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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 84% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 3% Intervene massively—as it's doing 3% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 1% Something else (specify) 9% Total votes: 76
 Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
 Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
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Batshit Insane? Submitted by Liz on Fri, 2007-12-21 04:32.
This is supposed to be a hit piece. I think not. According to The American Conservative magazine Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy should be frightening.
Excerpt: Declaring Forever War Giuliani has surrounded himself with advisors who think the Bush Doctrine didn’t go nearly far enough. by Michael C. Desch "Like most Americans, I knew little about Rudolph Giuliani, save that he had been the very successful mayor of New York City catapulted to iconic status for his cool-headed demeanor after the Sept. 11 attacks. I was curious about where he stood as a presidential candidate, so in April 2007, I joined nearly 3,000 other Texas A&M faculty and students to hear him speak. After saying some nice things about his host, President George H.W. Bush, Rudy launched into a stemwinder about the “war on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism” that basically repudiated everything the former president stood for in his foreign policy. Moreover, in the space of 40 minutes, Giuliani never once mentioned Osama bin Laden, the man who masterminded the attack on his city. I was so appalled by the mayor’s simplistic message that terrorists were attacking us because they “oppose our freedom and ... want to impose their ideology on us” that I ignored protocol and challenged him during the Q&A. To the accompaniment of hisses from the rabidly pro-Rudy students, I reminded the mayor that Islamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere in the Middle East have taken our side against al-Qaeda at various times. Like the students, Hizzonor was not amused, and I got five minutes of unvarnished Rudy chiding me for just not getting it." "To the cheers of the partisan crowd, Giuliani argued that my “failure to see the connection between Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups [was] a recipe for disaster.” In his view, the campaign of radical Islamic terrorism began back in the 1960s and 1970s and included things like the Black September attack upon Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich in 1972. He ridiculed my call to disaggregate the terrorist threat, saying it ignored the fact that Yasir Arafat, whom, he lamented, we helped win the Nobel Prize, was responsible for “slaughtering 29 Americans” over the years. " "After this disheartening experience, I decided to look more closely at what Giuliani was saying about foreign policy and who was advising him. What I found alarmed me: Rudy’s performance here was no aberration. Those who thought George W. Bush was too timid in the conduct of his foreign policy will find a champion in Rudy." "Explicitly rejecting realism, he instead sounded the tocsin: “Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a ruthless and radical Islamist enemy.” Giuliani warned, “the terrorists’ war on us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength.” "Had I been more attentive over the years, I might have been less surprised by the mayor’s hard-line neoconservative stance. I had forgotten that while U.S. attorney in New York, Giuliani tried to close the PLO’s New York office. As mayor, he made headlines in 1995, when he had Arafat ejected from a concert at Lincoln Center. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition this fall, Rudy pointed to this incident as emblematic of his leadership style: “I didn’t hesitate, like Hillary Clinton hesitates to answer questions on what she’s going to do about Iran. I didn’t seek to negotiate with him, like Barack Obama would do or says he’d do with these people. I didn’t call for a team of lawyers to help me. … I just made a decision. See, I lead. That’s what [being a] leader is about.” The article then goes into detail on each of his advisors ideology. "In one sense, his campaign is a big tent: it has by some estimates between 60 and 70 advisors. Some—British Soviet expert Robert Conquest and Reagan campaign defense advisor William Van Cleave—are clearly window-dressing. The core of senior advisors includes former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, Martin Kramer (Middle East), Stephen Rosen (defense), S. Enders Wimbush (diplomacy), Peter Berkowitz (statecraft, human rights, and freedom), Kim Holmes (foreign policy), and perhaps Daniel Pipes. Giuliani’s chief foreign-policy advisor is retired diplomat and Yale instructor Charles Hill. In the face of controversy about how many neoconservatives were playing prominent roles, Podhoretz bragged to the New York Observer,“Giuliani doesn’t think that this is a liability" In conclusion... "Some hope that all of this is just posturing to secure the Republican nomination, which will be delivered by a base troubled by Giuliani’s multiple marriages, occasional cross-dressing, and support for abortion, civil unions, and immigrants’ rights. A post on Matthew Yglesias’s Atlantic Monthly blog offered a theory: “Giuliani is stocking up on these stock characters not for real advice—he’s not that insane—but rather to get out a sort of dogwhistle message to the true rightwing nuts, who are willing to forgive a guy anything if he will only pledge to nuke significant parts of the Middle East.” Yglesias himself is not so sure: he thinks Rudy is “bat-s - - t insane.” Giuliani’s tendency to conflate all terrorist groups—whether Islamist or not and whether they attack the United States or just allies like Israel—led Fred Kaplan of Slate to dub him the “anti-statesman.” Sending him and his team to the White House might actually ignite World War IV. " Read it.
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Christian - addendum
In addition to my below post, The Case Against Hume thread. If your philosophical clock is stuck on subjective, read this thread well, then cut your teeth in there. No point me simply repeating everything here, and James and Linz are far abler than I on this topic.
To wet your appetite, James Valliant's last post to that thread (part of):
... in order to attempt to justify any ethical claim, anyone, including Richard and Brendan, usually without knowing it, is implicitly compelled to smuggle in all that the concept of value -- in reality -- implies. This is the Stolen Concept every denier of the possibility of ethical objectivity inevitably commits.
No, they can never make the case -- anymore than Richard or Brendan could here -- but they still desparately want all of their "shoulds," the basis of the strong (and sometimes violent) moral pronouncements that they still insist on making, to be subjective, mystical or arbitrary. Sure, the need for ethics is real and value-pursuit a biological fact, but consider the perceived "advantages" to being able to treat them like unicorns... allowing A to be K when convenient.
And from Linz on the same thread:
...human flourishing, or man's life qua man, is the standard of the good, Goode. It is by this standard, as you have so belatedly and graciously conceded, that we are entitled to say "freedom is good" and know it is true. You will say, so your standard is just arbitrary, an article of faith? Well, last time I checked, life was real, and I was alive. I want to remain so, but can't automatically. I must choose values accordingly, with man's life qua man as the standard and my own life as the purpose. Scarcely arbitrary or faith-driven. But of course, I am free to choose death. If I did, I should just eat shit and die, as they say. Since I don't, I don't.
It's the "if" that spooks you, isn't it? For you, morality isn't objective unless it's a priori, pre-ordained and separated from human beings!
Oh bloody hell
Where are all these guys crawling out from lately.
Christian, have you been following the various Humean threads? Perhaps you should be contributing to them in order for you to test your philosophy out? I'd certainly like to know what that philosophy is.
You say: Well I suppose if you hold a code of ethics and you believe morality to be objective, then somebody who opposes some of those morals will (to you) seem immoral.
How frighteningly religious!
I'd love to have a good rant about moral subjectivity, but I'd prefer to talk about the topic at hand in this thread.
Well those comments can't be separated from this thread, or any other, so I am requesting you start 'ranting' away. I'll get you started by quoting Ayn Rand, against your belief that morality is subjective. Your comments please to the following:
You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today—and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.
Inverted?
Inverted morality? Well I suppose if you hold a code of ethics and you believe morality to be objective, then somebody who opposes some of those morals will (to you) seem immoral.
How frighteningly religious!
I'd love to have a good rant about moral subjectivity, but I'd prefer to talk about the topic at hand in this thread.
ChristianLinnell's inverted morality
Wait a second there, you have 'Withdrawl from UN' and '...conservative stance on taxes and welfare' under tha 'Bad' category and 'Non interventionist' and 'Opposes war in the middle east' under the 'Good' category!
Am I correct in making the assesment that you are not an Objectivist?
Well, to answer you both,
Well, to answer you both, they were all fragments of thought.
I am serious as to the 'leader of the free world' comment only to the extent that I consider Claudia's comment very ironic (like saying "I hope this wonderful non-elected leader takes power, so he can lead our great democratic nation").
As for control in religions, there is no doubt that it is the religion itself that controls the people, but man has no problem using religion to control the masses. The lies have been perpetrated for that reason (among others).
To clarify: religion controls man, but leaders use religion to control men. A metaphor: handcuffs bind hands, but police use handcuffs to bind hands.
Mark, I actually think we agree on this.
To explain my meaning behind 'control in another guise', I point to the worship of presidential candidates who even mention September 11 during their speeches. Terrorism is a threat, but the threat is so overblown at this point that it is hard to see the ranting as anything but fear-mongering.
Just look at the Iran situation. Fox News actively promoting the idea of war in Iran, Bush tentatively suggesting a pre-emptive strike... while all 16 US intelligence agencies now agree that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons programme in 2003!
Candidate Fred Thompson's response? "They are undoubtedly intent upon nuclear weapons. I don't care what the latest Intelligence Estimate says - it's foolishness, it represents our own inability to get a handle on it"
And where is he getting his information from then?
I agree with you on Islam, Scott, but I would extend your words to all religion.
As for Ron Paul, from the little research I've done:
Bad:
Good:
So maybe. I suppose of the Republicans I've had a look at, he's the best so far. At least he believes in evolution
Chrisian
Intelligent people clearly understanding that the roots of religion are in control of populations.
Bullshit. You deny, or misunderstand, what the 'controlling force' in a religion is, and that it is not, as you are thinking of it, man, as such: for it is the irrationality (mysticism) of religions which are, in fact, absolutely in control of populations, negating individual intelligence and invoking the tyranny of a collectivist (non)ethic to straight jacket us all, and yoke us to a non existent Tyrant, whom yet exists, without question, to the believers. That's where the evil is.
You only needed to look at the Drones, thousands of them, brandishing their swords to execute the English teacher for her class calling a Teddy Bear Mohammed to understand that Moslems (as with Christians, et al) have handed responsibility for their lives to Allah, thus the compassion of reason as a tool to subvert them to rational lives lived in freedom founded on the non initiation of force is lost, utterly. And this remains particularly so with Islam which has Jihad as its central pillar, and the literal threat of death for heretics. The enemy is not a man or men, per se, it is a philosophy that worships death, enslavement, and cruelty.
Your error on this crucial point then spreads like a virus to infect all your sentences around it with the disease of the modern day Liberal ...
But the question is how to overthrow an evil philosophy that answers to no man, regardlesss of its roots, and beheads its heretics?
Your (1) is fatuous.
Christian: What about Ron Paul?
Ron Paul is for smaller, less intrusive government, does not see Islam as a threat. He also does no kowtow to corporate interests and shows the most integrity of anyone running for the office. Shouldn't he be on your short list of good candidates, by the standards you seem to have set out?
Also, your paragraph 3 seems like a fragment of a thought--can you explain what you mean by that? My position on Islam is that it is a religion that is also a political movement. And it is a political movement which supports the overthrow of the government and advocates murder and oppression.
Scott DeSalvo
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!
Things that frighten me.
Things that frighten me:
1. Calling the US President the leader of the free world, without questioning why we (the free world) don't get to vote in the US Presidential elections
2. Ignoring Rudy's dramatic over-reliance on straw man arguments to get votes - in America (and it seems on the SOLO forums) one need only mention Terrorism (Trrrrism) to have the majority of people prostrate in front of you.
3. Intelligent people clearly understanding that the roots of religion are in control of populations, and then blindly ignoring the same controlling force in a different guise (namely anti-terrorism, or McCarthyistic anti-communism).
4. People assuming that liberals are Clinton or Obama supporters.
I think any of the current conservative candidates are bad for America, and for the World in general. Not just because of their stance on fiscal or civil issues, but because they're in it for personal gain and nothing more - how can anybody who holds personal gain in the highest regard be trusted to look after the interests of a country?
I also think there are almost no good liberal candidates this time around either - save perhaps Kucinich.
I'd guess he gets it
That Islam is not a religion of peace, that Muslim "leaders" who talk out of both sides of their mouths need not be extended any courtesies except perhaps mercy.
The ONLY criticism of Rudy is that he definitely seems a proponent of the idea that government can fix everything, and that we evidently enjoy too many civil liberties.
Scott DeSalvo
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!
Liz...
comforting indeed.
As mayor, he made headlines in 1995, when he had Arafat ejected from a concert at Lincoln Center. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition this fall, Rudy pointed to this incident as emblematic of his leadership style: “I didn’t hesitate, like Hillary Clinton hesitates to answer questions on what she’s going to do about Iran. I didn’t seek to negotiate with him, like Barack Obama would do or says he’d do with these people. I didn’t call for a team of lawyers to help me. … I just made a decision. See, I lead. That’s what [being a] leader is about.”
Good article... I've printed the whole thing off, thanks.
He's the stuff of a real President. I hope he gets to lead the Free World.