Oho! . Missed Flash Gordon when I was growing up.
sheltered childhood, I guess. -- j

p.s. Ming the Merciless of Mongo is listed as
a real enemy, for sure!!!
.

Except for Flash Gordon, he would have destroyed the earth!! :)

Corrupt politicians want to take on power, but it not "in the nature of Govt." to do so. On what basis do you conclude that that is automatically going to happen? Your argument is purely empirical. Of course that does not contradict the logical, but it is insufficient.

Your 2nd paragraph is a different point than where we began.

what did Ming ever do to us, Emma??? -- j
.

Fascinating. I didn't realize that the actual discussions were on record. Thanks for the link.

"Death to Ming!" sorry, John, couldn't resist

Yes, I know what you're talking about and that may well be what you desire, but that is not what you get, unless you give up rights for yourself and others that don't want or need government protection. It is the nature of government to always seek more and more power, and power will absolutely corrupt. From all history and logic, these are unavoidable truths.

This is a critical point and speaks directly to the principles of Objectivism. In order to be a Free Man, one must take on the right of self defense. One cannot rely on someone else to 'protect' or enforce one's property rights and life of the self, if liberty of self determination and freedom of self is what is primary. Ben Franklin's alleged quote concerning this speaks as well as anything does, (paraphrased) 'Those that give up a little freedom in order to secure some safety deserve neither.'

If you're an Objectivist, then you must know what I am talking about without addressing how fast the police can arrive!
In principle, govt. protects our rights.

No argument with that.

You can't have government police standing guard at your gate, your doors, in your auto, at your business office, the restaurant you eat at, or all the other varied activities you're involved in with your life--it can only react after the event and apply retaliatory force by stopping (arrest) the person after or at best during the initiation of force, theft, fraud, etc. has already been initiated and bring the offender to court for corrective force.

I'm not speaking from a libertarian (a political leaning) viewpoint, I'm an Objectivist (a philosophy). I'm speaking from the viewpoint of liberty and freedom of all men.

All rights of an individual are 'natural' as opposed to created, and derive from the reality that existence exists and that man owns himself. Amongst the 'natural' rights that derive from owning himself is the right of self defense from the initiation of force against himself. The morals of Objectivism derive from the same source of all other Objectivist thought and principles. Existence exists and A=A.

Sorry, but you are completely wrong.
Try living without police, military, court system, etc.
Govt.s only legitimate role is to protect our rights..
You are demonstrating one of the problems with libertarianism.
And there is no such thing as "natural" rights. Individual rights are a moral issue and based on the needs for man to survive.

that is the essence of discretion which requires the calm rationality
of an objectivist, in my humble opinion. . proven readiness and obvious
deterring ability are essential in the prevention of mistakes, here. -- j
.

So how do you determine when it's real and imminent. I could agree if he aims a weapon at you, you have the right to shoot to protect yourself, but not just because he has the weapon and says 'Death to John'.

td, that's the problem with this discussion. Government's role is not, I repeat not, to 'protect' it's citizens. It is to protect individual natural rights. It is the citizen's right to defend himself.

Once you start requiring or expecting or accepting government's protection, you can only obtain that by relinquishing some individual natural rights of man and there is no way to stop government from going too far.

I think one of the things that gets overlooked in this debate are the auspices of control and responsibility. Both are of necessity finite in scope. Borders are there to delineate where the control and responsibility of one party leave off and another begins. And one can have neither control nor responsibility without such delineation.

One of the prime factors in personal property rights is the recognition and delineation of control and responsibility: one can not maintain personal property rights without clearly marking the territory and boundaries of that control - and enforcing it. Is there a conflict with freedom and property rights? One first must define freedom, and that is the problem in this argument.

Freedom is nebulous until it is paired with its more proper context: freedom of action. Freedom of action stems from one's ability to delineate one's self, primarily, from the rest of reality. We first claim responsibility over ourselves and our physical bodies - an inherent limitation recognizable by its separation from its environment. And the body then limits the scope of our freedom to act. All action takes place within the confines of the body first. That the body may be manipulated by force of will to displace other objects in space is a basic given. Movement would not be possible without it. However, by that motion, we are declaring our intent by action to so displace other items in our environment to bend to our desires and wishes.

This is all fine and good - until we determine that we are not the only actionable being in reality. It is at this point that the ability to displace matter in our environment that then becomes the point of contention. What happens when two independent, actionable beings attempt to displace the same item in different ways? From such arises the contest of ownership. Ownership becomes the agreement between the two actionable beings that allows for the division of authority (i.e. control and responsibility) over a certain portion of the environment. The two outline the borders of the control of each first starting with their own bodies and then extending to certain delineated portions of the environment, perhaps beginning with clothing and extending to one's personal space, and extending outward from there as each party first identifies aspects of the environment which are separate from themselves and separate from other actionable beings and then becomes a matter of who is willing to claim the ability to manipulate that aspect to the exclusion of others barring consent.

Has there really been any lessening, however, in the freedom of either party to act? Not in the least. Both are still freely able to manipulate the environment. What we really have glossed over in the question is that of repercussion of action! In declaring exclusive ownership, what we have in fact done is declare that a trespass - or manipulation of environment under the declared control of another agent - is subject to punitive action in redress of the offense. If we have agreed to the concept of private property - or exclusive right to manipulate a delineated environment - we have agreed to the punishment for abrogation as well, because without punishment, there is no property at all! Thus we see that freedom is not the least bit restricted by property rights. We as agents who choose to advocate for property rights - beginning with the right to self-ownership - also choose to advocate for consequences for trespass. And these two concepts go hand in hand - they can not be separated on pain of contradiction of reality.

Zen, a neighbor who is well-armed with weapons which can
reduce my home to charcoal, who is shouting, "Death To John!"
makes a fair target for my little arsenal as soon as the threat
appears to be imminent. . prevention is legitimate. -- j
.

well said, Herb;;;; these are my sentiments also!!! -- j
.

You first plug the hole in the damn before you engineer how to ensure it don't happen again. We don't have a problem in the border states we have an epidemic, an invasion if you would. There is an undercurrent of lawlessness which prevents life, liberty and pursuit of happiness liberty for US citizens here. People are literally dying, I see it on the news daily.

I agree, but I do not think that any of our solutions will work well until we understand and resolve the underlying problem. Certainly making welfare and citizenship (via baby) unreachable will slow the influx. Tightening up on welfare for US citizens will also help - Someone needs to pick strawberries and many of the folks on welfare are perfectly good strawberry-pickers. The final solution to massive influx of immigration may be the increased roboticization of jobs.

I had a young Norwegian woman tell me that among her contemporaries, the USA was like "Atlantis". (Yes, she used that word.) There will be people who want to come here just because we represent Hope to them. But I think 'that many' immigrants is not the problem. I think the problem lies with people coming to pick strawberries, work construction, and - yes - get on welfare.

Jan
edited for clarity. I hope.

Kido's...except its not a matter of why people come here, Why they come here, most times, is perfectly commendable. The problem is how they come here, without permission and then the settle into pockets of their own, they do not assimilate into the society and, some, live outside the law - knowing all they have to do is get away and they will never be punished.

I'm all for a more expedient legal immigration process but even if we can process 1,000,000 people faster it would never be enough to satisfy demand.Regulating who comes into a nation is a nations sovereign right.

http://www.fairus.org/issue/immigrati...

I have been somewhat perplexed by the discussions on immigration because it seemed to me obvious that the purpose of a border around a country was like the purpose of a membrane around a cell: it allowed reactions to occur within the cell that could not take place in the environment. We (ourselves and our ancestors) have invested in the infrastructure that fills the cytosol of our country: roads, power, water, starbucks. These are all things that we need in order to innovate without having to chip our computers out of flint each morning. (This 'our stuff' and no one should get to mess with it unless they are our invited guests.)

Like a cell membrane, the border is semi-permeable. It lets through those things that the cell finds to its advantage and keeps out substances that would destroy the cell, or even decrease its efficiency. Someone who is going to contribute to the cell of my country is welcome to come through the semi-permeable border - legally - and pick strawberries or invent immortality. But someone who is going to just dilute the substructures already present should be kept outside.

I will add that substances seeking to cross a membrane also respond to the concentration of their like forms within the cell. I think that we will not stop illegal immigration until we solve the problem of 'why' people come here. (It is not always for welfare...it may be just so that no one will shoot at their family for the fun of it.)

Jan

Where the freedom of the people is concerned it is wise to be suspicious and judicious where one wishes to enjoy those freedoms also. Regardless whether a country be free or not one must always assess the matters of immigration until the day comes that Everyone in the world has the manner to knock on your neighbors door and ask to come in, all ascending and ascribing to the same values, the same principals can we have open borders. A common language is part of this too.
We might never achieve this goal until those that divided us and confounded our language, our history, our education and health have vanquished their hold upon us since the fall of Babylon.
Mankind exhibited a penchant to cooperate with those outside the family unit, once acquainted had mutuality with one another until that fated day when the rulers of Babylon discovered these things about us, they feared that Nothing would be impossible unto us and they, the rulers, would become irrelevant and perish because they could not create value for themselves. This is the paradigm we have lived in since,
This is why our rulers or more precisely, those that rule our rulers feel the more the better; irrespective of how we communicate, how we get along and to what principles guide us.

Beautifully articulated.

Regarding Wm Shipley's statement...look at the arguments in LA about the "tiny houses". Would you like one of them in front of your home?

"A lesson from history is that empires that allow open borders fail, as their institutions and laws are rendered moot by those who do not respect them".
This is the illegal alien in a nut shell. How many drive without a drivers license nor insurance. They have crossed the border, that is against the law. It is against the law to murder another..who cares?
This is why crime is rising in our country. Many citizens are not obeing the laws because the illegals are getting away with not obeying the laws, so why should they!?!?
The illegals have no respect for are
American values.
How many drink and drive (Americans too)
I could go on and on.
These are all individuals who are choosing to do this. If these individuals choose to obey the law, there would not be so much animosity toward them!