One of the most common responses you hear, mostly from religious conservatives, is that the French revolution was the "secular" one, based on "reason," as opposed to the American one, which according to them was based on faith and tradition, or something.
What are your thoughts on those kind of responses?

Brilliant Lmao

Yes, exactly.

Being of Irish/Scottish descent I've heard a lot of jokes about drunken Irishmen. I will very rarely have more than one drink on any given day, but some are downright funny. Here's one of my favorites:

Sean and Shamus were Irish buddies and close friends for years. One day Shamus took seriously ill and on his deathbed said to Sean, "I've hidden in the cellar a very old and expensive bottle of Irish Whiskey. Would you do me the honor of pouring it on me grave after I'm gone?" Sean thought for a moment and then asked, "Would you mind if I passed it through me kidneys first?"

Humor is a by-product of free speech.
A joke against oneself is still a joke, how you take it is a demonstration of character, an effective counter joke shows mental agility and knowledge of the subject. Jokes against- your parents, ethnicity, an affiliation you put effort into- are hard to take, but there it is.
With free speech you can condemn jokers as not just wrong but facile or worse. Doing that will usually lose the argument, if you then go on to show the joker as irrational, but so is the audience, and you.

The most famous sneer in history was Bishop Wilberforce asking-
whether Huxley was descended from an ape on his mother's side or his father's side.
Huxley replied- he would rather be descended from an ape than a man who misused his great talents to suppress debate.

No one trolls Gulch contributors more than EWV does .
If you think his approach to comments he disproves of is acceptable conduct. Then that’s a shame. possibly the worst mouthpiece Objectivism could have.

Please explain how this is NOT a personal attack: "Your anti-intellectual name calling and false personal accusations are non-responsive. You have no understanding of Atlas Shrugged, the theme of which is the role of the mind in man's life and society, not an evil cabal operating without regard to thought as a "creature". The plot showed in fictional form what happens to a society when the mind is withdrawn."???

You're still whining and invoking the appeal to authority fallacy to cover your failure to admit your false assumption. Repeating your false assumption is of no use nor help. Your attempt to bully by arrogant condescension is deserving of contempt along with hostility and insult.

Accusing people who value Ayn Rand of the religious notion of "purism" rejecting "heresy" is sneering. That is not an "assumption". The "analysis" you ambiguously referred to was the quotes from Ayn Rand denouncing the cowardly use of humor to attack values. Quoting that is not "paralysis". I am not an "idiot" 'hiding" behind anything. Ayn Rand's analysis applies to your posts. Your posts are becoming increasingly hostile,sarcastic and insulting.

Your post is non-responsive and unintelligible. Please cease the personal attacks.

"Of course it's sneering." No matter how many times you say it, it is still a false assumption on your part. I think you are arguing here because you like it and can't admit you made an error. Too bad. You did. Own it.

The "analysis paralysis" is a dismissal of you, not Rand. You're behaving like a clever idiot hiding behind the works of a genius.

RE: "You, sir, are either a democrat troll, or a hermit living under a rock."
Oh boy Nick. Let's take a breath and refer to the Gulch Code of Conduct for a little refresher: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/faq#...

"Please do not... Wage personal attacks or chastise other Gulch members. Ad hominem and/or "flaming" is not permitted."

Well, your tirades would certainly not indicate that viewpoint.

You have no understanding of Atlas Shrugged. Of course like-minded people act together and plan for what they want, including power. They don't do so in an intellectual vacuum as a "large, corrupt, coordinated political creature" and that is not what the novel was about. You don't appear to have understood either the plot or the theme.

No one said that Ayn Rand wrote "a book that was just for a few enlightened intellectuals, who have an intense desire to take a simple concept and make it into nuclear physics, so they can show how intellectual they are." She wrote for any intelligent reader, which does not require "nuclear physics".

Of course it's sneering. The integrity of consistent respect for values is not the religious notion of "purism" rejecting "heresy". That is a smear. It is not defended by the cowardly excuse of hiding behind only "humor". "Sarcastic humor" is a negation.

The "analysis paralysis" dismissal of Ayn Rand's explanation of the proper and improper use of humor is likewise a smear.

It all shows exactly what you and the dishonest book sneering at Ayn Rand's heroes in Atlas Shrugged are doing in employing Ellsworth Toohey's advice.

Well, so then, everything going on around us, an Impeachment trial made up out of false accusations, a government agency(ies) using lies to spy on citizens, this is all the work of what, an bunch of really bad individualists? No, I do not believe Ayn Rand was writing a book that was just for a few enlightened intellectuals, who have an intense desire to take a simple concept and make it into nuclear physics, so they can show how intellectual they are. She was speaking to everyone, the message of how a totalitarian regime can stifle freedom, the freedom of the mind, and harness the production of the individual for the state. Exactly what we have today. It has been repeated by so many societies, and always by groups intent on domination of others and theft of their efforts. Unless of course, you believe the democrats and their constant increasing theft of our labors fruits, is also a renegade of individualists? At some point, you have to concede to a group effort with an agenda.

The latest link works. I just downloaded it, but as a warning to others it's a powerpoint file over 1/2 GB.

The 'downvoting' is by a cowardly emotional jerk who is systematically downvoting my posts.

Your anti-intellectual name calling and false personal accusations are non-responsive. You have no understanding of Atlas Shrugged, the theme of which is the role of the mind in man's life and society, not an evil cabal operating without regard to thought as a "creature". The plot showed in fictional form what happens to a society when the mind is withdrawn.

Galt's speech made explicit the false philosophical ideas he rejected and the proper principles -- which were Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason and egoism -- that were illustrated and stated throughout the novel. Did you read it? It had nothing to do with cuckoo conspiracy theories blaming the course of history on a "large, corrupt, coordinated political creature", without regard to philosophical premises held by individuals and put into action.

Ayn Rand was not a conservative, let alone a conspiracy monger, let alone a promoter of "Jekyll Island" as the source of all Evil for the last hundred years.

She rejected what she called the anti-intellectual "evil man theory of history" in contrast to the course of history decided by individuals putting their ideas into action. This has been discussed on this forum many times. You do not address it with emotional name-calling and false personal accusations, followed by a crude re-rewrite of Atlas Shrugged contorted into anti-intellectual conspiracy mongering.

http://my.fit.edu/~jbrenner/fundraisi...
with name = fltech and password = brenner

I don't know who downvoted you for this. I restored your point. This was my mistake, not ewv's.

You, sir, are either a democrat troll, or a hermit living under a rock. To make such a statement is completely, totally false when you chose to ignore clear obvious facts. You should easily qualify to be a House Impeachment Manager with your abilities to deny all rational thought and reality. To not see the fact there has been a huge conspiracy by a large, organized group to both control the nation, it's social structure and morals, as well as financial systems is totally absurd. Atlas Shrugged was EXACTLY a story built on just this premise, of a large,corrupt, coordinated political creature feeding on the efforts and production of others, and the equivalent of today Patriots would be John Galt and the Gulchers. Wesley Mouch is a carbon copy of Adam Shiff, same tactics and processes, Thompson is easily the mirror of Obama, and many other characters match in action and efforts. To not see the book in todays context is to deny Ayn Rands genius as social and political comparative analogy.

I was NOT holding Martin Luther up as some kind of freedom hero. I was just saying that when an organization is beyond reform, the thing to do is to leave it, and not to stay and pretend (to oneself or others) that it can be reformed. And what I want for the public school system in this country is abolition.

"sneering" - false assumption on your part. No humor in sneering.

Are you familiar with the phrase "analysis paralysis"?

I understand perfectly well what humorous sarcasm means, how it is used, and the characterization of the book. It does not justify sneering that it is "heresy to an Ayn Rand purist". It is also clear why it would follow up on Blarman's own sneering misrepresentations of Atlas Shrugged, believing that he would like it.

Ayn Rand used humor properly and effectively. She had a lot to say about humor and it's proper and improper uses. Here is some of it:

From The Art of Fiction, Chap 11:

"What you find funny depends on what you want to negate. It is proper to laugh at evil (the literary form of which is satire) or at the negligible. But to laugh at the good is vicious. If you laugh at any value that suddenly shows feet of clay, such as in the example of the dignified gentleman slipping on a banana peel, you are laughing at the validity of values as such. On the other hand, if a pompous villain walks down the street—a man whose established attributes are not dignity, but pretentiousness and stuffiness—you may properly laugh if he falls down because what is then being negated is a pretense, not an actual value.

"Observe that some people have a good-natured sense of humor, and others a malicious one. Good-natured, charming humor is never directed at a value, but always at the undesirable or negligible. It has the result of confirming values; if you laugh at the contradictory or pretentious, you are in that act confirming the real or valuable. Malicious humor, by contrast, is always aimed at some value. For instance, when someone laughs at something that is important to you, that is the undercutting of your value...

"... In sum, humor is a destructive element. If the humor of a literary work is aimed at the evil or the inconsequential—and if the positive is included—then the humor is benevolent and the work completely proper. If the humor is aimed at the positive, at values, the work might be skillful literarily, but it is to be denounced philosophically."


Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead:

"Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul—and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll set no limits to his obedience—anything goes—nothing is too serious."


From The Art of Fiction, Introduction:

"There will always be an undercutting touch—and no undercutting is more deadly, artistically, than humor. Nothing is better calculated to make a great man appear ludicrous than a touch of humor at the wrong time."


From The Romanic Manifesto, Chap 8, "Bootleg Romanticism":

"Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.

"There are two types of cowards in this connection. One type is the man who dares not reveal his profound hatred of existence and seeks to undercut all values under cover of a chuckle, who gets away with offensive, malicious utterances and, if caught, runs for cover by declaring: 'I was only kidding.'

"The other type is the man who dares not reveal or uphold his values and seeks to smuggle them into existence under cover of a chuckle, who tries to get away with some concept of virtue or beauty and, at the first sign of opposition, drops it and runs, declaring: 'I was only kidding.'

"In the first case, humor serves as an apology for evil; in the second—as an apology for the good. Which, morally, is the more contemptible policy?"


This is not answered by promoting a "rather irreverent and totally unauthorized sequel to 'Atlas Shrugged'" as "sarcastic humor" that is "heresy to an Ayn Rand purist".

As a practical matter today it almost doesn't matter that a higher threshold would make it even harder to overturn bad laws. Except in some extreme cases it is already impossible. For future reform it could matter more, but the point is the hopelessness in the foreseeable future of a political proposal to make it harder to pass laws when those controlling the process and supported by the electorate want to pass more bad laws. Why would they tolerate restricting themselves across the board as a matter of principle?

The idea of progressivism inherently requires constant, progressively increasing restrictions. Without replacing the collectivist-statist-altruist premises with an understanding of the rights of the individual, proposing a higher threshold for passing laws intended for progressively more control is wishful thinking; you might as well just wish for the laws to go away, which won't happen either.

The Founders put a lot of thought into criteria for passing laws, sometimes requiring 2/3 instead of a majority, all within a framework of balance of power as an overall restraint. They could not make it impossible to pass laws because they were not anarchists: It had to be possible to pass good laws protecting rights.

It is not enough and does not work now because of the widely accepted opposite philosophical premises now driving the process. The founders had something that we don't: the acceptance of the Enlightenment. Many of the bad laws we have today would have sounded far more absurd to them than protecting pregnant Florida pigs. Likewise, many bad laws today do not sound absurd at all to those with counter-Enlightenment bad premises.

Of course the original restrictions on government, including procedures for new laws, are inadequate now. Fixing that requires change far more fundamental than proposing a higher threshold for voting, or any other more restrictive procedural change, to those who fundamentally want more controls and want them easier to impose.

The url that does not work does not have the password embedded in it.