We are trying to defend the ones that are trying to kill them. We were asked to help them. That does not make us invaders.

" that would set out Objectivist principles and values in easy-to-digest, friendly and positive language and how they are the answer to the woes of the world. "
This 2-minute video someone posted a while back is a good start: https://youtu.be/nT_RpzYohdI

"Those people are defending themselves and their homeland, and we are the invaders on their land. "
As Pat Buchanan says, they're not fighting us because we're so free and good. They're fighting us because we are there.

If we must be at war as long as there are some bands of criminals out there, the list of dragons to slay abroad will never end.

just chilling and nothing paranoid about it.

Hello khalling,
It reminds me of this from an "American."
Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate for President of the U.S.

The quote is from a speech he made in 1944.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party… The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.”

Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 to December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Regards,
O.A.

Interesting to see how world leaders outside of the US can be smarter than our supposed leaders. Socialism only leads to where Venezuela is now, and where Russia has been in 1990. Its pretty obvious, but politicians are power hungry and only feed off capitalism long enough to secure their power.

One of my favorite books is called "Dead Beat" by Jim Butcher. It's about a modern-day wizard named Harry Dresden in Chicago as he fights necromancers about to unleash the undead apocalypse. Harry, needing some serious firepower and finding himself in the Natural History museum, reanimates a Tyrannosaurus Rex and rides into battle with it. Just freaking awesome.

The challenge is not in finding a message, but in missionaries with which to carry it.

True enough, but it also meant that their form of Communism would outlive us, and although it did not outlive them there, it did outlive them here.

the thread got long. It was my response to puzzlelady's link, which was sort of out of the blue within the context of this post.

a short pamphlet would be a good idea. as I said elsewhere, the movie FB page puts out excellent snapshots of Rand, Sowell, Friedman and others with short quotes which I think have impact. I share the majority of them and am surprised to see some of my friends who are progressive, share them as well.

I am happy to discuss the US's middle east aggression, but remind me again, why we are discussing it on THIS post? I did not suggest in any way that I wanted us to go to war with Russia. I'm assuming that's what you thought? frankly, I'm not sure- except about the paranoia part, I'm pretty sure you called me paranoid in posting the actual words of a former Russian President/dictator take your pick.and yes, the Ayn Rand memes have been quite successful. I have gotten FB "friends" to share them who, as far as I know, know little about her work. Her words resonate, perhaps plant a seed.

it is not paranoia to recognize the philosophical dangers of socialism. This post was not a pro-war post, it's a reminder. There are lots of people out there, that though are not Objectivist in their thinking, would be surprised to find out we may actually be more socialist in practice than some European nations long known for socialist governments. It is not paranoia to relect on the shift in thinking of modern universities compared to when even my parents were in college and certainly from the early 30s. this is a war of ideas . Consider sharing your article link in a separate post, I don't see its relevance here.

I posted no link to anything so who has the nonsensical argument?

http://www.plusaf.com/linkedin/linked-in...

Ah, J... that phrase WAS used by Nikita, but it's an old Russian saying that actually means something more like "you can do or say what you want, but we will outlive you [and consequently be there at YOUR burial]..."

... not "we're going to attack and kill and bury you," per se.

But, of course, the MSM didn't play it that way back then or since...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_fro...

The frog thing may not be true, but Nikita was spot on about socialism/communism.

I just added that quote to my "quotes" page on my site..
Thanks!

True, that!

What signs? The twin towers. The pentagon. The innocent dead in Pennsylvania. Boston. The idiot that set his shorts on fire in the commercial airline (which we should have not given medical care to) and the same for the fool with the hotfoot on another. Isn’t there a common thread that connects all of them?

Recognizing Obamas failures isn't going to help now. It's too late for that. The match is already on the fuse and we'd better put it out before the bomb explodes.

I'd like to see the proof source that we are killing hundreds of thousands of people that had nothing to do with 9/11. There’s no doubt that many (hundreds?) are being killed that had nothing to do with 9/11 but what are we to do? Just chart the goal of their countrymen to destroying our county up to “feces occurs”?

How much did the 3,000 dead in the twin towers or wounded and dead in Boston have to do with anything? How many more dead will we be counting when (and if) their sleeper cells come out in force?

Germany had the United States in its site in WW II, so we had to go to Europe and help stop them before we had to start learning German. The same for Japan and the Pacific. Where’s the outrage now for the innocents in Syria, Egypt et al.?

There’s no question that war is a terrible answer to any problem, but when has talking about it ever done any good? We’ve been talking to Iran for tens of years and they are still running thousands of centrifuges so they can get a purity of uranium or plutonium to make atomic weapons. How many innocents will die if they succeed?

Fighting a war needs an end game and that should be to insure that the enemy has no desire or way to continue their aggression or to retaliate. Contrary to POTUS who has less knowledge of war than a two year old, we need boots on the ground. They will find it easier to identify and not kill the non combatants. The innocents in the nations that are spawning this slime need to stand up and stop their goal of wiping out the United States and Israel and killing thousands of Christens in the mid east or face the danger from the countries fighting them which includes the United States.

The nay sayers in this country forced our withdrawal from Iraq. How many dead innocents do they have there now because we did? Because we pulled back from fighting Al Qaeda we gave Isis time to grow to the power they now have.

When we destroy the enemy then we can worry about rebuilding an "enlightened civilization". The world has been fighting Islam for hundreds of years. It’s time to put a permanent end to their aggression.

We're killing hundreds of thousands of people who had nothing to do with 9/11. So when those people whose families we're killing and whose lands we are destroying dare to fight back, they are rabid animals?

We're visiting collective punishment on potentially every Muslim or Arab in the Middle East, which borders on genocide. Those people are defending themselves and their homeland, and we are the invaders on their land.

The violence just keeps escalating. Are you, too, proposing to wipe them all out? And how will you retbuild an enlightened civilization from there?

The quote from Nikita contained three of them: communism, socialism, capitalism.
[The comments on this thread are so tattered and out of sequence that it's hard to see continuity. It's like hopscotch.]

You asked elsewhere what we can do (or are willing to do). I made a suggestion that we write a layman's booklet in simple language, omitting any isms because they are all tinged with emotional undercurrents and associations that could distort our message.

I'm thinking of a short, popular non-fiction book like The Secret (or The Prophet, or Jonathan Livingston Seagull), only non-mystical, that would set out Objectivist principles and values in easy-to-digest, friendly and positive language and how they are the answer to the woes of the world.

My point is, we have to get our ideas (memes) to the general culture, the Oprah crowd, the blue-collar guys, the "folks" whose English is not all that good..

That's how you boil a frog!

It is tough, likely one of the toughest positions I have ever been in. I'd like to think I'm a great guy but I may be biased. Lol. Thanks for the compliment! Glad to have you in the gulch. Great to have like minded friends!

It was a joke on Nikita's comment that he'd bury us, preceded by the famous Star Trek line. The larger concept, of course, is that the communist system would bury our system. The comment that Obama is his ideological son gave me the idea that present company might enjoy Stevens' humorous musical indictment of Obama, a lighter treatment of the really heavy mood of this thread.