A new biography of Any Rand is reviewed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books ... sch-t.html

Ayn Rand being the beloved pseudo-economic theorist of modern conservatism.

I am Rand-bivalent. Enjoyed reading on Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. (I say "reading on" because they are not exactly books that you hold in sweaty palms for 4-10 hours straight until you finish them at 3:37 a.m. on a workday morning. They are more tomes you keep on the nightstand with bookmarkers in them and pick up now and then. I marked passages of Atlas on first reading, but never read all the last hundred pages.)

Rand has a point in her philosophy. Then again, she doesn't. Randian giants don't exist, however badly those who see themselves as genius enterpreneurs and investors want to believe they do. Essentially, Randianism is a vanity philosophy for wheeler-dealers, enabling them to view themselves as heroic figures engaged in a titanic moral struggle, and not as money-grubbers rooting around in the mud.

Unfortunately, the giant figure forging companies and deals in his own image, accepting no charity and getting ahead exclusively on genius and hard work, usually turns out to be a midget whose little empire was built on favors, preferences and begging and no small amount of bullying, lying and cheating.

Those who profit most in our society are not inventors and discoverers but paper traders. Middlemen whose only genius is profiting on the ideas of others.

The poor depend too much on welfare and the industrialist too much on welfare. If one sees Rand's books as an idealistic plea for how we ought to be and not as any picture of how any of us really is, then they have value. Aspirational ideals like the Ten Commandments that few if any can live up to, but which nonetheless are desirable to study in the hope of being influenced thereby.

Interesting book review about an interesting and conflicted person.

Like other persons of Jewish ancestry, Rand left behind her Jewish name for a goy name that sounds amazingly like "Galt." And her second husband also swapped out his own Jewish name for an identity among the goyim. (Compare this to the founder of a lucretive self-help philosophy known as "Est," Werner Erhard, formerly Jack Rosenberg, who preached that we are each in charge of our lives and that if we are persecuted it is because we want to be. Fertile ground, here, for armchair psychiatrists.)

One trait of the insane, it is said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
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Some recent coverage of former secretary Schultz. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 11960.html

I came to my view on legalization by thinking about human motivations and the economics of smuggling and the drug trade, not through basic libertarianism or touchy-feely tolerance. I suspect that Schultz went the same path.

Prohibition of alcohol production and sales had one effect; to help build criminal enterprise. Some Americans obeyed the law. Many others did not. Same as now.

Sure, alcohol is a massive problem for Americans and our society. So is tobacco for that matter, and both together are a far bigger social problem than mj or cocaine or heroin or crack. But how many now would argue today that prohibition is the way to go? Who would argue that if we did prohibition right, by closing our borders more effectively to smuggled booze, that this time, we could make it work?

That is the argument you and many like you are making, *****. That we can win the anti-smuggling war in spite of human nature and greed and the laws of supply and demand.

Ask your history profs, *****. They will tell you that smuggling has been a phenomenon throughout history, whenever some greedy king or potentate tried to make a profit by putting a tax on goods and declaring those evading the tax as contraband. They will tell you that whenever a lot of laws were passed against smuggling, it was a sign of nothing except that smuggling was rampant. And the laws never worked well.

Billions, possibly trillions, of dollars have gone south. That was a direct result of our drug policy. A new industry, the scope of which has never been seen before on the planet.

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For all its mathematical formulas and dollars and cents approach, economics is really a study of human nature and human motivations.

Communism, for example, fails because it ignores the simple fact that people are motivated by greed and not by altrusim.

Greed, status and sex are prime human motivations. All these are factored into economics.

Some among us (and this may 2/3 of us) get caught up in dead-end feedback loop irrational behavior like using alcohol or drugs.

Where any law goes head to head against the natural strivings of greed, sex, or status, that law will be ignored. Ditto those caught up in dead-end, feedback loop behavior.

Now, under current laws, drug pushers are motivated to hook more and more people on drugs. Change the law to make such drugs available more cheaply and you cut out the pushers and thus their motivation to enlarge their client base.

Drug wholesalers are motivated by profit to smuggle more product into the USA. Make that product available more cheaply and safely through approved suppliers and you put foreign drug suppliers out of business.

Again, current drug laws go head-to-head with human nature. When that happens, the law always loses. They are foolish, self-defeating laws that promote behavior opposite to what they are intended to stop.
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The economics are that unless we are able to slow the entry of drugs into the USA to a trickle by interdiction, we actually promote drug smuggling.

Supply and demand. Seize drug shipments, and if the amount seized is significant, the price that users and distributors are willing to pay goes up. Incentive to smuggle goes up in relation to potential profits. There are MORE attempts to smuggle drugs in, not fewer, as the potential profit rises.

So when news reporters and the public sigh in satisfaction when a load of drugs are found, and declare "there's more of that stuff that won't be killing kids on the streets," they are missing the point. The point is that each such seizure makes the business more attactive to traffickers, not less--unless we are getting most all of it.

Seize 80% of imcoming drugs and we may be getting somewhere. But do YOU think we are seizing 80%?

Does the DEA tell us what percentage of total traffic they think they are stopping? Nosiree, those estimates are too depressing.

I don't think we are anywhere near to stemming the tide of incoming drugs. I don't think that drug traffickers are going on welfare or going back to school for retraining in any significant numbers.

Instead, what we have is a vast number of dollars leaving this country and contraband coming in. The wealth moves south and the drugs move north.

Securing the borders. It can be done, but at great cost, a cost we are all unwilling to pay. Right now, nothing is secure. If you are willing to pay enough and to take a chance, you can smuggle anything into this country, across the borders, at seaports and airports. Most cargos coming in are not thoroughly checked.

To cover the borders and inspect all incoming traffic perfectly would take a Border Patrol force of several million men and women. Are you willing to pay for that? For the infrastructure that would require? To impede travel into the U.S. to the point where most tourists and business travelers would not bother? Where commerce would be delayed?

I am all for more border security. I believe that the Coast Guard should be expanded and given a budget greater than that of the Navy and AF put together. It is the most important service branch and we have been treating it like a bastard stepchild.

I'd put the Coast Guard in charge of all border security, and put the Border Patrol under the Coast Guard.

...from Ieyasu's biz tips.  From personal observation, here are some pitfalls and traps.

1.  The Slowest Common Denominator Effect.  When two or more people are involved in doing a project, the project moves no faster than the slowest person.  Which is related to-

2.  The Group Efficiency Effect.  The efficiency of an interrelated group is no better than the efficiency of the least efficient member of the group.

3.  The "What Do You Mean I'm Not getting Anything Done?  I've Been On the Phone All Day " Effect.   Talking on the telephone can be a substitute for getting work done.  You talk until you are exhausted and look back and congratulate yourself on all the folks you have been in contact with, even when nothing was done.  The telephone can be a great tool for productivity.  It can also be a great tool for diminishing productivity.

4.  The Perfection Trap.  Nothing is ever perfect.  Spending time on achieving perfection in trivial details is neurotic and costly to the important details.   Related to the "Can't See the Forest for the Trees" Effect.

5. The "My Business Is Me!" Effect.   Sure a business is a reflection of the ideas and effort of the owner, and you may have to sell yourself to your customers and co-workers.  But it is not an alter-ego, and for a business to become an ego trip or a quest for stroking is a dangerous trap. 

6.  The Planning is an End in Itself Effect.  Planning is important.  Planning can even be fun.  But the payoff is in launching the enterprise and conducting it successfully.  Becoming excessively mired in planning is a trap.

You are choosing to define "3 = 1" when you talk about the Trinity. But that is not the most obvious example of Christian polytheism.

Take an amoeba. The amoeba reproduces itself by out pouching a mass of protoplasm, which then becomes another amoeba. Do we say that the two amoebae are one amoeba? That is what you are saying.

But when was simple logic ever a characteristic of religion?

Take Islam, which is truly monotheistic, in most forms. Muslims consider the idea that God would impregnate a woman and have a son as apallingly blasphemous - an insult to the very nature of God.

[Repugnant to us today if we thought about it, since the rape or statutory rape of a minor child is a crime. Today, an arrest warrant would be issued for God, and upon conviction, God would be a child molestor, a baby raper. What Christians profess to find beautiful is ugly to many. I wonder, can accused child molestors cite the Bible in their defense? After all, if God can do no wrong, then it is not wrong to have sex with an underage female. QED. But back to Christian polytheism.]

How can God have a son, who is God-made-flesh, that is not an entity separate from God? The gospels make clear that Jesus is a separate agent, the son of God and not God itself. You have Jesus praying to God; how could that be, if Jesus was God itself? How do you explain the anguished words from the cross?

(You can maintain that Jesus was a man who was possessed of the holy spirit or something like that. But that is not mainstream Christian dogma. Mainstream doctrine is that Jesus was God. How can God pray to God? How can a son of God also be of the same identity and substance as the father? Remember that the supposed Old Testament prophecies referring to "son of God" and "sons of God".

Pauline teaching is that Jesus died as a sacrifice. How can God die and still be God? IF God did not die, then there was no sacrifice. Doctrine is that Jesus' flesh was immortal, that he came back to life in the flesh. So he did not die, and there was no real sacrifice. (??) Christians tell you something like "by dying, Jesus conquered death; as Jesus lived, so we who believe on him shall live." Which means what, really?

Christian theory runs something like this:
--God is just [despite being a baby raper and genocidal murderer, but we'll pass over that--hush!] and has set in place laws for men to obey, which for some reason were there for Jews and not for anybody else, despite most of the population of the world then, as now, being non-Jewish.
--God is all-powerful but once God declared those laws, God cannot change them, even though God would like to, since God is also merciful. [A merciful baby raper and genocidal maniac? Shhh!]
--Men are condemned to death under those harsh laws. [But isn't God all-knowing, and didn't God know before creating man or establishing those laws that men couldn't follow them? Hush, child!]
--Since the laws called for a death penalty, God finds a loophole. [A loophole in laws passed by an all-powerful, all-knowing God? Shhh!]
--Apparently it is okay under God's laws for an innocent to die instead of the guilty, taking all the punishment on himself. [Those don't sound like just laws, if an innocent person can be punished instead of a guilty one and the laws are okay with that and let the guilty get away. That perfect God sure created some imperfect laws. Shut up child!]
--The only innocent in the universe is God himself [Hah!] and so God must sacrifice himself. [But God cannot die and cannot kill himself. Shhh!]
--So God created a piece of himself, that is not exactly himself, that can be killed and lets that part be killed--but not exactly--and that somehow ends the dominion of God's laws for anyone who accepts the sacrifice.
--Claro, child?
--No?

It would be interesting to have a rabbi come on to discuss this. Messianic Judaism. "Messiah."

The word "messiah" does not mean what Christians think it does. A messiah is an annointed one. Annointed by whom? By God. As were high priests, as were kings. A "messiah" had nothing to do with the idea of God becoming flesh. Nothing to do with the concept of a literal son of God.

"Messianic Judaism" refers to the hope or belief that a king/priest will once again rule over Jews in Jerusalem. That person might be a "son of God" in a figurative sense, but not in a literal one.

Christians have totally confused the Jewish concept of messiah with myths taken from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism.

I suspect that most Jews regard Christian dogma the same way Muslims do, either as a total affront to the nature of God, or as something laughably ridiculous. "Those stupid goyim!" But mostly they are too diplomatic to say that to our faces. Not while Israel enjoys favored nation status.

Obama--

Is Obama trying to do too much in too many directions? Too many irons in the fire, too many appearances?  Possible, but I don't think there is enough data in to say for sure.

Certainly certain other presidents we have had seem to have been bashful or lazy by comparison.  Whether you like all of Obama's decisions or not, we are getting full effort from this president.  Bush was like a sleepy child.

We see a dance between Obama, Gates and McChrystal on the matter of troop increases in Afghanistan.  Politics in this country and within Afghanistan play a part.  I do regard the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban as a direct long-term threat to Pakistan, and Pakistan is vital, because of its nuclear plants and weaponry.  We have no possibility of successfully intervening in Pak in the event of an emergency there; all we can do it to hold the line on the Taliban, and it is better to do that in Afghanistan than Pakistan, IMO.  So I am not opposed to some troop increases. 

Now whether the Afghan government is deserving of support is a whole other issue.

Obama is saying the right things with regard to our role in attempting to counter climate change. 

The hoopla on Obama's backing off on the requirement that Israel stop settlement on lands claimed by Palestinians is overstated.  What Obama is saying is that the continued settlement should not be a bar to talks.  No argument.  But I have to observe that while Netanyahu is a shark, Abbas is more of a carp.

Mohammar al Quadaffi--

Why the portrayal of the man as a villain?  For years now he has been something of an ally in the Middle East, to the extent of aiding the Bush administration in its anti-terrorism efforts, and disengaging Libya's nascent nuclear program.  Of course, he lobbyed the Brits to release the dying Libyan held in Scotland;  he cannot be blamed for that.   I find the ridicule and protest over the man's UN visit and speech irrelevant and absurd.

I like the original pledge of allegiance where the phrase was "under my flag," and not "under God."

But anyone is perfectly free to say something else when reciting the pledge, such as "Allah," "Crom," "Ahura-Mazda," or whatever. Agnostics and atheists can use the old pledge "under my flag." The person leading the pledge can say whatever he or she prefers. No problema.

Unless you substitute profanity and someone hears you. Then you may face ostracism or being thrown out of school.

Who cares about the change in words some stupid legislator pushed through Congress 60 years ago? YOU DON'T HAVE TO FOLLOW THE WORDS!
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Most Americans in colonial times were Christian. Some of the educated were Deists, agnostics, or atheists. But the reason why America did not become a theocracy was because of the hodgepodge makeup of the new country.

Maryland was founded by Catholics, Massachusetts Bay, by Puritans, Pennsylvania, by Quakers, Rhode Island, by Christians liberalized by the harshness of Puritanism. Scots and Presbyterians tended to settle in the southern colonies. Church of England were scattered through the central colonies. None of the Christian sects trusted the others.

This mistrust more than any Deism or agnosticism or atheism among certain "founding fathers," led to this nation being a secular nation with church and state held separate.

And it still is the reason why men such as Pat Robertson found presidential campaigns slow going. We are a diverse nation, and there is much distrust for religious leaders of other persuasions.

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This weekend I scanned a book by Raymond Khoury called "The Sign." That book was good in one way: its harsh criticism of the contamination of politics by religion.   (It also contained some biting comment about George W. Bush and his administration which was, to me, satisfying to read.)

The last 2.3 pages of the book were quotes from Reagan, Palin and Jefferson together with Khoury's biting comment, "It is a good thing Jefferson lived back then. He wouldn't stand a chance of getting the nomination, let alone winning the election, in the America of the twenty-first century. Which says it all, really..." was most of the value of the book.

And a sentiment in which I quite concur.  The greatest presidents would be unelectable today.

(Sorry, Khoury. I found the characters one dimensional and in the case of the hero, unbelievably superhuman, and didn't like the way information was spoon-fed to us by the author. Overall, the book was more an overly detailed outline for a novel than a novel. But then, I didn't like "Templar" much either.)

Yes, we Americans wear our superstitions on our sleeves, and make sharing of superstition the litmus test for whomever and whatever we vote for.

The only reasons we have not elected a string of tele-evangelists to the presidency is because none of them get along with the other tele-evangelists and because few of them want the job since it would mean a cut in pay and public scrutiny of their high-dollar and morally blemished lifestyles.
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Which brings up one of the biggest frauds present in our society, the abuse of non-profit corporations.  Of which more anon.

We have started too many wars out of simple jingoism, Mexican War, Spanish American War, Korea and Vietnam, Iraq 1 and 2.


The 1845 invasion of Mexico, that President Ulysses Grant called shameful and of which he said that he was embarassed about his part in it as a U.S. military officer.


"Remember the Maine!" The slogan triggering a war to acquire territory all the way across the globe, which we did not administer or do much with successfully. Take a look at Cuba, that became a dictatorship we liked which was overthrown and replaced by another dictatorship. Puerto Rico, which may, more than 100 years after we acquired it, become something besides a third world country. Best we could do for the Phillippines was to let them slide back into the water like an inedible fish.


And while we are talking about slogans, there is "Remember Pearl Harbor!" Pearl Harbor being a surgical attack by the Japanese against U.S. warships and military installations. Our valiant revenge was to napalm Tokyo neighorhoods and nuke two Japanese cities.


We are never better at war than when fighting against a much smaller, poorer country and giving ourselves medals and parades for it.  Though sometimes those poor victims show unexpected teeth.   Let's remember all that on this post 9-11 day.

We need less remembering rather than more, here and abroad. For if we remember the wrongs committed against us, shall not others remember the greater wrongs we have done them? Pray for forgetfulness among the nations.


It is all an endless chain of slight and vengeance, until someone, somewhere, breaks the link. Let us praise the link-breaker above the link forger.


Or is all that a little too Christian for professed Christians?

[Here's a post of mine on the Guantanamo thread at http://www.talklubbock.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=96&sid=76429956a549883ade990e6723df1c00&start=70]

Somalia was an example of biting the hand that tried to help. In the Middle East, though, the hand that tries to help is always trying to help itself too, and generally ends up hurting multitudes.

American has never had a Pol Pot, A Joe Stalin, an Adolf Hitler, or a Mao Tse Tung. We have never operated a death camp, though we have come close at Andersonville and treatment of American Indian captives. We have committed genocide. We have targeted civilian populations.

We did not enter into or fight WWII because of Nazi atrocities against the Jews or Japanese atrocities in China, Burma or the Phillippines. FDR was urged to target the death camps, late in the war when information was developed that there were death camps, and FDR refused to do it. When U.S. units were in the area, they were directed to go to Auschwitz. Liberating Auschwitz or the other extermination camps was never a long term military objective but a side trip.

The U.S. media started in 1942 depicting Japs as subhumans, and we did things in Japan that we did not do in Europe. The use of napalm against civilian neighborhoods and of course nuclear bombs.

In Iraq, we killed a lot of Iraqis in order to liberate and to help Iraq. There are troubling ambiguities in that.

Our "torture" is closer to CIA sophomoric high-jinks than real torture. Not to say that some of those so "tortured" have not had their lives and minds destroyed in the process.

What this thread is about is trying to come to terms with what we are and what we claim to be and what we should be. Like the process ongoing within Jimmy Carter's mind. Which is what some call "conscience."

[Jimmy Carter having broken with the Southern Baptist Church in which he has been a lifetime member over their doctrinal subordination of women to men.]