Really good insight by Carruthers, especially concerning Gandhi's successes in India against U.K. rule and how well that would have played out in other venues.
Tom- You might want to research the G.I. Bill a little. That wasn't a giveaway for slackers too lazy to earn their own way. Rather, it was a token of thanks for the millions of veterans who served in WW II risking life and limb.
Want free school? Earn it. The GI Bill still exists. http://www.gibill.va.gov/
Just "giving away" education to our abundance of shiftless indolent youth means they will never value it. Anyone who wants to go work hard and go to college today can do so, even if the miliatry isn't right for them or vice-versa. It might require starting at a 2 year school, or some evening hours work, but it can be done. People of every perceived disadvantage have accomplished it because they worked hard. More giveways and education entitlements will just leave us with another crappy government school system, just as our grade K-12 kids are saddled with. The only things keeping quality up at the University level are the cost of admission and the presence of foreign students (in some fields of study). If either of these go away, our universities will turn to mush as well. As I've already stated, that happened long ago in the liberal arts fields.
While there is intersection on many points, libertarianism and objectivism are quite a bit different and Rand herself (and her followers) would violently object to any implication of congruence.
I've read a couple of Rand's major works. "Atlas Shrugged" is a tough read for at least a hundred pages and then it picks up well into a pretty decent "near-future" story. A couple of overly long monologues (aimed at espousing her philosophy from the mouth of the speaker) needed some editing, but it's still a good book.
I did find the characters more one-sided than in her earlier work, "The Fountainhead", though. In there, many of the characters are a "little more grey" (and the philosophy is less in-your-face), which I think results in a better story. Atlas aims more at preaching her philosophy by wrapping a story around it. The Fountainhead is a little less obvious.
Both books are quite good and should be read by anyone who wants to refute her. I read Rousseau, Marx, and Upton Sinclair, but that doesn't make me a socialist...
So we aren't supposed to be eating chocolate because kids are paid to harvest the beans? If the cocoa industry went suddenly "bust", would all this kids suddenly be skipping to prep school each morning, wearing little ascots, and nibbling Crème brûlées at snacktime? Puhleese.
Yeah, it's tough to argue art. I resort to a simple rule: If the professional artist (I'm not talking hobbyists) can support himself through art, his talent must be good enough that at least a few people find value in it (and are willing to pay for it).
The converse of course are those "artists" that can't seem to create anything that anyone is willing to pay for (with their OWN money). If they only survive off government teat (whether outight welfare or through Arts sponsorship programs) then they are but parasites and worthy of rebuke & scorn.
What a bunch of whiners. "Higher education" in the U.S. is getting dumbed down just like primary and secondary education have been for years.
The liberal arts student of a hundred years ago was well-versed in philosophy, rhetoric, logic, history, literature, and classical languages like Latin & Greek. Today, they really know only a small fraction of that and have lost the basic grasp on the roots of Western Civilization.
Things are not quite as bad in the sciences and engineering, but that is only because the classes are generally filled with much-harder-working foreign students, usually from Red China, India, and the Mid-eastern countries. Ditto for business schools. American (and European) students are in the minority.
Americans don't want to learn the hard tech subjects so they gravitate to liberal arts which is MUCH easier to dumb down. As foreign students avoid these fields of study entirely, it's made even easier from the lack of competition.
We are so screwed and we've no one to blame but ourselves.
Hey, Tim & I agree on something :-) Kudo's on adding the molasses flood.
One disaster that is GLARINGLY missing is the Texas City Disaster in 1947 when ships bearing ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 581 people. How can they leave that one off???? It was a loss of life 10x worse than Mt. St.Helens! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster
1. The Nazi's swastikas has the same arm "spin direction" as is shown on these chicks' uniforms. 2. While the Nazis often rotated their swastika 45 degrees (as aarron notes) from what is shown in this pic, that is not a hard and fast rule. They also frequently had it in banners oriented just like it is shown in this picture. If you've ever watched Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will)" you'll have seen LOTS of banners in the non-rotated orientation. This wiki page has a picture of one at an SA (Brownshirt) Rally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
You might want to research the G.I. Bill a little. That wasn't a giveaway for slackers too lazy to earn their own way. Rather, it was a token of thanks for the millions of veterans who served in WW II risking life and limb.
Want free school? Earn it. The GI Bill still exists.
http://www.gibill.va.gov/
Just "giving away" education to our abundance of shiftless indolent youth means they will never value it. Anyone who wants to go work hard and go to college today can do so, even if the miliatry isn't right for them or vice-versa. It might require starting at a 2 year school, or some evening hours work, but it can be done. People of every perceived disadvantage have accomplished it because they worked hard. More giveways and education entitlements will just leave us with another crappy government school system, just as our grade K-12 kids are saddled with. The only things keeping quality up at the University level are the cost of admission and the presence of foreign students (in some fields of study). If either of these go away, our universities will turn to mush as well. As I've already stated, that happened long ago in the liberal arts fields.
I've read a couple of Rand's major works. "Atlas Shrugged" is a tough read for at least a hundred pages and then it picks up well into a pretty decent "near-future" story. A couple of overly long monologues (aimed at espousing her philosophy from the mouth of the speaker) needed some editing, but it's still a good book.
I did find the characters more one-sided than in her earlier work, "The Fountainhead", though. In there, many of the characters are a "little more grey" (and the philosophy is less in-your-face), which I think results in a better story. Atlas aims more at preaching her philosophy by wrapping a story around it. The Fountainhead is a little less obvious.
Both books are quite good and should be read by anyone who wants to refute her. I read Rousseau, Marx, and Upton Sinclair, but that doesn't make me a socialist...
The converse of course are those "artists" that can't seem to create anything that anyone is willing to pay for (with their OWN money). If they only survive off government teat (whether outight welfare or through Arts sponsorship programs) then they are but parasites and worthy of rebuke & scorn.
The liberal arts student of a hundred years ago was well-versed in philosophy, rhetoric, logic, history, literature, and classical languages like Latin & Greek. Today, they really know only a small fraction of that and have lost the basic grasp on the roots of Western Civilization.
Things are not quite as bad in the sciences and engineering, but that is only because the classes are generally filled with much-harder-working foreign students, usually from Red China, India, and the Mid-eastern countries. Ditto for business schools. American (and European) students are in the minority.
Americans don't want to learn the hard tech subjects so they gravitate to liberal arts which is MUCH easier to dumb down. As foreign students avoid these fields of study entirely, it's made even easier from the lack of competition.
We are so screwed and we've no one to blame but ourselves.
One disaster that is GLARINGLY missing is the Texas City Disaster in 1947 when ships bearing ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 581 people. How can they leave that one off???? It was a loss of life 10x worse than Mt. St.Helens!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster
2. While the Nazis often rotated their swastika 45 degrees (as aarron notes) from what is shown in this pic, that is not a hard and fast rule. They also frequently had it in banners oriented just like it is shown in this picture. If you've ever watched Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will)" you'll have seen LOTS of banners in the non-rotated orientation. This wiki page has a picture of one at an SA (Brownshirt) Rally:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung