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If value is the proper exchange rate ive wasted my coin. It time to burn the fields and let them learn for themselves without my input, without the end product of my efforts. I dedicated decades and thousands of hours to educate, to inform and to teach. I'm finished trying.
When education, information and teaching no longer work, then it is time for a "just war".
It is time to drop civility, in other words.
That philosophical concept does not bode well for either the able, or the needy.
But they don't realize it is not good for them to become dependent on others. That is when others can control you.
Thought I would clarify that.
I no longer care. It's why I stopped writing books, protesting, debating, etc. I read the days happenings, I buy more ammo and prepare for the eventuality that I will have to defend myself. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if my offspring turned me in. Such is the america we live in.
My short story Manufacturing Change is too close to home.
https://ln5.sync.com/dl/d3433e9b0/kuy...
Let me help out on one thing: the reference to Bill Ayers at the end. I knew Obamma personally at the beginning of his reign (I caught that "Yes we can" in your story, too) for a couple of years. He had more of a relationship with Bill Ayers than people have been led to believe. In fact, it was his relationship with Ayers that he wanted to keep from me. I think it was Ayers that was the ghost writer for his "memoirs", among other things. Ayers wasn't just "another guy in the neighborhood", as Obamma said.
You do know that Bill Ayers, former domestic terrorist, went to college---in Chicago, got a PhD in Elementary Education, and has been very influential in setting course standards and teaching methods in K-12? I think it is Ayers who is behind the move to assign the label "domestic terrorist" to parents who debate the school boards at meetings. It would fit.
Will read your short story.
The Democrats---Leftist/Liberals---cheated in 2012 (Eric Holder and the Black Panthers, and ACORN, and every other radical organization in America) and they tried to cheat in 2016 (Romney had done some of his own investigating after his "defeat" in 2012, so we were able to prevent it from happening again). In 2020 the overwhelming majority of Americans voted for Trump, and the trap was set. We knew Trump was the choice of Americans, so we knew they cheated.
Now, as Lenin said, what to do?
We might understand first of all that it is okay to be angry.
The once wealthiest capitalist in the world, George Soros, would have the rest of us living our lives under Socialism.
He didn’t make his money he used his cronies to manipulate currencies. A looter of the first degree.
He made much moola, which he could only have done in a capitalist environment. He broke the Bank of England, and justified it by his belief the Bank had a chokehold on interest rates.
He is a fat cat by the very definition of fat cat. But that isn't what is important. What IS important is that he thinks those of us who presumabley are not as intelligent as himself (or others of his ilk) need to be dependent on---taken care of by---the "movers and shakers" of the world. And Bill Gates is of the same mind. And there are others, of course. The "vile entanglement of Leftists and Global Deep State" interests these people for more than one reason.
Do some homework. What a crock of shit that answer is. In His youth he turned in Jewish people to the NAZIS. He manipulated the British pound in a similar fashion th what The Red Shiekd banking family did to England after the Battle of Waterloo.
Well you're the real tough cookie
With the long history
Of breaking little hearts
Like the one in me
That's OK,
Lets see how you do it
Put up your dukes,
Lets get down to it
Hit me with your best shot
Why don't you hit me
With your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire Away
You come on with a "come on"
You don't fight fair
But that's OK, see if I care
Knock me down, it's all in vain
I'll get right back on my feet again
Hit me with your best shot
Why don't you hit me
With your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire Away
Well, you're the real tough cookie
With the long history
Of breaking little hearts
Like the one in me
Before I put another notch
In my lipstick case
You better make sure
You put me in my place
Hit me with your best shot
Come On, hit me with your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire Away
It shouldn’t bother anyone what I think of a work of art.
I don't know; who?
Oh, I remember, I don't know is the pitcher.
"Hit me with your best shot, why don't you hit me with your best shot: you're a real tough cookie with a long history, of breaking little hearts like the one in me, before I put another notch in my lipstick case, you better be sure you put me in my place."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM1a5...
I told you I talked to him one morning, seven or eight years ago. The topic was a town in Colorado, called Fairplay.
Don't believe everything you see and hear. Sometimes the best "play" or ploy, is the one that is kept hidden.
Just went to One Political Plaza , never heard of it before your mention.
So what do you think of OPP?
Please provide a link.
I'm signed up with Disqus, which means I can post where ever a platform or news organ uses Disqus. But mostly I post on RT---Russia Today. You get the most interesting posters from all over the world, some good, some bad, but you definitely cannot have a sensitive ego. And the articles are a thousand times more interesting, objective, and better written, and involve the whole world.
In fact, Dobrien, if you want to enter the fray, that might be a good place to start.
That is after , following the “magic bullet” in Dallas.
Much of what I had learned or deducted was confirmed by Norman Dodd in his interview with G Edward Griffith. If you have not listened I will provide a link.
https://youtu.be/cmvYYaFZON8
"When, Herr von Gwinner said, the United States possessed a central bank, the phenomenon of Clearing House certificates with which America was accustomed periodically to edify the world would vanish. America would require in establishing a central bank so to shape its Constitution that its policy could never be controlled or manipulated for political interest or for the interest of a special financial group. If the bank became the plaything of special interests it would prove more fatal than the disease which it was created to destroy."
Now I'm not using this as an "appeal to authority"; as I have said elsewhere, I was a graduate student in global macroeconomics in the summer of 2008, "when my government found me", except for yourself, to whom it could prove a starting point for questioning certain conspiracy theories.
I am a more-or-less free market capitalist, and a moderate Monetarist. The economy needs monitoring by something.
Here is a link to the von Gwinner article:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/time...
I may start a thread called: "The Public Execution of John F. Kennedy".
If it weren't for nwtk and most of the other conservative posters, I wouldn't be reading it at all. In fact, I may not expose myself to the liberal hatred on that site again.
I love hate speech. It reveals a persons character.
Maybe it's me. I mean, they are what they are, I guess. But it's myself, my own character, or personality, that is responsible for my perturbation, shall we say.
Like Howard Roark said to Ellsworth Toohey When Toohey asks what Howard thinks of him after slamming him in the news paper. Howard replies I don’t think about you at all.
Another is from the 1940's version of "The Fountainhead": (I don't remember who said it, one of the bad guys---maybe I'll watch the movie again today), but it goes something like this: "I deal in the human spirit. And I sell short." The Liberal mind-set.
The thing is, I CAN say that to the bas*; but it doesn't keep me from feeling their hatred, and recognizing their stupidity.
He has a degree in Philosophy and is a proponent of Karl Popper, who as I assume you know, developed the "falsification method" of scientific hypotheses, and the Open Society.
I actually talked to Soros one morning about seven or eight years ago, at the request of a friend of mine. And this in regard to a town in Colorado---probably close to the fictional Galt's Gulch---called Playfair. There are things I am not at liberty to reveal.
Looks like I won. Or we. Gotta bunch of notches in my lipstick cases.
Some people don't even know themselves as well as I know them. And Playfair, Colorado was a big turning point.
On the other hand, me dino quit drinking my favorite soft drink, Coke Zero, when Coca Cola gave a large donation to BLM that's run by admitted Marxists responsible for the looting and burning of black-owned businesses.
You know, the wealthiest capitalist in the world (formerly) George Soros, wants the rest of us to live under his imposed Socialism.
George Orwell "self-identified" as a Socialist. He was not. He may have been a fighter for social justice, but he was not a Socialist. He called himself that, not understanding the consequences of Socialism were exactly what he was writing about in 1984.
Like I said, this is war.
also dare to call us racist domestic terrorists.
(I'm right in the middle betwixt you, allosaur, and 25n56il4---is he right out of Anthem, or what?)
Leftists knew real Americans would not tolerate forms of Socialism and Communism, and yet their tendency to abide by the law is strong. So they had to "soften" the populace, to weaken their resolve. To "use their morals against them". (Saul Alinsky). To guilt them into voting for a black man, a Marxist, who was told he could always incite riots to prove any opposition to his (their) policies was racially motivated.
The Leftist/Liberals made being called "racist" the worst thing in the world. And yet have no real, nor actual definition of the word. Political correctness.
The left uses a type of sorcery...they change definitions ,they mask the true identity and objectives. They pretend to be righteous, the champion of the disenfranchised and abused. Time and time again it is proven that they are the abusers.
You never here that word “prejudice” today. The reason, they could not call groups of Trump supporters racists. Without being Prejudicial. In fact all the left does is label their opponents. Pre-judging is one of the left’s strongest traits.
I told Obamma it was his character I didn't like. But he couldn't get that down his throat. I was "racist" and that was that.
And the meaning and significance of words and phrases? Changes daily, if not hourly. I refer to them as "definitions du jour" or maybe "definitions du heure".
In fact, I think that, because women became more politcally active in the 19th century, the ideas of Marx, and Hegel, and even certain concepts derived from the French Revolution became more influential. Look at the European Socialist Revolutions of 1848. Or Engel's introductions---eight of them, count them---to Marx's "Communist Manisfesto". I think it was in the last one, the eighth, that he says since the industrial revolution has raised the living standards of the workers, they will need to be "agitated" in order to get the Revolution going.
But the people of Sub-Saharan Africa have an inherent communal-mindedness. You will find it in their language even. For instance, in the Bantu languages of the Yoruba people of Nigeria (from whence most of the slaves in America have come) their epistemology extends only to this: One knows a thing is true by first hand experience, called "mo"; but if that is not available, then the test of truth lies in "gbagbo" agreement with the community.
I have hypothesized that these people have not evolved to the point where they are as fully separated from the mother---community---other individuals as certain other races are. They thus have more of a dependent nature, and that is becoming very obvious in the black communities of America.
The Great Society killed any striving for independence on their part.
Humans are naturally empathetic and cooperative, but our natural social structures are based on self interest, not the interests of a collective mass. The genius of the founders of the American republic was to recognize that a much more effective and efficient form of governance was to accept the fact of human individuality, supporting individual freedom to act as a person chooses, with oversight by a government of limited powers. Such a government acts slowly and deliberately, seeking agreement on its actions, but not blind acceptance.
We seem to go through cycles, where an affluent society becomes complacent in protecting its freedoms, with the result that those freedoms are eroded, requiring extreme action to restore them. We've become used to a world of immediate gratification, impatient with the slow moving gears of the government designed by the founders, seduced by the idea of a more powerful government that can act quickly and decisively. We've been duped into increasing authoritarian governance by an elite eager to grab power by any means possible.
What's unnerving is how open the arrogant elite have become, taking illegal and immoral actions unashamedly, indifferent to the protests of citizens concerned with the loss of individual freedom. It almost seems like a dare, challenging people to try to gain back those freedoms, facing the threat to their lives and livelihood, as well as those of their descendants.
We are dangerously close to the point of open violent conflict, but I don't think we're there yet. Enough states have taken action to prevent voter fraud in 2022, and all of the polling, even by entities that are not conservative, is showing a significant majority is not happy with the collectivist slant of the current administration. If, as I hope will happen, the GOP wrests control of the House and Senate from the Democrats, the tide will have begun to turn back to a more healthy American society.
What could happen, and I'm uncomfortably aware of this possibility, is that the power brokers who manipulate the tool in the White House could decide they can't afford to let things run their course and lose control. It's entirely possible we will see some new crisis or emergency that creates the opportunity for the administration to declare the next elections must be "postponed" due to concerns about the safety of poll workers due to disease or "domestic terrorism." If that happens, I see no alternative to a violent conflict. Optimistically I think that if that happens, the outcome will be a very effective insurrection, removing those responsible for trying to stop the elections, with little real violence. There may be some noisy protests, but the left, even with support from groups like BLM and Antifa, is not the Bolshevik insurgency of the Tsarist revolution.
How does the control of worldwide resources, control of global trade and commerce, and control of international financial capital flows, by a few, fit into your view of events in America? Do you see a connection?
Do you honestly think the middle class is deteriorating, and that that is the reason?
"The Secret of NIMH".
"Calamity Jane" with Doris Day.
"Psycho".
Now, YOU come up with some good ones.
Let them go home and watch a good OLD movie, on TV. The original "Born Yesterday" with Judy Holiday, for instance. Or "The Rounders". You know what I mean. "Gone With The Wind" maybe. Or "The Song of the South".
You won't see any of those in theatres.
Their reliance on computers too could be curtailed. When I tutored in a small rural high school in Colorado, I tried to get my students to do their own "thinking/calculation" instead of using the nearest computer program. Assignations with other sheep helps socialism, not capitalism.
And, as I understand your argument, "connectivity" or "communication" leads to "debate" leads to thinking, where in God's good name is this idiocy about genders, self-identification, CRT, Project 1619 and so on and so forth, coming from?
In the past, communication helped in the creation of new insights; in today's socialist conglomeration communication reinforces sameness of thought.
However, there are people who genetically seem predisposed to rigidity and inflexibility in their thinking, as well as in other areas of their lives. We find this in the peoples that have evolved in the various equatorial regions of the earth. It may be that, because of the prevalence of virulent and active diseases, the mutation that would have given rise to a more extended sense of foresight, and thus of abstract and/or more profound thinking ability, gave way before the more rapid immune response that would keep a population from succumbing to disease. Both genetic structures---the rapid immune response, and the more abstract thinking ability---can't seem to exist simultaneously in the same idividual.
Instacart is a great way to shop under these conditions. I use Amazon as well.
Primary driver of what?
Perhaps you are trying to make a complex process, and problem, more simple that it actually is.
Breaking down the US economy isn't sufficient in itself unless the breakdown has global effect. It's important that alliances are destroyed in the process, so that a global feeling of isolation develops. Witness how the support of the US economically, diplomatically, and militarily strengthens the resolve of smaller countries trying to resist global control. Once those countries lose that confidence in US support, their resolve disappears.
The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the abandonment of not just local allies, but our own citizens served the purpose of shaking any feeling of international resolve against authoritarian powers. The US can't be trusted is the message the globalist elites wanted to send. You have no hope against what will happen, because you are alone. Isolated targets become easier to pick off.
The thing I find most disgusting is that the people who derive their riches at first from mutually-beneficial relationships tend to forget about this and it seems to be forgotten exponentially as these individuals pass the point at which their wealth provides for their wants - over and above their needs.
Money is a power tool, as Ellery Queen said in his great little mystery: "The King is Dead".
And one other thing. It is envy, avarice, and self-pity---emotions that should be mortal sins, but aren't---that produce the socialist response to success. Thoughts like "I haven't done as well as you because you have oppressed me, kept me down, you have done it at my expense". That's getting pretty old in my book.
There is no such thing as the "oppressor" and "oppressed" division in the social order. There is finger pointing and blaming others when it has been my responsibility alone for my "oppressed condition".
But the Nash Equilibrium is used for more than economics. It is used in biology, and other places. A simple example of what is NOT a win-win situation is of course the evolutionary concept of Natural Selection: "On the Origin of Species". Or, although people do not like to say this: survival of the fittest; the competitive advantage that some mutations have over former genetic structures.
First, it has yet to be proven: there is no fossil record to indicate it has ever taken place. (Most specifically, we are talking about human beings here with rational capacity - not animals.) Second, a competitive advantage is actually critical to value exchange because it allows people to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities to their own gain. That being said, these advantages do not automatically or necessarily mean that one individual MUST profit at the expense or detriment of another.
And I am mainly referencing the holes in the Nash Equilibrium.
Are you not an evolutionist?
Given that there is no proof for such a notion, no. That aside, I'd still like to discuss an example of where you see no choice but a win-lose scenario. Or maybe I misunderstood your assertion.
Mendel and the Voyage of the HMS Beagle, along with the biochemistry involved in the formation and reactions of DNA and RNA were proof enough for me.
If you cannot see Natural Selection as the necessary instigation of evolution, then we have no common grounds for discourse. Do we.
Up to you. Here's a problem to consider.
In order to create a new organism, that new organism must contain at least one new protein. A small protein consists of ~140 base pairs in a precise sequence - not a single base can be substituted or replaced or the resulting molecule when built will not fold/function correctly. With four possible values for each position in the chain, you get a random probability of generating any such protein of 4^140th. That's a number with 82 zeroes behind it. Scientists have estimated that the total number of organisms (including bacteria) to have ever existed on the planet to be ~10^30th power. Assuming one iteration per organism, that means that all of the organisms ever generated on the planet during 4 billion years haven't even scratched the surface of possibilities into even a single new protein - let alone a new organism. Precisely, the probability of generating even a single new protein in all that 4 billion years is ~1 in 10^50th. Estimates of the number of stars places even that number at 10^24th, meaning that even if you extend this same evolutionary chance to every star in the universe you still come up >10^25th short of producing even a single, new protein. Now multiply this times the ~6.5 million species on earth and you begin to see the quandary of such literally astronomical numbers and their probability.
This is only the first of such challenges to the theory of evolutionary origin.
You're welcome to believe what you want for whatever reasons you choose. You are welcome to be as adversarial or as polite as you choose. As you are new to the Gulch, I'd strongly advise, however, that you give the rest of us our due credit. This is no common Internet chat room. Everyone here is thoughtful and willing to hear you out, but we have no use for arrogance, condescension, or elitism. We welcome good ideas and the vigorous debate of all such. We do not tolerate ad hominem and have no problems pointing out logical fallacies.
Above all, remember that Rand herself advocated against coercion - especially of thought. If you wish to convince me to your viewpoint, present your thoughts and allow me to come to my own conclusions.
Ad hominem? Now you think I have engaged in ad hominem attacks? Perhaps you are just insecure.
Arrogance only attaches when a person has not qualifying attributes to sustain his belief in himself. Perhaps you should read more Rand.
I don't know if you've understood that I am not sure I want to even post on Galt's Gulch.
Have you read my thread: "How do delete my account", that I have done this for a friend only, and it's use may have already run its course.
By the way, I am a God-believer, as well as a scientist.
The topics here in the Gulch range far and wide and you are certainly free to engage where you will.
Scientists never rest upon their laurels - however well-grounded we may think we are. The moment we stop challenging and/or re-confirming our premises is when we become more interested in outcomes than in truth. To reference a certain health official, it is when in our egos we start asserting that "we ARE science" or that the "science is settled." We should be very wary of ever falling into such a dangerous trap, for in so doing we are actually asserting our omnitience - a fatal conceit if ever one existed.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." - Men in Black
"Now you think I have engaged in ad hominem attacks?"
I alleged nothing of the sort. As a courtesy, I laid out the conventions by which we here in the Gulch conduct our conversations and recognize value. We've had enough history from some who called themselves members yet seemed to exist only for the confrontation and never for the exploration. They were tiresome bores with little to positively contribute. As you are a recent addition, I thought it an assistance to lay out the ground rules. I made no effort to offend and if I did so even unintentionally I ask your pardon.
"I don't know if you've understood that I am not sure I want to even post on Galt's Gulch."
From what little I have read, my opinion is that you have much to offer. But you will have to make that decision for yourself.
"Arrogance only attaches when a person has not qualifying attributes to sustain his belief in himself. Perhaps you should read more Rand."
Methinks you might be confusing arrogance - the belief that one is superior to another as a matter of existence - with self-justification. I do not belittle achievement, but I absolutely do hold that "all men are created equal" and deserve - until they demonstrate otherwise - that they should be treated with a basic modicum of respect. Belittling or condescending behavior assumes (wrongly) an aspect of inequality and is born of an arrogant disposition. I like this advice from Albert Einstein: "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
As to my reading proclivities, I'm "booked" for all this year with my Christmas gifts. ;) I especially love hard-core science fiction and epic fantasy but dabble in world history, especially the history of War. One who thinks Rand is the only philosopher worth reading would do well to add in some Tolkien, Vonnegut, Jr., Asimov, Heinlein, Sun Tzu, and many, many more.
"By the way, I am a God-believer, as well as a scientist."
Outstanding! We take all kinds here (atheists, agnostics, Christians, etc.) but especially true scientists - those willing to contribute to the search for Truth in all its myriad forms and expressions. The board does maintain a strict no-proselyting policy, however.
There is a need and a use for power. And it is natural and normal that men vie for power. HOW men vie for power, and HOW men use power is the problem that needs solving today. As in all our yesterdays. In his play "Julius Caesar", Shakespeare talked of how the assassination of Caesar would be enacted again and again through the ages. As it has been.
Power, whatever it is, however it is attained, and however it is used, is different.
Which reminds me, I still have Nietzsche's Will to Power on my to-do list. But I must remember much of it has been redacted by his sister.
Let's look at this statement critically. What is power? It is status and ability. It is the possibility for action, but not action in and of itself. Power is not a motivation. Lust is a motivation. (So are greed, sloth, envy, etc.) I caution against making the mistake of conflating power itself with a lust for power. That's like conflating a firearm with desire to kill someone with a firearm.
"HOW men vie for power, and HOW men use power is the problem that needs solving today."
I agree. It is not power itself but how it is used which is the moral dilemma. Same thing with money. Money and power are tools - nothing more. It is how they are used and the ends for which they are abused which is the moral issue.
But power IS different. And maybe what I haven't made clear, is that I'm talking in a biological sense, not simply a philosophical, dried-out, sense. Power is the dominant status of say the alpha male in a wolf pack . And the urge to be powerful determines perhaps who holds that status. Without the "will to power" could an alpha male, the strongest and brightest, succeed to leadership status? And if the strongest and brightest is not successful, if the weaker becomes leader, will not the wolf pack disintegrate and/or devolve?
Obamma said some years ago, "The future is not only for the strong". To which I replied: If the future is not for the strong, there will be no weak.
That is just the way it is. And maybe that is why I see power, or the urge for power, as different. Both the object, and the method. I may have led you to believe I was confusing object and method, but believe me I am not. I am, however, looking at it from a biological strategy viewpoint.
Now, money is a power tool, a means of obtaining the sought after goal; but then so is liberalism. A means to achieve power.
We are talking about individuals. Individuals have intrinsic motivations driven by their internal values and morals. Those motivations are demonstrative through action. Action can be magnified through the use of tools and so creating a larger effect, but the tools themselves are not what starts the chain of events rolling. A lever - no matter how long and aptly braced - is not going to move the world without someone to apply the necessary force. Only an individual motivated to do something is going to effect action.
Take for example Jeffrey Epstein. He was a classic partaker and purveyor of Lust - specifically sexual avarice. His Lust drove him to not only participate in illegal actions and try to hide them, but encourage and enable others to do the same. Did his money and private jet drive him to commit these actions? No. They merely expanded the range of actions he could take.
"But power IS different."
No. It really isn't. It's still just a tool.
"Power is the dominant status of say the alpha male in a wolf pack . And the urge to be powerful determines perhaps who holds that status."
Aside from the fact that this illustration fails because people have Will and self-determination which animals lack, let's examine the notion of a human "alpha male" for the purposes of discussion. What does that proposed "power" get that individual? Nothing whatsoever in and of itself. The "alpha male" still has to act on a motivation - just like anyone else. All the power does is accentuate the action. Now can a person seek to leverage their power to obtain more power? Certainly. I'm not debating that. But what is the motivation at play? Lust for more power. We have to be very careful in our terminology to differentiate between actors and props, lest we - like Alex Baldwin - accuse the revolver of being responsible for the death of producer rather than the individual who pulled the trigger.
And I am usually right. Or at least rarely wrong. In fact, it can safely be said that no one knows human nature better than myself.
Everyone is right in their own minds. It takes Reality to show us otherwise.
I'm initially popping you points up and down just to show there's different personalities here.
Like I said, welcome to The Gulch.
I did not mind admitting I'm a Christian. Reactions to that were more harsh then than now and people like me were called mystics. Well, I looked the word up and it said anyone who believed in anything spiritual such as a religion was a mystic. So I became like okay I'm a mystic. So what? Do I have to be exactly like Ayn Rand, who had an exceptional intellect yet was still a fallible human human being since no one is perfect? Anyway, me dino chose allosaur for a moniker for being different.
As for Ayn Rand, I think on a very deep level she did believe in God. But look where she grew up: an environment where not just intellectuals became dissatisfied with the belief systems---Russian Orthodox for the most part---but where Bolsheviks were engaged in destroying those beliefs. Apparently it doesn't "fit their value system"!
And to be able to compete with the intellectual philosophers of the day, she would need to profess atheism. Actually, I believe that deep down inside, most atheists harbor a belief in the Divine, defined as something more than themselves. Except of course for Thoritsu, who is an atheist for reasons unbeknownst to even himself!!
Involved in Constitutional County activity.
Involved in clarifying message for school board challengers in this election cycle. Will run for board next cycle.
Philosophically, Laotzu was the first objectivist in print. Tao te'ching. I use the teachings from long ago, coupled with The Objectivist's Ethics, and most recent, (https://metamind.quora.com/?q=meta-mind)
the latter is a four part essay posted Dec 7-12. Homo-Sapiens = Language. Language=Trade=Commerce
This is what humans are and do. Simple as a screwdriver. None of this was learned in school. Broke down every "box" that tried to keep me.
Well, yes it does, to a certain extent. But that is not the determinant of what is human. It is the gift of foresight, or the evolved sense of the future, the sense of the "about-to-be" that determines our humanity.
But our sense of knowing that there is going to be a future, a tomorrow, a next week or next year, comes at a high price. We can't with 100% certainty know what is going to happen in that near or far future. (The development of science and logic has taken a great deal of uncertainty from the future, but it has also added uncertainty)
But that is why the human need to know, as the ancient Greeks, perhaps driven by the trauma of the Trojan War, were so intent on finding out "How will we know", is without doubt the most important problem facing humanity today, since the Leftist/Liberals decided to conceal the truth of reality, and three generations of young people no longer know how to know.
I haven't stated this very well. Maybe others can enlarge on the topic.
Hominids v Homo Sapiens? Is this the chicken/egg paradox?
Time exists without language. I cannot express time to another without language, even being it is a signing symbolism, gestures. Language is the currency, value exchange.
Regarding schooling: Entropy. Teachers schooled in schooling, over multiple generations, with no outside commerce, first-hand experience, have fewer ways to express how a percept/concept may be utilized for the schooled, as to their respective "future". I use a model of "Foundational Five". Forage, Fishery, Forestry, Farming, Foundries. I have first hand experience in all five, personal and vocational. It is very easy for me to convey anecdotal exchange as to trade in physical context, as without these commerce ceases.
Let's try a test in knowledge. In your own words, literally, express time, in a simple construct.
Read the first paragraph of Rand's "For the New Intellectual". I posted somewhere on here.
What I mean to say is, paranoia can creep in when facts are not available to make rational thinking possible.
In 2018, when working with some very highly qualified cosmologists and mathematical physicists, I tried to get a copy of my physics text---Halliday and Resnick---from 1984, but had to settle for a more recent edition, probably late '90's. I was dumbstruck! The "problems" were "solved" by following certain "steps"---algorithms, which are used to instruct machines, you know like the "long division algorithm" where all you have to is memorize steps.
Each section was followed by "key takeaways" in six colors. No thinking was required to pass these courses. When I asked why they dumbed-down the text, dumbed-down the course, and dumbed-down the students, they said the students complained the texts were too difficult. It seems to me that if a student is having difficulty following the text, then he belongs in a different profession!
But the crowning point was when I found, in the section on Faraday's (my hero) electromagnetic induction of an electric circuit, a picture of Jimi Hendrix, who set his "electric" guitar on fire on stage! Hendrix was a destroyer, Faraday a creator. What kind of foolish intellect would even dare relate the two? I was furious. I checked the book's credits, and sure enough, it was women who were behind the lay-out of that text.
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It hasn't helped education and learning in America that Affirmative Action decides who goes to college, and not qualification. Or that blacks are given preference over whites who have the same, or even greater, abilities. Why do you think there is such a large population of homeless in this country? Do you suppose the Leftist "positioning" of the less capable in not just America's institutions of (once) higher learning as well as in all walks of life, has drained the spirits of white men?
What did you do with My men, Ladies of the Left?
People will flood the new social media co that Trump is building.
The majority of the herd prefers to be led and told they are okay even when moving toward destruction. The paradox might be recognized by some but if the majority is accepting their slavery even those who recognize it for what it is will prefer to move with the majority than feel its wrath for being independent.
Perhaps the best we can accomplish is to search out others of equal morality and work with them, live parallel with the slaves and teach those that will learn.
Currently the 'system' is in control of so many aspects of the lives of the slaves that any attempt to move them toward liberty will be met with anger and violence. Even those that recognize one aspect where they want to be free accept slavery in every other facet of their lives. Trying to move them all the way to liberty is impossible.
The analogy I use is; they are deep within a maze that has no outlet and they are moving around thinking that they might be getting out. In reality they are keeping the hive alive without ever getting closer to liberty.
I do believe things are changing for the better. Ben Shapiro and the Young America's Foundation has helped a lot on college campuses. For instance ten years ago conservative pundits like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham weren't allowed to speak on campus, and now I believe that has changed. Youtube is becoming more flexible. (I'll tell you about my experience with youtube and Google later.)
Ayn Rand, in Dagny Taggart, was not afraid to use force when it was needed. Read Atlas Shrugged, Chapter X, "In the name of the best within us":
"Calmly and impersonally, she who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness."
He failed to choose. On his own.
I expect the best in people; not the worst.
Marxism and its derivative ideologies (so-called) tell the "simple people" that democracy can only be found in Socialism, were everyone has equal "things": everybody has the same, plumbers or rocket scientists get the same wages, etc. Intelligence, incentive, work ethic, persistence, all those qualities that makes one successful are not needed for one to obtain what another has. Another who actually put in the sweat and the tears and the blood to be successful. YOU don't have to, someone else did it for you. That is the most degrading form of attitude towards other people imaginable. And they like it that way; they think they are independent. And if they are not successful, they will blame the successful.
Being loudly vocal is a start, but only a start.
And I'm surprised too at the life this thread has taken on, but more than that, I am glad. It is needed. A wake up call maybe, to counter "woke" and CRT, and cancel culture.
Cancel the very culture that has reduced suffering in so many places? Will you settle for that? Cancel the culture that first and foremost produced electricity, the greatest discovery and use of a discovery since the taming of fire, where ever that took place? Along with so much else, especially where disease is concerned?
Are you not angry?
Rand's point is that if those who produce through their own sweat and tears become excoriated and condemned, then these producers should stop producing for the "masses". Prometheus bound, by himself.
What Rand failed to foresee was that mostly the "producers" allied with the "takers", so if some then went on strike, the masses are still going to get the products of the producers. The strike will serve no purpose whatsoever. Except apparently for what you believe to be your own well being. Sort of like Dr. Falken (Falcon?) in War Games.
And the other consequence of "Let em burn it down" is that sooner or later they will come for you. Did you never read Rand's semi-autobiographical novel: "We the Living"? It is the very foundation of socialism and other Marxist derived ideologies that ALL must participate in the levelling of the social order.
Your last sentence: "But the government isn't always "the collective" could be enlarged upon. What do you consider "the government" to be, and do you suppose "the government" is changing and being changed by "the collective"?
In some circles, it is believed the U.S. Constitution gives power to the people? (I would argue that, but it is an issue for another time).
You're getting very close. "When the holders of property and the holders of knowledge, either scientific or religious, ally with government, then power is concentrated and freedom vanishes". That means that the "countervailing powers" necessary for limits to state power have been eliminated.
But were they justifications for what was an urge on the part of the colonists to determine the way forward by themselves? After all, they were already used to governing themselves, voting was the preferred method of "appointing" officials in the various colonies.
But the Constitution itself is the miracle. Whatever was its real motivation, it could only have been formulated by educated white EnglishMEN, drawing on not only English history (the Magna Carta was a biggie, as was the "Becket incident", but also ancient history of the Greeks and Romans, history of the Holy Roman Empire and its struggles with the formidable Catholic Church, and other events. Reformation, the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia, and so on.
But Heavens, we have a statue to the two-bit criminal George Floyd, who needs the Constitution?
The federal income tax came about through the 16th amendment and became law in 1913.
The consequence of this amendment sucked the wealth right out of the states, and into the pockets of the central government, thus making states subservient and dependent on funds from the central government. The federal government now holds the strings. In order to have money to get whatever the states needed to get done, they have to do what the federal government wants.
Madison had thought the power of the states would encroach upon the power of the central government; the 16th amendment changed that. Now power is concentrated in the central government, and the states as a countervailing power have lost influence.
Madison wrote:
"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."
He goes on to explain what an unjust government will do. You need to read it; it shows just how shredded our Constitution has become. Here's the link, to this one, anyway:
https://justvoteno.blog/2017/10/17/private-property-as-viewed-by-james-madison/
Please read it before you dismiss it.
I wrote this in a comment on this thread:
The Democrats---Leftist/Liberals---cheated in 2012 (Eric Holder and the Black Panthers, and ACORN, and every other radical organization in America) and they tried to cheat in 2016 (Romney had done some of his own investigating after his "defeat" in 2012, so we were able to prevent it from happening again). In 2020 the overwhelming majority of Americans voted for Trump, and the trap was set. We knew Trump was the choice of Americans, so we knew they cheated.
We KNEW, Dobrien.
By the way, I suspect you are as angry as I am.
I believe that Devolution is real and this coming year we will see even more evil from the Scumbags as the economy becomes very strained and then the last straw will break.
The people will rise up and defend the constitution of this Qreat Republic!
Many arrests and tribunals will be held.
Now it is time to take it to the enemy, and who better to do that than those who actually understand the necessity for individualism. Independence in thinking as well as in living.
You will never convince others if you remain solely in the Gulch.
These are the times that try men's souls.
Or maybe the Kingston Trio in their song: The MTA!
Sadly, we are seeing, especially in Nigeria, a return to the ritual killing and maiming of children for body parts. A Mr. Leo Igwe is trying to combat this crudity, but is being persecuted by both religious and governmental bodies. A perfect example of how the traditional cultures of equatorial regions have remained stagnant and backwards.
So, only SOME humans are lazy by design. I think you are referring to the welfare queens.