I have no problem with it and don't see why anyone else should -- given the fact that the vast majority of births prevented are to poor people, and welfare for those kids would be far more expensive than preventing their existence. They would also grow up with no prospects in life except to bear another generation of parasites and be paid for doing so.

When the government stops making taxpayers pay for *that* then I'm willing to consider having us no longer pay for birth control or abortions.

Morality *is* nothing more than taste -- each person defines his own. This doesn't mean no one should bother having one; it means we all should choose carefully, since your moral code determines how far (and by whom) you can be trusted -- and even if there is neither hell nor karma, there is reputation.

The philosophy of liberty implies assuming that other people are adults, who know this and can each handle its consequences for themselves. Christianity (and other western faiths), while they superficially seem to support similar moral views, assumes that we are all not adults but sheep, who need a shepherd to lead us. I find that view absolutely abhorrent.

Ewv, I thought your comment about rights was thoughtful and brilliant. Nice to meet you as per khalling....

It was at the beginning of the 2/12/15 podcast of his show at http://feeds.feedburner.com/marklevinsho...

He is often very good when explaining constitutional law and history or current political shenanigans in Washington, has a good sense of where the country is headed and who is doing it (from both Democrats and establishment Republicans), and he seems to have a good sense of life personally -- when he isn't yelling or bullying callers.

But when he tries to rationalize his positions with philosophical arguments he frequently flounders with naive and sophomoric platitudes without being remotely aware of how far off he is with his lack of philosophical knowledge and a reliance on simplistic fallacies, usually based on religious slogans and refuted long ago. (Yet he constantly refers to what he thinks is his great philosophical knowledge in his books.) It's no accident that he's a big fan of the condescending William Buckley.

One of his favorite comparisons is to demean the substance and influence of philosophical thought in another false alternative as he denounces all leftist political philosophy as nothing but "utopian ideology" while wrapping himself in a self-caricature of cracker barrel anti-intellectual conservatism, eg:

"Conservatism isn't ideological. It's a way of life. It's based on experience and faith and family." (11/3/14)

Then there was this exchange with a caller on 12/5/13 in which he completely missed the point:

Caller: "I think that's what's missing, it's like there aren't any advocates for the moral principle of individual rights."

Levin: "Oh yes there is, there's millions of us, and --"

Caller: "I don't hear it advocated."

Levin: "Well we need more people, we need a lot more people who will advocate it, because if we lose our moral underpinning then we're going to lose the country. It's that simple because then anything goes. And I'm not saying that as a prude. I'm not saying that everyone has to agree with me but we're talking about basic morality."

Caller: "Oh I totally agree with you. I think the problem is that it's, we're in a competition between individual rights as a moral principle and altruism as a moral principle, and altruism always seems to win."

Levin: "Yea, all right my friend. You take care. Altruism _is_ part of our moral principles, isn't it Mr. Producer? I think it is, in the right context."

mama, meet ewv

I listened to all 21 hours of Cruz's filibuster megathon. He actually quoted Ayn Rand with respect and understanding, and he made sense on most of his points. It is a grave disappointment that this otherwise promising (no pun intended) young man is also mired in the notion he must please the fundamentalist Christian right.

What an irony that with fewer than 10% of Americans who are atheists, it is left to the socialist left to be the better defenders of reproductive and marriage rights.

"Pissed" is an understatement. The bill is so wacky that it's stunning. He's a "constitutionalist" who wants to rewrite the constitution to give "rights" to genetically human cells under an ideology that had nothing to do with the founding of the country or constitutional system of government, and which even the mystics in the Catholic Church didn't promote until the 19th century.

He wants to overthrow Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, and more with legislation that redefines the established use of words throughout legal history. http://thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S... This he calls "Congress' power to make necessary and proper laws" because in an acrobatic stunt of logical circularity the bill says so.

The subjectivism in the whole approach is so tyrannical and mind-boggling that you have to wonder what is wrong with his thinking processes to take it seriously. Such thinking is only "misguided"?

Could the Constitutional prohibition on involuntary servitude be wiped out with a bill that redefines "voluntary" henceforth and in the past -- including when the amendment was written to mean what it means -- to be synonymous with 'do what you're told by anyone claiming to be your master'? Is that a procedural precedent he wants to feed to the avowed statists as a way to amend the Constitutional by arbitrary Congressional re-definition? And you're only "pissed"?

You're right. I wasn't clear, and I even knew it. What I was thinking was that a physician delivers babies, sees miscarriages and abortions. It has to color one's thinking to some extent, but I agree that there is more to it.

Can we please make sure to specify which Rand we mean--Rand Paul or Ayn Rand. I had to do a double-take on this one.

My problem with Cruz is the same as Obama. One is too far to the left and the other to the right for all the wrong reasons. You can take your pick on which one goes in what direction. Neither one knows anything about the individual rights of man only a collective of rights of man.

I have always had difficulty understanding this complex individual liberty issue. "In protecting the life of an unborn child" to what extent does the government or public opinion have to intervene in the life and liberty of the mother . . .or father?

"As of now, my position is it's still early, although I can safely rule Cruz out, is the a candidate out there I'm missing remotely close to having principled views?"

Many of them have principles, but the wrong ones. But no, there isn't going to be a candidate with the principles you are looking for, and if there were he couldn't be elected in this culture if the electorate realized what he was despite his being constrained to limited choices he would have if in office. (Even an ideal candidate could not abolish various improper departments of the government, etc., and would have to manage the government in accordance with bad laws.)

We can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of various candidates and potential candidates, but in the end the election isn't about endorsing someone's principles or philosophy, it is about which of two (for all practical purposes) who will be in power, and only from those two. It means only that you get to vote for which of two candidates you will have to live under despite what he and the rest of the government are.

If you don't think there is a practical difference between them, then don't vote, but otherwise all you can do is select one from the limited two based on whatever aspects of freedom are most important to you and which you think might better survive to some extent. That's it.

You can't say who you would or would not vote for until you know who he is running against. If Obama were running against the Stalin/Mao ticket, you would have to vote for Obama. Morality pertains to the choices you have in reality, and your political choice is necessarily very constrained, so be sure to learn what you can about the candidates and choose accordingly when the time comes. It usually does make a difference when you know what is going on in Washington, how the system works, and where the greater threats are.

All hand-wringing about "making a statement" with a write in, etc. which we often hear, is meaningless. When the votes are counted no one will know or care about your politically irrelevant statement. If you want to make a statement, speak, but that's not what voting is.

I read this article and I'm sharing it here because of the importance of the message and news we all need to consider as thinkers and doers who protect Liberty. I have shortened/edited portions of the article, for brevity, to 5000 character limit.

"Can Americans Win a Guerrilla War [against those who want to destroy Liberty here and worldwide]? This is still an open question and the answer to the question should be rephrased to “Does America have the stomach fight a guerrilla war against the banker occupation forces? The fact remains that the civil war has already begun.”

REVOLUTION 2Benghazi is the one event that President Obama cannot make go away. This article will review the facts that demonstrate that the Benghazi affair was connected to an attempted military coup against Obama which subsequently failed. However, the motivation behind the coup did not die with Ambassador Stevens, it has only changed form and has now morphed into civil war mode. This is a two part series which examines why it is likely that the coming civil war will be a guerrilla war. Further, a convincing case will be made that the Benghazi incident will serve as the flash point for this emerging civil war. .

Since the end of WWII, the percentage of success for guerrilla forces has indeed gone up to 39.6%. Yet that still means that government forces have continued to prevail 51% of the time.

When the American people engage in a guerrilla war in the upcoming years, the people have less than a 40% chance of success.

Guerrilla wars are rarely short and as a result do not favor the American culture and psychological makeup because of our collective psyche of instant gratification. Will Americans set aside their entitlements as well as their entrenched soft lifestyle and rise to the occasion? The answer to that question, is that it does not matter. America is in the early stages of a civil war, whether it realizes it or not.

History will someday show that Civil War II began with the Benghazi affair. In the fall of 2012, it is now clear that President Obama survived an attempted bloodless military coup.

The murder of Stevens and his security team at Benghazi is a seminal moment in American history. We have further learned that al-Qaeda forces, fighting on the side of NATO in Libya, obtained 20,000 hand-held stinger missiles. This means that the Obama administration has allowed al-Qaeda to be armed to the teeth including the acquisition of 20,000 stinger missiles in which only one is needed to take down an American airliner. The ties between murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and jihadist Syrian rebels, now morphing into ISIS, are becoming more clear as it is now known that Chris Stevens was an arms dealer for the CIA. To cover their tracks, the Obama administration left Chris Stevens and his bodyguards defenseless as they were killed by the very terrorists that this administration armed. Can you imagine how the election of 2012 would’ve turned if the American public had this information prior to voting. This is why Stevens had to be killed, but there’s more. These events also explain why Hillary Clinton refused to honor Stevens’ request for more bodyguards. Is this why DHS director, Janet Napolitano abruptly resigned her post as well. Clinton certainly distanced herself from Obama by resigning as the head of the State Department.

[Obama's] purge of the leadership of the American military and his disdain for the traditions of the military being forsaken by Obama, the military seized upon the first opportunity to unseat Obama.

If Stevens, knowing he was betrayed at Benghazi, had been rescued by American military forces, Obama and his administration would have been deposed.

It is abundantly clear that had Obama been concerned for saving the lives of the four. Obama, Panetta and Clinton are, at minimum, accomplices to murder. At maximum these three rogue government officials are co-conspirators to first degree murder and now they have sacked two senior command military leaders to cover their complicity in an act of treason.

Within two months after the Benghazi attack, four senior U.S. military officers were purged by Obama:

Information is coming to light with regard to new military and paramilitary actions being directed against the Obama administration by disaffected military, black-ops, ex-military contractors and private mercenaries. This unholy alliance is presently acting out against the establishment. In short, dead bankers and earthquakes in Connecticut are interrelated and are much more significant than the American people are being led to believe. "

"I didn't realize that Ron and Rand Paul were both pro-life, but when I think about it, they are both physicians, and it makes sense."

Being a physician does not lead to being anti-abortion rights. They are both religious, with no idea what rights are and why we have them (and why other creatures, cells, etc. don't).

Human rights seem always to be spoken of as intangibles that need to be acquired or granted. The very words "human rights" Makes that idea wrong. Human rights are a necessity inherent in homo sapiens. They are no less needed than hands and feet. Yes, you can live without them -- so you can live without hands or feet, but who would want to? Taking away a human right is exactly akin to taking off a limb, or some other body part.

If one is a champion of the Constitution and restricting the government from interfering in anything not enumerated, I like it. If one does this and champions individual rights from either a personal belief in a higher being as source, or natural rights, so long as they do not force me into their church or beliefs, or base laws upon religious doctrine it does me no harm. The impact upon me is the same. For one seeking office in a land of majority believers it may even be requisite to espouse belief in order to win office. This is unfortunate, because it should be unnecessary. One should be able to gain support of all by basing the application of law, of policy, on natural rights alone and leave religion out of it. Natural rights as Rand supported and described them do not deny one the ability to worship "God" the supernatural, or the "Creator", which could be nature itself, or Pink Cadillacs. Though it be true she would probably not personally endorse Cadillac worship... :) What logic, reason and empirical evidence demonstrates to each is mute under such a circumstance.
I think it was rather clever and essential for the founders to use the term "Creator', considering the atmosphere they lived in. Then, like today, no matter one's beliefs, practicality enters the political equation.

Indeed!

Well said.

Hear--hear!!

how'd you pick up that Mark Levin gem? whoa. baldly asserted. gah.
well done comment, sir

If every Democratic voter places their vote for the mainstream liberal candidate with whom they 'generally agree' and every conservative voter places their vote for 'the unelectable factional candidate of their particular interpretation of philosophical purity' then we will loose and continue to loose. The US will loose. Freedom will loose. We will have socialist president following socialist president for the rest of our lives.

Jan
(Excellent post khalling. This type of discussion is what has hooked me to the Gulch list.)

Religion does not put rejection of our rights "off limits". It makes rights impossible to defend. Anyone can have faith in anything he wants if that is the way he thinks. And they do, from the Catholic left's liberation theology to the Islamo Fascists, with all factions hysterically fighting each other for millennia of mutual religious persecution.

Faith doesn't defend rights on some absolute terms, it doesn't intellectually defend anything. It leaves everything up for grabs with no intellectual standards to decide, only perpetual force as each faction loudly pronounces its own faith as beyond challenge and beyond discussion as it tries to assert its own beliefs into an impregnable position supposedly intrinsic under its supernaturalism. It pronounces supposedly intrinsic values as an excuse to forcibly impose them, with no argument necessary or possible. That is how faith inevitably leads to force and the wholesale violation of rights, and is why religious faith is not and cannot be a defense of the rights of the individual.

But the religious conservatives do further damage. As they invoke religious faith as the alleged defense of arbitrary assertions of rights with no definition and no explanation beyond mystic pronouncements, they loudly exclude and denounce a rational defense of rights objectively identified as abstract moral principles based on our requirements to live on earth.

This anti-intellectual battle between the left and the religious right is the false alternative of the openly subjective versus the mystically intrinsic. Those on one side demand government can do anything they feel like to coercively grant "rights" as entitlements on behalf of the collective, based on faith in altruistic sacrifice as the standard of morality. The other side rejects government and any role for man and his intellect in identifying and logically establishing what rights are and where they come from, denouncing what it calls "relativism" (while ignoring that it's own duty ethics of altruistic sacrifice contradicts the right to life, liberty and pursuit of one's happiness, as well as the rights of the individual).

Omitted is the objective identification of natural rights as abstract principles based on the nature of man and his requirements to live as a rational being as the source of properly formulated civil rights codified and enforced by government.

Or to put it more philosophically as a central principle: we are given the false alternative of the "intrinsic" versus the "subjective" with no regard for what Ayn Rand identified as the "objective-subjective-instrinsic trichotomy" -- in this case pertaining to abstract principles in our conceptual means of knowing based on the facts of reality. Knowledge, including abstract principles of moral values, is a relation between both reality and consciousness, as a grasp of reality by a conceptual consciousness. It is neither "intrinsic" apart from man's means of knowledge as in the Plato-Augustine axis, nor subjective apart from the facts of reality. Ayn Rand rejected both.

Rights, like all knowledge, must be initiated, formulated and defended by man, based on the facts of reality, i.e., man's nature and requirements to live. There is no abstract knowledge or principles inherent in reality, only the facts themselves, which we observe through our senses and employ as a perceptual base for conceptual abstractions as our form of comprehending.

This false alternative as formulated by religious conservatives was illustrated again last month by one of the religious right's most prominent spokesmen today, Mark Levin, in discussing the recent controversy between CNN morning Anchor Chris Cuomo and Alabama Judge Roy Moore (widely known for his unsuccessful attempt to prominently display the ten commandments in a court house several years ago).

Moore stated: "Our rights, contained in the bill of rights, do not come from the Constitution they come from God".

Cuomo: "Our laws do not come from God, your honor, and you know that, they come from man... Our rights do not come from God. That's your faith, that's my faith, but that's not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise."

So you see both the intrinsic and the subjective asserted in the false alternative.

In his February 12, 2015 radio show Mark Levin left no room for doubt on the conservatives' anti-reason position in explicitly philosophical terms:

"Where do these unalienable rights come from? These inviolable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? They don't come from man, they don't come from the collection of men we call government. These are rights, you're born with these rights. They don't come from reason. They don't come from logic. They are. Period."

With the religious conservatives intellectually dominating the supposed defense of individual rights as based on faith in the "intrinsic" and an attempt to rely on "the large number of people [who] have some degree of belief/faith in someone/something supernatural", while rejecting reason and logic in the identification, formulation and codification of rights as "relativist", it should be no surprise why the country is helplessly sinking before the collectivists' onslaught ranging from rabid Islam to Obama's "fundamental change".

This is why Ayn Rand repeatedly stated that this is primarily an intellectual battle.

No, not at all. Good post.

I have a lot of respect for people that consider all the information they have and make their own conclusions.

I was raised strict Catholic. Eight years of Dominican nuns in grade school, 4 years of Basilian Fathers in high school. This was in the 50's and 60's, and I wouldn't trade that education for anything. IMCO, it was the closest thing to a "classical" education available in the USA.

But the one thing they did teach, perhaps too well, was logic and reason. I read Atlas shortly after high school, and then many other related works, both Rand and non-Rand. It took 2 years, but at the end I had made many choices. Some were minor: I went from my dad's pro-union Democrat politics to free-market, anti-union, independent. But more importantly, I went from Catholic to committed atheist, and pro-choice. All my emotions fought those choices, but I was taught reason, and in the end reason prevailed.

I still abolutely believe in a higher power, above myself, and that's called Reality. And by my nature, I can only comprehend Reality through Reason. In essence, I traded God and Faith for Reality and Reason. As such, I do believe that our rights do not come from a man or men, nor God or The State, but from our nature.

So I disagree that we have ceded rights granted by God to men, We have ceded our rights granted by our nature to other men who do not respect or recognize those rights.

I absolutely respect your right to choose the Catholic religion. But I strongly disagree that some Catholic beliefs do not conflict with individual rights and American values. The rest of my family are still practicing Catholics, and to my knowledge it is still a "sin" to vote for a pro-choice candidate. I realize that there are many "progressive" priests who will tell you that is not so, but if they do then they are in conflict with the Church "above" them. I was taught that very well, too, and unless Catholic teachings have changed radically, the hierarchy still is intact.

I hope that wasn't flaming, nor considered anti-Catholic. Just respect my right to say keep your religious beliefs away from my rights.

The war for LIBERTY is won by winning the majority of little battles, including the election of our next president. I'm putting my vote behind the candidate who can meet most of my principals and CAN WIN THIS ELECTION, because there doesn't appear to be one individual that can meet all of them.I believe that if we all "like-minded" did the same we would have someone that represented most of our principals and interests. We can not vote with just unflexible ideology given what is at stake. At the moment Ted Cruz isn't at the top of that list but if he is, I would vote for him despite is misgivings. I will also continue to send as many messages as possible to the front runner so our message of Liberty does not become stiffled as it has been.