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Point 1: Groups may have different strengths and weaknesses on the average. This makes us uncomfortable, but it still may be true. --> Point 1 is true.
Corollary to Point 1: All inequality is due to this fact. ---> Clearly this is false.
Point 2: Command economies don't work well and are associated with tyranny.
I have no clue what he's getting at. I suspect he's trying to say that individualism can overcome our discomfort with groups on the average having certain strengths/weaknesses because we don't have to be average. The cool stuff in the world happens far from the averages. I may be putting words in his mouth. Maybe he's just rambling.
If what I called "Corrollary to Point 1" were true, there would be nothing further to say about it.
That one claim is not true, making this a thornier issue.
I agree that individuals to engineer their own strengths and try not to get caught up on the nonsense. If I miss some big opportunity b/c I'm short or Albanian, it's hard to bounce back, but it's the only other option. "Identity politics" is a dead-end.
I think I agree with what he's trying to say if you discount the left/right stuff, which I think is nonsense, almost another brand of identity politics.
see? it's fast and most people get it
Only the left uses safety as an excuse to undermine individual liberty.
Check your premises. Just because some people proclaim themselves "on the right" doesn't make it so. Just because someone has safety concerns does not automatically mean they are trying to undermine individual liberty.
Why was there a shield over the gulch? Why was there a door at the power station which, if opened, would destroy the contents, utterly? Why was Dagny's freedom to leave the gulch conditional? Why was it expressed repeatedly that uninvited guests to the gulch would be unlikely to survive to leave?
Surely Galt and company were concerned with their safety...
You really believe that? Wow! I won't even dignify that with a response. (Oh, crap, I just did) :-)
Our Constitution granted us specific but not limited to freedoms that the Patriot Act dismantled. It was done in the name of safety and terrorism was labeled a new kind of threat against our citizens instead of calling it what it really is-a tactic. If you cannot fight a faceless enemy you should not be able to tell your citizens they lose precious personal liberties to it.
Regardless of whether an individual(s) identifies with the Right or the Left, does not change the fact that a majority of the Right is in favor of TSA, martial law in an emergency, accepting out of control law enforcement tactics, etc.
your
premises
Bush is a progressive
The Republican party is controlled by progressives.
Just because they're to the right of Obama doesn't make them on the right.
That view of guilt probably stems from the Biblical admonition that the wicked flee when no man pursueth. It's also, generally speaking, true. It's also, generally speaking, irrelevant.
Our Constitution granted us NOTHING.
Our Constitution PROTECTS our freedoms.
Please cite one example where the Patriot Act was used in violation of a citizen's Constitutionally protected rights.
I don't know anyone on the right (and I tend not to associate with those who aren't) who favors TSA. Most of us on the right recognize who the enemy is and what we must do to defeat them, but you utopian objectivists, libertarians and socialists won't let us do what we have to do, so the *left*, gets the TSA. Yes, I favor martial law *in an emergency*, but how I define "emergency" and how progressives might define it is a different matter. Chinese troops landing in Manhatten... yeah, martial law.
There is a difference between a tactic which violates Constitutionally protected rights in order to combat an enemy and a regulation designed to evoke fear and protect against an unimportant threat.
You're really concerned about Constitutionally protected rights? Fine, then I'm sure you're in favor of citizens being able to carry arms unrestricted on flights, which was the surest was to prevent another 9/11.
But, this is how we're being double-teamed. The progressives who control the Republican party use the traditional (but false) equation of Republican = conservative to put forward the notion that the right is really just the same as the left, and the middle (which is evil) is really "right". By which tactic the country is slowly pulled farther and farther left.
What I did say was that the Republican party is *controlled by* progressives. Progressives are not conservatives. What I did say was that just because you're to the right of Obama, it doesn't make you on the right.
Not all Republicans are progressives; not all are conservatives. But, those *controlling the party* are progressives.
I didn't say anything about "true conservatives" or "fake conservatives". However, a true conservative would be someone who's truly conservative.
Nice try at using a typical leftist tactic, immediately invoking "hate" on the part of those with whom you fundamentally disagree.
I was responding directly to this statement