Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ayn Rand about Economic Education
The Free Market ^ | February 28, 1946 | Ayn Rand

Posted on 05/18/2012 6:39:22 PM PDT by Misterioso

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-28 last
To: James C. Bennett

The mind set of Japan was mass slavery for centuries. Women were chattel. Samurai background was much like the Ancient Greeks—where pederasty was prevalent. Japan’s fixation on excretion was remarked on by Michael Savage when he was talking about knowing populations by the type of pornography they produce. Japan’s was totally anal and vile—similar to “gay” porn. Today, Japan has made child pornography legal. There is no “Christian Virtue” in that country. You think there is “trust” in Japan when it was massive fear at being “different”. They had mass conformity to ideals which were sick and unnatural—so irrational.

Singapore was colonized by Britain who did an excellent job on infrastructure and education where ever they went—unlike the French, etc. They brought Common Law (Christianity) with them in the early 1800’s and that helped and a parliamentary Republic. Generations have been raised with that structure so trust could develop.

Superior levels of Trust? Nope—Mass conformity has nothing to do with “trust” and everything to do with “fear”. Marxism creates no trust in anyone—just in the State. I am talking about trusting other human beings like in families—where my dad used to do business with a handshake. Since the 60’s, even people here no longer keep their vehicles and houses unlocked because the welfare state creates people of no virtue.


21 posted on 05/19/2012 8:20:21 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: savagesusie

By what you said about Singapore and British imports into the culture therein, you are still making the logical implication that “Christian benefits” can be enjoyed without actual Christianity taking root in the culture. If this is so, then how can anyone legitimately claim that Christianity is a precondition for a society to be productive, peaceful, crime-free and successful, as Singapore’s example demonstrates?

I have worked in Singapore for years and the level of trust among the people in various dealings is significantly higher than practically every Western society I have spent my life in - Australia, Britain, Europe and the US.

Forget a mere handshake, I can leave a briefcase full of valuables at a busy bus stop in Singapore and come back after three days to still find it there, untouched (this actually happened to me). This wouldn’t be possible even in small towns in the US, and most likely never was.


22 posted on 05/20/2012 2:58:35 AM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: 1010RD

Irony isn’t the word.

It is pure selfishness, sloth and evil, that is the attitudes these Danes carry.

It is disgusting, even more so since they seem all too aware and happy to slip through the cracks.

No better than a mobster bragging about his price fix on cheese.

And these people wonder why we are rude to them in NYC when they ask something. LOL. I have no need for anything from Euro-trash and their esoteric moronic ideals on lifestyle and economy, which have bee heartily discredited and refuted many times by many scholars for over 100 years.

I wish I was in on your conversation. I have traveled the world a lot and have a unique way about me of turning that Euro viewpoint right on its head to their faces in short order. The bumbling and self doubt that immediately arises in the face of my American confidence and simplistic assertion of facts and observations is one of the most pleasurable and priceless experiences an American can experience when dealing with less mentally capable Xenos’.

At the very least it sure makes them feel immediately inferior, which as Martha would say “Is a very good thing.”


23 posted on 05/20/2012 9:17:28 AM PDT by Individual Rights in NJ (Infidel Inside)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: James C. Bennett

Isn’t the “justice” system over there severe? I recall hearing about whippings for people who do graffiti. The “tolerance” of any disorder—however small—is severely punished? As I said earlier-—you tend to think of mass conformity and fear as “trust”.

Totalitarianism creates a “safe” “trusting” environment also-—but freedom is not an element of that culture.

I say—as the Ancient Greeks, Cicero, Adam Smith, the Founders, that without Virtue there is no trust. (Liars, cheaters, adulterers, etc. never create trust). Only Moral people can be trusted...and with the overwhelming Christian paradigm in Western Civilization, trust has been the greatest—even with a diverse population of groups who from other countries had no tolerance of groups that in America they took as friends.

The freedom in America—like NO other country—was because of a moral citizenry-—of the masses. We had far more moral people than immoral—and the immoral used to be punished. We used to have a Rule by Law instead of arbitrary laws which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. helped install to destroy our Constitutional Republic.

As I said— Singapore Laws are based on the English Common Law—which is based on Christian Ethics. What are their laws on homosexuality? On littering? etc. It seems that their built in laws promote Christian ethics in practice. That is my point. Christianity is rational. it makes a civil society. Irrational laws—laws which promote deviancy —promote unjust law and, thus, chaos and “Might makes Right” will devolve in chaos and tyranny.


24 posted on 05/20/2012 1:34:06 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: savagesusie

Singaporean laws are extreme only where they need to be so. The result is significantly cleaner streets, crime-free neighbourhoods from end-to-end, and the such. The laws there are still much tamer than say, Old Testament laws that were derived from the earlier Hammurabi edicts.

If America really used to be as virtuous as you claim and believe, how do you explain the draconian laws that actually had been implemented and executed during its colonial times? A so-called virtuous society surely wouldn’t need heavy laws to tame it down now, would it? And Europe always, Christian or not, had heavy-handed laws as a hallmark of its existence, which later transferred onto the early colonial Americans as well.
For that matter, Australia was once Christian Britain’s continent-sized prison. Are such historical facts to be considered aspects of a supposedly virtuous society?

New York, for most of its early years, used to be a filthy place. It is so even today, only somewhat better than it was in the past. Some of the photos they have of the place from the mid-1800s have raw sewage flooding the city streets. This wasn’t atypical of New York - most American cities used to be like that. Singapore’s laws are “draconian” when it comes to littering, sure, but the result is you are far, far less likely to step on filth over there than you would be, elsewhere. Singapore is a democratic republic, and the people there overwhelmingly support the measures they take to keep their country pristine. Look at how crazy the drug situation has always been in America. Likewise with alcohol.

Ignoring the cultural differences which has lead to these divergent outcomes will do nothing to repair the damage that has trapped American cities in literal squalour and violence. Singapore is without doubt in a better position to lecture others on how to keep cities crime-free and drug-free than any other country, and best of all, they do it with the mandate of the people, and not through heavy-handed authoritarianism as you earlier implied. Even in the realm of running a business, Singapore certainly enjoys greater freedoms than America. To have done it all by what’s little more than a “pagan” Buddhist society, credit must be given where it’s due.

If it is British “Christianity” that got them these fruits, for Singapore to have done so without actually being Christian nullifies the claim that only Christianity produces such outcomes, and that was the point I had mentioned as the logical derivative of your implication earlier that Singapore is so-and-so because of the ‘Christian’ British. Singapore, in reality, is what it is because of its wisdom in taking the best out of others’ experience and implementing them on home soil.


25 posted on 05/20/2012 4:21:02 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: James C. Bennett

Virtuous people—are never perfect. The Founders stated that if all men were angels then there is no need for government. Duh! But we had the most free and least government intrusion of all large societies in the history of the world....it is not even close...and we were extremely successful—especially when everyone was allowed gun ownership and we had a government with Just Laws. We were profoundly Christian. 20th century has led to repressive gun laws (unconstitutional) and private property confiscation which is unconstitutional. Socialism is now dominant with the destruction of Christian Ethics being forced by laws and welfare. As Mark Levine said we are a Post Constitutional Republic.

Singapore never had such freedom. That is the point. They have to have strict laws because personal virtue doesn’t exist. They need to be controlled by an oppressive government.

Our Founders believed in freedom and autonomy—guns and responsibility. Responsibility and individualism comes directly from Christianity which gave dignity to all people including children and women. (True Christianity’s goal.)

In other words, the Founders said that they did not want a nanny government. They did not want “masters” so that the people become slaves. We the People were sovereign. It was unprecedented—that concept which came only because of Christianity and The Age of Reason. The two converged before Atheism/Marxism took hold of Europe in the late 19th century and created Nazism/Fascism/Communism which forced out Christianity or perverted it to mean the opposite-—like what they are doing now in America—with homosexual “marriage” and “gun laws” and welfare (forced “charity”).


26 posted on 05/20/2012 6:58:24 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: savagesusie

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone (who has lived and worked in Singapore) declare Singapore’s democratically-elected republican government to be oppressive. Their laws are strict, but they are promulgated and enforced by an elected polity, in accordance with the will of the people there.

To say that Singaporean society is not virtuous and to make absurd claims that they lack personal virtue is to declare lies in the face of opposing evidence, and for a person declaring so, their own virtues become suspect.

America had strict laws too, even stricter before than it is so now. Have Americans become more virtuous?

For further insight on how numerous archaic laws are in America, take a look at this site:

http://www.lawguru.com/weird/part01.html

Strange, wouldn’t it be, that a virtuous society would need to be hamstrung by so many nonsensical laws, so long ago? This collection almost competes with the bulk of the OT laws, in terms of meaninglessness.


27 posted on 05/23/2012 11:13:38 AM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: James C. Bennett

I disagree with everything you just stated. You missed my whole premise. Freedom. There has been no country in the history of the world as free as Americans since the founding of this nation. The idea that there is no tyranny in a majority vote is EXTREMELY naive. Democracies are tyrannical by nature—mob rule actually, and always lead to tyranny. It is known by every political philosopher. BTW, it is not who votes who runs things—it is who counts the votes.

Government in the US is now Post-Constitutional. Most laws are unconstitutional which are in existence now (Mark Levine). It is true since the Progressives—when very oppressive, socialistic laws went into place denying the private property and regulating schools at State level, then the DOE—such a violation of parental freedom. The indoctrination system is unconstitutional and evil (john stuart mill).

Virtuous people want “freedom” not only for themselves, but their children. They don’t want strangers raising and indoctrinating their children. They do their duty and raise and nurture their own progeny. They want to be responsible for their families and not have government interference. Justice, and courage are also part of Virtue as is charity.

This country excelled in charity because of Christianity—the Universities, hospitals, schools. Charity excelled in America unlike any country in the history of the world-—a sign of Virtue.

Charity only comes from NO force....governments can never do “charity”. It’s very interference destroys the whole concept of charity. America is still the most charitable nation, even though we are fighting an oppressive government and losing our virtue-—because governments when they make “dependents” destroy the very foundation of “Virtue”.

Singaporeans seem to me to be like most Asian countries-—very subservient and into group think—group morality-—group ‘salvation”. No such thing. Individualism is the basis of Americanism—which is essential for the concept of Virtue to even exist. You can never have morality or Virtue with the Marxist concept: The mean is justified by the ends. That is Anti-Christian.

Thomas Hobbs idea, The Leviathan, is the Singapore idea. There is no real freedom. Government intrusive laws are needed to keep order. That proves there is no virtue-—the indignity that people allow oppressive government to control their life is a lack of courage and wisdom and love for their children’s future—three virtues. Fear of government is not a virtue—it is Fear of God which gives people the courage to buck tyranny. Without God, there is no virtue (Nietzsche).

Virtue comes from individualism and God—the idea that every single human being has dignity and worth and is the child of God. Collectives (socialism/marxism) treats human beings as means to an end. They are expendable. The ideology which is basically Singaporean-—can never be “virtuous” under that system.

True—American children are being programmed to be atheist/pagan/Satanists/Marxists in our unconstitutional public school system NOW and for the last 50 years——BUT, as the Tea Party proves—there are still millions of old-fashioned (moral, virtuous) people who are willing to fight for their fundamental rights to own guns, to educate their own children, and get back to Rule of Law (Just Law) which allows religious freedom.

Courage—noted in America—because of Natural Rights from God. Our nation was built with Laws which incorporated the Judeo/Christian God—our jurisprudence was based on Christian Common Law and The Laws of Nature.
Can’t get more logical or virtuous than that. A product of the Age of Reason combined with Christian Ethics. It is as Perfect as you can get. No other country has been as virtuous as this country—as charitable,—as free—as prosperous, etc., etc., etc.

Multiculturalism which states that all cultures are “equal” is a Cultural Marxist idea and it is a Big Lie—like all Marxists ideology. History proves some cultures have been much more successful in numerous areas.


28 posted on 05/23/2012 2:46:34 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-28 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson