Atlas Shrugged today?

[Argo]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html

A lot of the parallels in that article seem rather valid today. The most interesting one is the financial bailout - the worse you were as the business, the more bailout you got (compare Citigroup to Chase, for example).

 

[dphantom]

I've watched the parallels for several decades now and it is striking how close today mirrors the Rand world written 50 years ago. Her work should be required reading for everyone, HS and up and especially for our politicians.

 

[JS80]

very good read.

 

[Kadarin]

Interesting

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: JS80
very good read.

-------------------------
Romney/Jindal 2012

Wow, how fake can you really get? What a hilarious farce.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: JS80
very good read.

-------------------------
Romney/Jindal 2012

Wow, how fake can you really get? What a hilarious farce.

What the fuck is my alternative? Support Ron Paul who will lose and effectively be a +1 to Obama 2012?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Argo
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html

A lot of the parallels in that article seem rather valid today. The most interesting one is the financial bailout - the worse you were as the business, the more bailout you got (compare Citigroup to Chase, for example).

The author of that article is another typical right-winger who has not developed past the adolescent fascination with the fallacious ideology of Any Rand.

Gays worship Barbra Striesand.

Right-wingers worship Ayn Rand.

Sorry not to comment now on the more detailed issue you posted on, but I think the right-wing seduction by Ayn Rand is an important issue to note itself.

Look at our recent fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, who was literally a disciple of Ayn Rand, and who recently said how his ideology had been found to be wrong to his great shock.

It's time to recognize that we don't have different 'infomred sides' on such issues in our country, we have one side, the far right, that's effectively a cult of ideology.

Their 'sound chamber' where they reinforce their ideology on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere is how they remain so insulated while Rome burns.

I didn't read the article past the intro where he says how at his 'think tank', Cato, reading Ayn Rand was practicaly mandatory. Nuff said.

Our nation is far too vulnerable to nutty ideologies at times, from McCarthyism to deregulation, based largely on Ayn Randism, which itself is little more than the backlash of Rand to yet another cultish and dangerous ideology, the tyranny of the Soviet system from which she came. Unfortunately, the only measure by which so many righties check whether she is 'right' is that the system she was against - the soviets - was 'wrong'. They then accept her fallacies hook, line and sinker.

That's about as good of logic as saying McCarthy was right because he was against the Soviets - the same 'enemy'.

I could write specifics on her fallacies, why she's wrong, but it seems poinless. The cult isn't corrected so easily.

In fact, Milton Friedman was close to her ideology; I'm not sure of his direct influence, but he would be the closest I'm aware of to following her.

And his policies, while widely implemented over decades, consistently were disastrous, as documented in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine".

 

[fskimospy]

There is no way you people are telling me you take Ayn Rand seriously.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

yup pretty much
it really is the only logical conclusion

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: JS80

What the fuck is my alternative? Support Ron Paul who will lose and effectively be a +1 to Obama 2012?

Your alternative is simple: withdraw all support for politicians and all political processes. I denounce Ron Paul as well as any other person who takes of the mantle of a central planner/legislator/bureaucrat.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: JS80

What the fuck is my alternative? Support Ron Paul who will lose and effectively be a +1 to Obama 2012?

Your alternative is simple: withdraw all support for politicians and all political processes. I denounce Ron Paul as well as any other person who takes of the mantle of a central planner/legislator/bureaucrat.

lol I'm not at that point yet. I still have some "hope" left, however minute.

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Argo
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html

A lot of the parallels in that article seem rather valid today. The most interesting one is the financial bailout - the worse you were as the business, the more bailout you got (compare Citigroup to Chase, for example).

The author of that article is another typical right-winger who has not developed past the adolescent fascination with the fallacious ideology of Any Rand.

Gays worship Barbra Striesand.

Right-wingers worship Ayn Rand.

Sorry not to comment now on the more detailed issue you posted on, but I think the right-wing seduction by Ayn Rand is an important issue to note itself.

Look at our recent fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, who was literally a disciple of Ayn Rand, and who recently said how his ideology had been found to be wrong to his great shock.

It's time to recognize that we don't have different 'infomred sides' on such issues in our country, we have one side, the far right, that's effectively a cult of ideology.

Their 'sound chamber' where they reinforce their ideology on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere is how they remain so insulated while Rome burns.

I didn't read the article past the intro where he says how at his 'think tank', Cato, reading Ayn Rand was practicaly mandatory. Nuff said.

Our nation is far too vulnerable to nutty ideologies at times, from McCarthyism to deregulation, based largely on Ayn Randism, which itself is little more than the backlash of Rand to yet another cultish and dangerous ideology, the tyranny of the Soviet system from which she came. Unfortunately, the only measure by which so many righties check whether she is 'right' is that the system she was against - the soviets - was 'wrong'. They then accept her fallacies hook, line and sinker.

That's about as good of logic as saying McCarthy was right because he was against the Soviets - the same 'enemy'.

I could write specifics on her fallacies, why she's wrong, but it seems poinless. The cult isn't corrected so easily.

In fact, Milton Friedman was close to her ideology; I'm not sure of his direct influence, but he would be the closest I'm aware of to following her.

And his policies, while widely implemented over decades, consistently were disastrous, as documented in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine".

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: JS80
lol I'm not at that point yet. I still have some "hope" left, however minute.

Hope based on what? Sounds religious to me. If you reject the tenets of central planning & bureaucracy, then you must understand that there is no hope for the political process because it is by definition central planning & bureaucracy.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: JS80
lol I'm not at that point yet. I still have some "hope" left, however minute.

Hope based on what? Sounds religious to me. If you reject the tenets of central planning & bureaucracy, then you must understand that there is no hope for the political process because it is by definition central planning & bureaucracy.

Even if you withdraw all support for politicians (whom I despise), in a democracy, people will take that oppotunity to just crush you. You might as well join the party that will do less damage. There are too few of you to make any impact, and all it does it give more power to the party that wants more power and bureaucracy. Trust me I would love to see a revolution in America, but it is just not viable IMO.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

 

[OrByte]

interesting article.

the author isn't being too terribly partisan. But I get the feeling he is being much more forgiving on the current admin...then he is on the future admin.

It is the current admin that put the country on this 'bailout' binge.

And it was Paulson's plan.

However the powers that be from BOTH parties were in front of the camera selling the 'bailouts' to us idiots in TV land.

interesting read though. thanks.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

human nature IS simple

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

How about the fact she believes people only a select few are super human and deserve everything they get and the rest of us are lucky to have them around to save us from our stupidity? Never mind people are born into different circumstances with different opportunities. Womans' writings are only to stroke the ego of selfish out there. Nothing wrong with some of that, it's why we achieve to a measure, but in large doses you become a lonely bitter old man.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

x2

Her ideas on utterly free markets and the virtues of selfishness ignore the obvious fact that pure selfishness with unlimited rules is horrible for society at large.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

How about the fact she believes people only a select few are super human and deserve everything they get and the rest of us are lucky to have them around to save us from our stupidity? Never mind people are born into different circumstances with different opportunities.

How is that different in a socialist or communist environment?

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: dphantom
I've watched the parallels for several decades now and it is striking how close today mirrors the Rand world written 50 years ago.

How so? Like most politically curious teenagers I too read her work way back when and am still impressed by the ideals she conveyed (though she really couldn't write worth a damn). But I see few if any similarities to the world she wrote about and ours. The elites in government often are corrupt, but they aren't utterly self-loathing and self-destructive in the way she wrote. That would require pretty much every government employee to be psychotic.

Regarding the article itself...

In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything.

The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."

Didn't those bank presidents willingly go to Washington, hat in hand, because they desperately needed government cash to stay afloat? I could be in the wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that the article is completely misrepresenting that meeting.

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

I like abolishing taxes as much as any other taxpayer, but, well, that's so obviously a boneheaded maneuver that I don't really feel like I have to explain it.

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

I actually do agree. Her ideas tend to be a bit on the simpler side and do ignore certain complexities of our culture. However, IMO you need to look at her works as a "way to point out issues in our society", as opposed to "way how to do things".

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

I actually do agree. Her ideas tend to be a bit on the simpler side and do ignore certain complexities of our culture. However, IMO you need to look at her works as a "way to point out issues in our society", as opposed to "way how to do things".

I can agree with that.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: JS80
Even if you withdraw all support for politicians (whom I despise), in a democracy, people will take that oppotunity to just crush you.

They already have.

You might as well join the party that will do less damage.

There is no such party.

There are too few of you to make any impact, and all it does it give more power to the party that wants more power and bureaucracy.

No, actually, voting gives the party in power more legitimacy. The logic is that you accepted the terms of the game but you just lost. What those in power fear the most is people outright rejecting the legitimacy of the rituals that 'gave' them their power.

In the end what you are doing is getting on your knees and begging for some pennies back. Actually, that is mostly what the Republican Party consists of: fools who beg for pennies. The Republican Party plutocrats toss the poor tax slaves some pocket change of course with a small tax cut here and there, but so do the Dems for that matter. It is essentially like a thug peeling a couple bucks off the fat wad of cash he forced you to cough up and tossing it to you.

Trust me I would love to see a revolution in America, but it is just not viable IMO.

If you are talking about a radical violent revolution, there is no hope in that either. Quiet, non-violent secession is the only route to true freedom.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Argo

I would be interested on hearing your take on why you think she's wrong.

She's the opposite version of the Communist Manifesto. She has juvenile, overly simplistic ideas that ignore human nature in order to straightjacket it into an ideology that could never work in reality.

People usually get over her at about the same age they get over Marxism, 21-22 or so.

Perfectly put.