With all appropriate respect, you aren’t rolling on a floor with laughter, ILC… in your case it should be ROTSL…. rolling on the sewer lid laughing ’cause that’s what occupies your special little piece of the gutter, no?

Back to your spitefestival with American Elephant… no, Attmay… no, Ignatius… no, oh well, whoever the unlucky chap is this week.

I’m cowering — in between snickering. )

Giggity.

As a philosopher, I don’t find that Rand has any equals.

Let’s correct the record once more, Iggy, with the real quote:

My favorite of Rand’s fiction is _The Fountainhead_. I always say _Atlas Shrugged_ is not good literature; the literary quality starts out OK, but suffers as the book progresses and she becomes increasingly heavy-handed in spelling out the point of every scene.

As a philosopher, I don’t find that Rand has any equals. All philosophies (and religions for that matter) are reductions of reality, and therefore have large and important gaps. I recognize that Rand’s is no exception. I could talk about the flaws and gaps in her philosophy all day. Still, I will read her over Kant, or any of his successors, any day of the week. Most philosophy produced by professional philosophers is garbage – pure bullsh*t – and Rand, an amateur, was right to point that out and right to present a fundamental alternative. Rand’s meta-ethics (ideas about how to go about ‘doing’ ethics as a discipline) and epistemology describe reality; the others’ mostly don’t. It’s that simple, and that huge.

Finally and not least, Rand is right to justify and defend laissez-faire capitalism on moral grounds. Socialism is immoral. Big Government is immoral. They’re immoral because they take the fruits of people’s labor from people by force, turning them into slaves. Any system that does it – say, feudalism – is equally immoral. Laissez-faire capitalism is moral because it doesn’t. That’s a huge insight. You don’t have to agree with everything about Rand’s philosophy to recognize it. You could make the point, for example, in Christian terms: the Bible says to love your neighbor, and there is NOTHING loving about seizing your neighbor’s savings and earnings by government force. Jesus said to pay Caesar what is his – not to help Caesar grind your neighbor into dust. You see? But Christian conservatives have long failed to make that argument. The ‘William F. Buckley’ type of conservatives did not present a moral defense of capitalism. Rand did. If you don’t like hers, then come up with a better one. Capitalism deserves no less.

Knowing the joy you take in dishonestly quoting out-of-context, Iggy, I condensed / pre-summarized the above for you already, at #43. Here is that again:

(I have also revealed that the specific fragments of Rand’s philosophy that I like are her meta-ethics, epistemology and defense of capitalism… and that, although she was an amateur, she was still vastly superior to the professionals, whose work from Kant onward is bullcrap that only impresses the deluded. You may quote me on that Iggy… as you try *and fail* to puzzle out its actual meaning, or the rest of my belief system.)

It’s called *context*, Iggy. *Quoting people in context*.

Thank you for yet another demonstration of the fact that… well… you dont.

I’m cowering

That’s obvious

[Barney Frank] was the thread’s topic before ILC took, yet another thread, astray

There it is! The MM lecture on keeping threads on-topic. But… where did this thread first go off-topic? Oh, yeah. It was MM’s gratuitous and irrelevant personal attack on me, up at #23.

ROTFL

Notice that I’m not calling MM “Bubba”, I’m likening him to someone (a fictional name I devised) who hears in Rush’s commentary what he wants to hear

Translation: Iggy called MM “Bubba Cherry Pickens” and now wants to weasel out, with the artless legalisms of a six-year-old.

Look, Iggy, I’ll try to make this so clear that even you can understand. Suppose I said this:

Politicians will do anything they wish to do despite what is actually being proposed, whether Adolf Hitler or George Bush — folk who apparently have quite a bit in common.

(same structure as: Listeners will hear anything they wish to hear despite what is actually being said, whether Bubba Cherry-Pickens or Michigan-Matt — folk who apparently have quite a bit in common.)

Obviously I don’t think Bush is Hitler. But if I said the above, would it not be obvious that I just called Bush Hitler?

Hint: It IS obvious… except in Iggy-land. You want to posture, OK, you do that. But it is disgraceful, and you shouldn’t expect me to go along.

*snicker*

Big boy words, Iggy. Use your big boy words.

And maybe a bit of that kindness, adult discussion, blah blah blah, that you preach… and never practice, if anyone disagrees with you significantly.

Worse than Barney Frank is the idea that homosexuals cannot withstand the criticism of a homosexual, i.e. the idea that we as gay men must affirm the bigot’s tokenism by taking upon ourselves the shame that morally and ethically should be borne by Frank alone.

So MM, I agree in a sense that among certain individuals Frank is a drag on gay men, but the drag is validated and exacerbated if we allow it. In addition, those individuals are those who usually don’t matter.

That was the thread’s topic before ILC took, yet another thread, astray in the endless rebutting of the rebuttal to the restatement of the rebutted point made in a thread 15-25 threads ago.

Oh, boy, NOW you’ve done it. You’ve dared to contradict the supreme rebutter of all rebutted restatements. You Ignatius, you. Week before last it was American Elephant. Last week or so it was me. Now you again. We’re all to suffer now.

I warned all who cross this threshhold that he’s an old dawg, same old spots, same old tricks, same old bark… I shudder to think what’s coming our way now.

Sigh -well maybe not shudder exactly.

Listeners will hear anything they wish to hear despite what is actually being said, whether Bubba Cherry-Pickens or Michigan-Matt — folk who apparently have quite a bit in common.

MM was criticizing Rush Limbaugh as appealing to the very audience his comments were emulating. Notice that I’m not calling MM “Bubba”, I’m likening him to someone (a fictional name I devised) who hears in Rush’s commentary what he wants to hear. ILC insists I’m calling MM “Bubba”, something I clearly haven’t done.

When moments like these arise, one ILC quote says it all:

As a philosopher, I don’t find that Rand has any equals.

*snicker*

Listeners will hear anything they wish to hear despite what is actually being said, whether *Bubba Cherry-Pickens or Michigan-Matt — folk who apparently have quite a bit in common*.

(full sentence given for proper context; emphasis added for clarity) And then tries to explain it away with this bit of artless brilliance:

I didn’t call MM Bubba, I likened him to a guy who is cherry-picking his argument

1) Do you *feel* respected by that?

2) Do you truly not comprehend, MM, that even the people on this blog who would now claim to like you, nonetheless feel the need at times to disclaim you as “a guy who is cherry-picking his argument”?

Same old dawg; same old spots; same old tricks from ILC. Time for ILC to rebutt the rebuttals of the restatements and then claim no-foul when held to account? In 1…2…3… go, ILC, it is your schtick afterall.

Now keep calling me “Randite”, Iggy, if that’s what you need to get to sleep at night. And I’ll keep laughing at you.

MM has [now] earned my respect

…is curious indeed. Let’s skip over the question of which of MM’s aggressive, dehumanizing and dishonest tactics would have caught your eye and put a twinkle in it; it’s not important. What is important, is this: your argument structure implies that, if MM had *not* “earned” your “respect”, then your having name-called him as “Bubba Cherry Pickens” would be somehow… OK.

In other words, your argument structure implies the following: If someone doesn’t have your respect, then it is OK for you to call them names. Are you sure you should have put yourself on that road? Especially, Iggy, if you are going to be the blog’s resident expert on… you know… kindness, adult discussion, and never ever *ever* trying to obfuscate issues with side attacks on someone’s personal qualities or (alleged, invented) personal situation.

I didn’t call MM Bubba, I likened him to a guy who is cherry-picking his argument

Oh, that takes care of it then. Totally and completely.

But Iggy, you still need to co-ordinate your story with MM about whether “my” problem is friendlessness or having friends who are too loyal, i.e., sycophants. I look forward to the result.