Reagan was a great talker & talked a lot of the “right things”.
Obama is a great talker & talks a lot of the “right things”.

The size, power and wealth of the State grew a lot during Reagan’s time in power … at the expense of your & my wealth, power and freedom.

The size, power and wealth of the State grew a lot during Obama’s time in power … at the expense of your & my wealth, power and freedom.

Does the Thug-Replacement Program (aka, voting out the bad guys & replacing them with the good guys) ever work? I don’t think so. ‘twould seem more likely that the problem is the myth that we need the State at all. It took me 40 years of study, research & observation to graduate from Rand’s utopian minarchist myth to the voluntaryism of the Win-Win Free-Market Stateless Society idea.

Anyone else in the Gulch seriously considering that concept?

I am retired after serving honorably for almost 27 years in our Navy. Facts should never be insulting to thinking persons. How do you define slavery if it is not ownership of another person?

We are, or at least were, unique in the world. The big O approaches all things from the world's point of view, and particularly what the world thinks of him.

Here's a news flash Mr. Obama. You were not elected President of the world. You were elected to develop and exercise the American point of view in world affairs. Considering what the world thinks of us is a losing strategy. We will always cower under the weight of their criticism. This is not in America's best interest.

Good Post Shruggy! You sure come up with some good posts with good threads. Keep it up.

We're a Republic only on that ignored "God damn piece of paper", the Constitution.

By definition, the US has been a Fabian Fascist Democracy for several decades.

Ugly words, but I'm told that a "democracy" is where the subjects vote & the majority rules without limits, "fascist" means that the government allows subjects to own the means of production but the government bureaucrats, usually in partnership with corporations, control it by thousands of regulations & "Fabian" just refers to the method of creating the fascist democracy a little at a time, as was the military tactic of the Roman general.

The parallels twixt the USG & the Fabian Fascist Democracy in pre-war Germany are quite ominous ... and getting ominouser daily, as Uncle Lenny pointed out some time ago.

You are too kind:)

Referring to Jimmy Carter.... I love Rush Limbaugh's description of Jimmy Carter when he called him our "National Hemorrhoid".

Has anyone in the Gulch discovered Rose Wilder Lane’s “Discovery of Freedom”? It was my first knowledge of the “Seracens” & provides a bit of a different perception of the history of the “Crusades” & that period of history. I didn’t know of that book ‘til 30 years after reading “Atlas”. Rose & Ayn did communicate quite a bit in the fountainhead & Atlas years.

It is always about context. I wonder what context he was in when speaking before the National Prayer Breakfast. Is this a solely Christian meeting?

I cannot disagree with this statement he made according to news reports.

"Obama said that even though religion is a source for good around the world, there will always be people willing to “hijack religion for their own murderous ends.”"

So we all just have to up vote his comment

Most Christians carry enough guilt without having false guilt heaped upon them, but I suppose that is the one of the burdens that AR said that we didn't need to bear.

Obama's comments about the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery, and Jim Crow tell you ... how long he holds a grudge.

Yes, we have slaves - on the government plantation. LBJ's "War on Poverty" created generations of welfare dependent slaves. One has to only look to inner cities ie Detroit and Chicago to see the people trapped as slaves. And who do they vote for in elections? Certainly not those who would give them the incentive to leave the plantation. They are slaves to the handouts and the misrable life they experience.

Good place to put it, though.

I'm new here, folks. Is there a glossary or lexicon that y'all use here (of course, the Ayn Rand Lexicon is highly useful). Have y'all agreed upon definitions for "freedom" & "slavery"?

Galambos’ definition of freedom used in his Volitional Science courses is “that societal condition that exists when each individual has 100% control of his life and property (& zero control of anyone else’s” & “Slavery—The control of an individual’s property without his permission”.
Jay Snelson’s, in his Human Action Principles Seminar is “FREEDOM exists when the individual’s discretion to choose is NOT confiscated by interventionism” … & “SLAVERY exists when the individual’s discretion to choose is confiscated by interventionism”.

Thoughts?

The fact that military service is voluntary rather than conscipted disqualifies it under the standard definition of slavery.

In addition you position is insulting to both current service military and veterans.

It is all about the context. Have you ever heard someone try to minimize the severity of something bad they did by comparing it to something else when really the two situations have nothing to do with one another? It is a common method used by people to avoid the reality and consequences of their actions. I've seen people do it way to many times to not recognize it right away. Usually these people are delusional to the detriment of themselves and those around them.

True especially is they tried to put it under the national debt clock in NY

Slavery still exists in the USSA. It is no longer race based; but if you believe that losing the right of self-ownership is slavery, then our military qualifies as slavery because individual soldiers do not own themselves - they are government property! At least we ended military conscription and today's soldiers, sailors, and airmen now voluntarily enter into a state of servitude. We need to be open minded and call things what they are. If it quacks like a duck...

the man(?) is a MUSLIM and racist as starting points.

What the President said about the Crusades and Inquisition was correct. Is the issue that he did not include the many other atrocities committed by folks in the name of other religions or that he commented on it at all?

CG, you are an insipid Obamanation.
I see a -1 already.
I had nothing to do with that.
But I really want to watch.

Oh, but that countdown clock would be so racist.
Just ask Al Sharpton or Jimmy Carter.
Anything about Bush would not count.

The lips of the Liar-In Chief has moved yet again.

When I was way younger than 67, I never thought
this world would still have slavery by 2015.
In fact, I thought we would have the predicted colonies on the Moon and Mars by now.
I now wonder if that will ever come to pass due to endless wars and the now incredible national debt.