American Hero

[barnesfoto]

here's to Capt. Kirk Black, who has the gall to believe that people accused of crimes, [[even people in countries invaded by the USA and accused of crimes), are innocent until proven guilty...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/wo...agewanted=1&hp

[mjs]

Hah! Captain Kirk! But, seriously, we salute you. For the Supreme Court's views and reasoning that Habeus Corpus applies to what some term enemy combatants, click here. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...&invol=06-1195

[ccbatson]

Habeus Corpus applies in Afghanistan?

Anyway..it is a good thing that injustice was avoided in this case. Unfortunately, this realization can only occur in hindsight.

[rb336]

Habeus Corpus applies in Afghanistan?

Anyway..it is a good thing that injustice was avoided in this case. Unfortunately, this realization can only occur in hindsight.

no, you are wrong as usual.

this sort of potential injustice springs from a president who ignored the constitution and decided we didn't HAVE to be better than anyone else, decided we would stoop to the level of the thugs we were supposed to be fighting.

[ccbatson]

Where was GWB in this scenario Rb?

How long before the anti Bush brainwashing wears off on liberals?

[rb336]

Where was GWB in this scenario Rb?

How long before the anti Bush brainwashing wears off on liberals?

Bats, you are truly funny

dubya, front and center, hiding behind Shooter & Scooter

[ccbatson]

Ever hear the phrase..."when making an omelette, eggs will be broken"?

[mjs]

Nope, but I've now heard "dubya, front and center, standing behind shooter & scooter". Now, thats funny.

[rb336]

Ever hear the phrase..."when making an omelette, eggs will be broken"?

ahhhhhhh.....

the omlette being a society with virtually no middle class, the eggs being said middle class

[ccbatson]

Socialists create the war of classes to oppress everyone. In a capitalist system, there are no classes.

[rb336]

Socialists create the war of classes to oppress everyone. In a capitalist system, there are no classes.

Just when I think you've gotten as absurd as you can possibly get, you post some delusional bit of gibberish like that

[ccbatson]

Where did any of you liberals ever see a text of the history of capitalism where classes are described?

[rb336]

Where did any of you liberals ever see a text of the history of capitalism where classes are described?

in virtually every text that deals with the history of capitalism

[firstandten]

Socialists create the war of classes to oppress everyone. In a capitalist system, there are no classes.

Sure, there are Cc , you have the capitalist class that owns or controls land, labor and capital

and then you have everyone else who's in the SOL class.

[ccbatson]

Capitalist class? That is pure nonsense [[and surely you must realize that).

[Detroitej72]

Do you not follow what the venture capital firms and Hedge Funds[[corporate raiders do)?

[Omaha]

After reading yet another of Cc’s insightful pearls of wisdom that he is so kind to drop on the great liberal masses who inhabit this web site, I had to do some quick and dirty research.

And after that well spent time, I have to agree Cc’s assertion regarding the use of “capitalist class.� His thinking is generally consistent with those of Social Darwinists and Colbert Conservatives like myself.

I can find plenty of examples of the poor and their allies commenting on “class� differences, but it is rare to find Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman speaking that way.

The best I can do is find members of our founding fathers or political economists of the era like Adam Smith and David Ricardo using oppositional phrases like rich v. poor; masters v. servants; poor and barbarous v. opulent and civilized; workers and masters; the rich and well-born v. the mass of the people; owners versus workers; aristocracy v. the common people; masters v. the laboring class; and captains of industry v. the mob. But NOTHING that clearly prohibited the “so-called� downtrodden from becoming the other half of the equation!

I even found one example that liberals would love to throw in a Colbert Conservative’s face by a wealthy industrialist and someone of whom Ayn Rand would speak highly…Jay Gould. Gould was faced with a strike by some, but not all, of his employees and their unions. When asked if he was worried he said he wasn’t because: “I can employ one half of the working class to kill the other.� Sure he used “working class� but he never said “owning class� so you liberals can’t use that to prove us Social Darwinists wrong!

Let me be clear that capitalism is still evolving in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its virtues will soon be made clear to you liberals as it is to Cc and me if you would only reframe your understanding of the world to match ours.

We understand that under pure capitalism everyone is free to become whatever they want regardless of where they stand in the “so-called� hierarchy at birth. Every one of the most slovenly, uncouth, poorest slum dog in Mumbai could, with the right mindset, become middle class if he or she doesn’t give in to caste, or any religious belief and accept their so-called fate. That is they need to “think for themselves� and only themselves.

Unregulated and pure Capitalism as described by the “Sainted� Ayn Rand is the only economic system ever known to man that has room for everyone to become a “winner� and proceed to become “middle class.� Now people may fail over and over again on the way. Some may let Christianity and the Sermon on the Mount get in the way. Others may starve themselves and their families as they look for ways to improve themselves but the rewards of being “goal-driven� are worth the risk. But for the rest if they live long enough and believe in themselves and become truly ego driven they have a good chance of becoming middle class.

The worry is that these inevitable set backs will lead many into believing the liberal theory that exploitation by the rich is inescapable and unavoidable. They then are thinking more along the lines of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Barak Obama. That is BAD. Next they will believe that government needs to get involved to control greed or to level the playing field on which we all compete. What utter hogwash!

The so-called poor and disadvantaged need to look further down the road to success. Capitalism does reward selfishness and it does so in spectacular ways. Look at how wealthy Rush Limbaugh became just by sharing his “truths� with those in need of learning how the world is supposed to work. I just think it’s a unfortunate twist of fate that Ayn didn’t have an opportunity to spread her wisdom over the air like Rush does. The poor thing had to resort to merely writing and novelizing. Alas, more’s the pity.

And we can all agree that there are ways in which historically workers are divided: native born and immigrant; skilled and unskilled; men and women; adult and children; white and people of color. And it is historically true until government stepped in owners could use these differences to pit one group of workers against another in an effort to drive down labor costs. It is also historically true that brilliant minds were able to pay them in script that could only be used at company stores so as to insure that they were always in debt to the owners and couldn’t legally or morally leave work. But these so-called “easily exploited workers� [[if they borrowed money to gain their freedom) had the ability to leave one employer and find work elsewhere.

And besides by working as they had they had obtained a free first-hand education about how to be selfish and extract as much value from others as possible, thereby allowing them to hire others and get rich.

Oh, I could go on and on about the wonders of egoism, selfishness, and becoming a winner but I must stop for now. But let me leave you with this thought: under capitalism [[if we ever get to pure, unadulterated and unregulated capitalism) everyone can become a winner if only they believe in themselves and practice true selfishness and egoism…like Cc and I do.


BTW, Omaha has a John Galt boulevard. A street named after and dedicated to the fictional hero of Atlas Shrugged. How cool is that?

[ccbatson]

Exactly...everyone has the potential to succeed in a free market capitalist system. And everyone starts at the bottom [[not in terms of dollars, but in terms of productivity)

[jams]

Very nice, Omaha!

[Flanders]

Exactly...everyone has the potential to succeed in a free market capitalist system. And everyone starts at the bottom [[not in terms of dollars, but in terms of productivity)

Galt was a fictional character. If there is anyone alive today, who is truly deserving of being considered the epitome of selfishness and a genuine hero of Randian Objectivism, it has to be this man:

[rb336]

It makes me laugh that Bats doesn't get Omaha

[Flanders]

It makes me laugh that Bats doesn't get Omaha

Bats does seem to exhibit a bit of naivete when it comes to getting the hints in posts dripping with irony or awash in scathing sarcasm...

[rb336]

Bats does seem to exhibit a bit of naivete when it comes to getting the hints in posts dripping with irony or awash in scathing sarcasm...

hey, on the surface they seem to support him. that is all that matters

[WolverinesA2]

Another American hero:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/..._bF_wD98FF59G1

Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach. 18-years of proud service to the military, the winner of nine air medals for distinguished service in flight, including one for heroism the night U.S. forces captured Baghdad International Airport in 2003. A veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Lt. Col Fehrenbach has flown 88 combat missions for a total of over 400 combat hours.

And he was just fired from the military for being gay.

We can't have men like him defending our country! It will harm good order and discipline!

[Pam]

And he was just fired from the military for being gay.

So was this guy. I saw him on Rachael Maddow's show. The President needs to overturn this ridiculous policy immediately.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid83126.asp