Eva:

Objectivists toss ethics into the fray which, as expressed, obscures the focus. Part of this de-focusing comes about because, as Aristotle said, ethics involve passion

Without ethics, there is no reason to adhere to or support a political structure, and its laws; there is only brute force.    There is no reason to support or adhere to laws which have no ethical foundation.    

This is the fatal flaw of caving in to brite, pure democracry, as follows:  the poitical struggle, reduced to its essence, is the lower half of the tribe(and those who would seek power by pretending to pander to them via the state) vs. the upper half of the tribe(and those who would seek power by pretending to fend off the lower half from eating them alive via the state.)     Without ethics, there is no reason for anyone in that graceless, clawing mess to respect or adhere or support the laws and acts of the state. The resulting tribal mess ends up a circular battle where peers once living in freedom are now all giving each other the middle finger.     In that battle, it will always be the upper half that is most able to act in such a way to avoid the clumsy forks, creating an ever widening gap between the upper and lower half.   Over time, there is no incentive for the upper half to ever do anything but encourage the divide, includng the incompetent and inneffective actions of the power panderers who put on great public shows of doing something about the strain felt mostly by the lower half, and there is no ability of the lower half to do anything but beg for ever more of the same.   A totally unsistainable system, running itself downhill, becaise those circumstances can't be extrapoloated forever without totally bringing civilzation to a grinding halt. 

That -that- coincides exactly w ith the revolutionary wishes of pinhead radicals is hardly material; any idiot can break something, it takes rational beings to build.  These pinhead radicals -- I used to drink back in the dorm with some of the seminal NYCity area SEIU labor activists and WFP folks today inneffectively rattling around making speeches -- they were and are lovable rascals,-- regard themselves as the last true friends and saviours of the 'real' working men and women of the world, and have never set foot inside a factory, nor can barely balance their own non-existing checkbooks.    You would not trust them to organize a closet, much less, organize a revolution, and yet, flail away they do, because in the end, it beats actually working for a living, fame, and fortune.    I would come back to school in the fall after working all summer in a steel fab plant, to listen to these oppressed radical sons and daughters of radiologists from Long Island speak out against social insjustice, and go on about the plight of 'the working man.'    When I'd ask if they'd ever knowling been within 50 miles of a factory or steel plant, they would lecture me how that wasn't necessary, in toder to save the world.    I'd spit up my beer, laughing, and they'd sip their Manhattens.   Not alot of beer drinkers in the Ivy Leagues back in the 70s; it was overwhelmingly a serious place of self loathing and apologizing for grand-daddy's money, a celebration of the unearned and undeserved, on its way to run the nation...into the ground.    Why they let the odd spawn of once coal miner white trash into those gates to witness all the inbred, horse faced gawkiness is a mystery of diversity uber alles.

I don't think they'd ever knowlingly make that mistake again.

regards,

Fred

Fred,

re#21

>>>Without ethics, there is no reason to adhere to or support a political structure, and its laws; there is only brute force<<<<<

Yes, of course, but my point is that Objectivist ethics offer only a particulat pov as to what government should do, outside of which the force that's used is unjust.

In a formal sense, everyone feels the same way, but disagrees with respect to what the limit to government should be. In other words, everyone says, "Inside the box of government functions that I feel are ethical the government acts in an ethical way. Outside, not."

It's not hard to see how this becomes a rather useless tautology fairly quickly.

So the real effort is to derive a common dialogue to air differences of government responsibility. Libs have done this, while Obs haven't. Rather, you descend quickly into a barrage of name-calling --'tribal', etc--that purposely says, our ethical standards are the only that exist".

Well, not. While our views on taxation are more or less similar in content, unlike we Libs, you choose not to enter into a dialogue with those whose ethical standards are different. As if, again, Obs invented ethics. Well, not, again.

Eva