He writes sometimes interesting and well-thought arguments about various questions in libertarian theory. Sometimes he makes good points. Of course, that's interesting only for people interested in arguments, and, moreover, libertarian theory. So, not for you. Many of the questions he finds interesting are not interesting for me too, because they are too close to his flavour of libertarianism. Such is life. I don't like Ayn Rand, but I understand that she played a big role in the US libertarian movement, and that her books have impressed a lot of Americans. Which is, of course, also some sort of information about American culture. In Europe, she has not found a lot of support, even less in Russia, because this is a quite different culture. Sorry if I have misunderstood your love or sympathy or whatever for those who, in your opinion, argue for fascism, for hatred. The old problem of forum communication that one cannot correctly identify feelings and therefore has to make wild guesses about this. Whatever, if you don't like the word hatred, replace it with another word which describes some negative personal relation. You could prevent this by simply not making personal attacks, and, instead, simply argue about the content. In this case, I would not think you hate somebody. If she is worth to be taken seriously as a thinker certainly does not depend on 2014 or 2016. Or she is worth to be taken seriously, or not. She has, obviously, influenced a lot of Americans with her novels. Including Block. First, be fair, his conversion happened "while he was an undergraduate student", which is not uncommon as a time for formative influences. I became an anarchist much later, for the simple reason that I had no access to any good anarchistic literature when I was a student. That he remains "a big fan" of somebody who has had such an influence is also not unusual, and not bad at all. Then, for being impressed by Ayn Rand, one has to be prepared by reading too much of such Charles Dickens Christmas stories and Jungle Books. As a book which counters this type of Christmas stories, it is not far away but of a higher class. Putting Camus and Dickens into the similar category is beyond my understanding, Camus is imho clearly many degrees beyond the Rand/Dickens sort of moralism.
And he sometimes carries water for the wingnut Republican media operations by going on wingnut media venues and delivering wingnut arguments supporting fascistic politicians, while arguing against and disparaging all and only those opposed to the current rise of fascism in the US. Which is how he comes to the attention and favor of "libertarians" in America, such as 'michael', who posted the link. "Some sort", yes. And you need all the information about those Americans, and American culture, you are willing to acquire, before you start calling Clinton a maniac and President Trump a less threatening risk of war. Start with that: these Americans you are calling "libertarians", that movement you describe as "libertarian", whose videos you have been allowing to manipulate you, are quite frequently Ayn Rand followers as adult intellectuals. They are also well connected with political power in the US - especially the Republican Party, including the Project For A New American Century. Check it out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century That's the American team you joined with the Hillaryhate posts and the Trump defending, which you based on their media offerings - you found them persuasive. There isn't any negative personal relation between myself and Ayn Rand, or any of her juvenile acolytes. 1) And it was a "conversion", right? According to the man himself. 2) And as I repeated five times, my major point about the guy: there's nothing wrong with that, all children get their morality from children's books and stories but he never outgrew it - he is still, as of 2014, of the opinion that Atlas Shrugged is the best novel ever written, and that Ayn Rand is a serious thinker and worthy intellectual influence on his current analysis. If you think Ayn Rand's childishness is of a "higher class" intellectually than Dickens - well, you have lot of company among Republican intellectuals and media content providers in the US. Really? Yeah, I guess I should have taken that into account. How about Shakespeare, then, instead of Dickens? He wasn't a novelist, of course, but my general point would remain. But Walter Block is not. Right? So that's settled.
Given that arguments sometimes are not in favor of those one likes, people who use arguments sometimes have to "carry water" for people they don't like. Moreover, they usually do not boycott media, given that they know that in the long run one cannot boycott arguments. LOL, as if a libertarian would need some "wingnut media" to hear about Block. Some libertarians have some connections with republicans, others support the libertarian party, others despise all political parties including the libertarian one. There are, of course, the Koch brothers, important only because they are very rich, which fund a lot of the libertarian establishment as well as republican establishment - but they actually support Clinton. Name it as you like. By its nature, it is not. There is a small cult group of objectivists, for this group "conversion" is the appropriate word. Those influenced by Rand are much more, but, different from "converted", they disagree with Rand in various important points. Like Block, who is anarchist. Once he is anarchist now, he has rejected one of the main ideas of objectivism - so, outgrew it in the sense which is politically relevant. His literary criticism is irrelevant. Reversely, that you think Dickens is a higher class than Rand, well, you also have a lot of company in America. I would guess. Much better than Dickens. LOL. Anybody here who values Block as a novelist or a literary critic?
He goes on wingnut media, in the middle of a Presidential campaign, and spreads wingnut memes and supports wingnut propaganda favoring the Republican candidate with his supposed "arguments". In return, he is supported by the wealthy corporate elite that is backing that Party - he receives money, status, security, and access to media for promoting his books etc. It's called "wingnut welfare", a term you can Google. It's a major factor in US politics and media. I agree it's laughable - but it's a fact of the matter. That's why I recommended you check out this faction you have signed on with, in the US. You're being manipulated by pros. Check out the "libertarian" faction associated with Walter Block's financial backing and that of his media platforms - the media outlets on which his "arguments" always favor the Republican politician du jour. I didn't name it as I like it, I posted as Walter Block named it in 2014, as an adult and established intellectual. I agree he's not reliable, and probably wrong, but you and 'michael' were defending his slipshod vocabulary and intellectual dwarfism in general, and it amused me to see you both trip over it yourselves. It's not irrelevant to an estimation of his intellectual worth, and the quality of his thought. Meanwhile, the Randites - his "intellectual" fellow travelers - are a significant political force in the US, closely associated with the Republican Party. Have you checked out the PNAC? They don't form a political faction, or associate themselves with a particular Party in which they have significant influence. My company would be most grownups who have read them both, regardless of their politics. Not much argument there: Rand is not a serious intellectual for an adult, and the cartoonish nature of her thinking damages her novels in particular - it's easy to see, highlighted like that. But Block doesn't see it.
I couldn't care less. As I have explained many times, I consider ad hominem arguments as very weak arguments. And I know, certainly, that if I would have taken them seriously in the past, I would have lost a lot. Maybe I would have remained even a communist, because for a communist, any non-communist source is evil and rejected. So, no, I do not check which faction is Block's. This becomes in part obvious from the arguments he uses - but so what? If he has, as a member of a "bad" faction, nonetheless good arguments, I may be in error rejecting his faction as bad, and it is time to correct this error. I do not value Block as a literary critic, a novelist, a specialist in English language, or an intellectual giant. He is an economist and a libertarian, so what I care about are his economic and libertarian arguments. That's all. Why should I care about his qualification as a literary critic if his economic arguments make sense? What your link has shows me is that PNAC is a neocon thing. If some of its supporters are also Randites, so what? Guilt by association? That's a weak argument even in comparison with other ad hominems.
There's no ad hominem argument there. It is a suggestion that you acquire the information you need to extricate yourself from this muddle your ignorance of American politics and propaganda has created for you. You are talking about this guy Block as if he were making "arguments" and doing other intellectual stuff on that podcast, as if his role there were to be an actual intellectual with interesting things to say about real life, by assumption. Or if acquiring adequate information to evaluate his arguments brings you to a re-evaluation of them, you may have been in error in thinking they were good arguments. Either way, this guarantees error: If you want to understand what Block is saying on media like that podcast, you have to know about wingnut welfare in the US. The economic and libertarian "arguments" of a slipshod intellectual midget who doesn't even bother finding the right words for his central concepts - those you care about. His role in US political theater, the effects of his public efforts and economic/libertarian "arguments" on the actual political state of the real world, the reasons he gets published and on the media shows and has the kind of influence he has, the kinds of pressures and conditions on him you spend whole paragraphs yakking about giving your careful attention when it's a climate change scientist handing you a graph of hard data - you don't care about. How do you even know he's an actual economist and libertarian, btw - because the wingnut welfare of the corporate authoritarian right has provided him with a sinecure carrying those titles? By their own voluntary association - not mine. The Randites in the US - including the likes of Walter Block - are all corralled and supporting the same Party, signed on to the same stable, running the same horses. Walter Bock is on that podcast for his role in helping Republican politicians win their elections in a month. Including Trump, who would be otherwise and on the libertarian principles I keep hearing about here an abhorrent figure - torture, deportations, walls, eminent domain used to help corporate interests, authoritarian and corporate-friendly Supreme Court Justices, anti-terrorist surveillance of everybody and everything, nothing but bad news from this guy in the intrusive government line. And there's the "libertarian" with nothing much bad to say about Trump, only Clinton, and nothing much good to say about Clinton, only Trump. With a reserved spot on wingnut media to say it.
Libertarians believe in small government and more power to the people. Based on this philosophy, there may not be anything good to say about big government Hillary. Hillary's slogans are; it takes a village or lets do this together, reflects lack of her own self reliance. She needs a mob, to do even simple tasks. Left to her own devices, she tends to drift in very self serving ways. Someone like Trump, who suggests he does not need the village, shows that he expects to work harder for the country and not hand off to the village, so he can rule the needy from a high horse. Trump does not always follow the lead of all his consultants. Hillary has as much stage direction as an actor. She needs a village of consultants, and a staged media environment to create the illusion she is able to think on her own. Trump does to need the village to think on his own. This is more down the lines of the Libertarians. If you read anything on how the two candidates prepped for the debates, Hillary is the actress who lets others lead her, so she can play the role of prima donna. Trump listens to others but does not take orders that well from people who are supposed to be lower on the hierarchy of power. This is called being a leader and not an actor playing the role of leader.
You proposed to care about "Walter Block's financial backing" instead of caring about his arguments in economic resp. libertarian theory. Classical ad hom, sorry. I do not talk about this particular podcast, I talk about Block, who makes sometimes interesting arguments in his books. No, I don't have to know your ad hominems. No matter if it is against Block himself or that podcast or whatever else. I prefer to hear arguments even from bad guys. I always have done this. Starting with reading all anticommunist literature available to me in communist time, even when I was myself yet a communist. Why should I care? He provides sometimes interesting arguments about economy and libertarian theory in his books and articles. Which is what interests me. Do you really think I care only about "economists" who have a PhD and permanent position in a US university or so? I care about the arguments proposed. Not about who proposes them.
You should care because without information you are unable to evaluate these "arguments", or defend yourself from the manipulations of the American media pros currently marketing fascistic governance of the United States. You say you are rejecting ad hominems, but you are unable to distinguish them from arguments. You say you are reading between the lines and extracting information from propaganda, but you keep making basic and obvious errors of evaluation - you get suckered by American wingnut propaganda, repeatedly, in multiple venues and over a wide variety of issues. Nonsense. This entire tangent of the thread was about Block's appearance - earning his keep as a member of the American wingnut right's intellectual cadre - on the linked podcast. This is from your second post in the matter: My initial contribution was to point out, with bemusement, that even the topflight "intellectuals" of the corporate rightwing's media operations (of which Block is one) have all kinds of trouble with the English language - they can't seem to keep their terms straight, or consistently choose words that mean what they seem to be trying to say. (In a book's title?) They can't write sense, they can't talk sense, and I think that casts doubt on their thinking. Meanwhile, one wonders that an expert in propaganda such as yourself would have so much trouble recognizing an instance of wingnut media feed during an American Presidential campaign.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! --o-- 2016 Y'all Look everyone! The Pope! The Pope! She's popped her head out of the ground. Lets see if we have 6 more weeks of Summer! M.C.Selfy Time...da, dadada, da....
"You're an idiot and a lunatic if you question 'Safe Spaces' or 'Microaggression'" - Morton O. Schapiro, President Of Northwestern
PolitiFACT: Bernie Sanders says 'real unemployment' rate for African American youth is 51 percent. Their score? .... we rate it Mostly True. PolitiFACT: Trump misleadingly puts black youth unemployment rate at 59 percent. Their score? .... we rate it Mostly False. Why the disparaging comparison you ask? Well.... that's because The unemployment rate is a widely used term with a specific definition: It refers to the percentage of jobless people in the workforce who are actively seeking employment. In May, the unemployment rate for blacks ages 16 to 24 was 18.7 percent, or less than one-third of Trump’s claim. You know, like what B.Sanders suggested was MOSTLY TRUE (a rate of 51%, otherwise known as the mostly true rate of 18.7%). ....AHHahahaha... Of course. Of course. Oh, and expect to be required to obtain a Government issued Internet ID sometime in your lifetime - which will require a Government-sanctioned qualification of course. You know, because: Terrorism. Plus it'll help our benevolent GiverMint keep on eye on things... for our protection of course. LOL Land of the Fleeced Home of the Slave
Via, Scott Adam's Blog: Why I Switched My Endorsement from Clinton to Trump. As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump, and I owe you an explanation. So here it goes.
You omitted a couple of drink triggers: Trump "Lies", Trump mentions "Obama" in the course of talking about murders and crimes and "inner city" problems, and so forth. For example.
Scott Adams endorsed Trump for two main reasons: 1) because he thinks Trump is a "better persuader" - meaning that he, Scott Adams, was "persuaded". 2) because Clinton proposes raising taxes on rich people. re 1) Those who find Trump "persuasive" should vote for Trump, maybe - that makes sense. And those of us who don't - who have a bit of adult dignity when confronted with sales pitches of Trump's variety - should not. re 2) Scott is deeply, personally, offended and aggrieved at the very idea of an estate tax, or a restoration of the pre-Reagan levels of income taxation. This is the core issue motivating the wealthy Republicans of the United States. They don't want to pay taxes at the level they had to pay before the Reagan takeover of the US government. They don't want to pay the bills for the Iraq War they cheered, or the financial disaster they created, or the Social Security setup Reagan designed for them to weasel out of. Rich people don't like to pay taxes. Bottom line. Some of them will vote for Trump before they agree to even an outside chance of a restoration of the tax system America had before Reagan. Nobody should be surprised at that.
