Tuesday Night Open Mic for September 28, 2010

We come to the open mic night on the heels of a good conversation around public education. I would like to once again thank GrafZeppelin127 for taking the time to write an article that was interesting and excellently written, and then for also coming by and participating in the conversation around the article. I hope that he will find time in the future to write for us again here at SUFA, and further that he will find time to drop in now and then and participate in other conversations. I will not be available to write an article for Wednesday night and perhaps Thursday. If that is the case I intend to post one on Friday night. I will be trying to do one Thursday night though. For tonight’s open mic topics we have Pelosi perhaps losing support from her peers as Speaker of the House, an interesting poll on where voters get their information, Colbert going to Congress, and the US government looking for even more access to private communications in order to “protect the citizens.” I look forward to the conversations!

Guest Commentary – A View on Education

For guest commentary this evening, we have someone new to offering his insight to the readers at SUFA. The next week or so will include a couple of different articles on education and the problems that we face in that arena here in the US. Tonight’s author is a regular commenter over at the Huffington Post, where he ran into SUFA regular Just A Citizen. A good conversation ensued and JAC convinced him to write a guest article for us to discuss here. As always, I am excited to have another voice offering their thoughts and insight into the mix for all of us to discuss. The author may not be able to check in and join the conversation as often as he would probably like. AS is the case with many of us, he does have to work for a living, and that gets in the way of checking in all throughout the day. I do believe that he will be checking in when he can though, so feel free to ask any questions in your comments about what he has offered. Rather than my introducing tonight’s guest author, I will allow JAC to do the honor, as he is responsible for GrafZeppelin being here…

Objectivism Discussion Continued

Normally, the Thursday night post would be our guest commentary. This week will be a little different. Just A Citizen has been discussing some things with folks over at the Huffington Post. While there he was able to get a guest commentary from someone over there. However, the author is unable to participate here on Friday. Therefore I decided to post the guest commentary on Saturday night. He should be able to check in during Sunday and perhaps throughout the coming week. Instead tonight I will answer some of the comments from the articles presented on Monday and Tuesday of this week based around Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism. I got some comments from folks that my participation was not enough, which is a valid observation. Even if I hadn’t gotten that, I would have wanted to follow up. Those two articles were important to me personally. As such, I wanted to answer some of the thoughts offered. So I will post this thread and throughout the next day or two I will post replies to the article and my comments to those. Please feel free to follow my lead and bring forth any discussions that you wanted to continue.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for September 21, 2010

We reach Tuesday night on the heels of some interesting discussion around Atlas Shrugged and the concepts of the Objectivist philosophy. I will attempt to find time today to answer some of the comments directed at me. I will say up front that there were quite a few fallacies built into the opposition to my articles. I have grown accustomed to such things. But I will once again point them out and do my best to discuss them to completion. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on the two articles. I assumed there would be folks on both sides. But I was surprised by the lack of understanding on them. Perhaps I needed to do a better job explaining or discussing. For tonight we have more ridiculous name changes from the White House meant to fool voters, a company that is majority owned by government contributing to government campaigns, an attempt to marginalize through association rather than substance, and an interesting poll discussing voter’s feelings about candidates who are willing to compromise. Feel free to add your own topics, as always.

Defending Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism – Part Two

Last night we began this discussion by talking about Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. The fictional novel was based around a philosophy called objectivism. Tonight we resume our discussion by talking about objectivism. I will admit that I am a fan of objectivism. I am a fan because it makes sense to me. Further, in practice, it is the only philosophy that actually has a base in reality. I think  that the most important aspect of what I need to cover this evening will be actually defining and explaining objectivism. It appears that the most common error that I have seen when discussing it is that those who are opposed don’t really understand what Rand was attempting to lay out with objectivist theory. They have a false idea of what it really is. I don’t think that it is simply because people are too dim to understand (although that is true in some cases). I think, instead that the problem comes from the mistake of forming opinions without really attempting to understand and the fact that Rand didn’t necessarily do a great job of covering some of the aspects that were important.

Defending Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism – Part One

I promised everyone that this particular article would be coming, and as promised, I deliver part one of it to you this evening. I initially thought that this would be a single article. As I began to write, I realized that it could not be. Therefore, I am offering the defense of Atlas Shrugged as part one this evening. Tomorrow, part two will publish and will focus on Objectivism. As many of you are well aware, I am a big fan of the fictional story, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I know that there are plenty of opponents that frequent the site and I have allowed them to take their little shots at my favorite piece of fiction. And I will grant that some of those shots are deserved. But many of them are not. Just as opposed is the philosophy behind the novel, objectivism. What I intend to do this evening is offer my defense of Atlas Shrugged, followed tomorrow by my defense of objectivism. I then open the topic for debate. And I really do open it for debate. I want to hear what others think and debate the ideas honestly. I am never unmovable in my positions. And there are plenty of smart people who frequent SUFA who may just shake my belief tree a little. I guess we will see.

Guest Commentary – Cloak and Dagger Taxes Again

Tonight we welcome back a regular contributor and someone who I am hoping to add to SUFA as a regular writer once I get my world settled down and can really get focused again. Jon Smith brings us an issue that at first glance might have been too local to be appreciated by everyone. However, after reading through it, and doing a bit of my own research, it is clear that this is a good topic for discussion. While the course of action in the article is clearly a Virginia state issue, the concept of what is being done is something that is being mirrored in many ways on many products in many states. We have all had our discussions here at SUFA around government and the crooked ways that they do thing. Whether you like or don’t like the concept of taxes, I would like to think that we can all agree that transparency is something we are owed as the citizens.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for September 14, 2010

I won’t be adding four articles this week once again. Mrs. Weapon is feeling quite rough. It appears that the flu that is running rampant through our circle of acquaintances has gotten to her as well. Yep, the same flu that put me down last week so nastily. I have to tell you, that was one rough bug that hit me. I don’t get sick often. And my immune system is usually rock solid at resolving it quickly. But this one had me down and out for three days I have been struggling to get it out of my chest for another 5 days after that so far. But, I got some soup and crackers in Mrs. Weapon, and she is drinking nothing but OJ, so hopefully this will not keep her as long as it did me. As for topics, I have a few, just not as many as I normally do. Feel free to add your own as always. I highly suggest adding some of the text of the discussion you are contributing as many never click on the links, which means that discussion doesn’t really get started in the way that it should. I have found that the format I use works well: an excerpt from the article in question followed by my thoughts on it as a start to the discussion.

The Economy and the Three Bears

In tonight’s discussion, I am not going to get longwinded and forge into foreign territory in discussing the macroeconomics and Keynesian principles. Lord knows that Congress and the talking heads do their best to baffle us with bullshit enough around the economy. What I am going to do is offer a few thoughts on the current situation and then ask for everyone else to offer their thoughts on what exactly it is that we are supposed to be doing if we want to make things right in our financial future. I don’t want to disregard the idea that we are simply screwed. I understand that there are many who feel that way. I can certainly see why they fall into that belief. And they may be right. Perhaps we are past the point of recovery. Perhaps all we can do is soften the blow that will inevitably come. Or perhaps we cannot even do that. Perhaps this is going to really hurt and there is nothing that we can do about it. Obviously, no one who works in the federal government is willing to say so. Doing so would be to admit that no matter what they do they are simply screwing us.

Guest Commentary – In the Summer of 2010

For tonight’s guest commentary, we have the return of a contributor that offered us an article a couple of weeks ago, Ron Holland. You may remember Ron’s previous offering, “Walking the Peaceful Path of Ludwig von Mises,” which you can go back and read HERE if you missed it. Ron, who is also a regular contributor on Lew Rockwell’s site, is an internationally known financial & marketing consultant & author of 3 books and over a hundred  articles, a leading speaker at financial conferences in the US and abroad and editor of several internet based news sites. Although from North Carolina, Ron has lived and worked in Geneva, Switzerland and traveled all over Europe and North America. He is a contributing editor to the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter and Swiss Confidential published by Appenzeller Business Press. For today’s topic we have Ron’s thoughts on the idea of smart big money folks leaving the US for safer shores. It seems to be a concept that fans of Atlas Shrugged believe will come to fruition as a regular occurrence. While I make that comparison, I respectfully ask that we save the discussions of Atlas Shrugged for another day (next week…. an article I am working on defending Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism). For today let’s stay focused on what Ron has offered, and whether the conditions he discusses are actually true.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for September 7, 2010

Tuesday night finds me quite under the weather. What started yesterday as a minor annoyance in my sinuses has grown into a full blown summer cold! Not something that I am used to, as I rarely get sick at all. Apparently this cold/flu has been circulating at work, as I am now the 3rd person to fall victim to it at my workplace. Fortunately, I have been working on the open mic topics for the last couple of days, always searching for new topics. It will mean, however, that there will only be three topics presented by me this evening. I am now getting hopped up on NyQuil and Mucinex, which I am hoping will lead to rare night of sleep before 4:00 am. With any luck, I will get ten hours of drug induced sleep and feel much better tomorrow (I sure hope so because I never call out from work, I’ve missed one day for sickness in 20 years). So I ask that some of you please pick up my slack and offer a few additional topics today!

GOP Leadership or Just Louder Mouths?

I have to tell you that it is nice to be back home yet again. This weekend it was a trip to see my baby sister get married. The ceremony was great and she was beautiful. A great wedding overall. But being primarily out of touch with the web is tough for me. So Sunday I was listening to the Sunday morning shows and trying to catch up on whatever may have happened over the weekend. I am still not completely caught up, but I did catch something interesting over on NBC’s Meet the Press. David Plouffe was a guest on the show. For those who don’t know him, he was formerly Barack Obama’s campaign manager. As such, he is well connected to the Democratic strategy makers, and that was obvious in his being strategically placed on the Sunday morning circuit this week. In his appearance he was asked about a quote in his book, and took the opportunity to place the notion out there that the real leaders of the GOP are not politicians.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for August 31, 2010

Tuesday night has again crept up on me. I offer some more good articles for discussion this week, including one sent to me by a friend. I included it because it really did kind of speak directly to how I was feeling about Beck’s rally this last weekend. It is the first article below, so thanks for sending that over. Elsewhere we have UCLA firing a scientist because his scientific results didn’t match their political opinions, the possibility that the Republican party could embrace gay rights, and absolute impotency of the federal regulatory agency that always lets us down, the SEC. I will be posting a guest commentary on Thursday night but will be largely unavailable this weekend, as my sister is getting married. JAC, if you could bring the topic forward that I mentioned would be good for open mic, I would appreciate it greatly. Still taking applications for regular contributors to the site as well! Enjoy your Tuesday everyone. I will be weighing in all day when possible.