God commands and you obey. God is that "Master"; with his TEN COMMANDMENTS, of which I speak. Every religion has such a "Master" and their COMMANDMENTS. A commandment is a thing obeyed. The person who obeys a command is a slave. Thinking stops where a command begins, as I said-just obey- unthinking obedience. Hence, "Masters and Slaves". So, the person who talks of God, intends to be God's proxy on earth, will have you believe that God's word has been imparted to him. Hence, talk of God is talk of "Masters and Slaves". And it means that the person doing the talking intends to be that Master, on earth, by proxy. Next, in reason, the universe is eternal. If the creator created the universe ... who created the creator?? Creation has to stop somewhere, something has to be eternal. Something always was, is, and always will be. "Existence exists", is an axiom. It is the starting point of any inquiry. The existence of existence is not open to inquiry. But you gotta have a creator of said existence/universe. The question for you then is, who created the creator, which for you is not open to inquiry- You stop at one creator and one creation. Bottom line ... the universe is eternal or its endless creation. I stop at the universe, at what I have knowledge of, AMEN. Next, "Immortality" and "Life" are incompatible views of existence. Life is a value only because the living are mortal. Next, "Inalienable" means that you cannot give your life away to another. Another cannot take it from you and live two life spans. You cannot buy or sell 'life'. All that you can do with your life is to live it and die naturally, or end it. Another can only end your life, they cannot live your life and their life together. To say "inalienable" is the recognition of the above facts. An animal too has the same inalienable life. Life is inalienable to each and every living entity. Next, "Rights" is conceptual knowledge, reached by reason, through the application of logic, to the facts of reality. Rights are reason based and not faith based. Not a gift from God- neither "Life" nor "Rights". "Rights" is the answer to the question of what does it take to sustain your inalienable life. And so a man knows his life is "inalienable" and he knows the actions needed to sustain it are his "inalienable rights". An animal does not know that its rights are inalienable though it acts on the premise implicitly, in defending its life. And because an animal "does not know" it therefore does not have "rights". Neither do trees. "Rights" are an expression, of man's moral code; how he intends to live and treat others. He knows that the "rights" he wishes to secure for himself are the same for all. We all have equal rights; equality before the law. Before Government is instituted. Government is instituted to protect rights and not to dispense rights. Its proper function is to protect that which, by rights, you already have or have gained by your own effort. In case you missed it, Rights are Property Rights. The right to property includes your physical body. Regrettably, all of the above, is but scratching the surface, and will probably fly over your head at supersonic speed. Because it is all highly condensed and requires volumes of reading, comprehension, reason and logic. All of which you have for the most part discounted and have replaced it with FAITH. None the less you have before you some starting points of inquiry if you so choose. Read an Ayn Rand book or two.

I'm afraid you're right. Big money backs Jeb, and the conservatives will stay home like they did during the last election. Obama only won because so many people stayed home and didn't vote for the republican. The RNC will never learn, they are a dying breed. And as time marches on and more people are riding in the wagon instead of pulling it, liberal policies will prevail and our country will collapse.

When you talk of God in terms of master and slave, those are ideas that originate in religion. All religion is man made, not God made. Belief in an intelligent creator is inherent in our DNA, due to the fact that we desire to be immortal. There is no logic or reason that can explain the beginning of existence, so at some point we have to either have faith or not think about it. Whichever we choose, nothing changes the fact that we have human unalienable rights.

There will be many to choose from I hope. But it will take a lot to sway my vote from any of them. And I want you to know I wish I had the answers. I'm reading a lot more Rand and I'm figuring out a few questions I have

Gosh that was a great post.

I guess his reasons have to be like yours to be right. Thank goodness you have the answers. Everything should be ok now.

If Christians, the Tea Party, Conservatives, Libertarians and anyone or any group interested in the Constitution don't join together we are certainly doomed. We can't all be exactly alike but maybe we have common goals.

The collective I was talking about with Cruz is the very far right religious sect, I feel I see him catering to so far. For me he will have to show me otherwise for me to join his bandwagon.

Have you seen this article?

http://reason.com/archives/2014/08/26/ge...

I am catching up on some previous issues of Reason and this article hit the nail on the head...

example (paraphrased) "so, you're a Millennial and you've grown up with a plethora of electronic gizmos to choose from and a hundred or two cable channels... and Two Political Parties."

Does that sound like a long-term winning plan for Dems and Reps? I think not. Especially as the Millennials move into their prime earning and voting age ranges. The polls said that Millennials sound very liberal about 'helping the needy' until you remind them that it'll cost them more in taxes to do so, at which point they seem to cross over to a more libertarian position.

:)

correct, as far as your last pithy sentence goes. I don't know enough about Cruz yet to say.

I think you're having trouble understanding it because it doesn't make any sense, as your question points out. It will always be either/or: parent, 2nd parent, unborn, "cells", "products of conception". When the language becomes so convoluted that a reasonable conversation can no longer be held, everyone needs to STOP, step back, define terns, and make thoughts v. feelings known to all. Then we might have a chance, but like the falling peanut killing the elephant, I've never seen it done.
and furthermore, any issue which can bring LIBERTARIANS to blows is beyond tough - and I've seen it happen.

as long as you look only at "the BIG two" parties, that's all you're going to find. Restrictive on social issues and responsible on fiscal ones IS a Republican. The opposite IS a Democrat. That's how they can get you coming and going, because neither major party is for ALL freedoms.
Who was it who said "If voting could change anything, it would be illegal"? I heard it from Neal Smith, but he said it wasn't original.

and AJ, as I've read many of the comments above here, I could not help but be reminded that the folks who object to 'putting the source above Man' so's to put it out of reach of our meddling with it... often talk about "Natural Rights" instead... as if The Source of Those Rights are also 'beyond our reach of meddling,' but somehow can't/don't specify Where They Came From Either!

And they don't seem to see the contradiction in that. Very puzzling to me.

Minor, I won't say something stupid like "I defy you to show me one.." but I will say that I've been looking for an example of a candidate who supports economic freedom WITHOUT opposing 'personal freedoms' that fall under the umbrella of gay/abortion/religious non-intervention by governments.

Haven't seen anyone who comes close. The ones who have focused on economic freedom have been silent on personal 'freedoms' .... until they're elected.

Please... help me find one!

understood

I had considered this topic when first writing the post, but didn't want to go into it at more length unless someone brought it up, and I'm glad you did to continue it further.

For all his evils, Obama is still not the overt, sadistic mass murderer of a Stalin or Mao. If he were to follow out his own premises consistently in time he would become that, and put into power in a system more degenerate than ours -- which still serves as some restraint -- he would no doubt act worse than he does even now (as he has admitted he would like to), but so would any statist if he lived long enough.

I was comparing them as the men that they are/were, not what else Obama could ultimately become. There are still in fact differences among politicians even though they are corrupt, and that still makes a difference to our lives. In the case of Obama, you have to look pretty far out to find a difference -- like to Mao or Stalin -- which is how they got into the initial comparison.

Agreed, except that I would not vote for Obama or Stalin/Mao - Obama would do exactly the same things as Stalin/Mao if he could get away with them.

At least, God is on OUR side. If the Liberals were able to safely state that our rights are not bestowed by God (with the assumption that He does not exist), then they would naturally surmise that our rights were bestowed by men...there is no other option.

Now, using Liberal Logic, if our rights are bestowed by men, they can be taken away by men...correct?

Since it appears that the government and our people seem to place such a priority on things bestowed by God, I am willing to live under those conditions. Remove God from the equation (just try taking God out of the Constitution and see what you have) and those rights we hold so dear become optional. As far as I'm concerned, God has my back and I'm happy to have Him there.

The saddest part is that we all know that we as a people have given up a lot of rights & liberties that we had, in the name of some vague notion of 'security', and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

It's also sad that our political system, being as corrupt and resource-intensive as it is, no longer really affords the citizen-leader-soldier to take a shift in the legislature, and return to being a farmer or whatever as the framers intended. We are left with career politicians that for some reason that is foreign to the rest of us, feel themselves elevated above others (in their own eyes) for having some kind of rights to rule over other men.

Even more evil is the lawyers that crave power through a judgeship and 'legislate, pontificate, and pass judgment on others from the bench'.

Thank you, that is appreciated. I've only been in the Gulch a brief time, but I've found it to be, as I expected based on its stated premises, that it would be a place of lively and wide ranging discussion, with a maximum of mutual respect and a minimum of the ad hominem rancor found in other "discussion" sites.

Ow! (Sound of slapping ruler in background.) Sorry, Sister Mary. That was clearly a run-on sentence. My punishment will be to diagram it. ;-)

Sounds interesting......

lol. don't think ewv and db don't go to the mat...they do

There are four potential Republican candidates I can think of that have cited Ayn Rand as an influence on their political philosophy, but none of the four are Objectivists.

Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul.

The personal attacks have begun.

I disagree, but not entirely.