>> ^AnimalsForCrackers:
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Well, seems AnimalsForCrackers once again downvotes my comments for what? Not sure. But since you downvote every comment I make, I have a few theories... You must love to beat off to downvoting my comments... Or, as you sacrafice babies born to religious parents, with coat hangers through their eyes, you must be praying to the Atheist god of reason... No? Not there yet? Or perhaps I am a more understanding Atheist and that drives you to prove yourself?
All hyperbole aside... What I find funny Animals, is that your opinion (Blame religion for every human woe in the world,) is dying here on the sift. Why? Because it is extreme and holds no place in reason. Grow up and stop being the 13 year old you are acting like. I promise to do the same in kind. Because, just stooping to your level makes me feel dirty.

You impertinent, lying fuckstick. I downvoted because I disagreed with your use of post-modernist relativism and the whole freedom = bad mantra, I don't need to give a fucking explanation to downvote someone I disagree with. Downvotes must really piss you the fuck off to elicit such a response. "Wah wah! I was downvoted! I do declare I might be coming down with a case of the vapors!" They are a part of the site, and should be used more than they are when expressing disapproval of a comment, in my opinion. Learn to get over it, everyone else does.
What I don't see others doing is calling someone out for an individual downvote and then claiming the downvoter is the one who is acting like a child while lying and strawmanning in an attempt to prove it. Project on, my friend, project on! <IMG class=smiley src="http://static1.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/teeth.gif">
"Blame religion for every human woe"? I cannot even think of one person who wasn't a flyby troll who has done that here, let alone myself! Nice picture of the Sift that you're painting for us all. "Downvote your every [BOLDED FOR EMPHASIS, yours, mind you] comment"? Well then, if you went out of your way to bold that one word then it must mean you are like really super duper serious! Make a Sift Talk, thems grounds for bannination, we've seen many come and go for that offense. Unfortunately you are a liar, and this is easy for anyone to verify. If you could kindly quote where I have said that or show that I have downvoted anywhere approaching ALL(a few comments = all in Lawdeedaw world) of yours comments, that'd be great. Please get back to me on that, okay, cupcake? <IMG class=smiley src="http://static1.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/wink.gif">
Have any more words to put into my mouth? Fuck off with your dishonesty.


Touchy.

Your opinions are valid about revisionism, even if you can never prove them. They are yours, so keep them and try to explain them. I simply would rather have a debate of reason, something none can do while calling each other names, than a click of a down-arrow and you occasionally saying somehting like, "You are wrong Law, you take the pussy way out and do not blame religion at all."

I do not mind a downvote, in fact I have been downvoted by many and am fine-as-peach-wine with those downvotes---but when they grow to "Oh, another downvote by, I wonder who? Oh, its Animals again, surprise surprise," I stop finding it amusing.

I was not even offended by you at first, and took many of your downvotes casually.

Further, I only bolded "Every" because bold is a function on the sift and just like a "downvote," I think it should be used more often. Thanks for unintentionally pointing that out Animals! Learn to get over it please.

Oh, and I clearly stated that blaming religion for every woe was a dying horse on the Sift. I congradulated and congradulate the entire Sift again.

Addionally, I clearly stated that I was using hyperbole(I.E using hyperbole) when I was making the assertions about you "Downvoting ALL," my comments. That makes the statements satire, like the comedy Lewis Black uses... And since I stated they were blown outlandishly out of proportion, everyone knew they were intentionally ficticous. In short, I did not lie, nor did I insult you with a personal attack---I made a clear joke. Kind of like when you were joking (I assume) and called me an "impertinent, lying fuckstick." If you were not joking there, I am sorry I assumed you were; however, I would like you to prove that I am indeed a "fuckstick." And since fuckstick is a made up word, good luck with that.

Also, since we are speaking of Sift Talk and being 100% accurate, prove to me where I am actually a "cupcake" as you stated. The definition of cupcake follows;
"1. a small cake, the size of an individual portion, baked in a cup-shaped mold.
2. Older Slang .
a. a sexually attractive young woman.
b. a beloved girl or woman." (Dictionary Reference)

This is, by definition, the equivilent of calling me a transvestite (Although there is nothing wrong with being a transvesite, I am not a transvestite,) and I would like veryfiable evidence that I am indeed a woman in a man's body. Either that, or you were calling me a food product, which I doubt I am.

After all, since we want to be 100% correct in ALL statements, get back with me on that. Either that, or you lied, and never made it clear you were joking. Which makes them lies.

Threats aside (I find them amusing) it seems, with your diatribe, that you took far more offense to my comments than I to your downvote. Because I am so offense, I am stopping here. Lawdeedaw out.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Well, seems AnimalsForCrackers once again downvotes my comments for what? Not sure. But since you downvote every comment I make, I have a few theories... You must love to beat off to downvoting my comments... Or, as you sacrafice babies born to religious parents, with coat hangers through their eyes, you must be praying to the Atheist god of reason... No? Not there yet? Or perhaps I am a more understanding Atheist and that drives you to prove yourself?
All hyperbole aside... What I find funny Animals, is that your opinion (Blame religion for every human woe in the world,) is dying here on the sift. Why? Because it is extreme and holds no place in reason. Grow up and stop being the 13 year old you are acting like. I promise to do the same in kind. Because, just stooping to your level makes me feel dirty.


You impertinent, lying fuckstick. I downvoted because I disagreed with your use of post-modernist relativism and the whole freedom = bad mantra, I don't need to give a fucking explanation to downvote someone I disagree with. Downvotes must really piss you the fuck off to elicit such a response. "Wah wah! I was downvoted! I do declare I might be coming down with a case of the vapors!" They are a part of the site, and should be used more than they are when expressing disapproval of a comment, in my opinion. Learn to get over it, everyone else does.

What I don't see others doing is calling someone out for an individual downvote and then claiming the downvoter is the one who is acting like a child while lying and strawmanning in an attempt to prove it. Project on, my friend, project on!

"Blame religion for every human woe"? I cannot even think of one person who wasn't a flyby troll who has done that here, let alone myself! Nice picture of the Sift that you're painting for us all. "Downvote your every [BOLDED FOR EMPHASIS, yours, mind you] comment"? Well then, if you went out of your way to bold that one word then it must mean you are like really super duper serious! Make a Sift Talk, thems grounds for bannination, we've seen many come and go for that offense. Unfortunately you are a liar, and this is easy for anyone to verify. If you could kindly quote where I have said that or show that I have downvoted anywhere approaching ALL(a few comments = all in Lawdeedaw world) of yours comments, that'd be great. Please get back to me on that, okay, cupcake?

Have any more words to put into my mouth? Fuck off with your dishonesty.

1. The will of the people does not override the Constitution. The Constitution isn't being overridden, there's nothing in it about marriage either way. No one political party has the patent on hypocrisy. The legitimate State exists to preserve rights and protect private property, and since marriage is a legal contract it IS the State's business, and still would be even under the flawed 'marriage privatization' libertarian model.

2. You talk about "new" rights as if they are something bad which should be feared. Is one of the two major political movements more concerned with actual consequences than the other? Yes. The Right defends traditional values, for better or for worse. Why? To be mean? Or is it because 99 out of 100 "new" ideas fail?

Straight people currently have the right to marry whoever they fall in love with. Gays just want the same right. That is a lot less scary than giving slaves their freedom or women the right to vote. I don't see what all the fear is about.

The left has no real idea what the ultimate effects of legalizing gay marriage will be. We're talking 30 years of sketchy, activist-driven data versus 5000 years of history, during which no lasting society or moral thinker--religious or otherwise--condoned gay "marriage". It could be harmless, or it could turn the legal system and society on its ear. What personally ticks me off is if gay 'marriage' proves harmful to society, the left will deny it and try to hide the evidence.

3. Marriage is not about children. A rather large part of it is. Should we take away the right of the single parent to raise a child because they are not getting input from the opposite sex? No, but if the left cannot admit that two loving parents are better than one, then once again we are mired in intellectual dishonesty and the disavowal of common sense.

Never mind the fact that gay couples already have the right to adopt children despite not being married. Get over this argument, it is lame. Marriage is about two people joining together on their journey through life. That might involve children, it might not. It might involve a business venture, it might not. It might involve the purchase of property, it might not. There are as many different types of marriage as there are different people. And the only people damaging the "sacred institution of marriage" are the people trying to label it and restrict it.

Society has a right to define what relationships it values the most. If society decides one man/one woman legally bound works the best, then it has the the right to place that union on a pedestal. Gays like to make this all about them and how they're being persecuted over a "right" that IS new, but there is a line out the door and circling the block twice of relationship configurations society will also not place on "the pedestal".

Like a great number of Americans--though obviously not a majority--I couldn't care less about what gays do in their personal lives, but nor will I pretend there are no consequences for legitimizing 3% of the populations' will over the other 97%.

Freeing slaves, giving women the right to vote, legalizing drugs or prostitution...these aren't even blips on the radar compared to the fundamental societal changes that legalizing gay 'marriage' might bring.

I don't expect agreement here, just acknowledgment that there are other points of view, thoughtful and well-intentioned.














>> ^MaxWilder:

QM,
1. The will of the people does not override the Constitution. I love how Conservatives want to keep the government out of everything. Except the bedroom. And a woman's womb. And the science lab. And where certain buildings are placed. And... well the list of hypocrisy goes on and on. The simple fact is the government should not be in the business of deciding who can marry whom. It is between the individuals involved, and no one else.
2. You talk about "new" rights as if they are something bad which should be feared. Straight people currently have the right to marry whoever they fall in love with. Gays just want the same right. That is a lot less scary than giving slaves their freedom or women the right to vote. I don't see what all the fear is about.
3. Marriage is not about children. You can have children without getting married. You can get married without ever having children. You can raise a child alone, or with a vast extended family in the house. Should we take away the right of the single parent to raise a child because they are not getting input from the opposite sex? Never mind the fact that gay couples already have the right to adopt children despite not being married. Get over this argument, it is lame. Marriage is about two people joining together on their journey through life. That might involve children, it might not. It might involve a business venture, it might not. It might involve the purchase of property, it might not. There are as many different types of marriage as there are different people. And the only people damaging the "sacred institution of marriage" are the people trying to label it and restrict it.

I am so angry about the intellectual dishonesty that HuffPo exhibits here.

Edit: In the text of the HuffPo article that this video accompanies, they actually do mention that the C-SPAN footage was referring to Iraq. So, less angry.

@blankfist, I'm kinda surprised at you. Perhaps you fell for the title, but here are some of the things Bill Black says:

1. Yes, [the bill's provision for running derivatives through a government-run exchange] is a good idea. You shouldn't be doing non-exchange traded derivatives, and this bill encourages exchange-traded derivatives. But it has loopholes that allow people to evade it, so it's probably not going to be terribly effective.
   
   Which is to say, the new regulations on derivatives are good, but they are too easy to circumvent.
   
   
2. What else do we know created perverse incentives? Professional compensation.
   
   
3. We know that the Goldmans of the world deliberately put the rating agencies in competition with each other in what in economics we call a "competition in laxity". In other words, whoever is willing to give the most absurdly inflated rating is who will get my business.
   
   Note: rating agencies are privately owned, for-profit companies.
   
   
4. So when we say the rating agencies screwed up, we don't mean that they took something that, you know, should've been a single-A and they call it a triple-A. No, we're talking about something that should have been 25 levels lower, and they called it AAA. If they're willing to do that, then they're going to be willing to bless the next insane thing, as long as the competition and laxity is allowed to exist.
   
   
5. Americans don't know that over 10 percent of all appraisers in America have signed a petition calling for the government to step in and regulate and enforce because of this Gresham's dynamic. A Gresham's dynamic is where cheaters and the least moral people prosper, and they drive the honest, moral people out of the marketplace. And that's what the appraisal industry was telling us. And the regulators refused to any do anything. And now, after a crisis measured in trillions of dollars of losses—and a trillion dollars is a thousand billion—we have, supposedly, the greatest reform bill since the Great Depression, and it completely ignores this causality.
   
   
6. The consumer bill was the other thing you asked me about. That is a good thing. But you can tell somebody has a really malicious sense of humor, because they put the new consumer agency into the Federal Reserve—the leading opponent of protecting consumers. This is the agency that under the HOEPA law [Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act], which goes way back to the '90s, had unique authority to protect us from otherwise unregulated mortgage bankers and anyone else who made mortgage loans. And even board members at the Federal Reserve went to Alan Greenspan and asked him to take action against these enormous abuses in the liar's loans and subprime, and Greenspan refused to act.
   
   This probably got your juices flowing, since it places some blame on the Fed. Unfortunately, it places blame on the Fed for refusing to regulate. Oh, and it was Republicans who insisted that the consumer protection agency be housed at the Fed.
   
   
7. So [in the subprime lending market] we had the exact opposite of what economics predicts: both parties to the transaction were made worse off. Well, why? Because the agents were made better off. Who were the winners? The rating agencies, the senior officers who walked away rich, the least moral appraisers, the least moral of the outside auditors at the big accounting firms. They were all the winners. They got rich by betraying their responsibilities. And so if you had had an Elizabeth Warren and if she had banned this nonprime product to protect consumers, now, that would enormously reduce this financial crisis.
   

In all, he's making all the usual liberal criticisms of the bill, which is that the bill's new regulations aren't nearly tough enough; which itself is based on the premise that unchecked greed and dishonesty was the root cause of the crisis.

Oh, and @marinara it doesn't "ensure Wall Street Scams keep running", a fair representation of his comments would be "doesn't crack down on Wall Street Scams."

Fear is a wonderful emotion. It will keep you alive. The left wants everyone to panic over water vapor and warm weather, so there's no monopoly on fear-mongering.

One of the State's legitimate functions is to defend its citizens from barbarians both inside and outside the gate.

The modern liberal doesn't have the will to lead. Whether deliberately practiced or not, s/he is incapable of taking a stand for anything and refuses to differentiate between not only good and evil, but what works (based on experience) and what doesn't (also based on experience).

The intellectual dishonesty of a zinn or chomsky helps no one.







>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

QM, you seem interested in comparing modern European style socialism to a 20th century Soviet Military dictatorship. Do you understand the difference?
Do you understand that socialism, communism and capitalism are financial -rather than political- systems?
How many people has Swedish socialism killed?
What about American socialism gasp such as the highway system, schools and national parks?
Whether you know it or not, qm, we are both on the same side of the American class war - and we are both losing. I don't doubt the sincerity of your arguments, but I have to wonder if you feel you've been properly rewarded for your loyalty to powerful elites who run this country. My guess would be no.
Do you ever wonder why they fill your head with so many things to be afraid of? Commies, "Hemophiliacs", Terrorists, 'Islamofascists', Old Europe, France, Fags, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Illegal Aliens, Educated people, Poor people, etc............
Your entire being on this site is most accurately summed up in a single word: Afraid.
I'm sure you don't see yourself this way, but have you ever put your personal beliefs to the test? Have you ever broken down your belief system to see why you believe the things you believe?
As I have said before, your arguments seldom stray from the cliche-conservative-bumpersticker variety. Why not dig deeper? Why don't you think it through and give me your own unique opinion, rather than dittoing decades of partisan-politico programing?
As those who are winning the class war might say: Just do it!

Why are all the tea partiers on some form of social assistance?

Yeah, I hear that a lot. But you see, they were forced to pay into social security and medicare they have a right to get their money back. It's their money. I'm sure they'd prefer to have saved and invested the money themselves instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the teabaggers - racist morons. I just don't care for intellectual dishonesty either.

--vive in all such circumstances.

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25,6-7: "The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics ... are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

"Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life..."

NA. Earlier, Rand told us that life is the only end in itself, and that one's own life is the purpose of each individual (25,2). She contradicts this by declaring something else to be the purpose of life.

Moreover, we have already seen that there is no reason within Rand's scheme why productive work is more morally virtuous than looting (comments 28-31).

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25,7: "Rationality is man's basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues."

I agree with this; however, Rand can give no adequate basis for it. (See comments 20-24.)

(34)


25,7: "Irrationality is the rejection of man's means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life."

I quote this to emphasize that Rand's view is that rationality is good only because it serves the end of 'life'; life is the only end in itself.

(35)


26,1: Rationality means a commitment to the principle "that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one's perception of reality."

NA. How does this follow from her view of ethics? Rather, 'life' is supposed to be the highest value--one must place that above everything else. One's 'perception of reality' is only a means to furthering one's life, yet Rand seems to be saying that accurate perception is the ultimate end in itself.

(36)


26,1: "... It means one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgments and of living by the work of one's own mind (which is the virtue of Independence)."

NA. How does this follow from the value of life? Why can't people survive while being dependent?

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26,1: "It means that one must never sacrifice one's convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)--that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)..."

NA. I skip over the rest of her elaborations on what rationality means, about which I would say the same thing. Granted, dishonesty and lack of integrity may sometimes lead to one's death (though not very often), but how can Rand justify these "must never" claims? She makes no attempt to argue that these things one allegedly must never do will, all of them, automatically kill you. That is what she would have to argue, given that life is the only ultimate standard of value.

I skip over her similar remarks about productiveness and pride.

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27,3: "The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others--and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."

Above (comments 7-8) we saw that Rand adopts a purely agent-relative conception of value: that is, a thing cannot be said to be good simply. Rather, a thing can only intelligibly be said to be good for (or: good relative to) someone. This is what the ethical egoist has to say.

Since "is an end in itself" means "is good for its own sake," it follows that nothing can be said to be an end in itself in any absolute sense; rather, one can only say a thing is an end-in-itself for someone or other.

Now, what does Rand mean in saying "life is an end in itself"? This appears to be using "end in itself" in an absolute sense, but perhaps she means only that each particular life is an end in itself for that particular living thing. What does she mean by saying every human being "is an end in himself"? Again, is she using this in an absolute sense, or a relative sense?

Case A: Assume she is using "end in himself" in an absolute sense here. In that case, she is contradicting her earlier claim that value is agent-relative (comment . Furthermore, it would seem to follow that every person has a reason for promoting the welfare of everyone, as an end in itself. That is, utilitarianism would seem to follow, which is not what she wants. She thinks one should promote one's own life as one's sole ultimate value. Which brings us to the second case.

Case B: Rand must mean this in an agent-relative sense: i.e., each individual human being is an end in himself for himself (but not for other people). So for me, my life is the only end in itself, whereas for you, your life is the only end in itself. This is consistent with what she has said up to now. But now what about the rest of the passage: "not the means to the ends or the welfare of others." Well, of course for me my life is an end in itself. But for other people, it is not; we just established that. So why wouldn't my life be for them just a means to their own ends? Why wouldn't my life from my neighbor's point of view be good only as a means to promoting my neighbor's life?

Similarly, what about the remark, "man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself"? Clearly, given that my life is, for me, the only end in itself, I would be irrational to sacrifice it for the sake of others. But why would I not be rational to sacrifice others to myself? True, their lives are ends in themselves for them; but what has that to do with me? For me, their lives are not ends in themselves, since only mine is. So why wouldn't it be good, for me, to sacrifice their lives for the sake of my own?

What seems to have happened here is that Rand slipped from the agent-relative theory of value into the absolutist conception.

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27,4: "In psychological terms, the issue of man's survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of 'life or death,' but as an issue of 'happiness or suffering.'"

I think she means that, even though the good is in fact what serves our life (our survival), we aren't always aware of it as such; instead, we are aware of it as what makes us happy. In fact, what makes us happy does so because it promotes our life, but we're immediately aware of it only as what makes us happy.

(40)


27,4-5: "Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them ... [T]he standard of value operating his emotional mechanism is not [automatic]. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgements."

NA. There are a number of problems here.

First, Rand's claim that emotions result from value judgements is evolutionarily implausible. The other animals all have certain emotions, which we share (though we have a wider range of emotions)--e.g., fear, anger, love for one's offspring. But Rand would probably agree that the other animals do not make value judgments. Therefore, what she is saying is that at some time in our history, as humans broke off from the primate line, the emotional mechanisms of the animals got selected out, and then replaced by other mechanisms that induce us to have the same emotions.

Alternately, perhaps Rand would say that the other animals do have value judgments, but of a different kind: theirs are automatic and instinctive, whereas ours are not. Then again, she would be saying that the mechanisms that give the animals instinctive value judgments got selected out, and then replaced with mechanisms that lead us to make many of the same value judgments. (Cf. comment 21.)

Second, people can often have emotions that conflict with their value judgments, for instance, a person who experiences a fear of flying even though he knows that flying is perfectly safe.

Third, in order to claim, rationally, that people (a) have no innate knowledge, (b) have no innate values, and (c) have no innate ideas, Rand would have to cite some actual scientific evidence. This is armchair cognitive psychology. (Cf. comments 24, 25.)

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28,5: "Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. ... [I]f a man values destruction, like a sadist--or self-torture, like a masochist--or life beyond the grave, like a mystic--or mindless 'kicks,' like the driver of a hotrod car--his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment's relief from their chronic state of terror."

28,6: "Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims."

29,2: "Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction. ... Happiness is possible only to a rational man..."

The initial claim is that happiness simply results from attaining one's values. But this is followed by the claim, apparently, that a person with the wrong values cannot experience happiness (or 'true' happiness).

Why wouldn't the 'irrationalists' experience happiness when they attained their goals? Perhaps Rand is saying that it is impossible for the irrationalists to attain their goals. Why? Rand implies that the 'irrational' goals are ones that lead to one's own 'destruction.' Now, there are two alternatives:

Case A: Suppose Rand means this literally: that those values, if attained, result in your being literally dead, i.e., not existing. Then we could understand why people with those values could not experience happiness (since they would be dead first). However, she has given no indication of why this would be true. Apart from the 'mystic' case, the other kinds of people she mentions do seem to be alive and to often get the things she says they seek (e.g., drivers of hotrod cars do get kicks). Why, therefore, are they not 'really' happy?

Case B: Suppose Rand meant their 'destruction' metaphorically, e.g., their ceasing to live the life proper to man. In that case, she has given no explanation for why these people would not experience happiness when they attain this improper state, given that it is what they value.

The third quotation suggests that perhaps Rand believes these people's pseudo-happiness is always tainted by guilt. But she has just told us (comment 40) that all our value judgements are chosen, not innate. So if someone chose the improper values, how would they feel guilt upon attaining them? Guilt would seem to presuppose that they somehow knew those values to be wrong; but by hypothesis, they don't, since they have such knowledge neither innately nor by choice.

The significance of this is that it is another example of Rand's failure to explain, in terms of her theory, why sadism, masochism, or various other things she believes to be wrong, are wrong.

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29,3: "The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. ... [W]hen one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself ... one is ... affirming ... the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself."

It is possible for a person to be alive but not happy, so how can it be that the maintenance of life is not a "separate issue" from the pursuit of happiness? Further, since Rand has said that life is the only end in itself, how can it also be that some kind of happiness is an end in itself?

This apparent contradiction could be resolved if and only if we assume that happiness is (that is, is exactly the same thing as) life. This is false, since a person can be alive but not happy--unless Rand wants to simply define "life" to mean "a happy life." But then her initial argument for why life is the ultimate value would not apply to this new sense of "life". (Cf. comment 27.)

Happiness, on Rand's theory of the emotions, is simply a signal that one is attaining one's values. It is the values themselves that are valuable; why would the mere signal be intrinsically valuable? Given the rest of her view, happiness could only be valuable as a means to furthering one's life.

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29,5: "This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism ... 'Happiness' can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man's proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that 'the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure' is to declare that 'the proper value is whatever you happen to value'--which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication..."

First, it is unclear how happiness, rather than life, can be the purpose of ethics, according to what Rand has said earlier.

Second, it is unclear what the distinction is supposed to be between the 'purpose' and the 'standard' of ethics. If one's purpose is X, then why wouldn't one's standard be simply: that which achieves X? Here is everything Rand has to say about this:

25,3: "The difference between 'standard' and 'purpose' in this context is as follows: a 'standard' is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. 'That which is required for the survival of man qua man' is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose--the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being--belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own."

I take it that survival qua man is the same thing as living a life proper to a rational being. The difference between the 'standard' and the 'purpose' in this example, then, seems to be that the 'standard' is something that applies to everyone--it is 'the life proper to a rational being'--while the 'purpose' is made specific to a single person--e.g., 'my living the life proper to a rational being.' Why this is a significant distinction escapes me. In any case, none of this explains why happiness could be a 'purpose' but not a 'standard.' Apparently, she is claiming that 'happiness' can be specific and concrete but not abstract?

Leaving that aside, the complaint against the hedonists seems to be one of circularity. They are not giving a genuine standard of value, since one's experience of pleasure depends on one's already having values; one then experiences pleasure as a result of attaining those values. This, however, is false. Children do not experience pleasure when eating ice cream because they believe that eating ice cream is good; quite the reverse. (Cf. comments 21, 24, 40.)

(44)


30,2: "The philosophers who attempted to devise an allegedly rational code of ethics gave mankind nothing but a choice of whims: the 'selfish' pursuit of one's own whims (such as the ethics of Nietzsche)--or 'selfless' service to the whims of others (such as the ethics of Bentham, Mill, Comte and of all social hedonists, whether they allowed man to include his own whims among the millions of others or advised him to turn himself into a totally selfless 'shmoo' that seeks to be eaten by others)."

This passage is misleading about the history of ethics.

First, it implies that there are some philosophers who held that people should turn themselves into totally selfless shmoos that seek to be eaten by others, but, while she names some 'social hedonists', she does not tell us who she thinks held the 'shmoo' theory. Perhaps she meant Comte (inventor of the term "altruism")--but Comte did not believe that 'altruistic' behavior was self-destructive. Nor did Bentham or Mill think that somehow, other people's pleasure had value but one's own did not.

Second, Rand seems to be using "whim" as a term of abuse. Utilitarians believe that one ought to bring about the most overall pleasure or happiness in the world that one can, but they certainly do not think this amounts to pursuing whims. Rand does, but it is unclear what she is saying is a whim here. The utilitarians advocate pursuing pleasure. So, is pleasure, itself, a whim? Perhaps Rand means that the desire for pleasure is a whim. More likely, she is applying her theory (see comment 43) that one will only experience pleasure when something happens, if one antecedently desired that thing--and it is the desires whose satisfaction causes pleasure that she is calling 'whims'.

Why would those desires be 'whims'? Perhaps Rand's point is simply that some of them are whims--i.e., that people can get pleasure from satisfying whimsical desires, and the hedonists do not discount those kinds of pleasures--those pleasures are just as intrinsically good as any other pleasures, according to the hedonists (except for Mill). This is a genuine objection to some forms of hedonism. Nevertheless, Rand's remarks are at best misleading--they suggest, to a reader unfamiliar with whom Rand is talking about, that these 'hedonists' all say: "A person should just pursue solely whims, of himself or of others, with no exercise of reason." Which, of course, is false.

The significance, again, is that Rand is able to illegitimately make her theory seem more plausible by attacking straw men.

(45)


30,5: "[W]hen one speaks of man's right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man's self-interest..."

The omission of quantifiers is used to great effect here. When they hear the idea that an individual should always do whatever serves his own interests, most people assume this means his right to sacrifice others. They are thereby 'confessing' their belief that it could be in someone's interest, some time, to injure, enslave, rob, or murder someone else. If one removes the italicized quantifier terms in the above, Rand sounds much more reasonable.

However, Rand has given no evidence for the conclusion that it is never in anyone's interest to harm anyone else (see comments 27-31).

(46)


31,3: "The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash..."

NA.

This would be a good time for a general remark about all the ethical claims Rand makes about what the life of man qua man requires, or what a rational person would value, and so on--that is, all her ethical claims after the claim that life is the ultimate value.

Not only does Rand gives virtually no argument for any of them, but she has given us no criterion of what is 'rational'--unless we are to take the criterion, 'what serves life is rational.' Let us consider four cases:

Case A: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means continued existence. In that case, Rand needs to give an argument that you will literally, physically die if you do any of the things she says are wrong, or refrain from the things she says are right. For instance, if you hurt another person, drive a hotrod car (28,5), or marry a slut (32,1), you will die.

Case B: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means "the sort of life proper to a rational person." This is circular.

Case C: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means "the life of man qua man," where this does not just mean "the sort of life proper to a rational person." In that case, Rand has given us no criterion for what does or does not serve the life of man qua man.

Case D: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means something other than (A), (B), or (C). In this case, Rand has not told us what she means.

Case E: The rational is something other than "what will serve your life." In this case, given what she said earlier, what is 'rational' cannot be used as a criterion for ethical judgement, since she already told us that what serves life is the only legitimate such criterion.

I think this problem is extremely significant. The problem is that--whichever one of these cases holds--"rational" and "man qua man" are simply fudge words. That is, their function in the theory is that they enable Rand to claim almost anything she likes as being supported by her theory, and also to reject any attempt to infer conclusions that she doesn't want from the theory.

I give a couple of examples to show what I mean by a "fudge". First, imagine I declare boldly, "No real philosopher has ever denied the law of non-contradiction." You respond: "What about Nicholas of Cusa, who thought that God has all properties, including contradictory ones?" I say, "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. He's more of a theologian." You: "Okay, how about Hegel?" Me: "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. He's much too incomprehensible to be a real philosopher. Only analytic philosophers count." You: "Okay, how about Graham Priest? He's an analytic philosopher, and he denies the law of non-contradiction." Me: "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. Have you seen his book, In Contradiction? It's terrible." Now, you can imagine that in each of these cases, an interminable debate might spawn about whether my stated rationale justified denying the figure in question the status of 'real philosopher.' In the course of the debate, I make a bunch of declarations about who is and isn't a 'real' philosopher, but I never come out with a precise, unambiguous criterion of 'real-philosopher-ness'. In this case, I am using "real" as a fudge word. That is, it is a word that insulates my thesis from decisive testing, because any proposed counter-example can, if I choose, be immediately bogged down in interminable debates about who is real qua philosopher. So I am never forced to give it up. At the same time, at the end of this debate, I can declare victory, since no one found a counter-example to my thesis. I probably won't convince anyone else, unless they were already favorably disposed toward my thesis, but I can almost certainly convince myself that I gave good reasons for rejecting each of the proposed counter-examples.

Second example. This one is more realistic. On a television program investigating his psychic powers, Uri Geller instructed the audience to phone in if anything unusual happened during he program. At the end, several people phoned in reporting bizarre occurrences that took place during the show. Geller claimed that this supported psychic powers (I'm not sure if he meant because he had psychically predicted these events, or because the TV show had psychically caused them, or just because the events themselves were inherently psychical). Of course, we know this is nonsense. But since Geller did not precisely define "unusual", nor was it known how many people were watching the show, no one could calculate the prior probability of unusual events happening during the show, and thus no one could actually prove that what Geller claimed was nonsense. This meant that people who wanted to believe in psychic powers could do so, and could interpret Geller's remark about unusual events as predicting the events the callers described. Geller used "unusual" as a fudge word.

Third illustration, but this one is an example of non-use of fudges. In scientific testing of drugs, it is standard to use "double blind" tests. This means that half the subjects are given placebos, and neither the patients nor the physicians observing the results know who has the placebo and who has the drug. Now, why keep the physicians 'blind'? The answer is, because it is too easy to fudge--that is, to interpret results favorably if you want the drug to be successful. Scientists know this, and they impose this restriction on themselves, to prevent themselves from fudging. (You don't always know when you're fudging.)

So a 'fudge word' is a word that functions to make fudging easy. "Rational" and "man qua man" are Rand's fudge words. She never gives a precise and unambiguous criterion for their applicability. Thus, suppose someone tries to argue that, on Rand's theory, it would be morally acceptable to steal from people, provided you could get away with it. Then she has at least two fudges she can employ (probably more): (a) She could claim that this is not in your interests, because there is always a risk that you might get caught, and it's not worth it. This works because no one knows how to calculate this risk, so no one can actually refute this claim. This is the sort of thing I have seen many Objectivists do. However, Rand doesn't do this in "The Objectivist Ethics"; she goes for the second sort of fudge: (b) She can claim that although you would gain money from this, it would not be in your rational interests, or it would not be serving the life of 'man qua man', or that it would reduce you to a 'subhuman' status. Thus, she can immediately bog down the counter-example in an interminable debate about what is or isn't 'rational', 'subhuman', etc., because no precise and unambiguous criterion of the rational, or the human, has been identified. She gets to make it up as she goes along.

Now, let's look at her definition of "rationality":

25,8: "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

Does this obviate my 'fudge word' charge? Not at all. Whenever she encounters a behavior she disapproves of, she can declare that the person is not accepting reason as his only guide to action. The above 'criterion' just refers the fudge word "rational" back to the fudge concept of what is "supported by reason". If Rand could give us a precise, unambiguous list of what reason recommends and why, then this charge would be answered.

Rand's following list of things that rationality 'means' is filled with further fudge words. Here are some of the concepts that can be fudged: the notion of using full focus in all choices (if x makes a choice I don't like, I can claim he wasn't in full focus), the idea of a commitment to 'reality', the idea that values must be 'validated' and 'logical', the idea of living 'by one's own mind', etc.

Now, I am not saying here that all of those concepts are bad concepts and should never be used--any more than I think the concept "real" or "unusual" should never be used. Often we have no choice but to use vague concepts. But we should recognize that they are not like scientific and mathematical concepts. They are concepts whose application requires interpretation.

(47)


32,6: "[N]o man may initiate the use of physical force against others. ... Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation, and only against those who initiate its use."

NA. Again, Rand would have to show how this follows from the premise of life as the standard of value--i.e., she would have to demonstrate that if you initiate the use of force, you will automatically die. 'Automatically', because she is saying you must never initiate force, so she must hold that you could never do it and not die.
Notes

1. All references are to "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, paperback edition (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 13-35.

2. I have cited passages where Rand mentions the connection between 'is' and 'ought' and where she discusses the standard of 'life' as an action-guiding principle. Unfortunately, she did not clearly distinguish 9 from 12, but it is clear she meant to assert 12.

3. All quotations are from "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, paperback edition (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 13-35.

4. The book is Ethical Theories, ed. A. I. Melden (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).

5. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New York: NAL Books, 1990), p. 29.

6. "Intrinsically good" in ethics means the same as Rand's "an end-in-itself": i.e. a thing which is good for its own sake, and not merely for the sake of something else to be obtained by means of it.

I'm so jaded by the intellectual dishonesty in most big-network journalism that this is almost enough to make me have a series of expensive, experimental operations just so I can have his babies.

Aside from Manufacturing Dissent, Christopher Hitchen's review of Farenheight Eleven also shook my trust in Moore as a filmmaker. There are so many contradictions, misleading camera shots, and blatant dishonesty. You can read it yourself if you like

http://www.politicalforum.com/media-commentators/3061-unfarenheight-9-11-lies-michael-moore.html

I couldn't find the original article but from what I remember this is it.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being in love.
2. What is your greatest fear?
Dying (not death, because by then I'll be dead).
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Jealousy.
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Dishonesty or abuse.
5. Which living person do you most admire?
Daniel Dennett
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
I don't think I really have any great extravagance. Maybe my computer?
7. What is your current state of mind?
Relaxed and thoughtful.
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Altruism and faith.
9. On what occasion do you lie?
Rarely, but if my lie can save a lot of grief, by avoiding an unnecessary confrontation about something stupid, I might.
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My gut.
11. Which living person do you most despise?
Hmm, so hard to choose: Kent Hovind, Kenn Hamm (all those creationist dumbfucks), and televangelists. And Rasch187.
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Honesty, humor, friendship, intellect.
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Awesome beewbage. Heh. Nah, humor, honesty, straight-forwardness, intellect, friendship.. I look for the same qualities in both guys and girls, to be honest.
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"Fantastic", "super", "In a minute"
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
For now, music.
16. When and where were you happiest?
I don't know. Maybe when I was in Ireland in 2002 and was entangled with a girl from my high school, or one summer in 2003 I think, where we were a bunch of people in a summer house where I played guitar and we all sang and stuff. I liked that.
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
Better song-writing skills.
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Physically, I'd trim up. (Already on it)
More cosmically, I'd like to be able to have a better overview of a situation during, instead of after it happens.
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My education, my music skills and the website I ran in 2004-2007, which I was very prolific on. (www.edb-tidende.dk it's dead in the water now though)
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
I would come back as a young version of myself and try to change things up, see what would happen if I made different choices.
21. Where would you most like to live?
With a loved one. Don't really care where.
22. What is your most treasured possession?
My mind. Of things outside myself, then I think the things I can't replace. The data on my computer, pictures, documents etc. I think. All other "possessions" can be replaced. They're just things. I would say friendships, but that's hardly a possession.
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Depression, then everything sucks. Been there, no fun.
24. What is your favorite occupation?
Playing music, engaging in reasonable discussions, masturbation. (at the same time)
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
I say my mind. I'm a pretty straight-forward, no-nonsense kinda guy. Other than that, I don't know. Other people are better judges of that than me.
26. What do you most value in your friends?
Honesty and humor.
27. Who are your favorite writers?
Frank Herbert, Neal Stephenson, William King, Scott McGough.
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
Randy Marsh. Heh, or Rorsharch and Dr. Manhattan. Randy epitomizes the human condition, weak, narrow sighted and everything. Rosharch represents a view of the world in black and white, which I like the concept of; and Dr. Manhattan represents the way the world is and he is basically intellect personified, which I also like.
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
This requires me to know a lot of history. I don't, because I don't care much about it. I identify with me, because I am me, no one else.
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
The four horsemen, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens.
31. What are your favorite names?
Lisa, Cecilia, Michael, Jason, off the top of my head.
32. What is it that you most dislike?
People lying to me or in general who are dicks to me. I have no interest in these people.
33. What is your greatest regret?
Two things, I think. Not doing anything about the girl I had a serious crush on for most of my elementary school until high school; and not realizing that Computer Science was not for me earlier, instead of fucking around there for two years.
34. How would you like to die?
I'd rather not.
35. What is your motto?
"Don't be a dick" is something I can stand by.

>> ^NetRunnerI'd also suggest you're big on using incorrect numbers. $1.5 trillion is close to all medical spending public and private in the US per year.

I'm getting pretty sick of your revisionist bullshit. This level of dishonesty and *lies has got to be worth a hobbling.

2008 Healthcare statistics:
Hospital care: $747.1 billion
Physician and clinical services : $501.7 billion
Prescription drugs: $247.0 billion
Nursing home and home health: $198.5 billion
Dental care: $102.4 billion
Other items: $597.6 billion
Total: $2.72 trillion

2007 Federal expenditures:
Medicare: $394.5 billion
Medicaid: $276.4 billion
Social Security: $869.6 billion
Health and Human Services: $70.7 billion
Total: $1611.2 billion

via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html

^This link here is the difference between our positions. I'm a skeptic, and you're a believer. I read everything, critically, with a grain of salt, and verify both the logical validity of the argument and the source backing the claims. You believe whatevers written in the blog of anyone whose ideas match yours - facts, evidence, sources, logic - all irrelevant - the only requirement for you to be taken hook, line and sinker is the perceived authority of the author.

We spend $700 billion on Medicare and Medicaid alone. You think insuring another 40 million is only going to cost $80 billion? If that were true, it would only cost $2000 per person, or $600 billion to insure every single one of the 300 million americans in this country. $100 billion less than current levels which don't even cover a fraction of that number!

WTF are you smoking?

Healthcare funding in the next decade is going to triple or worse - even without increasing the scope of current funding. Your gullibility (denial?) is overwhelming.

<< From a conservative point of view is very different. Conservatives look at one thing and one thing only...ACTUAL quality of health care. Conservatives find it irksome when neolibs slam the health care (which is good) when in reality the neolibs are not talking about QUALITY as much as they are whining about economic distribution. >>

So as long as -one- person in a country has excellent health care, even if nobody else has -any-, then that country can claim to have the best health care in the world?

There you go...that's the basic dishonesty of the conservative view in a nutshell. "We'll accept any specious reasoning to support our predetermined positions, rather than make up our minds based on the facts."

>> ^oscarillo:
>> ^ShakaUVM:
If she's the smartest person on TV, how does she not understand that national health care plan proposed IS socialism? You just look stupid when you mock people pointing out the obvious.
It's not a "national insurance policy" - that would imply, at least to reasonable people, that it would cover its own costs using, you know, actuary tables and stuff like that, like real companies use. Instead, it is subsidized health care, where the government picks up 2/3rds of the tab of health care, while increasing health costs by paying doctors more than market value for their services.
There's nothing to like about Obamacare. Unless you're a doctor, I guess. Which is why the AMA is for it.

C'mon
I really try to undestand all you rednecks out there, but this is something I dont get :
If your so call "socialism" will help far more people, far more ( I wont put a number because probably you didnt learn it before quiting elementry school) what is the problem , because it sound like "socialism", mmm...C'mon....Yes do it like real companies!! keep fucking me in the ass, yes I will pay more for my shitty health care insurance so I can get a flu shoot, Yes!!! , as long it doesnt sound like "socialism"


I didn't say I disagreed with it because it was socialism, I was just mocking Rachel for trying to pretend that it's not socialism. The VA, Medicare, Medi-Cal, etc., are all socialized medicine systems. She's shilling for the administration by trying to pretend otherwise. I detest dishonesty like that in reporters.

But I dislike Obamacare because 1) It'll bankrupt the country and 2) It will raise medical prices.

The VA is an example of socialized medicine run passably well. They use their massive purchasing power to negotiate lower drug rates for their system, and they do everything they can to keep costs low. Obamacare (and to be fair, Medicare Part D, Bush's brain-dead plan) not only will not use its power to lower rates, but actually raises them above the current market rates (Medicare Part D prohibits the government from using its purchasing power from negotiating lower rates). I don't see how anyone who understands his system could possibly be for it.

Unless you think Obama can wave his magic fairy wand and leprechauns and unicorns will pop into existence to lower our blood pressure and cure cancer.

the level of dishonesty and logical fallacy among \top levels of officials will always be mind boggling... but we can track this information now.

it simply was not possible to show examples, and now it is. that is a HUGE change in less than 50 years.

education and technology, PUSH IT OBAMA. SUCK IT QM.