\"Good one.\"

-What can I say, I speak the truth.

\"There is no definition of democracy...\"

-I\'m not quite sure I understand. I don\'t want to insult you for something that I didn\'t understand fully, so I won\'t, but if you actually mean that there is no literal definition of \"democracy,\" then it only stands that there is no definition of anything in political theory, and that, in fact, the political structure that I\'ve created in my head where my stuffed animals are all subservient to me is a democracy.

\"We do, especially at the local level.\"

-Well gee, that\'s fantastic, you can decide whether you\'d like to have casinos in your state or not. But when was the last time you\'ve taken a vote on whether you\'d like a national healthcare system or not (the poll you took on foxnews.com doesn\'t count)? In order to qualify as a constitutional republic, the majority of the citizens in the nation would have to directly participate in the legislative process, i.e. taking a vote.

\"Representatives are citizens. We do decide laws. The furthest you could stretch this point would be that representatives are catalysts from the people to the government. Its still us making the laws.\"

-Again, when was the last time you\'ve taken a vote on national healthcare? Do you think that every Democrat in Massachusetts thought that they were making the laws tonight when they realized that healthcare was just blocked (or impeded, at the very least)? Clearly, every citizen doesn\'t have a direct effect on the imposition and legislation of laws in Congress. Sure, 400-some do, but that excludes the other few-dozen-million. Even if you extend the argument by saying that representatives are catalysts, that\'s leaving out every non-voter, independent, and over half of the voting population.

\"Only in explosive circumstances…\"

-i.e. Socialism

\"Not magically, but through laws and executive enforcement.\"

-\"Magically\" was a figure of speech. I meant that the country isn\'t just going to change into a Socialist state. It\'s infeasible. (also see below)

\"Nowadays the executive runs the legislative (when it should have been the other way around)\"

-First, your competence in the realm of world affairs is startling, as is your ability to take into account the subject matter discussed. Clearly, as Obama has spent the last year attempting to get the legislation of our country to pass healthcare and failed, the Executive does not run the Legislative. Second, what the hell do you mean \"when it should have been the other way around.\" You defend Democracy as a system of checks and balances, but then state that whatever the Legislative wants is right. That sounds pretty much like Communism, a government of the people, and only the people, doesn\'t it?

\"A cereal make could lobby the representatives to remove other…\"

-That\'s all well and good. First of all, there\'s no empirical evidence of something so trivial as a cereal maker removing other cereal makers from the public sphere by lobbying. Second, even if there were one instance, don\'t make a hasty generalization: why the hell would Congress care about cereal choices, absent legal infringements.

\"This happens daily…\"

-No, it doesn\'t.

\"Corporatism…\"

-Apparently. That still doesn\'t support the idea that we\'d have restricted cereal choices. Especially since if this were the case, GM would be the only car allowed in America at this point.

\"Almost everyone you listed there does not share our economy and environment.\"

-I\'m pretty sure that they do. Despite their social standing, they\'re still affected by things like cataclysmic effects of global warming, and the decreased popularity they draw by wrecking the economy. There are links, and, though indirect, they are still links.

\"It\'s not hard for me, I can tell who is concerned and who isn\'t.\"

-Really? Enlighten me. Which politician wouldn\'t care if we all died?

\"No, it\'s actually decreasing currently, and that\'s because there have been no solar flares.\"

-If you\'d read any scientific data in the past couple decades, you\'d see differently. Even the raw, unedited data still shows upward trends, and catastrophic implications. Solar flares have never been proven to have a direct, lasting effect on the global climate.

\"That\'s actually one of the biggest intellectual and economic frauds ever conceived.\"

-Great, I\'m glad that you concede that the policies enacted by Bush enforced a one-industry economy, and that that\'s bad. It still saved the economy from utterly crashing.

\"Correct, but it does move away from capitalism…\"

-How? If you\'re still allowed to pick your healthcare provider, and other people who can\'t finally get a chance, what tenet of Capitalism does that infringe?

\"PDD\'s don\'t supersede the constitution.\"

-Great, so this either means that Obama can\'t enforce unjust, Socialist policies (assuming that he\'d create them), or that they, in fact, do.

\"I was referring to structure of a company being controlled.\"

-Yes, a very few corrupt leaders were taken out of power in order to save the economy. This either means that its good because supporting the one-industry economy is good, or because we\'re letting the free market do its thing unimpeded by greed.

\"TARP funds\"

-Retroaction? No specific example.

\"Laws that are written which are illegal under a more powerful law… the constitution supersedes that law.\"

-You still haven\'t proven that TARP funds are unconstitutional. Either they\'re unconstitutional, and Socialism should have already happened under Bush, or one infringement of Constitutionality doesn\'t matter.

\"Companies being forced to comply…\"

-You\'re still not understanding: \"Free Market\" does not mean \"do whatever the hell you want.\" There\'s a distinction that you\'re failing to make between Anarchy and Capitalism.

\"Like a reporter going to a crime scene…\"

-Again, what a police chief is saying is no tangible fact. And I\'d be really impressed if the police found the dead body of Capitalism.

\"Basic information… not big articles…\"

-FOX News.

\"I wasn\'t referring to this article…\"

-I made that title up for the sake of example.

\"You are starting off on the wrong base of understanding and arguing with a terrible attitude.\"

-See your above comments: It\'s the facts that count. I don\'t care if people skip over my article, they can choose what they\'d like to believe. I\'d rather be an ass and be honest about it than pretending to care about changing other people (because it\'s impossible to change their minds once set).

\"I\'m going to go, prolly won\'t be back…\"

-Sorry to see you go. I enjoyed this.

\"This country along with other are moving away from freedom and towards a centralized global corporate state…\"

-And Google\'s taking over the world.

No, really: [http://googleworlddomination.com/]

Blake - That stinks. Try writing future comments in a word processor, and then copy and pasting them into the text box. It\'s quite beneficial. Yes, I\'ve read Schopenhauer. I understand the concept. I agree that the universe is absurdly irrational, but not to the extent of the views expressed in this article. I\'ve never said that information is useless.

George - Hey, it\'s all good. Survival is the only moral option, because without survival, there\'s no morality. Morality is a construction of the human mind, not an objective. Furthermore, if man doesn\'t survive, then there is no society, as that, too, is a construct of man. Kingdom of God is irrelevant, and a construction of the mind. If we don\'t try to live, then how the hell are we supposed to be moral? I\'m sure that your God wouldn\'t advocate dying just to get to Heaven, would he?

Nate - To begin, if you aren\'t approaching the issue from an inherently religious standpoint, then what defines morally superior or not? That\'s a key component that seems to be missing throughout your argument. Sure, it can be perceived as morally superior. However, if we speak in the realm of real implications, we must examine the extent of what this deontological framework justifies. Do what is right though the world should perish? Is that what your ethics want? They certainly justify it. And what end does that serve? You say that fighting against evil is morally preferable to apathy, even if apathy preserves the net number of lives. However, wouldn\'t allowing those lives to be sacrificed become the morally evil thing to do, as life holds intrinsic sacredness? Finally, wonder whether life is a means to an end. You contradict the statement \"life is simply a means of increasing moral action\" by stating that life is only a means to morality. Clarify, please, as those statements appear to confirm each other, not negate. I\'d contend that life is a means to an end, from a religious standpoint or not. From a religious standpoint, the end is either to be a morally righteous person or to achieve Heaven. From a non-religious standpoint (assuming a person concerned with morality at all), the end is to be a morally righteous person, despite the lack of universal moral standards.

Antonio - Oh, that was supposed to be funny, wasn\'t it? What\'s the point of even posting that? Great, you can\'t last in an intellectual debate; that means neither that others can\'t, nor that they care that you can\'t.

Many students that I know bring laptops. Sure, we don\'t need them, but why do we need 18 different choices of food in the cafeteria? Sure, kids play games, but kids play games in the library, too. Sure, the library\'s open, but they only have a few computers compared to the size of the student body. Sure, we\'re just using Microsoft Office to write our papers, but with the expansive database of knowledge found in the Internet, we can educate ourselves even further.

\"No, we live in a constitutional republic.\"

You\'re an idiot. Have you looked up the definition of the word \"democracy,\" or even heard of it? I suggest you do. Second, don\'t talk about political models that you don\'t fully understand. Local governments can, questionably, be called constitutional republics, as they are republics under constitutions, in which people vote on laws (issues). However, the United States federal government is unquestionably a democracy. A constitutional republic, defined basically by Plato, is distinctly different from a democracy, as in a republic, citizens are not only participatory in electing legislative representatives, but also in the legislative process themselves. Without actually deciding the laws for ourselves, something our elected representatives do, we are undoubtedly a democratic nation. Furthermore, how does that even remotely support any semblance of a point that you\'re making? Neither specifically is defined as having more control over said citizens.

\"What is a \'takeover\' cam?\"

To get into one\'s possession by force, skill, or artifice

\"Government\'s [sic] rarely, if ever, outright runs and operates an institution.\"

Government organizations.

\"Law is control and authority.\"

So?

\"This means that every law governing any function of society (millions if not billions of laws) is in effect a takeover of said function.\"

Not necessarily. We\'re talking about governing minute things here. Sure, the government might exercise excessive control, but that\'s been proven to self-correct (prohibition, etc.). The argument using is fallacious, in that you\'re indicting every law that provides control over any facet of life (in essence, every law, as law is \"control and authority,\" as inevitably leading to loss of freedom.

\"Can you clarify that statement?\"

Yes. Representatives acting as a governmental body are not going to magically change the US into a Socialist state.

\"Prohibition\"

Fantastic. There were justifiable reasons for each of these. Give me any one, I\'ll defend it. Prohibition on the scale of drug abuse is clearly different between prohibition of brands of cereal. There\'s no justifiable reason for the representatives in our government to prohibit you from making choices. That\'s my argument. Proving that things have been prohibited in the past means nothing.

\"Any activity that is not fully controlled will be self controlled through selective enforcement.\"

Really? When?

\"Is the the [sic] only reason?\"

Yes

\"Isn\'t it in a governments [sic] interests to save ITS economy and environment?\"

As the government is not some autonomous actor, but is made up of people that represent more people (i.e. Congressmen, Senators, Justices, the President, etc.), and those people share our economy and environment, then yes.

\"All governments are entities…\"

False. What is a government?

\"You make is [sic] sound if [sic] a career politician\'s highest priority is to improve the grass on my lawn, and I have trouble grasping that.\"

That\'s unfortunate. I\'m not sure how hard it is to grasp that a politician might be concerned with the fact that our planet is at risk. I\'m not sure what your grass has to do with it, and I\'m sure your local politician couldn\'t give a crap about it. That doesn\'t mean that your local politician isn\'t concerned about the status of the environment as a whole.

\"Sure I believe in global warming, and global cooling, (hell I think my dog even understands the seasons) but what do Hummers have to do with the ice caps on mars receding or the sun\'s magnetic field?\"

I\'m not sure if that was an awful attempt at wit or not. In any case, that was dumb. First of all, solar magnetic fields and martian ice receding has nothing to do with global warming. Second, we\'re not talking about seasons, we\'re talking about the global temperature trend, and its drastic increase caused by increasing fossil fuel emissions, upon other things.

\"Fill the cap for me please!?\"

What?

\"I\'ll dare.\"

Fantastic. You made yourself look like even more of an idiot.

\"Fan & Fred…\"

Oh, no way, I totally didn\'t know that Fan and Fred had problems! Who caused the collapse (Bush) is not the issue. It\'s the fact that we saved the entire economy from collapsing by saving two huge factors of it through government policy that matters. I\'m not blaming anything on the republicans, and I\'m not saying that the democrats had to clean up their mistake; I\'m only saying that the fact that somebody did something about it is a good thing, and doesn\'t display an inherent trend towards a Socialist administration.

\"It means he is doing something illegal though. A court & trial is the only thing that can do that.\"

Two words: Executive order.

\"It isn\'t a fear when private companies are being internally mandated to cooperate with retroactive illegal laws, it\'s called reality.\"

Let\'s start with the obvious: companies being internally mandated aren\'t being mandated by outside laws; that\'s external mandation. Second, there\'s no proof of these laws being retroactive. Third, legality is defined by laws, thus it is impossible for laws to be illegal. Fourth, companies being forced to comply with laws creates a panic, inducing a fear of Socialism; it does not cause socialism. Thus, it is a fear, not a reality, that the US is becoming a socialist nation.

\"These facts are being put forward by journalists who are reporting whats [sic] going on.\"

What facts?

\"Most AP reporters who jot down a fact and put it on the web or in a paper do not have an agenda to push.\"

First, that\'s not true; many reporters are loyal to parties. Second, \"The United States is becoming a Socialist nation\" is neither a fact, nor jotted down as such by an AP reporter. Third, most things put on the web or in a paper are not only influenced by author bias but also unsupported by fact. Fourth, who the hell are journalists to decide if we\'re changing the foundation of the political sphere, anyway?

\"Ok\"

See response to \"I\'ll dare.\"

Sorry I've been absent, you know, family issues and such.

Parkrangersteve12 - I've deleted no comments. We do, believe it or not, have an adult moderator with administrator status. Check with him. Yes, I like to talk. It's part of the reason that we started a website that is supposed to encourage discussion of topics. "Mental masturbation," as you so tactfully put it, if meant in the context of discussion and argumentation, is a good thing. Smoke detectors don't work without a home security system. Free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want, by the way. If you don't believe me, go to a movie theater, stand up, and scream "fire."

George - I'm not deleting comments. I'm not sure what you mean, though. You're accusing me of trying to stop people from coming to this website, right? A website that is devoted solely to the expression of opinions, and discussion of those opinions. You're attempting to get me to stop expressing my views because you dislike the way I present them. So, let me get this straight: You are defending the values of a website devoted to expression and discussion of opinions by stifling the voice of one of the biggest contributors to the comment sections on the articles on said website. And yes, I'll take the stake of the website that's due to me, as I have sufficiently contributed my views, corrections, moderation, and technical support to this website. I don't care whether you accept my views or not, specifically when you attempt to stifle them. And we'll leave stripping me of my responsibilities up to the actual staff and administration of the website, thanks. P.S. That message wasn't deleted, because it wasn't stupid.

Again, thanks for supporting the editors (I'm talking about your next comment, by the way) in administration of the website. At least we're not all as blind to see that if there were no editors, there would be no website (I'll get to you later, Brett). Yes, Nate is doing a fantastic job of editing articles and subsequently posting them for me to argue with (teehee), and I owe him much for that. As for Dan, though his voice isn't as present on the website, it's very much worth realizing that not everything to do with the website is as apparent as you would think that it is. Dan is very much involved, and has been a fantastic contributing member of the team since Day One.

Brennan - Yup, I made a mistake. Holy crap. No way. I guess all my arguments are bunk now, huh? Oh, wait…

Kevin - Very good point.

Brett - Contributing and popular are two very different things. And the fact that you've written a lot doesn't mean that people should blindly accept what you say. Everything needs moderation. The fact that you don't know the meaning of the word fallacious and still attempt to use it is amusing to me. You're going to protest the website? What the hell does that mean? You know, as soon as I saw the words "its perfect," I realized that this was a joke. I didn't find it amusing. Finally, if there were no Editors to begin with, you wouldn't even be an author.

Jeeze, I get the feeling that I should start putting a disclaimer at the bottom of all of my posts that says:

"DISCLAIMER: The views expressed above in no way represent those of any other author/editor/reader of the website, the administration of the website, nor the webmaster. Furthermore, please chill out. It's not a big deal. I'm here to argue. If you don't want to argue, then don't argue. But you're not going to make me stop."

Blake -

1. Okay.

2. I understand where you\'re coming from. I simply disagree with it.

3. Protagoras is NOT saying that man measures other man in comparison with himself. Protagoras\' quote is used in the context over a debate of relativity of values. What he\'s saying is that there is no universal moral system, and that Man creates his own virtues. In other words, he stands in direct contrast with religion\'s view of an objective moral system of right and wrong. It really has nothing to do with the way that man compares himself to other men, or the concept of hierarchies.

4. I don\'t really understand why man must exploit himself. You\'re saying that we value other traits more highly than others, and that this means that man must exploit his fellow man. You\'ve really not proved that classifying others as objectively having less money than you do either a) exploits, or b) dehumanizes them. Nor have you really proven that an objective measure of money relying on an objective amount of money is the \"flaw of life.\" I really don\'t see any reason why saying, \"I have $300. You have $200. You have less money than I do,\" is a bad thing, or an injustice at all.

5. Stop. Talking. About. Heaven. WHY? You haven\'t proved that the egocentric structure of the mind goes away if you go to heaven. You haven\'t proved that heaven makes your problems go away. I could launch myself into a tirade against Christianity, but for the sanity of some specific people that I know will read this article, I won\'t. That statement in your argument is absolutely irrelevant to any substantial arguments made.

6. Okay, so, you\'re basically talking about Capitalism, and that it\'s bad because it makes people feel bad because they\'re compared to their peers. However, you take an obscenely narrow perspective on life. Are you aware that there are societies in which people live as equals, no matter how poor or wealthy there are? There are people who live apart from society, not comparing themselves to anyone. They don\'t need to compare. This alone disproves your argument.

7. You throw random words like \"degeneracy\" in your explanation. You still haven\'t proven that comparisons inherently cause this \"degeneracy.\" There\'s no reason that calling people poor, or noting that one has more money than another, or that one has more qualifications than another degenerates the person on the other end. Just because we compare ourselves to each other does not mean that we value one person less than the other. In fact, the very act of comparing one to the other is a sure sign that we value each other equally, worthy of being compared to each other, to discern small differences, like technical skill, so that the person hired for the metaphorical job can do the best work.

8. I literally used 65 out of my 456 word response to point out a historical inaccuracy. Hardly the majority of my answer, and it really doesn\'t detract from the quality of the rest of the response.

9. I\'m not sure what I\'m misunderstanding here. I\'m pretty sure I answered your thesis, that man exploits himself through hierarchies. Is that wrong?

10. You know, I\'m still not sure why people have an issue with me arguing with the articles that they post. After all, along with Nate and Dan, I did create this website to open a public forum in which we could debate peoples\' opinions. I enjoy you challenging my opinion, I don\'t resent it. I\'m not trying to attack you personally, but I have fun questioning peoples\' beliefs and assumptions. So no, I\'m not saying that I\'m right, though I will contend that I am.

Hehe. \"Substaining\" is not a word.

Anyway. Yes. I read what you posted. I referred to your claims of

\"im 99% sure you haven’t read it, and the only reasearch you’ve does is most likely googling “what is good about Obama’s healthcare plan” or “democrat’s view of Obama’s healthcare plan”. Try viewing some bipartisan articles and get an actual opinion other than your parents’ instead of just looking up things that were written by far left liberals.\"

I SUBSTANTIATED my claims by quoting the bill, rather than just an ad hominem attack on my opinions and knowledge. Your comment being directed TO ME really only proves the fact that you\'re attacking me ad hominem, because you don\'t really cite any logical reason as to why anybody else is more correct than I am except for the claim that I don\'t have an original opinion because I don\'t jump on the bandwagon with everyone else (oh, wait, that doesn\'t make sense... oh well). I really don\'t see how \"im 99% sure you haven’t read it, and the only reasearch you’ve does is most likely googling “what is good about Obama’s healthcare plan” or “democrat’s view of Obama’s healthcare plan” is suggesting that I \"open my mind.\"

I\'m not sure what your point here is. I think what you\'re trying to articulate is that either I\'m a loser, or a fake. Sure, I\'m what today\'s society would call a loser. I\'m really, honestly not ashamed to admit that, because it\'s really not something to be ashamed of. I do research because I actually have some desire to learn about things that aren\'t forced on me, and to try to understand the world around me. I don\'t educate myself to parade my knowledge around a website (which, by the way, was created, in part, by myself for the purpose of opening up an intellectual forum within which one could hold an educated conversation and argue their points), I educate myself so I\'m better at the activity I dedicate myself to. Yes, I do actually have something to do with my \"short miserable life,\" and it\'s doing what I love the most: arguing. I debate, and that debate carries itself out of the round and into my every day life. I\'m genuinely interested in learning things, and I find it more appropriate to spend time increasing my knowledge of the world around me (mind you, among friends) rather than standing on a street corner aimlessly. Sure, I go to the occasional football game, and I spend a great deal of time just hanging out with my friends, but that doesn\'t mean that I can\'t research things that genuinely interest me, too.

Also, who the hell do you think you are to decide what being a teenager is about? Has the Man in the Sky (solid movie) enlightened you, and you alone? Because it seems to me like there are an awful lot of people praying to their gods, exploring the mind, and educating themselves to find out exactly what the hell being human IS about. Unlike you, I don\'t really want to live the average life of an average human (I\'m no way implying that average means mediocre; here, it\'s just a broad term to describe the majority of Americans\' day-to-day lives). It might seem crazy, but I\'d actually like to be homeless. Just to try it the fuck out. I\'d like to go barefoot in the winter (which I actually tried for an entire year) just for the hell of it. I\'ve tried out a lot of things, my friend, probably more than you. Believe it or not, I\'ve actually lived for nearly 16 years. My entire life hasn\'t exactly been a muddle of research. In fact, I was completely uninterested in debate until my first year in high school. Now that I\'ve tried some things, and found something that I like, I find myself happier than I was before. And I\'m not so insecure that I need to post attacks on the value of peoples\' lives in a forum meant for argumentation (cough, cough). Don\'t so quickly make assumptions about people that you don\'t even know outside of a certain forum. In particular, don\'t classify people as ignorant, selfish, or argumentative, based off of an impression that you got inside a forum for ARGUING.

For now, I\'ll ignore that you\'ve apparently appointed yourself God and decided whose lives hold value and whose are a waste. And please, refrain from insulting a person directly on this site, or I\'ll be forced to ban you. Ad Hominem fallacies are not at all in the spirit of a healthy debate.

OptimusPrime12 -

So basically, you\'re disagreeing because you don\'t like me. And you try to aggravate/provoke/annoy me by disagreeing with me. So let\'s diagram this:

Disagreeing --> because you don\'t like me --> so you disagree

So you\'re disagreeing... To disagree. Also:

1. Nobody is forcing you to read my comments.

2. Nobody is forcing you to argue with me.

3. Nobody cares what either of us think.

4. I don\'t think it\'s obnoxious. It is, in fact, something I would do. So, essentially, you\'re no better than me. Awww, that stinks.

Nate -

I don\'t take it personally until someone insults me. Which (check out the other articles) happened several times before I posted this comment. And I\'m arguing my points. I\'m simply pointing out that he has not done sufficient research on the Healthcare bill. My other argument was that it was a public OPTION. He said that he didn\'t support the healthcare bill because we shouldn\'t be forced to pick our own healthcare. I pointed out that it was a public option. Albeit, not a direct quote, but a quote of the bill nonetheless.

To answer your myriad of questions:

Optimusprime should be the one substantiating his claims in the first place. He didn\'t, so I proposed my own argument, \"quoting\" the bill as evidence.

It\'s not too long to quote, because I just did. Likewise, I\'m applying the very powerful idea behind my \"quote\" (I use quotation marks to display that it\'s not really a quote, but more of a general observation, though still gleaned through the literature), which is that it is an option, not a brute-force shift to one healthcare system. It\'s not a socialist policy, and people need to stop calling it one.

Sure, all governments have an element of socialism in them. That doesn\'t mean that they are totally socialist.

Anybody who has read a substantial amount of the bill can quote the bill.

\"The bill\" is a term that I apply to the wide variety of healthcare bills, because they all encompass the element that we\'re debating, that of a public option.

A citizen can be protected through their understanding of policy, regardless of how long the policy is. One does not need to read every clause of the bill to understand a specific part of the bill, or even the general idea of the bill.

Anyway,

We\'re talking about the one healthcare bill that just passed through the Senate finance committee. That\'s the one we\'ve been talking about since the beginning. Regardless of what bill we were talking about, all bills that had a possibility of going through the Senate had a public option, which was what optimusprime was indicting. And the \"read the bill\" statement is not \"rhetoric,\" it\'s a suggestion, as I\'m not arguing through the statement of \"READ THE BILL,\" I\'m arguing through my knowledge gleaned from reading some of, and about the bill. Also, please note that just because the bill has passed the Senate Finance Committee, it will still have to pass Congress, which is an iffy-at-best situation.

What I\'m pointing out is that optimusprime argued that we would not have an option, that we would be forced to switch to the public healthcare system. I refuted that claim by pointing out that the public option was an option for a reason, and that one should read more literature on the bill before making the much-publicized (however false it is) assumption that Obama was turning the country into a socialist country by forcing everyone to submit to his healthcare system. That\'s a ridiculous claim, and people need to understand my final point, which is

PEOPLE CAN STILL CHOOSE THEIR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER. A PUBLIC OPTION iS SIMPLY AN OPTION. YOU WILL NOT BE FORCED TO SUBSCRIBE TO IT.

Blake -

First off, your statement about Plato praising Protagoras is blatantly false. Protagoras was a sophist; Plato was not. This is an important distinction to make, as many assume that Plato, as a Greek philosopher at the time of the Sophists, was a Sophist. In reality, he absolutely abhorred the Sophists, and denounced them as \"one of the primary enemies of virtue,\" not \"teachers\" of virtue. Second, you sadly twist Protagoras\' words, and he is currently turning in his grave. Protagoras spoke those words in the context of a debate about relativity. What that quote meant was that Man creates his own truth, and that there is no Objective truth, but how we create the illusion of truth defines it. Protagoras would absolutely not advocate the view that Man must compare himself to his fellow man to evaluate themselves. Third, I don\'t understand how your statement that \"One measures man in relation to another,\" means that humans must exploit themselves. It seems that there is no correlation between the two, aside from the fact that you put them next to each other in the same paragraph. Fourth, you make the claim that we must exploit ourselves because a \"tall man is so in relation to a short man,\" and \"a rich man is so in relation to a poor man.\" Again, I see no correlation, as \"tall\" and \"short,\" along with \"rich\" and \"poor\" are relative terms. I\'m pretty sure that you\'re not arguing that we do away with relative terms altogether, so could you please explain the connection between egocentric humans and relative comparisons. Fifth, I\'m pretty sure that nobody has ever said \"Oh, you don\'t have X? Well, at least you aren\'t a starving African living in the Republic of Liberia.\" Sure, people compare themselves to other people. Sure, people are always worse off than you are. But this in itself isn\'t dehumanizing to starving Africans (or others in poverty). There\'s really no connection here. Honestly, recognizing the plight of others and getting over your own trivial disadvantages so that you can better your fellow man doesn\'t seem so evil to me.

Next, you talk about how a panther must kill as a man must exploit his own kind. I\'m not sure that this is true. Man may exploit himself, but that doesn\'t mean that he has to. Saying that he has to would imply that man is wholly and predominantly evil. Surely, that is not the case (despite my own convictions). And who is to say that your analogy is flawed, and that man, too, must exploit his brother to survive? We\'ve all seen the examples of Communism fall. Let\'s face it, Capitalism is inevitable. Hierarchies are the reality. Humanity doesn\'t work without structure.

Nate -

First, I think your categorization of the \"ego-centric structure of the mind\" as a necessary evil is flawed. While it may be necessary (note, though, that I will not advocate that it is necessary), it is not evil. Caring about yourself is surely not evil. It\'s survival. Man is but an animal. We are no different than the panther in the jungle, we kill to survive, as you later point out. You even say that it is a force of good. So I guess I don\'t really disagree with your idea, just your rhetoric. Next, you say that without self-interest, we would have no drive to exceed the status quo because we would be satisfied with our weakness. But, did you ever think that maybe we should be satisfied with our weaknesses? I\'m sure that you would not contend that one can be wholly perfect. To use Nietzsche\'s example of a daemon coming into your room, dooming you to live your life, the suffering and the joy together, for all of eternity, I think that we must be satisfied with our weaknesses. Yeah, sure, Nietzschean philosophy was quoted by Hitler, whatever. But seriously, think about it. Why do we need to \"exceed the status quo?\" Why is the status quo the status quo? I\'m not saying that we should not try to prevent our suffering, but shouldn\'t we do it because it is the good thing to do, not to end suffering? Let\'s face it, suffering is inevitable, and we waste our existence by attempting to stop it. Actually stop for a second. Think about this. Embrace the suffering. Live your life, be you, and love it! Don\'t you just love conditional advocacies? (For the rest of you, that last sentence was a debate joke, disregard it)

Good. Don\'t be a fan of Ayn Rand. But don\'t disregard her ideas, either. Is Man truly the only creature that will willingly sacrifice life for others? Sure, we may not see animals as benevolent, ethical creatures, but we\'ve heard the stories of animals saving their family members with their lives. Is it truly coincidence that these animals have the conviction to suffer for what they value? Just because they don\'t hold an esoteric set of ideals doesn\'t mean that they \"subordinate our moral agency,\" as you so portray animal nature. Give up your traditional beliefs, and venture into the unknown. Open up your eyes. If you see something different than I do, then I have no issue with that. But just try, break the cycle, even if for just a day.

Not really sure where these quotes factor in. I would think that the affect of the ego-centricity that we are talking about indicates that thoughts have the power to reign over material governances. Beliefs and convictions, as well as thought, remain prevalent, and are a prerequisite to change (see Johnston, \"The Cynic\'s Fetish: Slavoj Zizek and the Dynamics of Belief\"). However, we cannot rely alone on our ideas to hold power over the system; we must place an actualizable demand on the hierarchical structure of the State that the State never expects will be made (see Zizek, \"Violence\").

False. Survival is morality. Survival is the moral option (see Nye, \"Nuclear Ethics\").