@fzqlcs No, I refer to Ayn Rand as a welfare queen.
If you are using the idea that she paid into it, you are taking her own idea that welfare is forcing people to pay for others, as opposed to you paying for yourself.
@Propagandhi900 At first, you said that the act of taking welfare makes one a welfare queen. If she paid for herself, what is your problem? If she was forced to pay into the system (which she was), she was owed the money. How is that a welfare queen? Ayn Rand opposed sacrifice and would have been a hypocrite to have willingly sacrificed that which was taken from her by force.
@Propagandhi900 Yes, she was taking other people's money just like your grandmother and every other Social Security "welfare queen" (your definition). Shame on her, she should have just quietly paid in and not collected. BTW, is your grandma also a welfare queen? I do agree with you that SS is simply sugar-coated welfare and as such should be eliminated. But, as long as people are forced to pay in, they are not hypocrites to collect.
Phil has been proven wrong here in such a major way. If we followed the liberals desire to control and tax oil we would be paying $7 a gallon right now and the poor and working class would suffer the most.
@shire2005 said [[Phil has been proven wrong here in such a major way. If we followed the liberals desire to control and tax oil we would be paying $7 a gallon right now and the poor and working class would suffer the most.]]
True, but prices should remain low through competition, not through control, regulation and then being subsidized by the government.
@amse, wow, you've proved yourself to be exceedingly stupid.
What I did was give notice that this comment section is being CENSORED without notice or comment. The reason I did so is because they're doing so WITHOUT NOTICE OR COMMENT. Usually when a comment is deleted or marked spam, there is a remark in the comment section. Now, try your best to not be so god damned illiterate, will you?
--->> Ron Paul 2012 -- MONEY BOMB --- TODAY!! <<---- ronpaul2012 . com
Donate toward preserving the liberties which our government has grossly perverted since the founding of our nation. Help restore our rights and freedoms.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke
When she is criticizing the universities and the liberal professors. Lol since Reagan the US have followed here advise and look where it lead them. It is becoming closer and closer to a plutocracy. The kind of society she is defending can quickly become a plutocracy.
Hahaha in a free market nobody can become a monopolist!!!! Like economies of scales and technological barrier do not exits!! Yeeah tomorrow I am gone a start my own airplane assembly plan. Ridiculous!! Wake up people these guys are dangerous, free market do not exits!!! They are a view of the mind, The Romans used to say that wisdom lies in moderation.
One of the differences between Capitalism and Socialism is with Capitalism people can make as much money as their Education, Skills, Intelligence and Production and the Market will bare. With Socialism people can only make as much money as the Government will allow. Capitalism is about Free Markets and Competition. Socialism is about Communitarianism and Monopoly not allowing people get too farther out then the rest of Population even if their Skills and Production are better.
Why should I let Rand tell how to think? All that is Rand, not Adeikov. I believe I own my own mind and nobody, not Rand or otherwise can think they can take it.
@Adeikov said [[Why should I let Rand tell how to think? All that is Rand, not Adeikov. I believe I own my own mind and nobody, not Rand or otherwise can think they can take it.]]
You sound like a complete idiot. Rand advocated reason and individualism.
@Adeikov Lol you just proved her point, it is yet to be fully practised, though when it was for a short while America became the wealthiest and most prosperous nation on earth.
So lets get this straight. you're denying the atrocites of Saddam? Look up Dujail, Barzoni, and Iraqi rape rooms and correct yourself before you insult the dead any further.
@calm161 Why do you care so much about Iraq? What about Cuba which is just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, CHINA. ALL of them have a horrendous human rights record. You don't see the blatant hypocrisy? The blatant war propaganda and vilification of the Arab world?Have you eve stopped to think that someone is profiting from this war? Cheney's Haliburton, Bechtel, Raytheon, Lockheed, SAIC, Rapidscan? Gen. Smedley Butler said it best, "War is a Racket"!
@firestrings272 So you've now retreated from denying Saddams crimes and go straight to pointing out others? and call me the hypocrite? If I used your logic I could tell you to get to know Castro personally before judging him. But at risk of letting my guard down. I do believe that any government that denies basic human rights to its citizens has no right to govern. We've seen that realization in many countries this past year. As for "War is Racket" it sure is, always has been. But give up=lose
@calm161 I've seen what the Castro regime has done to the Cuban people. There is no doubt of what has been going on there. Have you ever been to Iraq, have you ever met Iraqis, or do you base your belief on what the mainstream media has told you to be true, without verifying it for yourself? It is hypocritical on the part of the US govt to say they are the heralds of freedom and democracy but don't bother to topple the Castro Dictatorship. THAT isn't hypocritical?
@firestrings272 """It is hypocritical on the part of the US govt to say they are the heralds of freedom and democracy but don't bother to topple the Castro Dictatorship. THAT isn't hypocritical?"" So suddenly your in favor of militarily liberating one dictatorship over the one we were discussing? During which you argued against any military action against it, stating "War is a Racket" You change the vantage point of your arguement very quickly.
@calm161 That's not my vantage point, that's your vantage point and I'm showing you the complete hypocrisy of it. Instead of "liberating" a local country they went all the way to the middle east to "liberate" Iraq, and what is it that Iraq has that Cuba doesn't?I think you can answer that one for yourself.
@calm161 "But give up=lose".Give up what? Lose what? What are we risking? Who is threatening us? The NDAA 2012 is one of the biggest threats to our freedoms in a long time and it didn't come from some Arab in a cave. Do you remember the Christmas Day bomber?How do you think that kid got into the USA from Amsterdam without a passport? I suggest you look up the senate hearings that dealt with that, you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
@firestrings272 ""Give up what? Lose what?"""" Try your freedom. The stated goal of Islam is to encompass the whole world of the "infidels". They don't recognize appeasement, in fact they see it as a sanction of the rightness of their activities. A basic teaching of Islam is "The sword is the key to the door of paradise". How is it that these oppressors of human rights can be so confident of their actions while the greatest republic to ever exist doubts its legitimacy in world affairs?
@calm161 In what way does Islam influence our constitution?Which elected representatives that we have are Islamist? And what legislation establishing Sharia Law have they established? I suggest you turn off your TV and try to analyze reality.You seemed to have missed my point regarding NDAA 2012. Is John McCain a radical Islamic fundamentalist?Yes or No.
wow!!!! the founding fathers creators of the free country!!!! it depends to who's freedom. I see that we failed to recon that the Native Americans or the African slaves or the Hispanos are not in the list of the so called "freedom". We need to re-think or to re-start the whole system before it eats us and all of us. Life is the motivation and not paper money..... Lets not forget that the main basis of this country was built on Pillage and Slavery and we still profiting from it....
The problem with this argument is Ayn Rand doesn’t understand human behavior, she is under the illusion money is not a controlling force and speaks of capitalism as freedom. Nothing can be further from the truth, the brain interacts with the environment and functions through the contingencies of reinforcement and money is a major motivator, thus we must not regurgitate ignorant superstitions that choosing to make money is done through our free will.
Instead we must replace aversive controls with positive reinforcement. Blowhards like Ayn Rand must be taught freedom and dignity are illusions AND self initiating forces in the brain that are not subject to infinite regression are wrong, we must go beyond freedom and dignity and learn to live long and prosper with Applied Behavioral Analysis/Behavioral Science.
We are of course unique individuals because of unique experiences, but we must constantly adapt by using behavioral science over laughable cultural superstition championed by ignorant fools/intellectuals to benefit everyone.
A fixed mind is a diseased mind. In a free society individualism and collectivism can coexist in the same economic and political system. Force of either system on proponents of the other can not exhist in a free society.
@fzqlcs Untrue I can impose my will as an individual on another individual and completely take away all of there freedoms. Hence force of any systemic ideology hinders freedom. our system currently impededs both individual and collective freedoms in favor of legislative force driven by economic coersion. If the government inforced only laws that protected citezens from criminal acts and enforced contracts then successful collectives would emerge. Only forced collectivism is doomed to fail.
The conservative plan of stopping government spending, would very quickly pop the bubbles and would probably mean immediate recession or depression, but it would be a trifle compared to what would come if we forestalled it with liberal spending. There is no painless way out, we are headed for some very, very, bad times.
I never understood the liberal policy of spend spend spend until I learned about the bubbles. The base of their whole policy is on a half-truth, government spending is saving the economy. In the short term yes, it pumps more money into the bubbles, forestalling their bursting. the con is that the boom will be much bigger, and we much weaker, when it finally comes.
Whether we follow the "conservative" economic plan or the "liberals" one thing will remain the same, our economy will suffer a massive blow shortly as bubbles such as the dollar, discretionary spending, real estate, and the stock market begin to pop. The difference between the two plans is this "now" or "later" , it is too late to avoid it.
The historical evidence is clear: welfare reduces poverty, and the lack of it increases it. In the 1920s, fully half of all Americans could not make ends meet. Roosevelt's New Deal programs had reduced poverty to about 20 percent in the 50s. Johnson's Great Society reduced this to 11.1 percent by 1973. Since the rise of the corporate special interest system in 1975, individual welfare benefits have been shrinking, and poverty has been steadily rising, to over 15 percent today.
WHY STOP EQUALITY WITH MATERIAL THINGS WHY NOT DEMAND EQUALITY AS SEXUAL JUSTICE.
ALL BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WHO MARRY RICH GUY ARE EVIL HEARTLESS PPL , SUCH WOMEN SHOULD BE FORCED TO HAVE SEX WITH POOR UNATTRACTIVE MEN TO ENSURE SEXUAL JUSTICE.
SAME FOR MEN , ALL RICH GOOD LOOKING MEN TO BE FORCED BY GOVERNMENT TO DATE UGLY FAT WOMEN TO ENSURE JUSTICE.
Before I explain these two, you must understand my view of Wallstreet. It represents two very different groups, the producers and the takers. The takers, who are the general view of the people towards wall street, are very much interested in power plays such as the ones you described, for they are right in one thing, control of resources=enormous power.
The interviewer was wrong indeed on the monopoly. If a gigantic oil company wants to chargeyou $2.5 a gallon, smaller oil companies will be able to grow, because if they charge only $1.75, they will get all the customers the gigantic oil company once had. Therefore, the small company will be able to grow, and the gigantic one will be out of business within a year or so. This is only possible if the government allows people to start their own business, and allows them to compete with the others
@026SH In theory, yes. The theory of capitalism is that a smaller more efficient firm will topple a bigger less efficient one. However, this is not always true. Wal Mart was competitors, yet the business continues to grow and stifles smaller businesses from growing because they offer such low prices. Wal Mart has also bought out competitors, much like Microsoft did, to insure they will not be taken down.
@disclaimer05, How is Wal Mart less efficient? Monopoly doesn't mean 'has much of the market share'. How can wal mart offer lower prices than a competitor? Just because you want the same niche doesn't mean that you're competitive. Wal mart sucks in many ways. And in that fact, smaller outlets can offer specialized service and compete. If you want higher quality and not dirt-low prices, then you can go to Target, etc.
This book haunts me. Rand opened my eyes and made me realize the errors of my ways, and I'd like to turn around, but I get depressed over all those choices I made in the past.
I never did well in school and it affected where I now go to college. Up until I read Atlas Shrugged, her message really hit home...something no one has ever really done before. I'm upset now because I feel it's too late to improve my life and get a scholarship and go to an ivy league school and get a great job. I just want to know it's not too late.
I keep acting on the idea that no matter how hard I try, I won't be successful...that I won't be a great person. I definitely have self-fulfilling prophecies that take a huge toll on my self-esteem, and it pains me to say that I "mooch" off my mom. I'm only 19, but the characters I read about in the book started working at 12. I started working at 17. What does that say about me? Anyone willing to comment?
@MovieMaster0001 I don't think that people should "mohammedize" Rand's fictional characters in this way: "Well Francisco did this or so and so is like this therefore that's what I should do." That's not she wrote her books. She wanted you to apply the moral principles that made her characters possible to your own life, not the concretes. Virtuall no one starts working at 12. That doesn't mean you can't be a great person or achieve alot in your life.
I get what Ayn Rand says and I support it 100%. I know that I should strive to be the best I can be in a capitalistic way. But I can't stop thinking about the negatives. What if the best I can be pales in comparison to the genius who cures cancer? Is life worth living if I'm genetically doomed to rot in obscurity, as opposed to the person who graduates from Cambridge or Oxford, making loades of money? I'm afraid of not being able to do what I want to do. I'm afraid of not becoming a great person
The key difference is choice. You don't have a choice when you are being physically robbed or your life is taken. On the other hand the vendor, for example, is volition in practice. If you can't make the choice to make an informed decision, then you may be taken advantage of. The main fault is not with the vendor however, it is with you. For not using your reason and intellect to make an intelligent decision you were very capable of making, if you chose to.
@coopmuch56 I think you'll find that that's actually incorrect... Germany is actually one of the economic power-houses of the entire world. America's economy has actually been in serious recession since 2008 in case you haven't heard!
@coopmuch56 Oh...my bad! Forgive me, I thought you were another one of these free-market fanatics who refuse to acknowledge the blatantly obvious short-comings of capitalism and the fact that it arguably has never really existed in technical terms, given the fact that bail-outs for corporations are simply just another form of welfare (effectively negating the very function of a 'free market', but then to Rand's credit, she draws this distinction during her talk on 'Monopolies')
some psychological warfare tactics are meant to completely paralyze people mentally. If every person in a persons life friend and foe attacks an the same individual it is meant to freeze a persons mind and shut them down. This tactic would be used to make some one go insane if employed against them when they are right and wrong. Psychological warfare.
@activenetzwerke May I state one fact. The companies who had large monopolies in those days, and those who could do practically anything to their workers, had only one way to do this: government support. They used legislation to their favor as a weapon against the worker, which led to the worker rising up and doing the exact same thing. Now suppose that we had a separation of economy and government, laissez faire if you will, what legislation could then be used as a weapon?
The only qualm I have with her is the fact that there are some important economic things that only government can or will do: building freeways, bridges, railroads, electrical grids etc. Why would a private company spend 20 billion of its investors money when they wouldn't see a profit for the next 10 years?
What Constitution did Rand read? The Preamble to the Constitution CLEARLY supports collectivisit government BY, FOR and OF the PEOPLE. The free market is destructive. The concept that markets regulate themselves is like saying a bank putting the depositors cash on the sidewalk&expecting it to be there in the morning. America depends on the COLLECTIVE people participating in government and setting the course for WISE REGULATION. Rand is a hypocrite who took welfare, Social Security & Medicare.
@exenrontexas May I ask what you mean? The famous words you quoted were to ensure the individuals freedom from the government, to ensure it the role of servant to the people. I'll also quote another phrase from the same document
"pursuit of happiness" this is not possible in a collectivist society,where happiness is what the top tells you it is.
May I ask how free market ruins? when It has provided this country with unprecedented wealth, power, and freedom. An honest question
@calm161 Perhaps a little historical background might help you. The colonial Americans were oppressed by the British capitalists who were in league with a corrupt king. The Brits talked him into oppressing the colonialists with taxes to support them. A good example is the tax that the Boston Tea Party was about taxes put on tea consumed in America but sold by the East India Tea Party, a corporate entity. Today we have a repeat offense committed by Randites in corporate America who pay no tax.
@exenrontexas I wish to make a key distinction. the Britsh weren't capitalists, they were mercantilists. The key difference being the latter is more or less under government influence. In true capitalism, separation of government and economy, capitalists would have no federal clout and would be regulated by pure competition. Also, reason for british taxes was to pay for french & Indian war, nowhere near tax levels in Britain. 3rd. the top earners pay most, in form of corporate gains tax
@calm161 The Constitution was NOT meant to insure the success of capitalism though some claim that. It WAS meant to give ultimate control of the government to the PEOPLE of the the US. The Constitution, especially the Preamble says it over and over. Now since we have majority rule then that means ANYTHING that the PEOPLE through their representatives want with the exclusions listed in the Bill of Rights. That means we have a collectivist society. E PLURIBUS UNUM. Case closed.
@exenrontexas You state that the constitution wasn't meant to provide capitalism. Could you please provide me with another system that you think would be the ideal alternative to capitalism, without infringing on the rights of the individual. As you are quoting the constitution I will point out the heart of the document is Amendment one through ten, which deal with the rights of the individual man. From the preamble the quote "secure the Blessings of Liberty" stands out as the main purpose.
@calm161 Americans can have absolutely any economic system they want since the majority rules. There are good and bad economic systems and truly capitalism has many bad aspects of it. It is up to the PEOPLE to decide what is best for them and the free flow of information can enhance their decision making IF that is supported by such things as the Fairness Doctrine. The Bill of Rights is NOT the heart of the Constitution, per se since it was an afterthought, an addendum.
@exenrontexas I apologize, but the bill of rights is were not the creation of the founding fathers. The precept of natural rights of man had been past down from the dawn of civilization. Always in a whisper, until the day would come when the individual could be free. 1791 was the pinnicle of millenia of thought on individual rights.
Rights that no majority could ever take away, or have the right to take away. that was how the concept of bicameralism came about: majority balanced by state.
@calm161 The first ten Amendments to the Constitution are not all individual rights. The Second Amendment is a COLLECTIVE right of WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. That is what it says and that is what it means although the NRA and the gun lobby has a different, and incorrect, interpretation.
@exenrontexas May I point out that while militias are indeed mention, that is mentioned separately, in the first half of the one sentence amendment. I will quote the second half which is notably separate, mentioned "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" clearly a different part than "A well regulated Militia", which already implies armaments.
May I point out that while Militia are mentioned in the first half of the one sentence amendment, the right to bear arms is in the latter half. quoted "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." This can be logically determined separate from militia, as the term "well regulated milita" already implies armaments.
@calm161 But it IS found in the history books talking about the protection of gun ownership for WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. The Revolutionary War was started by a COLLECTIVE, the WELL REGULATED MILITIA at Lexington when the British Army marched on them. The Well Regulated Militia had an armory, had a command structure, had regular drills and a stated purpose, the defense of their local community.There is no other explanattion why the Brits marched on them, collectively.
@calm161 It was the WELL REGULATED MILITIA that fought and won the Revolutionary war and the first president and attendee at the Constitutional Congress led those WELL REGULATED MILITIAS and there is NO DOUBT, NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that the Second Amendment is a COLLECTIVE right. I will however, admit that many interpret it otherwise but have not so well hidden agendas.
On another note, it appears that there are many who ignore the history and have achieved severe gun control on America.
@exenrontexas There are a few things i would wish to say on this topic. Yes, regulated militias are part of it, that's one of the few areas the constitution allows government authority. May I ask why such a passion for restricting guns? The true criminals who use them harmfully get them illegally anyway. Marajuana for instance, is illegal, but still easily obtained. In fact the only ones gun laws restrict are the people who follow the laws. So logically, gun control laws endanger the public
@calm161 And the vague explaination of the NRA and the gun lobby is that a only partially armed group of disorganized and untrained citizens will keep us free. NOT so, NOT SO AT ALL. The WELL REGULATED MILITIA that the Second Amendment was written to protect drilled regularly, had a command structure and stated goals. They had an armory which included high caliber artillary and explosives which was well defended by the well regulated militia. Defended from the drunken mob that now carries guns.
@exenrontexas Even though this is all besides the point ill add a few things. Militia weren't the only factor in the continental army, actually, many if not most of the soldiers were ordinary civilians(with their own guns). The point your side is trying to make is that taking the gun away from the clerk behind the counter while the guy robbing the place can easily get one will make the country free. This has baffled me, i see no logic in it, maybe you could help me out?
@calm161 I regret that you are confused about the Founders position and the historical references behind the Second Amendment but since so many people including the Supreme Court also got it wrong, the it is understandable. Due to youtube space limitation and because I tend to be a little wordy, I will take it in two parts. First, I believe that the Founders intend the well regulated militia to be the vanguard of peacekeeping and defense of the nation and also domestic peacekeeping.
@exenrontexas Confused? I try not to be. Maybe this will explain why I'm confused. A little quote from the founding father Thomas Jefferson ""No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" this links to what I said in the above comment. I tend to think direct quotes give a clear meaning to intentions.
@calm161 I have heard other direct quotes from some of the Founders like that before but you see here is the rub. When they met for the Constitution Congress they did NOT use the general population language that some claim. They were specific to reference the justification to be WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. NOT militias,NOT the general public and NOT universal. A well regulated militia refers to the militias that won the Revolutionary War under Gen. Washington. MY way and THEIR way makes a better US
@exenrontexas As I have shown: Gramatically: Militia is stated separately in the second amendment, Rationally: they would want a people with power of resistance: i.e Decalaration of Independence stated they have a right and duty to remove future repressive government.
Historically: have offered you words of mouth from a prominent founding father.
Logically: criminals would still have guns if they were made illegal if you have a problem with any of these feel free to attack it openly
Uneducated? quiet the contrary, it is the fact that they recognize individuals right to weapons that made them on the cutting edge. They had nothing to go on to create the founding pillars of the nation but some writings from Locke and Montesque. Any unenlightened dicator can make his army the only power in the country, but imagine the foresight required to put a portion of the power of force into the hands of the private citizen. This was one of the great equalizers of all world history.
@calm161 Your comment leads me to believe that you still do not understand. Like the WELL REGULATED MILITIA at Lexington, the Founder, as is clear from the Second Amendment and their wise and knowledgeable standing, intended for independent, well regulated, community based militias to keep the peace, protect the borders and surpress armed rebellions...just like Lexington did. Now try to extrapolate the communities that would have supported such a well regulated militia.
@exenrontexas I know very well were you are coming from. well regulated militias were essential for the colonies survival and were granted protection in the second amendment. I've granted that, it's you who are having trouble understanding what I am saying, or are pretending not to. Any entity, including militia, not controlled directly by you, which it's not, and has potential power over you, which it has. Grants the right of individual weapons.
@calm161 Well that goes without saying. Even my neighbors have that potential, in fact, anyone in the whole world, has that potential. So I guess we agree on that part. But that is also a non sequitor in the sense that we have a collecitve form of government and no man is an island. We have laws and a society which basically means we support each other. Now one way the Founders intended us to support each other was to protect the WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. Got it?
@calm161 No, NOT around we go since you and the gun loan INFER that the Second Amendment was intended for general gun ownership which as it says, it is not. Never assume that I agree with that position, although if you and the NRA wish to amend the Constitution to say that then good luck with that.
@exenrontexas you infer that the second part of the amendment is only a redunancy, which is illogical and impractical. we obviously don't agree and aren't going to. My pondering has obviously yielded different conclusions than yours. We each think the other blind, which is probably a good description for the whole country right now. Though I see no logic in your position,or in most left leaning positions, argueing never truly changed any mans mind.
@calm161 Well, thanks for being generally polite and that is refreshing. While we disagree we don't need to be insulting or practice one upmanship, Is if fair to say that you lean toward the libertarian view? While you to me wrong when you claim that I am a liberal I understand that those who oppose the NRAs interpretation of the Second are often painted with that label. I am a Vietnam veteran and the Eisenhower Republican, anti-war and anti-fascist and anti-NEOCON and a Christian.
@exenrontexas One, thank you for your service to the country. And you don't have to be a liberal to have a few left leaning views. Man isn't cut and dry, but a mix of sometimes conflicted parts. I'm a conservative, though I do tend to lean a little libertarian these days. I am generally anti-anyone that claims to a have a right to force you against your will. I thank you to for your politeness and maybe we'll run into each other again on the discussion boards
@calm161 I apologize from dragging this on too long, but your parting comment made me think about what are the obligations of a citizen. You say that you generally are anti-anyone who forces you against your will and I have heard that before but, and I don't like hypotheticals, what if you were a bank robber is didn't like getting arrested or simply a speeder who wanted to go 95 in a school zone. We are ALL connected and as citizens we buy into majority rule and majority force.
@exenrontexas always up for another one. There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. laws that protect mens natural rights, such as the right not to be robbed, are naturally freeing laws. Government is not useless, its true duty is to protect mens individual freedoms through collective agreement. I'll use the cliche that government is like a fire. Very useful, but deadly if left uncontrolled. We are all connected, but for the benefit of the individual.
@calm161 Perhaps we are making some progress, then. SO what is the difference between the right not to be robbed and the right not to be robbed by your employer or even a corrupt vendor? It is a natural right to have food if you are disabled? In a sense, I do not see it necessarily as a right unless the majority of the citizens say it is, but rather an opportunity to show your humanity, your dedication to a higher authority to help the man beaten beside the road or the hungry child.
@exenrontexas The employer, on the hand, is a very fine line. Do I think that workers should be abused? of course not, I was as appalled by The Grapes of Wrath and The Jungle as the next guy. The difference being that I recognized the decisive factor in their ability to to abuse the workers: government legislators and insiders. Is it as rational as they say to involve more legislators and more insiders? Answering poison with poison? why not simply separate the two? pure capitalism is rational
@exenrontexas Do I think a man has a duty to help others? yes I do, but I don't believe that they should ever be forced to. Men are not sheep, they have a right to choose for themselves, simply because they are able to. Government is a group of men no more less competent than I, why should I allow them to make any rational decision for me? Government is a mediocrity and a poor replacement for the rational mind.
@exenrontexas The key difference is choice. You don't have a choice when you are being physically robbed or your life is taken. On the other hand the vendor, for example, is volition in practice. If you can't make the choice to make an informed decision, then you may be taken advantage of. The main fault is not with the vendor however, it is with you. For not using your reason and intellect to make an intelligent decision you were very capable of making, if you chose to.
@calm161 I disagree and here is why. There many times, in fact, often when you have no choice. There is ONLY one person, one supplier or one manufacturer or even worse in a deregulated market the vendors that do exist collude and conspire to fix prices or limit variation and that is what we have today. Are you familiar with the ENRON debacle in California were the CEO bought off the CA legislature to DEregulate their electric market and they used that to steal EIGHT BILLION dollars?
@exenrontexas I will point out several things, the reason for the deregulation in the first place was that the previously heavily regulated or public electric grid was old, stagnant, and unable to supply California's rapidly increasing population. Deregulation made it able to handle the demand quite easily, and if it weren't for a few dishonest men,it would have been quite successful.
@calm161 Of course, I disagree on many levels. Here is an actual comparison. I worked on a project for Ken Lay of ENRON to company electricity rates in various location basically to shame HL&P (Reliant Energy) to do business with them. The Reliant South Texas Nuclear Plant built by HALLIBURTON generated electricity at 16.9 cents/KwH. The ENRON Cogen plant in Texas City generated it at 6.9 cents/KwH. Omaha PUBLIC power a government owned highly regulated plant generated it a 4.4 cent/Kwh.
@exenrontexas I won't argue the point on the corruption of ENRON as you've had the experience of working with them and have obviously done your homework on the topic. There are however, some that I will offer opposition to. The need for "wise regulation", "corporations with no citizen rights", "the evil of Ayn Rands ideas" and I'll indulge myself on a tangent on Vietnam, since you brought it up
@calm161 And the Watertown, SD plant which was in the ENRON market area as was OPPD, generated electricity at...wait for it....1.1 cents/Kwh because it had a government built hydro plant on the Missouri river. Now these numbers are old, quite old from the late eighties but it does point out the differences between corporate generated services and well run government services. There are, I am sure, poorly run examples of both but these are not apples and oranges. America NEEDS regulation.
@exenrontexas Now for the phrase "wise regulation" what is that exactly, who draws the lines and where? Our regulations now are thousands of pages in length. And the big corporations don't have a problem meeting them, but the small businesses do. Spending so much time on them that their business suffers.
@exenrontexas Even corporations are run and owned by citizens(much of the time), Do they not have a say in how they are run simply because they own it? The "people" are not just those living in projects, but the ones in penthouses as well.
@exenrontexas As for Ayn Rand's ideas being evil, I believe quite the contrary, my belief is it teaches an important message. That man is truly capable of thinking for himself, of taking care of himself, with no welfare state monitering his every faltered step. Maybe perspective for her ideas would come from a look at her past. She was a teenager in Soviet Russia. She lived with the reality of the individual meaning nothing, being swallowed in the mass of the state.
@calm161 America needs WISE regulation such as was attempted by Brooksley Born, the Clinton regulator who tried to reign in the derivitive madness that Sen. Phil Gramm and the FED chairman, Greenspan were aggressively promoting. And to bring it full circle, Gramm was elected with ENRON stolen money and his wife, Wendy, was an ENRON director. I have photos. I believe the OWS folks are EXACTLY what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitutional protections of free speech & assembly
@exenrontexas Actually, one of their methods to simulate overload and crowding of lines was to let through less power than the lines were capable of producing. The question is not efficiency but honesty. Now lets look at what they were hoping to gain, a huge sum of money from prices raised hundreds of dollars per megawatt. Lets look at what happened: Exron went bankrupt, The Ceo was prosecuted and would have lost everything if he would not have had the convenience of dying.
@calm161 Well the crimes at ENRON and the very, very few of the criminals that were prosecuted with very, VERY light sentences would have continued except for ONE person who blew the whistle and even Sharon Watkins wanted Ken Lay to cover it up. What Lay lost when Watkins confronted him was plausible deniability. He already knew there was major crimes going on since many people, including me, already told him but I am not a banker or an accountant so we lacked crediblity.
@calm161 There were HUNDREDS of felons working at ENRON and the TENS OF THOUSANDS of honest employees paid the price for their crimes. He is one way how. Ken Lay got Mitch McConnell and Phil Gramm to rewrite the ERISA laws governing ESOPs which allowed Lay to use the hundreds of million of employee money as his personal slush fund which he used to cover up his bad management and then he cooked the booked to generate a higher stock price, sold stock to partially pay it back.
@calm161 In the end, Lay got up on stage before a large employee meeting and declared that the rumors of fraud at ENRON were untrue and that every employee should go out and buy stock. THEN he went back to his office and solf FIFTY MILLION of his own stock and FROZE the ESOP so no one else could sell theirs. MANY other executives did the same and only a very few were indicted. The Republican judge ruled not to use RICO laws, most of the crooked accountants and lawyers got OFF.
@exenrontexas Now, lets look at another interesting comment you made, they bought off the state legislature. and I sincerely doubt that that was the end of government involvement. As all monopolies, their power to control was lent them by an agreement with the government, As I have said before, separate the two. Would most business men act in the same manner? I don't believe they would. Most have little to gain from the destruction of their business.
@calm161 What do you mean "lent them". The PEOPLE always had that right and the government IS the people by definition as described in the Constitution. The Constitution is the frame work for government BY, FOR and OF the people and the PEOPLE have ALWAYS had the right and ability to guide, correct and even punish wrong doing by government. It is possible for 2/3 of the State legislatures to completely rewrite the Constitution. The concept that a corporation has citizen rights is laughable.
@calm161 Mr. Lay served in the US Navy near the end of the war in Vietnam under Nixon. He was an analyst and economic researcher and wrote a report for Nixon which strongly encouraged the CONTINUATION of the war in Vietnam for the sake of the US economy. He was a strong proponent of DEregulation and a huge fan of Ayn Rand. However, please do not assume that is the only reason that I distain Rand. It is the core of her ideas that attract and inspire men like Lay to do great evil.
Should we have gone in? no Should we have stayed in? yes
by the fact of leaving we were saving american lives,yes, but effectively abandoning all our native allies who had declared their support for us to be slaughtered by the communists, women and children alike. That was a sad day for our honor
@calm161 WOW. I am amazed that you keep bringing up events that I have personal knowledge about. I served TAD during the Vietnam war though not during the Tonkin Gulf incident on the USS Turner Joy which was one of the two US destroyers in Aug., '64 that were allegedly attacked by N. Vietnam which LBJ used as the excuse to officially start the war in Vietnam. JFK had ordered our troops REMOVED from Vietnam, LBJ cancelled those orders.We were warned us of the military industrialist complex.
@exenrontexas Your personal experience is one of the reasons I brought it up. Always interesting to hear history in in first-person narratives. The south vietnamese government were a bunch of incompetent dictators, enough so for monks to set themselves on fire in protest. But they were not in the same league as the communists.
@calm161 Both Robert McNamara and the US Navy have officially stated that the Tonkin Gulf incident...NEVER HAPPENED and NO ONE I met in the sixties on that ship believed it either. The S. Vietnam government rarely if ever represented the majority of the people. The people were mostly Buddhist and the goverment was mostly Catholic and installed by the French colonialists. Ho Chi Minh turned to Communism mostly because they gave him weapons and support for a NATIONALISTIC war.
@exenrontexas Frankly, what makes corruption and conspiracies possible is the majority's problem with seeing the big picture. Their attention is guided so easily it's disturbing, it all depends on what the news tell them to look at. They cry socialism to feel a part of some grand movement, without looking across the Atlantic at the decay of the once all-powerful Europeans. They decry the free-market, without even knowing what created American wealth in the first place. All borrowed opinions
@calm161 Well I certainly agree that the public often act as sheep but not always. If you recall a man named Daniel Ellsberg who published the Pentagon Papers which revealed some of the deceit of forces in the US government in it's dealings with Vietnam. Wikileaks is our version of that today and it demonstrates the importance of transparency in government actions. Personally I believe the ONLY acceptable government secrets are those which deal directly with the safety of GIs in the battlefield
@calm161 Ho WAS evil and brutal and inhuman and a monster but he was fighting a war to free his people from foreign powers which Vietnam had been trying to do for a THOUSAND years. SO here is the nexus of these two ideas. LBJ, Nixon and Ken Lay were making money from the blood of US GIs and Vietnamese. JFK and Daniel Ellsberg and some others wanted Vietnam people to determine their own course. Marine General Smedley Butler said that most US wars were started by and for the benefit of WALL STREET
@exenrontexas Well that's nothing new, there's only one thing that the majority of wars in history were fought over, money. Wall Street may carry some blame for corruption, but I personally think that our attention is being diverted there to be prevented from seeing the big picture. people love a scape goat, always have. The truth is wall street has no power to declare wars, only potential bribe power to start it for them. If this is so, doesn't ultimate blame lie with government corruption?
@calm161 One of my heroes is Marine General Smedley Butler who was the highest decorated American serviceman since Washington. He served 34 years, fought in FIVE wars and was awarded the Marine Brevet Medal and TWO Congressional Medals of Honor and after he retired he wrote the book "War is a Racket" where he accused WALL STREET of being behind most US wars. The US has invaded Mexico several times, Cuba a couple of times and several ofther S. Am countries for...PROFIT.
@exenrontexas The irony in that is that the dark side of Wall street is woven in with government. I believe the correct term is the "revolving door". may I cite the example of Goldman Sachs, where many if not most top men have held ultra-high levels of government posts, and vice-versa where top officials were once employee's there.
Now, the problem I personally see with regulating Wall street is two parts. Technically and consequence
SO why did we invade all those countries? They would have happily sold their resources anyhow, wouldn't they? I believe that must like Iraq, it was so multinational corporations could control the sale of those resources to whoever they wished not only for profit but for POWER as well. Most Iraq oil goes NOT to the US but to Asia and continues to do so today and those who control Iraqi oil have control to some degree over COMMUNIST RED CHINA. Now on to Afghanistan.
@exenrontexas Technically, as the takers have power in government, i.e the example of goldman sachs, then any regulations passed on Wall Street to appease the people will be influenced by these men to have as little affect on the takers as possible, even diverting the regulations to harm the producers instead. Wall street is not just huge corporations, but affects and represents the entire world of small business. which leads to the second part.
Consequence: the call of the people today for a general sweep of regulation of Wall street has many factors to consider. If this happens,even in a scenario where the taker corporations have absolutely no power to influence government affairs, two things will happen. The corporations will lose power, and small business will founder under the weight of hefty regulations intended for corporations, but applying to everybody. The best example is having a rotten finger and amputating the whole hand.
@calm161 Hmmm.....well PERHAPS that might be the scenario it depends on the wisdom of the regulation and WHO is doing the regulation. The public's PERCEPTION of the regulation may not be accurate or even real and hopefully the internet and responsible social networking will be a guide in that regard. While I have been typing this I thought of a couple of dozen wise and useful regulations. Drug safety, food safety, transportation safety, auto safety and a few more. WITHOUT regulation, UNSAFE.
@exenrontexas yes, that links back to the "laws that set you free or enslave you" topic. but may I cause you to ponder that you named four, and mentioned a few moregood ones existed. yet there are thousands of regulations on the books, in fact so many are being written that if you started reading them, you'd never finish. Regulation, if anything, should represent a few basic, fundamental rules, and then let it go at that. most regulations are based on whims of ignorant politicians
@exenrontexas and these regulations do absolutely nothing to hurt corporations, they easily have enough assets and manpower to meet them. It's the producers, the small business men, that go out of business trying to meet petty rules and regulation. In my opinion it's the government that needs to be regulated, and the people of the U.S, who's job that is, aren't doing it. In my mind government=incompetency and business=competency , simply because it requires it. Whom should regulate whom?
@calm161 Well this discussion seems to come down to a few points. One of them is WHO the government is. The Founders and many, many Americans past and present believe that government simply is the PEOPLE. So since we are supposed to have government by the consent of the governed (the majority) then the PEOPLE are regulating themselves and their own environment. SO who has opposed that basically since 1775? Large corporations since they use that power to take power from the PEOPLE.
@exenrontexas Your point is genuine. Except for a couple things I'd like to point out. I don't think the "people" care if every niche and cranny of an innocent small business, lets say, a store, is regulated. So these regulations must benefit somebody, and they are certainly not benefitting the people, in fact they are contrary to the people's interests. What scares me is many don't care.
@exenrontexas A too large percentage of the people don't seem to care or would prefer if the economic engine of America is turned into scrap metal to be sold to the highest bidder for temporary relief. We shouldn't have a debt problem, we feed the whole world, we have more potential oil in our continent than Saudi Arabia, and a great platform to start on. They don't care if they leave their children a shattered, rotting, 2nd rate nation, as long as they get "what they're entitled to".
@exenrontexas In the future, if a of the people majority take this position, I will not yield just because I am in the minority, I have a duty not to yield. That "majority" has no right whatsoever to take the America of my fathers away from my children. and i will fight them until the last. I think this topic will reach a head in the next few years, if that. My only goal is to use the knowledge I've gained about what created America to preserve it.
@calm161 Well it seems to me that you will be fighting people who want to preserve the America that your great, great grandfathers fought to establish which is, as I have already said, government BY, FOR and OF the people with few special exceptions and here is one reason why and a flaw in the idea that markets regulate themselves and a humbling admission from a man who thought they would.
@exenrontexas would you give a different pathway? can't get that one to to work when copyed. I disagree that they are standing for the same america, in my eyes they are standing for a welfare state. Which is the antithesis of our nation's being. Whatever the flaws in modern capitalism, it is the way forward, as our prosperity illustrates. Today's progressives are ironically regressive, falling on old ideas that have had many failed chances.
It is Ron Reagan dissecting the belief of his fathers in failed economic principles. But MY view is that what ever principles are promoted should be fully discussed and debated so that the PEOPLE can decide their own course and what ever course they pick it the correct one. If it is capitalism then so be it, if it is socialism then so be it or what we actually have is a blending of the two. I think that the PEOPLE decide.
@exenrontexas There are many of those short clips on both sides. I've chosen the one which, in my view, presents the most evidence for prosperity. I would welcome a clip showing factual prosperity and freedom that accured as a result of socialism. But the shining stars of socialism are 2nd rate european powers, russia, communist china, and north Korea. while the star of capitalism is the United States, which is being dimmed quickly by socialistic ideas, will proof after proof ever suffice?
@exenrontexas I disagree with you on a trivial point. Though the people have the freedom to choose their course, that does not make it the correct one. two and two don't make five even if all the world insists it does. when germany voted for the nazis, or when the French revolution guillotined tens of thousands, was the majority in the right? on the contrary, many times it's easier to keep your mind clear and reasoned when standing against the tide, as opposed to being swept along with it.
@calm161 Not necessarily so trivial and therefore the importance of due process, privacy, and the rest of the protections which protect individuals from the mob and from a mob driven government and also this. Given time and an educated people, the true will come out. In our time there have been many errors by the people which were to some degree encouraged or even guided by conservative capitalists. Do you think that looking back, the Germans despised what Hitler led them too or rationalized it?
@exenrontexas In the same regard was America led to start the Vietnam war based on LBJs lies. And where ARE those WMDs in Iraq? Will the tea party look back and see that they were deceived by the path that the Koch brothers laid before them? Reagan's deregulations also led directly to the S&L crisis and the market collapse of '87 and later even ENRON CORP crimes. You make the case for regulation for me. Since there are evil men then doesn't the PEOPLE have the right to protect themselves?
@exenrontexas apologize for delay, many are quick to riducule wmd's in Iraq, seems they've forgotten Saddam sprayed the Kurds like bugs with chemical weapons. Tea party is not about an organization, but about an ideal, back to the constituion and the free market. Government in this country has small business by the throat, I state again that regulation will never end coorporate greed as the men making the regulations are hand in hand with them. Productive business is all that suffers.
@calm161 - And the chemical weapons used on the Kurds were provided to Iraq by the U.S. government back when they were backing Iraq in their fight against Iran. There was a 60 Minutes episode back in the early 90's that exposed what those chemicals were and where they came from. You might be able to find it on Youtube.
Yes, the state has small business by the throat and is in bed with big business. Even the founder of Home Depot said he couldn't start Home Depot today in California due to regs
@calm161 We were told many times the Saddam was planning a mushroom cloud that was imminent. That was a lie and nearly everyone now admits it so...why do you keep rationalizing for the liars? Saddam was a bad guy but there is nothing in the Constitution which allows us to rid the world of bad guys, is there? I stronly disagree that regulation hurts small business. There are LOTS of small businesses doing quite well. What DOES hurt them is the oppression by large corps who supply them.
@exenrontexas rationalizing? merely stating the facts and I do in fact believe we have a duty to rid the world of "bad guys" if we have the power to do so. So called "intellectuals" would have us believe that it is a people's culture that decides whether they are adapted to freedom or not, that is false. Whenever we have brought democracy to a nation the people turn up in a higher percentage than we do to vote, and those that don't are for the most part intimidated into abstaining.
@calm161 It seems that you have bought into the NEOCON view of American exceptionalism. In a sense this is a fascist concept. Hitler may have viewed France is being run by "bad guys" and her certainly viewed the Jews as "bad guys" and some were, but that NEVER gives Hitler or the US the right to unilaterally attack another country without first being attacked by them. This is what JFK fought in '63 and that is one of the reasons they murdered him. He ordered US troops OUT of Vietnam.
@exenrontexas I consider myself a rational man, and try to come at things from a rational point of view. Humans, as rational beings, who naturally seek freedom, come to the United States simply because it offers, or used to, an expansive package of freedoms ideally suited to the true, rational, human being in the heart of us all. Maybe I am called a neo-con because when I see girls whipped, raped, or killed for studying in the nations of sharia law and I object.
@calm161 Hmmm ...are you ignorant that girls are whipped and raped and killed her in the US...every day. And I personally have heard that crime defended by the very same people who condemned the Taliban for doing so. Hypocrisy is rampant in the NEOCON world like it was in fascist countries. There were many top Nazis and Fasicsts who were rapists, homosexuals and drug addicts. Then there were Reagans fascist death squads financed by drug sales to US children. They raped and murdered nuns.
@exenrontexas That's arguing for the sake of arguing. There's a major difference between here, where crimes of that nature are against the law and punished, and nations where that's an accepted punishment for trying to educate yourself as a female. Laws such as these are those that enslave men. No doubt many more of their women would want to come here than ours would want to go and live sharia law. Reagan fascist death squads? raped and murdered nuns?......hm elaborate please
@calm161 Ronald Reagan and his toadie minion Oliver North smuggled narcotics into the US in diplomatic pouches into the US to hit the street to be sold in school yard. I know that you would make all narcotics legal since that is the libertarian way. It is the children's fault for buying them in your view&they need to practice better personal responsibility but I suspect that even YOU would draw the line at North sending arms and money to Central America fascist to commits those crimes. Contras.
@exenrontexas To begin with, as you would recall I was wrong to call you a liberal even though you do have some liberal leanings. Please extend the same courtesy, my actual words were I was leaning libertarian, not that I was one. I support many things libertarians oppose, and I could sum that up with "rational"(key word) government guidelines and controls. One of these is drugs. I respect the human mind, and I've seen what drugs turn it into. I'm against legalizing an enslaving substance.
@exenrontexas As with the Reagan claim, I'll have to read up on that, but even if it is true, sounds ominously like obama's fast and furious. With Rand I've studied her and I believe she was anything but a fool. An interesting fact about her was she was a teenager living in the thick of the Russion Revolution and later the Soviet Union. Her biases weren't just biases, they were modeled on her life experience. I think of her books as a warning. You're entitled to your own opinion.
I'm Ayn Rand, and I'm a welfare queen.
Fact. She accepted social security cheques when she was a senior.
Propagandhi900 1 day ago
@Propagandhi900 So you regard all women on Social Security welfare queens, eh? What about the fact that Rand was forced to pay into the system?
fzqlcs 1 day ago
@fzqlcs No, I refer to Ayn Rand as a welfare queen.
If you are using the idea that she paid into it, you are taking her own idea that welfare is forcing people to pay for others, as opposed to you paying for yourself.
Propagandhi900 1 day ago
@Propagandhi900 At first, you said that the act of taking welfare makes one a welfare queen. If she paid for herself, what is your problem? If she was forced to pay into the system (which she was), she was owed the money. How is that a welfare queen? Ayn Rand opposed sacrifice and would have been a hypocrite to have willingly sacrificed that which was taken from her by force.
fzqlcs 1 day ago
@fzqlcs She was taking other people's money.
Propagandhi900 2 hours ago
@Propagandhi900 Yes, she was taking other people's money just like your grandmother and every other Social Security "welfare queen" (your definition). Shame on her, she should have just quietly paid in and not collected. BTW, is your grandma also a welfare queen? I do agree with you that SS is simply sugar-coated welfare and as such should be eliminated. But, as long as people are forced to pay in, they are not hypocrites to collect.
fzqlcs 1 hour ago
Phil has been proven wrong here in such a major way. If we followed the liberals desire to control and tax oil we would be paying $7 a gallon right now and the poor and working class would suffer the most.
shire2005 1 week ago
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@shire2005 said [[Phil has been proven wrong here in such a major way. If we followed the liberals desire to control and tax oil we would be paying $7 a gallon right now and the poor and working class would suffer the most.]]
True, but prices should remain low through competition, not through control, regulation and then being subsidized by the government.
LucisFerre1 1 week ago
It's their video stupid, they can control comments on it however they want.
amse 1 week ago
@amse, wow, you've proved yourself to be exceedingly stupid.
What I did was give notice that this comment section is being CENSORED without notice or comment. The reason I did so is because they're doing so WITHOUT NOTICE OR COMMENT. Usually when a comment is deleted or marked spam, there is a remark in the comment section. Now, try your best to not be so god damned illiterate, will you?
LucisFerre1 1 week ago
@LucisFerre1 Oh no, not evil censorship. Jumped up little faggot
scamwa 1 week ago
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--->> Ron Paul 2012 -- MONEY BOMB --- TODAY!! <<---- ronpaul2012 . com
Donate toward preserving the liberties which our government has grossly perverted since the founding of our nation. Help restore our rights and freedoms.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke
ronpaul2012hope 1 week ago
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Note to posters. This comment section is being CENSORED.
Comments pertaining to capitalism, Rand i.e. this vid are being deleted without notice or comment.
"Liberty Penn" should be ashamed.
LucisFerre1 1 week ago
When she is criticizing the universities and the liberal professors. Lol since Reagan the US have followed here advise and look where it lead them. It is becoming closer and closer to a plutocracy. The kind of society she is defending can quickly become a plutocracy.
MrLecam21 2 weeks ago
Hahaha in a free market nobody can become a monopolist!!!! Like economies of scales and technological barrier do not exits!! Yeeah tomorrow I am gone a start my own airplane assembly plan. Ridiculous!! Wake up people these guys are dangerous, free market do not exits!!! They are a view of the mind, The Romans used to say that wisdom lies in moderation.
MrLecam21 2 weeks ago
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One of the differences between Capitalism and Socialism is with Capitalism people can make as much money as their Education, Skills, Intelligence and Production and the Market will bare. With Socialism people can only make as much money as the Government will allow. Capitalism is about Free Markets and Competition. Socialism is about Communitarianism and Monopoly not allowing people get too farther out then the rest of Population even if their Skills and Production are better.
jackram2h2 2 weeks ago
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Why doesn't she speak normal English even though she had lived in the US since she was 21?
Kle7777 3 weeks ago
Why should I let Rand tell how to think? All that is Rand, not Adeikov. I believe I own my own mind and nobody, not Rand or otherwise can think they can take it.
Adeikov 4 weeks ago
@Adeikov Sounds like you're thinking how she thought.
Khayman8888 3 weeks ago
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@Adeikov said [[Why should I let Rand tell how to think? All that is Rand, not Adeikov. I believe I own my own mind and nobody, not Rand or otherwise can think they can take it.]]
You sound like a complete idiot. Rand advocated reason and individualism.
LucisFerre1 1 week ago
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Michael Prescott: Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman
michaelprescottDOTnet/hickmanDOThtm
kropotkinbeard1 1 month ago
she would have been a great friend of margaret thatcher. both total hacks
Dtchmastrkilla7 1 month ago
Unproven hype. I will believe it when I see it.
Adeikov 1 month ago
@Adeikov we haven't seen true free markets in a very long time. its all Keynesian bullshit that caused this current crisis.
poopguypenis2 1 month ago
@Adeikov Lol you just proved her point, it is yet to be fully practised, though when it was for a short while America became the wealthiest and most prosperous nation on earth.
XpEAnUTBuTtERsUckSX 4 weeks ago
Nice little collection there. I don't think I've seen that closing picture of her before.
reardenmedals 1 month ago
So lets get this straight. you're denying the atrocites of Saddam? Look up Dujail, Barzoni, and Iraqi rape rooms and correct yourself before you insult the dead any further.
calm161 1 month ago
@calm161 Why do you care so much about Iraq? What about Cuba which is just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, CHINA. ALL of them have a horrendous human rights record. You don't see the blatant hypocrisy? The blatant war propaganda and vilification of the Arab world?Have you eve stopped to think that someone is profiting from this war? Cheney's Haliburton, Bechtel, Raytheon, Lockheed, SAIC, Rapidscan? Gen. Smedley Butler said it best, "War is a Racket"!
firestrings272 1 month ago
@firestrings272 So you've now retreated from denying Saddams crimes and go straight to pointing out others? and call me the hypocrite? If I used your logic I could tell you to get to know Castro personally before judging him. But at risk of letting my guard down. I do believe that any government that denies basic human rights to its citizens has no right to govern. We've seen that realization in many countries this past year. As for "War is Racket" it sure is, always has been. But give up=lose
calm161 1 month ago
@calm161 I've seen what the Castro regime has done to the Cuban people. There is no doubt of what has been going on there. Have you ever been to Iraq, have you ever met Iraqis, or do you base your belief on what the mainstream media has told you to be true, without verifying it for yourself? It is hypocritical on the part of the US govt to say they are the heralds of freedom and democracy but don't bother to topple the Castro Dictatorship. THAT isn't hypocritical?
firestrings272 1 month ago
@firestrings272 """It is hypocritical on the part of the US govt to say they are the heralds of freedom and democracy but don't bother to topple the Castro Dictatorship. THAT isn't hypocritical?"" So suddenly your in favor of militarily liberating one dictatorship over the one we were discussing? During which you argued against any military action against it, stating "War is a Racket" You change the vantage point of your arguement very quickly.
calm161 1 month ago
@calm161 That's not my vantage point, that's your vantage point and I'm showing you the complete hypocrisy of it. Instead of "liberating" a local country they went all the way to the middle east to "liberate" Iraq, and what is it that Iraq has that Cuba doesn't?I think you can answer that one for yourself.
firestrings272 1 month ago
@calm161 "But give up=lose".Give up what? Lose what? What are we risking? Who is threatening us? The NDAA 2012 is one of the biggest threats to our freedoms in a long time and it didn't come from some Arab in a cave. Do you remember the Christmas Day bomber?How do you think that kid got into the USA from Amsterdam without a passport? I suggest you look up the senate hearings that dealt with that, you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
firestrings272 1 month ago
@firestrings272 ""Give up what? Lose what?"""" Try your freedom. The stated goal of Islam is to encompass the whole world of the "infidels". They don't recognize appeasement, in fact they see it as a sanction of the rightness of their activities. A basic teaching of Islam is "The sword is the key to the door of paradise". How is it that these oppressors of human rights can be so confident of their actions while the greatest republic to ever exist doubts its legitimacy in world affairs?
calm161 1 month ago
@calm161 In what way does Islam influence our constitution?Which elected representatives that we have are Islamist? And what legislation establishing Sharia Law have they established? I suggest you turn off your TV and try to analyze reality.You seemed to have missed my point regarding NDAA 2012. Is John McCain a radical Islamic fundamentalist?Yes or No.
firestrings272 1 month ago
Someone should have hanged Ayn Rand ...
I am amazed how does earth can even exept such Monsters ,her ideology is anti-human...
DOOMEDHOWARD666 1 month ago
@DOOMEDHOWARD666 Elaborate. From what I can tell she is promoting both free markets and self reliance which are great things to aim for.
A0Refrigerator 1 month ago
You hear some speak of greed and coercive rich people, but you don't hear about how they coerce employees.
ElJefer 1 month ago
wow!!!! the founding fathers creators of the free country!!!! it depends to who's freedom. I see that we failed to recon that the Native Americans or the African slaves or the Hispanos are not in the list of the so called "freedom". We need to re-think or to re-start the whole system before it eats us and all of us. Life is the motivation and not paper money..... Lets not forget that the main basis of this country was built on Pillage and Slavery and we still profiting from it....
manmachine30 2 months ago
The problem with this argument is Ayn Rand doesn’t understand human behavior, she is under the illusion money is not a controlling force and speaks of capitalism as freedom. Nothing can be further from the truth, the brain interacts with the environment and functions through the contingencies of reinforcement and money is a major motivator, thus we must not regurgitate ignorant superstitions that choosing to make money is done through our free will.
i2v2s 2 months ago
Instead we must replace aversive controls with positive reinforcement. Blowhards like Ayn Rand must be taught freedom and dignity are illusions AND self initiating forces in the brain that are not subject to infinite regression are wrong, we must go beyond freedom and dignity and learn to live long and prosper with Applied Behavioral Analysis/Behavioral Science.
i2v2s 2 months ago
We are of course unique individuals because of unique experiences, but we must constantly adapt by using behavioral science over laughable cultural superstition championed by ignorant fools/intellectuals to benefit everyone.
i2v2s 2 months ago
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The Truth about Ayn Rand slate.com/articles/arts/books/2009/11/how_ayn_rand_became_an_american_icon.html
kropotkinbeard1 2 months ago
A fixed mind is a diseased mind. In a free society individualism and collectivism can coexist in the same economic and political system. Force of either system on proponents of the other can not exhist in a free society.
grecorivera941 2 months ago
@grecorivera941 individualism = choice, free society collectivism = force, planned society
they are incompatible
fzqlcs 2 months ago
@fzqlcs Untrue I can impose my will as an individual on another individual and completely take away all of there freedoms. Hence force of any systemic ideology hinders freedom. our system currently impededs both individual and collective freedoms in favor of legislative force driven by economic coersion. If the government inforced only laws that protected citezens from criminal acts and enforced contracts then successful collectives would emerge. Only forced collectivism is doomed to fail.
grecorivera941 2 months ago
The conservative plan of stopping government spending, would very quickly pop the bubbles and would probably mean immediate recession or depression, but it would be a trifle compared to what would come if we forestalled it with liberal spending. There is no painless way out, we are headed for some very, very, bad times.
calm161 2 months ago
I never understood the liberal policy of spend spend spend until I learned about the bubbles. The base of their whole policy is on a half-truth, government spending is saving the economy. In the short term yes, it pumps more money into the bubbles, forestalling their bursting. the con is that the boom will be much bigger, and we much weaker, when it finally comes.
calm161 2 months ago
Whether we follow the "conservative" economic plan or the "liberals" one thing will remain the same, our economy will suffer a massive blow shortly as bubbles such as the dollar, discretionary spending, real estate, and the stock market begin to pop. The difference between the two plans is this "now" or "later" , it is too late to avoid it.
calm161 2 months ago
The historical evidence is clear: welfare reduces poverty, and the lack of it increases it. In the 1920s, fully half of all Americans could not make ends meet. Roosevelt's New Deal programs had reduced poverty to about 20 percent in the 50s. Johnson's Great Society reduced this to 11.1 percent by 1973. Since the rise of the corporate special interest system in 1975, individual welfare benefits have been shrinking, and poverty has been steadily rising, to over 15 percent today.
Scootertuner1000 2 months ago
FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WANT EQUALITY :
WHY STOP EQUALITY WITH MATERIAL THINGS WHY NOT DEMAND EQUALITY AS SEXUAL JUSTICE.
ALL BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WHO MARRY RICH GUY ARE EVIL HEARTLESS PPL , SUCH WOMEN SHOULD BE FORCED TO HAVE SEX WITH POOR UNATTRACTIVE MEN TO ENSURE SEXUAL JUSTICE.
SAME FOR MEN , ALL RICH GOOD LOOKING MEN TO BE FORCED BY GOVERNMENT TO DATE UGLY FAT WOMEN TO ENSURE JUSTICE.
rakeshprabhuchannel 2 months ago
Before I explain these two, you must understand my view of Wallstreet. It represents two very different groups, the producers and the takers. The takers, who are the general view of the people towards wall street, are very much interested in power plays such as the ones you described, for they are right in one thing, control of resources=enormous power.
calm161 3 months ago
The interviewer was wrong indeed on the monopoly. If a gigantic oil company wants to chargeyou $2.5 a gallon, smaller oil companies will be able to grow, because if they charge only $1.75, they will get all the customers the gigantic oil company once had. Therefore, the small company will be able to grow, and the gigantic one will be out of business within a year or so. This is only possible if the government allows people to start their own business, and allows them to compete with the others
026SH 3 months ago
@026SH In theory, yes. The theory of capitalism is that a smaller more efficient firm will topple a bigger less efficient one. However, this is not always true. Wal Mart was competitors, yet the business continues to grow and stifles smaller businesses from growing because they offer such low prices. Wal Mart has also bought out competitors, much like Microsoft did, to insure they will not be taken down.
disclaimer05 2 weeks ago
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@disclaimer05, How is Wal Mart less efficient? Monopoly doesn't mean 'has much of the market share'. How can wal mart offer lower prices than a competitor? Just because you want the same niche doesn't mean that you're competitive. Wal mart sucks in many ways. And in that fact, smaller outlets can offer specialized service and compete. If you want higher quality and not dirt-low prices, then you can go to Target, etc.
LucisFerre1 1 week ago
Fate vs free will...really deep stuff.
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
I also saw the movie Amadeus, and that can be a bit haunting, too.
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
This book haunts me. Rand opened my eyes and made me realize the errors of my ways, and I'd like to turn around, but I get depressed over all those choices I made in the past.
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
I never did well in school and it affected where I now go to college. Up until I read Atlas Shrugged, her message really hit home...something no one has ever really done before. I'm upset now because I feel it's too late to improve my life and get a scholarship and go to an ivy league school and get a great job. I just want to know it's not too late.
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
I keep acting on the idea that no matter how hard I try, I won't be successful...that I won't be a great person. I definitely have self-fulfilling prophecies that take a huge toll on my self-esteem, and it pains me to say that I "mooch" off my mom. I'm only 19, but the characters I read about in the book started working at 12. I started working at 17. What does that say about me? Anyone willing to comment?
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
@MovieMaster0001 I don't think that people should "mohammedize" Rand's fictional characters in this way: "Well Francisco did this or so and so is like this therefore that's what I should do." That's not she wrote her books. She wanted you to apply the moral principles that made her characters possible to your own life, not the concretes. Virtuall no one starts working at 12. That doesn't mean you can't be a great person or achieve alot in your life.
reneekatz666 3 months ago
I get what Ayn Rand says and I support it 100%. I know that I should strive to be the best I can be in a capitalistic way. But I can't stop thinking about the negatives. What if the best I can be pales in comparison to the genius who cures cancer? Is life worth living if I'm genetically doomed to rot in obscurity, as opposed to the person who graduates from Cambridge or Oxford, making loades of money? I'm afraid of not being able to do what I want to do. I'm afraid of not becoming a great person
MovieMaster0001 3 months ago
The key difference is choice. You don't have a choice when you are being physically robbed or your life is taken. On the other hand the vendor, for example, is volition in practice. If you can't make the choice to make an informed decision, then you may be taken advantage of. The main fault is not with the vendor however, it is with you. For not using your reason and intellect to make an intelligent decision you were very capable of making, if you chose to.
calm161 3 months ago
wow so right! capitalism is flawless, I mean America has a waaaay better economy than germany,norway,canada, australia etc!
coopmuch56 3 months ago
@coopmuch56 I think you'll find that that's actually incorrect... Germany is actually one of the economic power-houses of the entire world. America's economy has actually been in serious recession since 2008 in case you haven't heard!
LaDutchMagazine 3 months ago
@LaDutchMagazine i was being sarcastic lol
coopmuch56 3 months ago
@coopmuch56 Oh...my bad! Forgive me, I thought you were another one of these free-market fanatics who refuse to acknowledge the blatantly obvious short-comings of capitalism and the fact that it arguably has never really existed in technical terms, given the fact that bail-outs for corporations are simply just another form of welfare (effectively negating the very function of a 'free market', but then to Rand's credit, she draws this distinction during her talk on 'Monopolies')
LaDutchMagazine 3 months ago
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Suzy Greenberg
Wrothchild 3 months ago
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some psychological warfare tactics are meant to completely paralyze people mentally. If every person in a persons life friend and foe attacks an the same individual it is meant to freeze a persons mind and shut them down. This tactic would be used to make some one go insane if employed against them when they are right and wrong. Psychological warfare.
fhandington 3 months ago
God, this woman was brilliant.
theyeti101101 3 months ago
@activenetzwerke May I state one fact. The companies who had large monopolies in those days, and those who could do practically anything to their workers, had only one way to do this: government support. They used legislation to their favor as a weapon against the worker, which led to the worker rising up and doing the exact same thing. Now suppose that we had a separation of economy and government, laissez faire if you will, what legislation could then be used as a weapon?
calm161 3 months ago
The only qualm I have with her is the fact that there are some important economic things that only government can or will do: building freeways, bridges, railroads, electrical grids etc. Why would a private company spend 20 billion of its investors money when they wouldn't see a profit for the next 10 years?
luridplanet 3 months ago
What Constitution did Rand read? The Preamble to the Constitution CLEARLY supports collectivisit government BY, FOR and OF the PEOPLE. The free market is destructive. The concept that markets regulate themselves is like saying a bank putting the depositors cash on the sidewalk&expecting it to be there in the morning. America depends on the COLLECTIVE people participating in government and setting the course for WISE REGULATION. Rand is a hypocrite who took welfare, Social Security & Medicare.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas May I ask what you mean? The famous words you quoted were to ensure the individuals freedom from the government, to ensure it the role of servant to the people. I'll also quote another phrase from the same document
"pursuit of happiness" this is not possible in a collectivist society,where happiness is what the top tells you it is.
May I ask how free market ruins? when It has provided this country with unprecedented wealth, power, and freedom. An honest question
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Perhaps a little historical background might help you. The colonial Americans were oppressed by the British capitalists who were in league with a corrupt king. The Brits talked him into oppressing the colonialists with taxes to support them. A good example is the tax that the Boston Tea Party was about taxes put on tea consumed in America but sold by the East India Tea Party, a corporate entity. Today we have a repeat offense committed by Randites in corporate America who pay no tax.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas I wish to make a key distinction. the Britsh weren't capitalists, they were mercantilists. The key difference being the latter is more or less under government influence. In true capitalism, separation of government and economy, capitalists would have no federal clout and would be regulated by pure competition. Also, reason for british taxes was to pay for french & Indian war, nowhere near tax levels in Britain. 3rd. the top earners pay most, in form of corporate gains tax
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 The Constitution was NOT meant to insure the success of capitalism though some claim that. It WAS meant to give ultimate control of the government to the PEOPLE of the the US. The Constitution, especially the Preamble says it over and over. Now since we have majority rule then that means ANYTHING that the PEOPLE through their representatives want with the exclusions listed in the Bill of Rights. That means we have a collectivist society. E PLURIBUS UNUM. Case closed.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas You state that the constitution wasn't meant to provide capitalism. Could you please provide me with another system that you think would be the ideal alternative to capitalism, without infringing on the rights of the individual. As you are quoting the constitution I will point out the heart of the document is Amendment one through ten, which deal with the rights of the individual man. From the preamble the quote "secure the Blessings of Liberty" stands out as the main purpose.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Americans can have absolutely any economic system they want since the majority rules. There are good and bad economic systems and truly capitalism has many bad aspects of it. It is up to the PEOPLE to decide what is best for them and the free flow of information can enhance their decision making IF that is supported by such things as the Fairness Doctrine. The Bill of Rights is NOT the heart of the Constitution, per se since it was an afterthought, an addendum.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas I apologize, but the bill of rights is were not the creation of the founding fathers. The precept of natural rights of man had been past down from the dawn of civilization. Always in a whisper, until the day would come when the individual could be free. 1791 was the pinnicle of millenia of thought on individual rights.
Rights that no majority could ever take away, or have the right to take away. that was how the concept of bicameralism came about: majority balanced by state.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 The first ten Amendments to the Constitution are not all individual rights. The Second Amendment is a COLLECTIVE right of WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. That is what it says and that is what it means although the NRA and the gun lobby has a different, and incorrect, interpretation.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas May I point out that while militias are indeed mention, that is mentioned separately, in the first half of the one sentence amendment. I will quote the second half which is notably separate, mentioned "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" clearly a different part than "A well regulated Militia", which already implies armaments.
calm161 3 months ago
May I point out that while Militia are mentioned in the first half of the one sentence amendment, the right to bear arms is in the latter half. quoted "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." This can be logically determined separate from militia, as the term "well regulated milita" already implies armaments.
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas The word "collective" is found nowhere in the 2nd Amendment
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 But it IS found in the history books talking about the protection of gun ownership for WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. The Revolutionary War was started by a COLLECTIVE, the WELL REGULATED MILITIA at Lexington when the British Army marched on them. The Well Regulated Militia had an armory, had a command structure, had regular drills and a stated purpose, the defense of their local community.There is no other explanattion why the Brits marched on them, collectively.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@calm161 It was the WELL REGULATED MILITIA that fought and won the Revolutionary war and the first president and attendee at the Constitutional Congress led those WELL REGULATED MILITIAS and there is NO DOUBT, NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that the Second Amendment is a COLLECTIVE right. I will however, admit that many interpret it otherwise but have not so well hidden agendas.
On another note, it appears that there are many who ignore the history and have achieved severe gun control on America.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas There are a few things i would wish to say on this topic. Yes, regulated militias are part of it, that's one of the few areas the constitution allows government authority. May I ask why such a passion for restricting guns? The true criminals who use them harmfully get them illegally anyway. Marajuana for instance, is illegal, but still easily obtained. In fact the only ones gun laws restrict are the people who follow the laws. So logically, gun control laws endanger the public
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas come now my friend, all men have an agenda. It's the men that hide theirs behind vague explanations that one must be wary of.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 And the vague explaination of the NRA and the gun lobby is that a only partially armed group of disorganized and untrained citizens will keep us free. NOT so, NOT SO AT ALL. The WELL REGULATED MILITIA that the Second Amendment was written to protect drilled regularly, had a command structure and stated goals. They had an armory which included high caliber artillary and explosives which was well defended by the well regulated militia. Defended from the drunken mob that now carries guns.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Even though this is all besides the point ill add a few things. Militia weren't the only factor in the continental army, actually, many if not most of the soldiers were ordinary civilians(with their own guns). The point your side is trying to make is that taking the gun away from the clerk behind the counter while the guy robbing the place can easily get one will make the country free. This has baffled me, i see no logic in it, maybe you could help me out?
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 I regret that you are confused about the Founders position and the historical references behind the Second Amendment but since so many people including the Supreme Court also got it wrong, the it is understandable. Due to youtube space limitation and because I tend to be a little wordy, I will take it in two parts. First, I believe that the Founders intend the well regulated militia to be the vanguard of peacekeeping and defense of the nation and also domestic peacekeeping.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Confused? I try not to be. Maybe this will explain why I'm confused. A little quote from the founding father Thomas Jefferson ""No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" this links to what I said in the above comment. I tend to think direct quotes give a clear meaning to intentions.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 I have heard other direct quotes from some of the Founders like that before but you see here is the rub. When they met for the Constitution Congress they did NOT use the general population language that some claim. They were specific to reference the justification to be WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. NOT militias,NOT the general public and NOT universal. A well regulated militia refers to the militias that won the Revolutionary War under Gen. Washington. MY way and THEIR way makes a better US
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas As I have shown: Gramatically: Militia is stated separately in the second amendment, Rationally: they would want a people with power of resistance: i.e Decalaration of Independence stated they have a right and duty to remove future repressive government.
Historically: have offered you words of mouth from a prominent founding father.
Logically: criminals would still have guns if they were made illegal if you have a problem with any of these feel free to attack it openly
calm161 3 months ago
Uneducated? quiet the contrary, it is the fact that they recognize individuals right to weapons that made them on the cutting edge. They had nothing to go on to create the founding pillars of the nation but some writings from Locke and Montesque. Any unenlightened dicator can make his army the only power in the country, but imagine the foresight required to put a portion of the power of force into the hands of the private citizen. This was one of the great equalizers of all world history.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Your comment leads me to believe that you still do not understand. Like the WELL REGULATED MILITIA at Lexington, the Founder, as is clear from the Second Amendment and their wise and knowledgeable standing, intended for independent, well regulated, community based militias to keep the peace, protect the borders and surpress armed rebellions...just like Lexington did. Now try to extrapolate the communities that would have supported such a well regulated militia.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas I know very well were you are coming from. well regulated militias were essential for the colonies survival and were granted protection in the second amendment. I've granted that, it's you who are having trouble understanding what I am saying, or are pretending not to. Any entity, including militia, not controlled directly by you, which it's not, and has potential power over you, which it has. Grants the right of individual weapons.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Well that goes without saying. Even my neighbors have that potential, in fact, anyone in the whole world, has that potential. So I guess we agree on that part. But that is also a non sequitor in the sense that we have a collecitve form of government and no man is an island. We have laws and a society which basically means we support each other. Now one way the Founders intended us to support each other was to protect the WELL REGULATED MILITIAS. Got it?
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Around and around we go. yes well regulated militia, balanced by private gun ownership, which is also protected.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 No, NOT around we go since you and the gun loan INFER that the Second Amendment was intended for general gun ownership which as it says, it is not. Never assume that I agree with that position, although if you and the NRA wish to amend the Constitution to say that then good luck with that.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas you infer that the second part of the amendment is only a redunancy, which is illogical and impractical. we obviously don't agree and aren't going to. My pondering has obviously yielded different conclusions than yours. We each think the other blind, which is probably a good description for the whole country right now. Though I see no logic in your position,or in most left leaning positions, argueing never truly changed any mans mind.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Well, thanks for being generally polite and that is refreshing. While we disagree we don't need to be insulting or practice one upmanship, Is if fair to say that you lean toward the libertarian view? While you to me wrong when you claim that I am a liberal I understand that those who oppose the NRAs interpretation of the Second are often painted with that label. I am a Vietnam veteran and the Eisenhower Republican, anti-war and anti-fascist and anti-NEOCON and a Christian.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas One, thank you for your service to the country. And you don't have to be a liberal to have a few left leaning views. Man isn't cut and dry, but a mix of sometimes conflicted parts. I'm a conservative, though I do tend to lean a little libertarian these days. I am generally anti-anyone that claims to a have a right to force you against your will. I thank you to for your politeness and maybe we'll run into each other again on the discussion boards
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 I apologize from dragging this on too long, but your parting comment made me think about what are the obligations of a citizen. You say that you generally are anti-anyone who forces you against your will and I have heard that before but, and I don't like hypotheticals, what if you were a bank robber is didn't like getting arrested or simply a speeder who wanted to go 95 in a school zone. We are ALL connected and as citizens we buy into majority rule and majority force.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas always up for another one. There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. laws that protect mens natural rights, such as the right not to be robbed, are naturally freeing laws. Government is not useless, its true duty is to protect mens individual freedoms through collective agreement. I'll use the cliche that government is like a fire. Very useful, but deadly if left uncontrolled. We are all connected, but for the benefit of the individual.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Perhaps we are making some progress, then. SO what is the difference between the right not to be robbed and the right not to be robbed by your employer or even a corrupt vendor? It is a natural right to have food if you are disabled? In a sense, I do not see it necessarily as a right unless the majority of the citizens say it is, but rather an opportunity to show your humanity, your dedication to a higher authority to help the man beaten beside the road or the hungry child.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas The employer, on the hand, is a very fine line. Do I think that workers should be abused? of course not, I was as appalled by The Grapes of Wrath and The Jungle as the next guy. The difference being that I recognized the decisive factor in their ability to to abuse the workers: government legislators and insiders. Is it as rational as they say to involve more legislators and more insiders? Answering poison with poison? why not simply separate the two? pure capitalism is rational
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Do I think a man has a duty to help others? yes I do, but I don't believe that they should ever be forced to. Men are not sheep, they have a right to choose for themselves, simply because they are able to. Government is a group of men no more less competent than I, why should I allow them to make any rational decision for me? Government is a mediocrity and a poor replacement for the rational mind.
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas The key difference is choice. You don't have a choice when you are being physically robbed or your life is taken. On the other hand the vendor, for example, is volition in practice. If you can't make the choice to make an informed decision, then you may be taken advantage of. The main fault is not with the vendor however, it is with you. For not using your reason and intellect to make an intelligent decision you were very capable of making, if you chose to.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 I disagree and here is why. There many times, in fact, often when you have no choice. There is ONLY one person, one supplier or one manufacturer or even worse in a deregulated market the vendors that do exist collude and conspire to fix prices or limit variation and that is what we have today. Are you familiar with the ENRON debacle in California were the CEO bought off the CA legislature to DEregulate their electric market and they used that to steal EIGHT BILLION dollars?
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas I will point out several things, the reason for the deregulation in the first place was that the previously heavily regulated or public electric grid was old, stagnant, and unable to supply California's rapidly increasing population. Deregulation made it able to handle the demand quite easily, and if it weren't for a few dishonest men,it would have been quite successful.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Of course, I disagree on many levels. Here is an actual comparison. I worked on a project for Ken Lay of ENRON to company electricity rates in various location basically to shame HL&P (Reliant Energy) to do business with them. The Reliant South Texas Nuclear Plant built by HALLIBURTON generated electricity at 16.9 cents/KwH. The ENRON Cogen plant in Texas City generated it at 6.9 cents/KwH. Omaha PUBLIC power a government owned highly regulated plant generated it a 4.4 cent/Kwh.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas I won't argue the point on the corruption of ENRON as you've had the experience of working with them and have obviously done your homework on the topic. There are however, some that I will offer opposition to. The need for "wise regulation", "corporations with no citizen rights", "the evil of Ayn Rands ideas" and I'll indulge myself on a tangent on Vietnam, since you brought it up
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 And the Watertown, SD plant which was in the ENRON market area as was OPPD, generated electricity at...wait for it....1.1 cents/Kwh because it had a government built hydro plant on the Missouri river. Now these numbers are old, quite old from the late eighties but it does point out the differences between corporate generated services and well run government services. There are, I am sure, poorly run examples of both but these are not apples and oranges. America NEEDS regulation.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Now for the phrase "wise regulation" what is that exactly, who draws the lines and where? Our regulations now are thousands of pages in length. And the big corporations don't have a problem meeting them, but the small businesses do. Spending so much time on them that their business suffers.
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Even corporations are run and owned by citizens(much of the time), Do they not have a say in how they are run simply because they own it? The "people" are not just those living in projects, but the ones in penthouses as well.
calm161 3 months ago
@exenrontexas As for Ayn Rand's ideas being evil, I believe quite the contrary, my belief is it teaches an important message. That man is truly capable of thinking for himself, of taking care of himself, with no welfare state monitering his every faltered step. Maybe perspective for her ideas would come from a look at her past. She was a teenager in Soviet Russia. She lived with the reality of the individual meaning nothing, being swallowed in the mass of the state.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 I'm giving up on Rand. See accepted welfare, ie) Medicare and Social Security like a sneaky little scoundrel.
teapartyxpress 3 months ago
@calm161 America needs WISE regulation such as was attempted by Brooksley Born, the Clinton regulator who tried to reign in the derivitive madness that Sen. Phil Gramm and the FED chairman, Greenspan were aggressively promoting. And to bring it full circle, Gramm was elected with ENRON stolen money and his wife, Wendy, was an ENRON director. I have photos. I believe the OWS folks are EXACTLY what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitutional protections of free speech & assembly
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Actually, one of their methods to simulate overload and crowding of lines was to let through less power than the lines were capable of producing. The question is not efficiency but honesty. Now lets look at what they were hoping to gain, a huge sum of money from prices raised hundreds of dollars per megawatt. Lets look at what happened: Exron went bankrupt, The Ceo was prosecuted and would have lost everything if he would not have had the convenience of dying.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Well the crimes at ENRON and the very, very few of the criminals that were prosecuted with very, VERY light sentences would have continued except for ONE person who blew the whistle and even Sharon Watkins wanted Ken Lay to cover it up. What Lay lost when Watkins confronted him was plausible deniability. He already knew there was major crimes going on since many people, including me, already told him but I am not a banker or an accountant so we lacked crediblity.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@calm161 There were HUNDREDS of felons working at ENRON and the TENS OF THOUSANDS of honest employees paid the price for their crimes. He is one way how. Ken Lay got Mitch McConnell and Phil Gramm to rewrite the ERISA laws governing ESOPs which allowed Lay to use the hundreds of million of employee money as his personal slush fund which he used to cover up his bad management and then he cooked the booked to generate a higher stock price, sold stock to partially pay it back.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@calm161 In the end, Lay got up on stage before a large employee meeting and declared that the rumors of fraud at ENRON were untrue and that every employee should go out and buy stock. THEN he went back to his office and solf FIFTY MILLION of his own stock and FROZE the ESOP so no one else could sell theirs. MANY other executives did the same and only a very few were indicted. The Republican judge ruled not to use RICO laws, most of the crooked accountants and lawyers got OFF.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Now, lets look at another interesting comment you made, they bought off the state legislature. and I sincerely doubt that that was the end of government involvement. As all monopolies, their power to control was lent them by an agreement with the government, As I have said before, separate the two. Would most business men act in the same manner? I don't believe they would. Most have little to gain from the destruction of their business.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 What do you mean "lent them". The PEOPLE always had that right and the government IS the people by definition as described in the Constitution. The Constitution is the frame work for government BY, FOR and OF the people and the PEOPLE have ALWAYS had the right and ability to guide, correct and even punish wrong doing by government. It is possible for 2/3 of the State legislatures to completely rewrite the Constitution. The concept that a corporation has citizen rights is laughable.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@calm161 Mr. Lay served in the US Navy near the end of the war in Vietnam under Nixon. He was an analyst and economic researcher and wrote a report for Nixon which strongly encouraged the CONTINUATION of the war in Vietnam for the sake of the US economy. He was a strong proponent of DEregulation and a huge fan of Ayn Rand. However, please do not assume that is the only reason that I distain Rand. It is the core of her ideas that attract and inspire men like Lay to do great evil.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Was the vietnam war a lie? yes
Should we have gone in? no Should we have stayed in? yes
by the fact of leaving we were saving american lives,yes, but effectively abandoning all our native allies who had declared their support for us to be slaughtered by the communists, women and children alike. That was a sad day for our honor
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 WOW. I am amazed that you keep bringing up events that I have personal knowledge about. I served TAD during the Vietnam war though not during the Tonkin Gulf incident on the USS Turner Joy which was one of the two US destroyers in Aug., '64 that were allegedly attacked by N. Vietnam which LBJ used as the excuse to officially start the war in Vietnam. JFK had ordered our troops REMOVED from Vietnam, LBJ cancelled those orders.We were warned us of the military industrialist complex.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Your personal experience is one of the reasons I brought it up. Always interesting to hear history in in first-person narratives. The south vietnamese government were a bunch of incompetent dictators, enough so for monks to set themselves on fire in protest. But they were not in the same league as the communists.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Both Robert McNamara and the US Navy have officially stated that the Tonkin Gulf incident...NEVER HAPPENED and NO ONE I met in the sixties on that ship believed it either. The S. Vietnam government rarely if ever represented the majority of the people. The people were mostly Buddhist and the goverment was mostly Catholic and installed by the French colonialists. Ho Chi Minh turned to Communism mostly because they gave him weapons and support for a NATIONALISTIC war.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Frankly, what makes corruption and conspiracies possible is the majority's problem with seeing the big picture. Their attention is guided so easily it's disturbing, it all depends on what the news tell them to look at. They cry socialism to feel a part of some grand movement, without looking across the Atlantic at the decay of the once all-powerful Europeans. They decry the free-market, without even knowing what created American wealth in the first place. All borrowed opinions
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Well I certainly agree that the public often act as sheep but not always. If you recall a man named Daniel Ellsberg who published the Pentagon Papers which revealed some of the deceit of forces in the US government in it's dealings with Vietnam. Wikileaks is our version of that today and it demonstrates the importance of transparency in government actions. Personally I believe the ONLY acceptable government secrets are those which deal directly with the safety of GIs in the battlefield
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@calm161 Ho WAS evil and brutal and inhuman and a monster but he was fighting a war to free his people from foreign powers which Vietnam had been trying to do for a THOUSAND years. SO here is the nexus of these two ideas. LBJ, Nixon and Ken Lay were making money from the blood of US GIs and Vietnamese. JFK and Daniel Ellsberg and some others wanted Vietnam people to determine their own course. Marine General Smedley Butler said that most US wars were started by and for the benefit of WALL STREET
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Well that's nothing new, there's only one thing that the majority of wars in history were fought over, money. Wall Street may carry some blame for corruption, but I personally think that our attention is being diverted there to be prevented from seeing the big picture. people love a scape goat, always have. The truth is wall street has no power to declare wars, only potential bribe power to start it for them. If this is so, doesn't ultimate blame lie with government corruption?
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 One of my heroes is Marine General Smedley Butler who was the highest decorated American serviceman since Washington. He served 34 years, fought in FIVE wars and was awarded the Marine Brevet Medal and TWO Congressional Medals of Honor and after he retired he wrote the book "War is a Racket" where he accused WALL STREET of being behind most US wars. The US has invaded Mexico several times, Cuba a couple of times and several ofther S. Am countries for...PROFIT.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas The irony in that is that the dark side of Wall street is woven in with government. I believe the correct term is the "revolving door". may I cite the example of Goldman Sachs, where many if not most top men have held ultra-high levels of government posts, and vice-versa where top officials were once employee's there.
Now, the problem I personally see with regulating Wall street is two parts. Technically and consequence
calm161 3 months ago
SO why did we invade all those countries? They would have happily sold their resources anyhow, wouldn't they? I believe that must like Iraq, it was so multinational corporations could control the sale of those resources to whoever they wished not only for profit but for POWER as well. Most Iraq oil goes NOT to the US but to Asia and continues to do so today and those who control Iraqi oil have control to some degree over COMMUNIST RED CHINA. Now on to Afghanistan.
exenrontexas 3 months ago
@exenrontexas Technically, as the takers have power in government, i.e the example of goldman sachs, then any regulations passed on Wall Street to appease the people will be influenced by these men to have as little affect on the takers as possible, even diverting the regulations to harm the producers instead. Wall street is not just huge corporations, but affects and represents the entire world of small business. which leads to the second part.
calm161 3 months ago
Consequence: the call of the people today for a general sweep of regulation of Wall street has many factors to consider. If this happens,even in a scenario where the taker corporations have absolutely no power to influence government affairs, two things will happen. The corporations will lose power, and small business will founder under the weight of hefty regulations intended for corporations, but applying to everybody. The best example is having a rotten finger and amputating the whole hand.
calm161 3 months ago
@calm161 Hmmm.....well PERHAPS that might be the scenario it depends on the wisdom of the regulation and WHO is doing the regulation. The public's PERCEPTION of the regulation may not be accurate or even real and hopefully the internet and responsible social networking will be a guide in that regard. While I have been typing this I thought of a couple of dozen wise and useful regulations. Drug safety, food safety, transportation safety, auto safety and a few more. WITHOUT regulation, UNSAFE.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas yes, that links back to the "laws that set you free or enslave you" topic. but may I cause you to ponder that you named four, and mentioned a few moregood ones existed. yet there are thousands of regulations on the books, in fact so many are being written that if you started reading them, you'd never finish. Regulation, if anything, should represent a few basic, fundamental rules, and then let it go at that. most regulations are based on whims of ignorant politicians
calm161 2 months ago
@exenrontexas and these regulations do absolutely nothing to hurt corporations, they easily have enough assets and manpower to meet them. It's the producers, the small business men, that go out of business trying to meet petty rules and regulation. In my opinion it's the government that needs to be regulated, and the people of the U.S, who's job that is, aren't doing it. In my mind government=incompetency and business=competency , simply because it requires it. Whom should regulate whom?
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Well this discussion seems to come down to a few points. One of them is WHO the government is. The Founders and many, many Americans past and present believe that government simply is the PEOPLE. So since we are supposed to have government by the consent of the governed (the majority) then the PEOPLE are regulating themselves and their own environment. SO who has opposed that basically since 1775? Large corporations since they use that power to take power from the PEOPLE.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas Your point is genuine. Except for a couple things I'd like to point out. I don't think the "people" care if every niche and cranny of an innocent small business, lets say, a store, is regulated. So these regulations must benefit somebody, and they are certainly not benefitting the people, in fact they are contrary to the people's interests. What scares me is many don't care.
calm161 2 months ago
@exenrontexas A too large percentage of the people don't seem to care or would prefer if the economic engine of America is turned into scrap metal to be sold to the highest bidder for temporary relief. We shouldn't have a debt problem, we feed the whole world, we have more potential oil in our continent than Saudi Arabia, and a great platform to start on. They don't care if they leave their children a shattered, rotting, 2nd rate nation, as long as they get "what they're entitled to".
calm161 2 months ago
@exenrontexas In the future, if a of the people majority take this position, I will not yield just because I am in the minority, I have a duty not to yield. That "majority" has no right whatsoever to take the America of my fathers away from my children. and i will fight them until the last. I think this topic will reach a head in the next few years, if that. My only goal is to use the knowledge I've gained about what created America to preserve it.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Well it seems to me that you will be fighting people who want to preserve the America that your great, great grandfathers fought to establish which is, as I have already said, government BY, FOR and OF the people with few special exceptions and here is one reason why and a flaw in the idea that markets regulate themselves and a humbling admission from a man who thought they would.
/watch?v=1bX_vhojH8c&feature=feedrec_grec_index
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas would you give a different pathway? can't get that one to to work when copyed. I disagree that they are standing for the same america, in my eyes they are standing for a welfare state. Which is the antithesis of our nation's being. Whatever the flaws in modern capitalism, it is the way forward, as our prosperity illustrates. Today's progressives are ironically regressive, falling on old ideas that have had many failed chances.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Try this one. /watch?v=36Y015HnlyI
It is Ron Reagan dissecting the belief of his fathers in failed economic principles. But MY view is that what ever principles are promoted should be fully discussed and debated so that the PEOPLE can decide their own course and what ever course they pick it the correct one. If it is capitalism then so be it, if it is socialism then so be it or what we actually have is a blending of the two. I think that the PEOPLE decide.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas There are many of those short clips on both sides. I've chosen the one which, in my view, presents the most evidence for prosperity. I would welcome a clip showing factual prosperity and freedom that accured as a result of socialism. But the shining stars of socialism are 2nd rate european powers, russia, communist china, and north Korea. while the star of capitalism is the United States, which is being dimmed quickly by socialistic ideas, will proof after proof ever suffice?
calm161 2 months ago
@exenrontexas I disagree with you on a trivial point. Though the people have the freedom to choose their course, that does not make it the correct one. two and two don't make five even if all the world insists it does. when germany voted for the nazis, or when the French revolution guillotined tens of thousands, was the majority in the right? on the contrary, many times it's easier to keep your mind clear and reasoned when standing against the tide, as opposed to being swept along with it.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Not necessarily so trivial and therefore the importance of due process, privacy, and the rest of the protections which protect individuals from the mob and from a mob driven government and also this. Given time and an educated people, the true will come out. In our time there have been many errors by the people which were to some degree encouraged or even guided by conservative capitalists. Do you think that looking back, the Germans despised what Hitler led them too or rationalized it?
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas In the same regard was America led to start the Vietnam war based on LBJs lies. And where ARE those WMDs in Iraq? Will the tea party look back and see that they were deceived by the path that the Koch brothers laid before them? Reagan's deregulations also led directly to the S&L crisis and the market collapse of '87 and later even ENRON CORP crimes. You make the case for regulation for me. Since there are evil men then doesn't the PEOPLE have the right to protect themselves?
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas apologize for delay, many are quick to riducule wmd's in Iraq, seems they've forgotten Saddam sprayed the Kurds like bugs with chemical weapons. Tea party is not about an organization, but about an ideal, back to the constituion and the free market. Government in this country has small business by the throat, I state again that regulation will never end coorporate greed as the men making the regulations are hand in hand with them. Productive business is all that suffers.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 - And the chemical weapons used on the Kurds were provided to Iraq by the U.S. government back when they were backing Iraq in their fight against Iran. There was a 60 Minutes episode back in the early 90's that exposed what those chemicals were and where they came from. You might be able to find it on Youtube.
Yes, the state has small business by the throat and is in bed with big business. Even the founder of Home Depot said he couldn't start Home Depot today in California due to regs
magentawave 2 months ago
@calm161 We were told many times the Saddam was planning a mushroom cloud that was imminent. That was a lie and nearly everyone now admits it so...why do you keep rationalizing for the liars? Saddam was a bad guy but there is nothing in the Constitution which allows us to rid the world of bad guys, is there? I stronly disagree that regulation hurts small business. There are LOTS of small businesses doing quite well. What DOES hurt them is the oppression by large corps who supply them.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas rationalizing? merely stating the facts and I do in fact believe we have a duty to rid the world of "bad guys" if we have the power to do so. So called "intellectuals" would have us believe that it is a people's culture that decides whether they are adapted to freedom or not, that is false. Whenever we have brought democracy to a nation the people turn up in a higher percentage than we do to vote, and those that don't are for the most part intimidated into abstaining.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 It seems that you have bought into the NEOCON view of American exceptionalism. In a sense this is a fascist concept. Hitler may have viewed France is being run by "bad guys" and her certainly viewed the Jews as "bad guys" and some were, but that NEVER gives Hitler or the US the right to unilaterally attack another country without first being attacked by them. This is what JFK fought in '63 and that is one of the reasons they murdered him. He ordered US troops OUT of Vietnam.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas I consider myself a rational man, and try to come at things from a rational point of view. Humans, as rational beings, who naturally seek freedom, come to the United States simply because it offers, or used to, an expansive package of freedoms ideally suited to the true, rational, human being in the heart of us all. Maybe I am called a neo-con because when I see girls whipped, raped, or killed for studying in the nations of sharia law and I object.
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Hmmm ...are you ignorant that girls are whipped and raped and killed her in the US...every day. And I personally have heard that crime defended by the very same people who condemned the Taliban for doing so. Hypocrisy is rampant in the NEOCON world like it was in fascist countries. There were many top Nazis and Fasicsts who were rapists, homosexuals and drug addicts. Then there were Reagans fascist death squads financed by drug sales to US children. They raped and murdered nuns.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas That's arguing for the sake of arguing. There's a major difference between here, where crimes of that nature are against the law and punished, and nations where that's an accepted punishment for trying to educate yourself as a female. Laws such as these are those that enslave men. No doubt many more of their women would want to come here than ours would want to go and live sharia law. Reagan fascist death squads? raped and murdered nuns?......hm elaborate please
calm161 2 months ago
@calm161 Ronald Reagan and his toadie minion Oliver North smuggled narcotics into the US in diplomatic pouches into the US to hit the street to be sold in school yard. I know that you would make all narcotics legal since that is the libertarian way. It is the children's fault for buying them in your view&they need to practice better personal responsibility but I suspect that even YOU would draw the line at North sending arms and money to Central America fascist to commits those crimes. Contras.
exenrontexas 2 months ago
@exenrontexas To begin with, as you would recall I was wrong to call you a liberal even though you do have some liberal leanings. Please extend the same courtesy, my actual words were I was leaning libertarian, not that I was one. I support many things libertarians oppose, and I could sum that up with "rational"(key word) government guidelines and controls. One of these is drugs. I respect the human mind, and I've seen what drugs turn it into. I'm against legalizing an enslaving substance.
calm161 2 months ago
@exenrontexas As with the Reagan claim, I'll have to read up on that, but even if it is true, sounds ominously like obama's fast and furious. With Rand I've studied her and I believe she was anything but a fool. An interesting fact about her was she was a teenager living in the thick of the Russion Revolution and later the Soviet Union. Her biases weren't just biases, they were modeled on her life experience. I think of her books as a warning. You're entitled to your own opinion.