consumers, to tell certain U.S. firms that they may not buy out or merge with other firms, to provide free housing (at my expense) to other citizens, to provide free education (at my expense) to other citizens, to provide free food (at my expense) to other citizens, to prosecute people for the victimless crime of putting certain chemicals into their own bodies, and to employ Marxists, socialists and progressives to teach young people that capitalism is evil, that property rights are non-existent, and that a powerful central government is good. Now since none of the actions above are in accord with my own beliefs or the way I live my own life, the statement, "And by moral law, you can only be robbed as you rob others" is plainly untrue. It is not a matter of interpretation or perception. The government does not treat me "exactly as decent as I am" nor does it allow me to be "sole determinant" of how I'm treated. I do not rob others, but the government does rob me.

Who said anything about forgetting? There is no dichotomy between understanding human nature and recognizing the key role that special interests have played in the growth of government. It was not by accident that the last Republican president bailed out Bear Stearns, let Lehman Brothers die, but then threw Goldman Sachs a lifeline. Nor was it by accident that his Democratic successor helped bail out the auto industry and the labor unions that support him.

Interesting. The assumption underlying this is that power is not a human motivation, but money is. I don't recognize human beings in this formulation. (Maybe the economists "econ" man, but that's a fiction, not a reality.) Well, somebody recognized this formulation. If money were irrelevant to the motives of people who hold office, we could do away with laws prohibiting judges from accepting monetary gifts from those they sit in judgment of. Furthermore, stating that payment implicitly commands compliance is not to suggest the absence of all other motives, including power. There is no efficiency if the three branches are all indirectly controlled by elite interests who benefit from an expanding central government. Furthermore, if there is no exit option for disaffected states, there is no governor on the stream engine, to use Isabel Paterson's apt metaphor.

Let's set this theory next to two examples from history... Sorry, Frank... let's get this straight right from the get go so as to save a lot of back and forth. I'm not talking about the dead past. I'm talking about right now and right here in America... which is a unique nation in that it was founded upon Judeo/Christian moral values. So the US government is subject to all of the same moral laws that you are. What you truly are inside is sole determinant of how you're treated by government.It's my opinion that people who regard themselves to be helpless innocent victims of US government "oppression" are lying to themselves. Their blame of government is unjust because they are the ones who created the government in their own image. And as their creation, it can only represent the same values by which they live. It is peoples' own failure to do what's morally right that grants the government their sanction to become a victim of it's intrusion into their poorly ordered life. Greg Let's talk about current history, if you wish. If the federal government was "founded upon Judeo/Christian moral values" and "is subject to all of the same moral laws" that I am, then why have there been no negative consequences for IRS agents who seize other people's property, while at the same time petty thieves are jailed all the time? When does the subjection to moral laws begin for DC's legalized thieves? If I am the "sole determinant of how [i am] treated by government," then why didn't the IRS stop collecting a portion of my income years ago? Or does the IRS only collect from evil people? If so, what evil did I commit that qualifies me for punishment? Since I didn't vote for Obama or any person who enacted his Affordable Healthcare Act, how in the world is the federally managed medical industry a creation of my own image? Since I don't rob people, how can it be said that the government "represent the same values by which" I live?

Regarding the much vaunted checks and balances: State veto or nullification was an essential part of the understanding that resulted in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. This is discussed at length in "Beyond Myths (Madisonian, Federalist, Nationalist, and Liberal): Different Framers and Other Intentions, 1787-1833" When nullification was removed as an option for blocking overreach by the central government (by court decisions and war), the most powerful means of checking and balancing was lost. There can be no check on government when all branches have the same paymaster.

There's an interesting idea floating around on this thread: that harm only comes to those who are immoral or who allow themselves to be harmed. Let's set this theory next to two examples from history: 1. 2. Now if the above examples are accurate and the theory is valid, then the inescapable conclusion is that A. The children killed during the Armenian and German holocausts did not wish to be treated like decent people. and B. The governments which carried out those killings were acting against people who were not decent. At this point I would suggest that either theory or history has to be stretched to make for a proper fit.

It must have been between writing The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged that Rand decided that evil must always be impotent, The result is that Atlas's several villains are all Dummköpfe. None has anything that approaches the intellect and suave malevolence of Ellsworth Toohey. When a hero is deprived a worthy adversary the dramatic tension evaporates.

There are few people my age who can forget the horror story of Kitty Genovese. One night in 1964 on her way home to her Queens apartment, this 28-year old woman was stabbed, raped, and stabbed again on a public street by a stranger. She died before she could be given proper medical attention. Thirty-eight people in nearby buildings heard her heart-rending screams but did nothing. No one ran downstairs to help her. No once called the police. No one cared to get involved. For decades afterwards, Kitty Genovese's name became synonymous with victims of a world that is too self-absorbed, too busy, too unfeeling to pick up a phone and save a life. Her tragedy has even been employed as a critique of Objectivism. The average person can't be bothered, it seems. To know this, all you have to do is read the original account as reported in the New York Times and in Life magazine. The problem is, it wasn't true. The story was first told to the press by a police commissioner who heard it wrong or intentionally twisted it for dramatic effect. It was then repeated by a journalist too lazy to check the facts, and picked up by a liberal media perversely thrilled by the idea of a public that cannot be trusted to help one of its own. For years liberals have been beating us up with Kitty Genovese syndrome--and only recently have we found out that it was essentially a myth. Read Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese.

Reagan used the veto nine times in eight years but only once over a budget bill. Reagan's first budget was passed by all Republicans and a few Democrats. It increased the debt by $144 Billion. The next five budgets were passed by a Republican Senate and signed by Reagan. The last two budgets were passed by a Democratic Congress but they totaled less than Reagan requested. http://zfacts.com/p/57.html

The budget, the deficit, the War on Drugs, and every federal agency (including the department he promised to abolish) grew under Reagan. I guess that's "freedom" if you think only more government can get us there.