6/16/2007

GREED





















From the author of GREED,
By Julian Edney

Ayn Rand


"Ayn Rand carried the torch for laissez-faire capitalism in America from the 1930s to the 1980s. She published two books of essays, Capitalism and The Virtue of Selfishness. She roiled the public’s imagination with two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (30-33). Many American baby boomers have copies of her books on their bookshelves. Rand actually sold over three million books in America, more than any philosopher. One of her biographers estimates books written by her and her followers are still selling at 400,000 a year worldwide (34).

Rand was short, argumentative, vitriolic and charismatic. She was militantly capitalistic. Her works are saturated in Social Darwinism (35). She influenced some major government policy-makers (the Reagan Administration was largely Randian). Alan Greenspan, ex-Chief of the Federal Treasury, was one of her followers (he contributed three essays to Capitalism). Over the years Rand’s books have influenced in the life, and faith, of millions of readers. Some of these books are now taught in schools and universities.

Rand excoriated communism, which deeply satisfied America of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

But some of her shouted-up public speeches were beyond antisocial, they were quite poisonous – in general, she urged against compromise, because it was a sign of weakness. With her public rhetoric she scrambled to establish herself as a philosopher with a work she called Objectivism. Philosophers have rejected her. Economists have not.

Her work endlessly promotes selfishness. “It is only on the basis of selfishness . . . that men can live together in. . . . society”(36). And it indefatigably puts down altruism as a vice.

Rand’s work is perniciously inegalitarian and profoundly undemocratic. It contradicts all major religions which hold selfishness to be evil, and which promote selflessness, charity and self sacrifice as the highest virtues.

Her biographer, Jeff Walker, researching her personal journals, found an entry written when she was 30. “ One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one’s way to get the best for oneself. Fine!” (37).

All this toxicity in the pursuit of happiness."

"Some critics dismiss Rand as a historical footnote, since she was trained in film school and worked as a scriptwriter. But she was an effective demagogue (40). The damage Rand has done to this society, I argue, may be enormous. Following her demolitions, we have in fact witnessed, over the last 30 years, the disappearance of the concept of the common good. Nobody talks about it any more. Modern Libertarians embrace her (41). Modern Americans now care less about morality, more about strength. And many young readers still find her message inspiring.

I believe we can throw Objectivism under the bus."

In The Eyes of The Beholder

War Is a Racket

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Abraham Lincoln

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

Read more...
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Learn more about General Smedlley Bulter, the Fighting Quaker.

6/15/2007

OTBL Motivational Consulting Presents




















Ontheborderline.nut: Making the world a safer place to whine about public education.

Watch for more inspirational motivation imagery coming to a website near you.

The $in Of Pursuit

Giving Every Individual An Equal Voice


"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."


-James Madison

6/14/2007

Jail House Rock

Sign of the times...


OTBL Asks "Why have public schools at all?

Answer: To prevent THIS:



















Luke demonstrates his mastery of free market math .

*
from the OTBL charter school archives.

Remember June 14, 2005:

A Day That Will Live In Infamy On The Borderline...

The Good American



"The war in Iraq is as immoral a conflict as the United States has ever been involved in. Past wars were fought in a day and age where information was not readily available on the totality of issues surrounding a given conflict. One could excuse citizens if they were not equipped with the knowledge and information necessary to empower them to speak out against bad policy. Not so today. For someone today to proclaim ignorance as an excuse for inactivity is as morally and intellectually weak an argument as can be imagined. The truth about those who claim they simply “didn’t know” lies in their own lack of commitment to a strong America, one founded on principles and values worth fighting for, and one where every American is committed to the defense of the same. Ignorance is bad citizenship. In this day and age, bad citizenship carries ramifications beyond the environs of our local communities. Given America’s dominant role in the world, bad American citizenship has a way of manifesting itself globally."

Scott Ritter

Read The Good American by Scott Ritter at truthdig.com.

6/13/2007

Quote of the Century

Here's an interesting comment I read in the comment section of the Holy Sacred Oracle. Put your hips boots on, it gets pretty deep...

"The only comment that I would like to make is that I find it absurd that the HSO would allow anonymous comments against citizens in our community. The individual who commented as "Mr. Peanut" is not me. I was told by a mere mortal this morning that someone using my identity was commenting out here. Expect for 50 or 60 times under my name and a bunch of times under other people's names, I have never commented on this site and don't intend to do so in the future. The fact that people can assume identities and demean fellow citizens just goes to show that the Holy Sacred Oracle slithers in along the bottom of the same wagon track and at the undetectable integrity level as the blog sewer known as OnTheBorderLine."

Luke O. Nonimous
07/04/1776 9:04 AM

Ayn Rand's Vacation Bible School

Today's Lesson - God & Religion

"God help us, ma'am! Do you see what we saw? We saw that we'd been given a law to live by, a moral law, they called it, which punished those who observed it - for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got. Your honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man's dishonesty. The honest ones paid, the dishonest collected. The honest lost, the dishonest won. How long could men stay good under this sort of a law of goodness?"

Ayn Rand
Q: (Playboy) Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

A: (Ayn Rand) "Qua religion, no - in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very - how should I say it? - dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith."

...

6/12/2007

Jesus Joins NRA

Speaking of Crack Pots!............. From "The Freedom Blog"

Jesus is NRA Member!

Dear Readers

"You might be shocked to hear this but I really believe that Jesus would be a member of the National Rifle Association. Jesus is, unlike our towel-head-muslim-terrorist counterparts, all against violence. Jesus is love, but does it say anywhere in the Bible that there is something wrong with self defence? NO, of course not! God and His son Jesus Christ believe in self defense. Statistics say that firearms are used purely for self defense in 80% of all shootings. So, why do liberals claim that Jesus would be against guns? That is nonsense of course. Jesus loves guns and Jesus wants you to have guns."

Jesus Christ's NRA Membership Card

Jesus Christ loves Guns! Guns made the Christian way of Life like we know it possible!

"I urge you to buy as many guns as you can afford. The future is uncertain and there might be more terrorist attacks on America. You need to be prepared for the worst. Think about it: In a society where guns are illegal, only criminals own guns, just like on the planes on 9/11 where one rag-head had a weapon and all the others where defense-less. Don’t let this happen to America again!"

Thank you for reading,
Shelley The Republican

------------------------------------------------------------
A recent anonymous blogger has taken issue with a comment made to an earlier post that stated. "Now the NRA and the gun lobby wants to push kids to carry in schools. This is lunacy. "
Mind you this was a rather spontaneous comment, made in the spur of the moment and perhaps technically inaccurate. ( Happy Anonymous ?) Anonymous has gone to great lengths to make that point and to extol the virtues of the NRA and it Youth programs like YES which the NRA describes as follows:

"The state Youth Education Summit (YES) program began in 2002. Its purpose is to introduce rising high school freshmen, sophmores and juniors to their state government and the roles that future generations of voters will play. A special emphasis is also placed on the benefits of firearms ownership."

Anonymous failed to mention that last sentance in his exultation of the YES program. Talk about propaganda and indoctrination, where could you find a more blatant example of promoting youth to own guns.

Anonymous further states "There may be a few crack-pots out there who are advocating kids having guns in school, but it sure isn’t the NRA or any other mainstream hunting or gun rights organization."

What's funny is that the Gun Loving Freedom advocacy of the NRA seems to attract many such lunatics like Shelley the Republican and commentors on this blog that have indeed advocated
that EVERYBODY has the absolute right to own and carry a gun, including children in schools.
I'll concede that it is not the official policy of the NRA to advocate children carry guns in schools, but it certainly is the opinion of many who rally around the NRA message of intolerance for any restrictions regarding firearms.


Remember to buy as many guns as you can afford so we can
all shoot down the next Rag-head hijacker heading for a skycraper at 500 mph. Jesus would want it that way.

I'll say good night with some parting thoughts from Shelley the Republican:

"Dear Lord

Thank you for converting Cindy Shithan to a Godly lifestyle.
Thank you for killing Boris Yeltzin and Seung-Hui Cho.
Thank you for supporting the Leader and our war against Terror.
Thank you for keeping the homeland safe.

Please kill all enemies of the homeland. Kill all liberals, kill all terrorists, kill all atheists. Strike them down will a ball of lightning, give them aids, let them have accidents. People like Hillary ‘The Bitch’ Clinton, Nancy ‘The Mafia Princess’ Pelosi, Barrack ‘The Ghetto Tiger’ Obama are trying their best to destroy America but I know you won’t let them do it.

One last thing, dear Lord: Please let Billy Bob Neck continue his run for the Presidency. Give him the strength and determination he will need to win back the country to Godliness.

Thanks O’Lord."

Amen, your friend,
Shelley Goodman

North Beach Nut Farm Father's Day Special
























Hey Kids,

Father's Day's just around the corner and time to shop is running out fast. Do you think dear ol' Dad really want's another "Stars & Bars" tie to show off down at Dick's Bar? This year the trend is "Getting closer to Dad with honest and open communication". When Dad opens this finely crafted plaque manufactured just south of the North Beach border, he'll know it is truely a gift from the heart.
Peanut Plaques are available in 3 different sizes 6", 9" and 12". They come in one distinct color, brown, (Sorry, no substitutions ). The standardize inscription succinctly expresses the universal Father/Child Bond in a truely unique manner. The guys at Dad's office, ( assuming Dad isn't an OTBL blogger and has a job ) will whole heartedly agree with this personalized sentiment engraved on each and every "Peanut Plaque". Order today to insure delivery before Father's Day. Give the Ol' man what he truely deserves, an tacky import gift from the North Beach Nut Farm. He's gonna love it!

6/11/2007

Just Say YES (Youth Education Summits) to Guns!



Anonymous said...

Ink Stained Wretch,

Do you have any substantiation for your assertion that "Now the NRA and the gun lobby want to push kids to carry in schools."? I have never, ever heard of such a policy initiative by any group, and particularly not by the NRA.

Besides Hunter Safety Education -- which is about 80% gun safety and education (and the balance about hunting laws and hunter ethics) -- the only NRA youth program I am aware of is "Eddie Eagle" which teaches kids who find guns to 1) don't touch it, 2) leave the area, and 3) tell an adult.

Frankly, I think your assertion is a canard of the first order. You are obviously a gun control advocate, but to make up (or pass along) false stories just to feign outrage ("This is lunacy") is itself outrageous.

Again, I look forward to seeing any reference or documentation for your allegations.

June 11, 2007


Well here you go!
This is a good one for starters: NO Gun Left Behind

"The gun lobby is pushing legislation that would allow 18-year-old kids to carry handguns to class, and kids even younger than 18 could possess AK-47 assault rifles with high-capacity magazines on campus. The gun lobby also wants to arm K-12 teachers."

Brady Report Online:

Gun-rights advocates call for arming students

NEW YORK — "A gun-rights advocate said Tuesday that if Virginia Tech students and employees had been armed they would have been able to defend themselves in the rampage.

"The only person who is responsible to defend you is you - the police are incapable of defending each and every one of us all the time," said Mike Stollenwerk, 44, co-founder of Open Carry.org, a Virginia-based gun-rights networking group."

Or how about this letter objecting to campuses in Maine regulating guns on their property:
NRA Letter
Or this newpaper commentary: Maybe They Can Wear White Hats Too!
"The smoke was still hanging over Blacksburg when Gun Owners of America thundered, "It is irresponsibly dangerous to tell citizens that they may not have guns at schools."
Then there was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, by no means a voice in the wilderness in his political realm, declaring that every "law-abiding" citizen has the right to carry a concealed weapon anywhere, including schools.
Syndicated columnist Michael Barone, appearing in The Star, noted -- with approval -- that concealed-weapons restrictions are not fashionable among the states. While Virginia Tech boasted of a gun-free campus, he intoned, "Tragically, they were not safe." Not safe, inasmuch as no professor or student -- who needs the cops? -- could whip out his or her piece and drop that punk.
National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, writing in USAToday, denounced "anti-gun schemes" and advocated a distinctive brand of school choice.
"Every option should be put on the table and available to fit the needs of a particular district or school," he said. "All Americans -- parents, teachers, administrators, law enforcement and military personnel -- must come together and unite to secure our schoolchildren."
Actually, the NRA has a record of far more explicit support for allowing guns on campus and even for prohibiting educators from "opting" to ban them."

Another Newpaper Commentary:

"Several recent letters by National Rifle Association supporters in the Tribune didn't mention the real reason for the NRA's push to get guns in parking lots and to what lengths the NRA is willing to go to get them there.

Most everyone realized this is simply about the NRA's continued push to get guns in yet another place, since the NRA has forced legalizing them, with few if any controls, on your person, in your home, in public places, in our state forests, in your car and even tried to get them into our schools. Little wonder they would now push to get them into parking lots.

This current bill would bring them into parking lots and right up to the front door of every business in Florida!"

Just Say YES (Youth Education Summits ) to guns. An NRA program.

State Youth Summits
"The state Youth Education Summit (YES) program began in 2002. Its purpose is to introduce rising high school freshmen, sophmores and juniors to their state government and the roles that future generations of voters will play. A special emphasis is also placed on the benefits of firearms ownership."

To be fair to your criticism, The NRA does have a positive role to play in responsible gun ownership and the Eddie Eagle program is probably a good example.
My original statement did not mention the NRA alone but the Gun Lobby including the "No Compromise On Gun Regulation. Gun Owners of America

OnTheBorderLine: One Side of the Mouth Speaks


Surveys are wonderful things. You hunt around till you find one that agrees with you and use it to make your point. You ignore the ones that don't you make your point. That's life in blogs that have a one-sided view on the issues.

An excellent example of what I'm talking about can be currently seen at the OnTheBorderLIne blog in a posting titled: The Price of Sin (Excerpt)

The post in a excerpt from a book written by a couple of OTBL bloggers that is sure to reach sales into the double digits. Notice how they taken a survey done by CNN that backs the OTBL limited government mantra and try to give it credibility:


A poll commissioned by CNN in October, 2006 reveals that a majority of Americans believe in the notion of limited government. A majority of those polled also believe that government has become too intrusive; intervening in areas best left to the individual. Though not asked, I would venture most would conclude that the path to limited government would be through the electoral process, in other words by electing the right person. We are ignorant to the fact that it is not the elected official which limits government, but the structure of the social contract through the application of a philosophy of individual liberty. The true measure of freedom is not found in the political process; it is found in the principles which naturally regulate the manner in which we interact with one and another.

Excerpt from the Forward of The Price of Sin; A Commentary on Liberty


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Now remember that OTBL'ers are very anti-gun control. The survey cited above comes from the Pew Research Foundation. Below are the results of a Pew survey on gun control taken after the Virginia Tech University slaughter. I'm guessing we won't be see thing this in an OTBL post:



Looks like the number of citizens wanting gun control is increasing. Below is more detail on Pew research concerning gun control:


Looks like fewer citizens want to protect gun owners rights and more want to control gun ownership.

Read more...

6/10/2007

Ayn Rand Laboratories Presents: Randoids

















You never know when a sudden attack of altuism might be poking it's ugly little
head into your psyche, or you might have an uncontollable urge to help out a fellow human being. Well, fear not, the anally retentive lab technicians at Ayn Rand Laboratories has invented a free market entrepeneurial solution for just such a malady.
Randoids: The curiously annoying little tablets called objectamints that eliminate altruistic urges in a jiffy.

Just pop a Randoid when;
You feel a smile coming on.
You might feel like letting the guy in the other lane merge in front of you.
or you might be inclined to support an extra curricular activity at the local
government high school.

Randoid's bitter taste and pungent aroma remind objectivists to keep their priorities in order. I, Me, Mine. The Rational way priorities should be ordered.
Look for Randoids at you local right wing nut blog site (like OTBL ), or at your next NRA or Atlas Shrugged BookClub convention.

Randoids: Because your enlightened self interests deserve them!

Chicken Little Slaughtered at OnTheBorderLine.net

It's always interesting to see what the know-it-all, do-nothings over at OnTheBorderLine.net are doing. Where an interesting glimpse at the hindsight concerning the threat of severe weather in the area last Thursday. Myself, I was planning on partaking in a work-related golf outing that would have been from 3-6 PM. It go cancelled. When I came out of work, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Talking to a friend on Friday, he said he was planning to go on a group motorcycle ride that got cancelled. The prediction was for severe storms between 3-6 PM.

So here's what on of the head whack jobs at OTBL'ers have to say about schools taking precautions when severe weather is in the neighborhood:


"Remember last Thursday the dire warnings of severe storms. Most of us carried on with our normal daily routines, including going to work, that is all of us except government. The reasoning of course, it’s for the kids."

by spiritofpublicus

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Of course, we all know spiritofpublickus spends most of his time in the basement slandering anybody who disagrees with he -- which is pretty much everybody. I wonder if, back on March 2, if the administration at Enterprise High School in Enterprise, Alabama had the same gift of hindsight as spiritofpublicus would things might have turned out different:

A violent storm system that ripped apart an Alabama high school as students took refuge inside later tore through Georgia, hitting a hospital and raising the death toll to at least 19 across the Midwest and Southeast.

Eight teenagers died when a tornado struck Enterprise High School in Alabama, blowing out the walls and collapsing part of the roof, Mayor Kenneth Boswell said Friday.

Read more...
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I wonder what spiritofpublickus would say, if a storm ripped apart a local school and killed eight students? When it comes to the OTBL blog site and public schools, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Why the Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant

by Paul E. Marek


(This was e-mailed to me from a friend. WIth a little Googgling, I was able to find the source of this peace. It comes from Isreal National News.)

History lessons are often incredibly simple.

I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.


“Very few people were true Nazis,” he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by experts and talking heads that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

Read more...