hey, David. you are new here. Welcome to the Gulch

I disagree. I think some mental work is involved, but many intuitively pick up on major points. that's how many come to this gulch :)

Except that neither of them is capable of creating or enabling production. Clinton and Sanders do not require an explanation; Trump, although a businessman, is really more of a mob boss - his businesses would not survive without the socialist money laundering and payoffs, hence his payments over the the decades to every rotten, filthy politician that he could buy (pretty much all of them). If he had ran his business based on value, he would not have felt the need to pay for Hillary's affairs.

Ayn Rand goes through a painstaking analysis how a moral code that values life, the individual and individual freedom, promotes a healthy society, while the opposite destroys it in the long run. She does this based on reason and completely excluding relying on the supernatural. However, her explanation is far from accessible to a low education mind, requires thought and logic (an anathema) and would not be understood by our average voter.

"The obvious change and philosophical system was not religion to secular, but individualist to collectivist."

I strongly disagree. They weren't individualist to begin with. They just traded one version of elitist rule for another.

"Any supposed benefits that may come from having a predominantly religious society are more than outweighed by the negatives which holdback growth and freedom."

There you are grossly over-generalizing. Religions run the gamut from Wiccans and Druids to Rastafarians to Hindus to Buddhists to Christians, Jews and Arabs - and that's just for starters. You need to focus on specific principles. Communism is an atheist mentality and one can not argue that that mentality does not stifle innovation and development. It's much more than atheism vs theism.

"If you look at the entirety of history, you will see that religious societies inevitably become oppressive. The Holy Roman Empire is only one such example."

Again, you are over-generalizing and choosing to ignore the examples of atheistic societies which were far more oppressive than any religious society. Look at the principles involved. That is what separates Objectivist atheism from Communist or Socialist atheism. If you make it an attack purely upon theism, you render yourself subject to the counter-argument that if you are going to treat all theists the same, then the theists reserve the reciprocal right to treat all atheists the same. It's a trap you set for yourself to logically associate yourself with the repressive regimes that slaughtered 200 million of their own people. If you step in it, don't expect to escape with your leg.

"It is only by random chance that any given religion correlates with freedom in mode society. And when it does correlate, it is in spite of the religious influence, not because of it."

That is wishful thinking at its best. Societies are not based on chance, but on choice. People band together to build communities based on shared values. If a society is successful for any length of time, it is a direct result of the principles upon which that community built and governed itself. The Constitution was no accident, neither were the results. No society on earth is the product of an accidental philosophy.

True enough.

well, liberty already substantially died with Obama and the democratic congress when they passed Obamacare. People wanted "change", but they didnt ask what kind of change.

I could argue that liberty substantially died when Bush passed that Patriot act and expanded the powers of the NSA. Of course, Obama made sure it was continued.

If Hillary gets in, she will kill off my small business's empllyees with her $12/hr minimum wage. Those jobs will go to China, or we simply disappear as a manufacturing business.

So what is it that people expect Trump to do that is so bad, except to at least try to break up the establishment crooked system where politicians promise anything to get elected, and then do the hidden things that their contributors wanted after the election.
One of the three will in all liklihood be elected in November. Trump is the best of them in my opinion.

John Galt isnt running, and he probably wouldnt even want to be president. In this culture, he wouldnt even get out of the starting gate, let alone win an election for president. Lots of education needs to be done to change the culture before such an election could take place.

Enough of this "Trump is bad because..." talk. He is not perfect, but anyone who could raise kids like his cant be all bad by any means.

I would not be so sure. We could have a non-fiction version of "So this is how liberty dies ... to thunderous applause". Princess Padme of the Star Wars movies may well be prophetic. We may get a "galactic empire" if Trump, Clinton, or Sanders are elected.

I think the kids absorb the essence of their parents being. In your case I would say who you are must have rubbed off on them, and you can be proud of that !
His kids were a more of a window into trump the man than almost anything else I know or people say about him
It's a bit hard to explain but I think that cnn town hall totally backfired on Anderson cooper who intended to use the forum to launch another blow to trump. I could see that even he kind of gave up attacking trump after the family started talking. It was great

Prager's and other religious conservatives' claim that morality comes from God and must be based on faith suffers a fundamental flaw - who is to say that one God is better than any other? Christianity's tower is no taller than Islam, and Islam considers killing ((for correct, and varied reasons) quite acceptable.

Trump does raise good kids if in spite of all the divorcing.
Don't take that as a snotty criticism. Despite a divorce, I managed to help raise three kids who became good adults.
My daughter used to be quite a handful but is now married with two kids of her own.
My stepson and I used to butt heads. I thought he harbored a secret dislike for me up until he asked me to be best man at his wedding. That just about floored me..

Trumps wife is ok, but his daughter ivanka is quite a woman. She is articulate and outspoken ( in a very good way). I was impressed in the cnn town hall with trump and his family that seeing his family told me more about the candidate himself than anything else so far

Any president has to get congress to work with him, and congress has to get the president to work with it.

Good points.
I have been reading your earlier arguments for Trump..
Trump's wife reminds me of a beauty in a Frank Frazetta fantasy painting for comics and paperbacks..
I'd provide a link with examples galore but someone may object to all the nudity,
When I was a kid back in the 60's his paperback cover art for "Carson of Venus" made me just have to buy that book.
Frazetta's art turned me into an avid reader.

http://www.amazon.com/Carson-Venus-Fr...

Well, if Trump gets nominated and then voted for, he still has to work within the confines of the system. Unless of course he completely guts it for HIS version of government.

The obvious change and philosophical system was not religion to secular, but individualist to collectivist.
Any supposed benefits that may come from having a predominantly religious society are more than outweighed by the negatives which holdback growth and freedom.
There is no causal link between religious societies and freedom. If you look at the entirety of history, you will see that religious societies inevitably become oppressive. The Holy Roman Empire is only one such example.
The point that must be understood is that we must respect the individual, and the only philosophy that does that consistently is objectivism. It is only by random chance that any given religion correlates with freedom in mode society. And when it does correlate, it is in spite of the religious influence, not because of it.

thank you

I think what he says isnt what is reported. I understand that he said that IF something was going to be illegal, then it should have penalties.

With muslims, he said that UNTIL we figure out how to distinguish between radicalized terrorist muslims and non-violent muslims, we should not let them into the country (like Germany did- and now look at their problems).

As to the issue with nuking, he would have a better relationship with other countries than we have had in a long time. When both Putin and China say they respect Trump because he understands business, I am encouraged that there would be less danger of crazy impulsive nuclear issues. They recognize that Trump is very careful when it comes to actual negotiations.
None of the candidates is perfect by any means, and all we can do is take the least bad. Unfortunately, even if John Galt wanted to run (which he wouldnt), he would never even get off the ground in this philosophical environment today.

I think Prager is referring to what happens when a culture no longer stigmatizes envy, which Ayn Rand summarized as hatred of the good for being the good.

https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

When a society condones envy, whether the society is religious or secular, it will soon die, or worse yet, live in a zombie state like Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

Any change to a system of government is based on a philosophical change first and foremost. What were the first two things each of the three examples I cited in Russia, China, and Vietnam did when their Communist atheist dictators took over? They confiscated guns and outlawed religion. Adolf Hitler's Third Reich participated in exactly the same tactics, it just didn't last as long as Russia because they lost the war (WW II). Ancient Rome did the same thing - using the excuse of secularism to turn religion into persecution via blood sport (they didn't need to confiscate the weapons of the common man with the mightiest war machine on the planet to enforce their dictates).

The secularism of these societies included a philosophical intolerance for traditional religion. The effect was mass murder on an unprecedented scale: 200 million according to estimates (not wholly religionists I agree). But the cause was secularist/communist atheism. It was not an after-effect, but a core philosophical tenet.

Am I implying that such persecution would happen in an Objectivist atheist nation? Not in the slightest. My point is merely that Prager only has such extreme and horrific examples upon which to postulate future events. Objectivism never seriously enters his thoughts as an alternative because there is no historical record of it doing so and the unlikely nature of it becoming a significant political factor.

You call the cause the effect and the effect the cause. These countries made moves to become socialist and communist... And as a result or by force as part of the movement also became more secular. There is a big difference.
They were still mystics however, worshipping the will of the state, the majority, or the proletariat... All believing that since a decision came from such a source, it must be right. Just like Christians and their God etc.

When I was 6 years old, we lived downstairs from a rabbi and his family. He gave me a kiddie copy of the Jewish bible. I started reading and even then I said whaaaat? It's a book of fairy tales. Later, as I read the bible as a teen, I truly wanted to believe. But the Garden of Eden stopped me cold. It raised more questions than it answered. Where did all the people outside of Eden come from? Was God turning them out in some sort of a pre-Ford assembly line? A woman from Adams rib? That broke God's own biological laws. Oh wait, he (It?) can do anything. Oh, crap. At that same time I just finished The Fountainhead. Even to my unformed brain, basing your life on the Bible versus The Fountainhead, well, no comparison. I still wonder at otherwise intelligent, even brilliant men and women paying homage to such five thousand year old, pre-science nonsense.

It's his opinion and it's based on his life philosophy. It goes back to the fundamental differences between atheists and Christians regarding the end state of man affecting how one lives one's life.

If one looks at it, however, Prager does have a good point insofar as the other nations of the world which have embraced enforced secularism have become communist and oppressive. If instead they became Objectivist, he might have some other vision to point to. As there has never been a major political movement embracing Objectivism, however, it is difficult to envision what might be the result of such. And so Prager is left to hypothesize only the communist atheism that was successful at taking down Russia in the early 1900's, China in the 1940's, Vietnam in the 1960's, etc.

You might criticize him for a lack of such vision, but I ask what the true probability is that a nation would turn to an Objectivist atheism as opposed to a Communist atheism and I have to say that the odds are heavily stacked against Objectivism. I really can't fault him for looking at Europe, Ancient Rome, or other historical examples as harbingers of what might happen today. "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."