Idaho senator proposes legislation to require all students to read Atlas Shrugged

[admiralsnackbar]

Negative Ghost rider. Randian view believed that armies and police should be used to protect against the taking and blocking of trade. With America protecting all sea passages and going to war with countries and opening up markets freely it's pretty much doing this. You are over simplifying their views.

You're pointing out one of Rand's recurrent logical conflicts between individual ethics and economic doctrine. She wants both what I said AND what you've said to be true. But they cannot be simultaneously true, so "oversimplification" is inevitable.

[spursncowboys]

3) Would the military provide medical services?
Well, I suppose it would buy insurance. How long soldiers or ex-soldiers would be covered for is a matter to be settled democratically. But justice would seem to demand that soldiers be fully covered for injuries suffered in battle, at the minimum.
It is hard to see, however, once we ignore bad socialist premises, why the government should run a massive bureaucracy like the Veterans Administration. An interesting question for a freer future is whether the government should literally own any property at all (rather than leasing, for example). Objectivism says nothing conclusive either way on that last matter.

So I guess I was wrong in some aspects.

[spursncowboys]

You're pointing out one of Rand's recurrent logical conflicts between individual ethics and economic doctrine. She wants both what I said AND what you've said to be true. But they cannot be simultaneously true, so "oversimplification" is inevitable.

touche. Which goes back to the quote about it not being a blue print. But something to get closer to

[ElNono]

The connection I don't see is how forcing kids to read Atlas Shrugged "improve their skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing"...

If the kid decides to pick up the book and read it, more power to him/her. Making it required reading seems to actually go entirely against the "critical thinking" part...

[admiralsnackbar]

http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivism_military[/FONT][/COLOR]

Right... now explain to me why an individual chooses to enlist and how it fits in with her dogma.

[spursncowboys]

The connection I don't see is how forcing kids to read Atlas Shrugged "improve their skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing"...

If the kid decides to pick up the book and read it, more power to him/her. Making it required reading seems to actually go entirely against the "critical thinking" part...

I agree. The politician was never going to. He made the statement as hyperbole. DoK pulled a B_D- didn't read the article

[ElNono]

to be fair, I think there's a lot of "making a point", and little of "making" with legislatures in general these days...

[spursncowboys]

[QUOTE=admiralsnackbar;6350351]

http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivism_military[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]

Right... now explain to me why an individual chooses to enlist and how it fits in with her dogma.

LnnGrr for example got a skill that he would otherwise had to have paid for. So the interests of knowledge. Alot of the military travel to actually nice parts of the world. Some people want it for the credibility that it gives you. Some do it for the leadership it instills in you (Robert Kyosaki stated this as his primary reason for joining the military). There are endless "selfish" reasons why people would join.

[spursncowboys]

to be fair, I think there's a lot of "making a point", and little of "making" with legislatures in general these days...

Absolutely

[admiralsnackbar]

GI Bill is an incentive that at it's inception was paid by the GI. VA Benefits are also a way to pay for the Army destroying a person's body. You are making them out to be anarchists. Which they are not.

Yet their ideal "state" has no precedent, nor any reasonable expectation of efficacy. It may not be anarchy, but it is stupid.

[admiralsnackbar]

One thing about their views is they debated it non-stop. It was ever changing.

And yet they deem it systematic enough to merit its own "-ism."

[spursncowboys]

Yet their ideal "state" has no precedent, nor any reasonable expectation of efficacy. It may not be anarchy, but it is stupid.

Why does something have to lack intelligence if it's not agreeable?

[admiralsnackbar]

Why does something have to lack intelligence if it's not agreeable?

Because it is an unfeasible idealistic construct which purports to be based on practical feasibility. See: Marx.

Machiavelli and Hobbes are considered "disagreeable," but at least they propose viable, logically-consistent (insofar as is possible) political/economic principles. Rousseau proposes a perfectly agreeable vision of the state, and I think he's more or less an idiot on that score as well.

[Clipper Nation]

Neocons continuing to demand big government

[Clipper Nation]

SnC, they don't get it. They don't have the balls to join the military.

Fetishizing the life of oil companies' and defense cronies' slaves

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

zionist mercenaries
thinking that you defend the United State then you get deployed to defend Israel

[boutons_deux]

they'll put a veteran in charge

Let's go to the shooting range, huh? It's great fun!

A veteran is one the most untrustworthy groups. 30%+ from Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait have PTSD, TBI, chemical diseases, etc.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Yeah veterans have a much higher unemployment rate than the rest of the country it's a total myth that they get management level jobs so easily.

[Th'Pusher]

A lot of veteran rapists too.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

and puppy killers too

Gotta protect America against those terrorist puppies

[LnGrrrR]

College improved my skills enough where I'll be starting a job before my 23rd birthday that pays over 50k. At that age, you were still in Iraq murdering babies

I'm still waiting to hear more about the policies I support and option trading being illegal.

Didn't realize you were such a young blood, scro.

[LnGrrrR]

You mean the ins ution which perfectly flies in the face of objectivism?

Soldiers are the ultimate pathetic takers in a Randian world-view... they either demonstrate their lack of reasoning by risking their lives for the interests of the collective, or they do it for a pittance that demonstrates how low their self-esteem/intelligence is. An objectivist would never respect somebody who took orders for a living, or who abrogated the will of another human by force. They'd scoff at the GI bill and VA benefits used to incentive-ize conscription. "If you wanted to learn a trade," they'd say, "why didn't you go learn one instead of leeching off taxpayers to do it?"

Don't get me wrong... I respect y'all's service, but Ayn Rand? She would think you were less roaches.

The US military is probably one of the largest socialist ins utions in the world. And Ayn Rand is a sloppy malodorous ****, for what it's worth.

Not sure about Rands views on the military, tbqh. I would assume she would believe some sort of defense is necessary, but maybe she would like it all civilianized like Blackwater. I'll have to look that up now that I'm curious.

[LnGrrrR]

Actually, turns out Rand supported the military:

You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service — it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you to realize it.

The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest — as the armies of other countries have done in their histories — only as an instrument of a free nation's self-defense, which means: the defense of a man's individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have.

Of course, she was speaking to future officers. She'd probably think that the enlisted folks are useless.

[ElNono]

Ofcourse she wants an army to protect the criminal, individualistic oilco bible-thumping bankster bubbas running the VRWC, and what's more selfless than letting messicans be the cannon fodder?

America the brave is ed and un able, GFY.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Didn't realize you were such a young blood, scro.

being on the same side of the argument as spursncowboys