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What Rand said about the rights of nations

Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 1 month ago to Government
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A majority of Gulchers either have never read this or have chosen to ignore it because it does not fit their understanding of Objectivism.

From the Ayn Rand lexicon, under National Rights:

"A nation, like any other group, is only a number of individuals and can have no rights other than the rights of its individual citizens. A free nation—a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens— has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government. The government of such a nation is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense) . . . .

Such a nation has a right to its sovereignty (derived from the rights of its citizens) and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations."

“Collectivized ‘Rights,’”
The Virtue of Selfishness, 103
SOURCE URL: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/national_rights.html


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    Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
    In any attempt to understand or incorporate statements or even phrases in those statements made by Ayn Rand in the years after Atlas Shrugged in which she fleshed out her philosophy of Objectivism, one must first apply the 'first principles' of Objectivism.

    These attempts to find within AR's statements, justification or rationalization for beliefs in exclusionary border controls and the application of pre-emptive force to individuals arriving at those borders, can only be pursued by denying (or misunderstanding) the 'first principles' of Objectivism (which is egoistic and individualistic), or by attempting to work backwards from a desired conclusion, illogically.

    One of the best examples of the above is the previous posts' comparison of 'Galt's Gulch' and a nation (the U.S.) and attempts to derive from that, justification for an exclusionary and preemptively forcable immigration activity. The two entities bear no comparable identity. Galt's Gulch was private property of Midas Mulligan working with John Galt to 'hide' it's existence from the rest of the world, and intended to be and operate as a refuge for the productive of the world. Galt and the other operatives of 'The Gulch' operated well within the Objectivist ideals of 'property rights' of an individual in their invitations to selected others and in selling or renting portions of Gulch property to those others, including mutually recognized and accepted contractual obligations and terms.

    That description bears no resemblance to a geo-political, bounded nation, inhabited by 'free men' owning or renting their own private property with the right to change their properties and locals, and providing for their mutual defense a government for the strict purposes of applying retributive force against jurisdictional violators of individual rights, and against extra-territorial violators of those same individual rights and freedoms. Such government and government actors are restricted by Objectivist thought and by the Constitution of the US, to only retributive force, while preventive force is only available to individuals exercising properly understood private property rights derived from individual and natural rights.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      If one is going to take a direct quote from The Virtue of Selfishness and choose to re-interpret it based on one's application of the 'first principles' of Objectivism rather than to accept the quote at face value for what it said, then Objectivism will no longer be ... objective. Given that logic, Objectivism will suffer from one problem that has long plagued Christianity. With every person being able to interpret Objectivism for himself/herself rather than what Ayn Rand said herself, Objectivism will dissolve into splinter groups, each of which has a slightly different interpretation.... Didn't that already happen once?

      When anyone can set himself/herself up as being able to re-interpret what Rand meant rather than stick to what she said or wrote, we wind up with what William Shipley wrote, "And now Ayn Rand is not an Objectivist."
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      • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
        You are re-interpreting Ayn Rand by dropping context. She explained what she meant in terms of her own principles.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          With regard to context, am I expected to quote the entire book? I included as much context as the Ayn Rand Institute thought was sufficient context on their web site.

          You're right that Rand explained what she meant in terms of her own principles. I quoted it directly just so that this wouldn't be deemed out of context. If you are going to quote Rand's philosophy like a Bible thumper, you had better expect that when others do the same, to be held to the same standards.
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          • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
            Yes you are expected to read the book to understand it. You can't learn a philosophy by reading disconnected out of context quotes. The Ayn Rand Lexicon is a reference book (compiled by Harry Binswanger and later donated for the ARI website) to bring related quotes on specific topics together, not a substitute for reading and understanding. It is not "Bible thumping" and ARI did not add your false interpretations misrepresenting Ayn Rand. Your attack is offsensive and irrational.
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              The statement at the top of the thread says what it says. As for the down-vote trolls being at it again, as per usual, I am not the downvoter. However, unlike how I frequently do, I am not going to restore your lost points.

              I have read The Virtue of Selfishness now, and my quote was not a misrepresentation. It was in context. When I make my own interpretations, I say so.
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
        j; you are a scientist by education and practice, and although it may have been a number of years ago, the first thing you had to do to be able to learn your science was to learn the 'language' of your science, including basic definitions. Then you begin studying first principles and progressed from their and as you did, you also expanded your knowledge of the 'language' and definitions of your science along with knowledge of the science itself.

        In order to continue to learn and progress, but also to communicate with others working within your science, you relied on that language and definitions and first principles. You certainly did not rely on a chemistry handbook to do more than be a memory jogger for a definition or a formula or a device you hadn't used since undergrad.

        With the above in mind, please define or illustrate for me where you think I've mis or re-interpreted the application of a 'first principle' of Objectivism and why you believe that. I make no claim to any particular expertise on the life and quotations of Ayn Rand, but I am a well studied and erudite student of Objectivism and it's principles, particularly as applied in life and factual reality. Even saying that, I'm always interested in learning--so please elucidate.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          There are a couple of reasons that I will go into more detail about in a few days, probably more like a week. I am quite busy today, so for now, I will say that I do not accept some of the premises in the open immigration argument. My argument will address those premises, and starting from first principles, a discussion will ensue regarding rights vs. permissions, and where those rights come from. I am quite sure that multiple Objectivists will reject my premises, and they are entitled to do so.
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    • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 1 month ago
      in other words, we must not defend against invasion of the u.s.

      I disagree. . we are being invaded by illegals daily, and we
      defend this nation as our own, as Rand said. -- j
      .
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      Realize that you are not disagreeing with me on this point. You are disagreeing with Rand. She was referring to geo-political bounded nations inhabited by free men. In fact, if you read The Virtue of Selfishness from which the quotes come, you will see that she specifically delineated nations to which those rights do not apply (Soviet Union, Cuba, dictatorships).

      You have claimed to be an Objectivist. If you reject the point of this thread, then while I disagree with you, I must applaud you for having come to this conclusion on your own, instead of just following Objectivist orthodoxy.
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
        If you are going to rely upon quotes of Ayn Rand for your argument, please include those that are most appropriate:

        The place and time was the Ford Hall Forum, Boston 1973. [8] There is a gap in the recording when the audience member asked his question. The moderator repeats the question in his own words:

        “What is your attitude towards open immigration and what is your attitude towards the effect it may have upon the standard of living in this country? And does not this require that the answer is that you are, uh, opposed to both—”
        At this point the original questioner interrupts to repeat the second part of his question: “Aren’t you asking a person to act against his own self-interest ... [inaudible].” The moderator repeats, not too coherently:
        “Aren’t you asking a person to act in connection with his own self-interest in connection with his decision as to what to advocate?”

        “You don’t apparently know what my position on self interest is.
        “I have never advocated that anyone has the right to pursue his self-interest by law or by force. If you close the border to forbid immigration on grounds that it lowers your standard of living – which certainly is not true, but even assuming it were true – you have no right to bar others. Therefore to claim it’s your self-interest is an irrational claim. You are not entitled to any self-interest which injures others, and the rights of others, and which you cannot prove in fact, in reality to be valid. You cannot claim that anything that others may do – not directly to you but simply through competition let us say – is against your self interest and therefore you want to stop competition dead. That is the kind of self-interest you are not entitled to. It is a contradiction in terms and cannot be defended.

        “But above all, aren’t you dropping a more personal context? [At this point she begins to become intense.] How could I ever advocate that immigration should be restricted [becomes very intense] when I wouldn’t be alive today if it were.”

        And yes, I come to the same conclusion without reference to her quote and I don't count it as orthodoxy, but rather logical from 'first principles'. These are not insignificant matters for an Objectivist or a believer in individual freedom.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          The contradiction that you, Ayn Rand, and others do not recognize is that crossing a border without notification to the government of that nation is an act of force against every citizen of that country. A passport or visa check is not an undue burden on the immigrant any more than it is an undue burden on the citizen.
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          • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
            Hello jbrenner,
            Some things to think about.
            At what point does your crossing a border become an act of force? Is it an act of force to go across town? Or maybe to the next town? Is it an act of force to go into the next county? Or state? Why would it become an act of force when it is the border of a country?

            If someone is walking down the sidewalk, at what point do you have the right to know who they are or where they come from or are going? Their immigration status? That would mean guilty until proven innocent. You are a trespasser until you prove you are not. Maybe it is their intentions that give you that right? I hope I do not need to rebut that one. If you have no right to know this information, where does the state get this right?
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            • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
              Regarding "At what point does your crossing a border become an act of force? Is it an act of force to go across town? Or maybe to the next town? Is it an act of force to go into the next county? Or state? Why would it become an act of force when it is the border of a country?"

              Thought experiment: Assume you live in an Objectivist nation in which essentially all property is private, including streets, highways and airports, and all property along the border. Re-ask the questions above. You may come to a quite different conclusion.
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              • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                A reasonable statement. Challenge accepted

                Look at this reply to jbrenner just a couple comments down from here;
                http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

                This one was my thought process, written out, in a discussion with DB. You may have seen it, It was on a thread I believe you started on his post. I was intentionally writing out my thought process so others on both sides of the debate could follow it. This is just one part of it;
                http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...


                The first addresses the border issue. The second addresses the private property.
                Force cannot be assumed merely by crossing a line. The results of failure to address the real problems appropriately cannot be justification for an immoral, pragmatic solution.
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                • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  But force can be assumed merely by crossing a line if it involves crossing a line onto private property without permission. In other words, trespassing. This occurs 24/7 across the southern U.S. border, and has become a constant threat to property owners there. Most people crossing the border have no idea whether they are entering private property, and likely couldn't care less. Besieged property owners in the area should not be held hostage to the government's "failure to address the real problems." And pragmatic solutions are not automatically immoral, it depends upon the context of the situation and what other choices are available.
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                  • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Moreover, if a private landowner on or near the border has trespassers on his/her property and takes automated action (such as a zap from an electronic fence), it is the landowner is currently deemed to be the one using undue force. This is the reverse of what it ought to be.
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                    • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                      In this, you are absolutely correct. This is upside down and backwards and is a direct result of inappropriately directed thought searching for a solution without considering the root cause of the problem. IE, immoral pragmatic thinking. How is more of that going to solve anything?
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                  • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                    If that private property is fenced and marked, yes it is trespassing. There are proper places to cross the border and for some reason we line those with cops and guns but we leave the local property owners to fend for themselves to deal with a situation we have created via an immoral pragmatic solution. No, not all pragmatic solutions are immoral but this one is and I am defending that position.

                    Now imagine what would happen if ALL the people who are clamoring to close the border and deport the illegals would stand up and say "end the welfare state, end the income tax, and end the war on drugs", placing the blame where it rightfully belongs. Those property owners wouldn't be besieged for much longer. But this doesn't happen because we have decided to go the route of the Immoral Pragmatic Solution instead. The pragmatic solution got us into this mess. How is a pragmatic solution going to get us out of it.
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      I don't mean offense, kevinw, because I agree that ending the welfare state, the income tax, and the war on drugs would help greatly. I don't think that even such a dramatic change in our favor solves the problem, however.

                      A very large number of people did exactly what you proposed. They were called the Tea Party. I was among them and in fact, a local leader. My friend and county-wide Republican Party chairman Jason Steele was targeted by the Republican Party of Florida and denied a position at the RPOF table even though we had duly elected him. At the same time, President Obama was targeting the Tea Party at the national level through the IRS. The former story about my friend Jason Steele was when the final tumbler (reference to Hank Rearden) clicked into place that a) America was no longer worth saving, and b) my friends and I (even though we made significant changes at the county level) were incapable of making the necessary changes at any higher level. At that point it was time to shrug.

                      Even your three-pronged solution is insufficient because the financial incentive for looters and moochers would still exist through the crony K street system that Speaker Boner is now going to. We have a many-headed hydra to slay, but the biggest head is the cronyist system. When you have a solution to this problem, then I think I will reconsider.
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                      • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Not to worry, I am not taking offense. I hope your are not either. I have seen and respect many of your positions. Many of your comments here were from a position of defense and I was hoping to get past that. I also understand your disgust with the system and eagerness to shrug although your hard fought battle here implies to me that you are not yet ready to give up. Hell, your what you call a "shrug job" has more of an effect toward improving things than anything I have ever done. If I was in a better financial position I might be shrugging too.

                        Boner is gone. Don't give up on the Tea Party. It is still young. The message is not yet solid and consistent. That's what I like to think we're doing here. I notice that we all make the mistake of thinking that this is a new battle we're losing. But it is not a new battle. 1776 was only the beginning of this battle. And we are only now seeing it for what it really is.

                        Thanks for letting me get that out there.
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                        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                          When did you last see a Tea Party meeting? We had six in three years, and none since the end of 2011. We commonly had 2,000 attendees at such events.
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                          • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                            I've never personally seen a Tea Party meeting. There isn't one where I'm at. We have a 9/12 group. Remember Glenn Beck's version? Begin with a prayer, end with a prayer. Felt like I was in a catholic church. Rise, kneel, rise, sit, kneel, rise. WTF is that? But I still get some emails occasionally.
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                            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                              Glenn Beck's 9/12 project was an attempt to take back what was America. I did not go to any 9/12 meetings, but I did meet Beck at a book signing. Right or wrong, he is at least genuine.
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                    • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      Okay, given that the welfare state, the income tax, and the war on drugs are not going to end anytime soon, what moral solution do you have to offer to (1) affected landowners and (2) state and local governments responsible for protecting these landowners and their property?
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                      • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Shouldn't these people be the first to stand up and shout from the highest mountaintops (or cactus, as the case may be) to end the war on drugs, and end welfare, and end the income tax? If they do not put up real solutions how can the rest of us stand with them? How can we join them, much less support them when we are all too busy arguing over the details of a solutionless solution?
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              Crossing a national boundary is fundamentally different than crossing internal boundaries because the primary purpose of a national boundary (protection from invasion) is different than the purposes of internal boundaries.

              Passport or visa checks at the border, port of entry, or international airport are the means by which a nation's government can reasonably assure its citizenry that the nation's government can do its only acceptable purpose (as defined earlier by dbhalling).

              When a military crosses an international boundary, it is act of force. It is what starts wars. Mexican military control southern Arizona as if it is theirs and will tell you that it should be theirs based on claims prior to the Mexican-American War. When an individual crosses an international boundary without declaration of intent, most host nations call such a person a spy. When an individual crosses an international boundary with declaration of intent, that person should be welcomed. When a person crosses an international boundary without declaration of intent, it is only logical for the host nation to consider such a person to be of ill intent. Does anyone want to do business with someone who has already shown that they will willingly violate a country's laws? If they do that, then expect deception in your transactions with that individual as well.
              Crossing internal boundaries does not start wars.
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              • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                What is it about a border or boundary that protects us from invasion? Is it not, instead, the promise of retaliation that protects us from invasion? The lack of a proper retaliation is why we are still in a war. A border is just a property line. What is on the other side of that property line is what should determine your intent when crossing it. A threat of devastating retaliation is what we should have facing any would be enemies.

                "When a military crosses an international boundary, it is act of force. It is what starts wars."
                Is it not more accurate to say that a military crossing a border signifies the beginning of a war? Since the war must have been already started in somebodies mind for said military to push across a border. And do we really want to be looking to other countries for examples of how to set our border policies? What country is so worthy of that honor, that we should drop our own principals and take up theirs?

                If a nation's government has allowed/created a situation where it needs to check a passport at the border to protect it's citizenry, hasn't that government already failed in that duty? How can any amount of police state fix that? How can the solution be more government power?

                Well the government did fail us. And more government power with an increased police state is not the answer. So what is the answer?
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                • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  I am glad you asked, because this discussion is the perfect starting point for me to respond to a related question from Zenphamy.

                  We should not look to other countries for examples of how to set our border policies. The right of a nation to defend itself is derived from the individual's right to self-defense.

                  Going back to the earliest civilizations of man, man has built walls, moats, citadels, etc. to defend himself and his family against invasion. Were walled cities in medieval times restricting the right to travel of immigrants? Of course they were, and the citizens of such walled cities were doing so in their own self-interest. At that point in human history, invaders would band together and take cities (and later nations) by force. National defense was a sad (dare I say, pragmatic) acknowledgement that some people do not respect property rights. As for the concept that an individual's freedom to travel trumps a free nation's right to self-defense, there are at least two flawed premises.

                  a) All individuals are not always rational and will not necessarily follow just laws.

                  People of faith are not always rational. Particularly, adherents to any faith that expects a government to be a theocracy, including the Muslim faith, can be expected to violate just laws if they think that doing so is being consistent with their religious expression. The extreme case in this example would be Muslim suicide bombers. They are not the only such example, only the most recent.

                  In any society, a certain percentage of any population will use force to commit burglary, murder, rape, etc. In such circumstances, is not the society correct in limiting the freedom to travel of such individuals, even in the most limited of cases such as an electronic tether or having to occasionally report to a probation officer? Anyone who disagrees with this last concept is an anarchist, and cannot expect a reasonable society to exist precisely because the percentage of individuals in a population who will commit such acts of force is higher in a society where such acts are not retributively acted upon by the society.

                  b) What precondition is necessary for the presumption of innocence?

                  You may say none, but I will show you why I disagree.

                  Requiring passports and visas at the border does not mean that the government has failed in its only valid mission of protecting its citizens from invasion. It means that it is correctly doing its only valid task.

                  Why do you think that America has the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty"? Whenever one encounters a complete stranger, does one automatically walk up to that person and welcome him or her? Most people do not, out of a fear that the stranger might not be a person of good will. This fear is derived from any animal's most basic concept of self-defense. The admission of strangers (immigrants) to a nation is no different, athough Objectivists will likely disagree. The nation's citizens have no knowledge a priori of the good will of the immigrant. This is precisely why the passport/visa process is necessary. After a straightforward discussion with the prospective immigrant, if the immigrant appears to be of good will, then the nation accepts (and perhaps even welcomes) the immigrant. At that point, after the immigration service has executed its duty properly, a citizen can have a reasonable expectation that the immigrant is "innocent until proven guilty" and can expect to have value-for-value exchanges with that immigrant.

                  If, however, the immigrant does not do the host nation the courtesy of announcing his/her presence, then that immigrant must be presumed to be of ill intent, and therefore, unworthy of value-for-value transactions.

                  Is there any nation on Earth that does not have an unlawful entry law? If so, it missed the point of the last two paragraphs.

                  Consider how your freedom to travel would be restricted if the nation does not fulfill its proper role regarding passports and visas. Do you really want to go around being suspicious of people rather than unsuspicious? The passport/visa process is liberating for the citizens of the host nation precisely because they should have no basis for suspicion when a nation's government does its only proper role. When immigrants went to Ellis Island to announce their desire to come to America, some Americans did show biases against certain ethnicities, but overall those immigrants were assimilated into America quite well. Legal immigrants today are likewise generally welcomed. I welcome all legal immigrants. I talk with at least 100 per day who are on student visas from all over the world. Because they have honored our visa laws, I welcome them with open arms and engage in value-for-value exchange with them, regardless of faith (or lack thereof), ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The passport/visa process results in increased freedom of travel for a nation's citizens, better welcoming for the immigrants, and better commerce for all involved in value-for-value exchange.

                  Police should have NO responsibilities to enforce immigration. Police's role should be at the local level, and perhaps at the state level, but definitely not at the national or international level. No police state can or should fix an immigration problem. If police are forced (word chosen carefully) to intervene because the federal government has not, then that is an indication that the federal government has failed us. Such a failure does not mean that more government power is needed. It does mean, however, that those in command (such as President Zero) need to be replaced by those who are interested in the one valid role of a federal government. That is your answer.
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                  • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Jbrenner,
                    Let me begin by saying that the only reason I started this with you is that the explanations and reasoning you were receiving were not working for me either. I had to do some serious reflecting and ask some questions in a different way to get the answers I needed. I am hoping that a different presentation may allow you to be less defensive and think about it differently. I too shared the pragmatic solution of sealing the border to stop the bleeding and then work out a solution from there but I could not reconcile that with the knowledge that most of those coming here from Mexico are trying to improve their lives and we would be interfering with that on the basis of what? Our fear.

                    We already have passports and visas. We already have the TSA. We already have walls, and border patrol and security checkpoints. Why are we still in fear? We have the most powerful military on the face of the planet. Our police are more militarized than ever. (overly so) We have "a rifle behind every blade of grass". Yet we still live in fear. Why? We have reversed cause and effect. Passports and visas, TSA, walls and proder patrol and checkpoints, all these things are symptoms of our failure to properly protect ourselves.

                    The three things, eliminate welfare, end the war on drugs and end the income tax. Welfare only brings some of them here. The income tax alienates them all and keeps them out of the system, adding to the welfare numbers. And the war on drugs brings the violent ones or encourages them to be violent. Eliminate those and who is left? Only those we are truly at war with and we have oceans between us and them. No, that will not stop them, but it does slow them down and decrease their numbers. But why do we even still fear them? With our military, and our rifle behind every blade of grass they should be afraid to show their heads from under the rocks they live under. But they grow braver and braver and the fact that we want to try to stop them at the border is evidence that we have utterly failed to beat them and protect ourselves. And the police state we create to hold them back is just proof that they are still winning. Still advancing, even.

                    When you walk down a busy sidewalk it's not tens, but hundreds or even thousands of strangers you will walk past. You do not attempt to greet them. But you don't cross the street to avoid them. It is not fear that stops you. You don't look at each one wondering who is the serial killer, or a gang banger (do people still use that term?) or even more dangerous, a liberal. Why, then, is their immigration status so important?

                    I cannot argue with your last paragraph. It only reenforces everything I've said here. The only thing I can say is that I cannot figure out for the life of me how you can say everything you said up till then, and still come to that conclusion.

                    There is an enemy out there. And some of them are here as well. And they aren't afraid of a passport check or a border security checkpoint. They revell in it. That is their victory. The very thing that encourages them to keep pressing forward. The more we impose, the more they've won. The only thing that stops them from standing up en masse and shouting allahoo ackbar (or whatever it is they shout) is the threat of devastating retaliation, and that is all but gone. We're to busy arguing about our damn borders.
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      America does not need a police state to deal with the immigration situation. There are relatively few people who actually want to even have a border, let alone do what is necessary to protect it. Between the Democrats wanting undocumented Democrats (as someone else in this forum put it) and certain crony business interests and their paid off looter politicians, Joe and Kate America have to wonder why

                      A partial solution to this problem would be to eliminate the drug war and the welfare system, but it would not be particularly hard for the US government to do its one and only valid role ... if it only were in the self-interest of those in power.

                      They do revel in their victory. They have won that victory because our government refuses to do its job and prosecutes anyone who tries to do it for them (See former Arizona governor Jan Brewer, for example.).

                      I don't expect much of government. This is their only valid responsibility, and they blow it off.
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                      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Sheriff Joe Arapio has been prosecuted by the Oministration for many years. In fact, he's in court now.
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                        • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                          That poor guy. Gotta love Sheriff Joe. But he should be leading the charge to end the war on drugs. And end the income tax and welfare. His own irrational views keep him in the trenches. To be fair, I'm not sure where he stands on welfare and income taxes.
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                          • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                            Arpaio's views are not irrational. Arpaio's problem is that he doesn't have the authority to do a job that should not be his, but has become his precisely because the federal government will not do its job.
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                            • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                              I love him for how he treats prisoners. They are not abused but they are not pampered.

                              The rationality of his views is a whole new debate.
                              He doesn't have the authority but his voice would be heard far and wide. And his evidence of the destructive nature of the laws would be irrefutable.
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                          • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                            he spent 40 years with the DEA fighting the drug cartels in Mexico. As for illegal immigration he conducted raids at businesses known to have illegals using fraudulent documents (identity theft). His stance, "I enforce the law. Change the law and I'll change how I do my job." For this he's been relentlessly persecuted and attained near-hero status for the only one doing a damn thing about this issue.
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                      • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                        America already has a police state trying to deal with the immigration situation. And yes, it is purely politically driven but it is enabled by everyone thinking pragmatically about a solution. And the "one and only valid role" you keep referring to (I am assuming you are still referring to Passports and visas and controlling the border) is part of that police state. And to promote that pragmatic solution is to deny and condemn the only valid solution.

                        Now imagine what would happen if ALL the people who are clamoring to close the border and deport the illegals would stand up and say "end the welfare state, end the income tax, and end the war on drugs", placing the blame where it rightfully belongs. Those property owners on the border wouldn't be besieged for much longer. But this doesn't happen because we have decided to go the route of the Immoral Pragmatic Solution instead. The pragmatic solution got us into this mess. How is a pragmatic solution going to get us out of it
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                        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                          The only valid role for a federal government is to protect its citizenry from invasion, which is partly fulfilled via the passport/visa process. The police state has been presented as a false solution to the problem. On that, you are correct.

                          Where are you incorrect is that those on the southern border would no longer be besieged. They would continue to be besieged. 1) There is too much profit for the drug lords to go away even if we do not pursue them. 2) The Sonoran Mexicans still think that Arizona is theirs, and will fight in any way possible to regain what was lost in war > 100 years ago.
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                          • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                            The war on drugs is the first to go. The drug lords become, or are replaced by businessmen. No pursuit necessary. At that point, if the Sonoran Mexicans wish to continue to engage, well, I suppose we could use a few more states. ;) No visa or passport necessary. Just more hard working Americans.
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                    • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                      kevin; I think you've hit on a really key concept and one that I think fits entirely into Objectivism. We stand in fear of the need to implement our own individual self defense at any moment, even against the moochers and looters, much less the takers including our own government and its actors. The ideals of this country's founding and Objectivism can not exist without that key element.

                      The 'politically correct' on the site will jump my ass over this, but we have allowed ourselves to become so 'feminized' that we are paralyzed in fear with the idea that everybody is out to get us, to harm us, to take advantage of us. We spend so much time thinking of ways to prevent danger, even discomfort, that when we see something as simple as parents wanting their children to be 'free range', the immediate response is to think and describe them as unusual, strange, different, even wrong.
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                      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Where I live, if you don't protect your children, your property, your possessions, and your culture you could be robbed blind or worse.

                        As for "free range" I enjoyed that as a youth growing up on Long Island, NY. If my children were permitted to be "free range" here in Phoenix as I was growing up in NY they would be accosted or worse. Yes, I've chased off a broken-english speaking pervert in pickup truck who asked my daughter and her friend to help find his lost puppy. Yes, I've had mail stolen from my mailbox by a Spanish only speaking 4 year old boy in diapers. Yes, I've had my cable taken out by the Spanish-only speaking neighbors who lived (9 of them) next door for 6-months, (never made a payment, trashed the house, lowered my property value).

                        Added: I had a bank, Bank One it was called, insist I use a spanish language deposit slip in the drive through. I asked for English and the broken English teller told me there were none. I went inside and there were plenty. I made my deposit, spoke to the branch manage and reminded her that my business does a lot of transactions and I expect my banking document them in English in the United States.

                        I'm in no way politically correct. I see and react to what I see. Living in NY I was never armed. In Arizona I'd be a fool not to be.
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                        • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                          AJ; everywhere I've ever lived, what you describe has been a part of life. Bad things happen, mostly to the non-prepared and the most vulnerable. But as children we were taught what to avoid and where not to go, both natural and human dangers. And I've had to run, hide, and even fight, and today as an old man, I still stay prepared. Maybe even more so. But I don't live with any fear.

                          I've been shot twice, clubbed, and knifed. I was robbed once and peeped once (chasing the guy down the alley in my underwear), but the first man to ever try to kill me was my stepfather at 14 years old in my home. Reality can bite.

                          The idea that we can live without danger in our lives is not rational and it never has been. Nor do I expect, or even want government to protect me, for what I'd have to give up. I've taught my two sons and two stepdaughters the same things and done all I could to prepare them for a life that has danger in it.
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                          • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                            Wow, the stories that come out on here.
                            Kinda glad I'm not able to form a visual. :)
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                            • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                              Yeah, but I was trim enough then to run, so it wasn't too bad other than for my neighbor's wife that was taking her trash out as I ran by. She just yelled, 'Get the sonofabitch' I think he'd been in the neighborhood for awhile and he was a fast asshole.
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                          • Posted by MarkHunter 9 years, 1 month ago
                            AJAshinoff described his experience living on Long Island compared with living in Phoenix. On Long Island one could “free range” children safely, where as Phoenix was not so safe – and not so pleasant – because of its Hispanics.

                            AJAshinoff made a comparison. He compared two degrees of danger, one high with a large number of Hispanics and one low with a small number.

                            He did not say we can always “live without danger in our lives.”

                            By the way, do free range children taste better than caged?
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                            • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                              A bit more: On LI, where I grew up for 18 years, my neighbors were a large Puerto Rican family (6 kids), a fresh off the boat family of Italians (3 kids), an authentic Irish family (2 kids), a family of mixed-race Shinnecock Indians (4 kids), a polish-American family (3 kids). All of the families spoke two languages and most of the senior adults spoke very broken English AND THEY WERE PROUD of the little English they spoke.

                              I have no issue with people's race, religion, or language. I never did care for, and still don't, pig-headed people, stupid people, slow people, or racists.

                              In the summer, I would take my bike out at 7 am while my mother slept. I would ride all day without my mother having to worry (much). This was before cell phones and before I had much money in my pocket (calls were a dime on the pay phone). I would leave town on my bike, visit the local airport to watch small planes, hang around and under the old bridge to watch trains and if I really felt adventurous go swimming in one of the two lakes in Yaphank or pay a visit to the LI game farm. Yes, there was an element of danger but nothing like what there is today.

                              The people, my neighbors. were decent hard working folks who worked just to be here, to be American. This mentality is completely absent in today's America and its a sign of the decay representing who we've become and what we've allowed ourselves/our children to be subjected to. Its obnoxiously disgraceful to our heritage and criminal to our kids.

                              Zephamy, we can take care of ourselves, lethally if need be. It shouldn't need be that way for children. Unfortunately my kids grew up with no trace or understanding of the freedom I enjoyed in what most would perceive a much more hostile place.
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                        • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                          Speaking of not politically correct, I live next to the largest indian reservation in the country. It's all about "protecting their culture". It takes a lot of your money to protect their culture. My money too, and I know it's not doing anybody any good. It is a very flawed concept.
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                          • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                            Difference. The native population is very small and entirely surrounded and dependent on those surrounding them, that be us.The US is 320 million people, the influx even at 20 million is comparatively small. Allowing THEM to create cultural pockets in the middle of our nation where they do not seek to be American does hurt our culture and the move among us expanding theirs.This is why illegal aliens must be identified via social welfare and social services use and passively deported. This is why a concerted effort must be made to enforce the law and make coming to America illegally less attractive.

                            There are areas of downtown Glendale, Arizona where there are spanish only signs on stores where if you speak english they look at YOU funny. Hell, I had a guy the other day, in broken english, panhandle me for peso's outside of a supermarket - yes he actually asked for peso's 200 miles north of the border. It's just that real.
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                            • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                              The native population is a lot larger than you imagine, not surrounded, and definitely not dependent on anyone. It's only those that try to live by dependence including the blacks that let LBJ move them into urban ghettos and the Latinos in LA that do the same in the 'Projects', the Barrio, the ghetto, the Reservations, the Housing Authorities that don't assimilate.

                              We don't need more law enforcement, we need less government influence and intrusion.
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                            • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                              So, protecting the "american culture" isn't going so well either, eh? And that was the point. Protecting the culture is the surest way to destroy it.

                              And everything you would do just adds to the destruction. And the american culture you would fight so hard to defend will be destroyed by your own hand.
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                              • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
                                So do nothing? Allow lawlessness, open the border and let every turd flow in and turn what we've been building for the last 230 years into the dung-heap they left? The promise of this country is the ability to cast the sht off, dust yourself off, and work to improve yourself and your family. The issue is there are far too many people coming here illegally, reveling in their sht, and working to expand their former country's cancer to the culture/environment they desperately wanted to come to.

                                I have ZERO issue with legal immigration. I have ZERO tolerance for lawlessness and illegal immigrants.

                                I did my part, suspended my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for a time to ensure this nation is here for my children. Standing by why politicians and illegal aliens decimate every conceivable aspect of what I defended is not something I am willing to do.
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                                • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                                  This paragraph from my comment earlier. Have you read it?
                                  "The three things, eliminate welfare, end the war on drugs and end the income tax. Welfare only brings some of them here. The income tax alienates them all and keeps them out of the system, adding to the welfare numbers. And the war on drugs brings the violent ones or encourages them to be violent. Eliminate those and who is left? "

                                  You comment as if doing those three things will accomplish nothing. The reason these people don't assimilate is because WE separate them. The only reason they're illegal is because WE demand it be so. The only thing that makes them lawless is because WE put them outside the law. We do this to ourselves. But you want to do something "Right Now". Isn't that where most of our bad laws come from? "We've Got To Do Something!!!" is shouted over any rational voice and laws are passed and on down the hill we go.

                                  We are losing the immigration debate but that is because our message is inconsistent at best and somewhat self destructive. You are arguing to deprive human beings of their rights. Where is it that you get that right from?

                                  I thank you for your service, but if what you are advocating is why you served then I can't put my heart behind it.
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                                  • jbrenner replied 9 years, 1 month ago
                                  • AJAshinoff replied 9 years, 1 month ago
                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      "Passports and visas, TSA, walls and border patrol and checkpoints, all these things are symptoms of our failure to properly protect ourselves." To some extent this is true. The cause of the problem is too many government officials winking and looking the other way.
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      When I am in a familiar place like my campus and don't know people, I am the rare person who actually does come up to welcome them. When I am in an unfamiliar place even in my own state, I do actually look for the next serial killer or gang banger. Given the unwillingness of the federal government to do its job, why should I do otherwise? I have to assume "the law of the jungle" applies. This has a tremendous unmeasured negative effect on many things.
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                      • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Probably most of us on this site are more, I hate to say "paranoid", how bout "aware of our surroundings or situation" than the average Joe. This is not likely to change no matter how big a wall we build or how many guards we post. No matter how many innocent people we fingerprint, photograph or spy on. No matter how many 90 year old women and/or 6 year old children we grope in the name of security. And a serial killer or a gang banger would come from within that wall.

                        Don't you see? You are arguing to bring on the police state at one moment and against it the next. And I'm starting to think it's your paranoia driving you to it.
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                        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                          Admittedly, I am bit paranoid, but when you have burned as many times as I have, you should be paranoid. I have been audited a couple of times, and then last year my government told me that my identity had been exposed via their database. Go through an audit, and you will be paranoid, too.

                          Moreover, people have taken advantage of my good will countless times. At one point in my life, I thought it was my job to save the world. Then I realized the errors of my altruism. I am not paranoid within my own county, but outside my county, I am somewhat paranoid. I would be far less paranoid if the federal government did its only valid job, and only its only valid job.

                          Zenphamy's point about feminization and your point about groping of 90 year old women and 6 year old children is completely correct. However, I ask you, isn't that feminization intentional, so that we would need them more?
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                • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  The promise of retaliation is the backbone of the "peace through strength" foreign policy that Reagan and Bush had. It only acts well as a deterrent when invasion is taken seriously.

                  I am not in favor of the drug wars, but Mexican military patrol southern Arizona as if it is theirs. That, by definition, is an invasion that provides an example to your "The lack of a proper retaliation is why we are still in a war."

                  Regarding the military crossing signifying the beginning of a war, I will answer, "Maybe". Sometimes the war has been started prior to that. The Quran is quite explicit about the stages that Muslims should take when they are small or large in numbers in a nation. The concept of sleeper cells is consistent with the Quran. Though I have not read the whole Quran, I have read much of it because I deal with dozens of Muslims per day. They pay me quite well, and I count most of them as friends. The majority of those who have cheated on my exams are Muslim, however. Some can be trusted, and some cannot. I treat them as individuals.
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                  • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Reagan and Bush were just as much a part of that government failure as anybody else. They share the responsibility for the state of the police state that we currently have. The drug wars, the patriot act, the TSA, failures of our government to do it's proper job and the list is long. Is it the right thing to do to add to that?
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      Reagan and Bush were part of that failure, particularly both Bushes, neither of whom I supported. I would have voted for Reagan had I been two months older, and would have done so proudly. We do not need to add to any of the police state concepts. Most of those are symptoms of a failure, rather than the cause.
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                      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Reagan: "Reagan the environmentalist – as governor he protected California’s wilderness from dams and highways and created an air resources board, as president he launched the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer – did not appear.
                        Nor did Reagan the spender who raised taxes (four to 11 times, depending how you count) and increased the federal workforce by 324,000 people, raised the debt ceiling 18 times and almost tripled the federal debt.
                        Nor did Reagan the retreater who withdrew from Lebanon after terrorists killed 248 US marines, leaving the country to civil war, or Reagan the negotiator who reached out to the “evil empire”, or the Reagan who signed California’s liberal abortion law, the Brady gun law, collective bargaining for local government workers and amnesty for almost 3 million undocumented people."

                        This thinking that if only we elect the 'right ones', that they'll save us will eventually end us. It's up to each of us individually.

                        The failure is ours.
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                        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                          Reagan was by no means perfect, but he did a lot of things that were positive in the long run (lowering taxes, his brilliant bluff against the Soviets to end the Cold War, etc.). What this does point out is that electing the right ones will not solve the problem. On that you are correct. Even if veto-proof majorities were elected for a generation, we would still have the kangaroo court system to deal with. Repairing the damage to America would require a sacrifice on all of our parts of longer than our lives, and thus would be inconsistent with Objectivism.
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          • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
            When did this turn into a discussion of ID and government monitoring who, what, where?
            That's an entirely different topic.
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              The argument for a month has been that individuals have the right to travel without restriction. In this and multiple other threads, there are several people who have argued that this right to travel supercedes a nation's right to its territorial integrity, and in fact, have denied that nations have any rights whatsoever. A passport or visa check is how nations, whether free or not, establish their territorial integrity.
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              • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                Really, do you think that's their intent? Or is it to get control over the location and free travel of it's citizens.
                If you wish to fly from your home in Florida to another state next year and don't have the proper ID, guess what. You won't be able to. How does that have anything whatsoever to do with the territorial integrity of this nation.
                I think that damn near the entire state of Florida is within 100 mi from the country's border, so the 4th Amendment doesn't even apply to you. Does that have much to do with the territorial integrity?
                Has all that ID checking and elimination of the 4th stopped any terrorist attack or done anything to strengthen the supposed territorial integrity.
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                • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  Real ID is a farce. On that we agree. Whether the amount of ID checking is making a difference or not is hard to know. Most of the 9/11 terrorists trained at flight schools here in Florida. Fortunately none of them went to my university's flight school. Quite a few of the other flight schools in Florida, including the only other big competitor to my university's, did have terrorists training at them.

                  As for Florida, a driver's license will continue to be sufficient, and a passport will still not be required for those traveling on Caribbean cruises that start and end here.

                  I have to deal personally with the ID checking requirements more than most Gulchers because about 5 times per year I have to write letters on behalf of my students to extend their visas so that they can finish their degrees. That is a pretty small price to pay to know that America's territorial integrity is being protected.

                  As for TSA screening, I turn it into something more enjoyable by asking the agents politely to sniff my shoes if they ask me to take them off.

                  Regarding the freedom to travel, I hear about many road trips from my many international students. They do not consider themselves restricted once they get through the passport process and the once per year requirement to check in with my university's International Students office to fill out 10 minutes of paperwork.
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                • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  On this point, you are being the pragmatic one, and I am being the idealist. Here is a case where being pragmatic is right, so I concede this point. The government's intent should be to protect the territorial integrity of this nation (and was until the early 1960s), but those in power have no self-interest in doing that task now.
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                  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                    The only thing we need protection from is those that say they want to protect us.

                    It is our job individually to protect ourselves from real dangers, not imagined ones or ones the entertainment news tells us about. There wasn't then and isn't now, a BOOGIE MAN under the bed.
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        • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
          Here’s what I learned and deduced from Ayn Rand’s Ford Hall Forum speech of 1973:

          Ayn Rand did support an open immigration policy.
          Ayn Rand did say that the potential for economic competition was not a valid reason to restrict immigration.

          Ayn Rand did not say that immigration to America (or any other specific country) is a right.
          She did not say that everybody is entitled to immigrate, regardless of criminal history, health status (such as having an infectious disease), ability to financially support oneself (or obtain support from a sponsor), or ties to terrorists or dictators.
          She did not say that the government has no right (and no responsibility to its citizens) to investigate the background or current status of persons wishing to immigrate.
          She did not say that the U.S. government assumes an unchosen obligation to uphold and protect the rights of anyone who shows up here, regardless of circumstances.

          Based on everything we know about her personal history and political ideology, we can reasonably infer that Ayn Rand likely would have supported a system that would have encouraged legal immigration by anyone meeting reasonable qualifications following a thorough background check by the government.

          She would likely not have supported a policy of wide-open borders without government checkpoints, especially since such a policy would have permitted unrestricted access to America by agents of the country from which she had escaped.
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          • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
            I think what we can conclude, is that a refresher on reading comprehension might be a timely and appropriate, along with further study of AR's writings and public statements.
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            • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
              As you stated in another thread:
              "If you have a counter to anything within my comment, please reply."
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              • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                Rand did not say pigs could fly. Does that mean we should think she saw flying pigs?Rand did not say a lot of things. Does that mean all those things are magically here?
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                • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  No, but re-read my post. Many things that I pointed out Ayn Rand did not say are being bandied about here as if they are Objectivist gospel. Such as an unrestricted right to immigration and subsequent “freedom of travel” by anyone, including spies, saboteurs and terrorists. I’m certain that Ayn Rand would never have endorsed such ideas, and I explained my reasons for thinking so in my post above and in previous posts.
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                  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                    CBJ; No one, of any note, has ever tried to list every individual, natural, human right without getting to the realization that they are innumerable. The writers' of the Constitution understood that principle, and rather than attempt to word one that listed every individual right, they gave all rights, listed or not, to the individual, called 'positive rights' and gave to government only a limited and defined list of rights, called negative rights. What Rand did was to ask and answer the question of from what does the right originate and at the same time develop the morality of human life that with proper understanding, could formulate the right for any context.

                    To fully grasp the right to travel, one has only to begin at AR's nature of man and from that move into an Objectively moral man acting in society (with other men). Rand fully understood and expected that, rather than having to list and explain every right imaginable, that one followed the same path of rational and logically reasoned thought that she had, comes to the same conclusion. It's just not that complicated. Its a little like having to understand axioms before you can move beyond arithmetic into mathematics.

                    If you put as much effort into understanding Rand's thought development as you seem to in finding one of her conclusions that you don't like, then trying to twist her logic around to fit your preconceived beliefs, you might discover the world of free men.
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                    • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      If you think that Ayn Rand would have upheld and defended the "right" of Soviet agents to enter and travel freely around America, that's your conclusion, not hers. And you haven't yet shown where an unannounced stranger can exercise his "right to travel" once he has crossed the border. If the country is governed by Objectivist principles, the stranger is either on private property without permission (trespassing), or he is on property the control of which was specifically ceded to the government by its citizens to carry out specific functions for the benefit of the citizens that authorized it. The stranger cannot claim the right to be on this type of property either. So he is violating property rights simply by the act of crossing the border. This is the reason that government border checkpoints would be necessary and appropriate even in a society based on Objectivist principles.
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                      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                        You're going to have to show me where in the Constitution of this country, where "he is on property the control of which was specifically ceded to the government by its citizens to carry out specific functions for the benefit of the citizens that authorized it". The government, at all levels, is a creation of man and as such has no inherent or unalienable rights, none.

                        No individual has ownership of the land you discuss and therefor had or has no right to cede to government what was never his in the first place.

                        That's enough of this conversation. Time for a new post if you wish to continue a discussion on this topic.
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                        • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                          This conversation is on topic in regard to the original post, “What Rand said about the rights of nations.” I see no need to start a new post, you may do so if you wish.

                          You say “No individual has ownership of the land you discuss . . .” However, Ayn Rand says, “Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.(Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal) She also says a government has “the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task.” (The Virtue of Selfishness.) She also says that “’public property’ is a collectivist fiction.” (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)

                          Taken together, these statements by Ayn Rand fully support my contention that no one can cross the border into an Objectivist country, unannounced and uninvited, without violating the property rights of one or more of that country’s citizens.
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      • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
        What is the point of your thread? What "understanding of Objectivism" do you claim "a majority of Gulchers either have never read or have chosen to ignore it because it does not fit their understanding of Objectivism" and what do you claim who is substituting? You only provided one out of context statement from Ayn Rand.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          The point of my thread is clearly quoted from The Virtue of Selfishness directly. Multiple Gulchers are saying that nations have no rights, when Ayn Rand clearly said they do have some limited rights. The context is The Radio: Interrupted discussion from Friday.
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          • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
            Ayn Rand was not defending your views in the VOS, which cannot be presumed as "the point" of what you had in mind in introducing the thread while leaving it ambiguous. She did not say that "nations" have some rights. She said that all rights are individual and government officials do not act by right in their capacity as government officials. Her essay "Collectivized rights" opposed the notion of collective rights. The "rights of a nation", in contrast to collectivized rights, as she used it there means the rights of the individuals in it, who delegate, not surrender, specific rights to a proper government to act to protect their rights.

            You cannot understand Objectivism by selecting out of context quotes from The Ayn Rand Lexicon without a systematic, integrated understanding of previous explanations, paragraphs or even the same paragraph. When she used the phrase "Such a nation has a right to its sovereignty (derived from the rights of its citizens) and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations" she based it on what she meant by those terms and had just explained. She could not repeat every explanation in every sentence. Governments do not have rights.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      1) First of all, any comparison that I made in previous posts between Galt's Gulch and a nation were part of an ongoing assessment of whether or not it was feasible to start my own micronation, much like Midas Mulligan did. When my father passes on, I will have financial ability to do that to a quite limited extent. At this point, though some other Gulchers have expressed interest, this interest is insufficient for me to think that it is in my self-interest to make such an Atlantis happen. I may change my mind as new opportunities present themselves.

      2) I am assessing whether or not such an Atlantis would be self-destructive or not. At this point, I have to conclude that it would be. If just anyone has the right to enter a nation I would create, then I know that such a nation will not work in this era.

      3) If, in the process of new opportunities presenting themselves, I run across a Midas Mulligan, I am gathering data to present a business plan in conjunction with several others to present to Mulligan. If my result from 2) continues to be as it is, I will not be able to present such a business plan in good conscience.
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    • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
      Regarding "Such government and government actors are restricted by Objectivist thought and by the Constitution of the US, to only retributive force, while preventive force is only available to individuals exercising properly understood private property rights derived from individual and natural rights."

      Does this mean that if a neighbor threatens you or your family but does not cross your property line, neither yourself nor government agents acting on your behalf can take any action against that neighbor until he or she has actually carried out that threat?
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    • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 1 month ago
      And now Ayn Rand is not an objectivist.
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      • Posted by blackswan 9 years, 1 month ago
        If we can simplify. You own your house, just as the US citizens own this country. If someone barges into your house, ignoring your rules, and squats on your property, there is NO rule anywhere that says you can't throw them out on their ear. And you can use whatever level of force is necessary to accomplish that objective. The same applies to the US.
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        • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 1 month ago
          that is exactly the way I view it, blackswan! . we have
          every right, as a nation, to select those who are admitted
          and to reject those whom we pass over. . that is the meaning
          of sovereignty. -- j
          .
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          • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 1 month ago
            The quoted material seems perfectly clear to me -- the nation has only those rights that the individuals composing it delegate to it. Attributing "personhood" or "ownership" to the nation as a unit is the fallacy of composition. jbrenner is right, both on fundamentals and the conclusion.
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      • Posted by khalling 9 years, 1 month ago
        Wtf?
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        • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 1 month ago
          I believe that William was explaining that Zen was demonstrating
          that objectivism differs with Rand's statement above.

          it appears to me that Zen is claiming that objectivism
          and its grounding in personal property rights demands that
          a national border be defended only when there is personal
          property involved, and a specific offense against the property owner
          has taken place. . no pre-emptive defense, no general defense.

          thus, if a national park bounded the national boundary,
          no defense would occur until the park had been crossed
          and a specific property owner was offended. -- j
          .
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          • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 1 month ago
            That's twisting the language out of shape -- thanks for the clarification, though.
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
              To twist it back

              "I" am the citizen the park is my property. Tress pass at your own peril."

              "I am the citizen the park does not belong to the government they are only temporary employees."

              "I am citizen if the employees didn't perform their job and keep you off my property what good are they? Sack them."

              "I am the citizen who is an employee in the government. thanks for the job and the responsibility. I've never seen a park this big."

              "I am the citizen my park is fifty states wide and one district deep."
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    • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 1 month ago
      You would seem to be saying only a country granting explicit allodial title over all but the common lands to private individuals and entities, is a fit agent of free citizens and has any right to wage war. Do I understand you correctly?
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
        No, not at all. Men come first with the property they've earned on their own or purchased from the person who had first developed ownership. Then a country is mutually formed by the individuals within a certain defined geo-political region. A country has no actual existence within the concept of rights and no property rights other than those granted by the individuals within the jurisdictional area. The country's only interaction with property rights is the resolution through it's courts of disagreements between property owners, and protection of the individual property owner through the application of retributive force for those that violate the property owner's property and individual rights.

        I think we're getting confused between a few concepts here--being ownership and proofs of ownership, jurisdiction, geo-political nation/states, and inherent rights of the individual vs the authority granted to a jurisdictional government by the individual property owners.

        As to waging war, again a country is not an entity. The individuals that are citizens within that geo-political area are entities that can wage war and within Objectivism can only do so to stop aggression against the citizens of the country and to resolve jurisdictional disputes with countries that want to aggress with force instead of work through agreed upon court systems of venue.
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        • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 1 month ago
          But how does one "develop ownership". You could argue that the first person to productively utilize a piece of property has developed ownership, but it's awkward for the people who were there beforehand.

          If you purchase the empty lot next to your house and leave it vacant because you like the room, can I build a house on it, thereby making it more productive and "developing ownership"?

          In fact, isn't this the argument behind "eminent domain" where the government decides that someone else would make more productive use of the land than you?

          And it usually works the other way around. You get possession of the land and then put it to productive use. You have to get possession of it from someone who owns it, or if you can't bring yourself to accept that a government can own land then someone who controls it to the extent that they have mutually accepted right to grant ownership.
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        • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
          Regarding "As to waging war, again a country is not an entity. The individuals that are citizens within that geo-political area are entities that can wage war and within Objectivism can only do so to stop aggression against the citizens of the country and to resolve jurisdictional disputes with countries that want to aggress with force instead of work through agreed upon court systems of venue."

          Ayn Rand would not agree. In The Virtue of Selfishness she writes, "Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent “rights” of gang rulers. It is not a free nation’s duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses."
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 9 years, 1 month ago
    It is a point of fact that any collective Objectivist territory, like any other Utopian concept, can only exist with the use of lethal force against any who would try to enter without permission, such permission requiring sworn allegiance to Objectivist principles. Pure Objectivism can't rationally exist, so a rational Objectivist must determine how to best promote his ideals within a government that allows the most individual freedom, and how to persuade that government to favor his principles as more beneficial than more collectivist ideologies.
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    • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
      A collectivist Objectivist territory is an oxymoron. A 'free association Objectivist territory is possible and one that can exist, allowing others to visit or move in regardless of their originating society or culture, excepting that within the geo-political region that they are subject to the jurisdiction and can respect all others individual and natural rights.
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      • Posted by DrZarkov99 9 years, 1 month ago
        A "free association" territory on this planet is a fantasy, unless you create a floating city state outside of territorial waters that can be defended. All of the land mass is already under the jurisdiction of collectivist states. I define any group of like-minded individuals who would make up such a state as a collective assembly. Objectivists too easily fall into the unachievable concept of Anarchy if they try to pretend that as if by magic a significant assembly of individuals will somehow have a universally identical understanding of , and willingly follow Objectivist principles without constraint. I see many highly intelligent people in this forum who can't agree on all the facets of Objectivism.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 1 month ago
    I am beginning to despise the word collective, but that aside; why would objectivist object or ignore her observation. That's exactly what was intended by our forefathers...(and I'll state it differently) as a community in consensus.
    I'll even say it the Mark Hamilton way: "The only valid purpose of government is protection only".
    All else is governed by the individual and the markets the individual creates.
    The individual has a right of self protection so a group of individuals defined by property in common has that same right is what I think she was getting at.
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    • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
      What Objectivists do you claim are ignoring the statements? Brenner is misrepresenting them. The they do not mean that a "group" is a thing that has collectivized rights. A group is an abstraction referring to some individuals with something in common, regarded as the group for some specific purpose.
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      • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
        A direct quote from ARI's web site and from The Virtue of Selfishness is deemed as a "misrepresentation". Olduglycarl's statement of "The individual has a right of self protection so a group of individuals defined by property in common has that same right is what I think she was getting at." is what Rand said and what she meant.
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        • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
          You know very well that no one has accused a direct quote of being a misrepresentation. The misrepresentation is the interpretation you are pushing and your slurs against people who know far more about Ayn Rand than you do.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 1 month ago
    Idealistically speaking, all people should have all the rights We The People used to have.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
      Practically speaking We the people still do. I don't remember giving them up. Do you? But as for those who did they hardly qualify to fit under the word We or people More like 'Us'n humanoids be waitin' in line for de welfare check dude?'
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      • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 1 month ago
        There's a difference between giving something up and having it taken from you.
        Whatever you do, don't ever, ever tell that cop (who pulled you over a for a tail light) the truth about carrying a large sum of money in your car.
        Don't ever open a bakery if you are the type of Christian someone into PC would call a homophobe.
        If you own a lot of land, think twice about turning that creek into a catfish pond.
        If you have a kid, make sure he does not point a finger at another kid during recess and say, "Bang! Bang!"
        Do not give your kid lemonade for a lemonade stand beside the street.
        I'm still thinking of stuff . . .
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
          I remember as a kid watching out for timber rattlers, learning to hunt deer, building a raft behind the irrigation dam and spending half a day each summer playing Tom Sawyer. Fishing in the catfish pond and in the other pond for bass and in the creek for trout. my first job in bakery started out cleaning the floors and whatever and ended up baking the breakfast rolls and croissant type items for the next morning. A large sum of money was $20. It was a roadside vegetable stand....Now the whole place at least on the side that used to be ranches is fricking developments full of Californios. Tom Payne was right but at least give the kids a chance to experience something they would want to go back to. Nowadays they have to take out soccer mom shadow insurance. No wonder they try pot. Heinlein was right. We treat our dogs better than we treat our children.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 1 month ago
    As I learn about objectivism, one of the most important principles I see is that there is a real, objective world capable of perception and able to be analyzed by reason. Hence the term "objectivism".

    One of the objective things one can determine by studying reality is that not everyone agrees philosophically. Reason indicates that this is likely to continue. Another thing that one can observe is that the majority can, by the initiation of force, impose its will on the minority if it is not inhibited in doing so. You may have binding documents and agreements inhibiting it from doing this but if a sufficient majority of the population can be convinced, they will implement a "new deal" and the old deal will be ignored.

    A consequence of this is that it is not sufficient that a nation founded on Objectivist principles form a government constrained by those principles, it must also, somehow, assure that the people who believe in those principles remain a sufficiently large percentage of the population that they can maintain the integrity of those constraints.

    This is one of the reasons the fictional gulch was hidden and controlled access. Because it was obvious that if the looters could enter in numbers, they would impose their own philosophy by force of arms.

    This remains an issue.
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    • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 1 month ago
      I would think that an entrance exam, if you will, be imposed, plus a vetting if the person is not a public figure. This can be done by citizens volunteering their time and retirees wanting to be of service..
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  • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
    An interesting corollary, J, which I pose as a question.

    If there is no such thing as a right of a nation to self-determination, then what is the basis of the moral outrage held by so many Gulchers (including myself) to United States interventionist foreign policy?
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      The basis for the moral outrage by Gulchers to US interventionist foreign policy is that its "right to self-determination" is in conflict with the other nation's (or nations') right to self-determination. This is why Rand included the last phrase in The Virtual of Selfishness quote, "and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations."
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      • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
        What "Gulchers" are you talking about? There is no statist "right" for a "nation" to "self determine" what "it" wants, whether by dictator or tribalism. The "rights" of a nation are no more than the rights of individuals to establish and keep a free society. That is the "sovereign nation" she referred to. Anyone has a right to invade or subvert a statist government anywhere in the world to overthrow the statists for a freer society..
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          Anyone who rejects the statement at the top of the thread directly from The Virtue of Selfishness is who I am talking about. At this point, that includes db, Kh, Michael Aarethun, and Zenphamy. There must also be others, but I do not know who they are yet.

          What you have said thus far, ewv, is not inconsistent with what Rand wrote.
          http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/nat...

          The context that you seek goes back to the month-long argument between the Hallings vs. several others, including myself, regarding the freedom to travel vs. national sovereignty. Ayn Rand did recognize national sovereignty for what she defined as free nations. The point came to a head on Friday when Eudaimonia during his broadcast agreed with me, instead of the Hallings and Zenphamy.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
            I would have put myself as one who supported that statement with the caveat in the United States the citizens chose to get rid of their rights and backed it up in three presidential elections.

            I just posted on who is and who isn't liberal which describes that exact procedure of giving up rights.

            However let me know which statement put me i don't mind re-examining at this point. I'll either defend it or investigate the nature and discuss it without spin or speaking in tongues.
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              The US' citizens have chosen to get rid of their rights. They have chosen their own immolation.
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
                follow this. 9/11 occurred. The Patriot Act was put in place during the first administration of Bush II Two sections in that one and/or a follow up drew some fire. One is still included.

                The one recently this past week thrown out by the Supreme Court was a suspension of the entire Constitution anywhere with a 100 mile area centered on the borders. DOHS argued for that.

                The second replaces The Bill of rights in large part and with it any part they don't want by excluding a group of civil liberties. All of Miranda warnings through sentencing with no sentence guidelines.

                The gist of it is replacing the requirement for probable cause with something called 'suspicion of'' Suspicion of was not defined, nor limited in anyway at least to my due diligence searching and others and the procedure and outcomes were left up to those apprehending . That includes attorney, court, judge and all of that.

                It wasn't a well kept secret yet through three Presidential Elections Bush the second time and Obama twice the perps were re-elected.

                That's how they signaled the government hey we will give up our rights. I think the phrase was 'just keep us safe.'

                Through those years when I tried to show that to people it was 'huh?'

                I'd like to find something annuling or even speaking out but not a whisper.

                The sick part was the agent using suspicion of had to show no proof much less obtain a signed warrant. Might have got out of bed on the wrong side that morning. Other than any required internally.

                It wasn't tossed out by the Supreme Court.

                That's what I call voluntarily giving up rights.

                I don't recall using the word immolation.


                Your turn
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                • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                  The choice of the word immolation was mine. America is committing suicide, in many ways. Its citizens are committing suicide by electing and re-electing leaders who brazenly say they are "managing the decline". Regarding the safety/security infringements, of course, we are in agreement.
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                  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Tie in but off subject a bit: Did you ever see the movie John Carter?
                    In it are a small group managing the decline of civilization on mars. They told John Carter, an earthling, that they didn't create the fall, but managed it and did it by empowering the most barbaric with power and technology only because they could be controlled by this group.
                    I see many parallels in regards to today's world.
                    Applied to Rand and Hamilton, initiatory force is justified when initiatory force has been applied. In this case a non-free nation against a free one controlled by those that are managing their decline.
                    As many imply here in their comments, we are the aggressor and controller but that is not true.
                    We've all observed, our decline is being managed. Islam is a real threat but they are the barbarians controlled by barbarians whom manage the decline of civilizations. I wonder whom controls them.
                    Thought you'd enjoy this mind twister...and a bit of truth. It's not America, It's not the U.S. nor 'us'. I written before: America was not a conspiracy but she sure has been the subject of many.
                    Many here don't get it...WE are the victim, the subject of a world 180° opposed.
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      I will have to rent the movie John Carter.
                      Your points are correct.
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                      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
                        Edgar Rice Burroughs? 2009 or 2012 DVD Along those lines if you can find it Taylor Caldwells book Devil's Advocate and another book by Kornbluth and Pohl team writing is Not This August takes place in 1955 if you can find it. These folks saw it coming long before the rest of the world. Two different approaches to the same end problem
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          • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
            No one here has rejected the Ayn Rand statement you quoted, only the strained reinterpretation of it to mean the opposite rationalized by dropping context and previous explanation.
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    • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
      A right of self determination is only applicable to an entity. A nation is not an entity, it is a group of independent entities.

      A nation's policies are technically driven by its citizens, if it is a "free" nation, a dictatorship on the other hand is driven by the dictator. In neither case is self-determination for the nation possible.

      Is the outrage against interventionism a moral one or are there other reasons?

      If it is a moral issue, what is the moral?


      Which is the controlling moral imperative?

      To intervene in a situation of great loss of life?
      or
      To not intervene and allow the nation its own path?
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      • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
        "A nation, like any other group, is only a number of individuals and can have no rights other than the rights of its individual citizens. A free nation—a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens—has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government. The government of such a nation is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense) . . . .

        Such a nation has a right to its sovereignty (derived from the rights of its citizens) and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations." - Ayn Rand

        “Collectivized ‘Rights,’”
        The Virtue of Selfishness, 103

        Ayn Rand Lexicon
        http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/nat...
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      • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
        "The right of 'the self-determination of nations' applies only to free societies or to societies seeking to establish freedom; it does not apply to dictatorships." - Ayn Rand

        “Collectivized ‘Rights,’”
        The Virtue of Selfishness, 104

        http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sel...
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        • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
          Reread that quote Eud. Ayn Rand even put "the self-determination of nations" in quotes. She was stating limits on acceptable behavior for nations. She even stated that a free society has the right to invade a dictatorship.

          She was not giving a nation a free ride on self determination.
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          • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
            So, you're claiming that those are scare quotes?
            That's an interesting claim.

            More to the point, my initial question: If there is no right to the self-determination of nations (which Rand stated was limited to nations in which free citizens have voluntarily delegated their right to self defense, but regardless...) then why should anyone care who invades whom? There are no countries, correct? They are just artificial entities with no rights, not even the ones delegated to them by a free citizenry, correct? So, why the agitation?

            Is the response, "because war is bad"?
            Ok, war is bad.

            But not all United States interventionist policy is war.

            Some are nation building, some are leadership toppling, some are influencing elections, some are embargoes.

            Why then, are any of these immoral?

            Because the United States has no right to impose its will on other people?

            But they are not, they are imposing their will on a Government which you claim has no rights, including the one which Rand states of their free citizens delegating to them their individual rights to self defense?

            So why get all outraged?
            It's just a non-entity with no rights applying force to another non-entity with no rights.
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            • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
              I'm not sure what you mean by scare quotes. She put the quotes in there deliberately to call attention to the phrase. In my opinion because the phrase was not defined precisely enough.

              You are putting words in my mouth here, enough.
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              • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
                Tech, with respect, I asked a question.

                The definition of "scare quote" from wiktionary:
                A quotation mark deliberately used to provoke a reaction or to indicate that the author does not approve of the term, rather than to identify a direct quotation.

                https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scare_...
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                • Posted by Technocracy 9 years, 1 month ago
                  Eud with respect, I asked a question earlier, one about what the you considered the moral imperative on this issue is. And the one I replied to above is what you came back with. A bunch of questions, some rhetorical some not.

                  I'm not one of the outraged ones on this issue.

                  We seem to be at loggerheads here and I have no desire to keep butting heads like a pair of rams over it.

                  I see enough acrostic conversations as it is.
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                  • Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Tech, I replied with my questions to clarify the initial question which I had asked.
                    This was not intended specifically for you, but rather for others who would like to address my question.

                    I can not answer your questions because I do not agree with the premise: a free and just nation does have the right to self defense and self determination as (as you have noted) it is delegated to representatives for it by its citizens.

                    If this point is granted, then the outrage has basis: citizens believe that their representatives are not acting in their best interest - especially if the other nation is also free and just.

                    Denying this point brings up a set of unresolvable contradictions - which I tried to elaborate in my list of clarifying question.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    " The reason these people don't assimilate is because WE separate them. The only reason they're illegal is because WE demand it be so. The only thing that makes them lawless is because WE put them outside the law"

    Sad that you take responsibility away from them and place the blame on us. They reason they are here is because they chose to come not because we brought them here and set them apart. No one "puts" anyone anywhere. People gather, for the most part, with those like themselves because its familiar - hence the barrios; this is natural. This has nothing to do with us. Their being outside the law IS ONLY THEIR FAULT since they violated the law to come here. Had they come legally they wouldn't be in the situation they are in at all.

    The blame America philosophy doesn't comfort anyone, let alone those hurt by illegal immigration.

    "You are arguing to deprive human beings of their rights. Where is it that you get that right from?"
    I deprive nothing - they violate the law and come into our country. I don't even tell them not to come, simply how to come and they choose not to. Again blame America first.

    Rights are given by God. Yeah yeah, you disagree - I already know that.

    I've had enough of saying the same things repeatedly. These conversations about the Right to Travel vs. Private Property have been expensive, they have harshly tainted and diminished my view of objectivism.
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    • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
      "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." Thomas Jefferson
      The law is unjust. It is immoral to violate the rights of human beings and the law does so solely on the grounds that they were not lucky enough to have been born here.

      Most of these people are trying to better their lives. Most of them are not looking for handouts. They can't get here legally. We don't let them. Only a select few are allowed. If I was in their shoes i would do the same thing. You would too and you know it. But you're not in their shoes, you're on this side of the border. And you think somehow that gives you the right to make a law that says they can't come in. Again, where do you get that right? You have violated their rights by making that immoral law. Where do you get that right? Did god give you that right? Because that's the only place you could have gotten it. It didn't come from the facts of reality.

      Your view of Objectivism is completely irrelevant. The only thing relevant is that you have tried to twist Objectivism to fit your preexisting belief system with no intention of adjusting that belief system to fit the reality discovered by the application of Objectivism.

      I don't blame America. America still stands for certain values and ideals. I blame the people who have perverted those ideals and twisted those values to fit their own needs. A lot of people have been hurt by the perversion of those ideals. A lot of blood has been shed over those twisted values. People are responsible for that. Those people have blood on their hands. I blame those people. And I blame myself for not stopping them.

      Pick a damn side.
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      • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
        Regulating immigration is the sovereign right of a nation. The United States is the private property of the American people. The authority of the federal government, its very existence, was granted by the people of the States. The role of the fed gov is defined by the Constitution.

        Yes, you are blaming America first and, remarkably, stripping away individual responsibility and accountability from those violating a just law. Each person is responsible for his her own conduct, yes? If so, then each person coming into this country has voluntarily violated the law - the reason is irrelevant.The blame for their lawlessness is their own - they didn't have to, nor were they made to violate the law.

        You can't have it both ways - Is property private or not? If yes, then people's movements are restricted (they can go around). If no, then you advocate open borders, the erasure of national sovereignty, and one world governance or no governance. I'd even speculate that if you're against private property you're against ownership in general.

        My side is clear..America has her right to her border and who comes in and out. Private property TRUMPS right to travel. The Founding Fathers were for state/national sovereignty and private ownership. If private ownership is something Objectivism is set against then I'm in the wrong place.
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        • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
          Do the american people have the right to tell you that you can't use Interstate 17 to travel from Phoenix to Flagstaff? Just because they don't want you in Flagstaff? They do not. Why? It is a public thoroughfare. Used by many to get from Phoenix to Flagstaff so they have no right to restrict just you. That is a violation of your rights. Your immigration status makes no difference.

          It does not matter how many false alternatives you use, how much you reverse cause and effect, or attempt to abuse an unearned moral high ground, you change nothing. Everything I said stands. Your rights are no more important than anybody else's.

          Private property rights and the right to travel freely are on equal ground. Understanding that takes deep thought. That takes effort. It also takes a willingness to set aside preconceived notions and put in that effort to find the truth. Yes your position is perfectly clear. You have the right to violate the rights of those who happen to be from outside the US borders and the US government is your tool to enforce that position.

          Private property rights and the right to travel freely are not at odds here. This is Objectivism and you have refused to acknowledge even a single point so... Maybe.
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          • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 9 years, 1 month ago
            Your argument is flawed, again. I-17 is a public road..I am the public - I am a tax payer - I am a resident of the state and a citizen of the country. I-17 is a road in my State which is in my country. Illegals may use that road because no one checks but that does not permit them in any way to be in our nation.

            The right to travel is flawed and incorrect.
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
            Please define "right to travel freely" in an Objectivist society in which all property is private. Ayn Rand never defined any such right and, at least at present, this supposed "right" cannot be considered canonical to Objectivism.
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            • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
              Why do you assume that in an Objectivist society that 'all property is private.' Why would some not be unowned or not owned yet?

              The 'right to travel freely' is corollary to the right to life itself and the right to earn one's needs for life. In the Constitution, it also derives from the right to 'the pursuit of happiness'. I don't know about canonical, but the right is essential to Objectivism.
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                As I asked in the post above, please define the "right to travel freely." Otherwise we may be talking about different things.

                Unfortunately, the right to "the pursuit of happiness" is often used to justify all manner of welfare state measures such as "free public education" and subsidized medical care. This diminishes its usefulness in promoting the Objectivist concept of rights.
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                • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                  I'm not a big quoter of Ayn Rand, but in this case she expresses my thinking quite well. "A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

                  The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men."


                  To me that means that if I'm born into a society, culture, or country that restricts or even punishes a man's right to life, then I have the right to take a rationally selfish action to exercise my right to life, to travel away from there. And since the only proper role of US government is the protection of the individual's rights, it must not use force, (physical corruption, coercion, or interference) to prevent me from exercising that right. And for arguments of any having to only do that for men under it's jurisdiction, If I can make it to that border or across it, I'm under it's jurisdiction and it must morally protect my rights.

                  As to 'pursuit of happiness' being misinterpreted and misused, I won't argue that point, but will point out that most of the oppressive law enacted in the country's history, it's been 'The General Welfare Clause' and National Security that have been the prime factors.

                  I hope that helps to clarify.
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                  • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Thank you. That does help to clarify. I will likewise give you a more complete clarification later today regarding my thinking on the subject and where we differ. In the meantime, based on your post above, I would be interested in knowing your thoughts on a current issue: Is the nation of Hungary morally obligated to accept, and protect the rights of, all of the Middle Eastern refugees that arrive at its border? Or does it have the moral right to deny them access by building a fence along that border, as it is now doing?
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      Dear CBJ,
                      I like the topic, and think that it is relevant to my topic. However, your topic is probably going to generate enough responses that it merits being a separate discussion thread.
                      Thanks,
                      jbrenner
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                    • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                      The nation of Hungary can only have rights granted to it by it's people and properly, those are retaliatory force against those that use force against the rights of it's people, the people within it's jurisdiction. The individuals of Hungary have no moral responsibility to 'help' anyone unless they individually determine that it's in their own self-interest to do so.

                      There can be no moral right to deny others the right to life or travel, but there's no need to build a fence. If there are enough individuals that determine it's in their self-interest, OK---if not the refugees will go back home or move on to somewhere else.
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                  • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                    Okay, here’s where I think we disagree.

                    You say that “the only proper role of US government is the protection of the individual's rights”. This is not quite accurate, as far as Objectivism is concerned. Ayn Rand said, “A free nation—a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens—has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government.” This is a subtle but crucial distinction. If a complete stranger suddenly shows up in your country, does he automatically have the right to be there? If the country is governed by Objectivist principles, the stranger is either on private property without permission (trespassing), or he is on property the control of which was specifically ceded to the government by its citizens to carry out specific functions for the benefit of the citizens that authorized it. The stranger cannot claim the right to be on this type of property either. (He may obtain permission to be there, but that is a separate issue. We are talking about rights.) He also does not have a valid moral claim upon the government to protect his rights. This would saddle the government with an unchosen obligation, and Objectivism does not permit the creation of unchosen obligations.

                    To allow such a stranger free access to the country would also put at risk the citizens that the Objectivist government was formed to protect and defend. The stranger could claim to be a political refugee, but he could just as easily be a spy for a foreign dictatorship, a terrorist or a sleeper agent of the kind that carried out the 9/11 attacks. To allow such a person an unrestricted “right to travel” within the country, until and unless he overtly initiated force, would be a major breach of the government’s obligation to protect the safety and property of its citizens.

                    The above says nothing about whether or not we should advocate a more open immigration policy. It may well be in our self-interest to do so. But no one can claim a “right” to immigrate to a specific country. I doubt that even Ayn Rand would support such a right, and she was an immigrant.
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                    • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                      I appreciate your explanation.
                      First, I think we're confusing or conflating some terms here that are getting us into much of these disagreements. A nation/state is not a government and vice versa. It is a geographical/political/cultural area. It's a creation of man, but can have no rights. It's not alive and not a man.
                      A proper government is created by the people of such an area for the purpose of providing uniform and objective retaliatory force against those that use force to infringe on a man within the government's jurisdiction. The only proper 'prevention' it does or 'safety' it provides is through the assurance that it will apply Objective retaliatory force to those that try to or do infringe.
                      As to property, the government, since it is not an individual man cannot have a property right. Only the individual can have that, and to the public property you imply, which individual owns that property which he has asked the government to protect.
                      As to citizens, they are merely individuals that their fellows have agreed that have authority to vote, but he has no more rights than does any other man. There are many other people within the area called a nation.
                      As to bad individuals that come into the country, until Objective, rationally verified evidence is obtained that the bad individual is in the process of, begins to, or has committed an offense, no one has a right to deny him his natural rights.
                      That is the basis of the founding of this country--that the individual had unlimited and unalienable rights and the only source of jurisdiction and authority for those in government, while acting as government, was those specifically given it by the individuals that place themselves subject to such authority.
                      I've already listed Rand's statement of immigration restriction earlier in this post. She was adamant that she didn't agree to it.
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                      • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                        I think we have both summed up our positions nicely. There is only one statement of yours that I would like to explore further, as I think it could lead to dire consequences if fully implemented.

                        You say, “As to bad individuals that come into the country, until Objective, rationally verified evidence is obtained that the bad individual is in the process of, begins to, or has committed an offense, no one has a right to deny him his natural rights.”

                        If this policy were adopted and strictly implemented, it would allow an ISIS leader and any number of his followers to enter and travel around the country unhindered, openly or covertly, as long as they appeared to remain peaceful. And even if the government became aware of their existence and their beliefs, it would not be able to effectively monitor their activities to obtain “rationally verified evidence” of criminal intent, lest their 4th Amendment “rights” be violated. The results would likely be catastrophic. I don’t think that a nation exhibiting any semblance of rationality and desire for self-preservation would permit its government to even consider adopting such a policy.
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                    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                      I agree with your interpretation, but I doubt Rand and other Objectivists would. I guess that makes me a non-Objectivist. I am OK with that. I think that your interpretation is more rational.
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                      • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                        I consider myself an Objectivist and my conclusions above are derived directly from Objectivist principles. I believe that Ayn Rand would agree with my interpretation, although of course there is no way to know for sure.
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            • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
              You travel on roads. Not kitchens. If you own a road people travel on it. Presumably they pay you for the use of it. They have the right to travel but that does not impose a right to the product of your labor. Your road has a purpose. People must be able to travel from one point to another, just as you must be able to travel from one point to another. Otherwise you are imprisoned. If you recognize this right for yourself, you must recognize this right for everyone else. Without this right you cannot live. At least not in a society. Where rights matter.
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              • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                I agree with this part of your argument. Where the argument is weak is in the right to travel freely on a "publicly owned" road. If the citizens of a society are paying for that road via taxation and the immigrant does not, then the immigrant is getting a value (ability to travel) without having to pay for it. The reason that in most places the taxation to support roads is via fuel taxes at the gasoline/diesel station is to ensure that all pay to support those roads, regardless of property ownership status or immigration status. Perhaps the term should not be "right to travel freely", but simply "right to travel". There should not be any right to travel for zero cost. Even walking or bike riding require some "public" space. That much is charged to the property owners, and the immigrants are getting it for free. This inequity demonstrates how subtly the citizen owners subsidize the immigrant, and it extends to a wide variety of "public" services such as fire protection (which in some places is either non-existent or volunteer), libraries (which should be privatized), schools (particularly schools, which should also be privatized), etc.

                This further reinforces my argument that the right to travel freely for immigrants at least indirectly and substantially (financially) translates to a requirement that the nation's citizenry must be altruistic.
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                • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
                  j; The right to freely travel in Objectivism does not equate to 'at no cost'.

                  If they're traveling on a road, they're either in an automobile, which means someone's bought gas and paid the tax, or they're walking which I don't think really accrues any cost to anyone, other than cost to build it originally which you and I didn't participate in anyway.
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                  • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
                    True enough, but the property owner does pay for that original cost and maintenance over time. The immigrant perhaps does so as well through rent, if he/she is "out of the shadows".
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 9 years, 1 month ago
                Let me say at the outset that I do not recognize a “right to travel”, either for myself or for anyone else. It is no more a right than a “right to medical care”. Both supposed “rights” impose obligations on others. In the case of doctors it is a “right” to their services. In the case of landowners it is a “right” to use their property. It is true that people must be able to travel from one point to another, but this is a need, not a right. Like other needs, it can and should be met through voluntary transactions in a free market. A landowner exercising his property rights is no more “imprisoning” someone than a doctor is “killing” someone by not providing medical services. Atlas Shrugged is all about what happens when needs are elevated above rights.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                  The right to travel means the freedom to travel, not an entitlement to be transported. If your right to travel is abrogated you are literally imprisoned.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Those who are left are the looters and cronyists. Without getting rid of the incentive for them to do what they do, all of your good work in eliminating welfare, the war on drugs, and the income tax is only a partial solution.
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    • Posted by kevinw 9 years, 1 month ago
      Wow, really? The looters and the cronyists are on this side of the border. They are the reason we have the war on drugs, the income tax and welfare, among other things. As much as I'd like to kick them outside the border, we can't. We can only face them with a consistent message and as long as we are still arguing about the non-problem called immigration, we haven't got a consistent message. And as long as some of us continue to advocate the violation of the rights of individuals just because they don't happen to be US citizens, we will continue to argue.
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      • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
        They looters and cronyists are the source of the problem. The war on drugs, the income tax, and welfare are symptoms. You told me that I had cause and effect reversed. With all due respect to everyone in the Gulch, the real cause is the looter/moocher/crony triumvirate. That is what has to be dethroned.
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        • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
          But how do you dethrone them? We don't have the right to just go out and kill them. Just remove their food. Stand up and say NO and demonstrate to and teach others in order to get a bigger voice.
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          • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
            With all due respect, Zenphamy, I have been standing up and saying NO and demonstrating and teaching others for 2 decades now because I thought it was in my self-interest. In retrospect, most of that time was spent altruistically. In short, I've been there and done that, and it is no longer (and perhaps never was) a fruitful effort.
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          • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
            The challenge of removing the war on drugs, the income tax, welfare, and the incentives that reward looters and cronyists would require a fundamental transformation of America many times greater than what Obama has accomplished. It has taken 100 years to get like this.

            The far simpler solution would be to start over somewhere else, like the earliest colonists did. This is why I had shown interest in a physical Atlantis.
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            • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 7 months ago
              The other method will be to start over after the collapse of this nation. And unless people are willing to make the systemic changes necessary, that collapse will come. Furthermore, it will come not just to this nation, but will affect the rest of the world as well. It may even be that Europe collapses first and drags us with it - we can certainly see the economic and social problems in those nations.

              I do not doubt that at some point in the next 20-30 years we are going to have to face an existential conflict. On its face it will be a war with Islam, but at its heart it will be about freedom vs slavery. The question will be whether or not enough people are willing to stand up for freedom across this world and reject the slavery and oppression embodied and embraced and supported by everyone from bankers to one-world idealists to religious zealots. And mark my words, but we will have to fight for our rights - not with words, but with force.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 1 month ago
    From the above, follows the proposition that a non-free nation-state has no right to territorial respect. She further said any country that commits four specific atrocities against its subjects--execution without trial, detention without formal charge, restriction on ex-migration, and censorship--deserves invasion at the hand of any free nation having the capacity and will so to act.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      Correct. She also stated that it may not be in a nation's self-interest to execute such an invasion, however.
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      • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
        Touch of reality. For non-entities that blood looked very very real. I do believe next time some gives a war let them be cannon fodder first. Then I'll think about it... Get back to you on that....really....I've got a fifty state park to protect. Don't call me I'll call you....really.

        I call that the after you Mr. President Rule.

        "Say What? it's my duty? "

        "You reneged first. Have a nice day. Don't forget to take safety off."


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  • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 1 month ago
    J,

    The passage is clear that people have rights and that nations do not have rights. When we speak of the rights of a nations, we are talking about the rights of the people that make up that nation.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      db, please read again. What part of the following do you and several others fail to understand from The Virtue of Selfishness?

      "A free nation—a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its citizens— has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government."

      Your unwillingness to recognize this point was my main reason for starting this thread.
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
        j, we're getting confused here in our not understanding the difference between inherent rights of the individual and granted rights (authorities) from the individual to the government formed by those individuals and staffed by other member individuals elected by the individuals within the jurisdiction.
        edit for clarity.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          When the government of a free nation "is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense)", that government is acting based on rights granted to it by its citizenry. The United States acted in such a limited fashion for many years, particularly from 1865-1900. That is a granted right, but nonetheless a right. What db and Kh have argued for a month, perhaps two years given her statements on Friday, is that an individual's freedom to travel trumps the right of a nation to its territorial integrity. It does not, because in order for that to happen, the rights of citizens of the nation must be sacrificed. Those citizens have a reasonable expectation that their nation will fulfill the "specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense)". When the nation ceases to fulfill that task, the nation has no reason to exist.

          Those who disagree with The Virtue of Selfishness quote at the top of this thread are arguing that the rights of the citizenry to delegate their defense to their nation must be abrogated in favor of non-citizens' right to travel. Moreover, when they deny the reason for the nation to exist, they are ultimately denying its right to exist. In doing so, Objectivists are guaranteeing that there will be no nation that honors Objectivist values. Those who argue that the right to travel supercedes a nation's rights to exist and defend itself are arguing for ... anarchy. If a free nation, as defined by Rand, cannot defend its own territory and make laws consistent with Objectivism via its social system and form of government, then it must provide sanction to its own immolation.
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          • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago
            Well said.
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              Thanks, blarman.
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              • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago
                One thought that occurs to me: The very first principle of Objectivism is existence: separate and distinctly recognizable from other entities and bodies within reality, correct? Is this not a claim to borders - and inherent in the definition of reality itself?

                Borders are delineations of control or dominion, are they not? We claim ownership over our own bodies, but at best the concept and control of thought emanates from the physical regions of the brain rather than the foot or the hand, which are appendages. Thus our claim to sovereignty even over our own bodies (which argument we take for granted) is an argument for recognized boundaries of personal dominion/exclusive control. When we speak of personal property, our bodies are first, but not the only property over which we claim ownership. We claim not only the products of our minds, but land, homes, vehicles, etc. as being those things purchased or gained as a result of our productivity. Those things become portions of our dominions, do they not - extensions of our wills, tools of our intellects to carry out specific purposes?

                In a nation of like-minded individuals who respect property rights and ownership claims, what are we actually respecting? The rights of a person to retain the fruits of his or her industry for their further use and purpose. Can the rights of protection of property rights be delegated to a national authority for prosecution? Absolutely. It is the primary purpose for government - or such is the argument. And the government's authority to protection of property extends only insofar as the summation of the individual properties of the people represented by that government, but within those boundaries it is as absolute as the individual's property rights.
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                • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
                  Geographical borders are not "inherent" in the "definition of reality". They are legal abstractions specified for a legal purpose. The axiomatic concept of existence does not mean "separate and distinctly recognizable from other entities and bodies within reality" as "a claim to borders". Physical boundary markers are added for the purpose of physically recording and specifying the locations of the legal definitions. They don't make plots of land or countries physical entities somehow deduced from the concept of existence. Those claims have nothing to do with Ayn Rand's metaphysics and epistemology.
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                  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago
                    So how does one recognize that one is separate and distinct from the rest of the universe? Boundaries. Borders. Delineations.

                    Our bodies are bounded or limited by our skin. Everything within that skin is deemed to be controlled by our minds. Everything outside our skin is deemed to be separate and apart from the immediate control of our minds and must be manipulated via extensions (hands, fingers, arms, legs, etc.) or tools (wrenches, saws, pliers, automobiles, ships, airplanes, etc.). We use tools and extensions to manipulate the universe around us, but we do so with the inherent recognition that we are not the tool - that it exists separate and apart from us. When we wield a tool, we claim ownership or dominion over it for that time as we directly control it. If we have purchased the tool, our ownership claim extends even to the passive existence of the tool, and our permission - or delegated authority - is required for someone else to lawfully use the tool.

                    And why? Because of the concept of property rights. Our properties - be they tools, land, etc., are bounded by either physical or logical delineations or boundaries expressing the limits of our direct or indirect control over them. But to dismiss that these boundaries exist is not only to deny property rights, but to deny the ability to separate one's self from the rest of reality.
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                    • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
                      Your bizarre philosophical rationalizations have nothing to do with Ayn Rand's philosophy, which you both misrepresent and attack. We do not perceive entities by "boundaries defining ownership". Boundaries are a derivative concept. We know that we are distinct from the universe without the concept "skin". You are truly bizarre.
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                      • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago
                        I have simply stated the truth: that recognition of reality begins when we first define the limits of ourselves and separate that from the rest of the universe. The distinction between objects lies in identifying and defining the boundaries of those objects - where one object leaves off and another begins. That you choose to interpret that any differently than what I have plainly written is on you.
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                        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                          The plain bizarre quotes and misrepresentations are from your own posts. We don't know we are separate from the universe only after identifying "skin" as a "boundary" and then "deeming" that the "inside" is "controlled" by one's own mind. We start by being conscious of reality and realizing that there is a self that is conscious. You don't walk around yourself looking for "boundaries" before you can realize that you are not the rest of reality. Your rambling rationalizations are truly bizarre and not the "very first principle of Objectivism" as "existence: separate and distinctly recognizable from other entities". That doesn't even make sense.
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          • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
            j; I don't disagree with the Virtue of Selfishness quote, I disagree with your interpretation and attempted application of it and the underlying principles and definitions provided by AR.
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            • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
              Then we will politely disagree. An open borders situation may be OK for individual migrants, but in the long run, a sufficient number of moochers will come in, regardless of a welfare state, that the host nation will cease to be worth migrating to. The situation in the 1800s in the US was acceptable. That is simply not possible anymore.
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    • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 1 month ago
      if that is true, then a corollary would exist with corporations,
      formed by citizens and anointed with a degree of "personship" by law.

      thus, I may appropriate the cable company's truck as my own
      when I feel free, without recourse, in this world of the new view. -- j
      .
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
        Citizens and Employees Associations. They have some fine ideas but start out oddly enough as treating each member as an individual. Not 20th Century Motors style. Company supervisors and up may not hold office but are members. The operating theory is it's not machine's that are the means of production but the entire work force CEO to Janitor. Unlike the socialist version they have a voice and a stake in the operation. Families and small business owners and employees are not left out. Pure collectivists will hate it. Anti collectivists will hate it. With that much going against the idea it's worth looking at.
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        • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 1 month ago
          with walmart calling its employees "associates," the path has
          been paved. . I wonder if the voice and stake in the operation
          is pro-rated according to stock ownership. -- j
          .
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
      Correct. Governments have rights granted. Dictators from Stalin and Hitler to Chavita in Venezuela and one far more local to us all understand power is not seized it's given to them.
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      • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
        If you read the full link under National Rights under the Ayn Rand lexicon, you will see that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were specifically eliminated from those nations having rights, because they refuse to recognize, respect, and protect the rights of individual citizens.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
          The statement stands the citizens of Germany and Russia and now the US granted the right to their government to become despots. What happened after that was after that.

          There is a partial maybe exception. Genghis Khan sometimes went straight over one country to get to another - even so he gave them a choice and the choice was made under some duress. Give up or stack skulls.

          On the other hand what other empire has guaranteed under pain of instant execution for those tried to deny religious freedom and simultaneously kept all of them out of his government except his own occasionally not even them? He was way ahead of his time in many ways.
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        • Posted by ewv 9 years, 1 month ago
          No "nation" has "rights" as an entity. Statists do not have any right to impose themselves anywhere, including their own claimed territory. It does not mean the the government of a free society is an entity with "rights". The people in a free society have a right to maintain their freedom and form of government protecting it, through the actions of its government. No government acts by "right".
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
    Mexico has open borders. We do not. A US Drivers License is fine with them. It will also get you back in the US. However they do require a visitors visa (295 pesos) if you are going further than Sonora the state south of Tucson which is a free zone or if driving a vehicle. The bus company will not sell a ticket to further destinations without passport and visa. It's no big deal currently that's $18.44US
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
    The problem is easily solved. Let the three strikes people whose third strike is marijuana out on parole or bail or whatever. Put those who hire illegals in jail with some hefty fines.

    Like any other RICO activity sooner or later someone will drop a dime or two on the equally guilty law breaker. They may be donors to the party coffers but that will be fast forgotten it the tar brush starts to spread and no it' s not just one or the other party. It's ONE party in a ONE party system. Damn circular argument again. Which is exactly why nothing will be done.

    Unless the general public does it 's little act come voting day. If they don't it's a de facto situation just like happened with Patrioit Act and the rest of it. Nothing to be done. Deal with it.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
    If'n you be goin' back to Ronnie why not go all the to LBJ? Are still with that phony two party system myth? Grow up. Read a book.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
      I could have gone back further, but "Peace through Strength" defined the Reagan/Bush era. My choice was intentional and valid. If I had gone back further, I would have left LBJ out of it and gone back to at least Eisenhower and probably Truman.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
        Roosevelt, Wilson and Lincoln would fit. Leave LBJ out? Lyndon Butcher Johnson. No chance of that. I would walk across the street to .....on his grave. Cheerfully! And send you an invitation and an airplane ticket - except for TSA.
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        • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago
          I appreciate the effort that you made during Vietnam. What I meant by leaving LBJ out was that he did not want peace, and did little to exhibit strength to the outside world.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
            Lots of ways to be a war monger. The part I really hate is when the left started yelling about why can't we do something to help - just like they are doing now - and then turned around and joined the other side five minutes after the voted for it themselves. That's my main reason for being leery of this latest adventure. The country doesn't have the decency to back u pthe troops they send out. Like the guy trying to help the little kid and where was our and I'm going to spell this out piece of shit Commander in Chief? I have plenty of sympathy for those folks caught in that war but I don't trust my own government to do diddly nor the citizens to do squat.
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