Rescinding membership in Free State Project

[Objectivist]

The Honorable Right Winston Spencer Churchill is my hero:

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.--Winston Churchill

Muslims are on their way and they aren't joking around. They want every woman in a Burkha and every man in a beard. Prayer to Allah five times a day will be mandatory. We have a chance to preserve our liberty if we fight now, stop pussy-footing in Iraq and actually wage war on Iran. But we don't have long.

THEY ARE BUILDING NUKES, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!

This culture is hopeless (including people who adore e e cummings). That's why I'm starting a private academy: to teach some people to think. Someone has to start us back toward freedom.

I can handle the fact that many people are clueless about the nature of poetry, literature and art. But if you don't believe Hitler was a threat just because he vowed to anihilate the Jews (as Iran has done) then I want nothing to do with you or your sisiter. Or you friends.

-Objectivist.

[Rocketman]

I think it's safe to say Hitler was a threat.   Hitler raised a large army and ordered it to attack other countries, which is what you say the U.S. should do. 

[FTL_Ian]

What's this?  A warmonger is leaving the FSP?  Good riddance, you'll be replaced.

[d_goddard]

Personally, as far as the threat from unstable middle eastern countries goes, I'm pretty much on the same page as Brandon. It's only in hindsight, seeing what happened in Iraq in the last few months, that I've come to realize that invading Iraq was a gargantuan mistake.

I still see plenty of reasons for the US to "meddle" in Iran, though not militarily. Personally, I think it would best be done by covertly infiltrating their uranium enrichment program. For all we know, that's happening as we speak. I also think it would be a great investment to broadcast pro-freedom propaganda to the Iranian people, including incitement for them to stage armed revolution against their theocracy. I'd be in favor of private organizations sending arms and paid mercenaries to such a cause. On the whole broad-based set of "war issues", I'm a lot closer to mvpel than to Rocketman.

They key difference between mvpel & myself, and Mr. Cropper, is that we're willing and able to work with people who share our core free-market beliefs, but with whom we disagree on how those beliefs apply on a particular issue.

Guess what, Brandon: nobody is going to agree with you on every issue. Some of the areas where you disagree will be ones that you hold so passionately, you can hardly trust their sanity. The real question of your ability, and of how much you will accomplish in your lifetime, is whether you are able to work effectively with them on those goals you do share, while all the while continuing to try and bring them around to your point of view on the areas of disagreement.

Don't think you're somehow "nobler" by running away from people who disagree with you on some small number of specific issues. Don't think that you're pure and everyone else in the freedom movement is tainted.

Always remember this piece of wisdom my father has shared with me ever since I was a boy:
There's nobody purer than a reformed whore!

[burnthebeautiful]

In my experience, having a tantrum and storming off because the people you're debating are disagreeing with you is pretty standard practice for Objectivists. On a Swedish libertarian message board I hang out on, there was an objectivist who when people disagreed with him on some issue, had a tantrum and then edited every single post he'd ever made (several hundred) to "I don't debate with hooligans!"

[Fluff and Stuff]

Personally, as far as the threat from unstable middle eastern countries goes, I'm pretty much on the same page as Brandon. It's only in hindsight, seeing what happened in Iraq in the last few months, that I've come to realize that invading Iraq was a gargantuan mistake.

Don't worry about it, Dada was the same way.  Personally, I'd love for more pro-war people to move to NH, as long as they were pro-freedom on the majority of state and local issues and helped create more freedom in NH.  Of course, I am in the military and against the 2nd Iraq Conflict (as against the 1st Iraq Conflict).

[Rosie the Riveter]

That's why I'm starting a private academy: to teach some people to think. Someone has to start us back toward freedom.
-Objectivist.

I hope you will teach the children at your school to think for themselves. Please present all ideas as theories, all sides of a story without bias, and allow for passionate disagreement.  That is the only true way to teach people to think.

Educator & Rand Fan

[slim]

I hate to see people leave the FSP but if you realize that you do not believe in libertarian ideals then I wish you a fond farewell.

P.S. Objectivist have fun in your Authoritarian paradise.

[Rocketman]

That's why I'm starting a private academy: to teach some people to think. Someone has to start us back toward freedom.
-Objectivist.

I hope you will teach the children at your school to think for themselves. Please present all ideas as theories, all sides of a story without bias, and allow for passionate disagreement.  That is the only true way to teach people to think.

Educator & Rand Fan

He will teach them to think for themselves, as long as they acknowledge that all poetry must rhyme or it isn't poetry, because all poetry rhymes and anything that doesn't rhyme can't be a poem, because it doesn't rhyme and all poems must.

I'm sure he will also do a fine job explaining the fallacy of circular reasoning.   

[JonM]

In my experience, having a tantrum and storming off because the people you're debating are disagreeing with you is pretty standard practice for Objectivists. On a Swedish libertarian message board I hang out on, there was an objectivist who when people disagreed with him on some issue, had a tantrum and then edited every single post he'd ever made (several hundred) to "I don't debate with hooligans!"

Does this mean fisher is really an Objectivist?  No wait, he only runs when we like him, so what's an anti-Objectivist?

[Jason Rand]

In my experience, having a tantrum and storming off because the people you're debating are disagreeing with you is pretty standard practice for Objectivists.

That does it.  I can't take any more of this abuse.  I'm leaving!

[Rocketman]

In my experience, having a tantrum and storming off because the people you're debating are disagreeing with you is pretty standard practice for Objectivists.

That does it.  I can't take any more of this abuse.  I'm leaving!

I hear in Second Life you can just fly away!

[aworldnervelink]

I still see plenty of reasons for the US to "meddle" in Iran, though not militarily. Personally, I think it would best be done by covertly infiltrating their uranium enrichment program. For all we know, that's happening as we speak.

Um.... you do know that the IAEA has been monitoring Iran's facilities for years, right?

[d_goddard]

I still see plenty of reasons for the US to "meddle" in Iran, though not militarily. Personally, I think it would best be done by covertly infiltrating their uranium enrichment program. For all we know, that's happening as we speak.

Um.... you do know that the IAEA has been monitoring Iran's facilities for years, right?

Yes, I knew that.
What I meant in the post above was that one or more clandestine agents should infiltrate for the purposes of monkeywrenching the project.

[Rochelle]

Who is Jaqueline Mackie Paisley Passey?!

She was a member of the free state project until she decided to quit, using the lack of 20,000 participants as an excuse. In the blogging world, she is notorious for her post where she explains to the world why she is too good to date you.

In any case, I'm glad I never bothered to click on the thread entitled Islam. Something about the title told me that it would be no good...

Oh, and I'm not an Ayn Rand fan. I think her best novel was her first. While her ideas were interesting and certainly influential, as far as character development goes, I've seen it done better. I've not yet read through all of Galt's speech (read Atlas Shrugged three times and still stopped after the 10th page) and imagine that had it happened in real life, most of us would have turned the dial desperately to get some music after the first 20 minutes, or turned it off all together.