Ayn, Neal and the world around me...

[dover]

 

"I rejoice in a belief that intellectual light will spring up in the dark corners of the earth; that freedom of enquiry will produce liberality of conduct; that mankind will reverse the absurd position that the many were, made for the few; and that they will not continue slaves in one part of the globe, when they can become freemen in another."

 

--George Washington, draft of First Inaugural Address, 1789

 

 

[seanfingh]

In a short but sweet moment of weakness, I put someone on ignore. I used to think that only the weak would do such a thing but I gave in and tried it.

 

I have found my experience brightened by the lack of this user's text.

 

All is good.

 

 

Ignore is awesome.

 

What's weak about using some code? It's like considering PM's weak. Or quote nesting.

 

What's weak about wanting to enjoy your chosen form of diversion & play -- posting on the Boards -- free of those folks who spoil it for you? The ignore code was written to allow this.

 

It's great.

 

It also is an excellent prophylactic against acting like an ass, and it works great to make sure you don't buy from a putrid seller again.

 

Viva Ignore!

[dover]

Two movies I cannot stop watching when I happen upon them while surfing:

 

12 Monkeys

 

and

 

the 5th Element.

 

I have come to accept this condition.

 

 

 

[lookwhoitis]

Two movies I cannot stop watching when I happen upon them while surfing:

 

12 Monkeys

 

and

 

the 5th Element.

 

I have come to accept this condition.

 

 

 

both fantastic sci-fi films! (thumbs u

[dover]

 

The Federalist No. 41

 

General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution

 

Independent Journal

Saturday, January 19, 1788

 

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

 

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

 

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

 

 

Crystal.

 

 

 

There are 18 very specific, precise and strict powers granted to Congress; 18, by the Constitution. No more, no less. Removing property at the point of a gun to grant to another was not among them. Regardless of the morality and deep felt goodness, it is simply not a part of the founding mortars and pillars. No matter how sincere or heart felt, charity is not a granted power of Congress. Charity rests within us; resides in our being and is guided by our own internal moral compass. Each time we are remove another step farther from this center we lose a small part of our ability to care on a personal level. We care, but caring by collective will is not charity; it is seizure of the individual spirit and slavery to the masses. No man should have to sacrifice their liberty for the sake of another. No woman should have to grant her labor to feed the children of another without her express consent and personal good will. No citizen should carry the burden, by a required levy of weight, collected by a tyrant and delivered by servants not of charity but of construed and legalized theft. How can Life and Liberty be protected when they are pillaged and plundered? Where once we looked to our communities, our churches, our neighbors now we look to our officials with begging hands.

 

 

 

 

[dover]

German Grand Prix 2012

 

Free practice 1

 

Driver - Teams - Time

 

1 - J Button (GBR) - McLaren - 1'16.595

 

 

 

2 - LC Hamilton (GBR) - McLaren - 1'17.093

 

 

 

3 - F Alonso (ESP) - Ferrari - 1'17.370

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

....like tears in the rain

 

 

 

One of the great moments in film. A.I. teaching us about life we could not live. How long do we have?

[dover]

 

 

Top 20 from Alisa Rosenbaum

 

20) "Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil."

 

19) "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

 

18) "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent."

 

17) "Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself. If a drought strikes them, animals perish — man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish — man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them animals perish — man writes the Constitution of the United States. But one does not obtain food, safety or freedom — by instinct.”

 

16) "And what is the state but a servant and a convenience for a large number of people, just like the electric light and the plumbing system? And wouldn't it be preposterous to claim that men must exist for their plumbing, not the plumbing for the men."

 

15) "Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."

 

14) "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

 

13) "Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production."

 

12) "Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot."

 

11) "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."

 

10) "Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

 

9) "The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave."

 

8) "An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes."

 

7) "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."

 

6) "The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."

 

5) "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

 

4) "The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."

 

3) "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

 

2) "America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way."

 

1) "We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

 

 

 

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/07/20/the_20_best_quotes_from_ayn_rand/page/full/

 

[dover]

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170885316792&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

 

 

HOT WHEELS # 6 Niel Adams Art! 1971 GD/VG CHEAP!

 

 

 

 

 

[TeddieMercede]

Niel !

[TupennyConan]

Niel !

 

+1

[dover]

Niel !

 

+1

 

Of course we all know it is spelled: "Neil". This guy was way off his rocker.

 

 

[dover]

 

No. 2 for a reason.

 

 

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

 

--George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

 

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition."

--James Madison (Federalist No. 46)

 

 

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."

--Cesare Beccaria

 

 

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

 

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

--Samuel Adams

 

 

[namisgr]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

[cheetah]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

Ya think they ever envisioned 100-round magazines and rifles about to shoot all the rounds in less than a minute? Our forefathers were brave and intelligent men but they weren't prescient nor guided by the hand of a god. Some were dogmatic and some were pragmatists. Selecting specific quotes to make a point always reminds me of sermons on Sunday.

[seanfingh]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

Why would they need to cover the contingencies? The framework was simple. Enumerate federal powers, leave the remainder of the authority to the states themselves. The expansion of federal authority and the creation of career politicians are two phenomena that have affected the efficacy of the Constitution far more than population growth.

[dover]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

Jefferson could not imagine a country beyond the Agricultural state he grew up with. However, they did not need to. They envisioned and laid the foundation for the citizens (the governed) and the States they lived in, to decide how they wanted to be governed. They did not have to think of any and all situations as they laid the frame work to alter and improve upon it. They were fairly certain of the first ten and laid claim to it as written.

 

They knew that having the citizen armed was the best defense against the Majority and the tyranny it brings. Everything they wrote was to protect individual Liberty against the infringement of the masses.

 

Having guns only in the hands of the criminal and the Government was and is the worst case scenario; they sought all forms of reason to avoid this.

 

Thinking that a free society can protect itself from the wants and transgressions of the insane or criminally intent is ludicrous. That is the underlying current of the issue. You simply cannot keep evil at bay by submitting the lawful to unjust and un-Constitutional legislation. It is a nice "sermon" at the Church of the Collective, but it does not play out in the reality of life.

 

Nothing is perfect; there is no utopia. In cases of Liberty vs. Legislated Protection or the will of the Collective good will; I will choose Liberty. You are free to choose how you wish. I always seek the most amount of freedom as the ultimate protection of the individual and thus allow him to prosper and thus best benefit the society he lives within. I understand completely, as did the Founder's, that elected officials are not angels and thus the power of the governed should always be used as the direction of the Republic. The right of the citizen should be protected as it is beyond the "good will" to determine his pursuit.

 

For the record, I do not own a gun. I also do not own a gas mask or tear gas or body armor.

 

 

(Reuters) - Here is a timeline of some of the worst shooting incidents carried out by one or two gunmen around the world in the last 25 years:

 

March 13, 1996 - BRITAIN - Gunman Thomas Hamilton burst into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.

 

April 28, 1996 - AUSTRALIA - Martin Bryant unleashed modern Australia's worst mass murder when he shot dead 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern state of Tasmania.

 

April 1999 - UNITED STATES - Two heavily-armed teenagers went on a rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Denver, shooting 13 students and staff before taking their own lives.

 

July 1999 - UNITED STATES - A gunman killed nine people at two brokerages in Atlanta, after apparently killing his wife and two children. He committed suicide five hours later.

 

June 2001 - NEPAL - Eight members of the Nepalese Royal family were killed in a palace massacre by Crown Prince Dipendra who later turned a gun on himself and died few days later. His youngest brother also died later raising the death toll to 10.

 

April 26, 2002 - GERMANY - In Erfurt, eastern Germany, 19-year-old Robert Steinhauser opened fire after saying he was not going to take a math test. He killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman at the Gutenberg Gymnasium, before killing himself.

 

October 2002 - UNITED STATES - John Muhammad and Lee Malvo killed 10 people in sniper-style shooting deaths that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.

 

April 16, 2007 - USA - Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

 

November 7, 2007 - FINLAND - Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse, the principal and himself with a handgun at the Jokela High School near Helsinki.

 

September 23, 2008 - FINLAND - Student Matti Saari opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland, killing nine other students and one male staff member before killing himself.

 

March 11, 2009 - GERMANY - A 17-year-old gunman dressed in combat gear killed nine students and three teachers at a school near Stuttgart. He also killed one other person at a nearby clinic. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police. Two additional passers-by were killed and two policemen seriously injured, bringing the death toll to 16 including the gunman.

 

June 2, 2010 - BRITAIN - Gunman Derrick Bird opened fire on people in towns across the rural county of Cumbria. Twelve people were killed and 11 injured. Bird also killed himself.

 

April 9, 2011 - NETHERLANDS - Tristan van der Vlis opened fire in the Ridderhof mall in Alphen aan den Rijn, south of Amsterdam, killing six before turning the gun on himself.

 

July 22, 2011 - NORWAY - Police seize a gunman who killed 69 people at a youth summer camp of Norway's ruling political party, on the small, holiday island of Utoeya. Anders Behring Breivik is later charged with the killings, as well as with an earlier bombing in Oslo which killed eight people. The trial ended last month with Breivik saying that his bombing and shooting rampage was necessary to defend the country - prompting a walk-out by relatives of his victims.

 

December 13, 2011 - BELGIUM - Gunman Nordine Armani killed three people, including a 17-month-old toddler, wounding 121 in a central square in the eastern city of Liege, before shooting himself. The next day Belgian investigators found the body of a woman in warehouse used by the gunman raising the death toll, including the killer, to five.

 

July 20, 2012 - UNITED STATES - A masked gunman killed 14 people and wounded 50 others when he opened fire on moviegoers at a showing of new Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" in the city of Denver.

[dover]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

Why would they need to cover the contingencies? The framework was simple. Enumerate federal powers, leave the remainder of the authority to the states themselves. The expansion of federal authority and the creation of career politicians are two phenomena that have affected the efficacy of the Constitution far more than population growth.

 

You are correct.

 

It is the living breath that has brought us to our knees, not the words that were written.

[namisgr]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

 

In cases of Liberty vs. Legislated Protection or the will of the Collective good will; I will choose Liberty.

 

Bankers unleashed. Civil rights restricted. There are side effects that are quite profound.

[seanfingh]

Think the Founding Fathers ever envisioned 400 million Americans and covered all contingencies for same?

 

 

In cases of Liberty vs. Legislated Protection or the will of the Collective good will; I will choose Liberty.

 

Bankers unleashed. There are side effects that are quite profound.

 

Maybe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can take over everything for us. Go Feds, go!!!!!!!