Just Right… with Bob Metz and Robert Vaughan

442 – Only two conditions – capitalism or slavery / Rationalizing rationing

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Mar 032016

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Topics:
00:15 Capitalism or slavery: capitalism vs slavery, freedom, savagery, born consumers, demands of production, political drift towards slavery, Thomas Sowell on the reality of slavery’s history
20:15 History’s unique event – the rise of capitalism: capitalism gone off the rails, feedback on capitalism, capitalism as the objective – not a means to something else, capitalists vs capitalism, profits, prices, losses, life without effort, capitalism as the ideal moral condition
43:10 A majority for slavery: voting does change things, getting government to act in the best interest of the people, voting for things you’re against, political parties as the source for change, government as force, the immorality of slavery, the immorality of forced collectivism
52:20 Rationalizing rationing: rationed health care – dead patients, intolerable conditions of Ontario’s socialized hospital care 59:42 END

441 – Blacked-out history / The N-word / At ease – with fear / Ignoring the ignorance

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Feb 252016

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Topics:
00:03 Blacked-out history: Black History Month, London Ontario cited as racist community, history as experiences of racism – not liberation, diversity hiring in city hall, legislating racial mirroring, white power groups are on the left, Ontario’s anti-racism directorate, celebrating enslavement – not freedom, essential history
20:45 Run run from the N-word: why the N-word is different from other racial and cultural slurs, the ‘N’ stamp of determinism, colours do not have histories, London Ontario’s Meeting Tree, capitalism freed the slaves, the welfare state as cultural slavery
38:15 At ease – with fear: fear as the mind killer, promotion of fear, fear for attention, at ease with fear during WW2, Chuck Lorre’s vanity card about fear, attention as a commodity, worthy of fear, list of latest fears, unreal fears and lies
54:05 Ignoring the ignorance: failure of the teaching profession, imparting ignorance instead of knowledge, the dominance of fear in reason’s absence 59:42 END

440 – Legal ease / Feminist protection racket / The gravity of gravity / Rand crater

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Feb 182016

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Topics:
00:03 Legal ease: Christie Blatchford on feminism and the Ghomeshi trial, challenging the ‘women never lie’ myth, the Bill Cosby connection, feminist politics in the police department
16:50 Feminist protection racket: Woman first person second, Jian Ghomeshi’s lawyer Marie Henein, feminist Megan Walker, protecting women from being held accountable for their actions, lawyer Phil Millar, the polarization of public opinion on Ghomeshi,
34:55 The gravity of gravity: gravity wave breakthrough, LIGO, disturbance in fabric of space-time, practicality of gravity waves, Einstein’s theory confirmed, global positioning technology
50:05 Rand’s crater: The naming of Uranus, naming the craters on Venus, public input to naming planet features, Robert’s 25-year-old submission to name a crater on Venus after Ayn Rand, Rand Crater 59:42 END

439 – Feminism – The uncivilizing force / The court of gender bias

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Feb 112016

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Topics:
00:03 Parallels – Cosby and Ghomeshi: stunning testimonies at the Jian Ghomeshi trial, a brief account of the collapsing case against Ghomeshi, complainants all lied, parallel profiles of Cosby and Ghomeshi
14:50 Court of gender bias: denying the evidence to promote a cause, innocent until proven guilty, siding with the wrong victim, determining guilt by numbers, feminist Megan Walker, lawyer Gordon Cudmore, complainant Lucy DeCoutere, the unconscionable court of public opinion
29:35 Uncivilizing force – Feminism: male feminists, feminism’s objectives, civilizing sexes, differences in sexual attitudes are cultural – not gender based, lying as the new normal
42:40 Gender morality? Angus Reid gender poll, differences in gender attitudes, differing moral views on pornography, Gawronski Study – University of Texas, moral dilemmas – differing gender responses, women identify with victims, moral condemnation of male sexual motivation, subjective moralities vs objective morality, legitimacy of feelings, consent as a condition
59:42 END

438 – Winning a debate by ending it / Moral relativism’s relevance / Infernal revenuers

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Feb 042016

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Topics:
00:03 Presumptuous Causes: feedback on cause and effect, ‘snapshots of the continuum’, events and causes in historical accounts, progressive thinking, Alberta’s drift to progressivism
13:15 Winning a debate by ending it: “Ecojustice” vs Friends of Science, global warming, climate change, freedom of speech, Calgary and Edmonton billboard campaign, Competition Bureau, censoring the debate, the ‘denier’ label, the nature of censorship, truth as the victim of censorship, Doomsday Clock, end-of-the-world predictions
31:30 Moral relativism’s relevancy: Roger Scruton on moral relativism, shared values, reality and God, progressive lack of external truths, comparing Objectivists and conservatives, nihilism’s imposing imperatives, nihilism’s contradiction, atheism’s variances
44:35 Proper tax: Roger Scruton’s conservative realization, common values, feedback from Liam on property taxes, preferable forms of taxation, land value tax, asset sales, selling the sales tax
59:42 END

437 – Knowledge and causality

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Jan 282016

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Topics:
00:03 Just Wrote: feedback from Paul T – Murray – Rob – Trevor, our WBCQ sponsor Paul Lambert, skepticism, cause of feedback, cause of ship, introducing the four causal modalities – Formal – Material – Efficient – Final
17:15 No time for cause: integrated knowledge vs retention of facts, motivation of the left, John Macmurray on cause, natural law, the continuant, law of nature as pattern of continuance, time and the present, Leonard Peikoff on cause, entities vs actions, time travel fantasies
33:20 Necessity of choice: the inefficiency of efficient cause, cause vs motivation, from facts and stats to knowledge, significant knowledge, knowledge as source of morality and ethics, choice and knowledge
44:25 The sum of your experiences: life as an end in itself, predictions vs intentions, be cause, knowledge and eternity, first cause, God, existence
59:42 END

436 – Back to nature commune-ism / The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

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Jan 212016

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:40 — 68.4MB) | Embed

Topics:
00:03 Commune-Ism: resurgence of back-to-nature culture, rejection of modernity-reason-capitalism, Wicca culture, tribalism and the rejection of Western values, contrasting cultures and music of the late 1960s, Don Van Vliet, Captain Beefheart, Mel Tillis,
17:30 Natural harmonies: communing with nature, personification of nature, personification of ‘society’, technology’s communing with nature, ‘Nature to be commanded must be obeyed,’ human nature
27:15 Profound questions: truth defined, truth predates human history, feedback from Murray, same facts – different conclusions, how can we know the truth, knowledge vs belief, philosophy and epistemology, accusations of arrogance, metaphysics, a question of truth
44:25 Certainly true: Truth vs facts, causal modalities – first-material-efficient-final, search not for truth but for reality, John Macmurray on thought without purpose, knowledge for knowledge’s sake as a relapse into unreality, necessary significance and purpose of knowledge, divorcing knowledge from action, educate in reality, fear of being wrong, fact determines truth, the importance of clear definitions 59:40 End