Okay, thank you. I will remove it from my worry list.

Esceptico, don't worry about using passive voice. Passive voice is not incorrect, and it belongs in the language or would not have been invented [or people would not have invented it?]. You write very well. Only totalitarians are slaves to arbitrary rules which then mutate like viruses..

Spoken like a true believer.

As someone who deals with Muslims daily, there are some who do hate us because of our culture, and many who don't. Very few choose to assimilate. Many do just want to be left alone. I interact with those who want to learn. Those who do not want to assimilate are almost always those who are at the bottom of my classes.

Kelley is right on this one, although you and Ron Paul are right for the most part as well. The one question that is critical though is "Would they withdraw with this fight against the West to happily do something else?" Unfortunately, the answer is no. The primary reason why Muslims did not attack us much prior to the last 25 years is because of the difficulty in getting across oceans prior to then. When we ventured into their part of the world, but did not involve them, they thought that it was necessary for us to pay tribute (i.e. the Barbary pirates' situation during Jefferson's presidency).

You love to twist words. I would guess that you are envious of those who can grasp the whole philosophy and be true to it.

That you are a True Believer, I have no doubt. In fact, it is the most objective thing you have said.

Not arrogant at all; a Libertarian cannot be an Objectivist. My previous post explained why.
Again, you used "dogma" incorrectly.

GG should primarily include Obj. ideas; that does not include irrational Libertarianism.
I don't explore contradictions, I resolve them; that's partly why I am a true Obj.ist.

You are more than a little arrogant to tell me I am not an Objectivist. Sounds just every other cult claiming anyone who does not toe the line of dogma spouted, then the denounced individual is not one of the blessed. I found this to be the attitude of the Rand/Peikoff adherents and chose not to associate with such individuals because I deemed them to be closed minded.

I am not going to define every commonly used word like dogma. For this I refer you to the Oxford Dictionary of the English language.

I don't know what you mean by Shermer as my source. What I said is his explanation of dogmatic Objectivism is excellent.

To me, the most miserable part of the Gulch is that the attitude of too many people is like yours. You want to fight, not explore. But, worse, your reactions are textbook cognitive dissonance, and that is not good.

I attended one of the first Lib meetings in NY - it was primarily full of Rand followers - obviously not true Obj.ists. But you are right: nothing more than a political party - void of Epis./Moral principles that has caused it members to be all over the lot philosophically and inconsistent wrt foreign policy.

You are not an Obj.ist. You must properly define "dogma". The so-called inner circle simply did not - could not afford to - allow people to call themselves Obj.ists who were not consistently holding her principles. That's the difference between philosophy and merely a non-principled-based political movement. It is absurd to call Obj.ism a cult or dogmatic. It is sad that you use Shermer as your source.

The Libertarian Party DID NOT start as an offshoot of Objecitivism and it is far larger than adherents to Objectivism have ever been. Rand, at her height, had only 20,000 subscribers to her newsletters (of which I was one).

LP is nothing more than a political party that says you cannot initiate the use of force. This is true despite what Rand claimed the LP to be.

In that regard, Objectivism (which is a philosophical system) holds the same principle. The whole offshoot myth started with Rand setting up a strawman definition of Libertarian, then attacking it. I know. I was there.

I have been an Objectivist since 1962 and I have seen a lot of dogmatism and "inner clique" crap in Objectivism. In the old days, Rand and her inner circle attacked anyone not in the inner circle who claimed to be an Objectivist and ordered that such people are not Objectivists unless blessed by Rand and must call themselves a “Student of Objectivism” until such time as receiving the blessings. Objectivism has been every bit as cultish and dogmatic as Scientology. ARI seems to have continued the cult tradition.

Shermer wrote a very good chapter entitled “The Unlikeliest Cult of All” (or something similar) in one of his books, I seem to recall the book was “Why People Belief Weird Things,” but I am out of the country now and cannot check my library.

Note that you are demonstrating why the Libertarian foreign policy will always stop that party from winning elections. Lib.s started off as an off-shoot of Obj.ism, then deviated significantly on moral and political grounds. This has led to many contradictions with Obj. metaphysics and epistemology that Lib.s tend to ignore.

What is "ARI strand"?
You are reading the wrong books!
I have been an Obj.ist for nearly 50 years and have never seen dogmatism. There is rational justification for all Obj. beliefs and principles.

Japan: that was about imperialism and their view that their country was the land favored by the Gods. Their attack was partially a result of the West push-back of their military expansion.
Wherever religion and totalitarian power over a country's people were not a significant component of revenge, suicide has not been so acceptable in the name of said revenge.

Yes! . clever permutation, sir! -- j
.

ARI strand is dogmatic, well analyzed by Shermer years ago in one of his books, but so much so I elected not be involved with ARI.

The Japanese had suicide bombers in WWII, and they were not Muslim. Your perhaps a broader perspective is in order.

Yes I am an Obj.ist; and there is no dogmatic part.

It is not in the nature of man - especially a large sector of mankind - to commit suicide in order to get revenge. But it is a part of the Islam teachings to do so, and you know what people do in the name of religion.

You need to re-read my post. My question was simply whether Kelley was right in his article because I thought Kelley omitted other motives and asked about that --- from which you (and others) have expanded the discussion.

Your post was on Islam and the question of whether or not their anger as directed towards the rest of the world was justified by the presence of foreign military installations. Now since you own the post, I'll give you some leeway as to taking the topic where you want (despite lecturing others about diverging), but if you're going to diverge and start including other religious groups, you'd better start off by making a very firm equivalency between them based on principle. Christians seem to be a big target for some reason, but I'd defend Sikhs, Buddhists, Hari Krishnas, Wiccans, Jews, or anyone else from a comparison to any other group (especially Islam) simply because their basic tenets differ to the point that they render objective comparisons void.

That's why I stay away from the generalizations period. I stick to principles. Once I determine that any given principle is invalid, I can automatically eliminate any religion or philosophy which advocates that principle.

If you are bent on looking at the atrocities committed in the name of philosophy, I don't think any religion can come even close to that of the communist regimes of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, etc., which between them racked up an estimated 200 million deaths in the past century alone. I would also remind one that Russia controlled Afghanistan for more than 40 years during the era of Communism and the Afghanis (primarily Islamic) fought against the Russians there even though they aren't part of Western thought.

If you want to pm me about specific belief sets, I'll entertain your question.

Are you a Christian?

You sound like an adherent to ARI, the dogmatic part of Objectivism when you repeat their mantra about LP.

Upon what basis do you make the proposition "No one would commit suicide simply because of our M.E. involvement?"

You and Pape are simply wrong. And - BTW - Libertarianism holds very contradictory principles and lacks others (too much to discuss here but you can find it within Obj. materials).

You can't blame the US for terrorism. No one would commit suicide simply because of our M.E. involvement. Islam has preached hate for thousands of years; terrorism did not start with our actions. Your argument is no different in principle than that made in favor of Palestinians over Israel which is equally ridiculous.

Excuse me? I don't see anything on the news about Christians assaulting each other (let alone others).

To quote a line from Star Wars IV: "Stay on target!"