I won't pursue this further. Suffice to say, I am not objectivist material, which is to say, not an ultraconservative.
A=A means a thing is what it is.....it has identity and it's definition is objective.
As far as I can tell, Objectivist and neo-con are interchangeable, at least as far as politics are concerned.
As far as Iraq is concerned, FrancisFukuyama's recent book,
America at the Crossroads, analyzes what may have gone wrong with U.S. policy. The book points out that using military power alone to deal with threats is not enough. U.S. had support for its actions in Afghanistan but failed to maintain "international legitimacy" for its actions in Iraq. The author makes the following conclusion:
Quote:The most important way that American power can be exercised at this juncture is not through the exercise of military power but through the ability of the United States to shape international institutions. John Ikenberry has argued that this was precisely the way that the United States exercised its then-dominant power in the years immediately following World War II. The neoconservatives had a true insight that American ideals and self-interests are often aligned, but they failed to understand that the alignment most often occurred through America's ability to create durable political frameworks through which it could achieve long-term cooperation with like-minded nations.
101 : There is only one reality, but there are as many perceptions of realty as there are people.
Jenifer Johnson wrote:
101 : There is only one reality, but there are as many perceptions of realty as there are people.
Yep...this makes reality the final arbiter, IOW, if one wants the truth, they need to consult reality and apply logic to it.
An alternative is to dismiss reality and assume that pure logic is the sole means to truth, of course, this is a flawed approach as reality is the basis of all knowledge, this includes maths,
logic and language.
People's perceptions are often wrong, but more so people's ability to analyse and think critically, ie, if critical thinking is to have merit, it must be referenced to something objective, otherwise one is merely thinking long and hard about their
prejudices.
wandeljw wrote:As far as Iraq is concerned, FrancisFukuyama's recent book, America at the Crossroads, analyzes what may have gone wrong with U.S. policy.
I think the concentration of Zionist's in the media plays a huge role in America's problems.
Reality 101: There is duality in everything, where one of the sides is reality, and the other side, is our perception of reality, as being an individual. Therefore, Individualism is the only valid paradigm as a system of control. Right from wrong (natural law) is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense against other individuals.
Jenifer Johnson wrote:Reality 101: There is duality in everything, where one of the sides is reality, and the other side, is our perception of reality, as being an individual. Therefore, Individualism is the only valid paradigm as a system of control. Right from wrong (natural law) is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense against other individuals.
I hold the view that our perception of reality is all we have, thus our perception forms the basis of our concepts/knowledge....the difference between science and opinion is that the science can be tested independently and consistently verified, ie, it reflects reality as it is/as we know it.
Whilst science is provisional, it's still objective, and any further knowledge we acquire about an object will slot within it's definition, as a definition defines everything we know, and everything we'll ever know about an object.
I agree that individual rights are basic natural rights derived from the human condition, ie, our nature....a rejection or misinterpretation of IR's leads to various forms of
slavery.
DavidIg : I agree that individual rights are basic natural rights derived from the human condition, ie, our nature....a rejection or misinterpretation of IR's leads to various forms of slavery.
People believe that the right to life, liberty, and property do not exist, only because of the collective force to make laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Each of us has a natural right to defend one's person, one's liberty, and one's property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
Collectivism is the complete perversion of the Law, which places the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without personal risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It is easy to understand why the illigitimate law is used by the collective to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder.
Jenifer Johnson wrote:DavidIg : I agree that individual rights are basic natural rights derived from the human condition, ie, our nature....a rejection or misinterpretation of IR's leads to various forms of slavery.
People believe that the right to life, liberty, and property do not exist, only because of the collective force to make laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Each of us has a natural right to defend one's person, one's liberty, and one's property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
Collectivism is the complete perversion of the Law, which places the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without personal risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It is easy to understand why the illigitimate law is used by the collective to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder.
The world runs on a balance of collectivism and individuality. The pendulumn swings and one holds sway for a bit. The trick the world at large has not mastered is making the two function harmoniously, instead of fighting it out so mindlessly.
edgarblythe,
The balance is good and evil, where Collectivism is pure criminality. The tendency of mankind is self-preservation and self-development. We are naturally inclined to avoid pain, and since labor is pain in itself, it only follows that we will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. The objective of collectivism is to use the power of the collective to get the individual to do what they could never get them to do individually, a crime against humanity.
It is self evident, that the proper purpose of legitimate law is to use the balance of individual authority and responsibility (Individualism), to stop the fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work.
Collectivism, "for the greater good" is nothing more that greed and false philanthropy.
I don't expect you to get beyond your fundamentalism to understand. I just put that in for others to see.
Phoenix32890 wrote:DavidIg- OK Fair enough.
Personally, I believe that the preeminent role of government is security, both within and without.
I believe the first role of government
should be to maximize the freedom of the individual citizen to the extent that is does not infringe upon another individual citizen's freedoms.
I believe the secondary role of government
should be to sympathize with the individual citizenry in a fashion that supports their best interests.
I believe both objectives could be more fairly reached with an internet-based referendum system for decisions most often now out of the hands of the individual citizenry.
I would place the role of security pretty much in line with the role of paranoia, except in times of clear, present, imminent, obvious danger.
edgarblythe wrote:I don't expect you to get beyond your fundamentalism to understand. I just put that in for others to see.
edgarblythe,
I understand perfectly your collectivist mentality. My question is, do you know the difference between right from wrong?
edgarblythe wrote:The world runs on a balance of collectivism and individuality. The pendulumn swings and one holds sway for a bit. The trick the world at large has not mastered is making the two function harmoniously, instead of fighting it out so mindlessly.
I'm not convinced I see the two as mutually exclusive, although most (if not all) political parties and their philosophies have created the artifice of separateness. Naturally enough, that's a falsehood in a pragmatic sense.
edgarblythe wrote:I don't expect you to get beyond your fundamentalism to understand. I just put that in for others to see.
I don't expect you to get past your brainwashing
Jenifer Johnson wrote:
People believe that the right to life, liberty, and property do not exist, only because of the collective force to make laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Each of us has a natural right to defend one's person, one's liberty, and one's property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
I agree, and I'm also curious if anyone at this forum knows how to determine
right from wrong in an objective sense.
Some of the comments lead me to believe that it's possible, but I think most will default to minor alterations of the current system aka modifying but not replacing slavery.
