Isn’t it the leftists who want to hurt people though? They seem to be the violent ones when it comes down to it Check out the vitriol against trump. It’s pslpable. Robert diniro saying “fuck trump” at awards shows on tv. Berkeley riots. Charlottesville riots.

I think it was always “tax the rich”. Because it’s they who have the money. I think the liberals have adopted the “victim” mentality in order to get goodies. It’s right out of the atlas shrugged playbook as the wealth of the country slowly decreases and the leftists look to blame someone. I think it’s a natural trend as socialism takes hold and the rubber meets the road

We all should watch very closely how things are going in Venezuela. It’s how things will go here as socialism becomes the norm. We got a reprieve for a few years with trump- a slowdown in leftist political actions. Without a civil way, it won’t last tho

"I find it hard to see deplorable wanting [to control everything]. "
They generally don't. They're hurt, and they want to hurt someone else.

One problem related to this is too many people seeing themselves as victims. I may have been misreading it as a child and young adult, but in the 80s and 90s I felt like people debated whether gov't should tax "we the people" to make various things happen. Today I feel like it's more openly about should we tax other people to make various things happens for us. Bernie Sanders was the most direct: "Billionaires", spoken with contempt, and meaning "somebody else, not we the people." I think this is a bad thing (maybe a trend), but I can't tell if it's really a trend or if it's always been with us and maybe I only realized it in early middle age.

Those seeking power are always "engaged in behind-the-scenes scheming". Washington DC (as well as state capitols) is a very nasty place.

The millennial generation is not "pure socialist", but it is, in general, more accepting of collectivist premises and policies and more ignorant of history because of what it has been taught and not taught.

Many Trump supporters could very well back a socialist. Populism is collectivist.

But a socialist wants to control everything. I find it hard to see deplorable wanting that. Maybe you are thinking that the deplorable are just following a leader and would follow a socialist leader

I agree socialism is a huge threat, but I don't believe it's behind-the-scenes scheming. I don't think the people who find President Trump's antics compelling (i.e. "the quiet deplorables") are guaranteed not to vote socialist. In fact, I think they could easily get behind a socialist. I also don't think the millennial generation is pure socialist, esp when you adjust for how young people always are more prone to sophistry and facile solutions.

We agree on the threat but not the mechanism. Watch for people who like raunchy antics one-day vote for socialism. I hope I am wrong and that does not happen.

The bicameral brain is not aware of it's better half so to speak. To the ancients, they were commands because they could only behave in fear of consequence from unseen forces. Real "free will" came with the mind...you can observe that in the ancient writings between the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Oh, we might beef about one or two of them but the insights were pretty basic...natural law of the universe...like what Cicero wrote about.

''To many, it's common sense and perhaps that's the way AR thought of them...but they certainly are not false, there is no Objective commandments to reject them.''

Rand did not consider commandments as moral since they are not the chosen. Moral actions are chosen actions whether good or badly mistaken.
For a Christian, commandments are not to be taken by choice, but are taken under the understanding of being punished by God if not accepted. You might counter that one has free will in the matter, but a commandment does not allow free will.
Commandments are anti objective.

The bicameral brain and mind is alive and well with the two hemisphere brain and the conscious and subconscious minds.

Thanks for explaning some of your opinions.

I have and I remember that passage along with the passage about initiatory force, which Mark Hamilton modeled his prime law but other than that, her moral objectives are vague. Valuable and profound they are it still doesn't address the point of adopting a standard of behavior in one's self interest...especially for those that are still bicameral. There is nothing mystical about those insights.
(I too, have met folks, mostly the young, that say they do not have the voice of self, nor the voice of another in their heads.)
My work is heavily involved with the problems between bicameral entities and unicameral conscious beings. Most bicameral's exist in governments and akin to what I call: The global parasitical humanoid delete ruleless class.

Mankind's insight into a few rules of behavior to heed in a quest for a peaceful society was a watershed moment in bicameral times. To many, it's common sense and perhaps that's the way AR thought of them...but they certainly are not false, there is no Objective commandments to reject them.
I don't think we need to go through each one, but it is clear that Christianity and Judaism adopted them and western civilization benefited by them.

I get the reaction from an over barring pointed finger of some Christian sects and get the dichotomy of honoring a parent that doesn't deserve that honor. I think there was a much deeper physical connection there that really can't be ignored. How we choose to do so is another story; also, that bad neighbor can be a strain on one's tolerance and mutuality, which is really that dreaded "L" word, outside the family unit, that everyone gets wrong.
Worship is another one which many misread. It's really a profound appreciation, in bicameral times it was subjugation but a conscious being can understand that one should appreciate his own existence and be humbled by the forces that caused that to be. Mankind has a tendency to "Humanize" everything; not to mention our bicameral ancestors thought they walked with entities that caused their presents here of earth. It seems to me, those entities were equally bicameral.

Carl, you apparently have not read deeply into Ayn Rand's works. You certainly must know The Oath: "I swear by my life and by my love of it, never to live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." But even that rests on much.

The broad outlines are found, easily, under "Self interest" in The Ayn Rand Lexicon online
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sel...

But if you search there for "Man qua Man" you find:

"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

“Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice."
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And, yes, I understand the "bicameral mind." We have discussed it before. We both read Julian Jaynes. I will point out that even today, bicameral people live among us. Joan of Arc was a bicameral: she heard "voices"; in other words, she did not identify her motivation as being internal to herself. Even closer to home, I wrote and published a peer-reviewed article with another student in a graduate physics class. He told me that he knows that people speak of having a voice in their head, but he does not. Smart guy, all in all, but bicameral.

Please read "The Objectivist Ethics" on using your rational mind to live your own life. It does not mean do what ever you have to in order to accomplish your objectives" including sacrificing others to yourself, and it does not mean "guiding one's behavior and interactions well with in society".

I say that because, there is an interest to do what ever you have to, in order to accomplish your objectives, That is a serious problem with big business these days, versus, a general interest in guiding one's behavior and interactions well with in society, therefore setting an good example. I would be in one's self interest to have others that want to do business with you and perhaps not feel they have no other choice.

The topic is "religious, faith-based culture with its mystical standards of the good" verus "the collectivist, altruist ethical and political ideology", not who is running in the next election and who wants to impeach Donald Trump.

Self interest cannot be "left out" of ethics. Ethics is not based on "good behavior" towards others or platitudes like "stay out of hot water". Haven't you read "The Objectivist Ethics"?

Morality of self interest means that the life of the individual is the standard and your own happiness the goal, not a duty to "charge as much as you can get for coins" is an "absolute", let alone "killing" someone who does not. Objectivism does not prescribe duties at all.

Laughing...like I always say: editing best when done after posting, for me.

Bicameral, as I think you know, refers to pagan man,( not being aware of his own awareness) and of course, unicameral meaning self introspection or consciousness.
Or, lets describe it this way: Imitation conscience,- meaning survival fear of consequences from unseen forces and Conscience guided by experience, reason and mutuality.

But I am just curious: What would a die hard objectivist consider good behavior, a behavior that keeps one out of hot water and doesn't harm or take unfair advantage of others.
Lets leave: "self interest" out of it because that could mean most anything, or sound vague.

Let me suggest this an example of objective morality versus absolute morality.

It is in your self interest to charge all the market will bear. Yet, if you go to a coin show or numismatic convention, and watch what happens on the bourse floor, people "leave money on the table" all the time. "Greysheet is $205, but you can have it for $175." OK 20-40-60-80-100; 20-40-60-80. Thanks, Keep the 5."

They are "buying" good will. They are exchanging the values of respect. In "Bourgeois Virtues" Dierdre McCloskey points out that self-interest among the roofers of Omaha is not the self-interest among a nest of rats -- though the left confuses the two.

Would I sell something for less than it cost me? Ouch! No, of course not.... Unless, it were in my self-interest to have the cash now and eat the loss... I had an economics prof who was (only mostly) free market. He subscribed to the subject theory of values. But from that basis he got his first lesson in on the first day: You would pay a dollar to get a quarter if you needed to make a call from a pay phone.

The error of absolutism would justify killing the person who offered to sell you a quarter for a dollar. See the comments from the Tariff Crowd here, for instance. Objectivism places the absolute in context.

I do not know which half of your two cameras you are using, but we are not going to agree on this.

For one thing, you stopped being grammatical -- weather for whether and "to an frow" -- which indicates emotional response. You are more insightful when you are cool headed.

I think socialism is a far greater threat as the forces behind it are marshaling their forces behind the scenes- all the while preventing and obstructing trump in any way they can. They are hoping to win the senate and House in 2018 to render trump a lame duck, find some way to impeach him or at least hamstring him with investigations, and then topple him in 2020. At that point to unleash the full fury of a socialist leap. Very scary indeed. We have a respite for two more years as trump does have veto power

There are the quiet deplorable who could vote to keep the socialists out. But the millennial seem to be rock solid pure socialists and will eventually win out as deplorable die off

The ten commandments are not an outline of "good behavior". They are commandments to do an alleged duty no matter what the results, your own understanding, or your goals. "Unilateral" versus "bicameral brain" as ways of thinking is meaningless. If you want to live as a human being think rationally and understand the difference between causality and duty.

The principle of freedom of speech means government shall not interfere in the transmission of ideas. That principle should not be 'downvoted'. Someone who 'downvotes' something in particular that he rejects is not opposing the principle of freedom of speech. His rejection may or may not be rational and may or may not be a cowardly hit and run.

The "controversy" over a "right to believe whatever you want" is not about absolutes, it is about equivocation on the meaning: A political right to believe something is not an epistemological 'right' to be taken seriously no matter what you say. "Controversy" over that arises only with those who demand that their arbitrary assertions be respected as cognitive value.

"Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter’s stomach, is an absolute." -- Galt's speech

"A moral code impossible to practice, a code that demands imperfection or death, has taught you to dissolve all ideas in fog, to permit no firm definitions, to regard any concept as approximate and any rule of conduct as elastic, to hedge on any principle, to compromise on any value, to take the middle of any road. By extorting your acceptance of supernatural absolutes, it has forced you to reject the absolute of nature." -- Galt's speech

If something is true it is absolutely true. There is no other kind. But you had better know what you are talking about, how to apply it, and not drop context.

The Ten Commandments are not absolute principles, they are commandments. The religious notion of ethics is duty. See Ayn Rand's "Causality versus Duty" in Philosophy: Who Needs It.

The Democrats appeal to collectivist premises in their drive to implement more socialism, but differ in how much they publicly reveal how far they want to go now and in the future. Despite the increasing public acceptance of collectivist premises, Americans are not (yet) ready for explicit socialism in large enough numbers to openly embrace it.

The Democrat strategic leadership knows that electoral success generally depends on avoiding the appearance of the ideological left as extreme as Sanders and Clinton. But the party leadership is not unified, and it does not fully control who runs and how they present themselves. Some of them want to campaign more explicitly and some pretend to be 'moderate'.

They know that all of them once in a dominant position of power they will push to impose more control, expecting that the public will accept it once in place (as Marxists always expect), and they know that legislation once passed is almost impossible to reverse once a constituency is in place. That is why with enough power they are willing to ram through major collectivist legislation and administrative policies as they did under Obama.

Running along not far behind are the Republicans under the driving premise of 'me too but slower''.

Nationalism and communism are both based on the premise of collectivist statism, differing only in implementation. The Germans fought themselves politically only over that, embracing the false alternative. There was no "right" in Germany in the sense of American individualism. The culture of the Germans in the Weimar Republic was steeped in a tradition of Christian religion and unreason philosophically. The left wanted Marxism and the right wanted traditional German nationalist statism. They got as compromise the fascist version of socialism blending both under the common accepted premise.