Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Knocked Him Right Out....
More Amazing Animated Gifs: ANimated Gif Collection #7
Video: The assassination of Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma
Somali Migrant Admits Stabbing American Woman to Death in UK
A court today heard how Bulhan “smiled and skipped” towards his first victim before continuing the rampage with a “crazed smile” on his face.
Londoner Bernard Hepplewhite was stabbed in the abdomen but said his attacker showed no sign of anger and simply skipped straight on towards his next victim.
At a hearing today unemployed Zakaria Bulhan, 19, admitted killing 64-year-old retired teacher Darlene Horton and injuring several other victims on the evening of August 3 last year.
Bulhan, who is in custody, appeared at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Spencer this morning where he pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
He pleaded...
Why President Trump’s Executive Order Is Vital to Protecting America
First of all, there is no “Muslim ban,” contrary to what the fake news media would have you believe.
There is a ban against travel to the U.S. from seven of the highest risk countries for terrorist activity. It isn’t President Trump’s fault all seven of those countries happen to be almost entirely Islamic. If the Vatican presented the same risk for terrorism as Somalia, they too would have been listed in the executive order. Fortunately, we seem to have the Catholic suicide bomber threat under control.
For too long, Americans have been held captive by the chains of political correctness. While the election of President Trump signaled the beginning of our nation’s awakening, many would prefer we go back to sleep.
After September 11th, 2001, Americans couldn’t understand the psychology of someone who would fly a plane into a building, in exchange for what they believed would be 72 virgins in paradise. They couldn’t understand because they were assigning their own civilized ideals to Islamic radicals, whose beliefs were from a different realm.
More than a decade later, we are still battling this same enemy, which has metastasized tremendously. Not only are we struggling to eliminate Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, we are...
What Rand Meant by Altruism
Rand sold more than 30 million books. Atlas Shrugged has been ranked behind only the Bible as an influence on readers’ lives. She has also been stridently attacked for issues such as her militant atheism. But perhaps least understood has been her full-bore rejection of altruism. On her birthday, it is worth reconsideration.
Altruism has commonly been held up as the standard for moral behavior. But Rand rejected it, asserting it was “incompatible with freedom, with capitalism, and with individual rights,” and therefore “the basic evil behind today’s ugliest phenomena.”
In Comte’s view, any act performed for any reason beyond solely that of advancing someone else’s well-being is not morally justified. That implies taking a tax deduction for a charitable act strips it of its morality. The same is true when done because “what goes around comes around.” Something as seemingly innocuous as feeling good about doing good also fails Comte’s joyless standards. Even “love your neighbor as yourself” fails his unlimited duty of altruism. As George H. Smith summarized it, “One should love one’s neighbor more than oneself.”
Ayn Rand’s attacks on altruism are aimed at Comte’s definition. However, modern usage has eroded his meaning of altruism to little more than a synonym for generosity, so Rand’s rejection of the original meaning is now often taken as a rejection of generosity, which it is not. In Roderick Long’s words,
… her sometimes misleading rhetoric about the “virtue of selfishness”… was not to advocate the pursuit of one’s own interest at the expense of others … she rejected not only the subordination of one’s interest to those of others, (and it is this, rather than mere benevolence, that she labeled “altruism”), but also the subordination of others’ interest to one’s own.Rand’s categorical rejection of altruism was a rejection of Comte’s requirement of total selflessness, because that was inconsistent with any individuals mattering for their own sake. Rand vehemently opposed such an invalidation of individuals’ significance.
The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value.Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” was a response to Comte’s demand for complete selflessness. Not only is a requirement for everyone to completely disregard themselves an unattainable ideal, it is self-contradictory. You cannot possibly sacrifice yourself fully for me, while I am also sacrificing myself fully for you. And if no one has any intrinsic value, why would the results, even if possible, be meritorious? With Comte as a starting point, more attention to people’s own well-being – more selfishness, in Rand’s terminology – is the only way to move toward recognizing value in each individual and significance in each life.
Comte’s conception of altruism is also inconsistent with liberty, which was Ayn Rand’s focus. The duty to put others first at all times and in all circumstances denies self-ownership and the power to...
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