logical1

The whole UN debacle is another example of how we have compromised values and principles for the sake of the collective (a mistake that we repeatedly make by attributing too much of our success to the system of democracy rather than the free market and principles consistent with individual freedoms). We do not benefit whatsoever from our involvement in the UN. In fact, we are the only member that gives this body any strength or legitamacy. We receive nothing of value in return. We fail to see how we legitamize every dictator in the world by remaining a member nation. All for the sake of the collective. Ask yourself this, if you were going to begin a neighborhood watch group in your community, would you go around and invite all of the neighborhood thugs, drug dealers, pimps, burglars and other such riff raff to participate in the planning and decision making of your group, merely in the interest of inclusion? Having read some of the posts in here, I'm afraid of what some of you might answer but the majority would say that it's a ridiculous premise. Not to our government. We've done exactly the same thing on an international scale. If we had no association with that body, our government would not have faced the recent obstacles of having other "governments" (who incidently are unworthy of any such recognition) hinder our efforts and spit in our face like unruly school children who have discovered that their teacher has rendered himself impotent by proclaiming himself the children's equal. Much like our new policy on terrorism, we must have no tolerance, no association and grant no legitamacy to a single nation that refuses to recognize the individual rights of it's citizens. We must act unilaterally in our own rational self interest based on our own principles and values without compromise. Does it mean snubbing China? Yep. Does it mean threatening do destroy North Korea? You bet. Does it mean ceasing trade with any country that is not a free nation ? Sure does. Does it mean people will starve? Unfortunately. Does it mean unimpeded civil wars, government overthrows and collapsing economies in many countries ? It's about time. The rest of the nations on the planet will be left with one choice, to join the free nations of the world or be left to their own miserable demise unassisted by the greatest nation on earth and the only economic system capable of saving them. The best, most compassionate thing we could do for all of humanity is to turn our backs on those who oppose us and respond mercilessly and without hesitation to any aggression against free nations. They already know we are capable of presenting this ultimatum but are counting on our "compassion for the needy" and our loyalty to our collectivist, altruist doctrines to keep them from ever really having to be accountable. Will history prove them right, or will we have enough courage to toss collectivism into the trash for good, be true to our values and defend freedom for ourselves and for the future of all humanity?

Thank you for your reply Mr. Fleabag. I promise to spend a good portion of my evening attempting to make sense of it.

I find it extremely amusing that someone could be alive in the midst of the most advanced, prosperous nation in the history of the world, a nation that virtually single handedly defeated Facism and Communism, is capable of feeding the populations of the earth, created medicines to cure the diseases of mankind, altered the standard of living for the entire world, set the pace of technology to a level that assures almost immediate obsolesence and is the envy of every nation on earth and still make the statement,"capitalism like communism only works on paper". Oh really ? Here's some news...... Selfishness is a virtue. The highest of all virtues. Man acting in his own rational self interest, for his own profit (Capitalism or a free market economy if you will) has done more for humanity than all the prayers from every religion and all the collectivist, altruist doctrines combined. Communism has never and could never, even under the most ideal conditions, support even its own participants. When will people realize that the principles that govern these matters are no different than the principles that govern science. Would you dare make the statement, "gravity only works on paper" ?

In a post that I presented previously on a different topic I stated that a democracy that is lacking solid, objective principles as it's foundation merely becomes tyranny by majority. I am left shaking my head when I see all of society continuing to debate the immediate consequences of bad policy without bothering to question the principles on which the policy is based. The establishment and continued existence of welfare as a governmentally funded program is one of many such issues. Here's the problem, our nation has not recognized what the proper purpose of government is and what the boundaries of a government should be. We feel that if the collective wills it, than it should be so. We feel that everyone has an inherent obligation to contribute to meet the needs of the collective. We feel that the government is the appropriate entity to implement and regulate such endeavors. Well, so do the Communists. So did the Facists. So do the Socialists. The thing that differentiates us from the rest of those groups is the recognition of individual rights. However, the political forces in our nation have never firmly established what those are. Individual rights remain a fluid, ever changing concept subject to the will of the collective and the loose ever changing interpretations of our constitution. Instead of this fact being the source of horror (as it should be) for our citizens and the premier topic of debate, we fumble around with the particulars of a welfare system and other such glaring infringements on individual rights that should never have been allowed to be established in the first place. Here is the solution to this and many similar such "complicated" problems, the only proper purpose of government is the protection of the individual rights of it's citizens. It has no business redistributing the wealth of some of its citizens to the needs of other citizens for any reason! This practice is inconsistent with the concept of property rights and true capitalism. In fact, other than insisting on an individual's financial contribution for the protection of their rights (ie military, police and judicial system) the government has no business taking anyone's money without their individual voluntary consent. Charity is a wonderful thing and its practitioners are to be commended. Let them provide for the needs of others if they so wish ( not involuntarily with the threat of imprisonment as is advocated by all of the "charitable" liberals in government today). This type of policy and indeterminate "fuzziness" relative to individual rights and property rights and allowing these concepts to remain at the hands of the "democratic collective will" have led us to a state where a conservative Baptist minister, passionately opposed to abortion, must involuntarily (under threat of imprisonment) make an annual contribution to the partial birth abortion fund in the form of tax. Although I personally am opposed to the interference with a woman's right to choose, I am vehemently opposed to this type of oppression. This is a ghastly state of affairs that is destined to get progressively worse simply by default if the "powers that be" do not awaken and begin to ask the right questions of our current system. Government should have no involvement in any affairs economically or otherwise that do not pertain to the protection of individual citizens rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means that I have the right to pursue those things which I require for my exisistence, not that you must provide them for me. Deviations from these principles are the cause of our current problems.

I apologize for the format (or lack of) in my previous post. I didn't want to take up an entire page and when I began, I didn't know how much information I intended to convey. First let me start by saying that I am a strong advocate for the expression of personal beliefs (religious or otherwise). I have alot of admiration for religious doctrines because they are ancient examples of man's first attempts to establish a philosophy or framework to govern their lives. However, I do not wish to see monuments to the personal religious beliefs of public officials displayed in publically funded institutions. FastNed, you appear to be an intelligent person and I have a hard time accepting that you can't see where this recent scenario is clearly crossing the line between freedom of expression and presenting at least the appearance of governmental advocacy of a particular religion. It would most certainly give that impression to me or anyone else entering the courthouse. The fact that the building is a courthouse (an institution established for the express purpose of distributing justice fairly, objectively and without prejudice to those of all religions and beliefs) and not, for example, a post office or water treatment facility is particularly disturbing. It shows extremely poor judgement on the part of this public official. I also find it hard to accept that you can't see the difference between the temporary display of decorative items in recognition of a religious holiday and the placement of a permanent monument to written Christian law within an institution bound to protect it's citizens from the governmental advocacy of any religion. In response to another post that I noticed: Marxism is wrong because the statist advocacy of self sacrifice is wrong. Christianity is wrong because the religious advocacy of self sacrifice is wrong.

This is my first post here or on any political forum for that matter. My intent is not to make anyone angry, just to make a few people consider a different perspective perhaps than they've heard before. I'm very open to disagreement and am prepared to support all of my positions. If it sparks anyone's interest, as the Governator would say, I'll be back. So here goes. First of all, a democracy that is founded without certain principles and objective law is simply tyranny by majority. We're taught that the will of the collective is always proper. The fact is that you can have (and often do have) 1 person who is correct and 1000 people that are incorrect. If you have no objective means of determining correctness and no solid principles to stand on, than you end up implementing incorrectness with disastrous results. This is what you see happening all around you, everyday, over and over. What are solid principles you might ask ? They are simply principles that can logically be broken down into axioms or irreducible primaries that can't successfully be disputed in any reasonable fashion. The reason that you see so many theocracies around the world that are breeding grounds for death and chaos is because religious doctrines are not, for the most part, founded on any solid principles. They boil down to, "because God says so" and the benefits or more often consequences of the doctrines are not to be questioned. Think about this, what if you were an inventor and you were creating a product or a machine and you chose to use materials or chemicals of which you did not understand the properties or could not prove. Explosions? Meltdowns? Failure over and over? Absolutely! After thousands of years of torture, death and chaos, humanity has chosen to ignore the fact that the same principles that govern their lives in science and metaphysics also apply to politics, government and economics. The outcomes are totally controllable, predictable and demonstrable. The fact that the United States is the most advanced and prosperous nation in the history of the world is attributable to having adopted more of the right principles and freedoms into it's governmental and economic systems than had ever been implemented before in any nation. It wasn't due to prayer. It wasn't luck (the law of causality proves there is no such thing as luck). It wasn't due to democracy in and of itself (the majority could just as easily have been wrong and often are). It's because the founding fathers were actually pretty smart guys. They studied the aristotelian philosophy of a guy named John Locke and identified and implemented "the right stuff" (separation of church and state being an enormously important part of it). Sure, they made mistakes too and we're paying for them now but each and everyone of the mistakes and subsequent consequences that have occurred throughout our country's history can be identified and kept from reoccurring (if you are objective and know what to look for). Unfortunately, our two major political parties are guided by either religious doctrine (Republicans) or failed collectivist, altruist doctrines (Democrats) which do more harm than good. Thank goodness that the founders of our nation had the foresight to address the separation of church and state or the ten commandments could have ended up tattooed to our foreheads as well as displayed in the courthouse.