Budget Battles Ignore Proper Role Of Government
Brad Harrington
Wyoming Tribune Eagle, asked me to start writing a
weekly local column for him. This piece is what I sent him
today. Normally I wouldn't post this here because I know
that nobody gives a crap about what happens in Cheyenne,
Wyoming, but I believe that the points I raise have serious
implications for other cities, counties and states all around
the country facing the same issues.
So, here goes...
BUDGET BATTLES IGNORE PROPER ROLE OF
GOVERNMENT
By Bradley Harrington
Cheyenne, with thanks to dropping revenues resulting
from the local impact of the floundering national
economy, now finds itself with a budgetary shortfall
of $2.5 million for the rest of this fiscal year--
and that is the good news.
"It gets worse in fiscal year 2011, if the
legislature passes Gov. Dave Fruedenthal's proposed
budget cut to the city of $5 million," according to
the Wyoming Tribune Eagle ("Longevity pay survives,"
Jodi Rogstad, Jan. 12th.)
Mayor Rick Kaysen and the City Council, consequently,
are scrambling for ways to make up for that shortfall--
and, since city administration does not possess the
federal government's ability to simply print more
rubber dollars, the money has to come from somewhere.
Where it looks like it will be coming from, short-
term, is city worker furloughs and possible layoffs.
While this approach might provide a temporary, stopgap
solution, however, it will not work long-term. A
better solution needs to be devised, and that solution
is privatization.
Across-the-board budget cuts merely level off the top
few stories of city operations--which is fine, as far
as it goes; but it would be much more effective for
city administrators to critically examine the various
functions and services the city provides, and unload
the non-essential areas completely to the private
sector.
"Non-essential," in this context, means: not related
to the police, the courts, or other life-and-property
protective services, or the normal levels of
administrative overhead that are associated with such
services.
This year's city budget, for instance, contains an
allocated amount of $866,024 for the Civic Center.
Sell it to the highest bidder and let the new owner
run it for a profit and absorb the operating costs,
as with any other business operation.
Or take fire protection. For the current fiscal year,
spending is $508,229 on fire administration; $244,422
on fire training; $516,981 on fire prevention; and
$7,340,102 on fire suppression. Total: $8,609,734.
Does anybody really think that it would cost over $8
million per year for the city to contract fire
services out to a corporation such as Scottsdale,
Arizona's Rural-Metro? The city would certainly be
able to save at least the $244,422 in training
expenses, as those expenses would become the
responsibility of the contractee.
Or take "Aquatics," a budgetary expense of $717,606;
whatever "Aquatics" covers, it certainly isn't
related to life-and-property protection. Nor is the
"Recreation" allocation of $1,015,619; nor the "Child
Care Programs" allocation of $886,234; nor the
"Softball and Batting Cages" allocation of $133,220;
nor the "Ice and Event Center" allocation of $542,480;
nor the "Golf Courses" allocation of $574,024; nor the
"Botanic Garden" allocation of $478,306. And that's
just the beginning of the list. (All figures from the
City Treasurer's office, "Authorized Spending Report,"
2010.)
It's not that these are not valuable resources for our
community; they are, and all of them enhance our lives
in many ways. Just because it is essential for the
well-being of our community to have these services
provided, however, does NOT mean that it is essential
that they be provided by government. Indeed, in a
free society, it is essential that they are not.
Government, it must be remembered, is a legal monopoly
on the use of force; and it is only operations
involving the use of force that are best left to its
realm. All else should be handled by the marketplace
and provided for a profit.
Turning these and other areas of city operation over
to the private sector, of course, would mean that the
city would lose whatever revenue is generated by
those operations; the tremendous amount of savings,
however, would eclipse such losses. City government
could actually run in the black and build up capital
reserves for truly necessary tasks; nor would we be
beholden to the state for funding.
Our current budget predicament is, in reality,
affording us an unmatched opportunity to pare our
government back to its proper functions; to jump-
start our economy through the capital investment and
jobs creation that accompanies truly productive
enterprise; and to provide our citizenry with a level
of service superior to what we currently receive.
Does our city administration have what it takes to
grab the bull by the horns and implement these types
of solutions? That remains to be seen; but, if not,
it will be ALL of us, not merely city workers, who
will lose--and it would be city administration, not
the citizens, who should shoulder the blame.
--
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine
and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Ray
news:him3st$r6m$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
>A few weeks ago, Reed Eckhardt, Editor of Cheyenne's
> Wyoming Tribune Eagle, asked me to start writing a
> weekly local column for him.
>
Very good, congratulation.
> Turning these and other areas of city operation over
> to the private sector, of course, would mean that the
> city would lose whatever revenue is generated by
> those operations; the tremendous amount of savings,
> however, would eclipse such losses. City government
> could actually run in the black and build up capital
> reserves for truly necessary tasks; nor would we be
> beholden to the state for funding.
>
Many cities have turned various services over to private
hands with great results. You don't hear about that
too much. Probably because certain interest don't want
you to know for obvious reasons.
Let's hope that Cheyenne's City Council hears you.
Ray
David Buchner
> A few weeks ago, Reed Eckhardt, Editor of Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune
> Eagle, asked me to start writing a weekly local column for him.
Cool! Would there be a byline on them? I looked briefly, but your name
didn't come up.
I just came here looking for you, because somebody posted a link to one
of your columns in a paper (Philadelphia?) on Facebook today. We Liked
it. But we were wondering who chose the title.
Charles Bell
wrote:
> BUDGET BATTLES IGNORE PROPER ROLE OF
> GOVERNMENT
>
Libertarian local government is a deader than dead issue. For
example, community centers, parks, and recreation provide some hope
that poor kids (usually fatherless) can stay out of trouble. Florida
has developed a network of locally run (and paid for) health clinics
to keep immigrants, drug addicts and mentally disturbed people from
clogging the emergency rooms, bankrupting hospitals and chasing away
medical specialists. There are also a host of problems caused by
private operations of government services that Florida has been
experimenting with and the result is just adding yet another layer of
graft, corruption, incompetence and negligence.
Local budgetary trouble usually comes from not anticipating what
should be anticipated like a downturn in the economy every decade and
dropping real estate values every generation or so. Prudent Investment
for such anticipation is sometimes hampered by corruption, of course.
Brad Harrington
> Let's hope that Cheyenne's City Council hears you.
It runs in tomorrow's edition, so we'll know soon enough. Heh heh heh!!
Bradley
Brad Harrington
>> A few weeks ago, Reed Eckhardt, Editor of Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune
>> Eagle, asked me to start writing a weekly local column for him.
>David Buchner wrote:
> Cool! Would there be a byline on them? I looked briefly, but your name
> didn't come up.
Yes, there would be a byline, but Reed doesn't put his columnists on the
website for some reason...so you won't see me online there at all.
> I just came here looking for you, because somebody posted a link to one
> of your columns in a paper (Philadelphia?) on Facebook today. We Liked
> it. But we were wondering who chose the title.
Yep, that was Philadelphia...the Bulletin...and the editors chose the title;
I would never have used the word "duty," myself.
For anyone else with an interest, here's the link:
Heh heh heh. Do you have Betsy Speicher as one of your friends on
Facebook? I also post my pieces to her forum, 4AynRandFans.com, and
she told me today that she sent that link out to over 1,600 of her friends
on
Facebook. I'm thinking maybe you are somewhere in that woodpile!
Hell, I didn't know that one person could have that many friends! I've got
like 8... <huge grin>
Bradley
Brad Harrington
>> BUDGET BATTLES IGNORE PROPER ROLE OF
>> GOVERNMENT
> Charles Bell wrote:
> Libertarian local government is a deader than dead issue. For
> example, community centers, parks, and recreation provide some hope
> that poor kids (usually fatherless) can stay out of trouble. Florida
> has developed a network of locally run (and paid for) health clinics
> to keep immigrants, drug addicts and mentally disturbed people from
> clogging the emergency rooms, bankrupting hospitals and chasing away
> medical specialists. There are also a host of problems caused by
> private operations of government services that Florida has been
> experimenting with and the result is just adding yet another layer of
> graft, corruption, incompetence and negligence.
So...can I therefore conclude, on the basis of the preceding paragraph,
that you do not support government being limited to its proper functions,
and that when it is, you believe it leads to "graft, corruption,
incompetence
and negligence," and that you, therefore, support the concept of "public"
ownership of property in local instances and situations?
If so, whatever word or phrase you choose to ascribe to such a social
system, it is not capitalism by any stretch of the imagination.
Brad Harrington
Mark N
> It runs in tomorrow's edition, so we'll know soon enough. Heh heh heh!!
Please stop posting from the future! It gets me confused! ;-)
Mark
Jim Klein
> Please stop posting from the future! It gets me confused! ;-)
See, this is one of the advantages of not having a degree. You
can believe both times gotta be in the universe (else it ain't the
universe) without losing your job!
jk
Charles Bell
wrote:
> >> Brad Harrington wrote:
> >> BUDGET BATTLES IGNORE PROPER ROLE OF
> >> GOVERNMENT
> > Charles Bell wrote:
> > Libertarian local government is a deader than dead issue. �For
> > example, community centers, parks, and recreation provide some hope
> > that poor kids (usually fatherless) can stay out of trouble. �Florida
> > has developed a network of locally run (and paid for) health clinics
> > to keep immigrants, drug addicts and mentally disturbed people from
> > clogging the emergency rooms, bankrupting hospitals and chasing away
> > medical specialists. There are also a host of problems caused by
> > private operations of government services that Florida has been
> > experimenting with and the result is just adding yet another layer of
> > graft, corruption, incompetence and negligence.
>
> So...can I therefore conclude, on the basis of the preceding paragraph,
> that you do not support government being limited to its proper functions,
> and that when it is, you believe it leads to "graft, corruption,
> incompetence
Yes. I believe there are too many people invested in corruption [*] to
suppose that any political system will be free from corruption and
that a local government's "proper" function is what the people locally
need it to function for.. A local government which has public-funded
amenities that can be better run by means other than direct government
operation is, of course, preferable but never without corruption or
incompetence, thereby increasing the expense, as you are promising or
even necessarily better run as you would suppose as there is plenty of
evidence in private prisons and private welfare services to contradict
that assertion. A libertarian "proper" government is a dead issue
because, as I said, people locally want their government to do
anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so, and those who
disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair fight
-- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
community. As yet there has never been a community of any size and
diversity that has what you are defining as a "proper" government.
Why is that?
[*] Are you shocked, SHOCKED that despite your best efforts to
nursemaid every last soul away from evil, there are still evil people?
> and negligence," and that you, therefore, support the concept of "public"
> ownership of property in local instances and situations?
>
Can a locality have a public park, municipal facilities, recreation
and community facilities? Yes
> If so, whatever word or phrase you choose to ascribe to such a social
> system, it is not capitalism by any stretch of the imagination.
Capitalism does not and cannot exist in anarchy. That is foremost the
reason why anarchists are anti-capitalist, and so-called anarcho-
capitalists are frauds and liars who have no belief in individualism
nor a particular stake in capitalism except as means to destroy
it .You will only be persuasive to others when you can approach the
subject of government, as good, without anarchist utopian notions
because nobody outside the two groups of parasites: the intellectual
cadres of effete snobs and the denizens of the culture of corruption
advocates libertarian anarchy to the extent there ought not to be
locally run and owned public parks, municipal facilities and
recreation areas.
Brad Harrington
>> So...can I therefore conclude, on the basis of the preceding paragraph,
>> that you do not support government being limited to its proper functions,
>> and that when it is, you believe it leads to "graft, corruption,
> Charles Bell wrote:
> Yes.
Heh heh heh!! Howdy-doody to Charles Bell, the new advocate of
socialistic, public-property-based communitarianism. Who woulda thunk it?
Brad Harrington
Jim Klein
> Capitalism does not and cannot exist in anarchy. That is foremost the
> reason why anarchists are anti-capitalist, and so-called anarcho-
> capitalists are frauds and liars who have no belief in individualism
> nor a particular stake in capitalism except as means to destroy
> it .You will only be persuasive to others when you can approach the
> subject of government, as good, without anarchist utopian notions
> because nobody outside the two groups of parasites: the intellectual
> cadres of effete snobs and the denizens of the culture of corruption
> advocates libertarian anarchy to the extent there ought not to be
> locally run and owned public parks, municipal facilities and
> recreation areas.
Wow...that shocked me too. Alright, leave aside "municipal
facilities," since that's awfully broad...what exactly is your
basis for the support of publicly owned parks and rec areas?
jk
Charles Bell
wrote:
> Heh heh heh!! Howdy-doody to Charles Bell, the new advocate of
> socialistic, public-property-based communitarianism. Who woulda thunk it?
You disappoint me in that you cannot even present a cogent, and
relevant to the point, response, but certainly my opinion of you is
irrelevant, but rather the opinions of the those you wish to convince
there in your city ought to be important to you, and you do not care
that you have a loser's position and attitude.
Look up some Jefferson and Adam Smith on the subject by the way.
Charles Bell
> what exactly is your
> basis for the support of publicly owned parks and rec areas?
>
Position already stated and question already answered. I will add
that governments ought also be capable of outlawing public-sector
unions (or simply refuse to negotiate with unions) and thereby give
themselves a cost advantage in labor over contracting out to private
firms who may be saddled with unions.
Brad Harrington
> You disappoint me in that you cannot even present a cogent, and
> relevant to the point, response, but certainly my opinion of you is
> irrelevant, but rather the opinions of the those you wish to convince
> there in your city ought to be important to you, and you do not care
> that you have a loser's position and attitude.
Charles, I gave you all the response that your virtually unreadable
drivel deserved.
It just so happens, by the way, that the folks here in Cheyenne seem
to have a greater grasp of city government operations than you: my
email has lit up like a Christmas tree and the stats are over 90% for.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it; it would probably go pretty
good with whatever it is that you've been smoking already.
Brad Harrington
Charles Bell
wrote:
> > Charles Bell wrote:
> > You disappoint me in that you cannot even present a cogent, and
> > relevant to the point, response, but certainly my opinion of you is
> > irrelevant, but rather the opinions of the those you wish to convince
> > there in your city ought to be important to you, and you do not care
> > that you have a loser's position and attitude.
>
> Charles, I gave you all the response that your virtually unreadable
> drivel deserved.
>
So then my prudence in refraining from commenting on your previous
libertarian tripe has been for nought.
> It just so happens, by the way, that the folks here in Cheyenne seem
> to have a greater grasp of city government operations than you:
White Republicans have a way of doing that.
> my
> email has lit up like a Christmas tree and the stats are over 90% for.
Proof is in the pudding. See what your white Republicans will actually
do, rather than say what they have a mind to do.
Brad Harrington
>> my
>> email has lit up like a Christmas tree and the stats are over 90% for.
> Charles Bell wrote:
> Proof is in the pudding. See what your white Republicans will actually
> do, rather than say what they have a mind to do.
As usual, you miss the point completely...YOU made the claim that
my "loser" position would generate no interest...that it was a "dead" issue.
And, as usual, you are wrong again. You really need to quit while you're
ahead, because the only thing you are convincing anyone of, is your own
abysmal ignorance.
Brad Harrington
Charles Bell
wrote:
> >> Brad Harrington wrote:
> >> my
> >> email has lit up like a Christmas tree and the stats are over 90% for.
> > Charles Bell wrote:
> > Proof is in the pudding. See what your white Republicans will actually
> > do, rather than say what they have a mind to do.
>
> As usual, you miss the point completely..
As "usual" per what statements, specifically?
>.YOU made the claim that
> my "loser" position would generate no interest...
I did not say that.
>that it was a "dead" issue.
That is why I have said that the proof is in the pudding, and we''ll
see what happens.
>
> And, as usual, you are wrong again.
As "usual" about what I have I been wrong in the past?
Jim Klein
> Proof is in the pudding. See what your white Republicans will actually
> do, rather than say what they have a mind to do.
You're all over the map, and not making any sense at all.
I could at least understand if you charged me with offering
"libertarian tripe," even though you'd be wrong. But Brad?
That's nearly insane. Even a charge of "democratic tripe"
might be understandable, considering the context, though
that too would be wrong considering the principles that he's
advocating.
You're awfully busy charging others--David Friedman, Brad,
and on and on--with being so misled, but meanwhile you
hardly spend a moment trying to defend what YOU write.
So try that for a change. This is what YOU wrote...
> people locally want their government to do
> anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
Really? "Anything the people wish it to do"? And "rightly
so"??? Let's see YOU defend THAT.
> and those who
> disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair fight
> -- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
> community.
This is EXACTLY backwards, even if we stipulate the necessity
and wonder of Rule of Law. The people MAY NOT vote "anything
they wish" against a minority of even one and this is SO basic
to both Rand's Objectivism and the founding principles of
this country, that it leaves almost no words to decribe its error
and its evil.
In THIS country, as a matter of LAW, those who do what you
offer as "right," are supposed to themselves leave, and find
themselves some other plot of land to impose their madness,
outside of the borders of this country.
You are becoming a walking and breathing example of what
happens when one abdicates his mind to the rotten
epistemology of ARIanism (nee Peikovianism). You are being
wholly "other-driven," thinking that you're instantiating some
sort of "rational sanction" of those who don't pray in your Church.
What you are really doing, is sacrificing your own ability to
rationally sanction.
Fix it, and quickly, because this is a deadly disease in the worst
sort of way. It leaves people breathing, but without the function
that makes them distinctly human. Enough already.
jk
David Buchner
> Yes, there would be a byline, but Reed doesn't put his columnists on the
> website for some reason...so you won't see me online there at all.
OK. I'll stop looking, then. :-)
> Yep, that was Philadelphia...the Bulletin...and the editors chose the title;
> I would never have used the word "duty," myself.
That's just what we thought.
> Heh heh heh. Do you have Betsy Speicher as one of your friends on
> Facebook? I also post my pieces to her forum, 4AynRandFans.com, and she
> told me today that she sent that link out to over 1,600 of her friends
> on Facebook. I'm thinking maybe you are somewhere in that woodpile!
I am. While I was orgininally very skeptical, I'm finding Facebook as
far as making connections to people with similiar ideas/interests who I
didn't even know where out there. I think it's kind of weird mixing the
"networking" type connections in with the friend-friend, family stuff,
but so far it hasn't seemed that problematic. Sharing family photos with
315 people (as of this morning) still isn't as wide-open as with the
whole internet.
> Hell, I didn't know that one person could have that many friends! I've got
> like 8... <huge grin>
Matt Barrow
"Brad Harrington" <timeforeve...@yahoo.com> wrote in message...
> A few weeks ago, Reed Eckhardt, Editor of Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune
> Eagle, asked me to start writing a weekly local column for him.
Hey, Brad!
Didn't read that when I lived t here, but hope it works well for you.
(Had to bail out of Cheyenne as SWMBO developed horrifc allergies from the
wind).
Matt Barrow
Charles Bell
> On Jan 21, 6:11 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > Proof is in the pudding. See what your white Republicans will actually
> > do, rather than say what they have a mind to do.
>
> You're all over the map, and not making any sense at all.
>
> I could at least understand if you charged me with offering
> "libertarian tripe," even though you'd be wrong. �But Brad?
> That's nearly insane.
In nearly all of his article-posts there were some 40-50% typical
libertarian revisionist stuff. but because there was more than 50%
good I let them go by without bothering to comment. Perhaps I will not
in the future, perhaps I will, but I won't go back and pick out the
bits I find objectionable now to make a point. However, this last
post where the idea that local government cannot carry on local
projects that are *entirely rights respecting* , even as a non-
anarchist libertarian would call them, and caste them as against
proper government, taking Rand's meaning out of context of what it
means to have a proper government -- that is, on a national level from
which there can be no escape -- is too much to bear and fully wasting
political capital on really stupid stuff. The one and only one reason
city governments have financial crunches in bad times in poor
financial planning and has nothing to do with some larger issue of
"proper government"
> You're awfully busy charging others--David Friedman, Brad,
> and on and on--with being so misled,
Friedman is a mis-leader, not misled. Brad's intellectual acuity is
lower than I expected, for otherwise I would not have gone on to the
extent that I did and simply said something like his expectations are
unrealistic.
> but meanwhile you
> hardly spend a moment trying to defend what YOU write.
>
> So try that for a change. �This is what YOU wrote...
>
> > people locally want their government to do
> > anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
Go back to my OP and the one after that and point-by-point say where I
am wrong.
>
> This is EXACTLY backwards, even if we stipulate the necessity
> and wonder of Rule of Law.
I disagree with this "Rule of Law", or whatever, you are referring to,
so put it another way if you wish to say something worthwhile for me
to respond to
> �The people MAY NOT vote "anything
> they wish" against a minority
Actually I would like to see where Rand specifically thought this ACLU
mentality as particularly valid. Rand would say that YOU under YOUR
government have no business whatsoever interfering with ME under MY
government so long as my government is not initiating force against
you and your government. Indeed, in a federated system -- something
which Rand never dealt with at all in consideration of proper
government -- the case is not quite so simple: a federal government
can stipulate certain basic rights appertaining to federal
citizenship -- such as no slavery -- that every local government must
respect but THAT IS IT. I have made my position on this very clear
and I thought you agreed.
Fred Weiss wants to save 5 cents on each orange he buys so he solicits
thousands of immigrant workers into my local area (not his, of course)
and then saddles me and my government, who benefits in no way by the
cheaper oranges, with the expense of dealing with such immigration but
does not allow me, through my government, to kick out these people
because he claims they have "rights".
No way, Jose!
> In THIS country, as a matter of LAW, those who do what you
> offer as "right," are supposed to themselves leave, and find
> themselves some other plot of land to impose their madness,
> outside of the borders of this country.
>
That is still not true, but nationalists have been working at
eliminating local democracy since Hamilton, but fortunately
Jeffersonian local democracy still lives on in many ways. It is to
the degree that nationalism has predominated since the Civil War that
every individual has slowly lost his right to form his own government
with like-minded people without having to leave the country. Even the
national-socialists today in Washington D.C. were willing to exempt
the Amish from their socialized health-care scheme.
Brad Harrington
>> Hell, I didn't know that one person could have that many friends! I've
>> got
>> like 8... <huge grin>
> David Buchner wrote:
> http://www.facebook.com/david.buchner
David, that link took me to a "page not found" screen.
Brad Harrington
Brad Harrington
>> A few weeks ago, Reed Eckhardt, Editor of Cheyenne's Wyoming Tribune
>> Eagle, asked me to start writing a weekly local column for him.
> Matt Barrow wrote:
> Hey, Brad!
> Didn't read that when I lived t here, but hope it works well for you.
Well, so far, my privatization piece certainly made the city perk up some. I
even got an email on it from the former Chief of Police, who liked it; and
scads of phone calls, all affirmative. I haven't figured out yet what I'm
going to sound off on this week, but I should have something by Sunday.
I'll post it here when I get it done...
> (Had to bail out of Cheyenne as SWMBO developed horrifc allergies from the
> wind).
Had to look SWMBO up--and then laughed my ass off when I found out
what it means. I'm still chuckling; because I have one of my very own right
here in my own house!!! Do you think yours and mine might be long-lost
sisters? Heh heh heh!!
Brad Harrington
P.S. Right now the wind's clippin' along at about 40...I'm out about 12
miles
to the east, between Sapp Bros and the TA truckstop, so I get it worse here
than in town...
Jim Klein
> Brad's intellectual acuity is
> lower than I expected,
Feh. If you're going to bother with that, then I'll bother
to mention that it's higher than I expected. Far more
importantly, it goes /up/ as time goes by, which is the
single greatest hallmark of rationality.
Which brings up yet another symptom of the deadly
disease of the Brotherhood...stagnation, and an
outright /refusal/ to grow.
That, and the attendant deafness that comes along
with it.
> for otherwise I would not have gone on to the
> extent that I did
That doesn't make sense. Why would you go to
greater extents for someone with lesser intellectual
acuity?
> and simply said something like his expectations are
> unrealistic.
Oh, please. This place, and nearly all like it, are chock
full of unrealistic expectations.
Now your two separate countries, one in the South with
a rational Constitution...that's not unrealistic, eh? Or how
about Prescott's "Rule of Law," somehow controlling all
the rotten apples without infringing on anyone's goal of
seeking happiness...nothing unrealistic there, right? Or
my imagination of humans acting as if they were rational
egoists---that'll probably happen next week, I suppose.
I'm tellin' ya, Charles...the disease manifests as a goddammed
INVERSION. Brad's a real writer, writing real columns in real
newspapers, getting real responses from real people...and
here you're saying how low is his "intellectual acuity" and
what "unrealistic expectations" he has. Meanwhile, the
self-imagined Objectivists are cowered in their cloisters,
having an orgasmic thrill when one of their names even
gets mentioned in a newspaper. This, while Rand's philosophy
gets ever more hidden from the general population, except
to the degree these yahoos are laughed at.
"Hypocrisy is the most unnerving trait common to many ARIans."
> > but meanwhile you
> > hardly spend a moment trying to defend what YOU write.
>
> > So try that for a change. This is what YOU wrote...
>
> > > people locally want their government to do
> > > anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
>
> Go back to my OP and the one after that and point-by-point say where I
> am wrong.
No, thanks. YOU wrote that in the post to which I was
responding. You could answer the question in less time
than it took you to write the rest of this post, but instead
you want to me to try to figure out your intricate defense
based on something you wrote previously.
No thanks. Either defend your claim that "rightly so" people
want their government to do "anything the people wish it
to do," or leave it as an undefended, and manifestly absurd,
statement.
jk
Brad Harrington
you one more time--and, after that, I give up; I will have
concluded that you are simply too dense to understand simple
common English.
>> Jim Klein wrote:
>> I could at least understand if you charged me with offering
>> "libertarian tripe," even though you'd be wrong. But Brad?
>> That's nearly insane.
> Charles Bell wrote:
> In nearly all of his article-posts there were some 40-50% typical
> libertarian revisionist stuff. but because there was more than 50%
> good I let them go by without bothering to comment.
"Libertarian revisionist stuff," huh? And just what is that?
You should really spend some time studying the things you
sound off about, Charles--because it just so happens that,
politically and economically, the limited-government Libertarian
positions and the Objectivist positions are virtually identical. The
differences between Libertarians and Objectivists are rooted
on far deeper levels than the specific issues, and have much more
to do with the intellectual justifications for those positions, and for
the manner in which they are presented, than they do with the
practical positions themselves.
For instance:
Stand on fiat currency versus a gold-based dollar:
Objectivists: for gold, against paper money;
Libertarians: for gold, against paper money;
Stand on building regulations:
Objectivists: against
Libertarians: against
Stand on tax-funded schools:
Objectivists: against
Libertarians: against
Stand on gun control:
Objectivists: against
Libertarians: against
Stand on balanced budgets:
Objectivists: for
Libertarians: for
And so on. The overlap is nearly total.
It is when you get into areas of WHY those positions are
proper and appropriate, that differences arise. Objectivists
would base their politics in a firm grounding of rational self-
interest, individual rights and man as an end unto himself--
while the Libertarians would start chattering about a "non-
aggression principle" that has no intellecual/ideological basis,
that is merely supposed to be taken for granted, a floating
abstraction disconnected from any underpinnings.
And in the areas of justification, far too many Libertarians
base their argumentation in utility, in the fact that freedom
works and leads to an increase in prosperity, instead of
the far more crucial fact that it is the only social scheme
consistent with man's right to live for himself.
I can tell you for a fact that while I might mention the
secondary benefits of liberty as it relates to increased
utility in society, I would NEVER--and HAVE never--
used that fact as the justification for any political or
economic position I have ever taken. So why don't you
just grab your piece of chalk and head back to the idea
board on that front, and save the "libertarian revisionist
tripe" for someone who merits it.
> Perhaps I will not in the future, perhaps I will, but I
> won't go back and pick out the bits I find objectionable
> now to make a point.
Perhaps you'd better--if you intend on having anyone believe
you. Prove it or admit that you cannot, take your pick. But
don't think for one minute that I'm gonna let you weasel out
of this one because you are too intellectually lazy to back up
your spew with some concrete evidence.
> However, this last
> post where the idea that local government cannot carry on local
> projects that are *entirely rights respecting* , even as a non-
> anarchist libertarian would call them, and caste them as against
> proper government, taking Rand's meaning out of context of what it
> means to have a proper government -- that is, on a national level from
> which there can be no escape -- is too much to bear and fully wasting
> political capital on really stupid stuff.
And here we have yet another mouthful of unsubstantiated camel
dung. Rand was very clear on what she meant by a "proper"
government: a government that used force in retaliation only, and
only against those who initiated its use. And Rand's definition of
capitalism leaves no room for interpretation either: "Capitalism is
a social system based on the recognition of individual rights,
including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."
"What is Capitalism?", 1965.)
She didn't say "almost" all property; she said ALL property. She
didn't say "national" versus "local" property (whatever the hell that
is supposed to mean); she said ALL property. She didn't say "all
property except for the special parks set aside by the municipality
of Podunk, Ohio by the city government because they wanted
to help the druggies have a place to hang out instead of the
hospitals"; she said ALL property. She didn't say "all property
except for the property which exists within a ten-mile radius of
some looting city government that thinks it knows better than the
rightful owners how it should be used and disposed of"--she said
ALL property.
Do you know what the word ALL means, Charles? It means
TOTAL. Not 90%, not 98%, not 99%, not 99.999%--it means
TOTAL, as in 100% percent. City, county, state or federal. ALL
property.
Jesus, why do I even bother with you? Sometimes you are as
dense as a goddamned post. Quite frankly, the only reason that
I have bothered to give you this much energy is because I think
it extremely important that others in this forum who might not be
as well-versed in the meaning and implications of Objectivist
politics not find their thought processes in these areas derailed
by your equivocating, contradictory, half-assed, misrepresented
"presentation"--and I use that word loosely--of what YOU
think constitutes the facts of the matter. Your raving is simply,
totally and completely irrational. So go grab your meds bottle
and down your meds and shut the hell up already, and maybe
when you can read something Rand wrote and not twist it into
what you think it ought to mean you might have something
to contribute.
Brad Harrington
Cat Toy
Charles Bell
> Now your two separate countries, one in the South with
> a rational Constitution...that's not unrealistic, eh?
It nearly was accomplished in 1861, and the main reason it did not was
because of a ruthless violation of human rights as they were even then
internationally recognized via the first Geneva Conventions.
The second principle of individual liberty is to form one's own
government with people of like minds and culture and economic
interests. Those are first words in Rand's /Nature of Government/ over
which no Objectivist can dispute. They are also words in the
Declaration of Independence.
> No thanks. �Either defend your claim that "rightly so" people
> want their government to do "anything the people wish it
> to do," or leave it as an undefended, and manifestly absurd,
> statement.
So you are really wishing to defend oligarchical or some other kind
of dictatorship, are you:?
Charles Bell
wrote:
> You should really spend some time studying the things you
> sound off about, Charles--because it just so happens that,
> politically and economically, the limited-government Libertarian
> positions and the Objectivist positions are virtually identical.
There are two reasons why presumed Objectivist politics and
libertarian politics have intertwined themselves: (1) Rand was an
immigrant, American nationalist naive in the specifics of what should
or could be accomplished in American politics. For example, she
showed no knowledge whatsoever of the balance of power necessary
between the national government and local governments that is
internationally recognized as the singular success story of the U.S.
Constitution -- so much so that nations from Switzerland to Mexico and
much of Latin America in the following 19th century patterned their
Constitutions on the American one. There are several other problems
in Rand's politics, such as ignorance of the fundamental difference
between Russian Orthodox Christianity and British Protestantism and
their role (or lack of role) in government, but this is the most
relevant one here. (2) Libertarians are collectivist ideologues
naturally drawn to singular, nationalistic (right-wing or American) or
internationalist (left-wing or European) government by an elite.
<< A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to
enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area.
>> Those are Rand's words, not mine. If a town has a problem in
"social conduct", like disaffected, bored and troublesome teens,
regardless of income, race, or any other standard than that they live
in and plague the town, there is not a damn thing wrong in the town
spending money to fix the problem (and problems in senior disaffection
as well) via recreational facilities and community centers. Everyone
benefits -- more so than in otherwise increasing the budget for the
criminal-justice system -- and no one is harmed by that. As for parks
and other public works I refer you to what Adam Smith said on that
matter Book V Chapter I Part III Article 1 ff. and other sections of
his /Wealth of Nations/. There is much with which to disagree with
Mr. Smith in the hindsight of liberalism put into practice, but the
generality holds true.
Charles Bell
wrote:
> because it just so happens that,
> politically and economically, the limited-government Libertarian
> positions and the Objectivist positions are virtually identical. The
> differences between Libertarians and Objectivists are rooted
> on far deeper levels than the specific issues, and have much more
> to do with the intellectual justifications for those positions, and for
> the manner in which they are presented, than they do with the
> practical positions themselves.
Against this mistaken viewpoint, these should be dragged out more
often here:
<< I am profoundly opposed to today's so-called libertarian movement
and to the theories of Dr. Murray Rothbard. So-called libertarians are
my avowed enemies, yet I've heard many reports on their attempts to
cash in on my name and mislead my readers into the exact opposite of
my views. >> -- AR in a letter to Mrs. Maethner, 1974
<< Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements,
in order to "do something." By "ideological" (in this context), I mean
groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined
(and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative
Party, that subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy
for capitalism; or the "libertarian" hippies, who subordinate reason
to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism. >> -- AR in the Ayn
Rand Letter January 3, 1972
<< I disapprove of, disagree with and have no connection with, the
latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called "hippies of the
right," who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my
readers by claiming simultaneously to be followers of my philosophy
and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination
confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most
irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound,
context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement,
where it properly belongs. >> -- AR, The Objectivist, Sept. 1971
Jim Klein
> If a town has a problem in
> "social conduct", like disaffected, bored and troublesome teens,
> regardless of income, race, or any other standard than that they live
> in and plague the town, there is not a damn thing wrong in the town
> spending money to fix the problem (and problems in senior disaffection
> as well) via recreational facilities and community centers.
I'll take this as your answer to me. I don't blame you for
putting it in a reply to someone else.
Not a damn thing wrong, eh? "The town spending money..."
I'm sorry...does that mean the town itself, like literally the
houses and buildings and streets, go out and spend money?
Could you remind us...from where did that money come?
Oh yeah, and how did it get there?
> Everyone benefits --
Wow, that's a new one. Isn't that what 1Z was saying about
health care and life?
Speaking of Rand, and you were and almost always are,
did she have any words about the proper functions of
government? Was "making nice parks and recreational
facilities" among them?
Or is that just another "optional value"? Or is it, "That was
then and this is now." Is this Betsy, using Charles' account?
Time to get a second opinion. I shudder to think what they
amputate in response to philosophical gangrene!
jk
Jim Klein
On Jan 23, 11:37 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Against this mistaken viewpoint, these should be dragged out more
> often here:
And I suppose against this mistaken one, these less:
"In today's epistemological jungle, the second method is used
more frequently than any other type of irrational argument. It
should be classified as a logical fallacy and may be designated
as 'The Argument from Intimidation.'"
[and...]
"Truth or falsehood must be one's sole concern and sole
criterion of judgment..."
What happened to all of that?
And lo and behold, look what comes from the very
same essay...
"But a moral judgment must always /follow/, not /precede/
(or supersede), the reasons on which it is based."
Golly, that sounds awfully familiar. Where have we heard
that before, Charles? Can you spell I-n-v-e-r-s-i-o-n?
[All 3 cites from "The Argument From Intimidation" in
_The New Intellectual_. Emphasis hers.]
This is why I stay away from books---I may get charged
with carrying a lethal weapon.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 23, 6:53 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > If a town has a problem in
> > "social conduct", like disaffected, bored and troublesome teens,
> > regardless of income, race, or any other standard than that they live
> > in and plague the town, there is not a damn thing wrong in the town
> > spending money to fix the problem (and problems in senior disaffection
> > as well) via recreational facilities and community centers.
>
> I'll take this as your answer to me. �I don't blame you for
> putting it in a reply to someone else.
>
The conversation can start and continue on whether or not you are in
the room. I picture a hard-of-hearing man accusing everyone of
speaking too damn soft.
> Not a damn thing wrong, eh? �"The town spending money..."
>
> I'm sorry...does that mean the town itself, like literally the
> houses and buildings and streets, go out and spend money?
>
Oh, do you mean taxes? That which you have conceded to be necessary
and not voluntary?
> Wow, that's a new one. �Isn't that what 1Z was saying about
> health care and life?
>
And what of the discussion of the operations of local government?
Evidently you dropped out of the conversation and started one up with
yourself on your own.
And what would a local government do when those immigrants Fred Weiss
has imported into -- not his but -- another locality have TB and other
communicable disease?
> Speaking of Rand, and you were and almost always are,
> did she have any words about the proper functions of
> government? �Was "making nice parks and recreational
> facilities" among them?
>
Did she speak of local government versus state versus federal? If
she did not, she was remiss if that was her intention. Do you know
that it was her intention? Or perhaps her discussion on the nature of
government, as a philosophical-political concept, was stripped of
context and missing possibly relevant facts in the way of her concept-
formation is to proceed. Did she speak of the possibility of your
nephew's child vomiting on the steps of city hall?
Charles Bell
> On Jan 23, Brad Harrington wrote:
>
> because it just so happens that,
> politically and economically, the limited-government Libertarian
> positions and the Objectivist positions are virtually identical.
"I am profoundly opposed to today's so-called libertarian movement",
Ayn Rand.
Jim Klein:
Ayn Rand liked cats.
Lucrezia Borgia liked cats.
Therefore Pope Alexander VI was an Objectivist.
"Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun
by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the
collectivist movement, where it properly belongs," Ayn Rand
David Friedman: Ayn Rand was a poor philosophical advocate for
anarchy.
Charles Bell
By the way I am stilling waiting for your defense of dictatorial
government. Or is this one of your a-rock-is-a-bird conceptions?
> people locally want their government to do
> anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
You: Really? "Anything the people wish it to do"?
Thomas Jefferson:
"Can it be believed that under the jealousies prevailing against the
General Government at the adoption of the Constitution, the States
meant to surrender the authority of preserving order or enforcing
moral duties and restraining vice within their own territory?... Can
any good be effected by taking from the States the moral rule of their
citizens and subordinating it to the general authority?"
"The States in North America which confederated to establish their
independence of the government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was
one, became on that acquisition, free and independent States, and as
such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such
form as it thought best. They entered into a compact (which is called
the Constitution of the United States of America), by which they
agreed to unite in a single government as to their relations with each
other and with foreign nations, and as to certain other articles
particularly specified. They retained at the same time each to itself,
the other rights of independent government, comprehending mainly their
domestic interests."
[This means those living in the shit pile called Detroit have no
business telling other people how to live their lives and how to run
their affairs and how to organize their communities and what laws they
wish to pass and what taxes they wish to pay but are free to wallow in
their little shit pile and invite anyone, like islamic jihadists,
welfare parasites, union thugs, crony capitalists and corrupt, me-too
affirmative-action politicians, they wish to join them in the paradise
they have made for themselves.]
Jim Klein
> > I'm sorry...does that mean the town itself, like literally the
> > houses and buildings and streets, go out and spend money?
>
> Oh, do you mean taxes? That which you have conceded to be necessary
> and not voluntary?
I've conceded nothing on the point. More relevantly, this
was clearly not Rand's belief. No wonder the so-called
Objectivists get so upset with you calling yourself an
Objectivist.
Rand wrote clearly and unambiguously that there should
be no coerced taxation, in her opinion.
Lemme guess...another "optional value"? How about
her opposition to the draft? Is that an optional value too?
> > Wow, that's a new one. Isn't that what 1Z was saying about
> > health care and life?
>
> And what of the discussion of the operations of local government?
> Evidently you dropped out of the conversation and started one up with
> yourself on your own.
Maybe I missed something; I don't really know. What I know
is that you asserted that local folks, by vote, could "rightly"
vote and enfore any ol' thing they want, with no qualification.
I asked you to defend that assertion and so far, all you've
done is talk about me and what other people believe. I
asked YOU to defend THAT assertion, not go into a treatise
about how you came to believe it.
> And what would a local government do when those immigrants Fred Weiss
> has imported into -- not his but -- another locality have TB and other
> communicable disease?
My guess would be that both Rand and Weiss, being the
rationalizers on this point that they are, would call that
some sort of physical defense of the citizenry. But Fred
can speak for himself anyway.
I'm trying to find out if YOU can speak for YOURSELF. YOU
wrote that "parks and recreations" are an example of
things for which a town may "rightly" confiscate some of
the earnings of its members. I asked you to defend that,
that's all. So either defend it or don't.
> > Speaking of Rand, and you were and almost always are,
> > did she have any words about the proper functions of
> > government? Was "making nice parks and recreational
> > facilities" among them?
>
> Did she speak of local government versus state versus federal? If
> she did not, she was remiss if that was her intention. Do you know
> that it was her intention? Or perhaps her discussion on the nature of
> government,
Yes, perhaps it was. Maybe that's why she titled the essay
the way she did.
> as a philosophical-political concept, was stripped of
> context and missing possibly relevant facts in the way of her concept-
> formation is to proceed.
Oh, so that's the charge. Now Rand is using floating
abstractions with no connection to reality. Is that it?
> Did she speak of the possibility of your
> nephew's child vomiting on the steps of city hall?
Not that I recall, but she did speak of the sort of vomiting
that you're doing here, making assertions and not
defending them and using zillions of quotes from others,
as if they actually say something relevant to the issue.
Indeed, I offered 3 of her quotes on the matter in my
last post.
Look, Charles. YOU wrote about the rightful justification
in a town voting anything they damn well please. So
either explain why that's rightful, or let the issue go.
jk
Jim Klein
> "I am profoundly opposed to today's so-called libertarian movement",
> Ayn Rand.
Oh, I get it. You don't know what "today's" means. Not that it
matters, since I thought those with a bent toward the Objectivist
philosophy, use /facts/ as their defense.
I think everyone here understands what a Tenet is. Most
even understand what a Church is. What we don't understand,
which is the only thing relevant to this particular discussion,
is what facts of reality you'd wish to appeal to, in order to
defend that townspeople may "rightly" coerce anything
and everything from their citizenry, as long as they vote on it.
At some point, the obvious conclusion is simply that you don't
have any facts on which you base that assertion.
That point gets closer with each evasion that you post.
> "Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun
> by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the
> collectivist movement, where it properly belongs," Ayn Rand
>
> David Friedman: Ayn Rand was a poor philosophical advocate for
> anarchy.
Wow...did he ever write that? I'd think he'd point out that she
was a poor philosophical advocate /against/ anarchy. Which
she was, as that charge would mean.
Though none of that matters to me, since I find "anarchy" to
be a floating abstraction with not much reference itself.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 24, 7:57 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > I'm sorry...does that mean the town itself, like literally the
> > > houses and buildings and streets, go out and spend money?
>
> > Oh, do you mean taxes? That which you have conceded to be necessary
> > and not voluntary?
>
> I've conceded nothing on the point. �More relevantly, this
> was clearly not Rand's belief. �No wonder the so-called
> Objectivists get so upset with you calling yourself an
> Objectivist.
>
The essence of a previous discussion was that you agreed that a
proposal for the impossible is not objective, and conceding a
government that is not anarchist (as Rand did) a proposal for
completely voluntary taxes (however one may wish for them) is not
objective. The solution is often in a mixture of sources of revenue
some of which can clearly be fee-for-service -- in that community
recreational facilities would not be completely free -- but also not
impossible to pay for, being coerced into a monopolistic market as
Harrington proposed in his privatization of public services. Why can't
Disney put up basketball hoops for the teens in Cheyenne? For it to
be profitable for Disney they would have to charge an enormous
amount. Florida and other states have experimented with privatization
of prisons and social services and have failed -- except to provide
for a significant transfer of wealth to favored parties. There are
capitalist economists who do explain why these experiments at a local
level fail, and the generality of why they would fail goes all the way
back to the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, as I said to Harrington,
twice, but nowhere in his dull and predictable ad-hom attack against
me did he favor anybody with a response on the issue.
> Rand wrote clearly and unambiguously that there should
> be no coerced taxation, in her opinion.
Certainly her opinion was never expressed in "clearly and
unambiguously" in those words. She would agree the issue of taxation
is complex and necessarily tied to voluntary participation in the
benefits government provides, without freeriders, for which the taxes
are being raised, a participation that is in no way coerced except in
a national government. Again, Rand never considered the real
differences between laws imposed by a national government (difficult
to avoid) and laws imposed at the local level (easy to avoid). This
gap in exposition is not to her credit and not to your credit in that
you yourself refuse to see the difference or to see that Rand avoided
(or never thought of) the issue.
Whatever. It is a dead issue, except to the anarchist. A whim and
wish is not going to make it happen. Neither Rand nor any Objectivist
would then propose Friedman's or any other kind of anarchy in lieu of
compulsory taxation.
What is clear that taxation for the purpose of seizing wealth to
redistrbute wealth is not what is being asked for in providing local
services.
Moreover, as I have said at least three times to you and Harrington,
that the sole reason why city government goes into financial crisis is
poor financial planning and has nothing whatsoever to do with "proper
government", and one does more harm to let city bureaucrats off the
hook for incompetence and possible corruption.
>
> Maybe I missed something; I don't really know. �What I know
> is that you asserted that local folks, by vote, could "rightly"
> vote and enfore any ol' thing they want, with no qualification.
>
No, I did not. I may have not mentioned the full condition of local
democracy in that paragraph, but I have stated my position enough, and
even in this thread, to help clarify confusion in the intellectually
honest: local governments are always to be proscribed in a general way
from violating the rights as citizens of a national government. No
law may be passed to introduce slavery, for example. The problem with
the application of this principle, in ignoring the written details of
the Constitution, is the application (particularly through anarcho-
communist organizations like the ACLU) is the national government
fully takes over in every way that it wants to regardless f the
Constitution so long as 5/9 SCOTUS Justices agree. The Constitution
clearly prohibits slavery, endorses equal protection and legal due
process and certain voting rights (over 18 irrespective of gender or
race) as the only over-riding rights of national citizenship. I agree
that these rights need to be expanded specifically written into the
Constitution but still in a very limited way (the 1st amendment,
eminent domain, habeas corpus).
> I asked you to defend that assertion and so far, all you've
> done is talk about me and what other people believe.
Let me put it this way: I do not agree with oligarchical rule; I
believe in direct democracy at the local level; I believe communities
should be left alone to do as they chose so long as no one is coerced
to live in the community, so long as slavery is not imposed, that laws
are passed in consideration of equal protection and enforced by the
standard of due process. All of these are principled application of
Rand's theses on Man's Rights and Nature of Government for man in a
society that fully respects an individual's moral right to life while
also his fully benefiting from the society he has chosen to sustain,
as well as the society will sustain him, and the obligations he has
chosen to meet in pursuit of those benefits.
Now you defend your position in favor of oligarchical dictatorship.
>
> My guess would be that both Rand and Weiss, being the
> rationalizers on this point that they are, would call that
> some sort of physical defense of the citizenry. �But Fred
> can speak for himself anyway.
>
Weiss has said he does not give a damn about the damage inflicted on
my commninty in the pursuit of his economic interests. More than just
that: my right to defend my community from his rapaciousness is silly
petty local tyranny against the rights of those who wish to serve in
his economic interests. Moreover, when is comes to immigration, all
(capital "L") Libertarians and most (vocal) Objectivists are
collectivist utilitarians.
> > as a philosophical-political concept, was �stripped of
> > context and missing possibly relevant facts in the way of her concept-
> > formation is to proceed.
>
> Oh, so that's the charge. �Now Rand is using floating
> abstractions with no connection to reality. �Is that it?
>
No. LIBERTARIANS ARE. There are a few traps Rand finds herself in, but
so-called Objectivism-influenced libertarians base an entire political
system on floating abstractions, the primary one being the non-
agression principle taken as axiomatic.
Charles Bell
> On Jan 24, 8:12 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > �"I am profoundly opposed to today's so-called libertarian movement",
> > Ayn Rand.
>
> Oh, I get it. �You don't know what "today's" means.
It means ten years or so after Rand discovered that Rothbard''s
defense of capitalism, which Rand took to be "libertarianism", was
really a part of something she was completely against.
> > David Friedman: �Ayn Rand was a poor philosophical advocate for
> > anarchy.
>
> Wow...did he ever write that? �I'd think he'd point out that she
> was a poor philosophical advocate /against/ anarchy. �Which
> she was, as that charge would mean.
No, his two thesis against Objectivism are that it fails to see the
proper role for anarchy in society, in spite of the fact that he (and
you) see Galt's Gulch as capitalist anarchy, and that it fails to meet
the standard of utilitarianism by being moralistic. Naturally, being
an academic liar, he writes between the lines to get his point
across. And naturally, you, making no claims to a discerning
intellectual acuity higher than Harrington's, fail to see that.
Charles Bell
> �I agree
> that these rights need to be expanded specifically written into the
> Constitution but still in a very limited way (the 1st amendment,
> eminent domain, habeas corpus).
>
That should be: "restrictions on the right of eminent domain", now no
longer recognized by the Supreme Court in the way they would have been
in 1789. This goes to my point against the Supreme Court being the
arbiter of what are or are not the rights of U.S. citizens. Sometimes
it applies the rights to individuals of the individual states, and
sometimes it does not.
Jim Klein
> > Wow...did he ever write that? I'd think he'd point out that she
> > was a poor philosophical advocate /against/ anarchy. Which
> > she was, as that charge would mean.
>
> No, his two thesis against Objectivism are that it fails to see the
> proper role for anarchy in society, in spite of the fact that he (and
> you) see Galt's Gulch as capitalist anarchy,
Galt's Gulch WAS a capitalist anarchy, if those words mean
anything at all. Which is it that you dispute, that it was
capitalistic or that it had no government?
> and that it fails to meet
> the standard of utilitarianism by being moralistic.
I've no idea what this is supposed to mean. Personally, as
should be obvious, I don't take much of a utilitarian
approach on any of this. I figure the practical is the moral,
so I spend my time on the principles. Do you believe that's
an invalid approach?
> Naturally, being
> an academic liar, he writes between the lines to get his point
> across. And naturally, you, making no claims to a discerning
> intellectual acuity higher than Harrington's, fail to see that.
I don't think anyone needs "a discerning intellectual acuity
higher than Harrington's" to see the principles involved. Why,
do you?
Elsewhere, you wrote:
> Now you defend your position in favor of oligarchical dictatorship.
I can't very well defend something I don't even understand! Plus,
there's that little matter of you having a strong tendency to put
words in other people's mouths. I don't think I defend any sort
of dictatorship, least of all an oligarchical one. Indeed, with your
regular references to "intellectual acuity" lately, it seems that you
lean more towards oligarchy than I do.
But I guess you've answered my question. Your answer appears
to be, "I didn't mean what I wrote." Did I get that right?
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 24, 1:12 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > Wow...did he ever write that? �I'd think he'd point out that she
> > > was a poor philosophical advocate /against/ anarchy. �Which
> > > she was, as that charge would mean.
>
> > No, his two thesis against Objectivism are that it fails to see the
> > proper role for anarchy in society, in spite of the fact that he (and
> > you) see Galt's Gulch as capitalist anarchy,
>
> Galt's Gulch WAS a capitalist anarchy,
No, it wasn't. Now defend your assertion.
>
> I've no idea what this is supposed to mean
Of course, you don't.
> �I figure the practical is the �moral,
No, it isn't. Now defend this assertion.
> so I spend my time on the principles. �
Why should you, if "the practical is the moral"? but just maybe I
should let you defend your crackpot assertion, first.
> Do you believe that's
> an invalid approach?
I'll answer after you have defended/substantiated the assertions that
Galt's Gulch was a capitalist anarchy and that the practical is the
moral.
> Elsewhere, you wrote:
> > Now you defend your position in favor of oligarchical dictatorship.
>
> I can't very well defend something I don't even understand! �Plus,
> there's that little matter of you having a strong tendency to put
> words in other people's mouths.
Defend what you wrote:
CB> and those who
CB> disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair
fight
CB> -- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
CB> community.
JK>This is EXACTLY backwards,
Backwards from what?
JK> The people MAY NOT vote "anything
JK> they wish" against a minority
Really? Is that what you say against people constructing a government
that they want? Tough! The minority decides around here! F'get
abou'it!
CB> > people locally want their government to do
CB> > anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
Yeah we can fix that easily enough: get rid of any notion of
democracy.
>�I don't think I defend any sort
> of dictatorship, least of all an oligarchical one. �Indeed, with your
> regular references to "intellectual acuity" lately, it seems that you
> lean more towards oligarchy than I do.
The you must have spent a lot of time pretending to not have read what
exactly what I wrote about everything, saying exactly what I meant, if
you had any appreciable intellectual acumen for these type of
discussions.
Jim Klein
> > Galt's Gulch WAS a capitalist anarchy,
>
> No, it wasn't. Now defend your assertion.
Sure. It was capitalist in the sense that all trade was
voluntary. It was an anarchy because there was no
government.
Is that sufficient, or does it only count if I quote
innumerable authors from the past?
> > I figure the practical is the moral,
>
> No, it isn't. Now defend this assertion.
Sure. I mean that the moral is the practical in the
same way Rand meant it. And if the moral is the
practical, then the practical is the moral.
Is that sufficient, or does "intellectual acuity" demand
a certain length of response IYO?
> > so I spend my time on the principles.
>
> Why should you, if "the practical is the moral"? but just maybe I
> should let you defend your crackpot assertion, first.
You might want to check your own assertions before you
begin charging others as crackpots. After all, "Hypocrisy
is easily the most unnerving trait common to many ARIans."
I assume you agree with Rand that the moral is the practical,
so now you can explain how that is so without the practical
being the moral.
And on simple matters like these, intellectual acuity is fairly
judged by an inverse relationship to the verbiage it takes to
explain!
> > Do you believe that's
> > an invalid approach?
>
> I'll answer after you have defended/substantiated the assertions that
> Galt's Gulch was a capitalist anarchy and that the practical is the
> moral.
That's nice. It gives me something to look forward to.
> > Elsewhere, you wrote:
> > > Now you defend your position in favor of oligarchical dictatorship.
>
> > I can't very well defend something I don't even understand! Plus,
> > there's that little matter of you having a strong tendency to put
> > words in other people's mouths.
> Defend what you wrote:
>
> CB> and those who
> CB> disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair
> fight
> CB> -- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
> CB> community.
>
> JK>This is EXACTLY backwards,
>
> Backwards from what?
I answered at the time. Hey, you're the one that likes dredging
through old posts...so go see if I didn't.
> JK> The people MAY NOT vote "anything
> JK> they wish" against a minority
>
> Really?
Yes, really.
> Is that what you say against people constructing a government
> that they want?
Yes, that's what I say...at least to the degree they have any
business voting anything at all, which itself is subject to
some closer inspection IMO.
Further, it's what Rand said and it's what both the Articles and
the Constitution said. It's also what anyone with half a wit says.
You should've stuck with, "I didn't write what I meant!"
> Tough! The minority decides around here! F'get
> abou'it!
No, that's not what I say. That's what you say I say. Besides
shining a spotlight on your own "intellectual acuity" or lack
thereof, it says nothing at all.
> CB> > people locally want their government to do
> CB> > anything the people wish it to do, and rightly so,
>
> Yeah we can fix that easily enough: get rid of any notion of
> democracy.
Not a bad idea...even Rand agreed with that one!
> The you must have spent a lot of time pretending to not have read what
> exactly what I wrote about everything, saying exactly what I meant, if
> you had any appreciable intellectual acumen for these type of
> discussions.
Carry on, Charles. There's nothing in the charter against
entertainment breaks.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 24, 6:24 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > Galt's Gulch WAS a capitalist anarchy,
>
> > No, it wasn't. Now defend your assertion.
>
> Sure. �It was capitalist in the sense that all trade was
> voluntary.
Sure, but that is not a genuine complete definition of capitalism.
> �It was an anarchy because there was no
> government.
Not true.
> > > �I figure the practical is the �moral,
>
> > No, it isn't. �Now defend this assertion.
>
> Sure. �I mean that the moral is the practical in the
> same way Rand meant it.
She did not mean that in any way that is such a simple proposition.
>And if the moral is the
> practical, then the practical is the moral.
Gibberish.
> I assume you agree with Rand that the moral is the practical,
Rand said {the moral/the practical} cuts both ways. It could mean that
so long as self-sacrifice is believed to be the practical means of
achieving the happiness, the actions following on that belief are not
thus moral, are they? Or conversely, the practical of Pragmatism is
not moral, is it? In both cases Rand's "the moral is not the opposite
of the practical" in AS does NOT mean "the moral is the practical" at
all. Once again, sound-biting Rand only leads to misinformation. Much
like your "plants have values" which Rand never said nor said anything
that could lead a reasonable person to think she meant that.
> > CB> and those who
> > CB> disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair
> > fight
> > CB> -- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
> > CB> community.
>
> > JK>This is EXACTLY backwards,
>
> > Backwards from what?
>
> I answered at the time. �Hey, you're the one that likes dredging
> through old posts...so go see if I didn't.
No you didn't. You merely continued with the following which does
not explain what is backawrds from what.
>
> > JK> �The people MAY NOT vote "anything
> > JK> they wish" against a minority
>
> > Really?
>
> Yes, really.
>
Then you believe in rule by oligarchy which is defined as: a political
system governed by a few people, or in anarchy, but certainly not in
democracy.
> > �Is that what you say against people constructing a government
> > that they want?
>
> Yes, that's what I say...at least to the degree they have any
> business voting anything at all, which itself is subject to
> some closer inspection IMO.
Oh yes, the masses of should never be allowed to vote so long as
their desires may go against a minority.
>
> Further, it's what Rand said
No, she didn't. I won't even bother asking you to defend this
impossible assertion, though anyone can see that you have not even
tried.
> and it's what both the Articles and
> the Constitution said. �
The Constitution with respect to the states and the people in matters
not federal (which is the topic) says the exact opposite.
>
> > Tough! The minority decides around here! F'get
> > abou'it!
>
> No, that's not what I say. �
No, you merely deny, deny, deny with little to offer but further
confirmation of your anti-democratic views.
> > Yeah we can fix that easily enough: get rid of any notion of
> > democracy.
>
> Not a bad idea...even Rand agreed with that one!
>
Like I said: you have little to offer but further confirmation of your
anti-democratic views. And throw in slander against Rand at the same
time.
Matt Barrow
>
>> (Had to bail out of Cheyenne as SWMBO developed horrifc allergies from
>> the wind).
>
> Had to look SWMBO up--and then laughed my ass off when I found out
> what it means. I'm still chuckling; because I have one of my very own
> right
> here in my own house!!! Do you think yours and mine might be long-lost
> sisters? Heh heh heh!!
They're ALL sisters! :-)
>
> Brad Harrington
>
> P.S. Right now the wind's clippin' along at about 40...I'm out about 12
> miles
> to the east, between Sapp Bros and the TA truckstop, so I get it worse
> here
> than in town...
Sapp, out on the old 30?
We were out on Torrington Road going NE, so we may not have gotten the wind,
but some pollen or dust made my wife all but suffocate during the spring of
the year.
I miss the "attitude" in Wyoming as opposed to Colorado, but at least
Colorado is not East or West Coast.
Matt
Jim Klein
> > Sure. It was capitalist in the sense that all trade was
> > voluntary.
>
> Sure, but that is not a genuine complete definition of capitalism.
Well, to you a complete definition is about every word ever
written on the topic. Voluntary trade is the essence of
capitalism. Naturally you'll want to add stuff like "and
being defended by a system of laws" and so on, but those
are derivative details, and subject to debate at that.
Capitalism is a moral system, and its essence is exactly
as I said...voluntary trade.
Of course, in the Gulch they had a money system as well!
> > It was an anarchy because there was no
> > government.
>
> Not true.
What's not true...that there was no government or that such
isn't anarchy? There was definitely no government by any
definition, and especially Rand's definition. I've already said
I have trouble getting a grip on the actual referent of "anarchy,"
but "having no government" seems adequate for this context.
With what are you quibbling here, exactly? Spit it out.
> > > > I figure the practical is the moral,
>
> > > No, it isn't. Now defend this assertion.
>
> > Sure. I mean that the moral is the practical in the
> > same way Rand meant it.
>
> She did not mean that in any way that is such a simple proposition.
Nothing does, to you. Sorry, but that's not my problem.
Obviously there was plenty behind the idea that the moral is
the practical. But there's just as much behind my claim that
the practical is the moral.
> >And if the moral is the
> > practical, then the practical is the moral.
>
> Gibberish.
Reminds me of Clinton...depends on what "is" is, huh?
Gibberish, eh? Then let's take a look at your overthought
rationalization for this charge...
> > I assume you agree with Rand that the moral is the practical,
>
> Rand said {the moral/the practical} cuts both ways. It could mean that
> so long as self-sacrifice is believed to be the practical means of
> achieving the happiness, the actions following on that belief are not
> thus moral, are they?
That's right...AND NEITHER ARE THEY PRACTICAL.
That's the whole point. You spend so much time and effort
over-reading and over-thinking that you miss the forest for
the trees.
> Or conversely, the practical of Pragmatism is
> not moral, is it?
Like I didn't anticipate this response. AND NEITHER IS
IT THEREFORE PRACTICAL! Pragmatism is about
/replacing/ practicality for morality and in so doing,
accomplishing NEITHER.
IOW it doesn't /really/ replace the practical for the moral;
it uses what /appears to be practical/ with only that
consideration. That's why it ends up as NEITHER moral
NOR practical.
Stop and think for a goddammed second, willya? If that
weren't the case, then the immoral could be the practical
too, couldn't it?
Tell us, Charles---according to you or according to Rand,
can the immoral be the practical?
> In both cases Rand's "the moral is not the opposite
> of the practical" in AS does NOT mean "the moral is the practical" at
> all. Once again, sound-biting Rand only leads to misinformation.
Maybe so, but not half as much as the intricate rationalizations
you offer.
> Much
> like your "plants have values" which Rand never said nor said anything
> that could lead a reasonable person to think she meant that.
Sorry, but she did. She just invented a new class of values and
goals---non-purposive, she called them. It would've made a ton
of sense, if only there could be non-purposive goals and values.
As there can't be, she misstepped. Get over it already; it's not
the Holy Bible.
> > > CB> and those who
> > > CB> disagree with the particulars -- who lose in a democratic fair
> > > fight
> > > CB> -- are invited to leave, as well they should, to form their own
> > > CB> community.
>
> > > JK>This is EXACTLY backwards,
>
> > > Backwards from what?
>
> > I answered at the time. Hey, you're the one that likes dredging
> > through old posts...so go see if I didn't.
>
> No you didn't. You merely continued with the following which does
> not explain what is backawrds from what.
>
>
>
> > > JK> The people MAY NOT vote "anything
> > > JK> they wish" against a minority
>
> > > Really?
>
> > Yes, really.
>
> Then you believe in rule by oligarchy
You have your hands full describing what you believe. It's
time to stop declaring what I believe. Simple intellectual
honesty demands that. That's for liars like Betsy Speicher,
always saying that A "must mean" B.
Now stick your foot in your mouth again, and challenge me
to produce a post wherein Betsy lied.
> which is defined as: a political
> system governed by a few people, or in anarchy, but certainly not in
> democracy.
Certainly not. To be frank, I didn't know there were any people
who called themselves Objectivists and yet were defenders of
Democracy. I thought that was very old news, but maybe I'm
mistaken. Do you happen to have any cites of any other
people who fit this class? I know damn well (or at least very,
very strongly believe) that you won't find one from Rand.
And don't offer any bullshit again like, "Well she said this, so
she must've meant that." Find me a single cite from Rand
that says she supports Democracy as a proper form of
government. Do that, and I'll be impressed.
In the meanwhile, as soon as I have access to her books (and
just a bit of time), I'll try to find one for you that supports what
I'm saying.
Rand was a /very/ strong supporter of a Constitutional Republic.
Obviously representatives are elected, but that's not what
Democracy is. Democracy is the bullshit you offered for
the local level, wherein a vote can determine anything. It
is strict mob rule...and here you are implying that this is
what Rand favored. And you dare accuse me of slandering
Rand?
C'mon Charles, wake up already.
> > > Is that what you say against people constructing a government
> > > that they want?
>
> > Yes, that's what I say...at least to the degree they have any
> > business voting anything at all, which itself is subject to
> > some closer inspection IMO.
>
> Oh yes, the masses of should never be allowed to vote so long as
> their desires may go against a minority.
Democracy doesn't mean "ever vote on anything." Representatives
have to vote what color carpet to order, for crissakes. It's about
/what/ can be voted on. Democracy, like your insane offer for
local politics, gives the answer of, "Anything."
> > Further, it's what Rand said
>
> No, she didn't. I won't even bother asking you to defend this
> impossible assertion, though anyone can see that you have not even
> tried.
Oh, I'll try. You can make book on that.
And I won't try because I give a shit what anyone here
believes, even though I do. I'll try because if it turns
out that you're right that Rand supported Democracy
(nigh impossible IMO), then my appraisal of her
political philosophy will change from "mistaken in
some fundamental premises" to "completely full of
shit and not even worth considering." For me, that
would be quite a sea-change.
I gotta tell ya Charles, it's been decades since I've even
heard of anyone with even half an awareness of
rational philosophy and politics, defend Democracy.
Sure, the politicians and the altruists and the collectivists
never tire of saying that. But they don't qualify as as
having "even half an awareness of rational philosophy
and politics." You do, or so I believe, and you're the
very first in many, many years. Take it FWIW.
> > and it's what both the Articles and
> > the Constitution said.
>
> The Constitution with respect to the states and the people in matters
> not federal (which is the topic) says the exact opposite.
>
>
>
> > > Tough! The minority decides around here! F'get
> > > abou'it!
>
> > No, that's not what I say.
>
> No, you merely deny, deny, deny with little to offer but further
> confirmation of your anti-democratic views.
>
> > > Yeah we can fix that easily enough: get rid of any notion of
> > > democracy.
>
> > Not a bad idea...even Rand agreed with that one!
>
> Like I said: you have little to offer but further confirmation of your
> anti-democratic views. And throw in slander against Rand at the same
> time.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. We'll see what we shall see. You find
Rand supporting Democracy and I'll see if I can find her not.
That's fair enough, isn't it? Meanwhile, I allowed myself to get
too worked up over your shennanigans, so Prescott will have
to wait for me to address his trivialities. That thread is actually
about something important. This thread is only about what
happens when a man replaces thinking with reading.
jk
Charles Bell
>[ snip OT bit I may get to later.]
>
> > > > JK> The people MAY NOT vote "anything
> > > > JK> they wish" against a minority
>
> > > > Really?
>
> > > Yes, really.
>
> > Then you believe in rule by oligarchy
>
> You have your hands full describing what you believe.
You yourself have contrasted what I believe at the local level, direct
democracy, and what you believe: either no government at all or
oligarchy. Until you can explain what it is that you believe in at
the local level, I can only assume this contrast holds.
>
> Rand was a /very/ strong supporter of a Constitutional Republic.
And I have already said that this simply is insufficient to explicate
how things are to be run at a that local level -- unless it is to be
run, as nationalists believe, from a cental government in Washington
D.C.. It may be that is what Rand thought, probably being fairly
ignorant of the American political history, but she never said that,
and like voluntary taxes, the impossible is not objective. America
cannot be run that way, and the extent it has been run that way since
the 1950's we have seen the decay of well-run local governments by the
infusion of money and governance from outside the locality as a
thoroughly corrupting agent. What I am very familiar with is how
well local democracy did work up to a population of about 100,000 or
whatever the population of a small city would be these days, even in
the days of segregation. [Federal integration efforts destroyed
thriving black neighborhoods, the schools, you name it.] As far as
minoirties being left out of things that really are fairly important
and not trivial, like blue laws and vice abatement, it is so easy even
today to simply leave the jurisdiction of that majority. Reversing
that natural society-building on common culture and interests through
an overpowering nationalist government is a bad thing, not a good
thing, or I should say only a good thing to collectivist ideologues.
> Obviously representatives are elected, but that's not what
> Democracy is. �Democracy is the bullshit you offered for
> the local level,
The democracy at the local level will be different according to the
locality. That is what is meant by "local democracy" It is never "mob
rule" as according to your elitist, and may I say, statist
assumptions.
> > I gotta tell ya Charles, it's been decades since I've even
> heard of anyone with even half an awareness of
> rational philosophy and politics, defend Democracy.
>
Evidently. That is probably why you think such intellectual frauds
like Friedman and Prescott have arguments even worth listening to.
Charles Bell
And why? Because Americans have been individualists. At least,
strongly so until urbanization reached a critical point where the
sense of self-sufficiency began to disappear, after WWII or so.
Don't like your religion? Start another one. Don't like a town?
Start another one. Don't like the way a business is being run? Start
another one.
The propositions of cultural diversity and everyone getting along and
working together under an umbrella of an imperious justice system
enforcing "good law" and striking down "bad law" is anti-American but
allied with much libertarian thinking. I won't say there is nothing in
Rand's politics that does no concur with this imperious "rights-
enforcing" Leviathan, but I also do not think it necessarily follows
from Objectivism one bit and not present at all in Galt's Gulch.
But speaking of Galt's Gulch . . . GG was a pretend society, like
Disney World. I have often asked that if GG was Rand's utopian
society, why did the inhabitants make plans to leave when the time
was right, after the collapse back in the real world? GG was a
respite, a holiday retreat, a literary metaphor for a place to escape
to. I also ask: if GG was a model for a real society, ought there be
an oath administered before anyone born in a land at the time of his
majority to choose to adhere to any obligations? The fact of the
matter is that for natural born citizens of a land have a right by
BIRTH not OATH to be citizens, and such citizens administer the oath
to agents of government, not the other way around. That is why GG is a
pretend society with a pretend government and I also believe Rand knew
that.
Charles Bell
> On Jan 24, 9:00 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > Much
> > like your "plants have values" which Rand never said nor said anything
> > that could lead a reasonable person to think she meant that.
>
> Sorry, but she did.
No, she did not.
Just like "the moral is not the opposite of the practical" (Rand
said) is NOT the same in meaning as "the moral is the
practical" (Rand did not say), you are practicing kindergarten
Objectivism like acar. leaving out words either out of stupidity or
because you wish to perpetuate a lie..
> �She just invented a new class of values and
> goals---non-purposive, she called them. �It would've made a ton
> of sense, if only there could be non-purposive goals and values.
>
You are being a stupid person by not taking the word "goal" stripped
of teleology as a perfectly valid meaning in English for the word.
I have picked up a copy of Binswanger's book and find the bits I have
read w/re: goal to be of a perfectly rational discussion, unlike your
irrational statements on "a bird is rock". He has confirmed my
suspicion that you practicing a kind of animism in (1) a bird is a
rock and (2) if a bird has a goal then a rock would have that same
goal. Again, your refusal to define what is animate (other than
tautologically "alive") and what is inanimate (other than
tautologically "not alive") demonstrated your stupidity/ignorance and
unfitness to even engage the topic.
Jim Klein
> You are being a stupid person by not taking the word "goal" stripped
> of teleology as a perfectly valid meaning in English for the word.
LOL! "Goal stipped of teleology"
Take a breath and /look/ at what you're saying!
Yours is madness, Charles, and I'm the one guy
who understands its source and nature.
In looking for some support of "democracy"
by Rand, I presume you have now discovered
that virtually her entire political corpus was one
giant rant /against/ Democracy.
If you haven't, then your eyes are sewn shut. And
like I said, I'm the one guy who understands why,
and I can even nail it in three letters...A, R, and I.
I intend to try to save your mind, which means to
save your life. Such an operation being so major,
and my schedule being so full, I will try to fit you in
sometime before the end of March.
> I have picked up a copy of Binswanger's book and find the bits I have
> read w/re: goal to be of a perfectly rational discussion, unlike your
> irrational statements on "a bird is rock".
Yes, it's perfectly okay to take drugs and ignore
reality while you're waiting. Comfort is important.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 25, 8:10 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > You are being a stupid person by not taking the word "goal" stripped
> > of teleology as a perfectly valid meaning in English for the word.
>
> LOL! �"Goal stipped of teleology"
>
> Take a breath and /look/ at what you're saying!
>
Binswanger has a different a way to approach the subject, starting
with teleology and then taking it out as needed. To me, it amounts to
the same thing as starting with a generic word "goal" to which
teleology may or may not apply, but he claims that children and
primitive man would start with anthropomorphizing everything that
moves (seemingly, but wrongly, with a purpose that a human would have)
and then learn to discover that which in reality would move with a
purpose and that which would not. It is an approach that makes for a
better thesis in biology. Unfortunately for you, you cannot move
beyond an infant's perspective, for a child over 2 y.o.a. would
recognize that a rock, no matter what shape, color or size, thrown
from a tower would drop down to the ground but a bird thrown from a
tower not only would not just drop to the ground but be seen to try to
avoid the ground until a moment of its choosing as to its advantage
rather than to its detriment
> Yours is madness, Charles, and I'm the one guy
> who understands its source and nature.
>
You the one guy who says a rock is bird.
> In looking for some support of "democracy"
> by Rand, I presume you have now discovered
> that virtually her entire political corpus was one
> giant rant /against/ Democracy.
>
No, I discovered no such thing.
Jim Klein
> > LOL! "Goal stipped of teleology"
>
> > Take a breath and /look/ at what you're saying!
>
> Binswanger has a different a way to approach the subject, starting
> with teleology and then taking it out as needed.
Sure, but "as needed" FOR WHAT?
To pull off some bullshit, that's for what.
I will explain this--at least here--exactly one more time,
and I'll make it as simple as possible. I already know
you won't get it and more importantly, at least for me,
I know why you won't get it.
Now /try/ to clear your mind, and LISTEN.
As you recognize, <goal> in the context of human action
carries with it "purposefulness," and hence intent and will.
There's no disagreement about that. What Rand, and
Binswanger and now you, are trying to do is capture a
referent of "goal" such that there is no purposefulness
at all. While that's a shit way to treat the language in the
first place, it is not prima facie invalid. We may invent
our concepts to capture whatever sets we wish, and if
they want to capture the set of "ends" /without that
purposefulness/, then I won't quibble. As I say, I think
it's a shit approach, but it doesn't make them automatically
wrong.
THIS is what makes them wrong...they are NOT capturing
the set they wish to capture. That is, their identification of
the set so captured is WRONG. If I invented a concept <nem>
to capture the set of all men with two legs, and arrived at
the set of all white people, or all Asian people, I would be
WRONG; I would've MISIDENTIFIED the referent set of my
concept. Both white people and black people and red
people and nearly all people, have two legs. My concept
<nem> would be INVALID. I'm sure you get that much.
Now I'm nearly beggin' ya...pay attention.
> To me, it amounts to
> the same thing as starting with a generic word "goal" to which
> teleology may or may not apply,
That's fine, Charles. You can add or subtract whatever
aspects or characteristics you wish from whatever concepts
you choose. You wanna remove teleology from <goal>?
Then go right ahead. I think that's stupider than shit, but
it doesn't make you wrong. Nothing can make a person
"wrong" in his CHOICE of what concepts to use to refer to
whatever sets he wishes.
What makes a person wrong, is when the set to which he
refers with his concept, is NOT the set which corresponds
in reality. And THAT'S what makes y'all wrong here.
If you remove the teleology from <goal>, then you are
talking about "ends" without any purpose. That's why
youse guys end up using that word. That's cool---after
all, there are ends that exist without any purposefulness.
Now goddammit, LISTEN. The set of ends which exist
without purposefulness is the set of ALL ends which
occur, period. That's it; c'est tout. An "end" is the
result of ANY process, taken in a context of being an
action (or series of actions) that begin at some point
in time and...how shall we say...yes, we can say "end"...
at another. That's it...that's what an end IS.
You wanna say, "No, an end in this context is the end
of staying alive, or surviving, or whothehellknowswhat.
It doesn't matter, because an end is an end. A is A.
The set captured by "end" is the set of all actions which
take place in a timed context. It includes rocks rolling
down hills, stars ending up as supernovas, any ol'
action you'd care to name. If they take place in any
amount of time (short of all the time there is), then
they have beginnings and they have ends.
It's really quite that simple, but being the extraordinary
rationalizers that they are, that's not good enough for
so-called Objectivists. And no, Rand herself wasn't an
Objectivist on this point because Objectivism--by her
own declaration--is a hierarchical philosophy, and
the violation on this point is more fundamental than
the conclusion. But that's for another time.
What's for this time is that the rationalization everyone
offers is, "But we're just talking about those ends that
living organisms engage." Fine, but then you're just
DEFINING your way into the matter, making "end" in
this usage 100% synonymous with "living."
"Only living things have ends in this sense," you'll say.
Fine, but then you've said absolutely nothing and have
merely chosen a second shit definition for your concepts
and haven't IDENTIFIED anything...nothing whatsoever.
I'm writing this in a rush, so maybe it's not completely
clear. If so, then I'm sorry because it's a terribly simple
point. In a nutshell, it's this---If you are going to use the
concept <goal> to mean "end without a purpose," then
you are bringing in ALL ends that don't have purposes,
which is the set of ALL actions, living and non-living alike.
You can say, "But I don't mean to bring in non-living
actions," and then you don't. But you have then failed
to distinguish living actions from non-living actions in
any manner except, "They are alive." But we already
knew that in the first place, which is how we had the
concept <alive>.
Again and again, you have distinguished NOTHING by
asserting that living things have "ends without a purpose"
in ANY fashion that non-living things do not...except that
they're alive. I could also say that "end" includes only
the class of rocks rolling down hills, and then--BY
DEFINITION--nothing else does. But beyond being a
declaration of a ridiculous meaning, it wouldn't say
anything at all.
THAT'S the problem with "goal without a purpose;" it
distinguishes nothing at all in the class of "actions,"
and so the assertion that it distinguishes life from non-
life is...how shall we say...yes, this is it...FALSE.
> but he claims that children and
> primitive man would start with anthropomorphizing everything that
> moves (seemingly, but wrongly, with a purpose that a human would have)
> and then learn to discover that which in reality would move with a
> purpose and that which would not. It is an approach that makes for a
> better thesis in biology.
Yeah right...better. The false is better than the true, eh?
> Unfortunately for you, you cannot move
> beyond an infant's perspective, for a child over 2 y.o.a. would
> recognize that a rock, no matter what shape, color or size, thrown
> from a tower would drop down to the ground but a bird thrown from a
> tower not only would not just drop to the ground but be seen to try to
> avoid the ground until a moment of its choosing as to its advantage
> rather than to its detriment
We covered this...there is no "advantage" until you offer
that being alive is better than being dead.
And a sheet of styrofoam will float to its "advantage" as
well---the rock will shatter into pieces, thereby ending its
existence as a rock, but the styrofoam won't. It'll stay a
sheet of styrofoam, obviously to its advantage, right?
Oh, Dorothy...she had this pegged in a single exclamation---
"WHOOIIEEEE!!!"
> > In looking for some support of "democracy"
> > by Rand, I presume you have now discovered
> > that virtually her entire political corpus was one
> > giant rant /against/ Democracy.
>
> No, I discovered no such thing.
That just goes to your blindness in addition to your
obstinance. Trust me, I'll get to that too, in a month
or two.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Jan 26, 3:50 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > LOL! �"Goal stipped of teleology"
>
> > > Take a breath and /look/ at what you're saying!
>
> > Binswanger has a different a way to approach the subject, starting
> > with teleology and then taking it out as needed.
>
> Sure, but "as needed" FOR WHAT?
>
> To pull off some bullshit, that's for what.
>
> I will explain this--at least here--exactly one more time,
> and I'll make it as simple as possible. �I already know
> you won't get it and more importantly, at least for me,
> I know why you won't get it.
>
> Now /try/ to clear your mind, and LISTEN.
>
> As you recognize, <goal> in the context of human action
> carries with it "purposefulness,"
No, not always, as Binswanger explains, though I have not read his
book completely and things for me have bogged down in language with
which I am not too familar (in the "heart" argument).
> There's no disagreement about that. �What Rand, and
> Binswanger and now you, are trying to do is capture a
> referent of "goal" such that there is no purposefulness
> at all
Yes, the word "goal" can mean {an end towards which action is directed
that has benefit whether or not where there is conscious intent} I am
clear on that, as would anyone not caught up in ideological
determination to show that white is black and that a rock is a bird.
> If you remove the teleology from <goal>, then you are
> talking about "ends" without any purpose.
Yes.
> �The set of ends which exist
> without purposefulness is the set of ALL ends which
> occur, period.
No. An "end" for an inanimate thing cannot be a goal because it cannot
act to reach an end of any kind. Its end(s) are always the consequnce
of actions directed upon it and not actions which it is incapable, by
defintion, of doing
> You wanna say, "No, an end in this context is the end
> of staying alive, or surviving, or whothehellknowswhat.
> It doesn't matter, because an end is an end.
No, That is the whole purpose of differentiating the animate from
inanimate.
>�Fine, but then you're just
> DEFINING your way into the matter, making "end" in
> this usage 100% synonymous with "living."
No, except to say there is a real and not merely conceptual difference
between the inanimate and the animate.
> You can say, "But I don't mean to bring in non-living
> actions," and then you don't. �But you have then failed
> to distinguish living actions from non-living actions in
> any manner except,
You are the one who cannot distinguish between the living and the non-
living.
> �I could also say that "end" includes only
> the class of rocks rolling down hills,
You could, but you would just reduce yourself to the intellect of an
infant.
> and then--BY
> DEFINITION--nothing else does. �
By DEFINITON to any human being with an intellect higher than that of
a 2 year old, there is an obvious distinction beteen the inanimate and
the animate.
> > but he claims that children and
> > primitive man would start with anthropomorphizing everything that
> > moves (seemingly, but wrongly, with a purpose that a human would have)
> > and then learn to discover that which in reality would move with a
> > purpose and that which would not. It is an approach that makes for a
> > better thesis in biology.
>
>
> > Unfortunately for you, you cannot move
> > beyond an infant's perspective, for a child over 2 y.o.a. would
> > recognize that a rock, no matter what shape, color or size, thrown
> > from a tower would drop down to the ground but a bird thrown from a
> > tower not only would not just drop to the ground but be seen to try to
> > avoid the ground until a moment of its choosing as to its advantage
> > rather than to its detriment
>
> We covered this..
I covered it, yes, but you were and continue to be unresponsive.
>.there is no "advantage" until you offer
> that being alive is better than being dead.
No, the only bird which will not move to a situation that excludes
dying at the foot of the tower (the "advantage") is an already dead
bird. Moving to a situation that excludes a disadvantage or includes
an advantage (the goal-directed action) is the *second* essential
characteristic of the animate after the *first* essential
characteristic of the animate, being able to self-dircect motion, as
distinct from the inanimate which can do neither. This has been
obvious to every single human being over the age of two for at least
2500 years, except you.
>
> And a sheet of styrofoam will float to its "advantage" as
> well---
No, the Styrofoam cup cannot self-direct motion. That is what
distinguishes the inanimate (Styrofoam cup and the rock) from the
animate (bird), something that has been obvious to every single human
being over the age of two for 2500 years, except you, namely: that the
inanimate always at all times is acted upon but cannot act.
Brad Harrington
>> Had to look SWMBO up--and then laughed my ass off when I found out
>> what it means. I'm still chuckling; because I have one of my very own
>> right here in my own house!!! Do you think yours and mine might be
>> long-lost sisters? Heh heh heh!!
> Matt Barrow wrote:
> They're ALL sisters! :-)
Heh heh heh!! You got that right.
>> I'm out about 12 miles
>> to the east, between Sapp Bros and the TA truckstop, so I get it worse
>> here than in town...
> Sapp, out on the old 30?
Yep. Off 30 up County Road 135.
> We were out on Torrington Road going NE, so we may not have gotten the
> wind, but some pollen or dust made my wife all but suffocate during the
> spring of the year.
Probably passed right by your old place a few times on the way to
Torrington computer calls. Small world!
> I miss the "attitude" in Wyoming as opposed to Colorado, but at least
> Colorado is not East or West Coast.
True enough. I lived in Denver in 1995 and 1996. I liked it
there a lot, despite the fact that I have now completely lost
my love of the bigger cities. I think you are now down just
south of Castle Rock, are you not? (Had to go there one day
for a speeding ticket.)
Brad Harrington
Matt Barrow
>
>> Matt Barrow wrote:
>
>> We were out on Torrington Road going NE, so we may not have gotten the
>> wind, but some pollen or dust made my wife all but suffocate during the
>> spring of the year.
>
> Probably passed right by your old place a few times on the way to
> Torrington computer calls. Small world!
>
>> I miss the "attitude" in Wyoming as opposed to Colorado, but at least
>> Colorado is not East or West Coast.
>
> True enough. I lived in Denver in 1995 and 1996. I liked it
> there a lot, despite the fact that I have now completely lost
> my love of the bigger cities. I think you are now down just
> south of Castle Rock, are you not? (Had to go there one day
> for a speeding ticket.)
Actually, we're a bit south of there. We're about half way between Castle
Rock and the Springs (Larkspur). We didn't want the idiocy of Denver, nor
the militant right wing of Colorado Springs. NTL, we're close enough to CR
for shopping, hospitals, etc.
We did live in Montrose for fourteen years, but that got tedious after the
kids all left home.
Might get back to Cheyenne for Frontier Days, though.
Matt
Jim Klein
> > You can say, "But I don't mean to bring in non-living
> > actions," and then you don't. But you have then failed
> > to distinguish living actions from non-living actions in
> > any manner except,
>
> You are the one who cannot distinguish between the living and the non-
> living.
'Scuse me? Sure I can---the living things are alive
and the non-living things aren't. How's that?
What YOU refuse to see, is that absolutely nothing
is captured of that distinction, with the concept <end>.
> > I could also say that "end" includes only
> > the class of rocks rolling down hills,
>
> You could, but you would just reduce yourself to the intellect of an
> infant.
Exactly! And this is precisely what you are choosing to do!
> > and then--BY
> > DEFINITION--nothing else does.
>
> By DEFINITON to any human being with an intellect higher than that of
> a 2 year old, there is an obvious distinction beteen the inanimate and
> the animate.
Yes, it's obvious. And frankly, it's just as obvious that
"having ends" of a non-purposeful nature, is not that
distinction.
> > > but he claims that children and
> > > primitive man would start with anthropomorphizing everything that
> > > moves (seemingly, but wrongly, with a purpose that a human would have)
> > > and then learn to discover that which in reality would move with a
> > > purpose and that which would not. It is an approach that makes for a
> > > better thesis in biology.
>
> > > Unfortunately for you, you cannot move
> > > beyond an infant's perspective, for a child over 2 y.o.a. would
> > > recognize that a rock, no matter what shape, color or size, thrown
> > > from a tower would drop down to the ground but a bird thrown from a
> > > tower not only would not just drop to the ground but be seen to try to
> > > avoid the ground until a moment of its choosing as to its advantage
> > > rather than to its detriment
>
> > We covered this..
>
> I covered it, yes, but you were and continue to be unresponsive.
No---I'm pointing out that choosing "ends" is unresponsive.
That would be because that concept DOESN'T distinguish
the two classes, and throwing in some non-referential
"advantage" doesn't change anything.
> >.there is no "advantage" until you offer
> > that being alive is better than being dead.
>
> No, the only bird which will not move to a situation that excludes
> dying at the foot of the tower (the "advantage") is an already dead
> bird. Moving to a situation that excludes a disadvantage or includes
> an advantage (the goal-directed action) is the *second* essential
> characteristic of the animate after the *first* essential
> characteristic of the animate, being able to self-dircect motion, as
> distinct from the inanimate which can do neither. This has been
> obvious to every single human being over the age of two for at least
> 2500 years, except you.
What's obvious to me is that you stubbornly refuse to
acknowledge that "advantage" and "disadvantage"
themselves have no referent without purposefulness.
And YOU chose to throw out purposefulness. Without
that, you can't get to "advantage." No doubt that
explains why you haven't even tried.
> > And a sheet of styrofoam will float to its "advantage" as
> > well---
>
> No, the Styrofoam cup cannot self-direct motion.
That's because Styrofoam can't "self-direct" which in this
meaning IS a distinction between the animate and inanimate.
You simply can't and won't come up with a meaning of
"advantage" without purposefulness. This should be
obvious to you, and you need to think about why it isn't.
> That is what
> distinguishes the inanimate (Styrofoam cup and the rock) from the
> animate (bird),
What is...self-direction? That's right, though "self-generation"
might be a bit more precise. ["Self-direction" towards WHAT?
Life, that's what. Yes, living things are alive and tend to stay
alive. Non-living things are not alive and stay that way too,
generally. This makes them "self-directed" too, as far as
"reaching an end" is concerned. It is not under dispute that
living things "reach their ends" through animate processes
and non-living things through inanimate processes.]
What there ISN'T, is any "advantage" one way or
the other, until WE associate purpose to the actions.
> something that has been obvious to every single human
> being over the age of two for 2500 years, except you, namely: that the
> inanimate always at all times is acted upon but cannot act.
Yes, Charles, self-generation is an attribute of living things.
But maybe you forgot---your claim was that "having ends"
was a distinction between living things and non-living things.
And without purpose, you ain't gonna get there. This renders
the claim FALSE. Now 'fess up, understand the point and
move on. For myself, I've still got a thug with which to deal,
or more technically not deal with.
jk