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.
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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...)
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.
Nevermind, I see now you voted for 3rd party.
Wait... what time period was this?
(I *wondered* what happened to that stash... thieving Britons....)
Nah, I wouldn't want to rule Mankind... just ruling a death camp full of progressives would do for me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
" 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...
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