Ben Carson on CNN: Topic Planned Parenthood
I do really appreciate this man temperament and intelligence. This country can do far worse than this level headed, intelligent man for its next President.
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Ayn Rand's moral philosophy explains the nature and source of rights comprehensively. See "Man's Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness and in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. The concept of 'rights' is a moral concept that applies to human persons as moral beings, not anything with the potential to become human or a lower animal. The concept of rights does not apply to the unborn -- whether early cells or a fetus. Rights are not mystical properties "intrinsic" to life, as assigned by religion demanding "sanctity" with no regard for identifying and validating them objectively.
The right of abortion was summarized on this page here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...
Explaining the right of abortion and rejecting the "militant, angry, combative" anti-abortionist smears -- of "eugenics", "murder", "infanticide", "taking a human life", "kill children", "truth blurred by the lack-of-accountability murder campaign", "condoning drunk driving", "reduce the surplus population", "death shops", "overtly hysterical" (ironically), "myopic angst", "vitriolic", "irresponsible", "whim", "magic", "sinister", "unaccountable", "hogwash", "rant", "ass", "hijacking", "accusatory", "zealotry", "temper tantrum", "personal crusade", "prophetess" and "canonize the diety [meaning Ayn Rand]", "beating people over the head" -- and demands that supporters of Ayn Rand leave this Ayn Rand forum for rejecting faith in religion should not be "terrifying" to those seeking "rational discussion". Militant religion is not the basis of rational discussion.
2) Regarding the intellectual war, there must be achievable objectives to be defined and not only reached, but eclipsed.
3) You are correct in saying that many or most will not be convinced.
4) Your middle paragraph effectively says that we must be willing to wait to fight the battle on another day. This is reasonable. It was the strategy of George Washington and Sam Houston.
5) For the record, I was one of the handful of Tea Party organizers in my county. We had a very active Tea Party until the party enforcer of our then Republican turned independent eventually turned Democrat governor did one of the dirtiest things in politics I have ever seen.
"Brevard County (Tea Party) Republican Committee Chairman Jason Steele is still on probation for opposing Jim Greer's efforts to get statewide and national endorsements for Gov. Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. A state GOP panel in September found Steele guilty of violating the loyalty oath, placed him on probation and allowed him to continue as chair of the local executive committee", but denied him standing on the state committee. Charlie Crist, it may be remembered, was a big reason why John McCain was the GOP nominee. McCain was dead in the water until Crist helped McCain win the nomination in Florida.
http://archive.floridatoday.com/conte...
I wasn't really a Rubio supporter, although at the time, he hadn't said anything to make me reject him (such as his more recent immigration stance or his recent hawkishness). I knew who Crist was. He was RINO personified.
After this whole debacle with the "loyalty oath" to someone who was a RINO turned more liberal than even McCain was the final clincher for me ever supporting the Republican Party again. I may support an individual candidate such as Rand Paul, but never the party.
After the aforementioned incident, a very active Tea Party (regularly 2000 attendees in a community of 100,000 at events) died a quick death.
I am no longer optimistic. If the Tea Party died in a county that is as aligned with its values as my county is, then the Tea Party is definitely dead. When combined with several other things, it was clearly time to shrug.
6) If we are going to wait to fight the battle another day as discussed in 4), how long are we talking about? Even if I'm not dead by that point, I'm probably going to be past the age at which I can truly reap the benefits of waiting. Given Objectivist ethics, such a wait is not worthwhile if it is that long.
"Carons", i.e., Ben Carson, was interviewed on his opposition to abortion and scientific use of fetal tissue and stem cells. That is the topic. You introduced it when you linked to the interview. The topic was not changed to a "favorite rant".
Your calling him "level headed and intelligent" does not lock in a false premise that his religious-based views are correct. His medical expertise does not justify his religion or his premise that his religion should limit the use and pursuit of scientific knowledge in this realm. Citing a doctor with an otherwise admirable career and character does not in the name of "any issue related to health" refute Ayn Rand's support of the right of abortion and scientific inquiry opposed by religion.
I am not religious; I bow my head before no superior being; I hold no philosophical positions derived from mandates on high -- and that includes mandates from Ayn Rand. I have borne two children, and I was then, and remain now, convinced that they had a right to my constant care and support in bringing them into the world and supporting them until they were self-sustaining individuals. Once I engaged in conduct, the possible and even likely result of which was pregnancy, I committed myself to the care and protection of the humans whom my conduct might well create [even at a stage in their development that many would term "pre-human"]. I would have used all of my strength and all of my intelligence to defeat any person who would have threatened their existence, whether 7 days or 7 months prior to their birth. I would no more disavow my responsibility in that arena than I would proclaim that I can drive through any red light and hold no responsibility for the ensuing injury or death that might result from my conduct.
What if? is a powerful tool. It can shed light on questions like this, and lead us to question what we formerly thought were unassailable certainties. What if we develop a reliable means of measuring consciousness? or even higher brain function? and then we are able to use that to ascertain the level of brain activity prior to birth? Would that change the argument? What if we were able to demonstrate that the unborn can hear; distinguish the voices of their parents or siblings; develop a preference for rock vs. blues music; have an emotional response to voices raised in argument as opposed to the sound of a lullaby? Is that still just an amalgam of cells whose continued existence is absolutely dependent upon the whims of its mother? What if technology were to make the removal and transplantation of the fetus, at any stage of development, possible. If there were women waiting and eager to receive such a transplant, would reason still allow the conceiving mother the absolute right to terminate that [potential] life, for any reason or for no reason?
I do not see Objectivism as the rational version of the Ten Commandments, carved in stone and forever after complete, static, and unassailable. If even Ayn Rand could state that "one may argue", then I think that there must be room in the Gulch to make that argument, so long as the parties remain committed to reason and {gasp} civility.
In the meantime we can only rely on the extent to which people are rational, because the whole society has not been reduced to the level of literal savages and people do have some understanding. One of the weakest areas of understanding is the nature of reason and egoism, but to the extent people can understand it and are willing to stand up for their own lives they may fight the worst politically, at least long enough to be able to later make more fundamental improvements. That is what we rely on every time we do anything in politics.
Whether or not that is still possible overall is another question. I tend to doubt it without at least a much greater decline than we have suffered so far. The current shift in emphasis politically from the tea party movement towards religion as a priority is a very bad sign.
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