Reps killed Immigration Bill

[DKW 86 7,437]

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/ro.../17/201642.html

This will be very bad....

[AURaptor 1,125]

This will be very bad....

Umm...why? :huh:

[TexasTiger 12,974]

Off topic, but what's the deal with the Ayn Rand quote? Do you share that view?

[DKW 86 7,437]

1) It is supposed to be a given that the Reps would have to make the immgration bill work or suffer the wrath of the voters in November.

2) The Ayn Rand quote is very deep to me in about three ways.

a) Morality based on goods is a silly idea. Even in my mind I have to tell myself that just because I view something as immoral (or "bad") that does not mean that it is necessarily bad in the eyes of others. IE: a Bama T-shirt is the greatest thing on the planet to some. To me it is a negative thing. Truth is the t-shirt is just a shirt and really should never be a negative to me. The fault is mine.

On the other hand if you worked to produce anything, ie wealth, then it is worthy to keep OR to give away. Who is in posession of the wealth does not change the value of that wealth. The value is intrensic.

If you view wealth as a negative thing, that is your fault, not the one that generated the wealth. The only bad idea is the idea that wealth can be a positive for some and a negative to others. Wealth is just wealth, neither positive nor negative. It is either bad in both circumstances or good in both. It is illogical for it to switch what it is based on the viewpoint of who is holding it.

c) Last, the BIG one, is really a two parter. Giving:

1) If you want to give wealth away, it is good. It you want to receive wealth it is good. A good is a 'good' to whoever holds it, it has the same value no matter what. Kind of a repeat/flip of a and b. The 'sacrifice' that created the wealth makes it a 'good' and its value cannot ever be changed.

2) The real point of the quote is that the person that is trying to decide the value of a good and tells you that the value of that good IS dependent on who is holding the good is in actuality nothing more than a manipulator. They are trying to enforce an intellectual Master-Slave relationship between the creater-receiver when in actuality it is the manipulator that is trying to enslave the creater and to enslave the receiver of the wealth as slaves to himself. He is also trying to create the illusion that the reciver owes the manipulator for the good being passed on, not he who created it. (Man, that is a very deep, profound thought. One I would have not come up with for several more years.)

In case you havent figured it out. Charity should be free will from the creator of the wealth to the receiver of the wealth. He who broadcasts the exchange of wealth is in fact trying to manipulate the system FOR THEIR OWN GOOD and makes it ALL immoral. Never trust the man that tells you that the good you do or the good you receive is from him or came to you because of him. He is out only for his own good and not for the good of ANYONE else. Charity should be anonymous, as the Bible teaches, done in private, not in the streets as the Pharisees do.

IE Taxing creaters of wealth, giving it to the poor and proclaimimng the whole process as transferring wealth from bad to good in fact makes it all immoral.

Wealth transfers are inherantly good unless you are being made to do it, or someone is claiming credit for it. As soon as someone is made to give or someone else proclaims that the receivers are only getting it because of the manipulators hard work makes it ALL BAD. The whole process is bad, the taxing, the giving, the credit taking are then ALL EVILS.

Very deep thought...

[TexasTiger 12,974]

1) It is supposed to be a given that the Reps would have to make the immgration bill work or suffer the wrath of the voters in November.

2) The Ayn Rand quote is very deep to me in about three ways.

a) Morality based on goods is a silly idea. Even in my mind I have to tell myself that just because I view something as immoral (or "bad") that does not mean that it is necessarily bad in the eyes of others. IE: a Bama T-shirt is the greatest thing on the planet to some. To me it is a negative thing. Truth is the t-shirt is just a shirt and really should never be a negative to me. The fault is mine.

On the other hand if you worked to produce anything, ie wealth, then it is worthy to keep OR to give away. Who is in posession of the wealth does not change the value of that wealth. The value is intrensic.

If you view wealth as a negative thing, that is your fault, not the one that generated the wealth. The only bad idea is the idea that wealth can be a positive for some and a negative to others. Wealth is just wealth, neither positive nor negative. It is either bad in both circumstances or good in both. It is illogical for it to switch what it is based on the viewpoint of who is holding it.

c) Last, the BIG one, is really a two parter. Giving:

1) If you want to give wealth away, it is good. It you want to receive wealth it is good. A good is a 'good' to whoever holds it, it has the same value no matter what. Kind of a repeat/flip of a and b. The 'sacrifice' that created the wealth makes it a 'good' and its value cannot ever be changed.

2) The real point of the quote is that the person that is trying to decide the value of a good and tells you that the value of that good IS dependent on who is holding the good is in actuality nothing more than a manipulator. They are trying to enforce an intellectual Master-Slave relationship between the creater-receiver when in actuality it is the manipulator that is trying to enslave the creater and to enslave the receiver of the wealth as slaves to himself. He is also trying to create the illusion that the reciver owes the manipulator for the good being passed on, not he who created it. (Man, that is a very deep, profound thought. One I would have not come up with for several more years.) 

In case you havent figured it out. Charity should be free will from the creator of the wealth to the receiver of the wealth. He who broadcasts the exchange of wealth is in fact trying to manipulate the system FOR THEIR OWN GOOD and makes it ALL immoral. Never trust the man that tells you that the good you do or the good you receive is from him or came to you because of him. He is out only for his own good and not for the good of ANYONE else. Charity should be anonymous, as the Bible teaches, done in private, not in the streets as the Pharisees do.

IE Taxing creaters of wealth, giving it to the poor and proclaimimng the whole process as transferring wealth from bad to good in fact makes it all immoral.

Wealth transfers are inherantly good unless you are being made to do it, or someone is claiming credit for it. As soon as someone is made to give or someone else proclaims that the receivers are only getting it because of the manipulators hard work makes it ALL BAD. The whole process is bad, the taxing, the giving, the credit taking are then ALL EVILS. 

Very deep thought...

241475[/snapback]

So when Christ instructed the rich young ruler to give his wealth to the poor, was he a manipulator?

[DKW 86 7,437]

1) It is supposed to be a given that the Reps would have to make the immgration bill work or suffer the wrath of the voters in November.

2) The Ayn Rand quote is very deep to me in about three ways.

a) Morality based on goods is a silly idea. Even in my mind I have to tell myself that just because I view something as immoral (or "bad") that does not mean that it is necessarily bad in the eyes of others. IE: a Bama T-shirt is the greatest thing on the planet to some. To me it is a negative thing. Truth is the t-shirt is just a shirt and really should never be a negative to me. The fault is mine.

On the other hand if you worked to produce anything, ie wealth, then it is worthy to keep OR to give away. Who is in posession of the wealth does not change the value of that wealth. The value is intrensic.

If you view wealth as a negative thing, that is your fault, not the one that generated the wealth. The only bad idea is the idea that wealth can be a positive for some and a negative to others. Wealth is just wealth, neither positive nor negative. It is either bad in both circumstances or good in both. It is illogical for it to switch what it is based on the viewpoint of who is holding it.

c) Last, the BIG one, is really a two parter. Giving:

1) If you want to give wealth away, it is good. It you want to receive wealth it is good. A good is a 'good' to whoever holds it, it has the same value no matter what. Kind of a repeat/flip of a and b. The 'sacrifice' that created the wealth makes it a 'good' and its value cannot ever be changed.

2) The real point of the quote is that the person that is trying to decide the value of a good and tells you that the value of that good IS dependent on who is holding the good is in actuality nothing more than a manipulator. They are trying to enforce an intellectual Master-Slave relationship between the creater-receiver when in actuality it is the manipulator that is trying to enslave the creater and to enslave the receiver of the wealth as slaves to himself. He is also trying to create the illusion that the reciver owes the manipulator for the good being passed on, not he who created it. (Man, that is a very deep, profound thought. One I would have not come up with for several more years.) 

In case you havent figured it out. Charity should be free will from the creator of the wealth to the receiver of the wealth. He who broadcasts the exchange of wealth is in fact trying to manipulate the system FOR THEIR OWN GOOD and makes it ALL immoral. Never trust the man that tells you that the good you do or the good you receive is from him or came to you because of him. He is out only for his own good and not for the good of ANYONE else. Charity should be anonymous, as the Bible teaches, done in private, not in the streets as the Pharisees do.

IE Taxing creaters of wealth, giving it to the poor and proclaimimng the whole process as transferring wealth from bad to good in fact makes it all immoral.

Wealth transfers are inherantly good unless you are being made to do it, or someone is claiming credit for it. As soon as someone is made to give or someone else proclaims that the receivers are only getting it because of the manipulators hard work makes it ALL BAD. The whole process is bad, the taxing, the giving, the credit taking are then ALL EVILS. 

Very deep thought...

241475[/snapback]

So when Christ instructed the rich young ruler to give his wealth to the poor, was he a manipulator?

241528[/snapback]

No, he was illustrating to the rich young ruler that his heart wasnt in the right place. The wealth wasnt the problem, it was his heart. In his heart he valued his wealth above all else. His evaluation of the worth of his wealth was wrong.

Question: What would you say if Jesus asked him to do it and then he did. Would he have necessarily done it for the right reason? If he was doing it because he thought it would buy him into heaven, he might as well have kept it.

In ICor3, the new testament talks about trying the motives behind your actions. If your motives arent right, if you arent doing iot for God alone, then it really doesnt matter. Those actions are wood, hay, stubble and chaff. If it is done solely as an offering to the Lord, done in private, then the Lord will reward him openly.

[quietfan 233]

To a large degree I can agree with what you (or Ayn Rand) are saying, David. Charity should be private, voluntary, and non-manipulative. The motivation/spirit behind an act of charity says more about the morality of the giver than does the intrinsic value of the gift.

But I would say that there is a level of "manditory charity", or wealth distribution, that states do for the overall health of the society. We generally accept that the state will provided certain services for all, including the poor who cannot afford it, because such services end up being best for the overall health of the society at all levels. Public education is a good example--we generally agree as a society that it's good for the state to take wealth from the rich in order to give free education to the poor.

Historically, those cultures that have developed the greatest gaps between the rich and the poor have become unhealthy, even collapsing in time. There is something inherently good (or use the term "healthy" if you prefer) about a state that works to maintain a strong middle class rather than protecting/promoting a wide gap between the very poor and the very rich.

Pre-revolutionary France and the later Roman Empire are good examples of sick states that suffered from such extreme gaps between the rich and poor. The Bourbons might even still be on the throne of a constitutional monarchy in France (see Great Britain) if they had not allowed the entire tax burden of the country to be removed from the aristocracy and placed solely on the backs of the poor and a tiny middle class. Most Americans also believe in the justice of the anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws established in this country as a reaction to the extreme excesses of the "robber-baron" tycoons of the late 1800"s.

Certainly it is possible to go to the other extreme. Marxism was doomed from the beginning because its extreme version of wealth redistribution removed all incentive for productivity and personal initiative.

So whether it meets any religious definition of "good" or not, a certain amount of forced wealth redistribution by the state is healthy. The hard part is finding that happy medium of just the right degree of "manditory state charity". That's the only real economic debate between liberals and conservatives, IMO.

[DKW 86 7,437]

To a large degree I can agree with what you (or Ayn Rand) are saying, David.  Charity should be private, voluntary, and non-manipulative.  The motivation/spirit behind an act of charity says more about the morality of the giver than does the intrinsic value of the gift.

But I would say that there is a level of "manditory charity", or wealth distribution, that states do for the overall health of the society.  We generally accept that the state will provided certain services for all, including the poor who cannot afford it, because such services end up being best for the overall health of the society at all levels.  Public education is a good example--we generally agree as a society that it's good for the state to take wealth from the rich in order to give free education to the poor. 

Historically, those cultures that have developed the greatest gaps between the rich and the poor have become unhealthy, even collapsing in time. There is something inherently good (or use the term "healthy" if you prefer) about a state that works to maintain a strong middle class rather than protecting/promoting a wide gap between the very poor and the very rich. 

Pre-revolutionary France and the later Roman Empire are good examples of sick states that suffered from such extreme gaps between the rich and poor.  The Bourbons might even still be on the throne of a constitutional monarchy in France (see Great Britain)  if they had not allowed the entire tax burden of the country to be removed from the aristocracy and placed solely on the backs of the poor and a tiny middle class.  Most Americans also believe in the justice of the anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws established in this country as a reaction to the extreme excesses of the "robber-baron" tycoons of the late 1800"s.

Certainly it is possible to go to the other extreme.  Marxism was doomed from the beginning because its extreme version of wealth redistribution removed all incentive for productivity and personal initiative.

So whether it meets any religious definition of "good" or not, a certain amount of forced wealth redistribution by the state is healthy.  The hard part is finding that happy medium of just the right degree of "manditory state charity".  That's the only real economic debate between liberals and conservatives, IMO.

241566[/snapback]

That was great read. I agree with you. I think in context with the now however that the forced participation in a charity os almost always a bad thing. The exceptions are not those contributing in instances like education or ADC. The exceptions are those that are walking in the market place tinkling the brass so that everyone knows it is them giving or them making everyone else give. Try, as in test, the motives.