Who or what is worth saving?

Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago to Philosophy
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RimCountry, Zenphamy, Robbie, and a couple of others have been posting a lot of comments about the Article V convention option.

The primary point of disagreement that we have is over what is worth saving.

Are the United States and some of its individuals worth saving? The United States was certainly worth saving until recent years. In my mind, probably about 2007 or the first half of 2008 was the last time it was worth saving. After the TARP bailout, I would argue that the US is no longer worth saving. Certain individuals are worth saving, such as Rearden or Dagny within AS. Most are not. Eddie Willers is an important character in this respect. He was very good as a chief of staff for Dagny, but didn't have the ability to think independently. He was not sought out by those in Atlantis as worth saving. I would not have objected to Eddie Willers being permitted in the Gulch.

The question regarding what is worth saving is a fundamental difference between objectivists and Christians. Christians believe that all individuals are worth saving and evangelize accordingly.

As for whether the United States is worth saving, I suppose that depends on what the alternatives are. If we start a nanosociety founded on objectivist principles, then that would almost certainly change the answer to that question for many of us.

Many of us are torn between the last remnant of the United States, arguably the only society founded on principles that would not be seriously objectionable to objectivists, versus leaving and starting from scratch.

Are looters worth saving? Are moochers worth saving? To objectivists, these last two questions should be rhetorical. It certainly is not a rhetorical question for Christians. Jesus, for instance, had a tax collector as one of his apostles.

Is anyone who voted for Obama worth saving? Unless that person makes the argument that he/she was trying to hasten the end of the looter/moocher era, that question should also be rhetorical. Is anyone who intentionally blanks out so that he/she can further a political agenda worth saving? Would Ayn Rand have viewed intentional blankouts as unforgivable sins? Can such a person ever be "redeemed" if he/she grows into an understanding of objectivist principles? I am reminded of Winston Churchill's line about how if you are 20 and not liberal, you have no heart, but if you are 40 and not conservative, you have no brain.

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    We do not have time to be eventual about anything anymore. All it will take is the Chinese either calling on our debt or insisting that the dollar no longer be the world's reserve currency, and the US will topple down like a house of cards.

    Indeed, it is time to wake up or get the hell out of the way and too many believe that the toppling of the dollar cannot happen. The governing system of the United States is no longer capable of changing fast enough to avoid the oncoming catastrophe. That is part of why I started this post. I have my escape plans in place.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    "It is a doctine, as Thomas himself wrote in his other great work, the Summa theologiae, that cannot be upheld by reason, but only through faith."- Charles Freeman, The Closing of The Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't think we have time to be eventual about anything. It's time to wake up or get the hell out of the way. Have you noticed how a sense of urgency is uncomprehendible to people these days? That's what a false sense of security will do. Too many buy into and believe certain things couldn't' t happen here.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Your fallacy is that what we define as reality is not true reality. I cannot prove to you that 3 is one nor that one is three. Nor can you prove to me that this is all fiction.
    I do not demand that you believe what I believe, and all that I ask is that you do not demand me to believe the other. Fundamentally, we get to the same place - isn't that satisfactory enough to form an alliance?
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    An example would be the difference in net worth between two people. Given a set of circumstances where everything else is equal, one person might choose to retire whereas the other person just is not in any position to retire.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't like compromise either. I prefer synergy as a resolution method. Glenn Beck's The Overton Window describes how getting the public to eventually get to your overall objective requires a series of incremental changes. Paul Ryan's budget would have made a fairly substantial change (definitely more than an incremental one). Compared to what we would want, it wasn't even close to enough, but as it was, it was too big a change to actually pass as legislation. More reason to shrug.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    "Reasonably negotiated".....hmmm I'm pretty sure that means the same as compromising. Nothing great about doing that. Stop judging on a curve.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Regarding urban vs. non-urban living, if I earn 25% less living in a small market and my house costs 1/2 of the money that the same house would cost in a big city, then I have a significantly higher quality of life out of the big city. Factor in the additional commuting costs and additional looters, moochers, and regional dictators associated with urban living, and I am more than content to live where I do - away from the big cities.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    yea, like when Thomas Aquinas decided to help settle that little God vs Jesus debate and you ended up with the nonsensical Trinity
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    A is still A, but the facts of your circumstances may be sufficiently different from the facts of someone else's circumstances that both can apply logic and come to different conclusions.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Anyone who chooses to take a common term and define it differently to suit their own purposes is irrational.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    well I agree with you in theory but I I was at least trying to hit the bases of both smart and moving away from the city. I consider myself intelligent. I got out of the city as soon as I could. When we lived in the city, it was for a career. Our goal was to get smaller and still do the work we wanted to do. Until we decided to leave the US, we only whittled ourselves down to 300k+ I now live in a community of less than 5K. I do not feel a surfeit of intelligence around me. I do enjoy visiting cities occasionally, but I do not find the people living in them any more intelligent than bedroom communities or small towns. Main Street, the novel, is an antiquated notion filled with snobbery and "identity politics," as curcuitguy likes to say. This city snobbery is part of what fuels the concept of the elite intellectuals or ruling elite. Great points jstagner
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