Who or what is worth saving?
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.
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.
Nah, I wouldn't want to rule Mankind... just ruling a death camp full of progressives would do for me.
More deeply, the character of Willers also opens up Ayn Rand's refutation of the Kantian imperative that people cannot be means but are always (categorically and imperatively) ends in themselves. That must be balanced against Galt's Pledge. "Johnny Something" never asked Eddie to live for him, but only asked Eddie questions which he was free to ignore, evade, or lie to.
Furthermore, in the Valley, Dagny meets a truck driver, most likely someone who gave John Galt (or someone else) a ride when it was needed. Dagny first takes for a professor of comparative linguistics.
Moving right along, I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Make of that whatever you want, I was an Objectivist before you were born.
I do not expect anyone to "save" me or to decide that I am "worth saving." One of my favorite reads was _Merchants and Moneymen of the Middle Ages_. It opened during the so-called "Dark Ages" in Italy with a merchant preparing a voyage to Constantinople. At that same time, give or take a few centuries, the English king Offa of Mercia struck gold coins imitating Arab dinars. Just sayin'... life goes on...
A few months back, I suggested that it would be appropriate to shun our neighbors who work for the government. That drew immediate contradiction (with up votes for that and down votes for me) from a woman who worked for an appeals court. Well... yes... certain functions are valid.... I just finished a contract the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Furthermore, in answer to a question about a moral career in a mixed economy, Ayn Rand said that while it would be wrong to work for the IRS, it is acceptable to work for the government at something which the government has taken over or dominates, but which someone in a free society could do. That speaks to your claims about moochers and looters not being "worth saving." Do you have some standard or some guideline? (BTW, Ragnar Danneskjoeld had informants within the IRS.)
You might want to not save "people on welfare." Would you save people who use the USPS instead of FedEx (which is run by Objectivist Fred Smith)? How many FedEx waybills do I need to buy a ticket on your lifeboat? Are you even offering a lifeboat... or just a meta-discussion about meta-lifeboats?
I dunno, jb, you do pretty good most of the time, but here, well, you missed the boat... (No thumbs down from me, though: it is a good discussion worth having).
MM, you are correct about the question- who is worth saving? The problem is in the question itself. jbrenner is making a rhetorical point out of the usual despair of one who has ideals but sees reality.
Eddie Williers- Obviously an important character. Competent, dedicated, trustworthy, reliable, a hard worker. He is not in the Dagny Galt Rearden class but he is a producer nevertheless. At the end of the story he is alone stranded out in the desert trying to fix a loco fault. Rand does not give any hope that he will succeed, nor send out the cavalry (deus ex machina) to save Eddie. Why?
Story- the new wife of the king of Kent was a Christian enthusiast. The king was converted and became the same. A hoard of dinars was found. They thought the pattern around the rim was just a pattern so the coins were used as currency. The inscription said- 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet'. Not many at that time in Kent could read Arabic so mass apoplexy was averted.
Wait... what time period was this?
(I *wondered* what happened to that stash... thieving Britons....)
Cannot find the audio-book now, maybe I heard it wrong or Churchill got it wrong. The coins may have come from the central kingdom of Mercia, the famous King Offa dinars, (see MM's point). So in England at the time there were coins in use that were originally dinars with the iconic Islamic inscription, they were overstamped with the name Offa and a cross.
For further confusion-
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/bmh/BMH-AQ-...
Who are Raible and Atwell?
Two American heroes who could not vote for themselves...
http://michellemalkin.com/2013/05/01/the...
I cast their vote for the only candidate A) eligible and B) capable of making their loss count for something.
Just before the 2008 election I told my kids that when I look for an analogous election within the bits of history I know, the closest, by far, was the election of Hitler in Germany. A country in trouble, people confused and ignorant, looking for a "Knight on the White Horse" (or is it House)" to save them from the self generated mess. No clear definition of targets for the hope. Change meant "transformation", an obvious pleonasm. No explanation of "change to what". And Americans, as did the Germans about 80 years ago, gobbled it up. Shame on us! I do not blame us for hoping. That is one of the most fundamental cravings of humans. I blame us for being ignorant, irrational and disinterested.
I frequently vote Republican further down the ticket, depending on the individual candidate.
No, the Gulch was an interesting contrivance and plot mechanism, but there will not be such a rebirth should the US go under. If it does, it will usher in what I fear will be centuries of a neo-Dark Age. No, not technologically, but culturally. We will collapse to a state worse than the dregs of Europe. Luckily, growing up in MN, I don't fear the cold, so I'll likely emigrate to Canada, eh.
Therefore, something else more fundamental is needed for positive change. I think that any society based on respecting individual rights is part of that.
Nevermind, I see now you voted for 3rd party.
I used to work for a government lab before reading AS. That definitely is against Galt values. I think that people can indeed grow, and I have.
For all you know, Mike, I might be a Christian trying to argue the point that everyone should have the opportunity to hear that there is an Atlantis.
I threw this one out there just to stir up the pot a little bit.
One of the hardest things for me in my attempts at writing is hurting my protagonists.
In Ben Bova's, "The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells", he explains the necessity of beating hell out of your protagonists.
Still, I will live and die by my rule that in my fiction nothing bad ever happens to dogs. (Well, in Roarke's Drift I bend it a bit...)
Even in the real world of the founding, Hamilton, Jay, even Adams, and many others began immediately to alter the operation and structure of the Federal government in many ways away from the intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The question must be, did they do it because of necessity, convenience, personal gain, or simply because they had the power?
My fear is that an Objectivist or even Enlightenment founded country would have to be so exclusionary as to be despised by the rest of the planet. Imagine having to exile or allow to fail, a son or daughter. Trust me, it's a very hard thing to do. An original founder sad it in nicer terms: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you, and may your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” – John Adams
It's often stated that during the Revolution, some 30% wanted to remain under the King, 30% just swayed in the wind, and 30% supported to one extent or the other the 3% that actively fought the British. I think we won the first battle, then lost the war.
I think that the broadest picture of the next hundred years will bring frontiers opening up. Those places will be the new horizons. Look to Hudson's Bay, the Antarctic, the continental shelves, the open seas. I was told by an engineer who worked on one that there are so many platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that traffic consists of perhaps one million helicopter flights per year. There's a lot going on in the world... And then there's off-world...
Author, F. Paul Wilson did a SF series early on in his career, circa 1980 that took a stab at the concept. Enemy of the State was the primary story. I enjoyed it and still have a copy.
Although not a strict Objectivist, he's a died in the wool Libertarian/free-market thinker heavily influenced by Von Mises, and Rothbard in the 60's. His is an interesting and entertaining approach to the problems of a repressive government. Key players in his novel are two absolutist libertarian splinter groups from the diaspora of the Earth, one dedicated to a Western philosophical, non-violent approach and the second, an Eastern philosophical and active defense group. He's the originator of Kyfho, an anagram word that reached common usage in several circles in the 70's and 80's.
As for an Objectivist society, this gets discussed and debated so often as to be cloying. Remember that in a village, privacy does not exist. Consider the 250 most active posters here and then imagine living (where?) with and among them. Villages are stultifying. That is why smart people leave them and move to cities. Urban cultures thrive on non-conformity. That must be so, as a law of nature, otherwise no marginal utilities could exist.
Allow me to suggest - as I will to khalling below - that you have only acculturated yourself to the dictators in your locale. Do they know that you are an atheist? (Just for instance...) In the city, you get pluralism and necessary toleration. In the village, privacy does not exist, so conformity (apparent conformity by silence) has salience.
FIT is kind of odd, but in a lot of good ways. A private university originally founded to educate people for the space industry, which until recently was all government.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/04/0...
With the automobile we got suburbs, with information age physical proximity is less important. Given that most looters live in the city, you will continue to see a de -centralization trend.
'Uneducated' only has a negative connotation to the 'educated' mind. A smart person knows the distinction.
Your claim that "most looters live in the city" is easy to accept - and just as wrong. For one thing, "most people" do not live in cities and "most people" are "looters" (so-called) or we would have a laissez-faire utopia right now.
Even if it were statistically established at "most" looters live in cities, that would not validate your implied claim that "most people in cities are looters."
Since "most people" do not vote, the presence of looter governments may only indicate that "most people" put up with it and count it as a cost of living expense. The presence of looter governments in cities is no measure of looters within the population.
Moreover, I assure you that Texas is really Texa-chusetts when it comes to government intervention in the markets, corruption, and excessive policing. However, Texas has a different _culture_ than Massachusetts, as the West is generally different from the East. It that culture which makes this a good place to live.
The social agenda of Objectivism is to offer reality and reason to individuals who choose to think. Exactly when enough people have made that choice will be clear a generation later. We may be living in that time now.
http://www.statemaster.com/red/graph/eco...
I agree with you on Texas completely
This dichotomy applies to the Urban/Rural problem. As khalling said: "... cities are liberal/progressive drivers ... there are lots of high level looters where there is big government." But the villages (suburbs) are where you encounter the small-time thugs of the mind whose New King James Bible - the same one that Saint Paul read - tells them what they need to know. We just passed Memorial Day and several people here paid honor to the fallen military. In the city you can question that; in the village, you dare not.
I suggest that if you like the villages more than you like the cities, you have only chosen one evil over another. We all make choices.
I recently had published an article about John Leonard Riddel. His diaries and other similar rare archives are here at the University of Texas Libraries. Up above is a comment about snobbery. I grew up in Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art spoiled me. I think that Austin's Blanton Museum is about on par with Toledo or Indianapolis. But at least they have art museums.
As a science fair judge, I have seen bright kids with midrange projects because coming from small towns, they had no mentors among their teachers. You can get that anywhere - people are people. One local girl emailed all of her math and science teachers for help in statistics for her project and got no replies. So, she emailed some professors at UT who hooked her up with some doctoral candidates. But, like the teachers who rebuffed her, the enthusiastic helpers were here in the city.
Everything is a matter of trade-offs, marginal utilities, and preference curves. We all make choices.
http://crystalbridges.org/about/
of course this museum is the work of the Walmart fortune. 10 minutes away our vintage Airstream was nestled in the sticks on a pristine lake with few around. The internet is a great equalizer in gaining knowledge and opportunity
We are just sophisticated enough that our science fair contestants succeed. Two of the students I have helped advise have advanced to the international science fair. One high school husband and wife teacher team that sends me students occasionally produces the high school chemistry science fair winners almost every year. Their students are Ivy League-quality every year. We have a really tiny art museum. Sorry, we're not that great there. However, we do have the only zoo in America with kayaking.
We do have a place where the atheists meet, too.
I enjoyed Fowlerville, MI the one day I spent at a lake there back in the early 1990s. With regard to guns, hunting season in MI was pretty common for most people while I was in grad school in Ann Arbor. I didn't hunt.
Leftist-code word usage. Demonstrates that no one need take you seriously anymore.
I can hardly imagine a "wronger" statement. I will just state the way I perceive the realities around this. I think that the evidence is all around. (I am trying to cut down my verbosity.)
Liberals deny the economic freedom (taxation and regulation - killing competition in exchange for campaign contributions). Liberals aggressively brainwash: political correctness is their invention, they call irresponsibility freedom and encourage removal of any ethical standards in the name of freedom, no matter the price.
Conservatives let you keep more of what you earn and would like to see "everybody" be a small business owner. Conservatives like traditional ethical standards, occasionally too much. But, they are sticklers for the Constitution and know that human nature has not changed an iota from Dante (c 1265 - 1321 AD), or Pericles (c 495 429 BC) or even Ramses III (r 1186 - 1155 BC) and with that neither did the fundamental ethics.
What a load of dingo's kidneys.
It's the left that is obsessed with controlling your mind. It's not *conservatives* who've changed the entire value system of the nation in the past half-century. It's not conservatives who give bovine birth every time you say certain words or express certain ideas.
"We just passed Memorial Day and several people here paid honor to the fallen military. In the city you can question that; in the village, you dare not. "
What village of which you speak? All villages, really? That's like saying all Frenchmen are cowards or all Germans are Nazis, or all urbanites are small-minded bigots.
I like villages better than urban centers for the same reason wolves don't huddle in herds.
Pretty clear you've never been to Oklahoma City.
Regarding cities vs. suburbia vs. villages, my neighborhood started out as being friendly when all of us first moved in 16 years ago. After many of the original owners have moved on, my neighborhood has lost a sense of community. I miss that.
I would be highly interested in having a giant party out by my pool for the 250 most active posters here. We would have even more of a blast than we do here online. Longer term, there were certainly be some disagreements, but we're all big enough boys and girls to get past those issues.
I think that all INDIVIDUALS must each save THEMSELVES. The invitation is, seems to me, an entry permission, as it should be. So, the question at the top should be more like "Who and What is Worth Inviting?" Don't you agree?
I guess we need to define more accurately some of the terms we are using. I imagine that one can tutor prospects before deciding to invite them, a la D'Anconia with Rearden. But, as one cannot "learn" others, only teach them, one has to "evangelize", as you say and if I understand what you mean, in the hopes that the learners' free will and reason would induce them to adopt the values and qualify, as judged by the tutor et al., for the invitation.
As to saving America, I am one of those that would do anything to save it from socialist tyranny. Please, let me explain. At age 5, my family and the country fell to Hitler led Germans. Four years later Stalin led Russians took over and installed Tito and his henchmen (with not insignificant help from Churchill and Roosevelt). Some 17 years later, after college graduation and military service, I was able to go to Italy on a 6 month scholarship and refused to return, after Yugoslav authorities refused to extend my passport. After 4 years in Italy, I came to this country as a GE "import". Soon afterwards, Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, and I was stunned and deeply hurt that not a single gun was fired at the invaders. I convinced myself that America was my last stand against the tyrants. I felt confident that, if their tanks showed up on my street, I would certainly not be alone firing on them from a window. Now I tell people that I would rather die rifle in hand than live in socialism. I am almost 79 years old and all my responsibilities are taken care of. I hope that before America succumbs, there will be a rebellion and that I will not be alone. I hope that someone will earn the immortal memory analogous to the one Leonidas earned at Thermopylae. I think that there are still American willing and capable to emulate those on Omaha Beach almost exactly 70 years ago.
Sorry that I do not know how to make this shorter. I think that you need to know "where I am coming from". It is because I feel strongly responsible for the message received. It is not an insult to your intelligence, please.
Leonidas and Thermopylae is one of my favorite stories. There are still Americans who are willing. There are not nearly so many anymore. Sparta was worth saving. America back then was worth saving. Traditional American values back then were worth saving.
No insult was meant or taken. One of my former business partners was born in Poland just before WWII. He invented a device similar to the Mr. Fusion from the Back to the Future movies. His stories about being behind the Iron Curtain convinced me that he was worthy of the title of John Galt.
Regarding saving America, I felt like you my entire life until the TARP bailout in 2008. Now it feels like Khrushchev was right. Remember when we rapped with his shoe and told us that "We will bury you." His Communism has now buried us. I just don't know whether there is enough of America left to make it worth saving. Most days I think there is enough left. I live in an area worth saving. As I see it, there are parts of this country that seek to control me and everyone in this forum that are not worth saving.
I'm re-reading it myself. Sparta is the only place, real or fictional, that I think I'd be willing to die defending (other than the historical U.S.A.)
""Now," he went on. drawing on his cigar, "out here, you've got problems from the bottom up, instead. Y'all understand, you've got an unusual rulin' class here. A full third of the population, and visible. Then the CD sends you Earth's barbarians. And what do you do? You give them a chance. You give them no excuses. None. You make it plain, their failures are their own fault, and you rub it in by making the rewards of success visible and believable."
(Oh to live in such a society! It's only in recent years I discovered that most Americans live in denial about their own failures; they prefer the false shame of victimhood to the real shame of failure...)
"Their target isn't really your armed forces, it's your society as a whole. They give you nothing to attack, while you have to guard everything. You can't call out the Brotherhoods en masse for long; too much shuts down. And many of them are scattered on farms and ranches miles from anywhere when they're not under arms. There's a military saying —"
"Frederick the Great," Owensford supplied, "Who defends everything, defends nothing. Quite true."
"The rebels are underestimatin' the solidarity of your Brotherhoods, also how mad they're getting." A bleak smile. "Ruthless people don't understand how mean good folks can get when their codes are violated.""
...
""She shouldn't be alone," Lysander said. "We failed her. I failed. Her and the whole planet, I can't protect them and —"
"Nonsense," the Queen said. "You can't be every-where at once.""
If Obama would say this kind of thing once... just ONCE, his popularity numbers would reverse. Hell, even I might hate him just a tiny bit less. But you'll never hear that sort of thing out of Obama or Clinton or any of them. They're the Helots, not the Spartans.
...
""Didn't you hear the King?" he said, turning on her. Their bedroom was plain enough; there was a hologram of a serious-looking young man in Royal Army uniform. Another of a younger man; that one had the simple starburst of the Order of Thermopylae laid across it. "I'm going to help stop the rebels, the Marines, get the bastards who hurt Julio —"
"Then he took in the hunting clothes on her stout body, the shotgun firmly clutched in her hands.
"Not without me, you aren't, Thomas McTiernan," she said. "And don't say it. All the young, strong, fit ones are off with the Army, like Mike —" they both glanced toward the picture of their son in uniform "— and we're what's left."
He stared at her in silence for a moment, then snorted. "Startin' to remember why I married you, Maria," he said."
...
"On Burke Avenue, on scores of others like it, the Battle of Sparta City had begun."
From Merriam-Webster - Selfish: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
It is the "without regard for others" that is the problem. As a father, would that apply? As a husband, would that apply? As a neighbor, would that apply? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should place their interest above yourself (well, perhaps as a husband and father I would), but you also don't totally neglect the impact on others. If you followed the precise definition, then that would lead you to being what I call the "baddest ass on the block." Your objectives alone would dictate, and if that meant overpowering others, then so be it. While AR advocated not initiating force, I cannot find any rational reason not to do so under that premise, thus, the fundamental premise must be wrong.
I believe in self interest, not selfishness. Self interest takes into account the impact of others. It does not make me a slave to others, merely that I should examine my conduct in light of its impact on others.
Telling anyone that he is forbidden to make his own definitions means a prohibition, on behalf of collectivist group think, of original thought, new knowledge including all of science, and correction of errors. That is precisely why Ayn Rand did and should have formulated and explained in depth a proper concept of selfishness as essential to moral standards.
Read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
And so does the left. "gay"... "African-American"...
"Contact" is not an action verb.
"Disrespect" is not an action verb.
An interesting word, “Selfish.”
In early American dictionaries, a bit over 50 years ago, the full definition of the word was simply,
Selfish:
“Chiefly or wholly regarding one's own self”
But this has somehow been mutated into basically,
“Having or showing concern only for yourself and ignoring the needs, feelings or well being of other people .”
Anyone with a reasoning mind can see the flaws in this more progressive definition.
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?
The problem lies within the power structure of a society to bet one side against the other when we work better in tandem with the selfish people out in front.
Definitely there is a difference between Jeb and Hillary. There are Republicans I could support. They just get consistently shot down by the Republican establishment. Out of the last three Republican governors of Florida, Jeb was definitely the best of the three, but that's not saying a whole lot.
Paul Ryan, while he does have a few minor issues, seems like about the best we can expect out of someone trying to do something productive in Washington. I am sure that he wanted to go further than the plan that he proposed, but he reasonably negotiated it down so that it might come across as palatable to the general populace. Not a bad chap. I am actually far more generous in my assessment of others than you might think.
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.
How to market AS III? I made a topic on that and only got a couple of responses. The producers also made a post.
To further the point, NPR has many programs where films and books are discussed. They take advertising. Radio's got to be cheaper than TV
I've watched Charlie Rose for many years. He spends all kinds of time on different things. What could be more important than a discussion with AS3 people and the book.
Harry M
Brenner
First, start with the reality of the world and humankind.
Remember, you're an engineer, and are supposed to stay connected to reality
First start with the reality of the US. It's not going to go away. It may fade into a social welfare state the way England/Europe has
Second, the majority rules. That means the
majority will generally be taken care of by politicians who want to get re elected.. So, Medicare, Student Loans, VA Admin healthcare, and on, and on and on. Housing for the poor.
Then, there the individuals like Bloomberg, the Kochs, etc who'll have their say.
The only question is who will work it smarter over the long term. It's an imperfect humankind/world. The only question will we be generally individual self realization/responsibility or social welfare.state. Then we have on this listserv a bunch of people who can only think small time think. And filling up space with such.
Instead of this being a listerv of people working together on the BIG issues.
Is the US worth saving? You betcha. It's the preeminent example of democratic/capitalism. The state exists to serve the individual Individual Self-Realization/Responsibility. The latest result of hundreds of years of philosophical thinking about the course of mankind.
Can there be an Atlantis? In the real world, why not?
Maybe, more about this later.
Let's try this again. Rand is about Reason Rationality Reality
Harry M
" It's the preeminent example of democratic/capitalism."
This is not the important thing about the United States, at the moment. The important thing is that we are a *republic*; we have a foundational, fundamental bedrock of law called the Constitution.
The thing to convince the proles of, since we can't cut them from the nanny state cold turkey, is that the foundational law is to their benefit. That that foundation isn't a barricade to happiness, but an engine to achieve it.
There's a problem. The left have been given free reign for 60 years to alter the minds of Americans as they were growing up. The traditional values of honor and responsibility have been eroded, largely through the use of Hollywood. In part they've been replaced by Asian philosophy, which has always denigrated the sovereignty of the individual. (I seem to be the only person who ever noticed that in "The Karate Kid", it was Japanese Mr Miagi that was espousing American values and the blond-haired-blue-eyed karate-instructor cum villain who was espousing Bushido....)
In the field of warfare, history has shown that victory goes to those willing to view the battlefield and the war as it is, and not as it should be. In this case, the battlefield *isn't* Reason, Rationality, Reality. The battlefield is virtually all emotion-driven. Look how the left has preyed upon the populace; not with appeals to reason or even enlightened self-interest, but with appeals to emotion.
Example: they don't argue how raising the minimum wage will improve the economy, because they can't; there's no rational argument to support it.
No, they argue about the poor "workers" who can't raise a family on minimum wage. They accuse the right of wanting to starve children and drown puppies. They paint anyone who opposes it as a rich fatcat unwilling to share in his largesse; anyone arguing against it who isn't wealthy they paint as brainwashed serfs.
Always appealing to emotion, not reason.
So what we have to do, imo, is find emotional appeals compatible with rational, reasonable reality.
We are being provided with the tools to do so. The NSA scandal appeals to paranoia. The populace already doesn't trust the government neither in honesty nor in competence. The problem is having the ability to counter-propagandize. When every tv show, movie, and most pop music reinforces the emotional conditioning that's been induced over the past half-century, you can't simply sit in a cafe' or on an internet message board and argue reason with people. You've got to get the message out the same way.
So, how? I may have stumbled upon it. Watch the two videos below. Seriously; study them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zrFhm84...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6_Vxs4Y...
In the interview, listen to the numbers cited, and to what they say about how they came about.
She has 4.5 million subscribers to her Youtube channel. One of her videos has NINETY MILLION hits. As the interviewer points out... the population of Germany is 89 million. She's *now* #1 on iTunes and #2 on Billboard 200 (as of a few days ago, anyway).
That's a big audience, and they're not watching her sit there and dryly argue individualism. But, at the end of almost every single one of her videos, she makes some comment about the importance of the individual *and his own ability to achieve something great* (watch the "Transcendental (Orchestral)" video, "Beyond the Veil" and "Shatter Me" videos to see her do this at the end of each video in a personalized message). This is all wrapped up in a delightful, cheerful, optimistic, giving package, everything the proles eat up.
While Rand seemed gloomily focused on warning of the evils of collectivism, she seems optimistically focused on the joy and glory of individual achievement.
There are others on Youtube following her formula for success with varied results and with varied messages.
The progressives don't yet control venues like Youtube. Using her as a template, and considering how much less expensive it is to produce a Youtube video than a Hollywood blockbuster (less time, as well...), such "alternative media" can be used to rationalize much of the existing, young minds. And make a profit doing it.
But, it takes people willing and able to make such videos, and it takes people able to package the message in cheerful, compassionate optimism. It's going to take people able to write, people able to do videography, people able act and/or perform... in short, people with talent who also believe in rationalism, who can relate the message in upbeat ways.
I'm going to be late for work, but I just had to edit this to point out something I knew all along but too easily and frequently forget. There was another person who packaged individual achievement and rational reason in an optimistic, upbeat message... We used to call him, "President"... Ronald Wilson Reagan. Who governed one of the most optimistic, upbeat, and successful periods in recent American history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fy-uhxi...
As I write this, I am listening to "The Men Who Built America" on the History Channel. That is the era that I would have fit in very well.