Ayn Rand paradigm challenged
Ian Goddard
The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant,
has a column in the Washington Post magazine Parade
called "Ask Marilyn." A recent question was if she
agreed that "the purpose of life is to undertake
a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy." She
concludes that the only argument supporting
that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
==================================================
Washington Post PARADE, 7/30/00, page 11
ASK MARILYN
By Marilyn Vos Savant
QUESTION: Humans have long questioned the purpose
of their existence. However, I believe the answer
to this supposed eternal dilemma is relatively
simplistic: The purpose of life is to undertake
a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy. Anything
and everything an individual does--in the long
term--is solely for this purpose. Would you agree?
MARILYN: ... you seem to be answering the question,
"Toward what goal do all humans aim?" In defense
of your answer, you could argue that even apparently
altruistic behavior is still undertaken to give
oneself pleasure. As an example, consider the case
of Mother Teresa: You could suggest that relieving
the suffering of India's poorest people made Mother
Teresa happy herself, and that's why she undertook
to do so. In short, you could argue that any chosen
behavior, just by the fact that it is chosen,
indicates a selfish endeavor. But this is based on
a logical fallacy called petitio principii (better
known as "begging the question"), a circular argument
in which the conclusion also appears as an assumption.
I can't find any other defense of your answer, so I
can't agree with it.
=====================================================
IAN: It seems to follow from Savant's answer that
the goal toward which all humans aim is NOT selfish
endeavor to make oneself happy. Where's the evidence?
What people act with intent not to satisfy themselves?
Even someone marching along at gunpoint follows orders
because it satisfies them not to be shot for resistance.
Even someone killing themselves has concluded that death
would be more satisfactory of them than life, it's even
said by some that suicide is selfish. People engage in
charitable behavior because it satisfies them and they
earn social rewards for noble action. Even a masochist
who acts to hurt himself finds satisfaction in such.
If I and three others are starving to death in the
arctic and I kill myself so the others can eat me,
I did so because it satisfied me to help them.
If no human action is selfless, how is Savant right?
If self-satisfaction is not the goal toward which all
humans aim, then what is the goal of all human action?
It seems to me that what Savant claims to be a logical
fallacy is in fact an inherent truism of human action.
If it isn't a truism, then please identify an action
and/or goal of a self that is truly 100% selfless.
Seems to me that identifying such is impossible.
------------------------------------------------------------
GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
____________________________________________________________
Asking the "wrong questions," challenging the Official Story
Olive Matthews
The reality and the IQ of Marilyn Vos Savant (sic) are irrelevant. What is
relevant is that "Savant"
is pointing out that regardless of the fact that any human action can always
be interpreted such that it was done with the intention of making the actor
happy has nothing to do with whether that act may be said to be "egoistic",
"altruistic", or whatever. Whatever turns you on man, that's why you do
it. To insist that it is "egoistic" in Rand's strained and convoluted
sense, is, as Ms Savant observes, to beg the question. Get it? The
medieval logic you awkwardly try to employ will not get you into the
twenty-first century.
Your Junk Yard Dog
"Ian Goddard" <igod...@erols.mom> wrote in message
news:39872550...@news.erols.com...
Corey Garriott
For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude in
any meaningful way contributes to her happiness. Teresa believed what she
was doing was right and it probably brought her pleasure in the same way
that an alcoholic believes that alcohol is right and it brings him pleasure.
But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use.
We're not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good
doesn't always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest.
Pleasure is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results
only from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no
servitude.
--Corey Garriott / co...@dissension.com / www.dissension.com
"I'm frustrated by your apathy" -- Alanis Morisette
Ian Goddard
<omat...@kscable.com> wrote:
>Dear Ian:
>
>The reality and the IQ of Marilyn Vos Savant (sic) are irrelevant. What is
>relevant is that "Savant"
>is pointing out that regardless of the fact that any human action can always
>be interpreted such that it was done with the intention of making the actor
>happy has nothing to do with whether that act may be said to be "egoistic",
>"altruistic", or whatever. Whatever turns you on man, that's why you do
>it. To insist that it is "egoistic" in Rand's strained and convoluted
>sense, is, as Ms Savant observes, to beg the question. Get it? The
>medieval logic you awkwardly try to employ will not get you into the
>twenty-first century.
IAN: The question is "Toward what goal do all humans aim?"
The answer under examination is "To undertake a selfish
endeavor to make oneself happy." About that answer Savant
said "I can't agree with it," and the reason she cannot
is because that answer is based on "a logical fallacy."
I read this to mean that the goal of all humans is not
to undertake a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy.
I don't see any evidence to support that conclusion,
but I do see evidence to support "the selfish rule."
Lee
--
There are two sides to every issue:
One seeks freedom for itself.
One seeks to limit the freedom of others.
"Ian Goddard" <igod...@erols.mom> wrote in message
news:398749cf...@news.erols.com...
: On Tue, 01 Aug 2000 20:51:00 GMT, "Olive Matthews"
:
What "logical fallacy"? It seems to me that Marylin is wrong
on this one (she's not infallible, after all). Everyone acts out
of the selfish desire to be happy. What differs among individuals
is WHAT MAKES THEM HAPPY. Ruling the world would have
made Hitler happy. Helping the poor made Mother Teresa happy.
They had the same motivation. Whenever someone foregoes
something that they "want", it is because they want something else
even more. That "something else" might be no more than the
satisfaction of believing that he "did the right thing" by his action;
but to him, THAT was the greater gain.
James Hunter
Lee wrote:
Since Hilter was pretty close too insane most of his life,
saying that something would have made him happy is itself
a logical fallacy.
Lee
in the "subject headers" JD appears to be responding
to MY comment when he is, in fact, responding
to Ian Goddard? Thanks, Lee
--
There are two sides to every issue:
One seeks freedom for itself.
One seeks to limit the freedom of others.
<jddescr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8m7qkc$oj2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
: In article <39872550...@news.erols.com>,
: igod...@erols.mom (Ian Goddard) wrote:
: >
: > The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant,
: > has a column in the Washington Post magazine Parade
: > called "Ask Marilyn." A recent question was if she
: > agreed that "the purpose of life is to undertake
: > a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy." She
: > concludes that the only argument supporting
: > that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
: >
: > ==================================================
:
: It's a poorly stated question however smart the Savant
: may be. It's only nihilists, post modern philosophers,
: and other pretenders who aren't pursueing happiness as
: the American DECLARATION tell us. The question that
: separates the escapists from life and the king's greedy
: and the rational free people is the time scale of the
: life values involved in their happiness. Thus the king's
: greedy like hitler socialists chose theft and killing to
: maximize their happiness. The Ayn Rand Theory [ART]
: teaches us that they were wrong and didn't achieve it
: inspite of their vast socialist loot but it still was
: their intent whatever they said. How do the life decisions
: evolve over a life time of LOL [Love Of Life] within each
: individuals SOUL [Self Ownership of yoUr LIfe]? These free
: people patterns answer the question when well stated.
:
: Good seeing. JD
:
: --------------------------------------------------------------------
:
:
: Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
: Before you buy.
James Hunter
Ian Goddard wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 17:33:28 -0400, "Corey Garriott"
> <co...@dissension.com> wrote:
>
> >She is correct; all behavior is not selfish.
> >
> >For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
> >breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude in
> >any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
>
> IAN: If we dragged Mother Teresa away from her
> mission and forced her to live the high life,
> it stands to reason she'd want to return to the
> life she's chosen, since it satisfies her values.
>
> >But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use.
>
> IAN: The strongest case against drug addition
> is that it could impair your overall pleasure.
>
> >We're not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good
> >doesn't always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest.
> >Pleasure is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results
> >only from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no
> >servitude.
>
> IAN: It might give pleasure to have unlimited
> unsafe sex, but most people know they might
> get a disease, which would be unpleasurable.
> I expect people sacrifice pleasure only to
> ensure a more-valued variety of pleasure,
> such as the pleasure of not suffering.
I don't think so. Most people will assume that they should check
whether or not the sex partner is an Ayn Rand clone first.
Ayn Rand clones are usually sufficient to guarantee male abstinence.
jddescr...@my-deja.com
Ian Goddard
<co...@dissension.com> wrote:
>She is correct; all behavior is not selfish.
>
>For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
>breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude in
>any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
IAN: If we dragged Mother Teresa away from her
mission and forced her to live the high life,
it stands to reason she'd want to return to the
life she's chosen, since it satisfies her values.
>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use.
IAN: The strongest case against drug addition
is that it could impair your overall pleasure.
>We're not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good
>doesn't always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest.
>Pleasure is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results
>only from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no
>servitude.
IAN: It might give pleasure to have unlimited
unsafe sex, but most people know they might
get a disease, which would be unpleasurable.
I expect people sacrifice pleasure only to
ensure a more-valued variety of pleasure,
such as the pleasure of not suffering.
PAC
"Ian Goddard" <igod...@erols.mom> wrote in message
Interesting argument by Marilyn, but now that we're all picking her (>; a
minor point of her assumption of the avoidance of circular reasonings is
in-itself faulty mainly being that she fails to mention the differences
between common ground and circular reasonings - differences that often
dissipate objections against circular arguments. For instance, a
mathematical proof is circular to a certain degree because it uses only
mathematical equations.
The idea that a "selfishness" argument cannot be used in her statement as
"In short, you could argue that any chosen behavior, just by the fact that
it is chosen, indicates a selfish endeavor" is more (even if these terms
have to be expanded out to avoid repetition) the case of interpreting what
"selfish" and "chosen" means in the above context rather than in complaining
about its circularities.
More likely to the point, the foundational aspects of our personalities as
free individuals would be more better served by the above statement because
to "choose" is what we are at the most bottom foundation, which then
presents less a circular reasoning and more a base statement that what we
want most is to decide what is right or wrong in the freedom of our own
natures, even if this is relatively achieved, rather than saying that
someone else should decide right or wrong or what is considered altruistic
for the individual.
Again, the term "selfishness" has to be further explained as to what it
means in this context. "Selfishness" taken as our own persona's right to
decide what is good or bad according to the freedom of our own natures in
themselves and in relation to the world; is always going to be argued as the
right supposition - for the foundational reasons as mentioned above, but
selfishness defined as following only those desires that represent the most
superficial aspects of our humanity, should be considered as something that
should not be followed.
Also, in that our empathetic natures see others in ourselves so as best to
treat those recognized as ourselves the way that we would want to treat
ourselves - in the swellness of circularity that is selfishness that is. In
one concrete representation, as Ian pointed out, to say that drug use is an
example of "selfishness" is not looking at the full implication, which would
be that drug use is eventually harmful to the persona and to others by
themselves and in relation to others, therefore, in the long run, bad for
the self as also defined by the mass of the populace (as defining common
interpretations of altruism) in their own relative views of selfishness.
Our own selfishness as representing our own relativity of choices probably
will synch, eventually (in my opinion), with the common representation of
the larger good out there both as represented by all constituent people and
by the real outside reality that defines us in relation to the world.
Elf Sternberg
"Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
>For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
>breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
>servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
Assuming, of course, that Teresa actually lived in the
"self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
surgeons in the world.
Ah, "poverty." How does it feel to have swallowed a story
spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
>use.
And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, let's
face it. Do you know that 60% of the "private industries" funding all
those public service announcements about "This is your brain on Drugs"
are pharmaceutical manufacturers, and another 12% is provided by Coke
and Pepsi corps? These people aren't engaged in a war on drugs--
they're engaged in a war on drugs that would compete with their
products, like Prozac, Zanax, and popular forms of caffeine.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
"The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure
reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little pratice, writing can
be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" - Bill Watterson's Calvin.
jimmy adams
writes
>In article <soegd9...@corp.supernews.com>
> "Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
>
>>For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
>>breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
>>servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
>
> Assuming, of course, that Teresa actually lived in the
>"self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
>party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
>she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
>and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
>dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
>to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
>surgeons in the world.
>
> Ah, "poverty." How does it feel to have swallowed a story
>spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
>machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
>
>>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
>>use.
>
false, assertion.
Whilst happiness and pleasure are not synonymous, pleasure is unlikely
to make us unhappy, and generally, therefore, may be expected to be "in
one's interest".
Pleasure may be attained in a myriad different ways, including eating
and sex and swimming and seeing our children do well ....
But drug use? OK, I drink alcohol, but I find its classification as a
drug misleading. I drink wine (almost exclusively) for the gustatory
pleasure, not to get pissed. You have to drink a lot to become disabled,
and I do not drink more than the Government recommends.
The *purpose* of most drug-drugs is to disable you almost immediately,
to take you mentally out of your everyday world. Some get pleasure out
of it, many get ill and some die as a result. Hardly "in one's
interest"!
--
jra...@bigfoot.com
PAC
"jimmy adams" <ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uutBIMA$BHi5...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk...
> In article <8m9i0m$ee0$1...@brokaw.wa.com>, Elf Sternberg <e...@halcyon.com>
> writes
> >In article <soegd9...@corp.supernews.com>
> > "Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
> >
> >>For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
> >>breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
> >>servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
> >
> > Assuming, of course, that Teresa actually lived in the
> >"self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
> >party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
> >she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
> >and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
> >dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
> >to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
> >surgeons in the world.
> >
> > Ah, "poverty." How does it feel to have swallowed a story
> >spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
> >machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
> >
> >>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
> >>use.
> >
> I'm amazed that no-one has yet challenged this (to me) amazing, and
> false, assertion.
Actually, a few people have already caught this, but the other argument
about selfishness, ignoring relativity in choices, is what our basic natures
might be. If we are basically good at the core of our beings, then acting
selfish eventually would be similar to being altruistic, so that there would
be less deviancy assumed than.when the initial statement (regarding selfish
behavior) was first postulated.
Then, in my opinion, if people are presented with a way to truly examine
themselves and bring themselves closer to what they really are - through
meditation, psychotherapy, bowling, or some form of real spirituality etc;
there emerges a much more peaceful mannerism that is more consistent with
our true self being closer to being good and harmonious rather than in
narrowly egotistical.
Phil C.
Corey Garriott
> mission and forced her to live the high life,
> it stands to reason she'd want to return to the
> life she's chosen, since it satisfies her values.
Well duh! it satisfies her "personal values." Personal values can be
anything, including those of drug use and murdering Jews. I completely
agree that she may find "pleasure" in denying her interests. I also believe
it is obvious that in the last message that supported the idea that she
prefers that lifestyle. Let me repeat what I said to make it clear:
To say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use. We're
not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good doesn't
always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest. Pleasure
is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results only
from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no servitude.
>IAN: The strongest case against drug addition
>is that it could impair your overall pleasure.
Same for altruism -- short term "high" for acting in accordance with a
well-defined system of values. She is not acting selfishly though, because
she denies her interests. Hedonism is not selfish, it is actually *out* of
one's interests.
Thus, as I had originally asserted, Mother Teresa is not selfish, she is a
destructive mystic. There is a difference.
Corey Garriott
> spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
> machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
I can't say I'm surprised, really. But Mother Teresa being the hypothetical
pure altruist is useful for discussions, so I will continue to at least use
her name to represent the concept.
>And the trouble with this is... what, exactly?
Long term (even short term) drug use is a dependency and is out of one's
interests, i.e. selfish.
>face it. Do you know that 60% of the "private industries" funding all
>those public service announcements about "This is your brain on Drugs"
>are pharmaceutical manufacturers, and another 12% is provided by Coke
>and Pepsi corps? These people aren't engaged in a war on drugs--
>they're engaged in a war on drugs that would compete with their
>products, like Prozac, Zanax, and popular forms of caffeine.
This is relevant to the issue of hedonism being out of one's interests
because...
Corey Garriott
> >>use.
> >
> I'm amazed that no-one has yet challenged this (to me) amazing, and
> false, assertion.
You sooo take that quote out of context.
Here, let me repeat it for the context-challenged:
"To say that pleasure is ALWAYS in one's interests is to advocate drug use."
Lee
--
There are two sides to every issue:
One seeks freedom for itself.
One seeks to limit the freedom of others.
"Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> wrote in message
news:sohg1om...@corp.supernews.com...
: > >>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
: > >>use.
: > >
: > I'm amazed that no-one has yet challenged this (to me) amazing, and
: > false, assertion.
:
: You sooo take that quote out of context.
:
: Here, let me repeat it for the context-challenged:
: "To say that pleasure is ALWAYS in one's interests is to advocate drug
use."
:
Huh? Why? Because drugs make you feel good? That's only temporary.
And, with the addictive drugs, there's the pain of withdrawal.
I don't understand your position.
altheim
> breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude in
> was doing was right and it probably brought her pleasure in the same way
> that an alcoholic believes that alcohol is right and it brings him pleasure.
>
in the first - though I would hesitate to call it pleasure.
I'd call it 'motive' - which won't come as a surprise to anyone
in the humanist group. No-one does anything without a motive
and I dare say the motive in Mother Teresa's case was not
earthly pleasure but the promise and anticipation of a place
in Heaven.
The gratification which an alcoholic, or other drug user, feels
is a different kind of motivation entirely.
--
altheim
John Tchoe
There are three modes of learning, which are all summed up under the heading
"operant conditioning":
Positive reinforcement: this is a pleasant stimulus given for displaying a
given behavior, for the purpose of increasing the chance that the behavior
will be repeated.
Punishment: this is a painful stimulus given for displaying a given
behavior, for the purpose of decreasing the chance that the behavior will be
repeated.
Negative reinforcement: often confused in the popular lexicon with
punishment, it is in fact a painful or unpleasant stimulus given _until_ a
desired behavior is displayed. The most commonly cited example of this form
of operant conditioning is nagging. The "reward" in negative reinforcement
takes the form of relief, rather than pleasure per se.
Note that what constitutes a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus is determined
by the recipient, not the administrator.
Human beings recognize patterns and abstract lessons from often-repeated
lessons as they grow up. Whether a person feels that the world is a
dangerous place to be survived, whether he feels fear and anxiety or mild
curiosity when he meets a stranger, and much more fundamentally, whether a
person is inclined to think independently, is determined by the type of
lessons he learns as a child.
Consider a child who is rewarded more often than punished or nagged, pulled
rather than pushed. This child is more likely to display individual
initiative, to pursue his own interests, to be motivated by pleasure, and
less inclined to pay attention to threats and bullying. This child will
know, from the experience of having to choose amongst many offered pleasant
stimuli, that out of many good alternatives, he has picked the best. He
will choose his own destiny.
Consider another child who is punished and nagged, who is denied reward in
the name of being taught "duty" and "toughness". Such a child will learn to
lie limply until spurred by pain, like a farm animal. When he finds himself
alone, he is terrified by anxiety because he has no motivation. When this
child grows up, he is capable only of moments of fleeting pleasure, or joy
at best, but never true happiness, for he cannot stand to be alone. He
seeks pain so that he may feel relief, but in the absence of pain, he is
lost and finds no energy to do anything. He will rely upon others to choose
his destiny for him.
Apply
Mother Teresa believed in a world which was inherently evil, which could
never see goodness in the absence of evil. She believed evil to be
infinite, and that happiness, or lasting, independent good, was impossible
in this world. She worked toward relief, struggled so that others may be
pushed to level ground, but with her philosophy, those she helped would be
regarded as evil unless they came back down to sacrifice their lives to push
others up.
Hitler was a paranoid madman. He was externalizing his inner evil and
destroying everything he couldn't make submit to his whim so that he could
feel safer. Happiness was impossible to him.
"Lee" <sh...@snowcrest.net> wrote in message
news:8m7qco$1qt$1...@news.snowcrest.net...
John Tchoe
news:39878d8b...@news.erols.com...
> IAN: The strongest case against drug addition
> is that it could impair your overall pleasure.
Going off on a tangent, I think that the reason most addicts continue their
behavior is that often help is in the form of "stop doing what you're doing"
rather than teaching them how to strive for a positive goal, to spark the
fire within so that they are motivated not to drown that fire with alcohol
or excessive intake of food, or what have you. That is, just telling them
to stop doing what they're doing leaves them in a vacuum, and the only way
for them to fill it up so that it stays filled is for them to value
something more positive and lasting, and see how their addiction will
destroy that.
> IAN: It might give pleasure to have unlimited
> unsafe sex, but most people know they might
> get a disease, which would be unpleasurable.
> I expect people sacrifice pleasure only to
> ensure a more-valued variety of pleasure,
> such as the pleasure of not suffering.
I think that there is a crucial difference between pleasure and relief.
When one is pursuing pleasure, one is not in a state of anxiety and pain
during the pursuit. It's more like pleasurable anticipation. When seeking
relief, there must necessarily be a state of pain and anxiety. This is
often exhibited as desperation, and is sometimes suppressed and shown as
stoicism, but that's only a coverup.
Consider having enough money to live comfortably, but wanting more, vs.
being in debt so that if you do not earn your wages, you will be in hot
water. After a month of hard work, the paycheck is experienced as pleasure
in the first case, vs. relief in the second. Apply the same principle to
friendship, sex, smoking, drugs, what have you.
Addicts, I believe, do not know what it is like to want something
without being in pain for it. Their default state is not pleasurable
anticipation of good things to come, but foggy, unbeatable anxiety. They're
not okay just existing. They need forced pleasure because they cannot
sustain themselves.
Without being okay first, understanding and living by the principles of
objectivism is impossible. And once you're okay, once no one can _make_ you
do anything, because you don't _need_ anything but your ability to think,
then risky sex isn't a sacrifice...it's not something you even have to
choose to avoid, because you don't need it in the first place.
BigYank
igod...@erols.mom (Ian Goddard) wrote:
>
> The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant,
> has a column in the Washington Post magazine Parade
> called "Ask Marilyn." A recent question was if she
> agreed that "the purpose of life is to undertake
> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy." She
> concludes that the only argument supporting
> that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
>
> ==================================================
>
> ASK MARILYN
>
> By Marilyn Vos Savant
>
> QUESTION: Humans have long questioned the purpose
> of their existence. However, I believe the answer
> to this supposed eternal dilemma is relatively
> simplistic: The purpose of life is to undertake
> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy. Anything
> and everything an individual does--in the long
> term--is solely for this purpose. Would you agree?
>
> MARILYN: ... you seem to be answering the question,
> "Toward what goal do all humans aim?" In defense
> of your answer, you could argue that even apparently
> altruistic behavior is still undertaken to give
> oneself pleasure. As an example, consider the case
> of Mother Teresa: You could suggest that relieving
> the suffering of India's poorest people made Mother
> Teresa happy herself, and that's why she undertook
> behavior, just by the fact that it is chosen,
> a logical fallacy called petitio principii (better
> known as "begging the question"), a circular argument
> in which the conclusion also appears as an assumption.
>
> I can't find any other defense of your answer, so I
> can't agree with it.
> =====================================================
>
> IAN: It seems to follow from Savant's answer that
> the goal toward which all humans aim is NOT selfish
> endeavor to make oneself happy. Where's the evidence?
> What people act with intent not to satisfy themselves?
In a time long ago and in a place far away, I once studied "Christ and
Culture", which I realized then and now was based on a "Western"
perspective.... And whether you use the word.... "civilization" in
place of the word "culture"... Or/And whether you use the Christian
theological interpretation of "the world" in place of the
word "culture", I believe that you can make some generalizations
about "culture" as follows: Culture is an artificial, secondary
environment which man superimposes on the "natural" world. Culture
is "human achievement". The "gifts" of culture passed down from one
generation to the next can not be received without labor and learning.
These human achievements are designed with an end; the world
of "culture" is a world of "values"..... Further, these "values" with
which these human achievements are concerned are predominantly those
which are deemed to be for the "good of man and woman"....
Thus, "culture" as "human achievement" has a purpose which is fashioned
in transient and perishing stuff.....
In harmony and proportion; the form, order and rythym, the meanings and
ideas that men (and women) intuit and trace out as they confront
nature, social events, and their dreams... By infinite labor they have
painted on walls and canvas, printed on paper as systems of philosophy
and science, carved in stone and cast in bronze, sung in ballad, ode
and symphony. Their/Our visions of order and justice, hopes of glory;
all, with much suffering and sacrifice must be embodied in ascetic
lives, written laws, dramatic rites, structures of governments and
empires.....
Cultural activities, thus, are also as much concerned with the
conservation and "preservation of values" as with their realization.
Much of the energy expended in society is devoted to the complicated
task of preserving what men/women have inherited and made. Their
houses, schools, temples, roads, and machines stand in constant need of
repair.... The desert and the jungle threaten every cultivated
acre....
The system of laws and liberties; the pursuit of happiness, the customs
of social intercourse, the methods of thought, the institutions of
learning and religion, the techniques of art, language, ethics and
morality.... These cannot be conserved by keeping the walls in repair,
and preserving the documents, which are their symbols, behind
glass.... These things must be written afresh generation by generation
on the "tables of the heart".... Let education and training lapse for
only a generation, and the whole structure of past achievements might
fall into ruin.....
Thus, "culture" is a social tradition which must be conserved by
painful struggle; against natural (nonhuman) forces, but also against
critical powers in human life and reason.... For "culture" in an "over-
arching superstructure" is concerned with what is good for us; man and
woman, child and adult, rulers and ruled; each with our own special
interests and pursuits.....
The BigYank......
Corey Garriott
Will someone refute what I've said *lately*?
>Well duh! it satisfies her "personal values." Personal values can be
>anything, including those of drug use and murdering Jews. I completely
>agree that she may find "pleasure" in denying her interests. I also
believe
>it is obvious that in the last message that supported the idea that she
>prefers that lifestyle. Let me repeat what I said to make it clear:
>To say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use. We're
>not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good doesn't
>always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest.
Pleasure
>is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results only
>from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no servitude.
--Corey Garriott / co...@dissension.com / www.dissension.com
Michael S. Lorrey
>
> In article <soegd9...@corp.supernews.com>
> "Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
>
> >breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
> >servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
>
> "self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
> party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
> she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
> and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
> dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
> to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
> surgeons in the world.
>
> spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
> machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
Avenue). Frankly, your anti-catholic bullshit is blowing my
bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
>
> >But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
> >use.
>
> And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, let's
> face it. Do you know that 60% of the "private industries" funding all
> those public service announcements about "This is your brain on Drugs"
> are pharmaceutical manufacturers, and another 12% is provided by Coke
> and Pepsi corps? These people aren't engaged in a war on drugs--
> they're engaged in a war on drugs that would compete with their
> products, like Prozac, Zanax, and popular forms of caffeine.
And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, lets face it. Do
you know that 60% of the drug trade is controlled by communist/maoist
geurrilla organizations whose only motive is to destabilise US society?
Of course you do, because you are also a maoist with similar motives.
jddescr...@my-deja.com
When you excuse and alibi for corpman [corporate manipulator] socialist
corruption because it is on your side of the right-left socialist split
then your comments on the left socialist maoists looses truth power. JD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael S. Lorrey
No it doesn't it merely shows that even if what was said about
pharmaceuticals and soda makers is true, its irrelevant that they have a
profit motive, because the drug suppliers have a worse motive than just
profit.
Serial cabal of Pope Eris Malicia Falicia #333
jd>
jd> In article <39872550...@news.erols.com>,
jd> igod...@erols.mom (Ian Goddard) wrote:
jd> >
jd> > The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant, has a
jd> > column in the Washington Post magazine Parade called "Ask
jd> > Marilyn." A recent question was if she agreed that "the
jd> > purpose of life is to undertake a selfish endeavor to make
jd> > oneself happy." She concludes that the only argument
jd> > supporting that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
jd> >
jd> > ==================================================
jd>
jd> It's a poorly stated question however smart the Savant may be.
jd> It's only nihilists, post modern philosophers, and other
jd> pretenders who aren't pursueing happiness as the American
jd> DECLARATION tell us. The question that separates the escapists
jd> from life and the king's greedy and the rational free people is
jd> the time scale of the life values involved in their happiness.
jd> Thus the king's greedy like hitler socialists chose theft and
jd> killing to maximize their happiness. The Ayn Rand Theory [ART]
jd> teaches us that they were wrong and didn't achieve it inspite of
jd> their vast socialist loot but it still was their intent whatever
jd> they said. How do the life decisions evolve over a life time of
jd> LOL [Love Of Life] within each individuals SOUL [Self Ownership
jd> of yoUr LIfe]? These free people patterns answer the question
jd> when well stated.
jd>
jd> Good seeing. JD
It looks a lot different when the purpose of life appears to be to
keep from dying of starvation due to some sort of inadequate
preparedness, thanks perhaps to schools that do not provide enough
opportunities for future planning.
Helpless people may not have that choice available to undertake that
selfish pursuit of happiness.
What would you do for a plate of food, or $200,000, if you can't see
your next meal or your next month, and are philosophically opposed to
accepting handouts from government?
Heroine Drew Warri
jddescr...@my-deja.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The extent of the profit motive of family business capitalism
is good and completely moral. You aren't saying that when you
produce products you spend more than you recieve in payment
are you? That may be the socialist thing to do but I'll remind
you that the product "given" away king's free had to be stolen
from some producer before being "redistributed".
Refence the crooked socialist manipulation by the gogantic
corporations and the vast union bosses why approve of either
variety of socialism? Didn't we learn from the right socialists
of hitler corporate cartels and the left socialist union
collectives of socialist Russia that they both are evil? The
Ayn Rand Theory[ART] treats the American idea of free people
who live by production and voluntary exchange without any
socialist association. Why not condemn all forms of socialist
manipulation of people, whether of the right or left?
Good seeing. JD
jddescr...@my-deja.com
"Serial cabal of Pope Eris Malicia Falicia #333" <em...@apex.dot.net>
wrote:
Certainly the preparedness is important and if it's missing
we should seek and provide help for achieving independent
free people living. What we shouldn't do is allow ourselves
to cooperate with a socman [social manipulator] who steals
from one group of people and gives to another [redistribution].
It's only bad government or socialist government and crooked
socialist politians that do the latter. Helping people you like
voluntarily is all for the good and highly moral it's only when
some socman uses "sharing" as a dictatorial command backed up
by Fing [Forcing, Fearing, and Frauding] for taking/taxing that
we have an evil socialist situation.
Good seeing. JD
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurie S.
wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Aug 2000 20:51:00 GMT, "Olive Matthews"
><omat...@kscable.com> wrote:
>
>>Dear Ian:
>>
>>The reality and the IQ of Marilyn Vos Savant (sic) are irrelevant. What is
>>relevant is that "Savant"
>>is pointing out that regardless of the fact that any human action can always
>>be interpreted such that it was done with the intention of making the actor
>>happy has nothing to do with whether that act may be said to be "egoistic",
>>"altruistic", or whatever. Whatever turns you on man, that's why you do
>>it. To insist that it is "egoistic" in Rand's strained and convoluted
>>sense, is, as Ms Savant observes, to beg the question. Get it? The
>>medieval logic you awkwardly try to employ will not get you into the
>>twenty-first century.
>
>
> IAN: The question is "Toward what goal do all humans aim?"
> The answer under examination is "To undertake a selfish
> endeavor to make oneself happy." About that answer Savant
> said "I can't agree with it," and the reason she cannot
> is because that answer is based on "a logical fallacy."
>
> I read this to mean that the goal of all humans is not
> to undertake a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy.
> I don't see any evidence to support that conclusion,
> but I do see evidence to support "the selfish rule."
I dunno, I got the impression that it was her opinion. It doesn't mean
a great deal more to me because of her I.Q.; I figure most people of
average intelligence and above can come up with reasonable opinions
(or not). I would be more likely to expect much greater decrease of
"right" in a person of very low IQ than I would expect a much greater
increase of "right" in a person of very high IQ, when we're talking
philosophical views.
Laurie
www.geocities.com/tobyneige/life.html
www.geocities.com/tobyneige/pictures.html
--
If you can't believe in yourself,
believe in someone who believes in you.
Laurie S.
>There are two sides to every issue:
> One seeks freedom for itself.
> One seeks to limit the freedom of others.
>"Ian Goddard" <igod...@erols.mom> wrote in message
>news:398749cf...@news.erols.com...
>: On Tue, 01 Aug 2000 20:51:00 GMT, "Olive Matthews"
>:
>What "logical fallacy"? It seems to me that Marylin is wrong
>on this one (she's not infallible, after all).
Note that she said "I can't agree with it." She's expressing a
viewpoint, rather than trying to establish a fact or "rule".
> Everyone acts out
>of the selfish desire to be happy.
"Everyone" doesn't do *anything*. People don't do things for the same
reasons, especially as they grow older.
> What differs among individuals
>is WHAT MAKES THEM HAPPY. Ruling the world would have
>made Hitler happy. Helping the poor made Mother Teresa happy.
Essentially, yes. But you've chosen people who were driven toward
something, people who clearly demonstrated a desire for something. The
majority of people never reach that kind of infamy.
>They had the same motivation. Whenever someone foregoes
>something that they "want", it is because they want something else
>even more.
Not necessarily. Sometimes it's because it makes more practical sense
to take something else. Sometimes it's because someone else wants
something else more, and it's no big deal to let them have it.
And sometimes, people really don't believe they deserve things that
they want, for whatever reasons(s), or they're afraid to take the
risks involved in trying for them.
*I* happen to think that people are more inclined to be safe than
happy.
James A. Temple
"Laurie S." <lea...@spacestar.net> wrote in message
news:398c7a61...@news.spacestar.net...
> I dunno, I got the impression that it was her opinion. It doesn't mean
> a great deal more to me because of her I.Q.; I figure most people of
> average intelligence and above can come up with reasonable opinions
> (or not). I would be more likely to expect much greater decrease of
> "right" in a person of very low IQ than I would expect a much greater
> increase of "right" in a person of very high IQ, when we're talking
> philosophical views.
But, can she cook? (Run for cover, boys! In attemptin' to make a funny,
I'm afraid I threw a rock into a hornet's nest.)
Love from Texas,
Jim Temple
Laurie S.
<co...@dissension.com> wrote:
>She is correct; all behavior is not selfish.
>
>For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
>breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude in
>any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
Why? I've known lots of people who busted their butts to help others
and found great joy in it, even though it sometimes was detrimental to
their own health because they worked too hard or whatever.
> Teresa believed what she
>was doing was right and it probably brought her pleasure in the same way
>that an alcoholic believes that alcohol is right and it brings him pleasure.
>
I can't see it like that. An alcoholic experiences solitary pleasure;
an altruist (please note that I'm not especially praising Mother
Teresa; I have plenty of reservations here) derives pleasure from
helping others.
I don't think there can be absolute altruism, anyway, because AFAIK
most altruists *want* to help others, therefore they are doing what
pleases them, to whatever extent.
>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use.
Hm? Why on earth would that be? Do you think that seeking and
experiencing pleasure for oneself is a bad thing?
"Pleasure" isn't just about selfishly soaking in the rays and keeping
them all for oneself. I can find great pleasure in just taking a walk
and enjoying the beauty of nature. It's the one thing that makes me
feel I belong in the world (which is a big reason why I *hate* winter
because nature gets pissy then).
(I don't really get what's so horrible -- as an absolute -- about drug
use, btw. "Drug use" is pretty vague, considering it can mean anything
from drinking or smoking pot occasionally to shooting oneself up with
heroin every day. But that's not really the point)
>We're not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good
>doesn't always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's interest.
So? Pleasure is transient. Happiness is more of an overall thing, and
happy people feel both pleasure and displeasure, at differing moments.
And human beings are not noted for always doing what's in one's best
interests. (I assume you meant "best interest" rather than "interest")
>Pleasure is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness results
>only from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no
>servitude.
Does that mean that those who do serve cannot be happy? What about
someone who *works* as a servant? Can't they be happy?
Rational self-interest is a pillar of objectivism, IIRC. I'm not
horribly opposed to objectivism, but in some of the arguments I've
gotten myself into, one of my biggest objections is that people are
NOT rational beings, and that IMO irrationality needs to be taken into
context in the determination of the pursuit of happiness. It can't
just be discarded as irrelevant, because it exists.
Reality is real and all that, y'know?
Alec Owen
am moved to tears.
A reaction not based on logic; neither selfish nor selfless. A person
who sees a child at a window in a house in flames may run into the house
on impulse. This is not necessarily a selfish action. It may be if that
individual sees himself as a hero with his/her name and picture in the
newspaper. If he/she acts on impulse because of natural tendency to
protect another, this could be regarded as a selfless action assuming
the child to be unrelated to its potential rescuer.
People who argue logic should be aware that homo sapiens acts
illogically at times.
Alec Owen
Ian Goddard wrote:
>
>
> The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant,
> has a column in the Washington Post magazine Parade
> called "Ask Marilyn." A recent question was if she
> agreed that "the purpose of life is to undertake
> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy." She
> concludes that the only argument supporting
> that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
>
> I can't find any other defense of your answer, so I
> can't agree with it.
> =====================================================
>
> IAN: It seems to follow from Savant's answer that
> the goal toward which all humans aim is NOT selfish
> endeavor to make oneself happy. Where's the evidence?
> What people act with intent not to satisfy themselves?
> Even someone marching along at gunpoint follows orders
> because it satisfies them not to be shot for resistance.
> Even someone killing themselves has concluded that death
> would be more satisfactory of them than life, it's even
> said by some that suicide is selfish. People engage in
> charitable behavior because it satisfies them and they
> earn social rewards for noble action. Even a masochist
> who acts to hurt himself finds satisfaction in such.
> If I and three others are starving to death in the
> arctic and I kill myself so the others can eat me,
> I did so because it satisfied me to help them.
>
> If no human action is selfless, how is Savant right?
> If self-satisfaction is not the goal toward which all
> humans aim, then what is the goal of all human action?
> It seems to me that what Savant claims to be a logical
> fallacy is in fact an inherent truism of human action.
> If it isn't a truism, then please identify an action
> and/or goal of a self that is truly 100% selfless.
> Seems to me that identifying such is impossible.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
> ____________________________________________________________
> Asking the "wrong questions," challenging the Official Story
>
>
>
Alec Owen
"To say that pleasure is ALWAYS in one's *SHORT TERM* interest is to
advocate drug use."
Alec Owen
Corey Garriott wrote:
>
> > >>But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug
> > >>use.
> > >
> > I'm amazed that no-one has yet challenged this (to me) amazing, and
> > false, assertion.
>
> You sooo take that quote out of context.
>
> Here, let me repeat it for the context-challenged:
> "To say that pleasure is ALWAYS in one's interests is to advocate drug use."
Alec Owen
"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> Elf Sternberg wrote:
> >
> > In article <soegd9...@corp.supernews.com>
> > "Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
> >
> > >For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
> > >breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
> > >servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
> >
> > Assuming, of course, that Teresa actually lived in the
> > "self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
> > party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
> > she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
> > and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
> > dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
> > to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
> > surgeons in the world.
> >
> > Ah, "poverty." How does it feel to have swallowed a story
> > spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
> > machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
>
> Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
> Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> Avenue). Frankly, your anti--catholic bullshit is blowing my
> bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
Such propaganda led directly to the Holocaust in Catholic Europe.(Shame
on you)
What the writer said about Mother Teresa cannot be questioned.
She of course believed that her reward would come in heaven. I believe
she was misled.
Nonetheless she could have led a more comfortable life in her native
Serbia (or was it Kosova).
You call this anti-Catholic bullshit but your invective hides your lack
argument and is therefore unconvincing. I am neither religious or
anti-anything.
And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, lets face it. Do
you know that 60% of the drug trade is controlled by communist/maoist
guerrilla organizations whose only motive is to destabilise US society?
Of course you do, because you are also a maoist with similar motives.
They shoot drug dealers in China but in Mexico and South America
(incidentally mostly Catholic by the way) drug dealers are shot by other
drug dealers. I am not a drug dealer or a Maoist or a Jew or a Catholic
or Chinese or a Communist. I am just a guy with a brain and an interest
in the way the world is and the way it got to be that way.
A Owen
Alec Owen
characteristc of our culture is consumerism and everthing that goes
along with it eg advertising, investment et al.
Perhaps you are talking about Kultur.
Alec Owen
Alec Owen
PAC wrote:
>
> "Ian Goddard" <igod...@erols.mom> wrote in message
> news:39878d8b...@news.erols.com...
> > On Tue, 1 Aug 2000 17:33:28 -0400, "Corey Garriott"
> > <co...@dissension.com> wrote:
> >
> > >She is correct; all behavior is not selfish.
> > >
> > >For instance, it is extremely counter-intuitive to argue that the
> > >breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman servitude
> in
> > >any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
> >
> >
> > IAN: If we dragged Mother Teresa away from her
> > mission and forced her to live the high life,
> > it stands to reason she'd want to return to the
> > life she's chosen, since it satisfies her values.
> >
> >
> >
> > >But to say that pleasure is in one's interest is to advocate drug use.
> >
> > IAN: The strongest case against drug addition
> > is that it could impair your overall pleasure.
> >
> >
> > >We're not talking about "what feels good" here, because what feels good
> > >doesn't always bring real happiness and it isn't always in one's
> interest.
> > >Pleasure is a rather flimsy standard of anything, really. Happiness
> results
> > >only from following one's *rational* self-interest, which means no
> > >servitude.
> >
> >
> > IAN: It might give pleasure to have unlimited
> > unsafe sex, but most people know they might
> > get a disease, which would be unpleasurable.
> > I expect people sacrifice pleasure only to
> > ensure a more-valued variety of pleasure,
> > such as the pleasure of not suffering.
>
> Interesting argument by Marilyn, but now that we're all picking her (>; a
> minor point of her assumption of the avoidance of circular reasonings is
> in-itself faulty mainly being that she fails to mention the differences
> between common ground and circular reasonings - differences that often
> dissipate objections against circular arguments. For instance, a
> mathematical proof is circular to a certain degree because it uses only
> mathematical equations.
>
Of course and a proof in words is also circular because it uses only
words.
A ball would be circular in a two dimensional world. However you mention
degrees of
circularity yet degrees of pregnancy are just as difficult to define.
And this is my last message and thanks for the opportunity to get
through a slow Saturday.
evening. I've had fun. See you in about a month. Next Saturday I hope to
get lucky.
Al Owen
Elf Sternberg
>Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
>Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
>Avenue). Frankly, your anti-catholic bullshit is blowing my
>bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
I don't see anything "anti-catholic" with the truth. Three
years before she died, Teresa had a heart attack, and a wealthy UK
philanthropist flew her on his private jet to the US, where the most
expensive surgeons in the world performed open-heart surgery. On the
other hand, the then-associate editor of the British medical journal
Lancet and current president of Doctors Without Borders wrote, "If you
are not dying, Mother Teresa has nothing to offer you. Her clinics are
not there to heal the sick; they are there to provide for the souls of
the dying... The 'patients' there receive little more than Tylenol and
prayer." She recieved financial support from "Papa Doc" Duvalier and
described him as "a great human being," ignoring the 20,000 Hatians who
"disappeared" during his fascist rule of that state. She gave millions
to the Irish Catholic church to fight the passage of the divorce law,
but then said of her financial benefactor Princess Diana, "It [ her
divorce from Prince Charles ] is a good thing. It was not a happy
marriage."
While the church has never allowed outside auditing of its
finances, dissidents from Teresa's organization have stated that less
than one-third of the money she raised went to help the poor. The other
two-thirds went to political movements against abortion and divorce, or
raising over 30 churches that now dot the third world, many of which
remain locked because there aren't enough priests to run them.
On a strictly personal note, a lover of mine once said, "Thanks
to Teresa, instead of two healthy children my parents had six, skinny
ones." And she was the third kid!
All of this has been documented by the New York Times, Atlantic
Monthly, and Lancet. You're welcome to look it up. Or better yet,
consider the compilation Hitchens did in "The Missionary Position:
Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice."
All religions have P.R. machines that work hard to put a good
spin on what they do. Teresa was a part of the Catholic Church, an
organization which openly admits that it has no interest in healing
bodies unless that healing leads to the saving of souls. She was a
great Catholic.
But that's a bit like saying the Hezbolla is made up of great
Muslims. Or the Shah party is made up of Great Jews. For that matter,
the Irish Republican Party is made up of other great Catholics.
Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
shut up." And no religion, no matter how hard it spins, has managed to
put up a convincing argument as to why *it's* particular idea of reality
should be bought.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
Fast food restaurants are like gay bathhouses in San Francisco,
places where people go to engage in high-risk behaviors.
- Greg Critser
Alec Owen
Elf Sternberg wrote:
>
> In article <398A5CD7...@turbont.net>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" <retr...@turbont.net> writes:
>
> >Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
> >Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> >Avenue). Frankly, your anti-catholic bullshit is blowing my
> >bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
>
> I don't see anything "anti-catholic" with the truth.
> Elf
>
> --
> Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
> http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
>
I do. The holocaust was a direct result of the long anti Jewish
campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The 5 recent dictatorships in
Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly
Catholic countries. Stalin in fact trained for the priesthood. You may
wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce Fascist movements or
progroms.
I don't know exactly why that was. It is true that the RC church has
always had a direct involvement in the education of the young. I
speculate that that may have indirectly influenced the course of events
in Europe.
As for the ordinary Catholic guy or gal, he/she had no responsibility
for these things but perhaps should receive our sympathy and help.
A Owen
T P Uschanov
> I do. The holocaust was a direct result of the long
> anti Jewish campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The
> 5 recent dictatorships in Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy,
> Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly Catholic countries.
Since when has Russia been "strongly Catholic"? Do you
perhaps have astonishing new proof that the Catholic
and Orthodox churches actually didn't split in 1054?
> You may wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce
> Fascist movements or progroms.
Well, in the case of Scandinavia because there were so few Jews.
In the case of the UK, there was Oswald Mosley and his chums,
as fascist a movement as one can think of.
--
"I have tried too, in my time, to be a philosopher; but, I don't
know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." --Oliver Edwards
T P Uschanov tusc...@cc.helsinki.fi +358 (0)40 584 2720
Visit my home page! http://www.helsinki.fi/~tuschano/
jimmy adams
writes
>
>
> Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
>shut up."
Greetings from the future, Elf.
Michael S. Lorrey
>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
> >
> > Elf Sternberg wrote:
> > >
> > > "Corey Garriott" <co...@dissension.com> writes:
> > >
> > > >breathtaking self-inflicted poverty of Teresa and her inhuman
> > > >servitude in any meaningful way contributes to her happiness.
> > >
> > > "self-inflicted poverty" that many people attribute to her. Third-
> > > party observes note that, while she may have lived on a sparse diet,
> > > she certainly ate more than those dying in her warehouses of lepers,
> > > and while her "clinics" handed out little more than aspirin to people
> > > dying of horrible disease, when she had a heart attack she was flown
> > > to the Mayo clinic on a private jet and treated by some of the finest
> > > surgeons in the world.
> > >
> > > Ah, "poverty." How does it feel to have swallowed a story
> > > spun by one of the largest and certainly the oldest public relations
> > > machine in the world, the Catholic Church?
> >
> > Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> > bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
>
>
> on you)
> What the writer said about Mother Teresa cannot be questioned.
Oh, really? Why is that? Rather fascist of you to be acting as the group
thought police.
As someone who was raised Catholic, and half of whose family is Jewish,
I'm doubly insulted by YOUR comments.
> She of course believed that her reward would come in heaven. I believe
> she was misled.
Good for you. Got any proof? No? Then WTF is your problem?
> Nonetheless she could have led a more comfortable life in her native
> Serbia (or was it Kosova).
> You call this anti-Catholic bullshit but your invective hides your lack
> argument and is therefore unconvincing. I am neither religious or
> anti-anything.
Then why do you find it so important to practice character assasination
against someone who helped alleviate the suffering of millions of
people, and who raised many other women out of the gutter to take up her
work of comforting the dying? Until immortality is attained, giving
people, even the poorest people, the ability to die with dignity is a
VERY extropic thing.
>
> And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, lets face it. Do
> you know that 60% of the drug trade is controlled by communist/maoist
> guerrilla organizations whose only motive is to destabilise US society?
> Of course you do, because you are also a maoist with similar motives.
>
> They shoot drug dealers in China but in Mexico and South America
> (incidentally mostly Catholic by the way) drug dealers are shot by other
> drug dealers. I am not a drug dealer or a Maoist or a Jew or a Catholic
> or Chinese or a Communist. I am just a guy with a brain and an interest
> in the way the world is and the way it got to be that way.
If you are interested in thruth, you won't find it on anti-catholic
protestant evangelical and Christian Identity websites, which is where
your posted propaganda actually originates from.
Michael S. Lorrey
>
> In article <398A5CD7...@turbont.net>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" <retr...@turbont.net> writes:
>
> >Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> >bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
>
> years before she died, Teresa had a heart attack, and a wealthy UK
> philanthropist flew her on his private jet to the US, where the most
> expensive surgeons in the world performed open-heart surgery.
And you seem to think that there is something wrong with her accepting
this gift? Typical envy based socialist.
> On the
> other hand, the then-associate editor of the British medical journal
> Lancet and current president of Doctors Without Borders wrote, "If you
> are not dying, Mother Teresa has nothing to offer you. Her clinics are
> not there to heal the sick; they are there to provide for the souls of
> the dying... The 'patients' there receive little more than Tylenol and
> prayer."
And the point is? Until we acheive immortality, and make it affordable
for everyone, enabling even the poorest people to die with dignity is a
VERY extropic thing to do. What the doctors writing in Lancet seem
peeved about is that she even bothers with the dying. Doctors are VERY
egocentric individuals, and they develop this defense mechanism where if
you are dying and have no chance of survival, they really don't care to
get to know you. If you can't afford to buy the best treatments they can
provide, even when their treatment does nothing to improve your odds of
survival, then they really don't want to know you, because you are not
adding any value to their bottom line. Doctors also have this 'God'
complex, so they obviously resent the efforts of lesser beings to help
people they themselves would not waste their time with. Here's a story:
A surgeon died one day, and because he had helped many people he wound
up at the Gates of Heaven. However, he wound up in a line, going through
a complex queuing system, with big signs saying "You have forever now,
so please be patient and wait in line." Since he was a surgeon, and
rarely, if ever had to wait in line before in his life (you can always
buy your way in anywhere you don't have to perform surgery), he ignored
the line and went right up to St Peter's desk. St. Peter said,"Hey,
buddy, go back and wait in line like everyone else." So he did. Just
then a Mercedes pulled up to the gate, parked in a reserved parking
spot, and a guy with golfing shoes, a stethoscope and labcoat on, with
black bag in hand got out and strolled in through the Gates of Heaven.
Being rather miffed at this, the surgeon went back up to St. Peter, and
said,"Hey, I'm a cardiac surgeon, and you told me to wait in line, but
you let that other guy right in." St. Peter chuckled and replied:"Oh,
no, that was just God. He likes play Doctor with people's lives once in
a while."
> She recieved financial support from "Papa Doc" Duvalier and
> described him as "a great human being," ignoring the 20,000 Hatians who
> "disappeared" during his fascist rule of that state.
While the killing in Haiti continues under the rule of Clinton's hand
picked 'democratic' dictators....
> She gave millions
> to the Irish Catholic church to fight the passage of the divorce law,
> but then said of her financial benefactor Princess Diana, "It [ her
> divorce from Prince Charles ] is a good thing. It was not a happy
> marriage."
So you are opposed to people's minds being opened as they go through
life? Not very extropic of you.
>
> While the church has never allowed outside auditing of its
> finances, dissidents from Teresa's organization have stated that less
> than one-third of the money she raised went to help the poor.
Great, go to www.fuckedcompany.com and see what sort of 'truth'
dissident employees are saying about YOUR company....
> The other
> two-thirds went to political movements against abortion and divorce, or
> raising over 30 churches that now dot the third world, many of which
> remain locked because there aren't enough priests to run them.
>
> On a strictly personal note, a lover of mine once said, "Thanks
> to Teresa, instead of two healthy children my parents had six, skinny
> ones." And she was the third kid!
So, what are you saying? You wish she were dead???
>
> All of this has been documented by the New York Times, Atlantic
> Monthly, and Lancet. You're welcome to look it up. Or better yet,
> consider the compilation Hitchens did in "The Missionary Position:
> Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice."
I've seen much of the anti-catholic propaganda that anglicans,
evangelicals, baptists, and many other protestant sects put out (along
with that of scientologists, mormons, Christian Identity, and other
various cults)
>
> All religions have P.R. machines that work hard to put a good
> spin on what they do. Teresa was a part of the Catholic Church, an
> organization which openly admits that it has no interest in healing
> bodies unless that healing leads to the saving of souls. She was a
> great Catholic.
On the contrary. Typical lies. There are many people who receive free
health care and education at catholic institutions who are not catholic,
however giving any sort of preference for their own is no crime. If you
protestants want 'free' health care, build your own damn hospitals.
>
> But that's a bit like saying the Hezbolla is made up of great
> Muslims. Or the Shah party is made up of Great Jews. For that matter,
> the Irish Republican Party is made up of other great Catholics.
Or that Evangelicals, Baptists, Christian Identity, or other similarly
bigoted, anti-catholic protestants are great 'christians'.
>
> Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
> shut up." And no religion, no matter how hard it spins, has managed to
> put up a convincing argument as to why *it's* particular idea of reality
> should be bought.
Actually, if you count yourself as an extropian, reading Thielhard des
Chardins' theology of the Emmanetization of the Eschaton should make you
realize that many Catholic ideas are very extropic.
Michael S. Lorrey
>
> Elf Sternberg wrote:
> >
> > In article <398A5CD7...@turbont.net>
> > "Michael S. Lorrey" <retr...@turbont.net> writes:
> >
> > >Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
> > >Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> > >Avenue). Frankly, your anti-catholic bullshit is blowing my
> > >bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
> >
> > I don't see anything "anti-catholic" with the truth.
> >
> > --
> > Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
> > http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
> >
> campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The 5 recent dictatorships in
> Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly
> wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce Fascist movements or
> progroms.
You are showing your ignorance, which impeaches your arguments. The
Roman Catholic Church is almost non-existent in the USSR. The Russian
Orthodox Catholic Church has absolutely no connection whatsoever from
the Roman Catholic Church, or to the Greek Orthodox Catholic Church.
Please grab both ears and pull hard. Stalin studied for the Russian
Orthodox preisthood. Moreover, Germany is not heavily Catholic, either,
it is heavily Lutheran. The Nazi party was not religious at all, except
that they tried to create a new Germanic religion based on scandanavian
mythology (i.e. worshipping Odin, THor, etc...)
> I don't know exactly why that was. It is true that the RC church has
> always had a direct involvement in the education of the young. I
> speculate that that may have indirectly influenced the course of events
> in Europe.
Actually, the anti-semitic pamphlet, "The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion" which started it all was printed by an anti-Catholic Lutheran who
had it in for the monks of the Priory of Sion in Switzerland in the
1800's. Trying to claim they were all Jews in disguise was considered a
primary way to insult them.
Philip Baker
<ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> writes
>>shut up."
>
Well I'm still living in the 20th Century, only a few months to go
though.
--
Philip Baker
http://www.thalasson.com
http://www.textual.net
Elf Sternberg
Philip Baker <ph...@thalasson.com> writes:
>In article <mRnznGAR...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk>, jimmy adams
><ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> writes
>>> Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
>>>shut up."
>>Greetings from the future, Elf.
>Well I'm still living in the 20th Century, only a few months to go
>though.
Yep. Some of us can read a calendar.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
"The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure
reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little pratice, writing can
be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" - Bill Watterson's Calvin.
jimmy adams
writes
>In article <dlP$LgAyZg...@thalasson.com>
> Philip Baker <ph...@thalasson.com> writes:
>
>>In article <mRnznGAR...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk>, jimmy adams
>><ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>>>> Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
>>>>shut up."
>
>>>Greetings from the future, Elf.
>
>>Well I'm still living in the 20th Century, only a few months to go
>>though.
>
> Yep. Some of us can read a calendar.
>
*again*?
--
jra...@bigfoot.com
Alec Owen
T P Uschanov wrote:
>
> In sci.philosophy.meta Alec Owen <ao...@ica.net> wrote:
> > I do. The holocaust was a direct result of the long
> > anti Jewish campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The
> > 5 recent dictatorships in Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy,
> > Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly Catholic countries.
>
> Since when has Russia been "strongly Catholic"? Do you
> perhaps have astonishing new proof that the Catholic
> and Orthodox churches actually didn't split in 1054?
>
The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin (and Russia has
always had up to the time of Communism been strongly "religious" and was
responsible for
the death of many Jews and for the official pogroms against Jews.
Because it had no official ties to Rome does not destroy the argument.
The Russian Church is a Catholic Church. Stalin studied for the
priesthood in this church. The Serbian Orthodox church too stems from
the Catholic tradition as does the Croatian church. You must know about
the attitude of Serbs and Croats to minorities. But they are all good
"Christians".Case closed.
> > You may wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce
> > Fascist movements or progroms.
There were many Jews in Sweden (and anti-semitism) but not the treatment
meted out as in
Austria, Germany, Poland Russia etc etc. There were also many, many Jews
in UK who fled the
Catholic persecutions. Dorsally (British Prime Minister) was from a
family of Spanish Jews who fled the Inquisition in Spain.
There were many French protestants in UK who fled the massacres in
notably France. (eg the St Valentine's Day Massacre) The last massacre
of Jews in Britain occurred in York shortly after the Conquest (1066)
although anti-semitism has been a feature of English life during the
period when Catholicism was a state religion up to the time of Bloody
Mary (who also burned Protestants, both Bishops and ordinary
folk.Catholics have for a long time felt that their "faith" was the only
true faith and that Jews and protestants should be eliminated. You can't
argue against that. The recent upsurge of Nazi feeling did not occur in
Holland, Finland or UK but in Catholic Austria. Right?
>
> Well, in the case of Scandinavia because there were so few Jews.
> In the case of the UK, there was Oswald Mosley and his chums,
> as fascist a movement as one can think of.
You are right. But since Britain is not strongly Catholic his movement
with its anti-Semitic message got nowhere and ordinary
English folk rallied to the support of Jews when his thugs marched
through Jewish areas of the East End of London. He had to be protected
by the Metropolitan police who attempted to keep order. Your mention of
Mosely strengthens my argument. Brits as a whole hate prejudice.
On the other hand the Church of England,the Methodists, Wesleyans,
Congregationalists etc all non=Catholic never preached hatred against
Jews or other minorities.
Alec Owen
Daniel Hugh Nexon
>
> The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin ...
No, it wasn't.
I suppose the next thing you're going to tell us that the Catholic Church
was Arian in origin and that the Waldensians founded Donatism.
And the Uniates were Protestants, I suppose.
Sheesh.
Regards, Dan | Columbia Political Science | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2
"Evolution is to allegory as statues are to birdshit. It is a convenient
platform upon which to deposit badly digested ideas." --Steve Jones, NYRB,
July 17, 1997, p. 39
Alec Owen
"
> > > Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
> > > Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> > > Avenue). Frankly, your anti--catholic bullshit is blowing my
> > > bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
> >
> >
> > Such propaganda led directly to the Holocaust in Catholic Europe.(Shame
> > on you)
> > What the writer said about Mother Teresa cannot be questioned.
>
> Oh, really? Why is that? Rather fascist of you to be acting as the group
> thought police.
>
> As someone who was raised Catholic, and half of whose family is Jewish,
> I'm doubly insulted by YOUR comments.
Do you doubt that the millions of Jews killed in Germany. Russian, Spain
and other countries.
was a direct result of Catholic propaganda. Catholics have always felt
threatened by
other faiths. My thoughts are my own. I just wonder whether there isn't
something in the
culture and educational; experience of Catholic and Orthodox Christians
that does not tend towards the denial of the validity of other faiths
and cultures. I just wonder. I belong to no group. I am not even Jewish
but was raised as a Congregationalist but now adhere to no faith or
party. I had Jewish friends as a schoolboy in England who had fled
Germany.
>
> > She of course believed that her reward would come in heaven. I believe
> > she was misled.
Of course not. I said I believed I didn't say I knew or could prove.
Where did you learn to think so logically. Don't tell me.
>
> Good for you. Got any proof? No? Then WTF is your problem?
>
> > Nonetheless she could have led a more comfortable life in her native
> > Serbia (or was it Kosova).
> > You call this anti-Catholic bullshit but your invective hides your lack
> > argument and is therefore unconvincing. I am neither religious or
> > anti-anything.
>
> Then why do you find it so important to practice character assasination
> against someone who helped alleviate the suffering of millions of
> people, and who raised many other women out of the gutter to take up her
> work of comforting the dying? Until immortality is attained, giving
> people, even the poorest people, the ability to die with dignity is a
> VERY extropic thing.
I don't. I am very sure that what she did was very, very good. Please
read carefully.
I am sure she did it for the same reason the Black Coats (Catholic
missionaries) in early Canadian history went
into certain danger at the hands of the Iroquois. They thought it was
their ticket to heaven.
I think they were brave yet misguided. I don't think either you or I
will go to heaven.
Think about it. All our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom among
the great apes have DNA sequences between 96 and 98 per cent the same as
ours. We procreate same way. We are born the same way. We communicate
with our fellows and we are capable of learning. If we are all going to
heaven (or hell) so are our simian brethren.
> >
> > And the trouble with this is... what, exactly? Come on, lets face it. Do
> > you know that 60% of the drug trade is controlled by communist/maoist
> > guerrilla organizations whose only motive is to destabilise US society?
> > Of course you do, because you are also a maoist with similar motives.
> >
> > They shoot drug dealers in China but in Mexico and South America
> > (incidentally mostly Catholic by the way) drug dealers are shot by other
> > drug dealers. I am not a drug dealer or a Maoist or a Jew or a Catholic
> > or Chinese or a Communist. I am just a guy with a brain and an interest
> > in the way the world is and the way it got to be that way.
>
If you are interested in thruth, you won't find it on anti-catholic
> protestant evangelical and Christian Identity websites, which is where
> your posted propaganda actually originates from.
Of course I wont.
That's not an answer to my points. This is the only NG I access. I do
not read NGs
devoted to hate. I no longer regard myself as a Christian though I think
Jesus was a
remarkable man whose message has been completely lost in all rubbish
thought up by people who claim to be Christians and act like barbarians.
Alec Owen
Alec Owen
"John G. Otto" wrote:
>
> > BigYank wrote:
> >> (Ian Goddard) wrote:
> >> ==================================================
> >> Washington Post PARADE, 7/30/00, page 11
> >>
> >> ASK MARILYN
> >>
> >> By Marilyn Vos Savant
> >>
> >> QUESTION: Humans have long questioned the purpose
> >> of their existence. However, I believe the answer
> >> to this supposed eternal dilemma is relatively
> >> simplistic: The purpose of life is to undertake
> >> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy. Anything
> >> and everything an individual does -- in the long
> >> term -- is solely for this purpose. Would you agree?
I have always thought this a rather foolish quest.
We exist to exist. The questions presupposes that we were created for a
purpose.
We weren't. As for each individual purposes differ. Some exist to spread
their genes around. Some exist to make money. Others to impress their
fellows. A few to derive sensory experiences from food or drugs. Most of
us have a variety of motives for living.
"Why am I here?" you ask,
You are here because a sperm fertilized an egg because two persons (or
maybe just one)were (or was) driven by the sexual imperative. It's not
complicated.
A Owen
neuralnoise
"Daniel Hugh Nexon" <dh...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100080...@aloha.cc.columbia.edu...
> > The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin ...
>
> No, it wasn't.
>
> I suppose the next thing you're going to tell us that the Catholic Church
> was Arian in origin and that the Waldensians founded Donatism.
>
> And the Uniates were Protestants, I suppose.
Actually, I think the Catholics were originally a splinter group off of the
Church of the Subgenious; history just doesn't show it because those Church
of Bob fellas, well, slacked, and never told the pre-catholics who they
were.
Don't try to make any sense of that. It's late and I'm just babbling.
Alec Owen
"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> Alec Owen wrote:
> >
> > Elf Sternberg wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <398A5CD7...@turbont.net>
> > > "Michael S. Lorrey" <retr...@turbont.net> writes:
> > >
> > > >Whereas Jewish 'philanthropists' seem only interested in helping other
> > > >Jews, and actually have better PR machines (ones actually on Madison
> > > >Avenue). Frankly, your anti-catholic bullshit is blowing my
> > > >bullshit-0-meter off the scale.
> > >
> > > I don't see anything "anti-catholic" with the truth.
> > > Elf
> > >
> > > --
> > > Elf M. Sternberg, rational romantic mystical cynical idealist
> > > http://www.halcyon.com/elf/
> > >
> > I do. The holocaust was a direct result of the long anti Jewish
> > campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The 5 recent dictatorships in
> > Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly
> > Catholic countries. Stalin in fact trained for the priesthood. You may
> > wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce Fascist movements or
> > progroms.
>
> You are showing your ignorance, which impeaches your arguments. The
> Roman Catholic Church is almost non-existent in the USSR.
Of course you are right but the Russian Orthodox Church which stemmed
from the
Roman church followed the same anti-Semitic policies as the Roman
church. Does that absolve the Roman church. Naziism got its start in
Catholic Bavaria. The Nazi party was not religious in the ordinary sense
but capitalized on the anti-Semitism in Germany. Luther was of course
rabidly anti-Semitic, his anti-Semitism originated of course from his
early teachings. He was of course an ordained Roman Catholic priest and
later monk up to the time when he broke from the RC church. If the Pope
could have got hold of Luther, he would have put him on a bonfire.
The Russian
> Orthodox Catholic Church has absolutely no connection whatsoever from
> the Roman Catholic Church, or to the Greek Orthodox Catholic Church.
> Please grab both ears and pull hard. Stalin studied for the Russian
> Orthodox preisthood. Moreover, Germany is not heavily Catholic, either,
> it is heavily Lutheran. The Nazi party was not religious at all, except
> that they tried to create a new Germanic religion based on scandanavian
> mythology (i.e. worshipping Odin, THor, etc...)
>
> > I don't know exactly why that was. It is true that the RC church has
> > always had a direct involvement in the education of the young. I
> > speculate that that may have indirectly influenced the course of events
> > in Europe.
>
> Actually, the anti-semitic pamphlet, "The Protocols of the Elders of
> Zion" which started it all was printed by an anti-Catholic Lutheran who
> had it in for the monks of the Priory of Sion in Switzerland in the
> 1800's. Trying to claim they were all Jews in disguise was considered a
> primary way to insult them.
Did not start it all. The Crusaders went on rampages in Jewish areas and
killed many Jews on their way to the "Holy Land" way back when. In many
parts of Europe, It was jolly good sport and after all, they were all
good Christians, weren't they? Ironic, isn't it? After the Pope
"gave" England to William the First (1066), he arrived in England and
massacred a few Jews at York. This was the last pogrom on British soil.
Oswald Moseley notwithstanding..
This was a long time before The Protocols of Zion about which I know
nothing so you may be right about its Lutheran connection. Luther hated
Jews, of course. I wonder if William got to heaven.
Alec Owen
Alec Owen
Minister of the UK.
Strange at the ruckus put up in the States about the possibility of a
Jewish Vice=President
Jews rose to such prominent positions in UK a long time ago. Nobody
questioned whether his religion would disqualify him from the psition. I
believe he was Queen Victoria"s favourite PM.
Alec Owen
Alec Owen wrote:
>
> T P Uschanov wrote:
> >
> > In sci.philosophy.meta Alec Owen <ao...@ica.net> wrote:
> > > I do. The holocaust was a direct result of the long
> > > anti Jewish campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The
> > > 5 recent dictatorships in Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy,
> > > Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly Catholic countries.
> >
> > Since when has Russia been "strongly Catholic"? Do you
> > perhaps have astonishing new proof that the Catholic
> > and Orthodox churches actually didn't split in 1054?
> >
>
> The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin (and Russia has
> always had up to the time of Communism been strongly "religious" and was
> responsible for
> the death of many Jews and for the official pogroms against Jews.
> Because it had no official ties to Rome does not destroy the argument.
> The Russian Church is a Catholic Church. Stalin studied for the
> priesthood in this church. The Serbian Orthodox church too stems from
> the Catholic tradition as does the Croatian church. You must know about
> the attitude of Serbs and Croats to minorities. But they are all good
> "Christians".Case closed.
>
> > > You may wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce
> > > Fascist movements or progroms.
>
Alec Owen
for the split from Rome
are well known but since I belong to neither tradition, I am not going
to waste my time in a lengthy discussion. It's all in the history books.
Those who wish to put our correspondents in
the picture are at liberty to do so. It is a very interesting story.
Alec Owen
Alec Owen
church history.
Do you suppose there may have been as cover-up.
Alec Owen
Daniel Hugh Nexon wrote:
>
> On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Alec Owen wrote:
> >
> > The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin ...
>
> No, it wasn't.
>
All of Christendom was once Roman Catholic until the date (when I am not
sure but about 1000 AD) when the church split with the so called Eastern
Rite becoming based in Byzantium (Constantinople). The other orthodox
churches (Russian, Greek and Serbian) are derived from that
part of the so-called Universal (ie Catholic) church which was
originally based in Rome and which split off due to doctrinal
differences.
I do not believe the term Aryan (or Arian as you spell it) has any
validity outside of Nazi Germany and a few groups in the United States.
> I suppose the next thing you're going to tell us that the Catholic Church
> was Arian in origin and that the Waldensians founded Donatism.
>
> And the Uniates were Protestants, I suppose.
>
You are clouding the issue.
Jesus!
> Sheesh.
>
> Regards, Dan | Columbia Political Science | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2
> "Evolution is to allegory as statues are to birdshit. It is a convenient
> platform upon which to deposit badly digested ideas." --Steve Jones, NYRB,
> July 17, 1997, p. 39
Clever! *Organized* Christianity is to Christ's teaching as a statue is
to avian excreta.
Alec Owen Aug 9,2000 2.02 pm
Alec Owen
There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
take out the profit motive. Treat drug addiction as a sickness and not a
crime. The GNP would increase by about 25% and every man. woman and
child in the United States could be covered by a National health plan.
Murders and prostution, burglaries and street crime would all diminish.
Alec Owen
>
> No it doesn't it merely shows that even if what was said about
> pharmaceuticals and soda makers is true, its irrelevant that they have a
> profit motive, because the drug suppliers have a worse motive than just
> profit.
Daniel Hugh Nexon
> For "Dorsally" read "Disraeli". First (and only-so far) Jewish Prime
> Minister of the UK.
Who was baptized and, hence, NOT a Jew. Not that his Jewish roots weren't
used against him.
England has a fairly long record of anti-semitism. It has less opportunity
to express itself because its Jewish population was *expelled* in the
middle ages and never became particularly substantial again.
Daniel Hugh Nexon
>
>
> Daniel Hugh Nexon wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Alec Owen wrote:
> > >
> > > The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin ...
> >
> > No, it wasn't.
> >
> All of Christendom was once Roman Catholic until the date (when I am not
> sure but about 1000 AD) when the church split with the so called Eastern
> Rite becoming based in Byzantium (Constantinople). The other orthodox
> churches (Russian, Greek and Serbian) are derived from that
> part of the so-called Universal (ie Catholic) church which was
> originally based in Rome and which split off due to doctrinal
> differences.
The struggle for Patriarchal supremacy between Rome and Constantinople
predated the formal split; the Patriarchs of Constantinople certainly did
not generally consider themselves under Rome. You are somewhat correct in
that after the split the Roman Church called themselves "Catholic" (i.e.
universal) as opposed to "Orthodox" (right praise), but that doesn't mean
that the Orthodox Church *derived* from the "Catholic" Church in the sense
of the entity in Rome.
> I do not believe the term Aryan (or Arian as you spell it) has any
> validity outside of Nazi Germany and a few groups in the United States.
Arianism. Not "aryanism." Look it up.
[Once again, my .sig is mistaken for being about something it isn't.]
neuralnoise
"Alec Owen" <ao...@ica.net> wrote in message
news:39919F02...@ica.net...
> ........and incidentally why is it thatmodern Catholics are unaware of
> church history.
> Do you suppose there may have been as cover-up.
>
> Alec Owen
I hope you're not asking me, or answering me with your other post. My post
was a late-night-twisted-humor thing and nothing else. The Church of the
Subgenious is a joke religion founded I think in the 80s.
>
> neuralnoise wrote:
> >
> > "Daniel Hugh Nexon" <dh...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
> > news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100080...@aloha.cc.columbia.edu...
> >
> > > > The Russian Orthodox church was Catholic in origin ...
> > >
> > > No, it wasn't.
> > >
> > > I suppose the next thing you're going to tell us that the Catholic
Church
> > > was Arian in origin and that the Waldensians founded Donatism.
> > >
> > > And the Uniates were Protestants, I suppose.
> >
Philip Baker
> The holocaust was a direct result of the long anti Jewish
>campaign of the Roman Catholic church. The 5 recent dictatorships in
>Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, USSR all occurred in strongly
>wonder why Scandinavia or the UK did not produce Fascist movements or
>progroms.
>always had a direct involvement in the education of the young. I
>speculate that that may have indirectly influenced the course of events
>in Europe.
>for these things but perhaps should receive our sympathy and help.
>
The picture you are painting is far too simplistic. Others have pointed
out that the Orthodox Churches are as distinct from Roman Catholicism as
the Protestant Churches are. But let's consider two strongly Catholic
countries, Spain and Italy. Franco's Spain never persecuted Jews and in
fact protected from the Nazis those Sephardic Jews who, living outside
Spain, had taken up the option of Spanish citizenship offered by a
previous Spanish government. The Italian Fascist Movement at its start
was not anti-semitic and many Italian Jews joined it. Later under
pressure from Hitler it changed.
Ian Goddard
>
>There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
>take out the profit motive. Treat drug addiction as a sickness and not a
>crime.
IAN: Or treat it as a choice. "Sick people" get locked
up as fast as criminals (see psychiatry). Indeed, the
entire current drug-control regime could be replaced by
a forced-treatment regime. Just call the jails treatment
centers and the busts "therapeutic intervention." Pseudo-
medicine is just as easy to fabricate as pseudojustice.
------------------------------------------------------------
GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
____________________________________________________________
Asking the "wrong questions," challenging the Official Story
McFarlin
Ayn Rand's whole world view is rendered defunct by what we now know about
human, indeed, all biology.
See "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom for a detailed deconstruction of
the unscientific notion that humans are "naturally" selfish.
Objectivism can be found in the junkpile of discarded pseudo-intellectual
stupidities.
Rob McFarlin
Daniel Hugh Nexon
> Do you doubt that the millions of Jews killed in Germany. Russian, Spain
> and other countries.
> was a direct result of Catholic propaganda.
It is difficult to defend this proposition, given the variance of
treatment of Jews in equally Catholic places. Propaganda by Catholics, and
sometimes the Catholic Church (but not always), was certainly complicit in
the development of "racist" anti-semitism and extermination, but was not a
direct cause.
> Catholics have always felt
> threatened by
> other faiths.
All universal religions are "threatened" by other faiths, as their
existance questions the very universalism they pretend.
But Catholics have no monopoly on anti-semitism and opposition to other
relgions.
Protestantism, in some of varieties, has been far more virulent about
these issues.
I think you'll find, if you really think hard about these matters, that no
particular monotheistic religion is immune to extremes in defense of the
faith, and that specific outcomes are more a circumstance of how religious
beliefs intertwine with other factors (political, social, and economic). I
would much prefer to have been a practicing Jew in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth (Catholic, Uniate, and Orthodox depending on the class and
region) than in various post-reformation places in Germany. Being Jewish
in Spain was particularly problematic after the Reconquista, but we have
to remember that the Inquisition (against Conversos and Moriscos as well
as some Catholic humanists) was, in Castile, a NATIONAL institution and
not controlled by Rome. For that matter, I would rather have been a Jew in
Proestant Dutch territory at certain times than to have been a Catholic
under British rule at others.
djiin....@bigfoot.com
wrote:
>>There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
>>take out the profit motive. Treat drug addiction as a sickness and not a
>>crime.
>
>
> IAN: Or treat it as a choice. "Sick people" get locked
> up as fast as criminals (see psychiatry). Indeed, the
> entire current drug-control regime could be replaced by
> a forced-treatment regime. Just call the jails treatment
> centers and the busts "therapeutic intervention." Pseudo-
> medicine is just as easy to fabricate as pseudojustic
But no-one wants to abolish drugs - and most certainly not the US.
Daniel Hansen
>
> There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
> take out the profit motive.
Yes legalizing alcohol after prohibition got rid of all problems related to
alcohol. riiiiiiiiiiight......... Oregon made gambling illegal, probably to
protect the citizens against themselves. But now the state runs video poker
in every bar in the state and takes 60% of the money.
> Treat drug addiction as a sickness and not a crime.
The addiction is not a crime. The purchasing, possession, and usage are
crimes. If you want to stop it, stop it before it starts. No one gets
addicted before the first hit.
> The GNP would increase by about 25% and every man. woman and
> child in the United States could be covered by a National health plan.
Increase how? Legal drug sales? or the Health Plan? Hard drugs wont be any
less addictive if they are legal and the problems wont be any less severe.
ALSO, the next generation will get the message that they are morally right
and/or safe to use. This is evident in the use of tobacco and alcohol. Even
a warning label isn't sufficient for people to take responsibility for
smoking. Its still not their fault they are dying from it. (at least
according to the courts)
> Murders and prostution, burglaries and street crime would all diminish.
These crimes are sometimes linked to drugs but not in all cases, so how
would it affect them?
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
news:sp6cd78...@corp.supernews.com...
> > There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
> > take out the profit motive.
> Yes legalizing alcohol after prohibition got rid of all problems related
to
> alcohol. riiiiiiiiiiight.........
It got rid of a major percentage of the CRIMINAL involvement in
the production and sale of alcohol.
Decriminalizing currently illegal drugs would do the same.
> Oregon made gambling illegal, probably to protect the citizens against
> themselves.
No it didn't. The state merely wanted a cut of the proceeds.
> But now the state runs video poker in every bar in the state and takes
> 60% of the money.
Yeah, and...?
> > Treat drug addiction as a sickness and not a crime.
> The addiction is not a crime. The purchasing, possession, and usage are
> crimes. If you want to stop it, stop it before it starts. No one gets
> addicted before the first hit.
Bullshit. The predisposition to addiction exists a priori to the exposure.
You actually believe all the hysterical nonsense spouted by Big Uncle
as regards to the War on (Some) Drugs?
> > The GNP would increase by about 25% and every man. woman and
> > child in the United States could be covered by a National health plan.
> Increase how? Legal drug sales? or the Health Plan? Hard drugs wont be any
> less addictive if they are legal and the problems wont be any less severe.
> ALSO, the next generation will get the message that they are morally right
> and/or safe to use.
Hahaha! As though each generation gives a shit about the "morality" of
consuming a given substance. I guess you were either never a teenager
or were raised in a cave.
> This is evident in the use of tobacco and alcohol. Even
> a warning label isn't sufficient for people to take responsibility for
> smoking. Its still not their fault they are dying from it. (at least
> according to the courts)
Then the law is an ass.
> > Murders and prostution, burglaries and street crime would all diminish.
> These crimes are sometimes linked to drugs but not in all cases, so how
> would it affect them?
If a dose of cocaine, meth or heroin were fifty cents instead of $20...
oh, you figure it out.
--
"Such behavior is not just inappropriate, it's
immoral, it is harmful..."
Senator Joe Lieberman regarding W.J.Clinton
"President Clinton is a great President."
Al Gore
"Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco.
I want you to know that with my own hands,
all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and
transferred it. I hoed it. I've sprayed it, I've
chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put
it in the barn and stripped it and sold it."
Al Gore - New York Newsday - 02-26-88
"I didn't know I was in a Buddhist temple."
Al Gore - 05-23-97
"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?
For it to prosper, none dare call it treason."
Sir John Harrington
"I don't avoid women, Mandrake, but I do
deny them my essence."
USAF General "Jack" Ripper
"Never trust a man who can't be bought."
Benjamin Franklin Keith
----------------------------------------------------
oh...@freedom.net
King Rob has declared it.
It must be so.
Bwahahaha.
Daniel Hansen
"Henry Glenworthy" <Henry Glenw...@xteleport.com> wrote in message
news:C1Kk5.7113$Yl1.2...@nntp3.onemain.com...
> > > There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal drugs
> > > take out the profit motive.
>
> > Yes legalizing alcohol after prohibition got rid of all problems related
> to
> > alcohol. riiiiiiiiiiight.........
>
> It got rid of a major percentage of the CRIMINAL involvement in
> the production and sale of alcohol.
>
> Decriminalizing currently illegal drugs would do the same.
>
Many of the illegal brewers simply became legal companies putting criminals
in good standing. Others of course moved on to other criminal ventures. So
do we legalize everything? But that still had no effect on the problems
caused by alcohol. Legal or not a crackhead is still a crackhead and he will
probably still beg, borrow, and STEAL to get a hit.......
Two families come to mind that went different ways...
Kennedy
Luciano
BTW, there are still illegal moonshine stills in the mountians. (its a
strange culture)
Lee
:
: "Henry Glenworthy" <Henry Glenw...@xteleport.com> wrote in message
: news:C1Kk5.7113$Yl1.2...@nntp3.onemain.com...
:
: > > > There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal
drugs
: > > > take out the profit motive.
: >
: > > Yes legalizing alcohol after prohibition got rid of all problems
related
: > to
: > > alcohol. riiiiiiiiiiight.........
: >
: > It got rid of a major percentage of the CRIMINAL involvement in
: > the production and sale of alcohol.
: >
: > Decriminalizing currently illegal drugs would do the same.
: >
:
: Many of the illegal brewers simply became legal companies putting
criminals
: in good standing. Others of course moved on to other criminal ventures. So
: do we legalize everything?
Yes.
: But that still had no effect on the problems caused by alcohol.
Legal or not, there will be alcoholics. At least, if it's legal
they can seek help without fear of arrest.
: Legal or not a crackhead is still a crackhead and he will
: probably still beg, borrow, and STEAL to get a hit.......
If the drug was legal it would be a LOT cheaper. Anyway,
if your afraid that you will be robbed or burgled, then exercise
your 2nd Amendment right by arming and defending yourself
and your property.
: Two families come to mind that went different ways...
:
: Kennedy
: Luciano
There you are... there's always a choice,
until the Feds outlaw it.
: BTW, there are still illegal moonshine stills in the mountians. (its a
: strange culture)
Tax evasion.
Illegal only because the Feds aren't getting their "cut".
bea...@spiretech.com
<dan...@danielhansen.net> wrote:
>
>Many of the illegal brewers simply became legal companies putting criminals
>in good standing. Others of course moved on to other criminal ventures. So
>do we legalize everything?
Well, yeah.
What real overriding interest does the government have on regulating
what I inhale, ingest, or inject? Why is it that I can brew hundreds
of gallons of a good Porter in my basement but I can't have an ounce
of wicked green without a prescription? I'm going to buy my wife a
case of her favorite wine for her birthday this week. Given that
quantity of any other similarly mind altering substance, I could look
forward to rotting away my life in jail. And you think this is
reasonable?
The history of intoxication is as old as the species. Legal or
illegal, like it or not.
>But that still had no effect on the problems
>caused by alcohol. Legal or not a crackhead is still a crackhead and he will
>probably still beg, borrow, and STEAL to get a hit.......
Which is why we ought to just decriminalize the taking of that hit so
we could open up a little jail space for the stealing part.
===========================
Bob Beauchaine
"Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid."
Daniel Hansen
>
> Which is why we ought to just decriminalize the taking of that hit so
> we could open up a little jail space for the stealing part.
>
> ===========================
> Bob Beauchaine
You realize you have to have quite a bit of weed to get jail time......
superbrickman
more potent drugs. Just look at before the war on drugs of how many junior
and senior high school students ever tried drugs compared to today.
<bea...@spiretech.com> wrote in message
news:39949172...@news.spiretech.com...
> No, I don't realize that. I don't have the numbers handy, but my
> understanding of the issue is that our jails are filled to brimming
> with minor drug offenders, many of whom are there for possessing
> perfecly reasonable quantities.
>
> Nonetheless, what does it matter? I can have a garage filled to the
> ceiling with all matter of spirits. Yet I can't have a brick of hash
> in my possession. Yet which of the two drugs is really causing more
> ills for society?
bea...@spiretech.com
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
news:sp8b2af...@corp.supernews.com...
> "Henry Glenworthy" <Henry Glenw...@xteleport.com> wrote in message
> news:C1Kk5.7113$Yl1.2...@nntp3.onemain.com...
> > > > There's the answer. If you want to abolish the trade in illegal
drugs
> > > > take out the profit motive.
> > > Yes legalizing alcohol after prohibition got rid of all problems
related
> > > to alcohol. riiiiiiiiiiight.........
> > It got rid of a major percentage of the CRIMINAL involvement in
> > the production and sale of alcohol.
> > Decriminalizing currently illegal drugs would do the same.
> Many of the illegal brewers simply became legal companies putting
criminals
> in good standing.
Name one.
> Others of course moved on to other criminal ventures. So
> do we legalize everything? But that still had no effect on the problems
> caused by alcohol. Legal or not a crackhead is still a crackhead and he
will
> probably still beg, borrow, and STEAL to get a hit.......
You conveniently edited out my point that if Evil Drugs were decriminalized
the price would nose-dive. Instead of having to support a $200 a day habit,
it would be a $2 a day habit. It would cost society a lot less, in
prison/court
time and in criminal behavior to GIVE addicts the drug of choice.
> Two families come to mind that went different ways...
> Kennedy
> Luciano
> BTW, there are still illegal moonshine stills in the mountians. (its a
> strange culture)
In the "mountians" [sic]? Heck, in the cities, towns and valleys.
neuralnoise
"superbrickman" <superb...@email.msn.com> wrote in message
news:O$74k1ABAHA.283@cpmsnbbsa07...
> > >You realize you have to have quite a bit of weed to get jail time......
Not in the real world. For that matter, you don't have to have any, you just
have to have a cop who wants to find some on you.
> > No, I don't realize that. I don't have the numbers handy, but my
> > understanding of the issue is that our jails are filled to brimming
> > with minor drug offenders, many of whom are there for possessing
> > perfecly reasonable quantities.
Well, I don't know what the story is with the prisons, but city & county
lockups are bursting at the seams with pot smokers carrying little or
nothing, sometimes just a pipe. Most likely they will never get a jail
"sentence", or a real trial for that matter -- they will just sit in jail
for a month, even two, waiting for a court date and a "time served" stamp.
Demanding a trial gets you another month. Demanding a trial by jury gets you
laughed at.
McFarlin
If a Libertarian is really a republican who smokes pot - an Objectivist is a
Libertarian on crank!
Rob McFarlin
Laurie S.
<ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <8mmo1n$3lg$1...@brokaw.wa.com>, Elf Sternberg <e...@halcyon.com>
>writes
>>In article <dlP$LgAyZg...@thalasson.com>
>> Philip Baker <ph...@thalasson.com> writes:
>>
>>>In article <mRnznGAR...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk>, jimmy adams
>>><ji...@eddlewood.demon.co.uk> writes
>>
>>>>> Personally, I live in the 20th Century, a century of "put up or
>>>>>shut up."
>>
>>>>Greetings from the future, Elf.
>>
>>>Well I'm still living in the 20th Century, only a few months to go
>>>though.
>>
>> Yep. Some of us can read a calendar.
>>
>Are you suggesting that the rest of us have got to go through all that
>*again*?
>--
>jra...@bigfoot.com
Aw, c'mon. Don't tell me you won't celebrate an extra millennium bash
with the purists. ;)
Laurie, semi-purist but not too bent out of shape about it
www.geocities.com/tobyneige/life.html
www.geocities.com/tobyneige/pictures.html
--
If you can't believe in yourself,
believe in someone who believes in you.
Daniel Hansen
ounce is quite a lot to smoke even in a few days.
<bea...@spiretech.com> wrote in message
news:39949172...@news.spiretech.com...
> On Fri, 11 Aug 2000 13:49:34 -0700, "Daniel Hansen"
> <dan...@danielhansen.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Which is why we ought to just decriminalize the taking of that hit so
> >> we could open up a little jail space for the stealing part.
> >>
> >> ===========================
> >> Bob Beauchaine
> >
> >
> >You realize you have to have quite a bit of weed to get jail time......
> >
> >
>
> No, I don't realize that. I don't have the numbers handy, but my
> understanding of the issue is that our jails are filled to brimming
> with minor drug offenders, many of whom are there for possessing
> perfecly reasonable quantities.
>
Daniel Hansen
and
> more potent drugs. Just look at before the war on drugs of how many
junior
> and senior high school students ever tried drugs compared to today.
they were already illegal back then, there is no case that the war on drugs
inspired drug use, thats a last ditch defence of the legalize everything
crowd....
Andre-Paul Nelson
learned yet the high price paid lesson of the alcohol prohibition of the
20ies.
Decade after decade, people reproduce the same huge mistakes, and then
complain for the consequences. With your blind-minded total war to drugs, you
did build your own hell in your country. And it's not gonna go better!
Sorry. I'm not living in your crazy country so I consider its politics with a
certain distance as long they don't pollute other part of the world, trying to
impose their own failures to others, who don't want them.
Matterhorn hermitt
superbrickman wrote:
> Of course, we know by making these drugs illegal, we have more drug use and
> more potent drugs. Just look at before the war on drugs of how many junior
> and senior high school students ever tried drugs compared to today.
>
jdescript
>Well, after all these years, I can't understand how you yankee
folks haven't
>learned yet the high price paid lesson of the alcohol
prohibition of the
>20ies.
>Decade after decade, people reproduce the same huge mistakes,
and then
>complain for the consequences. With your blind-minded total war
to drugs, you
>did build your own hell in your country. And it's not gonna go
better!
>Sorry. I'm not living in your crazy country so I consider its
politics with a
>certain distance as long they don't pollute other part of the
world, trying to
>impose their own failures to others, who don't want them.
>
>Matterhorn hermitt
>
Obviously you don't understand the dynamics of the socialist
take over of America. This particular social manipulation
[socman] has been completly successful in it's intended
socialist purpose to raise the fear level in the country
preparatory to the complete transition and in funneling massive
loot funding to the forces of socialist oppression. Do you
think that socman of the caliber of nixon/liddy are too dumb
to know the consequences? It sounds like you have so knuckled
under to socman that you can't see him any longer. In the Ayn
Rand Theory it's called the "sanction of the victim".
Good seeing. JD
--------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
bea...@spiretech.com
<dan...@danielhansen.net> wrote:
>I could be wrong but last I heard less than an ounce is a misdemeanor, an
>ounce is quite a lot to smoke even in a few days.
And a case of Scotch is a lot to drink, even in a few days.
So what?
bea...@spiretech.com
Glenw...@xteleport.com> wrote:
>
>You conveniently edited out my point that if Evil Drugs were decriminalized
>the price would nose-dive. Instead of having to support a $200 a day habit,
>it would be a $2 a day habit. It would cost society a lot less, in
>prison/court
>time and in criminal behavior to GIVE addicts the drug of choice.
Kind of reminds me of the solution to prison crowding a co-worker
lofted one day. He proposed that you take the baddest m.f.er's in the
joint and throw them in a room with one knife. You then put 24 hour
surveilance on the one guy who walks out alive. Keeps the cost down,
in the end.
But we'll spend billions to try and solve a completely unsolvable
"problem". You can't stop those inclined to drug use from pursuing
their hobby, and you're an idiot for trying. It's always been that
way.
Hell, even god smokes dope - look at the platypus.
Daniel Hansen
<bea...@spiretech.com> wrote in message
news:39981976....@news.spiretech.com...
> On Sat, 12 Aug 2000 17:03:45 -0700, "Daniel Hansen"
> <dan...@danielhansen.net> wrote:
>
> >I could be wrong but last I heard less than an ounce is a misdemeanor, an
> >ounce is quite a lot to smoke even in a few days.
>
> And a case of Scotch is a lot to drink, even in a few days.
>
> So what?
>
Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway. You
think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt be
legal...........
Chris Gattman
>
> Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway. You
> think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt be
> legal...........
Having lost relatives to both alcoholism and lung cancer, and one cousin
to paint, I have to ask you the difference? (I mean besides the amount of
political contribution?)
Never known anybody to die 'cause of pot. Turned out a couple of real
lifeless couch potatoes, but the f$#king irony of it is that the most
extreme case is about to retire because of his stock options (at the ripe
of age of 31, he's worth about $2.3 million unless the microprocessor
industry folds up in the next year.)
The other one is a college dropout making twice what I do because he's a
computer programmer. I actually studied in college.
Chris Gattman
"We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt
and that it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past...while we
silence the rebels of the present."
Thelonious Pepper
<dan...@danielhansen.net> wrote:
> Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway.
> You
> think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt be
> legal...........
Liquid Plumber, ropes, knives, and guns are killers. So are alcohol and
tobacco. Almost any object can be used in a lethal way. Compare the
number of deaths from recreational drug-use to those from automobile
use....
Our lives belong to us, not our government.
--
Socialist-Libertarianism : Burn the Flag Online
Macintosh Software : Male Lesbians : Abortion Morality
http://www.efn.org/~bsharvy/
Daniel Hansen
"Chris Gattman" <ga...@teleport.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100081...@user2.teleport.com...
> On Mon, 14 Aug 2000, Daniel Hansen wrote:
> >
> > Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway.
You
> > think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt
be
> > legal...........
>
> to paint, I have to ask you the difference? (I mean besides the amount of
> political contribution?)
When 25 year olds die on toilets of heart attacks from crank, and herion
addict OD regularly, I dont think legalization is a good idea. In the case
of cigs, they have had warning labels for YEARS and people STILL SMOKE?? You
want the right to do whatever you want and then hold the companies liable
for the damage??? You cant have it both ways....... you shouldnt be able to
anyway. Blame guns for death, blame bars for drunks, blame RJR for
cancer....... If no one is responsible for what they do to themselves then i
can see why the socialists want to regulate our happiness and
safety............ Legalize drugs and who's going to manufacture and produce
them? Be ready if you do cause a lot of liability suits come with it........
Daniel Hugh Nexon
> Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway. You
> think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt be
> legal...........
So I assume you also believe we should outlaw driving?
Daniel Hansen
"Daniel Hugh Nexon" <dh...@columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100081...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu...
> On Mon, 14 Aug 2000, Daniel Hansen wrote:
>
> > Most drugs are very hazardous and wouldnt be allowed to be sold anyway.
You
> > think the FDA would approve Meth? These drugs are killers and shouldnt
be
> > legal...........
>
> So I assume you also believe we should outlaw driving?
No what im saying is these drugs are controlled substances and are
dangerous. What all do we legalize? There are a lot more drugs out there
then the common ones. Theres a big market for all kinds of script drugs. So
what do we legalize? EVERYTHING?
Sti...@juno.com
igod...@erols.mom (Ian Goddard) wrote:
>
> The person with the highest IQ, Marilyn Vos Savant,
> has a column in the Washington Post magazine Parade
> called "Ask Marilyn." A recent question was if she
> agreed that "the purpose of life is to undertake
> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy." She
> concludes that the only argument supporting
> that (Randian) view is based on a fallacy:
>
> ==================================================
> Washington Post PARADE, 7/30/00, page 11
>
> ASK MARILYN
>
> By Marilyn Vos Savant
>
> QUESTION: Humans have long questioned the purpose
> of their existence. However, I believe the answer
> to this supposed eternal dilemma is relatively
> simplistic: The purpose of life is to undertake
> a selfish endeavor to make oneself happy. Anything
> and everything an individual does--in the long
> term--is solely for this purpose. Would you agree?
>
> MARILYN: ... you seem to be answering the question,
> "Toward what goal do all humans aim?" In defense
> of your answer, you could argue that even apparently
> altruistic behavior is still undertaken to give
> oneself pleasure. As an example, consider the case
> of Mother Teresa: You could suggest that relieving
> the suffering of India's poorest people made Mother
> Teresa happy herself, and that's why she undertook
> to do so. In short, you could argue that any chosen
> behavior, just by the fact that it is chosen,
> indicates a selfish endeavor. But this is based on
> a logical fallacy called petitio principii (better
> known as "begging the question"), a circular argument
> in which the conclusion also appears as an assumption.
>
> I can't find any other defense of your answer, so I
> can't agree with it.
> =====================================================
>
> IAN: It seems to follow from Savant's answer that
> the goal toward which all humans aim is NOT selfish
> endeavor to make oneself happy. Where's the evidence?
> What people act with intent not to satisfy themselves?
> Even someone marching along at gunpoint follows orders
> because it satisfies them not to be shot for resistance.
> Even someone killing themselves has concluded that death
> would be more satisfactory of them than life, it's even
> said by some that suicide is selfish. People engage in
> charitable behavior because it satisfies them and they
> earn social rewards for noble action. Even a masochist
> who acts to hurt himself finds satisfaction in such.
> If I and three others are starving to death in the
> arctic and I kill myself so the others can eat me,
> I did so because it satisfied me to help them.
>
Exposing global economic propaganda
From: Richard A. Stimson, author of “Playing with the Numbers: How So-
called Experts Mislead Us about the Economy”
Do you think members of your list would be interested in knowing about
this book exposing global economic propaganda? It is in both print and
electronic (PDF) form. Upon request, we’ll send a sample in either
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following site:
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For your information quotations from reviews and comments are appended
below.
Richard A. Stimson (c/o Westchester Press)
2132-J Crossing Way
High Point, NC 27262-8597
(336) 884-1038 E-mail: Westc...@aol.com
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“Richard Stimson's Playing With The Numbers: How So-Called
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Internet review on BlueEar Forum.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Daniel Hansen
>
> what do we legalize? EVERYTHING?
And what about Rufies and other date rape drugs???
Bennet K. Langlotz
>When 25 year olds die on toilets of heart attacks from crank, and herion
>addict OD regularly, I dont think legalization is a good idea.
How would legalization make it worse? (Aside from the cost, danger,
and loss of civil liberties and tax revenue due to the drug war.)
> Legalize drugs and who's going to manufacture and produce
>them? Be ready if you do cause a lot of liability suits come with it........
Why should it be different from alcohol producers? Do you think
quality and reliability about dosage would get worse if legal?
--
Bennet K. Langlotz
ne...@langlotz.com
Bennet K. Langlotz
>And what about Rufies and other date rape drugs???
Legalize arsenic if you want. Just keep its misuse (particularly
unconsented use on others) illegal.
Chris Gattman
>
> Liquid Plumber, ropes, knives, and guns are killers. So are alcohol and
> tobacco. Almost any object can be used in a lethal way. Compare the
> number of deaths from recreational drug-use to those from automobile
> use....
At some point, you have to abandon the notion that "the war on drugs" is
about human safety and well-being. I mean, you can only rant at the
clueless so long because quite simply, they don't want to hear it. I just
got done arguing with a co-worker who said she thought the company should
do random drug screening. She mentioned that she failed her first test
because of something she had taken...codeine, poppy-seed bread, something.
It can't be about what's safe or good or healthy in a country that
embraces alcohol and tobacco and glorifies shit like boxing.
It's about POWER. I'm sure if Bill Gates could outlaw the Macintosh or
Netscape, he'd have plenty of valid reasons to do it, but the reasons he
offered would have nothing to do with why he wanted it done.
'Course, I'm preaching to the choir and nobody else is listenting.
Daniel Hansen
"Bennet K. Langlotz" <ne...@langlotz.com> wrote in message
news:39986d39....@news.potlnd1.or.home.com...
Legalizing weed is one thing but the hard drugs should NOT be legal
Chris Gattman
> > Having lost relatives to both alcoholism and lung cancer, and one cousin
> > to paint, I have to ask you the difference? (I mean besides the amount of
> > political contribution?)
>
> When 25 year olds die on toilets of heart attacks from crank, and herion
> addict OD regularly, I dont think legalization is a good idea. In the case
I've never lost a relative to crank or heroin except by suicide, but I'll
tell you one thing: My friend Jamie is a quadrupalegic who has been in
and out of a coma (mostly in, except for a few moments once in awhile)
since 1987 when, at the age of 17, his life was destroyed by a drunk
driver.
Lost an uncle who fell down an iron stairwell when he was drunk and
cracked his head open. Mom thought she lost a boyfriend to drinking and
driving until it turned out he'd loaned a buddy his ID, and that guy had
been in an accident, burned so horribly that they couldn't even identify
him except that the ID was recoverable from the depths of his wallet.
Lost another friend to drinking, we did. He was a well-respected tai-chi
instructor in Waldport with a six-year-old daughter. Got drunk and rolled
through a stopsign into the path of a Greyhound bus.
One time when I was in the second grade, a friend of my mom who lost most
of his chin in Vietnam went on a drinking binge and busted her 12-string
guitar over her head before taking off again. Mom put a stool in front of
the bathroom window and taught me how to open it and crawl out in case he
came around through the front.
> of cigs, they have had warning labels for YEARS and people STILL SMOKE?? You
> want the right to do whatever you want and then hold the companies liable
> for the damage??? You cant have it both ways....... you shouldnt be able to
Who said I want the right to hold the companies liable?
> safety............ Legalize drugs and who's going to manufacture and produce
> them? Be ready if you do cause a lot of liability suits come with it........
Who manufacturs and produces marijuana right now? It ain't RJ Reynolds or
DuPont, and they're not hold accountable by their customers at all.
*shrug*
Chris Gattman
> >
>
You mean whiskey? Jack Daniels, man.