Politics According To Krauthammer

Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago to Politics
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I just finished Charles Krauthammer's last book, "Things That Matter." It is so brillian that I literally found over 100 topics to discuss in this forum. But I won't. At the very start of the book he makes the point that no matter how much effort he puts into writing about science,medicine, art, poetry,architecture, chess, space, sports, numbers, in the end they must "bow to the sovereignty of politics."In trying to move the spectre of politics off the table he got into the Voyager probes and whose voice narrated but Kurt Waldheim, a former NAZI. It prompted me to ask the Gulch one simple but extremely profound question: What one thing would you send on Voyager 1 and/or 2? Krauthammer finally winds up saying what biologist and philosopher Lewis Thomas proposed as evidence of human achievement ;the Complete works of Bach.(Personally, I would have chosen Beethoven). So, am asking this forum, if you were allowed to send only one item on Voyager 1 or 2, what would it be? Remember you are representing all of earth from fauna to flora, from philosophy to nonsense, from math to quantum. Just one thing. Music? Science? words? go for it.

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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Telling someone he can do what he wants but not use your name to do it is not an "edict" by a "person in authority". I do not give "edicts" either. There were in fact a lot of groups using Ayn Rand's name in a personality following and she did not want anything like that. No one said Herb was himself a groupie. Dobrien's personal attack does not belong here.
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  • Posted by term2 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Very smart she was, and I lived her books and her philosophical work. She probably had a somewhat hard life so I give her a pass to a degree. I do remember a lecture at ford hall in Boston where I think some girl I think took a picture and rand went off the rails on her. It seemed a bit over the top. Made me sit quietly and certainly not ask questions...
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  • Posted by term2 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I really wasn’t close to the situation at all. It did have that flavor to it. Fast and complete
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You did not observe Branden, with no work by Ayn Rand after writing an only "inspirational" novel, being responsible for the spread of Ayn Rand's ideas and you did not observe a "sex slave". You seem to harbor a lot of personal resentment towards Ayn Rand and are willing to make all kinds of outrageous statements on behalf of it. This is not the place for it.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    This is not about the earlier affair or defending it, that straw man obsession and your attempt to tie to everything else, including the ridiculous claim that Branden and not Ayn Rand was responsible for the spreading of Ayn Rand's ideas, is your own "defending the indefensible". Branden's later irresponsible and dishonest behavior extended to all of his work, professional relations, and relations with Ayn Rand and others. It was not a "very small situation" and was not over "sex slave".
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Branden was thrown out long after the affair for reasons that had nothing to do with it, let alone your smears about a "sex slave" and your obsession over a personal affair, all of which you mixed with an outrageous assertion that Branden and not Ayn Rand was responsible for the spread of her ideas.

    Ayn Rand was not "dishonest and irresponsible". One does not have to approve of their earlier strange and personally harmful personal choice in the affair to understand that.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Definition of terse. terser; tersest. 1 : using few words : devoid of superfluity. a terse summary ; also : short, brusque
    Definition of edict : an official order or proclamation issued by a person in authority.

    Used in a sentence, EWV often gives an edict and in his comment claims you were a groupie.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Explaining why Trump and adulation of him is contrary to what is needed in this country. Your "Randroid" name-calling adds nothing to the discussion as you try to dismiss explanations contrary to repetitive Trump-cheering and dismissal of the importance of ideas as "contentious".
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Her telling you not to use her name to represent yourselves as associated with her or representing her ideas was not a "terse edict". You could do whatever you wanted to but not in her name. She did not want to be associated with the various groups who were claiming to or implying to speak for her. She was interested in her ideas being understood, not in being a personality followed by groupies.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It reveals, but not explains, a lot about those who initiated the use of such terms in sneering at Ayn Rand for throwing Branden out for what he was.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Temporarily taking what you can get, which is not "80%", is not a solution to the intellectual direction of the country.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That so many don't care about ideas is a major reason why we are in this mess. If your house is on fire, you had better care about the 'intellect' of someone who knows how to put it out. Trump does not and is not.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Computers do what people instruct them to do. It has nothing to do with Ayn Rand's ideas and her communication of them.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The whole exercise is silly. Trump's face does not represent anything that matters, either to those of us know the difference between what he is and the values you attribute to him, or to those who nothing about him at all.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We are talking about what is required to reverse the course of the nation to individualism, not what it takes for a politician who does not understand that to temporarily get in power with an ends justifies the means mentality further eliminating civilized behavior in a new level of descent regarded as normal for politics.
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    • term2 replied 5 years, 8 months ago
  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    From any side it was over and had to be. "Preferring" that they continue to work together doesn't make any sense. It was not possible for Branden to work with Ayn Rand or any other rational person on behalf of Ayn Rand's philosophy, and it was not possible for Ayn Rand to work with what he became.
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  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That he divorced his wife does not mean he had "two sides". Whatever tendencies he may have originally had that he suppressed, he became a different person. He betrayed his own professed values.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes another water brother like you . At first I thought you were talking about the Moai , hmmm well they are all pretty strange looking then oh .....Carl. Etiam tibia our WFA, word has it OUC was pretty sharp in the day and pulled a few heads.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You sure you've got the right forum? Rand questioned Bill Buckly's religiosity to his face, which he found amusing, being a staunch Catholic.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Don't you love the ugly one? You two make me happy to know such as you exist. Ad astra per aspera.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It pays to set the standards high, because we know that the highest ideals will not be achieved on a regular basis.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Rachmaninoff a good choice for romantic piano music. It requires much deeper listening than it is usually given credit for, with beautiful thematic melodies within melodies and a truly great pianist to bring out all the nuances in the music.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are becoming too contentious. I will no longer reply to your posts. You have become what we used to call, a Randoid. Good luck. By the way, I'm not the one who lowers your points.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am trying very hard to be polite, but you don't know what you are talking about. You sound like a brainwashed automaton.
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