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[Bal]

And if there's one thing the people on the street are tired of it's armed gunmen with ambiguous agendas. I think after the recent strife in the country what people mostly want is evenly distributed rule of law, and for no guns to be shot practically at all.

[Mongrel]

Also, they've had decades being thought of as one of the world's most nutbag countries and they know it. They're super sensitive to anything that's going to mess up their efforts to get the fuck away from that.

[Bal]

Yeah, I mean, they weren't really in the public consciousness world wide since Gaddafi made a whole bunch of concessions so as not to be caught up in the general middle eastern WMD Easter egg hunt, but they haven't exactly been part of the world community for the last couple generations.

[Mongrel]

Well, there's provocation and there's provocation: Pro-Israel extremists buy adspace in the NY subway stating muslims are savages

MTA did refuse the ads at first, but had to run them after the group fought the ban on first amendment grounds.

EDIT: Oh man the woman who bought the ads is a Randian too. 

[Disposable Ninja]

w...what?

no. that's not how free speech works. that's not how the first amendment works. you're allowed to say what the fuck ever you want, but no one is obligated to provide you a platform with which to speak on.

what the fuck.

[Disposable Ninja]

jesus fuck, this is an infringement on fucking the MTA's 1st Amendment rights.

[Classic]

I think that because the MTA is subsidized\owned by an agency bound by the constitution it is obligated to uphold those standards as well?

[Royal☭]

So... can I put porn on MTA's walls?

[Shinra]

So... can I put porn on MTA's walls?

No, because that violates decency laws.

Thanks, evangelicals.

[Mazian]

I think that because the MTA is subsidized\owned by an agency bound by the constitution it is obligated to uphold those standards as well?

Yeah, that's about it.  It's allowed to set broad guidelines about what advertising it accepts, so long as it applies those standards evenly and without exception.  The MTA's accepted plenty of political advertisements before, so that isn't controversial, but where they lost out here is that their "no derogatory language" rule laid out only specific categories that it applied to, implicitly allowing equally derogatory speech if it wasn't in one of them (so you could run an ad claiming that everyone with green eyes was a brain-damaged monkey or whatever).  It's that selective division that the judge ruled against on First Amendment grounds.

They've still got a month to appeal or to change their public advertising standards, and I'd bet they'll at least do the second.  The ads haven't gone up yet.

[Royal☭]

Following where that quote came from (Ayn Rand) led me to her wikiquote page[/quote] which is just full of gems.

They (Native Americans) didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.

She said, advocating for the overthrow of private property rights.

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

Wait what...?

It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world. Instead, we are deluding the ignorant and the semi-savage by telling them that no political knowledge is necessary—that our system is only a matter of subjective preference—that any prehistorical form of tribal tyranny, gang rule, and slaughter will do just as well, with our sanction and support. It is thus that we encourage the spectacle of Algerian workers marching through the streets [in the 1962 Civil War] and shouting the demand: "Work, not blood!"—without knowing what great knowledge and virtue are required to achieve it. In the same way, in 1917, the Russian peasants were demanding: "Land and Freedom!" But Lenin and Stalin is what they got. In 1933, the Germans were demanding: "Room to live!" But what they got was Hitler. In 1793, the French were shouting: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" What they got was Napoleon. In 1776, the Americans were proclaiming "The Rights of Man"—and, led by political philosophers, they achieved it. No revolution, no matter how justified, and no movement, no matter how popular, has ever succeeded without a political philosophy to guide it, to set its direction and goal.

"The Rights of Man" was written by Thomas Paine, who wrote the book in support of the French revolution, and who liked the Jacobins (of which Napoleon was) in particular. He was eventually exiled from America.

The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.

She just sounds so delightful, doesn't she?

[Mongrel]

The ads haven't gone up yet.

Then why is this picture in the article:



...along with a bunch of vox pops comments about the ads?

[Thad]

The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself.

Don't worry, lady, there are plenty of other people willing to laugh at you.

[Mazian]

The ads haven't gone up yet.

Then why is this picture in the article:

Huh.  Because I totally misread "July 20" (the date of the ruling) as "September 20" somehow?

[Kfroog]

She said, advocating for the overthrow of private property rights.

How did you come to believe that Ayn Rand opposed private property rights? That's kinda the main thing she favored, to the detriment of all else.

[Friend]

...I think you've missed his point. I believe he was pointing out the contradiction in Ayn Rand's quote and her own beliefs.

[Büge]

[Caithness]

...I think you've missed his point. I believe he was pointing out the contradiction in Ayn Rand's quote and her own beliefs.

The quote is also in favor of property rights.

[Royal☭]

Unless you happen to be a Native American.

[Caithness]

According to her, the reason it's okay to steal land from Native Americans is because they had no concept of individual property rights. If they had already advanced to the enlightened and civilized condition of promoting individual property rights, we would have had no claim on their land when we met them.