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Political beliefs

Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 4 months ago to Philosophy
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"One who acquires political beliefs early in life and rarely changes any of them is incapable of learning from experience." I came across this quote in Marilyn vos Savant's column. To me it is a very clarifying phrase. It explains why many people hold on to certain beliefs even in the face of irrefutable evidence that they are wrong.


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  • 16
    Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 4 months ago
    That brings to mind another old standby: "Good judgement comes from experience, which comes from bad judgement." The key to survival is learning and adapting from experience that tells us what works and what doesn't.

    Our society today inhibits real learning, because it's become so protective that people are shielded from having to make hard, desperate choices like our ancestors. When someone has never experienced real hardship or life threatening events, it's easier for them to exercise "magical thinking." Utopian concepts seem all the more credible to a mind unchallenged by adversity.
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  • 10
    Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 4 months ago
    Well, I acquired political beliefs pretty early in life;
    I read the Declaration of Independence and found
    the phrase "inalienable rights". Also, I read about
    the Civil War (this is Virginia; Virginia history was
    taught as a separate subject from American; however, my parents were from Iowa and Min-
    nesota); I thought about the idea of a state vot-
    ing democratically to leave the union; but then I
    thought that the right of man not to be a slave
    must be more fundamental and superior to that.
    So, when I was about 12, I thought that every-
    body had the right to do whatever he wanted,
    provided he didn't touch the body or property of
    another without that other's consent (either di-
    rectly or by throwing something, for instance);
    but then, I thought this did not include the right
    to lie about somebody or to get something from
    somebody by lying to him. That became my
    political creed; however, I did not know how to
    validate it until I discovered Ayn Rand (which
    didn't happen until I was 15).
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
    I, and my two siblings, grew up in a house of 1970s hippies, my mother single - peace and love, free love, to each his own, dope and drinking, people sleeping on the floor, in the yard, or anywhere they happened to pass out. This was my life from 8-12 (approximately). I'm a Constitutional Conservative. Why? I think.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
      Parallel experience about a decade ahead. ended up a constitutional centrist by choosing my own label therefore the small letter 'c.' The turning point came when a neighbor gave me a copy of AS a few years after it was published.
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      • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
        Your story and similar ones are legion. Amazing how influential that book is whether or not people wish to believe it or not.
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        • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 4 months ago
          One unfortunate response is that some people have labeled AR as "racist," and therefore refuse to read anything she says. Even when told that it's a lie, they hold onto the accusation, as if an honest reading of her work would overturn their pet hypotheses (which it will). The refusal to face reality is the worst possible type of evasion.
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          • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
            Well.....in a way, it's not unfortunate. Those who label a novel as racist on hearsay probably wouldn't have understood it. Better they should continue wandering about imbedded in their cloud of concrete.
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        • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
          My personal philosophy was already mostly in alignment with Objectivism before I read AS. While I do not agree with objectivism completely it is/was a confirmation that I haven;t not totally lost my mind and that the country/world is screwed instead.
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          • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
            There are a few aspects of Objectivism that I disagree with, but like Capitalism, it's not perfect, however, nothing else comes close.
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            • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
              Agreed. I reserve the right to form my own core beliefs. I may take from different philosophies and beliefs but I do not believe in any one thing completely, as they were written. I see this as my first natural right as a human being.
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              • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                OK
                But you tempt me to get into the discussion about the nature of truth. Truth is not an opinion. It must be the foundation upon which one's premises are built, whether you like the truth or not. When forming your core beliefs you must make sure they are real and true. If not,
                you are as lost as a Kardashian in a Louisiana swamp.
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                • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
                  The areas where truth matters most, at least as far as I'm concerned, are beyond knowing, at least while I'm alive. Everything else has its place in my personal flavor of constitutional conservatism, which is not that far removed from Objectivism in many areas.
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                  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                    Now I'm lost. Truth beyond knowing? I think I missed that in Basic Premises 101. I have found your posts to be on target and quite profound. However, this is a bit profounder than I get.
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                    • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
                      I believe there is more than what we can see, touch, taste and feel and that that "more" will be revealed once we are no longer of the physical realm. Whether we are a soul returning to its Creator, or we start again as another form of being, or we become energy returning to the universe I'm hoping that whatever new consciousness we have allows for some of life's mysteries to finally be settled. If not, I won't know it. :)
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                      • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                        Good answer! Not very Randish, though. I find myself close to your assessment. I was pretty much settled in my beliefs - or lack of them, until I got into quantum physics as a hobby and discovered that Plato might have a point. In any case, the Universe is iffier and less certain than Objectivism can account for.
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                    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
                      It's stated clearly in frame the debate whee people are reminded that MOST have no idea what values they have. More coming up......tonight or tomorrow. I despaired of less than five posts but they made it easy and did the precis topic points for me.
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                • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 4 months ago
                  Reality does not change, but our perception of it does. We used to think that sub-atomic particles were like little planets orbiting the 'sun' of a nucleus, for example, not probabilistic clouds of energy that might decide to take a vacation in Alpha Centauri at any given moment.

                  The change in this perception is significant, since it philosophically reflects that the universe itself is a fluctuating matrix where things are only 'probably' at a given location, and we cannot, by definition, both see something and know where it is.

                  So while I am quite in accord with you that Truth is a fact, not an opinion, my ability to grasp the truth of even simple things such as 'the location of an electron' is...cloudy.

                  Jan, struggles gamely with this
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                  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                    I previously mentioned that I am mostly in agreement with Objectivism. We are now getting into and area where I find it to be inadequate. You can't beat the big "O" when it comes to the macro world, but it is inadequate in the micro world. I like Nils Bohr's description of an atom. "An atom is something, we don't know what, located someplace, we don't know where, doing something, we don't know what." Just about everything in the quantum world is conjecture at this point, but in many cases when put to use, it works. I'm sure that in the millennia that stretches before us these problems will be resolved, but until then, we must be satisfied with what seems to work without knowing why.
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                    • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 4 months ago
                      I had not heard that Bohr quote - Love it! The humor of scientists is often a lot funnier than other types of humor. (Have you seen The Martian?! Talk about geek humor...)

                      My conclusion is close to yours: The functional is the test of the theoretical. My divergence from Objectivism is that some of the descriptions of what an Objectivist world would be like do not seem to me to be workable. What ever 'real' is: It Works.

                      I tend to call myself an Objectivist or a Randist when talking to my liberal friends, because that is the best shorthand for their knowing where I stand. On this site, I dodge those terms because I do feel I have a good fit for the definitions that other people have for them.

                      Jan, a jan-kinda-randist
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                      • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                        Saw The Martian. It was better than I anticipated. I have been debating & arguing with libs for 50 years. I no longer bother. When pinned down in a discussion, I tell them I'm a follower of Eris, the Greek Goddess of chaos, and I worship the Holy Chao. Some get the joke, others immediately change the subject and the rest decide that I'm too weird to consider. After all of theses years, I know lib ploys & premises so well, I could answer them with a recording.
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      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
        I read AS much later in life after being confronted with the question "Who is John Galt?" in a philosophical yahoo chat room (before they neutered it). Because I didn't understand I read AS and found it familiar and at the same time transformative.
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    • Posted by peterchunt 8 years, 4 months ago
      I also grew up during the hippy age. I found that their philosophy to be alien to my common sense. It was at this time I read Atlas Shrugged, and have never looked back on Objectivism. So 45 years later I still firmly believe in this philosophy. Life keeps reinforcing that Ayn Rand had it right. You could say that irrefutable evidence only made me even more convinced in the philosophy of Objectivism.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      But -- I'll bet you know a few folks who have given up that activity. It is easier to adopt what is presented to you as a child than to think for yourself. Actually, I believe thinking for yourself is discouraged today.
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      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 4 months ago
        Honestly, as embarrassing as this may sound, the foundation of my views probably stemmed from Iron Man and Captain America comic books, Davy and Goliath,and many other innocent Saturday morning cartons (that no longer exist today). Most of my mothers friends are dead, and my mother isn't in the best of shape these days herself (today a conservative)..
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        • Posted by term2 8 years, 4 months ago
          Its not embarrassing at all. Whats wrong with comic book characters. I happened to love X-men. The idea of having superpowers really appealed to me, and I came away feeling that each of us has a superpower and its our job in growing up to figure out what it is, and how to use it in our lives. The people who make comic books really just crystallize certain philosophical concepts into characters. Its cool. Maybe we need an AS comic book with Objectivist characters (not identified as such, though) and let the children of today lead us out of this socialism crap.
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          • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
            Love of comic books got my son and I into the publishing business. While I enjoyed the business, my pleasure paled in comparison to his. We published comic books, graphic novels and magazines. The delight he took in doing so, was so gratifying to him that my fun paled in comparison. Over the years, comic books have been a greater influence on succeeding generations than most people care to admit.
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        • Posted by Flootus5 8 years, 4 months ago
          Growing up in the 60's, the comic books were great. Heroes were heroes and villains were villains. It was a more innocent age. A lot less of the confusion that came with comics later with anti-heroes, LGBT agendas, dark negativity, etc.

          Imagine the surprise I found when I progressed from comics to Sci-Fi - Heinlein, Asimov, etc, then to Ayn Rand, when I learned that the artist of my favorite character, Spiderman, had become an Ayn Rand fan. Steve Ditko, that prolific artist of 50's mystery and sci-fi comics, and the co-creator of Spidey along with Stan Lee, published a bunch of proto-objectivist pieces like Mr A, etc. Really cool.
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          • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
            I'm amazed at the similarity between the route of comic book heroes, to SciFi, ro A.S, that so many of us took.
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            • Posted by Flootus5 8 years, 4 months ago
              There is something about the self-absorption that an active mind could do that back then. The self contentment there was in just playing outdoors, letting your imagination create all kinds of scenarios you could share with other kids just wanting something to do the same and to interact together.

              There was not the omnipresent 400 channels of distracting crap and the ultra realistic games that rob your imagination of any such creativity.

              It is a natural human tendency to be curious, to seek fascination and pursue it down every avenue at all stages of life. Once this is realized cognitively, and especially when young, it will always be part of you.

              I thank the stars that public education did not kill my mind. And you know what? The stirring of the imagination of comic books, sci-fi, and Ayn Rand - no thanks to public education which wasted so much of my youthful developing period - is what kept my mind alive then, and to this day.

              That, my friend, is why we are here.
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              • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
                When I hear of so many similarities between the men and women of the Gulch, I realize that no matter what genetics seems to be saying, we're all brothers, sisters, and cousins. Too melodramatic? Take it from me, life is one huge melodrama.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
          I'm pretty sure I'm considerably older than you and I loved my comic book characters. I was a big Superman fan and still am. My son in his teens put on Comic Book conventions and I got to meet many of the creators of the books including Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, etc. I certainly got my dose of patriotic input from them, especially during WW2 when comic books were filled with AMERICAN super heroes.
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  • Posted by jchristyatty 8 years, 4 months ago
    I grew up in a home with Ayn Rand Objectivists. Time has not changed my mind. Soemtimes you just get it right and experience, reality just keeps telling you you are still on the right page...so to speak.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      Many years ago, my #2 son met Barbara Brandon who told him that he was among the first 2nd generation Objectivists that she had met. Of course the phrase in question doesn't apply to you, and many others, who while not being Objectivists per-se, are not concretized in their perceptions. I didn't bring forth the phrase as a scientific explanation so much as a possible reason as to why certain groups seem to be so intransigent in their beliefs.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 4 months ago
    I was fortunate enough to grow up with correct principles. What made a difference was that my father actually took the time to explain why they were correct and show examples of people who chose to ignore correct principles. I didn't have to learn by making bad decisions, I could learn by watching others make bad decisions. And I don't regret not learning through poor decision-making one bit. I don't see any reason to try out something I can see is a bad idea just to confirm that it really is a bad idea.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 8 years, 4 months ago
    That statement does not apply to old dino.
    As a kid, I was a south Alabama segregationist (as were all my peers) who began to have doubts when I heard MLK's "I have a dream" speech.
    By my early 20s I was a rabid liberal who thought socialism may be a good thing. Being against the Vietnam War (still am) and then being 1969 drafted into the Marines had a lot to do with that.
    Later as a civilian I voted for Jimmy Carter.
    After four crappy years of Carter, I voted for Ronald Reagan.
    This since then conservative and not a racist me only learned of Ayn Rand when I had Netflix send the first Atlas Shrugged movie.
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  • Posted by broskjold22 8 years, 4 months ago
    I like this quote. It appeals to one my favorite concepts in Leonard Peikoff's book. That human cognition is neither automatic nor infallible. I think it is also a call to dig deeper into the stuff that makes up your beliefs, to challenge, question, and if necessary refute its foundations to be sure and know that it is in fact true.
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  • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 4 months ago
    "One who acquires political beliefs early in life and rarely changes any of them is incapable of learning from experience." I don’t think this quote applies in all cases. Suppose that a person’s political beliefs are formed by reading Ayn Rand at an early age? Such a person may still be capable of learning from experience, but this process will likely reinforce his or her political beliefs and will not require that these beliefs be changed.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      You're right, it doesn't hold in all cases. but it sure explains why so many blacks and Jews continue to blindly vote democrat.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
        Jewish people except one category vote Democrat the older ones and the pro Sabra Israel group vote the other way.

        Jewish people are a mystery they invented communal living and and socialism . One group are gas chamber lemmings and the other are saunch figthters for freedom and http://life.In Israel Sabra is one group and Saudi jews are the one's who won't lift a finger ......

        Who knows....

        Blacks easy story Republican supporters until abvout 1880 or 1890 when Republicans abandoneed Civil rights and anti slavery position and lost their own way. Democrats always anti civil rights and anti slavery picked up on votes available no other interes until late sixties and then then not much and then Clinton decided to ve civil rights party. prior the Democrats were staunch pro slavery anti civil rights. That lasted until just after Clinton when the Democrats went whole hog socialist fascist and pro Patriot Act. Blacks have no where to go Republicans did the same. 230 years of work down the drain and the blacks got f'd used and abused. Nowhere to turn but then we are the white version with the same problem.......Same thing happening to browns latinos. We need a new party that upholds the Constitution and turns there backs on all the -isms. Else the more level headed who seek change with ballots not bullets will be overwhelmed when the bullets start flying and I can't say I blame them. so all you racists, sexist and religious bigots? I look at you to ways. How you fit in a sight picture and the trigger squeeze. Enemies Domestic. I'm a son of Norway descent and proud of it.

        USA and the Constitution love it or don't let the door hit you in the ass no matter where you think it swings. left
        or right. As for the Jewish people and others victimized by bigots .... why are you voting for your oppressors and those whose entire philosophy descends through Adolf and Josef Stalin. If you are lemmings or saudis i do not know you. If you are Sabras's i welcome your support and offer ours.

        And as for the thin skinned crybabies who cry foul foul. Upper US.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
          While generalizations are not considered valid in most cases, Jews are lauded for their business acumen. So, with all of the liberal claptrap put forth, good old Capitalism holds sway.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
          I'm not sure what Saudi Jews are. The Saudi billionaires control a quite strict country conforming to Sharia law. As for Jews, they have divided their religion into 3 state, reform, conservative, and orthodox. Of the three, the most anti Israel are the orthodox who maintain a strict adherence to the "old" testament and Jewish tradition and laws.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
            The Sabra's when in disgust with the orthodox sometimes refer to them as Saudi's. It's not a term of admiration nor common but more like a curse. For those who won't lift a finger to help themselves but expect others to do it and the fighting in accordance with observance of restrictions of tradition. It's somewhat on the order of REMFs vs real military or moochers. They equivalent would be a more vocal bigot saying Jew or Nigger. near as I could tell. The one time I visited the country mostly in Haifa area I asked about it and was told "don't use that it's not nice...but it's true."

            Not well known. I'm sure there are other less complimentary terms.Also the obstructionists in the Knesset would fit. They 'neither toil nor do they spin' even get out of the way but deride the toil of others and expect to be fed for being multi generation welfare artists.
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            • Posted by teri-amborn 8 years, 4 months ago
              Thanks for that revelation. I know that many cultures use generic default terminology to insult the shallow folks in their midst.

              Incidentally: When Jesus was referring to "neither toil nor spin" when speaking of plant life, he was trying to get across the point that they don't need a "boss" and that they live according to their nature.

              Something that we as humans should do...
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            • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
              I have a number of friends who reside in Israel, and I never heard the Orthodox referred to as "Saudis." However, your assessment of them seems to be right on target.
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
                It was in a book I thought about it today....the scene was Temple Mount and a sabra was giving a tour. One of the traditionalists yelled at them to leave and the Sabra rips into them calling them by that term. Now I must try and remember the book or the author.....
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      • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 4 months ago
        Continuing to vote Democrat for decades doesn't imply an unchanging set of principles. The Democrats don't follow one set of principles for very long, unless it's "do whatever it takes to win elections by fair means or foul."

        No, that voting pattern can only be explained by undying loyalty to the liars who run the party. And I can't imagine why anyone non-corrupt could or would have that loyalty.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
      Why not her beliefs must have been formed at an early from growing up in the Soviet Union. Mine were formed that way until as we've been mentioning I learned how to think and reason, observe and evaluate. Some go through life speaking 'as a child.' Not just family if one or the other of the two political machines were predominant it would depend if on what they did or didn't do for you. Most of my family were descendants of farm-labor movement of the 1800s as part of the immigration wave. One Uncle left of the six brothers half never did learn how to spell democratic even though they were life long Democrats.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 4 months ago
    Anyone who relies on beliefs of any type to deal with the world, rather than objective facts and rationally derived knowledge and understandings, will of course resist learning anything.

    If they were capable of learning, they'd never have accumulated the beliefs in the first place.

    Sorry, the first word I learned was why, next was how. Then I stayed up all night to catch Santa, pulled the same thing on the 'tooth fairy' and caught Mom with a nickel.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      Reminds me of a life lesson learned by my son. He was a pre-schooler and insisted that his next pair of shoes must be Hush Puppies. After a bit of pleading when new shoe time came along, he got his Hush Puppies. Joyfully, he ran out of the store on to the sidewalk, and immediately started to cry. Why? Because he'd been subjected to commercial after commercial showing that when a kid wore Hush Puppies, the cement turned to foam rubber. He expected that to happen and was terribly disappointed when it didn't.
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      • Posted by JCLanier 8 years, 4 months ago
        Herb: In Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine", the young boy protagonist has a similar event with shoes... The book is short and a wonderful view into a summer in a small town in an American past. I think you would like it.
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  • Posted by bsmith51 8 years, 4 months ago
    "Give me your children and in four years the seeds I have sown will never be uprooted." - V. I. Lenin
    Create an education system that creates non-judgemental children who fit harmoniously in a social peg board and you produce a society where - as now - college students can tell you all about the Kardashians but know nothing of how their government is structured, or why.
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  • Posted by dwlievert 8 years, 4 months ago
    One's thrill at discovery, must always carry more value than one's fear of it. When the case, one becomes actually eager to discard the "old" in favor of the "new."

    Rand remarked that "reason must be Man's only absolute." I agree. It therefore follows that all other absolutes are contextual. If so, then all rational questions are relevant, all answers tentative - subject to the "new."
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      You'll need to differentiate between man's absolute, and absolutes alone. There are absolutes within the universe which exist whether man has anything to do with them or not. Example: You cannot have 2 mountains without a valley in between.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 4 months ago
    “People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt... They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear”
    ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      Many folks have fantasies about the world, the universe, etc. Rational people can differentiate between the fantasies and the realities. As a child, I felt I was covered with layer after layer of unreality, but everyone I knew seemed to understand and deal with them. Then I read "The Fountainhead." Later Atlas. As I read more, the layers of unreality fell away and things started making sense as I was able to deal with the comparison between reason and reality as opposed to non-reason and fantasy. But you are quite right, it takes work. Non-reason lays easy traps before you so you must tread carefully.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 8 years, 4 months ago
    What if the political beliefs were well thought out and were true? Does experience change truth?
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
      No. Truth is truth but experience can and does create new truths. The easy example is our first trip to the west coast. One week and two days from Minnesota to Washington it's a long trip. My last such trip was 3.5 days due to freeways. it was still a long trip but new truth it could have been done in less time with two people driving. Had I been on the Blue Highways and driving the old 57 Chevy. the new truth would be ....it costs a lot to drive. Bored out 283 to 307 and dual four barrels with progressive linkage and a real nasty chirp in fourth gear. Ansen Posi-shift Junior! Boss! Even the lingo changes but the truth is the same. Old and new. It's how you apply it.

      Opposite side of the coin. "The truth is whatever supports the party. It may be different tomorrow as long as it supports and advances the party."

      The truth from mystics is even more comical. If I have to explain you wouldn't understand and since you asked......just take it on faith."
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      • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
        Truth is that which corresponds to reality.
        Take out reality and truth, any truth, is not possible. Experience can reinforce a truth, but in and of itself experience must be tested before you can say it's true.
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  • Posted by JCLanier 8 years, 4 months ago
    Herb: I find this statement frightening. Mainly because I have witnessed this happening.
    I use Democrats for an example here, due to so many experiences that I have acquired over time among many acquaintances of university professors in later life and earlier with students among whom so many were Democrats. Any attempt at questioning their allegiance was met with absolute defiance, liberal platitudes and consternation. There was no reasoning, no attempt to construct a rational discussion. I have found this utterly inconceivable, in other words, "if you can't explain it, it doesn't exist". In this realm of contention it was evident that so called "smart" people were completely deluded. They were blind, staunch supporters of anything that carried the "democratic" nuance as if this was a sanction of the good for all. There could be no exceptions and no questioning only that this was the way it had to be for them. It was as if they had been born Democrats. "Prisoners of their own device".

    Rand's writings were a revelation for me as a student and it was like breathing air into scorched lungs. Finally, something that responded to questioning, actually welcomed it. Objectivism was open to dissection and the parts always returned to form the whole. It was a mathematical formula that always gave the same results. Pure. Simple. So simple that there was no escaping its reasoning. "You could run but you couldn't hide", "You could check in but you couldn't check out"... Ahhh the days of the "Hotel California" bring back my introduction to AS.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
      Funny you should use that last comparison. Those people are in the Hotel California and neither want nor care to know how to get out. The answer is they can't because they won't......think.
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      • Posted by JCLanier 8 years, 4 months ago
        MichaelA: Ever so true.
        And yet thinking is the one difficult thing since it requires dedication to concentration.

        P.S. I have been following your comments lately-
        they are deadly serious and yet some comical, antagonistic and complimentary, precise and also expansive... You seem quite the enigma.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
          I learned my trade at the John Wayne School For Wayward Youth, Smoke Bomb Hill, Fort Bragg, NC. One of the more intellectual and educated and in our case wide ranging in it's discussions and research.

          Enigma? Nahhhhh. I'm just a plain old ordinary former .......
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 4 months ago
    I see this as a 5000 year dichotomy inwhich there are those that made a solid connection to our minds; which I imagine is a result of our brains transception of vibratory energy expressed as thoughts and those that did not. In other words, we have a small percentage of people that only use their brain; which presents many problems. One major problem is the lack in ability to intellectually adapt to new information and a lack of ability to integrate that information.
    Now, don't get me wrong...the brain is an amazing thing and is capable of doing most anything necessary for survival; which includes navigating society. One would be hard pressed to tell the difference in day to day situations. The most dramatic clue is blaming any discomfort or complication upon something other than self and a complete lack of ability to adapt, to figure it out or to be accountable for their part in these circumstances.
    If you haven't guess already, we are talking about most people that work in, for or with governments.
    Most are the worst or the most lacking within our society and incapable of ruling their own behavior.
    Precious few are benign and harmless. Those that are harmless do nothing to advance society.
    There are many, I suspect, that have a remote chance to become conscious and make that final connection to their own mind and there are many reasons for this.
    I will be outlining some of those reasons in my next book, tentatively titled: Conscience...Those that have and those that have not. The only true division with in our society.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 4 months ago
    this is another implication that it takes a "significant emotional event"
    to change a person's early value system -- straight from Dr. Morris Massey.
    the problem is that millions will not change, even when
    they are subjected to the layoffs and high deductibles
    and lost freedoms which their choices beget. -- j
    .
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  • Posted by pilot434 8 years, 4 months ago
    Early in life I knew I could not just accept anything blindly. Seventy years later, I am much more the same, except for my faith in God. While ARs Objectivism pretty much agrees with my political beliefs, I know there is no one other than God who can inform me or anyone else about anything outside of time and space.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
      I wouldn't denigrate your beliefs. However, please remember that what you believe is based on faith and not actuality. You believe because you believe. Objectivism is based on rationality, not faith..
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      • Posted by pilot434 8 years, 4 months ago
        I agree that my belief in God is based on faith and my personal experience with objective and subjective revelations. It seems to me that Objectivism is based on rational interpretation of existential reality. I like AR's Objectivism, regardless of where it is based. It makes the best of human nature, with a measure of Karma thrown in for the good of all. I think it works well with both evolution and creation.
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        • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
          OK. Personally, I'm cool with that. I'm not too sure about Karma, but there is no doubt that we can dialog without getting into the age old battle of religion vs non-religion.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago
    This Topic has been an amazing set of threads and posts. I had no idea I would get so many responses. The ideas come flooding in and bouncing around like an overturned bucket of Ping-Pong balls on a marble floor. This is a brilliant group regardless of the topic. I'm gonna be up all night contemplating what I have learned here.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 4 months ago
    Just as an advisory I've posted a thread on Framing and Reframing the Debate based on the hand book used by Secular Progressives. Chapter by Chapter so you won't have to pay a billionaire ten dollars IF you have Kindle. The first part is the Preface WITH comments. I should be able to knock one chapter every day or two but it' show they did same sex, rigged th Oregon Voting system and got that state the new name of New Amsterdam. Among other things their system is to change the constitution without amendments by using friendly but anti - constitution judges. You'll also see how to recognize them when they drop by in drag. I mean in costume.
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