Ayn, Neal and the world around me...

[dover]

Lewis

 

He is hard on his stuff.

 

[TupennyConan]

[dover]

We need a picture of the waif.....

 

 

[TupennyConan]

We need a picture of the waif.....

 

 

That's pretty funny. I'd already forgotten about her.

[dover]

We need a picture of the waif.....

 

 

That's pretty funny. I'd already forgotten about her.

 

....the next 20 minutes.....

 

She was left richer for her time.

 

Her dance was in step with the time.

 

Her curves were lesser for the view.

 

Her lungs were cleaner for the borrowed breath.

 

 

[dover]

 

Just got this Canadian Variant in:

 

[dover]

 

 

Tomahawk

 

......

 

.....

 

 

 

[scooter99]

Just got this Canadian Variant in:

 

 

I didn't realize Tomahawk was such a stud until now.

[dover]

Just got this Canadian Variant in:

 

 

I didn't realize Tomahawk was such a stud until now.

 

 

A legend! Neil actually had to file papers with the Mounties to be able to embelish the true legend.

 

I am hoping Gemma increases the score for this book.

 

[dover]

 

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness:

 

The fullest and greatest expression of Life is love.

 

The fullest and greatest expression of Liberty is income inequality.

 

The fullest and greatest expression of Happiness is the enjoyment of your labor.

 

 

[Ogami]

Still reading, still loving, Dover.

 

This is my 60 day check-in.

[dover]

Still reading, still loving, Dover.

 

This is my 60 day check-in.

 

I have been so busy with trade shows that I have neglected my little journal.

 

I shall be getting back to business!

[dover]

 

Pennsylvania, the state I was raised in (not born as I tip my hat to the Florida Posse), ratified the Constitution today in December 1787!!

 

 

I would like to think I influenced their early decision but alas I was probably less heard then than now.

 

The vote was 46 to 23 in favor. The Anti-Federalists were strong in opposition but they lost in the end.

 

God Bless America

 

and

 

Merry Christmas

[dover]

 

[dover]

 

We all have our little escapes of learning and interests where we find ourselves most comfortable and open to expression and new concepts. Mine is found here:

 

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/

 

Type in a word and see what comes back.

 

Tyranny -

 

Tyranny is any political system (whether absolute monarchy or fascism or communism) that does not recognize individual rights (which necessarily include property rights). The overthrow of a political system by force is justified only when it is directed against tyranny: it is an act of self-defense against those who rule by force. For example, the American Revolution.

 

America -

 

I can say—not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots—that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.

 

The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of society to moral law. The principle of man’s individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system—as a limitation on the power of the state, as man’s protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history. All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary co-existence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

 

Common Good -

 

The tribal notion of “the common good” has served as the moral justification of most social systems—and of all tyrannies—in history. The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored.

 

“The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; “good” and “value” pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships.

 

“The common good” is a meaningless concept, unless taken literally, in which case its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case, the concept is meaningless as a moral criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it?

 

It is not, however, in its literal meaning that that concept is generally used. It is accepted precisely for its elastic, undefinable, mystical character which serves, not as a moral guide, but as an escape from morality. Since the good is not applicable to the disembodied, it becomes a moral blank check for those who attempt to embody it.

 

When “the common good” of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. It is tacitly assumed, in such cases, that “the common good” means “the good of the majority” as against the minority or the individual. Observe the significant fact that that assumption is tacit: even the most collectivized mentalities seem to sense the impossibility of justifying it morally. But “the good of the majority,” too, is only a pretense and a delusion: since, in fact, the violation of an individual’s rights means the abrogation of all rights, it delivers the helpless majority into the power of any gang that proclaims itself to be “the voice of society” and proceeds to rule by means of physical force, until deposed by another gang employing the same means.

 

If one begins by defining the good of individual men, one will accept as proper only a society in which that good is achieved and achievable. But if one begins by accepting “the common good” as an axiom and regarding individual good as its possible but not necessary consequence (not necessary in any particular case), one ends up with such a gruesome absurdity as Soviet Russia, a country professedly dedicated to “the common good,” where, with the exception of a minuscule clique of rulers, the entire population has existed in subhuman misery for over two generations.

[dover]

 

Tomorrow is our 11th wedding anniversary!!

 

Somehow we made it past 7 and have only gotten closer and better.

 

I have to admit that some of my absence from this board has been directly related to my presence with her.

 

3:00 tomorrow and the fun begins!!!

 

No kids, no dog, no cat, no guinea pig, no fish, no phones, no texts, no computer......

 

 

 

 

<3

 

 

[dover]

 

 

"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

 

 

--Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

 

 

We have gone astray.....

[dover]

 

My first Adams' X-men!!!

 

 

[greggy]

[dover]

 

We suck!!!