tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8549971354391868786.post3529145494836158875..comments2024-03-28T03:00:07.229-04:00Comments on Rational Nation USA: A Conservative Obituary, circa 1960Les Carpenterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01120280762698472496noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8549971354391868786.post-28411888404826065332012-06-05T15:23:39.327-04:002012-06-05T15:23:39.327-04:00When the founding fathers talked about freedom and...When the founding fathers talked about freedom and liberty, they were not just referring to government, as Rand defined in the video. They were talking about any person, or institution (religious) that might oppress an individual. <br />If your neighbor has a tree growing out into your property destroying your lawn, what right do you have to cut the offending branches of his tree, and what right does he have to allow his tree to grow unfettered, even if that growth is destroying your property?<br />Questions of liberty are not just between a government and a person. They are also between a person and a person, a person and a company, a person and a non-governmental institution.<br /> <br />The Kennedy/Nixon election, was NOT about, if America was going to be capitalist, or Communist. Nixon was a famous Red baiter and tried to frame the election in that manner, but as usual, it was a false claim. A scare tactic (gee unusual for Republicans) to get people to vote for him. Just as Bush's mushroom clouds were a false scare to get people to vote for him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8549971354391868786.post-74074256386089120852012-06-05T06:27:34.460-04:002012-06-05T06:27:34.460-04:00jersey,
"That was always the problem with her...jersey,<br />"That was always the problem with her philosophy, in my opinion. It just CAN'T be the "Individual." It takes at least two."<br /><br />two is least number of the definition of a collective.<br />thus you are, in essense, declaring that individuals cannot possess freedom or rights, only collectives can.<br />thus, every individual is a slave because that is the definition of a slave, an individual without freedom or rights. or to be more exact, the individual is the property of the collective subject to being manipulated by force. and in the recognition of this concept an individual is without free will, in your opinion.The Griperhttp://griper.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8549971354391868786.post-19536220399898160782012-06-05T02:31:14.203-04:002012-06-05T02:31:14.203-04:00Wonderful, Les. Thank you. I really mean it.
Sh...Wonderful, Les. Thank you. I really mean it.<br /><br />She's <em>so</em> right about the politics of commie-baiting in 1960, and Kennedy was right in line. Nixon had a long commie-baiting career before 1960, and Kennedy had served heroically in the war, but his father had questionable opinions about the Nazis, and so he out-did even Nixon in his rhetoric on the commies.<br /><br />And the commies <em>NEVER</em> mattered.<br /><br />Rand's so obviously right, and heroically honest, about that.<br /><br />She's also right that the way the election went down. The commie scare was still very fresh in the American mind, but it was <em>ALWAYS</em> a farce, for all sorts of sleazy political reasons.<br /><br />Kennedy was more reassuring than Nixon at that time, thanks to his lucky charisma win on early American TV, perhaps, but probably more because people at that time were very, very, tired of war.<br /><br />Yet still, they wanted a leader who would continue the Cold War. They feared Nixon was gunning for Hot War. It was the same way Nixon was attacked later, in his first successful presidential campaign. <br /><br />This is what I would call propapolitics. The heart of the rhetoric was to keep the American mind off the real fight, as Rand points out, between socialism and capitalism.<br /><br />But what she completely misses is that one can not exist without the other, and the balance between the two should of course, objectively, rationally, realistically should change over time. However: There should never be a time when it's all one or the other.<br /><br />That was always the problem with her philosophy, in my opinion. It just <em>CAN'T</em> be the "Individual." It takes at least two.<br /><br />That's a reality of humanity. Of nature.<br /><br />Cooperation.<br /><br />JMJJersey McJoneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15426560061830038806noreply@blogger.com