OT: Capitalists and Other Psychopaths

[Charles Marqs]

Capitalists and Other Psychopaths

By WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ
Published: May 12, 2012

THERE is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they
are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad.
Well, consider the following. A 2010 study found that 4 percent of a
sample of corporate managers met a clinical threshold for being
labeled psychopaths, compared with 1 percent for the population at
large. (However, the sample was not representative, as the study�s
authors have noted.) Another study concluded that the rich are more
likely to lie, cheat and break the law.

The only thing that puzzles me about these claims is that anyone would
find them surprising. Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form,
and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior. This should hardly be
news. The English writer Bernard Mandeville asserted as much nearly
three centuries ago in a satirical-poem-cum-philosophical-treatise
called �The Fable of the Bees.�

�Private Vices, Publick Benefits� read the book�s subtitle. A
Machiavelli of the economic realm � a man who showed us as we are, not
as we like to think we are � Mandeville argued that commercial society
creates prosperity by harnessing our natural impulses: fraud, luxury
and pride. By �pride� Mandeville meant vanity; by �luxury� he meant
the desire for sensuous indulgence. These create demand, as every ad
man knows. On the supply side, as we�d say, was fraud: �All Trades and
Places knew some Cheat, / No Calling was without Deceit.�

In other words, Enron, BP, Goldman, Philip Morris, G.E., Merck, etc.,
etc. Accounting fraud, tax evasion, toxic dumping, product safety
violations, bid rigging, overbilling, perjury. The Walmart bribery
scandal, the News Corp. hacking scandal � just open up the business
section on an average day. Shafting your workers, hurting your
customers, destroying the land. Leaving the public to pick up the tab.
These aren�t anomalies; this is how the system works: you get away
with what you can and try to weasel out when you get caught.

I always found the notion of a business school amusing. What kinds of
courses do they offer? Robbing Widows and Orphans? Grinding the Faces
of the Poor? Having It Both Ways? Feeding at the Public Trough? There
was a documentary several years ago called �The Corporation� that
accepted the premise that corporations are persons and then asked what
kind of people they are. The answer was, precisely, psychopaths:
indifferent to others, incapable of guilt, exclusively devoted to
their own interests.

There are ethical corporations, yes, and ethical businesspeople, but
ethics in capitalism is purely optional, purely extrinsic. To expect
morality in the market is to commit a category error. Capitalist
values are antithetical to Christian ones. (How the loudest Christians
in our public life can also be the most bellicose proponents of an
unbridled free market is a matter for their own consciences.)
Capitalist values are also antithetical to democratic ones. Like
Christian ethics, the principles of republican government require us
to consider the interests of others. Capitalism, which entails the
single-minded pursuit of profit, would have us believe that it�s every
man for himself.

There�s been a lot of talk lately about �job creators,� a phrase
begotten by Frank Luntz, the right-wing propaganda guru, on the ghost
of Ayn Rand. The rich deserve our gratitude as well as everything they
have, in other words, and all the rest is envy.

First of all, if entrepreneurs are job creators, workers are wealth
creators. Entrepreneurs use wealth to create jobs for workers. Workers
use labor to create wealth for entrepreneurs � the excess
productivity, over and above wages and other compensation, that goes
to corporate profits. It�s neither party�s goal to benefit the other,
but that�s what happens nonetheless.

Also, entrepreneurs and the rich are different and only partly
overlapping categories. Most of the rich are not entrepreneurs; they
are executives of established corporations, institutional managers of
other kinds, the wealthiest doctors and lawyers, the most successful
entertainers and athletes, people who simply inherited their money or,
yes, people who work on Wall Street.

MOST important, neither entrepreneurs nor the rich have a monopoly on
brains, sweat or risk. There are scientists � and artists and scholars
� who are just as smart as any entrepreneur, only they are interested
in different rewards. A single mother holding down a job and putting
herself through community college works just as hard as any hedge fund
manager. A person who takes out a mortgage � or a student loan, or who
conceives a child � on the strength of a job she knows she could lose
at any moment (thanks, perhaps, to one of those job creators) assumes
as much risk as someone who starts a business.

Enormous matters of policy depend on these perceptions: what we�re
going to tax, and how much; what we�re going to spend, and on whom.
But while �job creators� may be a new term, the adulation it expresses
� and the contempt that it so clearly signals � are not. �Poor
Americans are urged to hate themselves,� Kurt Vonnegut wrote in
�Slaughterhouse-Five.� And so, �they mock themselves and glorify their
betters.� Our most destructive lie, he added, �is that it is very easy
for any American to make money.� The lie goes on. The poor are lazy,
stupid and evil. The rich are brilliant, courageous and good. They
shower their beneficence upon the rest of us.

Mandeville believed the individual pursuit of self-interest could
redound to public benefit, but unlike Adam Smith, he didn�t think it
did so on its own. Smith�s �hand� was �invisible� � the automatic
operation of the market. Mandeville�s involved �the dextrous
Management of a skilful Politician� � in modern terms, legislation,
regulation and taxation. Or as he versified it, �Vice is beneficial
found, / When it�s by Justice lopt, and bound.�

An opinion essay on May 13 about ethics and capitalism misstated the
findings of a 2010 study on psychopathy in corporations. The study
found that 4 percent of a sample of 203 corporate professionals met a
clinical threshold for being described as psychopaths, not that 10
percent of people who work on Wall Street are clinical psychopaths. In
addition, the study, in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law,
was not based on a representative sample; the authors of the study say
that the 4 percent figure cannot be generalized to the larger
population of corporate managers and executives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/fables-of-wealth.html

[Ray Hall]

Anyone with a brain knows the above as fact.

Ray Hall, Taree

[gert]

On May 23, 8:51 pm, Charles Marqs <CharlesMarqs@invalid> wrote:
> Capitalists and Other Psychopaths
>
> By WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ
> Published: May 12, 2012

> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/fables-of-wealth.html

[SNIP]



May 20, 2012
The Stupid Party
by Bruce Thornton
Frontpage Magazine

The presidency of Barack Obama has established once and for all that
modern liberalism is now the stupid party. Very little of liberal
thought these days represents anything fresh or new, but rather
comprises what Lionel Trilling once reduced conservatism to:
“irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Now it is
liberal ideas that young in the 19th century today stumble around like
zombies in the liberal mind, mindlessly repeating hoary clichés of the
sort Jonah Goldberg documents in his new book.

Obama’s presidency and reelection campaign have already produced an
abundance of examples. Take the looming fiscal crisis of unfunded
social welfare entitlements, run-away federal spending, and
accelerating debt and deficits. Even with the monitory example of a
rapidly disintegrating Europe before our eyes, the Democrats still
can’t do the math. The “Buffett rule” taxes on the “rich” that the
president has been touting amount to the equivalent of couch-cushion
change compared to our debt and unfunded liabilities. Indeed,
confiscating outright all the wealth of the richest 400 Americans
would barely cover one year of Obama deficits. The economic history of
the past half-century backs up the math: only by reducing spending can
we get our fiscal house in order, and raising taxes on the productive
stifles economic growth and reduces tax revenues, thus hastening the
downward spiral. The fundamental wisdom known by every village
explainer — spend more than you earn and you’ll go broke, give people
something for nothing and they will expect something for nothing
forever, there is no free lunch, if something can’t go on forever it
won’t — doesn’t seem to penetrate the minds of the self-styled
“genius” party.

Yet despite this crisis, all the liberals can do is recycle old class-
warfare bromides. Repeating the juvenile slogans of the Occupy Wall
Street movement, the Democrats decry the “1%” and the President
shrieks about the rich “paying their fair share.” The fact that among
advanced economies the US already has the most progressive income
taxes and the highest corporate taxes — even as nearly half of
taxpayers pay nothing while an equal number receive some sort of
government largesse — can’t penetrate the fog of clichés befuddling
the liberal brain. No, stale Hollywood scripts about “Wall Street”
pirates and evil oil corporations are recycled into government policy,
and jeremiads against “greed” and “materialism” abound. The President
even invokes Jesus Christ in support of his redistributionist schemes,
his liberal supporters conveniently forgoing their usual hysteria
about the theocratic camel’s nose poking into the political tent.

Nothing in any of this has anything to do with the reality of our
economic sickness or its cures. Worse yet, we’ve heard it all before
over a century ago. In the late 19th century, increasing immigration
from Russia, Poland, southern Italy, and other non-Teutonic countries,
along with the growing wealth, social mobility, and economic
opportunity created by industrial capitalism, agitated the well-born
and well-educated elites worried about racial “degeneration” and the
weakening of the American order. Impressed by Karl Marx, they saw
industrial capitalism and corporations, and the increasing
materialism, amoral greed, civic corruption, and crass competition
these fostered, as the force that would destroy the American moral
order and empower the lesser breeds who thought of nothing but greed
and selfish gain, no matter the future costs to society. The
reformers’ answer was to turn over government rule to a “natural
aristocracy” created by breeding and education, the denizens of the
“best class” who could restore order to a disintegrating society and
rein in the “incorporated power and greed,” as Brooks Adams put it, of
“robber barons” like the Rockefellers and Morgans and the other
“malefactors of great wealth” criticized by T.R. Roosevelt.

The Adams brothers embody best that snobbish disdain for the ordinary
people and immigrants who were finding in an economically expanding
America the freedom and opportunity denied to their ancestors. Brooks
and Henry Adams were the scions of two presidents and an ambassador,
members of a New England aristocracy long accustomed to taking for
granted both the privileges of wealth and their own entitlement to
rule. Their opposition to industrialization and materialism was in
part based on class prejudice and refined taste, both of which
fostered a disdain for the nouveau riche and other upstarts
increasingly dominating what Mark Twain dubbed the “gilded age.” The
growing power of America could not be entrusted to these degenerate
ordinary citizens who wanted only to grab as much as they could. Only
by having their betters take over — the technocratic elite that
possessed “powerful administrative minds,” as Brooks Adams called them
— could America contain the destructive excesses of such parvenus.

Running through this gloomy economic diagnosis of America’s decline
was a nasty racialist snobbery. Brooks Adams fretted over the
“barbarian blood” polluting the “old native American blood,” which at
the time was fancifully believed to be Teutonic and Nordic. Henry too
worried that “the dark races are gaining on us.” Jews in particular
were linked to money-grubbing and materialism. “England is as much
governed by the Jews of Berlin, Paris, and New York, as her own native
growth,” Brooks Adams complained. “It is in the nature of a vast
syndicate, and by control of London, they control the world.” Henry
despised as well what he called “the rotten, unsexed, swindling, lying
Jews.” Such anti-Semitism was part of a large anti-immigrant prejudice
based on fears of what Progressive spokesman E.A. Ross called “race
suicide.”

Not much has changed in the last hundred years. Of course, this
liberal dynamic of resentment against the “vulgar” rich and obsession
over high social status has acquired new camouflage. Decrying racial
degeneration has been discredited, to be replaced with the soft racism
of low expectations enshrined in affirmative action policies and
politically correct patronizing of “people of color.” Anti-immigrant
sentiment has been reversed, now that the liberal elites have
discovered that illegal immigration in particular provides a whole new
stockpile of political clients beholden to government transfers and
the political party that delivers them. Class snobbery is usually
hidden behind a veneer of populism, though it slips out regularly —
just revisit the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin, or the President’s
talk of “bitter clingers.” And anti-Semitism, though blatant at Occupy
Wall Street rallies and anarchist protests against globalization, has
been repackaged as “anti-Zionism,” while keeping the same fantasies of
a “vast syndicate” that controls finance and the media.

Yet the essence of the liberal agenda remains the same as it was 100
years ago: Money-grubbing capitalists, the people who actually create
wealth and jobs, are still being attacked for their selfish greed;
snooty rich Ivy League grads still believe they should be running
things, given that the oafish masses are too ignorant or befuddled by
God, gays, and guns to know their own best interests; and government
must be centralized and its power increased so that these enlightened
elites can acquire the funds needed to redistribute the wealth and
create a more just and fair social order, which turns out to be one in
which they call all the shots.

In other words, a hundred years of painful experience and the failure
of these notions should demonstrate their danger. That liberals
continue to ignore those historical lessons and recycle those
discredited ideas makes them the stupid party.

©2012 Bruce S. Thornton

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton052012.html

[herman]

There's something funny with people calling Obama "left wing" or
"liberal".

Obama is smack in the center, and if that too radical for you, you're
probably too far on the right.

If you use Obama's imaginary leftwing position as a way to talk about
the "danger" he poses to the nation you're crossing over into scare
demagogery.

It's funny how no one on the right was heard when Bush 2 turned the
Clinton surplus into a gigantic deficit and sent thousands of
Americans into the Iraq and Afghanistan meat grinder, for no good
reason.

And now, all of a sudden, Obama poses a threat to the nation because
the deficit is supposedly his creation?

[John Thomas]

A readership survey would probably find that 4 percent of the posters
here meet a
clinical threshold for being described as psychopaths. Keep reading
this thread for further evidence.

[Frank Berger]

It takes one to know one.

[William Sommerwerck]

Thornton is wrong about //almost// everything. In particular, he argues for
laissez-faire economics, which, of course, continually gets societies into
trouble.

The broader idea that, because freedom is A Good Thing (which it most
certainly is), that people (and businesses) should be allowed to whatever
they like, and everything will be just hunky-dory. Or if not, the results of
unbridled freedom will be morally and ethically justifiable.

I do agree that the Democrats show a general lack of common sense in
handling our current problems. The Democrats really need to position
themselves as the party of "cleaning up the messes the Republicans make" --
then actually doing something about them, rather than spending more money.

> Yet the essence of the liberal agenda remains the same as it was 100
> years ago: Money-grubbing capitalists, the people who actually create

> wealth and jobs...

No, they create jobs. They do not create wealth.

> ...are still being attacked for their selfish greed;

And they shouldn't be?

> snooty rich Ivy League grads still believe they should be running
> things, given that the oafish masses are too ignorant or befuddled
> by God, gays, and guns to know their own best interests;

In fact, most human beings (myself included) don't know what's best for
their own good. (It takes about 50 years for most of us to learn, by which
time it's too late.) Whether the elitists the writer decries //do// know is
another matter.

The fact is that human beings are in love with wealth and power. You cannot
argue in favor of "limited" government, without also arguing in favor of
limited business. Sorry, Charlie.

[Frank Berger]

>
> I do agree that the Democrats show a general lack of common sense in
> handling our current problems. The Democrats really need to position
> themselves as the party of "cleaning up the messes the Republicans
> make" -- then actually doing something about them, rather than
> spending more money.
>

But as a matter ideology, at least, that's precisely what they want to do.

[John Thomas]

As I said, they're wriggling out from under their rocks already.

[chsiii]

Who ARE these people?

"John Thomas" wrote in message
news:d42e6ffb-a11f-4705...@x6g2000pbh.googlegroups.com...

[Frank Berger]

I've not read much Marx. Did he consider capitalists to be "pyschopaths?"
Or is that John Thomas' contribution to economic theory?

[William Sommerwerck]

"Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:C7udnSMi_b3WDiPS...@supernews.com...

> I've not read much Marx. Did he consider capitalists to be

> "pyschopaths"? Or is that John Thomas's contribution to
> economic theory?

Considering that businesspeople too often have little regard for their
employees, their customers, or society in general -- they might reasonably
be regarded as psychopaths.

[Frank Berger]

What does "too often" mean? What percentage of businesspeople would you say
fits your description? In my 64 years I've met many businesspeople. Big
firms and small. In my experience, the bums are in the small minority. In
general, it's good business to have regard for your employees, your
customers and maybe even, whatever it means, "society in general." If a
factory pollutes the environment, it's society's job to protect those who
are, or might be damaged. By fining polluters, requiring emission controls,
whatever. It's pointless to whine that business people don't have
sufficient regard for society in general. Individuals dump their trash
along highways, in other people's back yards, etc. There's nothing special
about businesspeople in that regard.

[Kip Williams]

If government "intends" more highway deaths when it raises the speed
limit, then it must also be that businessmen intend consumer deaths when
they shave safety features to make more money.


Kip W

[Gerard]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> typed:

Nice to see that those OT threads still contain the same kind of BS.

[Oscar]

On May 24, 1:53 pm, Kip Williams wrote:
>
> If government "intends" more highway deaths when it raises the speed
> limit, then it must also be that businessmen intend consumer deaths when
> they shave safety features to make more money.

http://tiny.cc/aiztew

[William Sommerwerck]

"Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:gJqdnXExSOQpAiPS...@supernews.com...

> William Sommerwerck wrote:
> > "Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:C7udnSMi_b3WDiPS...@supernews.com...
> >
> >> I've not read much Marx. Did he consider capitalists to be
> >> "pyschopaths"? Or is that John Thomas's contribution to
> >> economic theory?
> >
> > Considering that businesspeople too often have little regard for their
> > employees, their customers, or society in general -- they might
> > reasonably be regarded as psychopaths.
>
> What does "too often" mean? What percentage of businesspeople would you
say
> fits your description? In my 64 years I've met many businesspeople. Big
> firms and small. In my experience, the bums are in the small minority. In
> general, it's good business to have regard for your employees, your
> customers and maybe even, whatever it means, "society in general."

It's not good business for the stockholders. Why do you think Costco doesn't
have much respect on Wall street.

> If a
> factory pollutes the environment, it's society's job to protect those who
> are, or might be damaged. By fining polluters, requiring emission
controls,
> whatever. It's pointless to whine that business people don't have
> sufficient regard for society in general. Individuals dump their trash
> along highways, in other people's back yards, etc. There's nothing
special
> about businesspeople in that regard.

Your response is basically "Everybody does it -- so why single out business
people?"

[Kip Williams]

That's deep.


Kip W

[Oscar]

On May 24, 2:49 pm, Kip Williams wrote:
>
> >> If government "intends" more highway deaths when it raises the speed
> >> limit, then it must also be that businessmen intend consumer deaths when
> >> they shave safety features to make more money.
>
> >http://tiny.cc/aiztew
>
> That's deep.

Just having some fun.

[edo...@gmail.com]

My guess is that they're trying to revive RMO!!! ;-)

Ed

[Frank Berger]

Must be. Fair's fair.

[Frank Berger]

William Sommerwerck wrote:


> "Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:gJqdnXExSOQpAiPS...@supernews.com...
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>> "Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:C7udnSMi_b3WDiPS...@supernews.com...
>>>
>>>> I've not read much Marx. Did he consider capitalists to be
>>>> "pyschopaths"? Or is that John Thomas's contribution to
>>>> economic theory?
>>>
>>> Considering that businesspeople too often have little regard for
>>> their employees, their customers, or society in general -- they
>>> might reasonably be regarded as psychopaths.
>>
>> What does "too often" mean? What percentage of businesspeople would
>> you say fits your description? In my 64 years I've met many
>> businesspeople. Big firms and small. In my experience, the bums
>> are in the small minority. In general, it's good business to have
>> regard for your employees, your customers and maybe even, whatever
>> it means, "society in general."
>
> It's not good business for the stockholders. Why do you think Costco
> doesn't have much respect on Wall street.
>

I don't know anything about Costco.

If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general," like it
severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees all get black
lung, it gets really, really bad press. That doesn't hurt its reputation,
its sales and its stockholders? Answer: It does.

>> If a
>> factory pollutes the environment, it's society's job to protect
>> those who are, or might be damaged. By fining polluters, requiring
>> emission controls, whatever. It's pointless to whine that business
>> people don't have sufficient regard for society in general.
>> Individuals dump their trash along highways, in other people's back
>> yards, etc. There's nothing special about businesspeople in that
>> regard.
>
> Your response is basically "Everybody does it -- so why single out
> business people?"

That was a small part of my response. But yes.

[Frank Berger]

Rocky Mountain Orthodontics?
Replication Management Objects?
Resident Medical Officer?
?
?

[Kip Williams]

Fun's good.


Kip W

[jeffc]

When was the last time you read Atlas Shrugged?

Seems like many people can't be bothered to -- but that doesn't stop
them from judging it or Ayn Rand.

"No politico-economic system in history has ever proved its value so
eloquently or has benefited mankind so greatly as capitalism—and none
has ever been attacked so savagely, viciously, and blindly. The flood
of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright
falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today have
no idea . . . of its actual nature."

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_cui

For more quotes, see:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_cui_capitalism

Moochers and looters need not apply.

[John Hood]

"jeffc" <jeff...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6b570122-b04a-49f3...@m10g2000vbn.googlegroups.com...

Why not?

JH

[herman]

On 25 mai, 01:00, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:


>
> If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general," like it
> severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees all get black
> lung, it gets really, really bad press.  That doesn't hurt its reputation,
> its sales and its stockholders?  Answer: It does.
>

Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to both
political parties at several levels and help write legislation it may
actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than government,
give its name to major performing arts centers and just continue
polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it happens far from
NYC and DC.

[jeffc]

> Moochers and looters need not apply.

Why not?
JH

They have their own parties: Democratic, Republican, Nazi, Communist.
All share a basic principle: The good of the group above that of the
individual (even though they admit that the group is composed of
individuals).
And as has been observed, when one follows the herd, invariable one
follows assholes.

"In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men
are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as
their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate.
They can deal with one another only in terms of and by means of
reason, i.e., by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual
agreement, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit."
["What Is Capitalism?" Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]

[MiNe 109]

In article
<64d8afbf-d194-4290...@w24g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

Sounds more like Melville.

[Kip Williams]

jeffc wrote:
> When was the last time you read Atlas Shrugged?
>
> Seems like many people can't be bothered to -- but that doesn't stop
> them from judging it or Ayn Rand.

I've read it at least two and a half times (counting the time I gave
myself permission to skip the Wall o' Text), maybe more. The last time
was a while ago, it's true. I've found other escapist reading I'd rather
spend the time at.

I've also read _The Fountainhead_ twice, and _We, the Living_ once, and
"Night of January 16" (I think that's the date) two or three times, and
made good-faith attempts to wade through her nonfiction, and made it all
the way to the end of _Anthem_, which is something I'll never do again.
And I watched some of a movie she scripted when I happened to see that
it was on.

Verdict: She could have been a good writer if she didn't have a head
full of weird crap.


Kip W

[Kip Williams]

Kip Williams wrote:

> I've also read _The Fountainhead_ twice, and _We, the Living_ once, and
> "Night of January 16" (I think that's the date) two or three times, and
> made good-faith attempts to wade through her nonfiction, and made it all
> the way to the end of _Anthem_, which is something I'll never do again.
> And I watched some of a movie she scripted when I happened to see that
> it was on.

And there's some book of her uncollected stuff. Various chapters cast
off from novels and such. I don't think it included any of her
worshipful gushing over that psychotic murderer who abducted a young
teenaged girl and cut her body in two before propping it in a car to
give her parents a moment of hope before finding that she'd been
mutilated. Rand really, really admired his attitude.


Kip W

[William Sommerwerck]

I was about to write highly negative comments about Ms Rand and her beliefs,
but decided not to, because I don't understand them in sufficient depth to
properly critique them. Perhaps I will someday have a sufficiently severe
case of diarrhea to justify sitting on the toilet long enough to read "Atlas
Shrugged".

However, I want to briefly discuss Ms Rand's belief that "reason" -- using
sense-testimony as the raw material to which reason should be applied --
should be the source of man's knowledge and understanding.

Spock * was hardly the first science-fiction character to come from a
society which had discarded emotion and depended on "reason" to make
decisions. Unfortunately, "reason" is not a thing -- it is a process. It
tells us how, given L, we might correctly arrive at M, N, and O. It does
not, however, tell us where the L came from in the first place. **

The "L" you choose depends on your beliefs and values. As L varies, so will
the conclusions drawn from "reason". Reason merely supplies an answer, not
(necessarily) the answer.

I happen to believe in the most-radical interpretation of the Labor Theory
of Value *** -- that wealth can only be created through human labor (in the
scientific sense, work that decreases entropy). I also believe that no one
exists to make anyone else wealthy. I consider these "radical" (that is,
fundamental, basic) beliefs, neither liberal nor conservative.

I am not going to argue any of this. I consider it all common sense. If you
don't agree, think in depth about these things before wasting your time
replying.


* Not "Mr Spock". "Mister" is his title as ship's executive -- as in "Mr
Roberts".
** I picked the letter L at random, then realized I could have some fun with
it.
*** I came up with the LTV about 10 years ago, thinking myself Terribly
Clever. Then I discovered it's at least several hundred years old.

[Angelotti]

On 25 mei, 15:41, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:

Scientifically, this is a nonsense remark, read a book on the second
law of thermodynamics.
Hvdlinden

[Kevin N]

On May 25, 8:53 am, Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Verdict: She could have been a good writer if she didn't have a head
> full of weird crap.

I haven't read _The Fountainhead_ or _Atlas Shrugged_, but your
verdict appears to contradict itself: having a head full of weird crap
is a necessary precondition to being a good writer!

[Kip Williams]

Well, she appears to believe that rape is the highest expression of
idealized love, for starters. Her world consists of dogs eating dogs
with the eater making long speeches about it, and the eatee making short
speeches about how right it all is.

She's also addicted to the facile paradox, where everything's the
opposite of what it looks like, just because. I've been re-reading
Chesterton's "Father Brown" stories, and he's full of them too. I think
the last word on this comes from a hot chick (Yvonne Craig, my brain
tells me) in an ancient Star Trek episode who had the line "He's my
lover, so I have to kill him."


Kip W

[Frank Berger]

herman wrote:
> On 25 mai, 01:00, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general,"
>> like it severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees
>> all get black lung, it gets really, really bad press. That doesn't
>> hurt its reputation, its sales and its stockholders? Answer: It does.
>>

> �a depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to both

> political parties at several levels and help write legislation it may
> actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than government,
> give its name to major performing arts centers and just continue
> polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it happens far from
> NYC and DC.

Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful, meaning if
the government didn't control so many damned resources, there would be less
scope for corruption of this sort.

[Frank Berger]

Marx's version ot the LTV is equally nonsensical.

[William Sommerwerck]

> "in the scientific sense, work that decreases entropy"
> Scientifically, this is a nonsense remark, read a book
> on the second law of thermodynamics.

You don't know what you're talking about. Ask your physics teacher.

[William Sommerwerck]

> > Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to both

> > political parties at several levels and help write legislation it may
> > actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than government,
> > give its name to major performing arts centers and just continue
> > polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it happens far from
> > NYC and DC.
>
> Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
> politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful, meaning
if
> the government didn't control so many damned resources, there would be
less
> scope for corruption of this sort.

That is utterly bass-ackwards reasoning. We reduce corruption by weakening
government? You mean we're supposed to let "business" do whatever it wants
to?

[Angelotti]

On 25 mei, 19:14, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:

I will help you: In a closed system the entropy will always increase
during an irreversible proces.
If not you are (wrongly) not looking at a closed system,

[William Sommerwerck]

"Angelotti" <lind...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:63af69a2-078a-4c61...@p27g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...

> If not you are (wrongly) not looking at a closed system.

I guess, then, that my refrigerator doesn't cool the food in it.

You read the physics book, but you obviously didn't understand it.

[Angelotti]

On 25 mei, 19:41, "William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net>
wrote:
> "Angelotti" <linden...@gmail.com> wrote in message

The entropy of the kitchen (?) + refrigerator when working (I hope for
you) increases. Read the books, Maybe you will understand, but I am
begiining to doubt.
Hvdlinden

[Frank Berger]

Not weakening. Shrinking it's command over influences. Look this is not
rocket science. In the limit of concentration of power, an abolute
monarchy, the king can give every single government construction job to his
brother in law. You can have laws, and enforcement, against theft, fraud,
etc, without the government running everything.

[Christopher Webber]

On 25/05/2012 18:49, Frank Berger wrote:
> You can have laws, and enforcement, against theft, fraud, etc, without
> the government running everything.

Contradiction in terms: "government" by definition consists of these
three arms - legislature, executive AND judicial.

So if your laws are being enforced, you already have government. And the
government is totally responsible for the judicial (even, I'm told, in
the Land of the Free...)

[William Sommerwerck]

"Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:a8ednawEPtOwWyLS...@supernews.com...

You're correct, but only from a narrow perspective.

Limiting government will not, in and of itself, prevent business -- or
individuals -- from behaving unethically, immorally, or simply in ways that
aren't good for society as a whole.

And please don't tell me you don't want "elitists" dictating what is or is
not acceptable. Any two "reasonable" people, regardless of their political
persuasions, would largely agree on what is right or wrong for society.

[Kip Williams]

Frank Berger wrote:
> herman wrote:
>> On 25 mai, 01:00, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general,"
>>> like it severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees
>>> all get black lung, it gets really, really bad press. That doesn't
>>> hurt its reputation, its sales and its stockholders? Answer: It does.
>>>

>> Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to both

>> political parties at several levels and help write legislation it may
>> actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than government,
>> give its name to major performing arts centers and just continue
>> polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it happens far from
>> NYC and DC.
>
> Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
> politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful, meaning
> if the government didn't control so many damned resources, there would
> be less scope for corruption of this sort.

If government wasn't so powerful, businessmen would become ethical?

The reason government became so powerful in the first place was as a
series of reactions to various criminal enterprises, most of them by
"business."


Kip W

[Frank Berger]

No contradiction. I didn't say *no* government. My saying "without the
government is running everything" (admittedly hyperbolic)
means I accept the government is running *something*, like courts, police,
etc.

[Frank Berger]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
> "Frank Berger" <frankd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:a8ednawEPtOwWyLS...@supernews.com...
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>>>> Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to
>>>>> both political parties at several levels and help write
>>>>> legislation it may actually thrive and become, in a way, more
>>>>> powerful than government, give its name to major performing arts
>>>>> centers and just continue polluting and treating employees badly,
>>>>> as long as it happens far from NYC and DC.
>>>>
>>>> Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
>>>> politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful,
>>>> meaning if the government didn't control so many damned resources,
>>>> there would be less scope for corruption of this sort.
>>>
>>> That is utterly bass-ackwards reasoning. We reduce corruption by
>>> weakening government?
>>
>> Not weakening. Shrinking it's command over influences. Look this
>> is not rocket science. In the limit of concentration of power, an
>> abolute monarchy, the king can give every single government
>> construction job to his brother in law. You can have laws, and
>> enforcement, against theft, fraud, etc, without the government
>> running everything.
>
> You're correct, but only from a narrow perspective.
>
> Limiting government will not, in and of itself,

I didn't say it would. Are you familiar with the term "ceteris paribus?"

> prevent business -- or
> individuals -- from behaving unethically, immorally, or simply in
> ways that aren't good for society as a whole.
>
> And please don't tell me you don't want "elitists" dictating what is
> or is not acceptable. Any two "reasonable" people, regardless of
> their political persuasions, would largely agree on what is right or
> wrong for society.

You seem to not want to even understand my point. The greater the
concentration of power in the government, *everything else the same*, the
greater the possibility of corruption occuring.

[Frank Berger]

Kip Williams wrote:
> Frank Berger wrote:
>> herman wrote:
>>> On 25 mai, 01:00, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general,"
>>>> like it severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees
>>>> all get black lung, it gets really, really bad press. That doesn't
>>>> hurt its reputation, its sales and its stockholders? Answer: It
>>>> does.
>>> Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to
>>> both political parties at several levels and help write legislation
>>> it may actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than
>>> government, give its name to major performing arts centers and just
>>> continue polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it
>>> happens far from NYC and DC.
>>
>> Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
>> politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful,
>> meaning if the government didn't control so many damned resources,
>> there would be less scope for corruption of this sort.
>
> If government wasn't so powerful, businessmen would become ethical?
>

You misunderstand my point as does William. See my reply to him.

> The reason government became so powerful in the first place was as a
> series of reactions to various criminal enterprises, most of them by
> "business."
>

Really? So the main reason for social security, nationalized health care,
end the entire entitlement structure is a response to crooks?
You can't believe that.

>
> Kip W

[Kip Williams]

I don't believe you're even talking about the same things. You seem to
think that's a reply, so here's something along the same lines: Fish!
Elephant! Tractors!


Kip W

[Frank Berger]

I named three of the most expensive government intrusions into the economy.
Sorry you don't get it.

[William Sommerwerck]

> You seem to not want to even understand my point.

Cannot is more like it.

> The greater the concentration of power in the government,
> *everything else the same*, the greater the possibility of
> corruption occuring.

I don't see your reasoning. The concentration of power invites corruption
//anywhere//.

[Kip Williams]

> I named three of the most expensive government intrusions into the
> economy. Sorry you don't get it.

Hint: Military, police, prisons. Sorry, etc.


Kip W

[Kip Williams]

Actually, this might be a good place to leave off. I'm worried about
over-powerful military and such, and Frank is more concerned with big
social programs. What better illustration of two different outlooks?

"Some say the world with end in fire..."


Kip W

[Bob Harper]

The juxtaposition of Ayn Rand with the great G.K. Chesterton is just
plain bizarre.

Bob Harper

[Bob Harper]

On 5/25/12 8:49 AM, Frank Berger wrote:
> herman wrote:
>> On 25 mai, 01:00, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> If a business behaves badly enough, vis a vis "society in general,"
>>> like it severely pollutes a river or something, or it's employees
>>> all get black lung, it gets really, really bad press. That doesn't
>>> hurt its reputation, its sales and its stockholders? Answer: It does.
>>>

>> Ça depend. If this polluting company makes generous donations to both

>> political parties at several levels and help write legislation it may
>> actually thrive and become, in a way, more powerful than government,
>> give its name to major performing arts centers and just continue
>> polluting and treating employees badly, as long as it happens far from
>> NYC and DC.
>
> Then the blame in this case lies as much or more with the corrupt
> politicians, doesn't it? And if polticians weren't so powerful, meaning
> if the government didn't control so many damned resources, there would
> be less scope for corruption of this sort.

Precisely.

Bob Harper

[Kip Williams]

> The juxtaposition of Ayn Rand with the great G.K. Chesterton is just
> plain bizarre.

Thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation. I'll
certainly agree that Chesterton hides his ugly parts better, though his
digs at people he doesn't like seem to stick out more and more, the more
I read. I guess it's his racism that's most irksome, though for a long
time I was charitably calling it xenophobia, and I can't fault him
entirely for being able to rise above the prejudices of his day.

Still, it gets a bit thick.


Kip W

[Ray Hall]

Don't confuse the fascist mind with facts.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Christopher Webber]

On 25/05/2012 20:42, Frank Berger wrote:
> No contradiction. I didn't say *no* government. My saying "without the
> government is running everything" (admittedly hyperbolic)
> means I accept the government is running *something*, like courts,
> police, etc.

Can you name or define anything government (i.e. the executive part of
the triple-headed watchdog) runs *without* judicial imprimatur, from
laws and regulations passed by the legislature, added to legal
precedents from the judicial arm itself?

If you can't (which by the tripartite definition of "government you
can't) then your position is contradictory I'm afraid - quite
irrespective of making any allowance for "hyperbolic" expression, it
simply makes no sense.

[jeffc]

> And there's some book of her uncollected stuff. Various chapters cast
> off from novels and such. I don't think it included any of her
> worshipful gushing over that psychotic murderer who abducted a young
> teenaged girl and cut her body in two before propping it in a car to
> give her parents a moment of hope before finding that she'd been
> mutilated. Rand really, really admired his attitude.
>
> Kip W

I haven't come across that -- any idea where it appears?

The "weird crap" that you say filled her head was planted there by her
having lived and suffered through the Russian Revolution, WW I
and the brutally repressive decades that followed. Had she remained in
Russia, it's doubtful she would have survived.
Coming from that, she championed the uniquely American notion of the
rights of the individual and the limited role of government.
Perhaps had she chosen 'art' rather than 'business' for her plot-
lines, she might have been more appealing to the 'touchy/feely' crowd
--
though rational art couldn't survive the likes of a Margherita
Sarfatti.

Rather than trying to read Atlas on the toilet, you might want to read
her non-fiction. The Romantic Manifesto is
an excellent primer for aspiring authors. Philosophy: Who Needs It? is
available on-line

http://www.tracyfineart.com/usmc/philosophy_who_needs_it.htm

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff attempts to
place her philosophy in
the context of the history of philosophy.

A supporting volume is David Kelley's The Evidence of the Senses as
well as his excellent The Art of Reasoning.

http://www.amazon.com/David-Kelley/e/B001HCYNTE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1338027350&sr=1-1

Rand advocates for Man using his mind rather than relying on emotion/
intuition in decision making.
Hardly revolutionary.
She also argues that emotions are 'barometers' of our personal values
-- that emotions arise when our values are
tested.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html

As for the assertion that "rape is the highest expression of
idealized love" -- it's hard to call it rape when the 'victim' is
willing and creates the setting so the 'rape' can occur.
Here's an analysis:

http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=14

And for those of you who prefer video, here's the clip with Gary
Cooper and Patricia Neal from The Fountainhead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-u0w1F7qQ

Gary Cooper, a rapist? The 'heat' between Cooper and Neal is authentic
-- they were having an affair during the filming.

There are many who read Nietzsche and see it as the basis for Fascism
and there are those who think that Socialism
equates with Stalinism. Some Feminists can't read Schopenhauer and
others adore Camille Paglia. Intellectuals and
professional philosophers usually dismiss Rand, but as an author there
is no doubt she is influential -- just as
Upton Sinclair, whose works were aimed at a largely under-educated
class, encouraged the Progressive movement --
until he was defamed by the likes of Hearst, Louis B Mayer, Amadeo
Giannini (BoA) and Irving Thalberg when he
ran for governor of California in 1934. Even FDR feared that
Sinclair's victory would undermine America's 'democratic' system --
god forbid! --
and torpedoed it from afar. Animal Farm might have been more
impressive had it been written by Thomas Mann -- but not as well read.
Do we dismiss Plato because we disagree with specifics of The
Republic?

As much as you might disagree with specifics, encouraging people to
THINK is a worthy aim.

And please, if you have any interest in Rand, do NOT watch the recent
movie of Atlas Shrugged -- just awful.

[Kip Williams]

jeffc wrote:
>> And there's some book of her uncollected stuff. Various chapters cast
>> off from novels and such. I don't think it included any of her
>> worshipful gushing over that psychotic murderer who abducted a young
>> teenaged girl and cut her body in two before propping it in a car to
>> give her parents a moment of hope before finding that she'd been
>> mutilated. Rand really, really admired his attitude.
>

> I haven't come across that -- any idea where it appears?

Here's a rundown:

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2


Kip W

[jeffc]

> Here's a rundown:
> http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2
>
> Kip W

And here's a Wikipedia entry that you might find illuminating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman#cite_note-5

which has this quote from Rand:

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious
rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did,
there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and
mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these
beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously
condemning a criminal..."
Rand, Ayn (1997). Harriman, David. ed. Journals of Ayn Rand. New York:
Dutton. p. 36. ISBN 0-525-94370-6. OCLC 36566117

and

"A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more
exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested
to me."
"Renahan, which she intended to be based on Hickman, "is born with a
wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute
lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand,
because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or
importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and
he does not understand why they should."

Rand had a name for the sort of malarkey you're engaging in --
'context dropping'.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/context-dropping.html

Then there's this from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journals_of_Ayn_Rand

"In a foreword for the book, Peikoff describes Rand's journals, with a
few exceptions, as being "written for herself, for her own clarity"
and not intended for publication."

And just for a bit of 'balance', here's a section of the mission
statement for the web page you found this hatchet job on:

"STRATEGIC JOURNALISM
AlterNet has developed a unique model of journalism to confront the
failures of corporate media, as well as the vitriol and disinformation
of right wing media, especially “hate talk” media.
Not only do we keep our readers highly informed on a wide array of
topics, from hundreds of experts and sources, but we also provide
laser focus on the most compelling issues of the day. We offer our
readers comprehensive information, a positive vision for the future,
and concrete action steps towards change. AlterNet believes that media
must have a higher purpose beyond the essential goal of keeping people
informed. We insist on playing an active role in helping our community
funnel its energy into change."

http://blogs.alternet.org/about/

Talk about " vitriol and disinformation"... I guess it's just as
prevalent on the 'left'.

"We insist on playing an active role in helping our community funnel
its energy into change."

As I wrote earlier: As much as you might disagree with specifics,

encouraging people to
THINK is a worthy aim.

Alertnet seems to want to do the thinking for its readers -- and then
funnel 'energy' into activity -- like encouraging a lynch mob.

In her own words:
"Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that
may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may
sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man
may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical
force against others."

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html

So which are you, a moocher or a looter? From your choice of reading
matter, I'd guess the former -- but that can change on a dime, once
your energy has been properly funneled. The last paragraph of the
article you cited is chilling:

"The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you
protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out,
make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-
groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere."

Your USA -- love it or burn 'em at the stake.

[Kip Williams]

jeffc wrote:
>> Here's a rundown:
>> http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2
>

> And here's a Wikipedia entry that you might find illuminating:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman#cite_note-5
>
> which has this quote from Rand:
>
> "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious
> rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did,
> there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and
> mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these
> beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously
> condemning a criminal..."
> Rand, Ayn (1997). Harriman, David. ed. Journals of Ayn Rand. New York:
> Dutton. p. 36. ISBN 0-525-94370-6. OCLC 36566117
>
> and
>
> "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more
> exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested
> to me."

But she still saves her indignation for anybody upset that a man might
abduct a pre-teen, collect ransom, and gratuitously kill her anyway.
Because he's still better than those common louts.

> "Renahan, which she intended to be based on Hickman, "is born with a
> wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute
> lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand,
> because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or
> importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and
> he does not understand why they should."
>
> Rand had a name for the sort of malarkey you're engaging in --
> 'context dropping'.

And yours: "Justifying the unjustifiable."

> http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/context-dropping.html
>
> Then there's this from
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journals_of_Ayn_Rand
>
> "In a foreword for the book, Peikoff describes Rand's journals, with a
> few exceptions, as being "written for herself, for her own clarity"
> and not intended for publication."
>
> And just for a bit of 'balance', here's a section of the mission
> statement for the web page you found this hatchet job on:
>
> "STRATEGIC JOURNALISM
> AlterNet has developed a unique model of journalism to confront the
> failures of corporate media, as well as the vitriol and disinformation
> of right wing media, especially “hate talk” media.
> Not only do we keep our readers highly informed on a wide array of
> topics, from hundreds of experts and sources, but we also provide
> laser focus on the most compelling issues of the day. We offer our
> readers comprehensive information, a positive vision for the future,
> and concrete action steps towards change. AlterNet believes that media
> must have a higher purpose beyond the essential goal of keeping people
> informed. We insist on playing an active role in helping our community
> funnel its energy into change."
>
> http://blogs.alternet.org/about/
>
> Talk about " vitriol and disinformation"... I guess it's just as
> prevalent on the 'left'.

Yeah, far be it from anybody to challenge hate talk. Why, the only real
prejudice is the horrid hatred of bigots.

There's nothing wrong in the paragraph you quote with such disdain.

> "We insist on playing an active role in helping our community funnel
> its energy into change."
>
> As I wrote earlier: As much as you might disagree with specifics,
> encouraging people to
> THINK is a worthy aim.
>
> Alertnet seems to want to do the thinking for its readers -- and then
> funnel 'energy' into activity -- like encouraging a lynch mob.

"Seems"? Not to me. The fact it does to you is interesting.

> In her own words:
> "Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that
> may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may
> sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man
> may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical
> force against others."
>
> http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html

Good thing a teenage girl isn't a man, so we can kill her and rob them
without feeling like we've crossed some sort of line into really bad
behavior, like morally judging a psychotic who slays for money.

> So which are you, a moocher or a looter? From your choice of reading
> matter, I'd guess the former -- but that can change on a dime, once
> your energy has been properly funneled. The last paragraph of the
> article you cited is chilling:

Moocher or looter! Toss those secondhand words around freely. They're
not the sort of labels you think they are, but their use is an indicator
of who I'm talking to here, and where the stuff in your head is coming from.

> "The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you
> protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out,
> make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-
> groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere."
>
> Your USA -- love it or burn 'em at the stake.

You forgot the jackbooted thugs in your inane attempt to deflect
opprobrium from a murderer's groupie to me for daring to dislike his act
and her adoration.

I don't say this lightly, but your idea of virtue is apalling, and your
idea of what is reprehensible is apparently a kneejerk reaction to
anybody who says a word against your wretched little heroine.


Kip W

[herman]

On 27 mai, 11:58, jeffc <jeffc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Here's a rundown:
> >http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2
>
> > Kip W
>
> And here's a Wikipedia entry that you might find illuminating:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hickman#cite_note-5
>
> which has this quote from Rand:
>
> "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious
> rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did,
> there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and
> mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these
> beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously
> condemning a criminal..."
> Rand, Ayn (1997). Harriman, David. ed. Journals of Ayn Rand. New York:
> Dutton. p. 36. ISBN 0-525-94370-6. OCLC 36566117
>

Are you quoting this because you agree?

Admittedly mass moral indignation isn't a pretty spectacle, often, but
Rand's suggestion that everybody else has "worse sins and crimes in
their own lives" than a guy who abducts a teen, collects ransom and
then kills and dismembers her is a little puzzling to say the least.

[Bob Harper]

(snip)
I find the notion that capitalists are psychopaths risible at best.
However, with respect to the unlamented Mr. Hickman, I note with
interest that the young woman was kidnapped on December 15, 1927. Mr.
Hickman was convicted in February, 1928, and after his appeal to the
California Supreme Court (on grounds of insanity) was rejected, he was
hanged on October 19, 1928. Swift and certain justice, lamentably
missing from today's jurisprudence in too many instances.

Bob Harper

[John Wiser]

"Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:IMvwr.60149$xK2....@en-nntp-11.dc1.easynews.com...

Except in Texas of course.

JDW

[Bob Harper]

And your point? Or perhaps there's none?

Bob Harper

[John Wiser]

"Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message

news:onxwr.373599$Xo4.2...@en-nntp-13.dc1.easynews.com...

The point will be invisible to a sanctimonious creep
whose thoughts appear to be confined to bumper-sticker slogans.
Others will have no such difficulty finding a point.

JDW

[Bob Harper]

On 5/27/12 5:25 PM, John Wiser wrote:
> "Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:onxwr.373599$Xo4.2...@en-nntp-13.dc1.easynews.com...
>> On 5/27/12 2:14 PM, John Wiser wrote:
>>> "Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>> news:IMvwr.60149$xK2....@en-nntp-11.dc1.easynews.com...
>>>> (snip)
>>>> I find the notion that capitalists are psychopaths risible at best.
>>>> However, with respect to the unlamented Mr. Hickman, I note with
>>>> interest that the young woman was kidnapped on December 15, 1927. Mr.
>>>> Hickman was convicted in February, 1928, and after his appeal to the
>>>> California Supreme Court (on grounds of insanity) was rejected, he was
>>>> hanged on October 19, 1928. Swift and certain justice, lamentably
>>>> missing from today's jurisprudence in too many instances.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Except in Texas of course.
>>>
>>> JDW
>>
>> And your point? Or perhaps there's none?
>>
>
> The point will be invisible to a sanctimonious creep
> whose thoughts appear to be confined to bumper-sticker slogans.
> Others will have no such difficulty finding a point.
>
> JDW

The average time on death row before execution in Texas is 10.26 years
http://voices.yahoo.com/how-long-does-inmate-spend-death-row-484365.html.

While there are problems with the death penalty (and I would note that I
oppose it in almost all cases), this is hardly comparable to the
experience of Mr. Hickman.

I'll leave the sanctimony to you.

Bob Harper

[jeffc]

So which are you, a moocher or a looter?

>Moocher or looter! Toss those secondhand words around freely. They're
>not the sort of labels you think they are, but their use is an indicator
>of who I'm talking to here, and where the stuff in your head is coming from.

>Kip W

And shall we assume that what's in your head comes from Mark Ames?
Do you know anything about Mr. Ames?

Here are some of his statements -- taken out of context (just the way
you like 'em) along with some observations by others:

>"The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you
> protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out,
> make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-
> groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere."

http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer/

"In The eXile, Ames wrote on such topics as politics, organized crime
in Russia, prostitution, and drug use. The paper played practical
jokes on Pravda staffers and public figures including Mikhail
Gorbachev. Chicago Reader contributor Martha Bayne wrote that, "Most
notably, the Exile nurtures a peculiarly vicious and schizoid attitude
toward women". Bayne notes a segment in his 2000 book where Ames
describes becoming aroused when he heard a Russian girl was 15 instead
of 16: "Right then my pervometer needle hit the red. I had to have
her, even if she was homely... Her cunt was as tight as a cat's
ass....I'd slept with mothers before--they're a lot wider."
Martha Bayne
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/beast-in-the-east/Content?oid=902762

"When confronted with this denial, Mark Ames, an editor of Exile, e-
mailed that the piece had been written in five minutes from a hotel
room in California, and was intended as “throwaway satire” to fill
space. “Americans are the most gullible fucking morons on Planet
Earth,” he snarled."

http://atlnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/you-lyin-bastard-you-got-busted-now.html

"Because if you're really who you say you are, a lawyer-type guy, and
Adam Levine seriously wants us to issue a formal retraction of satire,
then how can we run around believing in a God? It's like, first Jerry
Falwell died, which we never thought possible, and now your lawsuit
threat is just so retro-People-vs.-Larry-Flynt, it almost feels like
the spirit of Falwell never left us. Hey, wait a minute, that could be
a good thing. After all, Flynt is our hero: the guy's a big fat fuck
in a wheelchair, and yet he gets more snapper in a day than we smell
in a lifetime."

Spencer Morgan
http://observer.com/2007/08/maroon-5s-adam-levine-threatens-lawsuit-over-sharapova-gossip/

""People in France know how to live! In America they've forgotten all
about it...the American culture is a disaster. I am charmed by the
French way of life. It is more civilized and sophisticated."

Mark Ames
http://jezebel.com/292129/meet-mark-ames-hater-of-adam-levine-and-sufferer-of-johnny-depp-complex

"All of the young reactionary intellectuals I knew when I was younger
eventually came around to a similar epiphany. At some point, it just
couldn’t be ignored: These people were scum; mean, sleazy, boring
scum. It became impossible to be near them. They–we–dropped out of the
Right, and wanted nothing more to do with it all. But by ruining
everything in this country–economically, culturally, intellectually,
militarily–the Right essentially chased us wherever we went, poisoning
everything they could get their hands on. Until finally there was
nowhere to go but Leftward. A hardened, mean Left.
Either get the Republican lobotomy (just look at poor P.J. O’Rourke),
or go Left: those are the only choices in this country today."

Mark Ames
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/mark-ames-why-the-american-right-never-liked-v-s-naipaul.html

So now it's clear "where the stuff in YOUR head is coming from."

Hickman's defense was on grounds of insanity...what's yours, Kip?

Ames couldn't be bothered to examine the actual Journal entries. Just
as Kip can't look beyond Ames' rant.

There are 20 pages of entries that deal with notes for "The Little
Street" in The Journals of Ayn Rand.

Here are some Rand's observations.

Under the heading 'The Hickman Case':

"...[T]he first thing that impresses me about the case is the
ferocious rage of the whole society against one man. No matter what

the man did, there is always something loathsome in the "virtuous"

indignation and mass hatred of the "majority". One
always feels the stuffy, bloodthirsty emotion of a mob in any great
public feeling of a large number of humans. It is
repulsive to see all those beings with worse sins and crimes in their
own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal, proud and secure
in their numbers, yelling furiously in defense of society.

This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime
alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case
of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been
committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all
laws of humanity and intended it that way; that he does not want to
recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the
amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society
holds sacred and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really
stands alone, in action and in soul.

A mob's feeling of omnipotence is its most jealously guarded
possession and therefore a dangerous thing to wound. The mob can
forgive any insult or crime except one: [the act of] challenging its
ultimate power. It can forgive a criminal who erred, but is just one
of
itself, i.e., has the same soul and ideas and bends to the same gods.
But to see a man who has freed himself from it entirely, who has
nothing in common with it, a man who does not need it and who openly
disdains it -- this is the one crime a mob can never forgive.

It seems to me that the mob is more jealous to possess a man's soul
than his body. It is the spiritual despotism that is so dear to it.
It
does not care whether it [physically] possesses a man, as long as the
man acknowledges to himself that he belongs to it. It cannot stand to
see a man who does not belong and knows it. That tyrannical monster,
the mob, feels the helpless fury of impotence in the presence of the
one
thing beyond its power, that it cannot conquer, the only thing that
counts -- a man's own soul and consciousness. And when the mob sees
one
of these rare, free, clear spirits, over which it has no control --
then we have the [spectacle] of a roaring, passionate public hatred.

Worse crimes than this have been committed. Not one has ever raised
such furious indignation. Why? Because of the man who committed
the crime and not because of the crime he has committed. Because of
Hickman's brazenly challenging attitude.

[It can be seen in] his strange letters, which are a little
theatrically melodramatic, but so boastful and self-confident, e.g,:
"If you want help
against me, ask God, not men," signed "The Fox" [It can be seen in]
his utter remorselessness; his pride in his criminal career and in
things
that are considered a "disgrace"; his boasting of more and more crimes
and his open joy at shocking people, instead of trying to implore
their sympathy; his utter lack of anything that is considered
"virtue"; his strength, as shown in his unprecedented conduct during
the trial and
sentencing; his calm, superior, indifferent disdainful countenance,
which is like an open challenge to society -- shouting to it that it
cannot
break him; his immense, explicit egoism -- a thing the mob never
forgives; and his cleverness, which makes the mob feel that a superior
mind can exist entirely outside of its established morals.

No: [the reaction to] this case is not moral indignation at a terrible
crime. It is the mob's murderous desire to revenge its hurt vanity
against
a man who dared to be alone. It is a case of "we" against "him".

Rand, Ayn (1997). Harriman, David. ed. Journals of Ayn Rand. New York:

Dutton. p. 36-37. ISBN 0-525-94370-6. OCLC 36566117

"This is not just the case of a terrible crime." -- TERRIBLE CRIME!
-- I guess that's insufficient to placate the mob that Ames
seeks to incite -- or for Kim W to accept. But that would require
THINKING -- and since Rand advocated it, it becomes anathema.
How do ya' FEEL about that?.

[SPAM- @xs4all.nl HvT]

jeffc wrote:

> "This is not just the case of a terrible crime." -- TERRIBLE CRIME!
> -- I guess that's insufficient to placate the mob that Ames
> seeks to incite -- or for Kim W to accept. But that would require
> THINKING -- and since Rand advocated it, it becomes anathema.
> How do ya' FEEL about that?

After some google-ing I cannot help admiring Rand's stand in the matter of
Hickman. She had the courage to be politically incorrect and to face the
outrage of the crowd. In that sense she lived as she preached. I prefer this
to Sartre's affair with communism, in full knowledge that he had the support
of the French intellectual elite of his days.Rand may have believed in the
nobility of one criminal mind,Sartre believed in the nobility of a criminal
regime.

Henk

[Kip Williams]

jeffc wrote:
> So which are you, a moocher or a looter?
>
>> Moocher or looter! Toss those secondhand words around freely. They're
>> not the sort of labels you think they are, but their use is an indicator
>> of who I'm talking to here, and where the stuff in your head is coming from.
>

> And shall we assume that what's in your head comes from Mark Ames?
> Do you know anything about Mr. Ames?
>
> Here are some of his statements -- taken out of context (just the way
> you like 'em) along with some observations by others:

[snip]

I see I underestimated you. You possess the hardy self-reliance to copy
and paste walls of predigested text. My respect for you just doubled.
No, tripled.


Kip W

("I guess that's insufficient to placate the mob that Ames

seeks to incite -- or for Kim W to accept."

Hey, Einstein! My name's right on the message.)

[Gerard]

Kip Williams <mrk...@gmail.com> typed:

> My respect for you just
> doubled. No, tripled.
>

Doesn't matter if you have zero.

[John Wiser]

"Gerard" <ghendriks...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2b387$4fc665cb$5356543a$49...@cache100.multikabel.net...

A fine restatement of the obvious, Scheißkopf.
This may be your métier.
Preserve it with with care.

JDW

[jeffc]

> I see I underestimated you. You possess the hardy self-reliance to copy
> and paste walls of predigested text. My respect for you just doubled.
> No, tripled.
> Kip W
> ("I guess that's insufficient to placate the mob that Ames
> seeks to incite -- or for Kim W to accept."
> Hey, Einstein! My name's right on the message.)

My apologies for the typo that turned you from Kip to Kim.
As for your response, perhaps you're not aware of 'argumentum ad
hominem' --
an informal fallacy and an irrelevance.
As for the cutting and pasting, the quoted portions of the Journals
were typed in; I went
to the trouble because I thought it might be instructive to provide
actual text rather
than Mr Ames' misrepresentation...or your regurgitation of it.

> And there's some book of her uncollected stuff. Various chapters cast
> off from novels and such. I don't think it included any of her
> worshipful gushing over that psychotic murderer who abducted a young
> teenaged girl and cut her body in two before propping it in a car to
> give her parents a moment of hope before finding that she'd been
> mutilated. Rand really, really admired his attitude.

> Kip W

>Here's a rundown:
>http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2

>Kip W

"Logic is man’s method of reaching conclusions objectively by deriving
them without contradiction from the facts of reality—ultimately, from
the evidence provided by man’s senses. If men reject logic, then the
tie between their mental processes and reality is severed; all
cognitive standards are repudiated, and anything goes; any
contradiction, on any subject, may be endorsed (and simultaneously
rejected) by anyone, as and when he feels like it."
Ayn Rand. “Philosophical Detection,” Philosophy: Who Needs It.; Signet
Paperback. New York. 1984. p.15

[herman]

So, say you're going to make an omelette.

Do you first check Ayn Rand how she feels about omelettes, and how
they're cooked?

[Kip Williams]

herman wrote:
> On 31 mai, 11:34, jeffc<jeffc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I see I underestimated you. You possess the hardy self-reliance to copy
>>> and paste walls of predigested text. My respect for you just doubled.
>>> No, tripled.

>>> ("I guess that's insufficient to placate the mob that Ames
>>> seeks to incite -- or for Kim W to accept."
>>> Hey, Einstein! My name's right on the message.)
>>
>> My apologies for the typo that turned you from Kip to Kim.
>> As for your response, perhaps you're not aware of 'argumentum ad
>> hominem' --
>> an informal fallacy and an irrelevance.

Like calling somebody a "moocher" or a "looter," eh?

>> As for the cutting and pasting, the quoted portions of the Journals
>> were typed in; I went
>> to the trouble because I thought it might be instructive to provide
>> actual text rather
>> than Mr Ames' misrepresentation...or your regurgitation of it.

I was regurgitating some facts. This Ames person seems to be your
particular bogeyman. I don't know who it is.

>>> And there's some book of her uncollected stuff. Various chapters cast
>>> off from novels and such. I don't think it included any of her
>>> worshipful gushing over that psychotic murderer who abducted a young
>>> teenaged girl and cut her body in two before propping it in a car to
>>> give her parents a moment of hope before finding that she'd been
>>> mutilated. Rand really, really admired his attitude.

>>> Here's a rundown:
>>> http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/?page=2
>>

>> "Logic is man’s method of reaching conclusions objectively by deriving
>> them without contradiction from the facts of reality—ultimately, from
>> the evidence provided by man’s senses. If men reject logic, then the
>> tie between their mental processes and reality is severed; all
>> cognitive standards are repudiated, and anything goes; any
>> contradiction, on any subject, may be endorsed (and simultaneously
>> rejected) by anyone, as and when he feels like it."
>> Ayn Rand. “Philosophical Detection,” Philosophy: Who Needs It.; Signet
>> Paperback. New York. 1984. p.15

You can no longer accuse me of not having read the divinely inspired
words of your third-rate prophet, so now you're trying to impugn me with
any other method you can lay your hand to. Just go declare victory in
your diary.

> So, say you're going to make an omelette.
>
> Do you first check Ayn Rand how she feels about omelettes, and how
> they're cooked?

No, he goes to a web site that gives him reams of stuff to copy and
paste to blame someone else for how the omelet came out. If he's really
feeling ambitious, he'll add a paragraph of his own with some additional
insults in it.

As far as I can tell, he's posted more times about Ayn Rand (in this
thread) than he has posted on all other topics put together, but perhaps
my reader isn't keeping them all.


Kip W

[laraine]

On May 25, 2:46 pm, "Frank Berger" <frankdber...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > If government wasn't so powerful, businessmen would become ethical?
>
> You  misunderstand my point as does William. See my reply to him.
>
> > The reason government became so powerful in the first place was as a
> > series of reactions to various criminal enterprises, most of them by
> > "business."
>
> Really?  So the main reason for social security, nationalized health care,
> end the entire entitlement structure is a response to crooks?
> You can't believe that.
>

Maybe not so much the fault of business,
but I believe that the risks people were taking
in the stock market certainly contributed to the
Great Depression and the subsequent poverty,
which helped lead to social security in the US
anyway, and could lead to some nationalized
health care here.

And now there is objection to risky bank
practices as well, and high umbrella'd
salaries of CEOs. Actually, was just
watching the film 'Wall Street', and a lot
of this is nothing new, it seems.

C.

[Frank Berger]

Except that people of my ilk don't believe that *any* of that contributes
significantly to changes in real economic activity. The Depression was not
caused by the stock market crash of 1929. It was caused by Congress passing
the Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation that shrunk international trade and the
Federal Reserve innapropriately reducing the money supply.

I don't disagree that the Depression experience led to an increase in social
nets. The Federal Reserve was created in response to and intended to
counter financial crises. It's not clear that it has worked. Just because
Congress reacts to a crisis is no reason to think the response is
appropriate in type or scale.

[Rich]

FB wrote:

.  The Depression was not
> caused by the stock market crash of 1929.  It was caused by Congress passing
> the Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation that shrunk international trade and the
> Federal Reserve innapropriately reducing the money supply.
>

I agree that the Great Depression was not caused by the orgy of stock
speculation in the US. But I do not think one can find a single cause
for the GD either. An interesting analysis of the GD can be found in
the Memoirs of Herbert Hoover:

"
They(Federal Reserve) asserted that, by the control of discount
rates, open market
operations, and currency issues, business crises could be eliminated.
They
contended that raising rediscount rates and restriction of credit
through the sale
of government securities by the Reserve Banks ("open market
operations")
would curb all speculation, and that the opposite actions by the
Reserve Banks
would stimulate business activity.

A few of their expressions were:
We shall have no more financial panics. . . . Panics are
impossible. . . . Business men
can now proceed in perfect confidence that they will no longer put
their property in peril. .
. . Now the business man may work out his destiny without living in
terror of panic and
hard times. . . . Panics in the future are unthinkable. . . . Never
again can panic come to the
American people.
A contribution to optimism and the belief in the "New Era" was the
illusion
that the economic system was thus completely immune from financial
crises.
Bankers, accepting this illusion, neglected many of their own
responsibilities."

Rich

[Bob Harper]

Indeed, it's just as likely the law of *unintended* consequences will
overwhelm said good intentions.

Bob Harper

[jeffc]

> Do you first check Ayn Rand how she feels about omelettes, and how
> they're cooked?

No, when it comes to omelettes I read Julia Child.

[laraine]

Ideally, no one would ever have to pay
back debts.

It seems that as soon as something goes
wrong, and someone needs a repayment,
and the repayment can't be made, then the
problems start, whether it be stock problems,
or WWI debts...

And I wonder why Hoover went ahead with
the Smoot-Hawley tariff even though so
many economists at the time advised
against it. Guess that money was needed..
or maybe it was an emotional decision too.

C.

[laraine]

I should add "or everyone could pay back
all debts".

C.

[Bob Harper]

Great.....for debtors!

>
> It seems that as soon as something goes
> wrong, and someone needs a repayment,
> and the repayment can't be made, then the
> problems start, whether it be stock problems,
> or WWI debts...
>
> And I wonder why Hoover went ahead with
> the Smoot-Hawley tariff even though so
> many economists at the time advised
> against it. Guess that money was needed..
> or maybe it was an emotional decision too.
>
> C.

No, it was a political decision, and one of the worst ever made by an
American president. Herbert Hoover was a great humanitarian, but in
economics he was a fool.

Bob Harper