When Facing Darkness I Made Fire

Important Message.

2007-11-03T15:08:00.001-07:00

I am unsure of how often I will be posting, but I could not allow my indecent post remain or destroy it unexplained.

The reality is I made a tremendous error in criticizing Dr. Peikoff and not showing him the respect he deserves, especially considering the fact that he is the greatest philosopher alive, and to a large extent helped me become who I am, that is a decently intelligent person who is able to see very far with his abstractions and has used Objectivism to greatly improve his life.

The value that Dr. Peikoff has given me is nearly the greatest any human can ask for, that is the ability to align myself to my nature appropriately and analyze invalid ideas and dismiss them as anti-life.

The last post on this site was disrespectful in manner that there is no word for a rational man to truly describe the behavior with. For all who read it and understood that I apologize for the post, and will completely comply with Dr. Peikoff's recommendation as well as enjoy the privilege of remaining Objectivist :).

I came to this conclusion when I realized that Dr. Peikoff isn't saying the things he says because they are fun, or because he wants to exclude people, or for any other reason in this universe other than his judgment that they are true and he knows it. And that I was being nothing more than some angry kid unhappy that he has to take his medicine when the doctor tells him too. As I toured the Oblogosphere and read other students of Objecitivism and other Objectivists posting about it, I noticed the tone of disrespect toward Dr. Peikoff's statement similar to my own and found myself saying to myself "Is this necessary? Isn't this the man who wrote OPAR and greatly improved all of our abilities to live our own lives?". I read the works of Diana Hsieh, The Night Watchman and their recommended sources and came to the conclusion that they and Dr. Peikoff was right and to my great horror I realized that what I had said cannot be taken back or erased but must be atoned for. I was wrong and I had let my mouth and emotions get the best of me all because I wanted to be an Objectivist without putting in the work it requires, which means, without doing the thinking that's required.

For that I offer my sincerest apologies to Dr. Peikoff and any of his supporters who saw my statement, since it necessarily showed what I thought of them as well.

"And I also know famous people!!"

2006-10-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Alec Baldwin: "Out of my way servant of the Bushitler!! I'm in movies."

If only he could be so honest. Apparently some conspiracy nuts think they have the right to run into a building and shit on America. No dice freedom hater.

I've always called them clowns....

2006-10-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

But Rigby took it to a whole new level.

It's more than passion.

2006-09-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

I would like to take this time to analyze Dr. Woomer's passage on Ayn Rand. Good thing I have it, but first I want to get roomy with the little gem he put up as an excuse to begin speaking about a subject of which he is so ignorant. First we will start with a quote from the gem,

"The faculty at Meredith College in Raleigh struck a blow for academic freedom Friday, and in so doing, might've cost the college $420,000 from the BB&T Charitable Foundation. At issue: A grant from BB&T--$60,000 a year for seven years--for an honors program featuring, apparently at the bank's insistence, such right-wing texts as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Frederick Hayek's The Road to Serfdom."

There seems to be this massive confusion in political circles that Ayn Rand is some kind of right-winger, why this is so I have no clue anyone who has read any of her works knows this is an outright lie. Conservatives and "right-wingers" quote her when it suits them but the National Review makes it infinitely clear that she is no right-winger and that they do not support her philosophy. It maybe 50 some odd years old, but the attitude should be familiar, it's the same that men like Dr. Woomer show her. As for Hayek I have not read any of his work, but since Dr. Woomer doesn't agree with his views I could take it as a lot of what he has to say I might agree with.

"Thus, the faculty declined to approve the course, called "Global Capitalism and Ethical Values," unless it was clear to BB&T that "the faculty teaching this course now and in the future are free to design [it] with no pre-conditions."

Now I wonder why BB&T would want to include texts that teach about the applications of morality in the economic sphere in a class called "Global Capitalism and Ethical Values".

"Meredith College is not the first academic institution to confront these issues. Just last year, the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty balked when it was discovered that administrators were talking to the conservative John William Pope Foundation about money for a new "Western civilization" curriculum that would--if the foundation had its way--avoid bows to multiculturalism. (That's the idea that different people--the descendants of slaves, for example, as opposed to white men--might see the march of Western civilization quite differently.)"

Of course he doesn't quote how it would avoid multiculturalism, he asserts that it would avoid bows to multiculturalism like any reasonable history course should because what really happens isn't determined by who from what culture saw it, also multiculturalism isn't just the assertion that history can be viewed differently by different cultures but also that all cultures are morally equal and have their own downfalls and good things, except of course Western Civilization.

Apparently the author thinks no white man is the descendant of a slave, of course the origin of that word refers to a time when enslaved Slavic white people were so wide spread is actually where the word came from. What's also omitted is the fact that tribes in Africa were enslaving their own people and selling them to the slave traders, or that virtually everywhere else in the world, that is before America had unleashed the concept of individual rights into the moral sphere, were enslaving each other since the beginning of human time.

Since that morality was unleashed upon the earth by Western Civilization ultimately it lead to the freeing of slaves everywhere, though Americans waited a long time, we had a bloody war that freed them we also had freed them in the shortest time ever in history. The author of course was referring to black men but it's more politically correct to infer that only black men were ever enslaved and it's all white peoples fault, as for "white people" identifying us by a racial remark is ok. Sort of a reverse racism enacted verbally to make up for slavery right? Even though many us white people are descendants of people who moved here after slavery, that of course is irrelevant.

In the end the foundation caved (though the author didn't update to include it, but it is a pretty recent development) and gave it anyway.

"Nor is Meredith the first to entertain a gift from BB&T tied to the works of conservative thinkers like Ayn Rand. Far from it. Just last August, for example, the business school at UNC-Charlotte announced that it was getting $1 million from BB&T to create a program on the moral foundations of free enterprise. "The gift will also fund faculty research on the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism ... and establish an Ayn Rand reading room on campus," the school said."

Again you are confusing Ayn Rand with conservatism, every time you try to make that connection you only announce your own ignorace of her works. The foundation of this Ayn Rand reading room is a good thing, and I wish to visit it one of these days.

"Meredith's own saga began 14 months ago when, after some preliminary conversations, Hartford wrote to BB&T asking for money to help start a program on the moral and ethical foundations of business, to be developed jointly by Meredith's business and religion departments."

Ahhh now we get to why BB&T disagreed, religious morality is incompatible to human freedom since life is ultimately the result of gods will and we must abide the rules he sets for us which leads the way to moral subjectivism (which is a self contradiction) since which gods rules go is only based on interpretations and revelations since god never seems to want to consult how he wants earth to be run face to face. Of course religion covers more than just god, it is a hodge-podge of several types of subjective moralities (since they are based on belief and faith) and thus cannot be any kind of foundation for any solid ethical theory, which means they are bad for capitalism.

"According to a timeline developed by Mulvaney (and based in part on letters and information supplied by Hartford), that proposal was turned down by BB&T CEO John Allison, apparently because the bank was uncomfortable bringing religion into it. "Their interest was in a course to explore morality and capitalism," the timeline says of BB&T."

Ohh wow I can't believe they refused, why would subjective morality be a problem when implementing a system based off the principle of objective morality?

"Negotiations continued, and in July, Hartford was writing again to BB&T, this time to propose an Honors Program colloquium "that will focus on the American ideals of democracy and capitalism (tentatively titled 'Democracy and Capitalism: The American Ideal')."

At least it's a good thing the thought didn't go forward on these terms, democracy (read: mob rule) is explicitly uncapitalistic.

"Students would be given "a solid understanding of capitalism," Harford assured Allison in her "Dear John" letter, and would be required to do extensive reading, including Atlas Shrugged and The Road to Serfdom."

Beautiful sounds like a great idea to me.

"Free enterprise" and "objectivism"--the latter Ayn Rand's pet theory--would both be central to the course, Hartford wrote."

Whereas you could barely detect his bias under most of this mans statements, since he takes a safe PC/average kinda liberal democrat stand on things the denigration of objectivism by calling it a "pet theory" is outrageous, command economy systems which were essentially created as a result of Karl Marx's philosophy (a.k.a. pet theory) are not referred to with such disrespect, even though they openly resulted in the combined death of around 100 million people this last century.

"Moreover, every student in the Honors program, whether in the colloquium or not, would receive a copy of Atlas Shrugged, which would serve to underscore its importance."

Indeed it is very important to understanding the foundation of a free enterprise system.

"In 1962, Rand described objectivism as the complete separation of government from the business world:

"Man--every man--is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life," Rand wrote.

"The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders."

Rand continued: "In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

Hartford assured Allison that she would be personally involved in the colloquium and would use part of BB&T's money to lead trips to New York City, where students could visit the stock exchange and meet with business leaders that she'd help choose--with Allison's recommendations welcomed.

This was the application BB&T wanted, and the one it approved, contingent, however, according to the timeline, on the money being "used as outlined in the proposal" sent in July.

Those were contingencies the Meredith faculty decided it couldn't stomach."

I think it's very telling that the Meredith faculty couldn't stomach the idea of the basis of a free enterprise economy, which require the principles set forth in those quotes. Indeed the idea of a free enterprise requires that no government interference be injected. This is exactly what Ayn Rand's books state unequivocally, it's also for those of us who understand the philosophy, unsurprisingly supported by the massive success the free-market exhibits. In every aspect of mans life. Like our standard of living.

Now since we all know the substance of Dr. Woomer's source I feel free to discuss his assertions.

"Obviously, it's a terrible idea to let donors, instead of professors, decide what's taught in courses -- that's 'administrative correctness' run amok. But if you're an unprincipled administrator who's foolish enough to sell donors the right to impose readings of their choice on course syllabi, why not at least recognize the tactical benefits of retaining a semblance of dignity and keep out the stuff that has little to no credibility amongst professional scholars?"

A more accurate statement would be a terrible idea, if donors completely unrelated to the field being taught were made to set the standard for the curriculum. Here you will find no argument, of course unless they do it with the permission of everyone involved. However ethical bankers whose survival depends on the competence of it's potential work force has no say in what should be taught in a course that it pays for on capitalism and good ethics is "Obviously...a terrible idea"?

The reality is if a relevant field needs skilled works, investing in courses to improve their potential work force and help their work force understand the constraints in which they work and how to improve them is a great and intelligent idea. That is of course if you take into account the context of what is being done, the context which was completely removed.

Also this stuff has apparently has the credibility of professional scholars who work in business and enterprise (a.k.a. successful ethical businessmen), they are just too busy working to be teaching. Of course the relevance of Ayn Rand's work is expressed partially in the success and ethic of the business who supplied the money made with that philosophy as it's guide is of no consequence to those who don't take into account the entire story.

"I am no fan of F.A. Hayek, but I'll admit that his credentials as an economist are... pretty unimpeachable. Ayn Rand is a different story, however. Despite some recent scholarly attention (hardly all of it fawning), Rand remains justifiably ignored by university professors. It's particularly notable that Rand -- cast by her followers as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century -- isn't taken very seriously in Anglo-American philosophy departments (or, I would guess, in any credible philosophy department anywhere)."

The purpose of including Ayn Rand into the course was to explain the ethical foundations of the economic system, as well as ethical action within the economy, not to illustrate current methods of statistical analysis and quantifying the success of the market, which may have been included in the course but did not cause enough controversy to mention. The attention of scholars hardly determine whether a book is relevant in the course, advancement in the understanding of things is not reached by consensus. The reality is many of the greatest advances in human understanding of the universe were blatantly ignored for a time before being recognized as relevant.

She was not cast by her students as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, she cast herself as the greatest philosopher of all time with her works. As time will tell, whether philosophy departments (whether Anglo or not, whatever that's ment to imply) recognize it now is of no consequence. Why would it not be accepted by any credible philosophy department anywhere? My only guess would be what they talk about in those classes is hardly philosophy.

"I'm sure Rand's many disciples account for her absence from philosophy courses by blaming the political biases of the current crop of philosophy professors. The problem with this all-too-convenient stance is that "political bias" doesn't explain the relative prominence of other libertarians like Robert Nozick on philosophy course syllabi throughout the English-speaking world. Couldn't it just be that Nozick was just a far more competent and interesting philosopher?"

Actually we account for her absence not because of the political bias, but the philosophical ones. The reality is most philosophy courses, as well as any humanities course is dominated by a belief that subjective morality is the only moral basis for anything. Since philosophy is ultimately where the bias lies throwing a name like Robert Nozick out to dismiss the idea of a bias doesn't accomplish anything.

Liberitarian thought is an attempt to steal Ayn Rand's "non-initiation of force" principle without the underlying philosophy, and therefore of objective context. The subjectivity of that political view can be summed up by the content of their political party, which ranges from anarchists (who can't support any free market since there is no universally enforced law to protect men from those who use force) to Christians to a range of semi-lassiez faire capitalists who want to avoid the philosophical complications of understanding the ethical basis of the very ideal they attempt to fight for.

You always seem to assert that some philosopher is better than Rand without explicitly stating the criteria of judgment. I would love to be enlightened, but my suspicion is that like your assertion that the morality of a theft is determined by who did it and what their life was like, it will be based only on your feelings.

"The fact that real philosophers aren't very interested in Rand doesn't mean that her followers are dumb (not by a long stretch) but it does indicate a certain philosophical illiteracy on their part -- and that's not necessarily the Rand-philes' fault. For those Rand fans who eventually undertake a formal study of philosophy, Rand is a decent"gateway philosopher" to vastly superior thinkers like Locke or Nozick or Nietzsche."

What is more real than a philosopher that states "existence exists"? How can something that doesn't exist be "real"? Yes obviously we must be philosophically illiterate because we enjoy Rand's work, infact that's the definition of philosophically illiterate right? Give me a break. I was reading Nietzsche and Kant before I touched Rand in an attempt to understand philosophy and fell on my face constantly tripping in a forest full of dead trees. When originally immersing yourself in their works you become easily confused, originally I thought because of how complex and intricate their thoughts were, but in reality because there was nothing to learn, as Rand later taught me.

While no other philosopher explicitly stated the validity of ideas and their use in my life and understanding it Ayn Rand did and she did so explicitly, and simply because in reality her ideas are simple and explicitly derived from a valid basis, all consequences of the acceptance of the axioms.

"My experience has been that those who take a genuinely "deep" interest in Rand's work don't have much of a background in the humanities. Rather, they tend to actively regard themselves as pretty smart and go into mathematically demanding fields like economics, engineering, computer science, and architecture. So it's easy to see why a thought system like Rand's is so appealing to these types: It offers a compellingly elegant ethics for the intellectually well-situated (basically, "negative rights") and a "common sense," "rational," "objective" epistemology and metaphysics."

I guess Dr. Leonard Peikoff... wait what is the Dr. for again? Ohhh right his doctorate in philosophy, doesn't have a deep interest in Rand then? I don't regard myself as pretty smart, just honest. But your right on the money, I am a math major, who's probably going to work on nano-materials science with an emphasis on computer applications. Nice guesswork. I don't know what you mean to imply by us being a certain "type" I know at least 1 other (well the only other objectivist I know) objectivist who is an avid reader of good literature, I also make a tour of those readings as well.

I largely avoid humanities classes because in public school we are not rigorously taught how to write well, in fact as you may have noticed I have a tendency to produce run on sentences and other grammatically incorrect errors, I have had to drop out of a class as simple as Composition 101 twice because of my terrible foundation in gramatics. (Yet I made it in high school english with A's and B's go figure)

As a result I must take several remedial classes before I can even begin to make any progress in humanities since they require writing skills. When I attempted to take a humanities class what I found was an atmosphere openly bias against logical thinking, in which the curriculum of the class known as "The Great Human Question" were divided in 3 parts "Truth vs. Beauty", "Freedom vs. Responsibility" and "Good vs. Evil" only one of those is actually a valid statement, for example how can something that is beautiful and untrue still be beautiful? Or why do we have to have responsibility if we are free? Any human is more than able to let his life waste away foolishly but as long as no ones rights are violated (i.e. they are still free) there is no need for you to be responsible in any way should you choose not to be.

We don't necessarily avoid humanities because we are a "type" of person. For me it's because I don't have the skillset, for many it's because it's a miasma of irrationality.

As for the elegant ethics, we don't follow them because they are elegant we follow them because they are true. Summing up our philosophy as "basically negative rights" confesses a gross misunderstanding on your part, partially because you have not examined what fundamentally entails a right, and partially because you never cared to find out. For those who don't know what a negative or positive right is, a negative right is the right not to have something done to you, while a positive right is something that requires force to be implemented to give someone something. A "positive" right is no right at all since it requires that someone be made to give another their "right".

The self contradicting aspect of a positive right is that no one has the right to enslave another. That abolishes the entire principle of rights. The foundational rights men are born with are not the right not to be disturbed but a right to pursue his own happiness with his own mind, this requires men be stopped from forcing other men to do their bidding. A profound ignorance of the concept of mans nature is required to create the dichotomy of "positive" vs. "negative" rights.

"For Rand's disciples, the correctness of her philosophical stances is self-evident. Take this guy, who responded to a column I wrote last year for the Minnesota Daily on his blog:

His article is so full misinformation, and he just appears to be totally ignorant of his subject (Rights), yet he expresses knowledge of both Ayn Rand and John Locke, which is somewhat a dilemma, and I don't know whether to believe that he's just being extremely dishonest, or he's simply very intellectually retarded.

He's just flabbergasted -- no, flabbergasted and shocked... shocked -- that someone can know about Ayn Rand and nevertheless take political positions contrary to the Mistress'."

Let's see if I can figure out why he would make such a statement and affirm it self evidently since I like to think most of us disciples do a pretty good job of backing up what we say. Here's what this guy had to say,

"here's what I believe to be the most interesting part of the article:

Freedom for the vast majority of us means that we should all be entitled to live at a certain level of comfort in spite of how the economy is doing: We should be guaranteed access to health care, to decent unemployment compensation, to be able to retire at a certain age and to have a say in our workplaces.

Ok, We should be guaranteed and entitled to this at whose expense? Or has Mr. Woomer found a way to get "something for nothing", or is it "something out of nothing"? Because the last time I checked--which is very recently--wealth, health care, medecine, employment, education did not grow in the wild; people actually have to work to PRODUCE them.

But of course, what Woomer wants is to get FREE access to the product of the labor of OTHERS by force, i.e.: theft--and to cash-in on the dishonesty, he calls it "freedom". He doesn't even seem care to hide this, the very facts of reality be damned, he wants looted benefits, therefore he must have them."

It looks like this man saw the same thing I did, specifically that Dr. Woomer has no understanding of the subject of rights, there is no right to enslave others for your desires even if you attempt to force an irrational definition of rights into the equation by ignoring the very foundation of rights.

Dr. Woomer could only make him look like what he was spouting was self-evident if he didn't care to quote what his criticisms were. This also cuts to the core of his understanding of the concept theft, apparently if it's for a cause he deems benevolent it is less wrong to do it, or even right in the case of the government doing it. He infact sums of Dr. Woomer in much the way I see him,

"Woomer's fantasy is to be a parasite with the 'right' to enslave."

Indeed that is his fantasy, but it's only because it is an altruistic one. For those who are interested they may read his full post and note not once do the terms flabbergasted or shocked come up in his blog. He was just curious as to whether you intentionally pretended ignorance of if it really was ignorance. Something is telling me he knew all along. Just like me.

As for knowing anything about Ayn Rand you have only time after time after time, much like the men you quote and the assertions you make announce your ignorance on the subject of knowing anything about her or her philosophy in any sense what-so-ever, it is not a philosophy based off of elegant ethics or negative rights but an understanding much further down of where rights and ethics come from as well as how and why we need them. It is much deeper then you ever even cared to realize Dr. Woomer.

We are not surprised by people pretending to know who Ayn Rand is and what her philosophy represents then not following the principles laid down in her philosophy. We know anyone who doesn't follow her philosophy either doesn't know it or refuses to acknowledge its validity. We already announced that you were ignorant. This is a perfect explanation of why you don't follow the principles.

Onto your last paragraph Dr. Woomer,

"Not unlike David Horowitz, Rand's self-appointed intellectual scions take themselves oh so seriously. And again, not unlike Horowitz, they have serious money behind them to buy intellectual respect if they can't earn it the old fashioned way."

Indeed we take ourselves seriously because we take ideas seriously, because we do not think they are subjective playthings to be interchanged in certain situations to satisfy random whims. Expect us to have more money, the result of our honest work which is the result of our consistent practice of ethical and practical philosophy. We do not care about your respect or any self-declared intellectuals respect. We also do not require it, soon enough we will make our own Universities where investors are free to demand requirements for curriculum and we are free to deny them or implement their ideas. The old fashioned way of gaining respect is outdated, we will reinvent the way respected is gained, not through consensus but through work and truth.

We will also succeed.

Attention.

2006-09-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

I would like everyone to know the post from Dan's site will be up in a couple days. Blogger using its ingenius - forget your links when you save as draft a couples times technology - has delayed my post since I have to go back and find all the damning links I had in it. Since i've been overloaded with school, acting and birthdays I have, as yet been unable to work on putting it up. But lucky for you I have a longer one responding to Dr. Woomer's former irrationalist essay as well as the one he quoted.

Stay tuned.

Bumper sticks and misunderstood selfishness.

2006-09-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

You know the bumper-stickers you see all the time, you know with the "one human family" on it where as soon as you see it you know a liberal is sitting in the car. I wonder if they ever think that terrorists who intentionally target children in Isreal are part of their united "family".

Another good one that caught my eye (on the same car, I know it's crazy. It's not like most people who have nothing intelligent to say have big mouths, or in this case alot of stickers.) "The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all." -Unknown. I can see why someone who would not give us context would be unknown, because then he would have to stand up to reason. Let's see how well he holds up.

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all. Indeed of course that would depend on what your view on the world is, personally I hold the tenets of rational egoism (i.e. Objectivism the philosophy of Ayn Rand) and human life (my life) as the standard of good, nothing much is needed to secure that other than the freedom to do what I want without violating the rights of others. It certainly doesn't need to be on my head to save every person out in the middle of anywhere, a slave to the suffering of those around me. My good would be secured just fine as long as I had the police and government to mercilessly impose the standard of freedom on those who would attempt to do me harm.

However if the good were to be the equality of a nation, then you would have to use force (i.e. the violation of rights in the case of those who did not initiate its use.) to secure it. That is violence and destruction. In fact more evil has been caused on this earth by systems claiming to be selfless and good, communism, socialism and theocratic dictatorships (they wish to impose the will of god not man) however the system deemed most selfish and egocentric, seems to only bring prosperity. This to the student of objectivism is no suprise, seeing as every human is an individual and a system that allows him to be free and profit from production will lead to prosperity for all individuals involved it in the poorest in our country live greater than the middle class in most 3rd world countries. Whereas governments that fail to acknowledge individual rights dismiss individual humans as statistics to be used in economic equations, to be interchangibly assigned and allocated to produce materials they don't want to produce or forced into working a place where they recieve poor pay and satisfaction. Is it any wonder these systems fail consistently wherever they are tried? This statement could be used to justify creating equality as all communist regimes have tried to create it, by brute force, gulags, and the continual violation of other nations rights, since they do not value their own citizens right to be free what makes you think they desire for ours to as well? In fact they could say that the good would be for all people to be equal and try to enforce it at the point of a sword to "secure" it.

The good can't be something people just magically feel, if so we would see Americas and prosperious places springing up everywhere all the time, because everyone wants to do good, liberals who march on to try to impose health care for equality have been presented with evidence of its inefficiency countless times it fails because it violates individual rights, but still they press on because they think it is ultimately the good. How many blood baths have been justifed by spouting selfish objectives? Hitler resorted to crying for the glory of the race and nation, Stalin for the proles, Mao against richer (read selfish via marxist lens) land owners (who were mostly poor peasents with enough money to you know feed their family and pay taxes.), Lennon for hatred against imperialism using zero-sum (read false to those who know) economic thinking. The list goes on into the beginning of time when the first witchdoctor cried that his tribe was better due to the will of god or the other who said his tribe was better thanks to the color of their skin. Not one motivated by making only himself rich, though they may have secretly been motivated by it, it could not properly be called selfishness in any rational sense because a. their action benefits several others who without which looting could not be done (that's a group many more than one self) b. ultimately it required the sacrifice of others i.e. they did not gain and earn their wealth with their selves, this is what I deem selfless. Whether an action is selfish or not does not determine whether it is good. Period. However thanks to Ayn Rand ethics has gone been rescued from the depths of subjectivism, both individual, group and godly. It has been transformed into a science now with time man will finally come to understand what is good or not through his rational faculty and this ambiguity of "the good" will be erased from human memory. But the time where this is recognized univerally has not come yet therefore we must endure until our fellow humans see the beauty of a system designed around reality, rationality and human life.

I usually do not allow myself to run on a tangent, even if it is relevent. The focus was on the bumper sticker and I daresay I put far more thought into it than the fool who stuck it to their car.

There is a site i'm usually fond of visiting know as the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler which is usually a good site to see anger expressed in rants, however today I saw a post that was about as full of indignation as Ted Kennedy crying about some lady who couldn't afford medicine. The problems begin when unfortunately 2 officers lives were lost in the line of duty closing local businesses for a spell when the bodies were found, for businesses this is a tiny loss bareable due to the serivce of those men who protect us. However memorials were held, with what I would think were the funds taxed out of the citizens which is not necessarily bad in itself seeing as how most people would wish to memorialize the death of good men. However a business choose after the memorial where it was closed for a couple of saturdays. Restaurants don't run on air though so after tabulating the loss in profits to the total of $9,000 dollars asked to be reembersed in a letter I quote "Although this is miniscule in comparison to two officers losing their lives, it did have a major financial impact on our store." and this is probably true. I don't see a problem with someone asking for a loss in business profit. It's sad that 2 police died, but this does not happen in a vaccum and life does not stop instantly, what police fight for is to insure humans can continue living their lives despite the existence of those who would put it on hold. Also the police could have rembursed 5,000 dollars by dismissing a couple of fines for broken alarms. Yet somehow someone asking for lost profits is probably the most evil person on earth next to Ahmednejad, provoking talk such as,

"Did it ever occur to the selfish shitbird owner that maybe the cordoning served to protect him as well? Did it ever occur to the bastard that maybe the two officers had been among the ones dispatched to his restaurant when his fucked up, discount, Wally-World alarm system screwed up? Did it ever occur to the obnoxious whale turd that those two officers, through their duty, had served to protect him as well until their lives were brutally ended by the scum that they were trying to protect him, among others, from?

Did it ever once occur to the egotist Idiotarian imbecile that life comes with risks, and that there are times when you can blame others and times when you can’t?"

Indeed even though Eric Rainwater knew his request was miniscule it did have a major impact on his store. While it may have been in bad taste, and since corporate gave him an asschewing and he lost alot of customers (wait how is securing a massive loss selfish again?) it should also be recognized that the police used his taxed funds to protect him when you become a police officer you do not hold a superior position above your fellow man by the selection of your profession we are glad you do what you do but you decided to do it and you get paid for it. It's that simple. Plus would they still do it if they wern't paid? Or if they didn't have patrol cars (paid for with taxes) or guns (again with taxes)? All of these were paid for to insure our safety, some men select this feild as one where they want to make their money. Again the reality is the processions caused a substantial loss to a business, which he asked to be paid back nicely since it was his money too that was used to insure the safety of the community. The last sentence can be used to virtually justify any action since there are sometimes you can't blame people. You know even if they shut down the street your business works on they still can't be blamed for it because someone died so all of our lives should stop and we should start loving one another and not acknowledging damaging losses. Then we get his with this little gem.

"What else? Suing the City for loss of business during road construction? Suing G-d for inclement weather?"

Indeed if god would ever come see me I would give him a piece of my mind over all of the natural disasters to ever occur in known history resulting in the loss of human life. But for the life of me he hasn't visited me and I can't find him anywhere, I find this inexcusable since I am in the phone book. I know it's appropriate to sue the city in cases where business is lost due to road contruction, first of all because the land isn't bought at market and usually has to be "bought" (i.e. they tell you to take the price or throw you in jail or just cease it) at a deflated market price. They use your money to build the road, which they told you to pay or go to jail. So damn it I want the money they cost me by building it where I didn't want them to with the money I didn't want them to use.

I have an idea, since you hate selfishness so much why don't you give up your selfish view that all individuals should be selfless? Confused? It's simple, consider what your actually saying before you say it. When you invoke selfishness as an indication of evil you are doing in effect the same thing that every communist, socialist, enviromentalist, liberal and jihadi did to justify his actions. You can't escape that everything you value you value with your self, some of those things are very dear to you, your children, your lively-hood, your country. All of your values are selfish, if you wish to be an honest unselfish person, put your children on the street, give up your lively-hood and your country. You won't? Why? That's the unselfish (read through virtually ever single worldview ever expressed since the beginning of humanity except objectivism: the moral thing to do.) remember you selfishly value your individual rights, why don't you give those up too? Since you hate terrorists so much let them kill you, after all that is the greatest sacrifice (read loss) you could perform and the most unselfish act you could commit.

Still you will not? Well then your a hypocrite. Like every liberal who wants to do good by destroying capitalism yet destroys the foundation of what good is in the process you have given them more ammunition by your concession that the good is the unselfish. So next time they want to impose a control on business remember to be selfish and fight for what's right.

9/11

2006-09-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

Today is a somber day for everyone in the United States. I would like to remember those who have past due to the evil of others by way of a trip to the future.

"September 18th 2007

It has been a week since 2 nuclear weapons were detonated in the most heavily populated areas in New York city killing 9 million people in the initial blast and killing several million more in the following days, those still alive will die an agnoizing death within the next week due to radiation exposure. The world has changed.

An emergency congressional and senate meeting was held 2 hours after the blast at 1 p.m. in the afternoon. There President Bush made a speech calling for the destruction of all states sponsoring terrorism, where a bill declaring war on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palastine, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan where the bill was passed unanimously. That evening operation "Final Straw" went underway.

By the morning of September 12th Syria and Lebanon had surrendered after being hit by 3 hydrogen bombs. Palastine was invaded and the Hamas government subsiquently beheaded by an Isreali, the territory has now been annexed by Isreal. By mid afternoon the Saudi government had drafted a document offering it's conditional surrender, the United States responded by nuking its secondary military bases. The Saudi government then surrendered unconditionally as United States oil companies now moved to cease the nationalized Saudi feilds.

The President of Iran was found by several soliders hiding in a bunker 50 miles away from the cratered remains of Tehran. He was blinded his surrendered service men said, because he looked back as the bomb was detonated above the city.

By the morning of September 13th the entire arab world was brought to its knees by an angry super-power aided by Isreal and Britain. The Left of the Blogosphere was made silent by this, no one had made one Bush joke, none had argued whether Islamic-Fascists were responsible. Al-Jazeera had choosen not to film all the people dancing in the streets, fearing our response. Those who whispered of jihad in the United States were found and executed as traitors, it was now easy since police and MPs had occupied all Mosques considered to be involved in terrorist activities. CAIR had not made a public statement hoping to be spared the wrath of a righteous people when their funds had been found in the pockets of terror groups. CAIRs leaders were then executed as traitors.

By the morning of September 14th the price of gas had gone down to 2.00 dollars a gallon. Our forces began investigating the weaponry and funding of the terror funding regimes and found several names began popping up, "France, Russia, China, United Nations." That day the United States immediatly withdrew from the U.N. in every way shape and form. We refused to export goods to any countries found involved in anyway with the funding of those evil nations. As a result the house and senate had been made to begin repealing restrictions on businesses in the United States, without other nations to trade with our economy had to be stronger than ever.

By the morning of September 15th the world had endured a change not witnessed since it's creation. China, Russia and France had not responded positively. The United States did not care. The coalition for a peaceful world had toppled Pakistan.

By the morning of September 16th confidence and nationalism began to soar in the United States, our once fragmented rational men had begun working to unite into a new party, the Constitutional Republicans identifying with the United States identity of individual rights they began to be crowded by those who wanted a better America. The MSM had not needed to report on terror attacks-there were no longer any anywhere in the middle east, those who had once thought America and the western way of living were weak were reduced to dust, or destroyed with bullets.

By the morning of September 17th the loss of New York City has hit us fully. Most of those exposed radiation had died, the death toll has not been fully counted. Calls for missing individuals come in daily. Nearly every American had lost someone or knew someone who lost someone. It was agreed that New York would be cleaned of radiation within the next 50 years. Already people were talking of a new memorial companies began drawing joint plans on what could be done, an idea came up that took fire with those present. After the radiation would be removed a tower would be built, one that would rival any of those built in the past and many more in the future reaching up to a height that would give it the name Babel.

It is the evening of September 18th and not one bomb has been dropped in the middle east or in America since our invasion. We no longer have to fear paying terrorists at the pump for the right to bomb us. We no longer have to worry about dictators trying to scam us with their pleas for help. We no longer have to worry about the U.N., We no longer have to worry about alot of things. All it took was a direct response to an honest evil. As well as its subsiquent distruction.

The only regret I have is that we could have done it sooner, that our freedom and the lives of countless men, women and children in New York could have been saved from destruction. I regret that some men choose to think "Loose Change" is the legacy of the American government. I regret that men make dishonest films to discredit the United States and destroy our sense of freedom and individual rights. I regret that peaceniks and those on the far left were to blind to see what was so obvious. The guilt for the atrocity that took place here should be on their heads and the MSM for their bias support of the terrorists who continually assaulted the western world don't tell me you had no clue this was the final result of all your denying, of all your politically correct names for men who kill innocent men, for everytime the terrorists filmed a staged scene and you gobbled it up and shoved it down the throats of the American public. The evil that happened in New York is the result of your foundation of neutrality, that is neutrality to the truth and favoring every possible alternate theory of all your "unbiased" reporting of looney consipracies. This is the legacy you hand down to your fellow American.

Finally I would like to thank those who knew all along and who fought to make it known at every possible moment that we were dealing with an very stoppable evil. Who called for their destruction before we lost 2,996 men, women, fathers, mothers, brothers and everykind of person black, white, middle-eastern, asian who lived and working in a free America. To those who saw through the bull-shit being fed to them day to day from the MSM, Micheal Moore and every other nut who thought the greatest terror on earth was our own president. To those who fought the good fight trying to disseminate information, to save the lives of every person living in our great country and to enlighten those who were swayed by the big lie mongers and those who gained from the destruction of our people. To those of you who did your best, or who just knew and voiced when you heard something wrong or just stated you disagreed. Thank you for doing your best, but it was not enough."

I got a rash.

2006-09-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Not a physical one anyway. I'm a fan of touring the blogosphere for news information on plenty of topics. The one I find most useful when refering to the war on terrorism is without a doubt Little Green Footballs, while looking over it I came up with the term Poison Ivy League. I long ago abandoned my respect for academia seeing as how it always seems to be dead wrong on so many issues. Like this little gem where the bolded sentence is especially of note.

"Do we listen to those that we disagree with, and vigorously challenge them, or do we close our ears completely?" -David Ellwood.

Well apparently Mr. Ellwood likens what we have with the former President of Iran, whos nation is the number 1 supporter of terrorism, whos nation is primarily responsible for arming the madmen who sheild themselves behind behind civilians so that they may openly kill civilians with what seems like impunity from moral analysis by the MSM, UN and EU as well as killing US soliders in the middle east, to a conflict over where the dinner table should be placed in the damned dining room.

THIS MAN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LIVES OF US SERVICE-MEN AND WE "DISAGREE" WITH THEM!?!?!

The sheer idiocy of that statement cannot be disputed. Pure and simple.

I can only imagine how a jihadi coming to cut my head off when I "vigorously challenge" (with words only I don't want to bring myself to their level *rolls eyes*) our "disagreement" over whether he wants to cut my infidel head off, would react, I can only hope he would die of laughter but...you know the joke I was going to come up with just wasn't even funny because of how serious this type of thing is.

All I have to say to David Ellwood is, thanks for selling out America. I'm pretty sure this dictator who is responsible for the deaths of our people and many other innocent people will listen to reason. You know, like any other mass murderer would. I'm pretty sure he wants to tell us all about the peace he wants to bring us as he turns around to continue building his nuke, which is for peaceful purposes. Much like their donations to terrorists.

Update: 9-08-06 12:00am

Looks like i'm not the only one who notices.

Cox and Forkum of course.

An exercise in making yourself look like an idiot.

2006-08-27T11:27:00.002-07:00

Before I continue reading my economic textbook I really had to type out and examine this passage or my brain would have exploded in sheer astonishment.

The passage in question (remember this is an economics TEXTBOOK): "It is clear that rational self-interest is not the same as selfishness. People make personal sacrifices to help family memebers or friends, and they contribute to charities because they derive pleasure from doing so. Parents help pay for their children's education for the same reason. These self-interested, but unselfish, acts help maximize the givers' satisfaction as much as any personal purchase of goods or services. Self-interest behavior is simply behavior that enables a person to achieve personal satisfaction, however it may be derived." - Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies Sixteenth Edition. [Italics mine.]

The only thing that's clear here is how many times the author of this passage was dropped as a baby.

Now for anyone who can't clearly see how a self-interested action is selfish, i'm going to point the use of the words self in both words to cite how a person acts. This textbook, had it clearly defined what it ment by those terms might have gotten on my good side enough to avoid criticizm, however in all seriousness I can't stand anyone trying to get by me on implicit premises. Now we don't get to what it really means by rational self-interest until it gets to the end of the statement "Self-interest behavior is simply behavior that enables a person to achieve personal satisfaction, however it may be derived." See how at the end it says and I will bold it if it is not clear "...,however it may be derived." That means any way you can derive pleasure would be self-interested. Even greedy behavior that would benefit no one else. (which is what they ment by Selfish in the first place but never told you.) Since "however it may be derived." opens up the door to every single variety of activity automatically saying it is not selfish behavior is ridiculous. We can clearly see, even by the paragraphs own admission that "People make personal sacrifices to help...because they derive pleasure..." yet when I look in my Merriam-Webster dictionary it tells me that a sacrifice is a -"Loss, Deprivation." What the paragraph tries to establish is that person may forgo a product that satisfies him...for another that satisfies him and this is unselfish behavior. Confused? Don't be. Why you ask? Well lets take a look at the authors.

1. Campbell R. McConnell - University of Nebraska

Hmm....no problems there I don't suppose.

2. Stanley L. Brue - Pacific Lutheran Univeristy

Ahh well I can't imagine why someone who is involved with christian religion would have a bias against selfishness.

That was a good impression of an idiot no?

Now in all honesty I can't be suprised if I see any other massive contradictions in the text seeing as how one of the authors has an invisible friend he swears exists and controls the universe.

If I see any other glaring abnormalities in the text i'll be sure to let you all know.

It Wasn't Bad

2006-05-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

Good news, United 93 wasn't an altruist fest. Hollywood usually has a fun time sympathizing with terrorists and blowing off their atrocities or as is the case with our friend Micheal Moore outright miss-characterizing our president as some kind of oil hungry fool. See 93 if you want the anger that filled you when you saw the towers hit to fill you again, any doubts that might have delevoped in the minds of those who were willing to "turn the other cheek" will instantly fall away (as all irrational phrases to live by should, why don't you turn the other cheek when your child is dieing?) hopefully minds will show why we need to turn Iran and other terrorist supporting states into glass deserts where any opium that's grown their glows in the dark.

On a lighter note my buddy Dan Rigby from over at University Suckers will be staying home over the summer and helping me with some html on my blog so you guys don't have to go bored watching the same default templates you see everywhere.

Something You Shouldn't Take Seriously: Liberals who somehow think "the rich should bow to the poor". Before I continue I should probably mention that I act as a hobby on the side. In the future you will see many things you shouldn't take seriously pop up here that comes directly from that since it is a breeding ground for self serving liberal buzzwords and uncritically analyized package deals (i.e. characterizing Adam Smith's invisible hand as voters declining future oil refineries the ability to use land which is an example of government coercion not market forces or saying "we" (read free-market advocates) contradict ourselves when we say the government has the right to chase down criminals and prosecute fraud, which is the government protecting the free market not interfereing with it.) When I heard the man I do plays with utter it I said to myself he must be joking but alas they never do, it also reminded me of what Binswager said in an article on capmag here-> http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4650 and I will quote, "But for the infantile worldview of the left, oil companies are just storing up their higher revenues in giant money bins, like the money bin of Scrooge McDuck in the old comic books. Scrooge kept his billions in cash in a giant bin with a diving board installed on its open top. Then he'd dive off it, into his cash. That's what the left thinks being rich is." It is readily apparent in what I quoted apparently they take it that the rich don't do any work at all and go fish out dollars out of their swimming pool to go give to people to do things for them I can't imagine what would happen if I were to mention something so obvious as capital investment in business enterprise to them, or how they were locked up in bank savings accounts or any other possible way money can be invested, in their childrens college tuition or as a donation to charity or as an exorbitant tax used to pay for a failing welfare and health care system. How did it go when the robbers tried to rob the Richy Rich family "WHERE'S ALL THE MONEY?!" "In banks." I can't take it seriously, and neither should you. But don't take my word for it. Use the power of reason.

"Reason And Morality Are The Only Weapons That Determine The Course Of History..."-Ayn Rand

2006-04-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

The truth of this statement is incontestable, these two forces are the driving power behind human conciousness and action. So I make this blog in an attempt to do my best to do as the rest of that quote says "...The Collectivists dropped them because they had no right to carry them. Pick them up; you have." Evil can only win when good men do nothing, though I would question whether men who do nothing could be considered good I have decided I will not stand and do nothing, but instead will commentate on absurdities and senselessness I see brandished around as if it had reason, morality or reality to back it up. Garbage ideas such as Racism, Socialism, Communism, Anarcism and any other collectivist (read irrational) world view that sponsers the destruction of huamnity.

Phoroneus is a greek legend of "The first man..." he is also the man who created fire, it is a common error to associate just Prometheus (a god who gave man fire) with having been responsible for one of the first steps in developing the advancement of human life. The end of that reference has been argued, there were other men to exist in legend around the same time so they take it to refer to "The first man who ruled." Think of it as you may, I will take this to mean he was the first to establish order. So I will try to establish order in the realm of ideas by putting the sword to ridiculous ideas.