Free Capitalist

The best recent song about America, classy, sad and very moving: Peter Cincotti, Goodbye Philadelphia

I don't understand. In what way was man's ability to reason a uniquely new realization at that time? There's a reason it's not called a Birth but a Re-Birth, a Re-Naissance. If it was a unique realization of all time, there certainly would be no grounds to hearken back to old expressions, aimed towards an essentially new theme. The truth is, the theme was old, ancient, and the expression of it was already perfected anciently; so the Italians didn't create something unique, but took up not only the theme but the very expression of it which they saw before their eyes in corroded statues and fragments of heroic marble.

No no, no one said you were saying otherwise (at least I didn't). You said exactly the same thing I did, that we ourselves must take responsibility.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d6_1195414681 Take a look. Let's spare terminology from this thread, but the overall lesson is interesting right? Didn't Ahmadinejad say, during his American visit, with a completely straight face, that there were absolutely no gay men anywhere in Iran? Repressing themselves in this fashion, the Muslim culture ends up going to the opposite side, producing quite strange desires. The Internet search queries mentioned in the link demonstrate what the Arabic population is really interested about. Pakistan has now banned Youtube for its showing of infidel Danish cartoons and anti-Islamic films, but bird mating is something just too important to be missed... Does all this deserve to be in the R & R thread instead? I can't decide.

Still, the idea is that free society requires self-discipline and responsibility, just as Ray said. Enforcing it by state measures results in angry Muslims preaching about America as the seat of all sin and vice, while secretly going on Google to watch some birds having sex.

Maybe he has given up; I don't necessarily disagree with you there, and it's up to interpretation. But at least it's something great we're dealing here, America writ large, described as something almost impossible to give up in terms of its goodness. As I wrote in my reception to the song, even if he's given up, I haven't. I derive pleasure from listening to him describe this great thing. Why or whether he gave up on it is secondary; its memory is great in his eyes, and that brings joy to me. By the way I don't disagree with your song selections. The more the better!

"I hope you find somebody, who loves you like I do", he says to America. Isn't that pretty straightforward?

Well, I really like the line "freedom means a lot to me". It means a lot to me too, and right away the song sets itself apart from pop songs which are totally contentless. I like that he invokes Philadelphia in a significant way, and that he associates Philadelphia with freedom. It's not a boisterous song like Elton John's, but soulful and pensive, a thought about the history of America and where it's going. "I can see America trying not to show her age" is heartbreaking. 200 years is not a lot in histories of nations, but it's A LOT in histories of free nations. Something's creaking at the seams, the "winds of change keep on blowing", America's age is visible now and something's gone wrong; though she's still trying "not to show her age" and act like nothing's changed. He would rock away the tears of crying America; but he also can't bring back how things used to be in better times, can't bring back the 18th century. "The time is running out, and we still have to say -- Goodbye..." is very sad; he feels like it's going away, America is, and no one notices it, no one cares at all to observes it. He does observe it but can't bring the better times either, so all he can do is say goodbye... Remember Philadelphia, he says. Remember the glory. "Remember Philadelphia, when the world was young and warm" -- "So in love and living for everything new" isn't that a spot-on summation of the 18th century? That optimism, the unshakeable sense that nothing can go wrong, the youth untainted by cynicism, and a life for the next great thing the world will bring? "But I know Philadelphia..." he adds; that old feeling couldn't stay. "The winter wind will slowly take your heart and soul, until it makes nothing of you" -- coldness has worn the nation old; has turned people's hearts to chills and taken by cynicism, in the exact same city which once exuded youth and joyousness! America is crying, he feels, and he'll rock its tears away, but he can't bring back "yesterday", how things used to be. He can't stop the change, but he can at least say "goodbye". "Flash a peace sign, take a bow, though we may not know it now, things are never gonna be the same", maybe does refer to peaceniks here, who actually believe they represent America and fight for its principles, which is of course the very height of absurdity. Here in the middle of what it means to be America, on 7th avenue in New York, he tips his "old top hat" to the magnificence all around him. My girlfriend called Peter Cincotti 'an old soul' for thinking like an old-fashioned gentleman, and caring about such principles. His other songs are jazzy, blues-y, hearken back to the 50s and are very different from modern songs. He tips his old top hat in a gesture of old love and chivalry to lady America. "I hope you [America] find somebody who will love you like I do" is the final part, that competely gets to me. Me, I love her like he does, and I'll take care of her when he's gone...

No no it's "flash a peace sign, take a bow", i.e. the V sign. That's not really the line that affected me, but it's not offensive in the way that it would be if it really did refer to 'peace signs' by peaceniks. I couldn't post the song here, or like it, if it did. I'll explain what the song means to me shortly.

Toby Keith, American Soldier (noble, doesn't subscribe to an altruist credo) Toby Keith, Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (big and rowdy, finale is especially good) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSWuA-RttGU

Remeber that you're not convincing them about an ideology, but about reality. If there's something that you couldn't demonstrate in Objectivism, it'd have to be be struck out immediately. So instead of opposing him with an ideology (whether right or not), present him with just facts, just reality. As someone said, 'Isn't it wonderful how good capitalism is?' 'Isn't it wonderful what computers are?' 'How is it do you think that they came about? Here's my idea. What's yours?" "I admire heroic men, let's go look at some statues in the museum." Etc.

Wow, how do you do that photographic trick? I tried to look it up but what came up was the actual ability, not the... magical ability to memorize the whole Oxford English Dictionary.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle3352817.ece

I don't think he's so innocently secondhanded. I think he's actively 'demagogue-ing' and getting a nomination on carefully calculated cloud of non-specific rhetoric. To compare him to MLK Jr. is a travesty, and all African-American leaders have piled on that bandwagon, just because the candidate spewing the empty rhetoric is black. Well this specific black candidate happens to be called Barack Hussein Obama, and carefully promotes his campaign forward by steering away from any specifics, that would condemn his campaign instantly. Hillary has shown absolutely no aggressiveness that an intelligent campaigner like him needs to be taken down.

I'll take a different emphasis than the other birthday wishers: A speech in 78 BC, at the twilight of the republic: "How long will your hesitation leave your country undefended, and how long will you meet arms with words? Forces have been levied against you, the laws interpreted in accordance with caprice, and in the meantime you are preparing to send envoys and make decrees. But, by Heaven! the more eagerly you seek peace, the more cruel will the war be, when the enemy finds that he can more safely rely upon your fears than upon the righteousness of his cause. In truth, whoever says that he 'hates disturbance and the death of citizens', and therefore keeps you unarmed, is in reality advising you to suffer what the conquered must endure. If you prefer liberty and justice, pass decrees worthy of your reputation, and thus increase the courage of your brave defenders. A new army is ready; fortune attends the stronger; soon the forces which our negligence has assembled will melt away." Hope that has significance for you. Happy birthday!

Happy b-day!

Happy Birthday, Linda. Congratulations on your recent marriage and on the art cruise which, one may easily assume, was a major milestone and accomplishment.

Rose you're right, seems to be a bit down at the moment. If anything happens we'll look up the Youtube links, because cartoons like these must not go unnoticed! Did anyone notice the remarkable state of engineering that the '50s' people imagined would happen by 2000?

One day, a man came home and was greeted by his wife, dressed in a very sexy laungerie. "Tie me up," she purred, "and you can do anything you want." So he tied her up and went golfing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A woman came home, screeching her car into the driveway, and ran into the house. She slammed the door and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Honey, pack your bags. I won the damn lottery!" The husband said, "Oh my God! What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?" "Doesn't matter," she said. "Just get the hell out." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A relationship is something in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband/boyfriend.

Off to think about this. I'll return to the topic in a couple of days.

Not to turn this into a one-sided issue, but the US has always been a Christian nation acting with extreme favorable prejudice towards Christian candidates, Christian monuments at every public square, and perpetual expressions of Christian statements by all public officials and documents. As I keep saying, until the mid-19th century all non-Christians were expressly excluded from public offices and forbidden to take any part in the country. So as bad as it is to see overt religious statements, the mere fact is that they've always been here. In some of the threads concerning Objectivist controversy about 'theocracy', it was shown that as late as 1950s children were required to repeat Christian prayers in all schools. If a nut like Huckabee requires it again, it would be terrible and we'd be crying 'theocracy' would we not? We've been spoiled as atheists by the last few decades of freedom, jealously guarding every infringement (rightly so). Atheists however have been repressed since the beginning of the country up to as late as the 1950s, without tremendous turning of the country into theocracy. The turn towards the left by evangelicals is troubling, but still slight at the moment, so we'll have to see where it turns. Barring Giuliani who was the best candidate (for the country and for atheists), the Right would still be better than an unprincipled Hillary-care advocate or the socialist from madrasa. It's a little hard to tell which party McCain belongs in, but at least he wouldn't swiftly fold and run. Even if him and Hillary are both rather socialist, at least he's a muscular socialist, the better of two evils. I guess with Giuliani gone Romney would now be the best candidate. All I'm saying is, don't worry too much about Huckabee, there's nothing he can think up that the country hasn't already done in the past.

Wow, great find, thanks! I'm currently watching them all now.

Lets play a Socrates and push this idea to its ultimate conclusion. What if you have your philosophical ideas of country A, but live and care about a country B? You can't still call yourself an A-ican anymore. You're a B-ican. At best you're associated with country A in a quasi, removed way; you can't call yourself fully and unqualifiedly a person of that nationality. As CF said so well, nationality is not the same as sense of life. Notice, you said blue jeans were what was distinctly American, while I said it was reading the Declaration of Independence. If someone wears blue jeans, who cares, they may be American or may be not. They may wear them in other countries and not be American. Reading the Declaration, even if in another country, is American, and is participating in American culture. I think you're taking too low a view of what I mean by 'American culture'. I mean being interested in and caring about important American things. American founding documents, American politics, American state of culture, etc. These things too are transient, but nevertheless also essential. 'You can't step into the same river twice', but that doesn't mean you're not still stepping into essentially a river.

You're taking an example in the middle between two categories, and then trying to decide what the categories should be. It's the same as looking outside during dusk, and trying to formulate what day and night should be. Instead, let's take examples that are extreme implementations of the categories. Let's take a person living in America but participating in American culture in no way, including no flags, no English, no appreciation, no inspiration, nothing. He's just living, doing an honest day's work, and that's all he cares to do. Now you could say, the honest day's work IS American, which is what I think you said above. My response is? Why can't he do his honest day's work in Japan? He wouldn't be an American there, he would be Japanese. He could live in Japan, speak Japanese, and be Japanese. Or he could live in America, speak English, read the Declaration, and be American. A person who lives in America but does some things and not others, is partially American. He only provisionally participates in American culture. A person who lives outside America and participates in no way at all, but shares some distinctly American qualities, is a quasi-American, or 'an American in spirit'. He's not simply just 'an American.'

homo sum. humani nil a me alienum puto. I am Man. nothing human is alien to me. -Terence