Ms Mitt sat by the window, her head thrown back defiantly in defeat. One of her two legs stretched across floorboard. If she expected Mitt to be aroused, she was sorely disappointed.The window frame trembled with the speed of motion despite the fact that the speed limit was posted --20 MPH. The window pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while, not often, and even then not worth mentioning. She was disappointed to learn that they were only fireflies.Mitt --for just about one second and a half --considered surrender, completely, utterly! That did not last long. Even as he tried to forget everything, he suddenly remembered it all. 'Darn it', he said aloud! 'Frap! Why can't I just permit myself to feel? Let go—drop the controls—this is it.'Then --as if awakening from hypnosis --he remembered the dog! The dog! But just as suddenly, he forgot the dog. He remembered the suffocating airplane trip, nearly choking, banging on the un-openable, the window, the CLOSED window, the window he could never open.Then he remembered being humiliated in public debates. He remembered being laughed at when his pants fell down. In his nightmares, he fled the scene in 'official' Mormon Doodiepants and photographed by vermin: photographers and reporters! Reporters! Reporters! Then he broke out in a sweat! He was never certain that the empty chair did not talk back to Clint. Somewhere on the edge of his mind, under the sounds of Lawrence Welch and his All Mormon Orchestra, he heard the sound of train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, like a good mormon orchestra --boring! Bored --he could relax now. He heard the wheels and was, therefore, reasonably sure that the car was still moving forward. But 'why?', he wondered. Why? Surely, he thought, the warranty had run out on the tires.
Showing posts with label Rand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rand. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Romney Shirked
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyIt was a dark and stormy night. Having strapped the dog atop the car, the Romney family embarked upon the long road to oblivion and mormons. The trip itself was uneventful, disturbed only by the flapping of dog ears in the lonely wind! It was, of course, fate. Fate! Fate to which Mitt would never submit or acknowledge. Mitt had to make this trip by car. As a matter of principle, he would never allow his dog or family aboard a craft that did not have roll down windows!
Ms Mitt sat by the window, her head thrown back defiantly in defeat. One of her two legs stretched across floorboard. If she expected Mitt to be aroused, she was sorely disappointed.The window frame trembled with the speed of motion despite the fact that the speed limit was posted --20 MPH. The window pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while, not often, and even then not worth mentioning. She was disappointed to learn that they were only fireflies.Mitt --for just about one second and a half --considered surrender, completely, utterly! That did not last long. Even as he tried to forget everything, he suddenly remembered it all. 'Darn it', he said aloud! 'Frap! Why can't I just permit myself to feel? Let go—drop the controls—this is it.'Then --as if awakening from hypnosis --he remembered the dog! The dog! But just as suddenly, he forgot the dog. He remembered the suffocating airplane trip, nearly choking, banging on the un-openable, the window, the CLOSED window, the window he could never open.Then he remembered being humiliated in public debates. He remembered being laughed at when his pants fell down. In his nightmares, he fled the scene in 'official' Mormon Doodiepants and photographed by vermin: photographers and reporters! Reporters! Reporters! Then he broke out in a sweat! He was never certain that the empty chair did not talk back to Clint. Somewhere on the edge of his mind, under the sounds of Lawrence Welch and his All Mormon Orchestra, he heard the sound of train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, like a good mormon orchestra --boring! Bored --he could relax now. He heard the wheels and was, therefore, reasonably sure that the car was still moving forward. But 'why?', he wondered. Why? Surely, he thought, the warranty had run out on the tires.
Ms Mitt sat by the window, her head thrown back defiantly in defeat. One of her two legs stretched across floorboard. If she expected Mitt to be aroused, she was sorely disappointed.The window frame trembled with the speed of motion despite the fact that the speed limit was posted --20 MPH. The window pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while, not often, and even then not worth mentioning. She was disappointed to learn that they were only fireflies.Mitt --for just about one second and a half --considered surrender, completely, utterly! That did not last long. Even as he tried to forget everything, he suddenly remembered it all. 'Darn it', he said aloud! 'Frap! Why can't I just permit myself to feel? Let go—drop the controls—this is it.'Then --as if awakening from hypnosis --he remembered the dog! The dog! But just as suddenly, he forgot the dog. He remembered the suffocating airplane trip, nearly choking, banging on the un-openable, the window, the CLOSED window, the window he could never open.Then he remembered being humiliated in public debates. He remembered being laughed at when his pants fell down. In his nightmares, he fled the scene in 'official' Mormon Doodiepants and photographed by vermin: photographers and reporters! Reporters! Reporters! Then he broke out in a sweat! He was never certain that the empty chair did not talk back to Clint. Somewhere on the edge of his mind, under the sounds of Lawrence Welch and his All Mormon Orchestra, he heard the sound of train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, like a good mormon orchestra --boring! Bored --he could relax now. He heard the wheels and was, therefore, reasonably sure that the car was still moving forward. But 'why?', he wondered. Why? Surely, he thought, the warranty had run out on the tires.
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Atlas Crapped or Objectivist Obsessions with Hard Things that Stand Upright
by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy
Ayn Rand is not a serious 'philosopher' and those who idolize her may not be taken seriously as responsible politicians. It is unknown how Ayn Rand's obsessive fixation with all things tall, hard and upright became confused with either philosophy or economics. Below are Rand quotes numbered and followed by my comments.
Ayn Rand Rambles for Mike Wallace
1. A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.Our founders, by contrast, believed in a government in which 'sovereignty' resided in the people, that governments were freely elected for the sole purpose of defending and upholding those ideals. The use of 'physical force' against the population was verboten for anything short of violent crimes or insurrections and even then prohibited unless accompanied by 'probable cause' that a crime had been committed. Certainly --that principle had been abandoned by the time Govt thugs of the FBI et al attacked the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in which the leader, David Koresh, and 82 other Branch Davidians were murdered.
2. Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.That question begs a meaningless and utterly unknowable 'answer' aside from the fact that any answer provided by an 'objectivist' is, in fact, subjective and utterly un-verifiable! 'Objectivist' assertions are not objective at all, based as they are upon temperament and/or irrational inclination. The meaning of any assertion rests upon the outcome of the question: can this assertion be verified logically or empirically? If so, what is the process by which it is verified! Rand talks about being 'objective' but neglects 'verification' when, in fact, nothing is 'objective' without objective, public verfification.
3. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.Civilization has very little to do with privacy though most enlightened societies have defended the individual's right of privacy whenever it is threatened, even if that threat should issue from the government. It is for that reason that the 'right to privacy' is found to be a strong argument in favor of a) Due Process of Law b) the Constitutional guarantee that no warrants shall issue but upon 'probable cause' that a crime has been committed.
4. Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.One wonders why people like Ron Paul seek power! One wonders why other devotees of Ayn Rand seek political power in particular. What do we know of their motives? And what of any substance has been put forward by them? Ron Paul, for example, is believed to be a laissez-faire capitalist because he is a self-avowed devotee of 'Randism'. One wonders if Paul --an otherwise intelligent person --understands how much richer the very, very, very rich would get were all restraints now limiting rapacious greed and blind ambition were relaxed!
5. From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man – the function of his reasoning mind.The building of skyscrapers is 'big' in Rand-land! It was in Atlas Shrugged, as I recall, that Rand revealed her fixation with hard things that stand upright ---skyscrapers, towers, Pisa, domes.
11. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.Events have proven that the concentrated fortunes of America's people, concentrated as they have become in the very few hands of the ruling elites are INVERSELY proportional to the population as a whole. In other words, our fortunes, our decency as a people has deteriorated inversely as the very, very rich have gotten exponentially richer!
Ayn Rand Rambles for Mike Wallace
Friday, August 01, 2008
Rand Report Utterly Discredits Bush, Leaves McCain Without a Campaign
A new report by the conservative Rand Corporation calls the so-called 'War on Terrorism' fundamentally flawed, doomed to failure. The study pulls the rug from under John McCain who had promised not just more of the same old horse dung but perhaps another one hundred, another '10,000 years' of war against Iraq!Saying that the US should 're-think' the so-called 'war on terrorism', the report claims that Bush failed to meet his own stated objectives. It was, the report concludes, the wrong approach to begin with. Rand stopped short of repeating my charge: the 'war on terror' was just a cover for Bush's assumption of dictatorial powers which he accomplished with the Patriot Act and numerous 'signing statements', in effect, his de facto 'rule by decree'.
All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? Answers to this question have enormous implications for dealing with al Qa'ida and suggest fundamentally rethinking post–September 11 US counter terrorism strategy.The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have not ended due to military pressure but because (1) they joined the political process or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members and that few groups achieved victory within this timeframe.The ending of most terrorist groups requires a range of policy instruments, such as careful police and intelligence work, military force, political negotiations, and economic sanctions. Yet policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention.--Rand Corporation, US Should Rethink "War On Terrorism" Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al QaidaPerhaps because it is still, basically, a conservative think tank, a favorite of the Pentagon, Rand has not stated the obvious conclusion: Bush's 'war on terrorism' failed because Bush never intended that it succeed. It's a smokescreen, a pre-text by which his administration might justify the theft of Iraqi oil [See: OIL] and every Constitutional abuse put forward in the US Patriot Act. [See: Patriot Act Provision Declared Unconstitutional]
Free of conservative bias, the logical conclusions are obvious: the GOP has not only never succeeded waging 'wars on terrorism', terrorism has, in fact, gotten worse under every GOP regime since Ronald Reagan. [See:Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes ] The Brookings Institution published FBI data that established the fact while Ronald Reagan waged his great 'war on terror', terrorist attacks against US interests TRIPLED!Terrorist acts against US interests were three time greater under Reagan than under Clinton. Bush is not the first GOP 'president' to have waged a failed war on terrorism.
To its credit, Rand concluded that the most effective strategies were those efforts made by local law enforcement and local intelligence organizations. Rand stated that US should abandon the use of the phrase "war on terrorism". McCain will be without a campaign slogan. Rand stated that the US would continue to fail as long as US leaders fail to understand 'how terrorist groups end'. The study's lead author --Seth Jones --put it this way: "In most case, military force isn't the best instrument". I would go further: in every instance, FBI stats will support, the US use of the military has simply made terrorism worse, primarily because it plays into 'terrorist' hands.
The United States cannot conduct an effective long-term counter terrorism campaign against al Qaida or other terrorist groups without understanding how terrorist groups end," said Seth Jones, the study's lead author and a political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "In most cases, military force isn't the best instrument.Rand studied 648 terrorist groups in operation from 1968 through 2006 from a database maintained by RAND and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. According to Rand, forty-three percent of all 'terrorist groups' ended with a 'political processes' --NOT military action, war, or violence of any sort.--Seth Jones, US Should Rethink "War On Terrorism" Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida
Among the other findings, the study notes:
- Religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups. Since 1968, approximately 62 percent of all terrorist groups have ended, while only 32 percent of religious terrorist groups have done so.
- No religious terrorist group has achieved victory since 1968.
- Size is an important predictor of a groups' fate. Large groups of more than 10,000 members have been victorious more than 25 percent of the time, while victory is rare when groups are smaller than 1,000 members.
- There is no statistical correlation between the duration of a terrorist group and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type or the breadth of terrorist goals.
- Terrorist groups that become involved in an insurgency do not end easily. Nearly 50 percent of the time they end with a negotiated settlement with the government, 25 percent of the time they achieved victory and 19 percent of the time, military groups defeated them.
- Terrorist groups from upper-income countries are much more likely to be left-wing or nationalistic, and much less likely to be motivated by religion.
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