BS: Ayn Rand

Subject: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:00 AM

Ayn Rand: Forward looking author, or mean harpy who poisoned the intellectual landscape with her terrible prose, and pinched viewpoints?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:45 AM

If you look on Ayn Rand as food for thought, she has great value. If you see her work as infallible doctrine, that would be problematic. Unfortunately, she has reached infallible status in some circles in modern times.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:53 AM

Would probably make good compost.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:48 AM

I tend toward the latter view, skivee, but I can't say for sure. I've never been able to stomach reading more than half a chapter of her prose.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:44 AM

Very dangerous because her views, as far as I've read them, pretty much boil down to do what you want, because there's no reason to do otherwise. And that's a position that's easily used by anyone to exploit anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 08:32 AM

Ayn Rand and Karl Marx ..... outdated and in the past .... we are now in the 21st century, we cannot keep trying to apply and argue their philosophies, idealogies and politics if we want to continue forward.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:26 AM

I find it very interesting that her name surfaces again. She shook us all up in the 1950's, and perhaps because of the current political clmate in america ... here we go again? bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:28 AM

Unreadable, megalomaniacal, selfish, Ubermensch dribble pretending to the cloak of a philosophy and literature combining the worst of Crowley and Hitler. Her time is long past, if it ever was.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:29 AM

Ayn Rand..... outdated and in the past

Tell it to the Tea Potty

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:42 AM

Enlightened self-interest does not exist in the real world, only in Ms Rand's books. Her protagonists are idealizations of how elites would behave if they were sane. In the real world, most of them would gladly be slave-owners if it were still legal.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:16 AM

Self-interest, certainly, but I found very little 'enlightened' about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:34 AM

We The Living, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Night of January 16, Anthem...I read them all and thoroughly enjoyed the plots and the characters although they are all rather one-sided and always "right". Some of the prose is painful - John Galt's 23 pages of tedium stands out.
She made me think. She was the among the first to make me question all those years of Catholic school indoctrination.
She was certainly a crank in her old age. I remember a radio interview during which calls were taken, The first call was from a young woman who objected to Ayn's harsh treatment of those who can't help themselves - handicapped, mentally ill, etc. Ayn was off and running mainly on a theme of "How dare you question ME, you silly girl." It was disappointing.
Her personal life was in my opinion a mess. She used her philosophy to justify an ongoing affair with her protegee (Brandon somebody) insisting on his wife's agreement. Each wrote a biography of Rand'slife and their parts - nobody comes out of them unscathed.
Her philosophical writings are, in my opinion, pure tedium. Turgid, repetitive, claptrap. One thing I find fascinating about it all is her claim that each man has to act according to his own conscience and his his own best interestes followed by the accusation of stupidity if you disagree with her.
As to the slaveowners post - non violence is an ongoing theme in Rand's writings. No one has the right to harm another. So I don't see slaveowners in the group. Certainly workers are way down in the pecking order and in her mind totally dependent on the creative producer for life, food, housing.
By the way, in Atlas Shrugged her opinion of folk music is less than enthusiastic. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:56 AM

Awful writing, shallow thinking, huge ego..had her fifteen minutes of fame....14 minutes too long, I think. I doubt anyone takes her seriously any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Neil D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:05 PM

Except for 90% of the Republican Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:22 PM

She lives on, channeled by a senator in Kentucky.....

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:27 PM

Good to have read her in my yoot and had that in the mix.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:41 PM

I think there is such a thing as enlightened self-interest, but it's rather rare. A truly wise person is aware enough to see that their own self-interest is coincident with the interests of others. That is, what will benefit those around one will also benefit oneself...in the long run. The best solution is one that benefits all parties. One has to have attained a good deal of maturity and also be of excellent character and also respect and value others to arrive at that awareness.

As I said, such people are rather rare.

Our present social order caters not to such people, but to the rich, clever, and ruthless. I found Ayn Rand's philosophical musings to be primitive, cartoon-like, and virtually unreadable.


Bill D - Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? I don't know if he is genuinely a disciple of Ayn Rand, but I find most of what he says sensible, straightforward, courageous, and well worth listening to...whereas I find Ayn Rand's writing utterly unpalatable.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:29 PM

Two charges that are often leveled at Ayn Rand are that she was a gawdawful writer and that she was a shallow thinker.

Not so on either count. She wrote quite well by any standards of literary ability. Just because one may not like what she wrote does not mean that she didn't write well.

And her efforts at putting together a cohesive philosophy were downright Herculean. She delved deeply into formal philosophy beginning with the basics of Plato and Aristotle and moving on through the Renaissance philosophers (with a very good, incisive dissertation on where Thomas Aquinas blew it in his attempt to use Aristotelian logic to prove the existence of God), up through Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Russell, and perhaps stopping a bit too long at Frederick Nietzsche.

But as Susan says above, "Good to have read her in my yoot and had that in the mix."

There was a time, early on, when I found Ayn Rand's writings the very thing that I needed. At about the time I was getting grief from some of the other students—and a few members of the faculty—at the U. of W. School of Music over my particular musical interests ("When are you going to stop messing around with those cowboy songs and take your music studies seriously?"), I read The Fountainhead. Very much to the point!

It happens to be a very good novel. By any standards.

Later, when I read her subsequent stuff, and especially her non-fiction (The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal), AND took a lecture course, "The Basic Principles of Objectivism," from Nathaniel Brandon, it began to sink in that, although a great deal of what she said was right on the money, it had a number of fatal flaws. The main one was that the world did NOT work the way she thought it did.

Where the Ayn Rand movement (her "inner circle," anyway) began to come unglued was when, out of one side of her mouth she would (rightly) tell people to use their own rational powers and decide things for themselves rather than accept without question what others tell them, then out of the other, she would "repudiate" and expel members of her inner circle for having the audacity to question anything she said.

Unfortunately, there are no Capitalist Heroes, at least as she envisioned them, in the Real World. Going to see a Congressman with a valise full of money is NOT "free-market Capitalism!" Her heroes did not do that. But that's business as usual, these days.

Ron Paul? That man scares the hell out of me, especially since there are so many people who don't know where he's coming from and think he's the bee's knees. He's keeping his mouth shut these days (except for behind-the-hand comments to the "right" people), but in the past, he's made his philosophical and economic ideas quite plain.

Don't make the mistake of underestimating the influence of Ayn Rand, especially now.

Don Firth

P. S.   Take a look at photos of a Tea Party rally sometime and note the number of placards with Ayn Rand quotes on them. Like I say, scares the hell out of me!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:08 PM

Don ... I find your comments quite "objective." In fact, should you choose to form a cult of like minded people, I woud suggest that you call the new (old) belief system ... "objectivism"... bad bad bob

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:48 PM

Thanks for a great post Sins.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:57 PM

I doubt anyone takes her seriously any more.

I take it you ain't been watchin' the news? Or been listen' to the Repub candidates?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:46 PM

She kinda lost me when she had Nathaniel Brandon banned from the Nathaniel Brandon Institute because he was no longer romantically interested in her.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:53 PM

If you doubt Rand's influence, consider that Nathaniel Branden was one of, if not the, founders of the philosophy of self-esteem. There is no problem with self-esteem, but in many ways it's gotten out of hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:55 PM

////Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? I don't know if he is genuinely a disciple of Ayn Rand////

He named his son after her. That has to count for something.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:57 PM

"Bill D - Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? "

..well, Ron is responsible...but he is only a congressman from, Texas. His son, named ummmmm..'Rand' is now senator. They 'loosely' follow Ayn, with all sorts of Libertarian ideas stuffed in to suit their politics of the moment.
Several analysts have said that Ron is only a 'Republican' for convenience to operate in a major party and to give Rand a leg up toward an eventual run for president. THAT is scary...

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:08 PM

I see.

Well, Ayn Rand scares me, but Ron Paul doesn't. (shrug) I agree with a great deal of what he says...not everything...but a lot of it. I don't necessarily work on "guilt by association", so I'm not going to write him off because he likes some of what Ayn Rand had to say.

Don, I found your 03:29 PM post about Ayn Rand very interesting. Could you elaborate some on your statement that "although a great deal of what she said was right on the money, it had a number of fatal flaws. The main one was that the world did NOT work the way she thought it did."

Not having read more than a fragment of her writings, I'd be interested to hear what more you have to say about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:30 PM

Ron Paul is ignorant, arrogant, and completely confident in a boatload of dangerous ideas. He has a growing following. Other than that he is not dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Neil D
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:24 AM

Actually, Rand Paul is not named after Ayn Rand. His given name is Randall and he went by Randy until his wife started calling him Rand.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 04:00 AM

Who cares?? jeez, its just a book....I know people who never read her at all, and they don't even relate to her rap...and don't even want to know, or care!
They sure play a mean ax, though!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Allan C.
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:12 AM

"I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!"

This seems to me to be the one place she fit best.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:40 AM

"Actually, Rand Paul is not named after Ayn Rand. His given name is Randall and he went by Randy until his wife started calling him Rand."

Actually that is the story from Randall. Who did not participate in his own naming. And who is a politician.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Hi Lo
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:51 AM

I said in my earlier post that I thought Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a shallow thinker. It seems to have been assumed that I have this opinion because I dislike her politics. Not so..What I dislike is her Aesthetic....she is a bad writer (by most standards) and that is why she does not appeal to me. Although she read widely in the field of Philosophy, she managed to misunderstand and, therefore, misinterpret most of it.. Most critics and lovers of literature would not rate her very highly. As for her politics..shallow...look who now takes it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:55 AM

In other words, Jack, you wish he had been named after Ayn Rand, because that would help make him more of a "bad guy" from your political point of view, so you WILL not accept any explanation other than that he WAS named after Ayn Rand? (even if it's not true)

Well, that's how wishful thinking works. You want it to be so...it therefore must be so. He doesn't know where his own name came from. You do. Uh-huh.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 11:20 AM

Ayn Rand was shaped by the course of her life. I detest her views, but don't anyone think her influence has stopped. Every year there are essay contests that offer money prizes--in US, UK, Canada and I suspect NZ and Australia, too. The Ayn Rand Institute [ARI] works out of Irvine California. It's a non profit (and non prophet if y'ask me) set up.

Do you know what your kids are reading?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 11:24 AM

All I know is, I tried reading "The Fountainhead" when I was in high school, and it made my flesh crawl. I've seldom experienced such revulsion while reading a book. So I didn't get too far with it. It sure made me wonder why so many other people were into reading her books.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:01 PM

Yeah little Hawk. That's pretty profound coming from someone as anti politics as you. You only take the word of politicians who say some things you agree with? When I first encountered Ron Paul he was promoting Rand, since then he has backed off quite a bit. The story was reported quite widely that he had named his son after Rand. To my knowledge Ron Paul, the person who allegedly did this deed, has never denied it. Being called Rand, and the association with Ayn Rand and that association with his father was a big part of the name recognition that enabled Rand to run for Senate.

Then Rand Paul had to appeal to more moderate voters to win and this video comes out. It is convenient to invoke Ayn Rand while becoming famous. Less so later. Rand Paul is a politician. Politicians say what is going to put them in the best light.

Rand Paul's story may be so. So may be the story that was going around about Ron Paul for years which he has never denied. It is more than possible that Ron Paul chose "Randall" as a name because of the Ayn Rand connection. Consider that Randall Paul puts "Rand Paul" on his posters. He puts the "private" nickname that his wife gave him on his posters and uses that name as his "brand" rather than his actual name. So he is using the association with Rand as his brand, while still denying it. In US politics we call that a "dog whistle."

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:22 PM

Little Hawk.

Which Little Hawk am I speaking to? The one who pretends he is monkey and doesn't fling shit or the one who flings shit and pretends to be my psychiatrist? Stick to the subject. Keep your dime store psychoanalysis to yourself. Keep in mind the policy against personal attacks.

I don't think it makes him a "bad guy" to call his kid "Rand." I think he is bad for the country because I think that his economic policies are reckless, selfish and not at all based on reality as is Ayn Rand's "philosophy" It all amounts to flattering greedy people and selling them excuses for their once they have theirs not wanting to pay back society for benefits of society they have received. Only the willfully ignorant would not accept the fact that Ron Paul is a disciple of Ayn Rand even if he had named his son Ghandi.

I don't WISH anything. Rand Paul acted proud of the association with Ayn Rand, until it became inconvenient. He acted AS IF it were true until then. Then when it became a negative, he didn't. He told another story. He is a politician. Saying "Actually" about anything a politician says in his own interest needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Neil D. I don't know who you are. But when we start taking the statements of politicians, even statements about themselves, as indisputable facts, we have trouble.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: MarkS
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:28 PM

Another brain right up there with Jeremy Bentham. (Who?)

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:54 PM

When I was in high school various members of the self-identifying "intellectual crowd" were going on about The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I was too busy reading science fiction to give here a try.
I always kept a little note tucked into the back of my read to read them.
In 2000, a copy of The Fountainhead practically fell into my lap and I dove in. I am so sorry that I will never get those days back. Her needlessly dense sentences and overblown mean philosophies made me weep for the trees that died to make her books.
Her character speak in unrealistic long-winded compounded sentences, congratulating themselves on their assumed inherent superiority.
I, for one, would not prefer to live in one of Mr. Roarck's building, or be in business with John Galt...wankers.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:32 PM

Well, Ayn Rand scares me, but Ron Paul doesn't.

Well Ron Paul sure as hell SHOULD scare you. He's a lunatic.

He warns that the United Nations is going to enforce land use regulations in the U.S. leading to a U.N. dictatorship. He believes that the U.S. government has installed chemmical tracking agents in $100 bills to allow the Feds to keep track of American citizens. He claims Martin Luther King was a pedophile, that Israeli agents bombed the World Trade Center, that Race War is imminent. He opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fer chrissakes. Pick up a few back issues of the "Ron Paul Newsletter".

The man is out of touch with reality. He belongs in an asylum, not the White House.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:44 PM

So, would Ayn Rand vote for Ron Paul?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:52 PM

Jack the Sailor: "Only the willfully ignorant would not accept the fact that Ron Paul is a disciple of Ayn Rand even if he had named his son Ghandi."

...and Ghandi, was a disciple, and devotee of Leo Tolstoy. TRUE STORY..Look it up!...and while you're reading(if you do), read some Tolstoy. He's got a GREAT little book called "Walk In the Light, While There Is Light, and Other Short Stories"...He is WONDERFUL!! He spits in the milk of Ayn Rand!!!...and far more relevant!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:58 PM

I was named after William the Conqueror. I'm a monarchist.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:01 PM

..and I was named after an angel with a big sword!....Me?, I only got a ball-point sword!.....but it cuts REAL fine!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:35 PM

That is how I have always thought of you:

as compensating for a very tiny sword,

Or as someone dumb enough to try to cut with a pen,

Or as someone who writes on their computer screen with a pen an then complains when others don't "get" the resulting gibberish.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:45 PM

So, gentlemen, this relates to Ayn rand in what way? Just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:46 PM

above is me. Just lost my cookie

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:47 PM

GEEZE LOUSE! Having read most of her books back when I was in school, I was looking forward to following this thread. But now that I see all the vitrol that's been posted, I think I'll just go out in the garden and eat worms ... it would be more fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:52 PM

So, Bob, is that an an example of Randian self-determinationism?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:09 PM

Actually ... it's an example of my disgust when threads go bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:12 PM

Deckman, I agree with you. The vitriol seems to mess up threads that could otherwise be a place of good info and input. I agree that the snide remarks we uncalled for......perhaps, he should read a little Tolstoy, as per suggested.

GfS

P.S. I just scrolled up to re-read my posts....nothing in them to warrant the issue of which you speak. Just ignorant reactions....politically based, I'm sure!
Nonetheless, I wasn't enamored by Rand's writings, though for a while, a lot of folks alluded to some of her ideas. I thought them a slice between Sci-Fi and futuristic imaginings. I liked them less than Robert Heinlein, who I thought brilliant!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:16 PM

Are Marx's predictions not showing signs of being realised?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:36 PM

Hmm..... Truth = vitriol.

We're getting a bit Orwellian, no?

Maybe we should bring George into the discussion......

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:41 PM

Or Anthony Burgess?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 05:39 PM

Little Hawk, I hope this answers what you asked at 21 Jan 12 - 06:08 p.m. If not, lemme know.

Frankly, I think that most people here who are calling Ayn Rand a poor writer heard bad things about her before they tried reading any of her books, and thus, started with a prejudiced eye. By ANY literary standard, she at least started out as very good writer. Her style is more in the line of writers such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, or Victor Hugo, at least in her earlier novels such as We the Living and The Fountainhead. But then, if you don't like Tolstoy on literary grounds, you probably aren't going to like Ayn Rand either. It wasn't until Atlas Shrugged that she went off the rails and came out with a thousand-page political polemic with the plot-style of a comic book requiring huge speech balloons. She should have bypassed Atlas Shrugged and gone straight to non-fiction, which is what she later did.

The problem is not with her ability as a writer, it's with WHAT she writes.

As to her knowledge of philosophy, whether she misunderstood or misinterpreted it is open to argument—and that argument would be based more on whether one agreed or disagreed with her conclusions than with the extent of her knowledge of philosophy in general, or lack thereof. She certainly read widely in the field and was very knowledgeable in it—able to quote people like Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Berkeley, Locke, Russell, and others right off the top of her head. And she gave one of the clearest explanations of what might be called "the division of labor" (the three major fields—Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics) and the kind of questions each one asks in the formal study of philosophy that I have ever heard. And that includes in the number of philosophy courses I took as academic credits and electives at the University of Washington.

Although she trashed Fredrich Nietzsche's view of the Ûbermensch (Superman), because Nietzsche envisioned him as operating on instinct ("Blood and Bowels") rather than rationally and logically, she had a sort of Ûbermensch herself.

Nietzsche's idea of the ideal human was a lot like Conan the Barbarian on steroids.

Ayn Rand's "Ideal Man" was a supremely rational man and was, among other things, a creative genius with a faraway look in his eyes; a visionary, dressed in a business suit and carrying a slide rule. A creator. An inventor. A pioneer. Someone who could change the world for the better.

If only the leeches and the bureaucrats would leave him free to do it!

All of her heroes were extraordinarily talented, self-made men. And this is Ayn Rand's idea of what the America businessman truly is!

The Koch Brothers? Wall Street brokers? Bankers? Chairman of the Board of AIG?

The world in Ayn Rand's novels, and apparently in her mind, is a fictional world that works well only in her novels. There are, indeed, creative, visionary, talented people out there. But you rarely find them in charge of major companies.

By the same token, John Carter survived very nicely on the surface of Mars, without space suit or breathing apparatus.

But the REAL Mars isn't quite like that.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 05:49 PM

Brief biography of A Rand here. A glimpse into where she was coming from, imo.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 06:11 PM

"most people here who are calling Ayn Rand a poor writer heard bad things about her before they tried reading"...etc.
Don, I just knew The Fountainhead as a book that lots of buzz. I found the copy of the book, and looked forward to getting into this perported masterpiece. When I actually read it, I found it disappointing on many levels.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 06:45 PM

Me above, again

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 07:02 PM

Ayn Rand is the embodiment and the definition of a sociopath. Her paper thin characterizations in her novel make it impossible to recreate them as a legitimate movie. Gregory Peck had literally nothing to work with and the latest movie was a well-deserved flop.

She has nothing of value to offer society. Her polemical style of writing is not even
as prescient as Marx.

It's true she has her acolytes such as Paul Ryan and formerly Alan Greenspan ( you see how much good that did for the economy).

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 07:12 PM

I have only read "Atlas Shrugged" and not all of it. It was astoundingly tedious. And the premise???? That creative people could go on strike and not be immediately replaced. That is the single most unrealistic thing I have ever read. Watch "All About Eve" if you think Atlas Shrugged is competent writing. If you think that dominance in business is about what you create, read the history of Bill Gates, or Standard Oil, or Wal*Mart, or General Motors.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 07:37 PM

Don Firth: "By the same token, John Carter survived very nicely on the surface of Mars, without space suit or breathing apparatus.

But the REAL Mars isn't quite like that."

Boy! I could have fun with that one!!....I'll just let Don, just have a quiet smirk on his face, thinking about how he walked into that one!

Pardon granted!
wink!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 08:50 PM

Wotthehell are you talking about, GfS?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 09:10 PM

Ayn Rand taught some very valuable lessons--such as not being buffaloed by mass think, and valuing your own integrity--but using them to form the foundation of universal pragma or dicta was a bit like being a biblical literalist--not wise, not tempered, not accurate, and not very useful.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 09:26 PM

GfS, please clear up Don's great and meaningful mistake.
At this point I rather like his reference.
I have a feeling that Mr. Burroughs didn't know that Mars has a surface air pressure of about 7 millibars, so that couldn't be the great gaffe

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 09:26 PM

"Ayn Rand taught some very valuable lessons--such as not being buffaloed by mass think, and valuing your own integrity--"

That's what I got out of her writing early on, Amos. Among other things, when set upon as I described above ("When are you going to stop messing around with those cowboy songs and take your music studies seriously?"), it helped me stick to my guns.

But the more I read of her stuff, the more disenchanted I became with her.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 09:31 PM

GfS, Skivee, that was exactly my POINT!!

Gawd, you mean I have to explain a JOKE to you guys!??

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:12 PM

""Ayn Rand taught some very valuable lessons--such as not being buffaloed by mass think, and valuing your own integrity--"

"you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" ... Bob Dylan said that

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:22 PM

I did read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" when I was 19. It was a suggested reading by a girl who would later in time become my wife .... the meaning of her madness was you have to read the works from the other side to formulate your own philosophical views that are on the side you are on ... hmmmm, interesting point I thought ... anyway I found it to be somewhat a dry, a tedious read but it all made sense.

"The Fountainhead" .... It wasn't entertaining, t wasn't musical, and it didn't have a beat.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,songbob
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:45 PM

A famous quote about Ms. Rand:

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: "The Lord of the Rings," and "Atlas Shrugged."

One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.

The other, of course, involves orcs."

Works for me!

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 11:25 PM

Don, Not to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Dazbo at Work
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 08:41 AM

I'd never heard of her until a few months ago when a documentary on the BBC (mainly about the global crash, computer systems etc and how they all interacted). It seems she had a big influence (and still does according to the TV prog) on a lot of the IT and Computer firms in Silicon Valley.

Was she just an influence in the US or was she well knownelse where too?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 08:48 AM

I certainly knew of her in the UK. I don't think the IT industry was more affected by her than others, apart from the fact that start-up companies tend to be more affected by current ideas than long established ones and it happens that there were numerous IT start-ups when her ideas were in vogue. So there is a correlation, but not quite in the way the programme suggested.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Ringer
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 09:54 AM

I'd never heard of her until perhaps a coupla years ago when I saw her referenced on another discussion group.

Could those who read her in their youth, when it was apparently fashionable so to do, give some idea of when that was (just so I know whether it was before my time, after my time, or just whether I was as ignorant of the zeitgeist then as I seem to be now). Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Dazbo at Work
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 10:57 AM

I don't think the programme was saying she only influenced IT companies but that the programme was only looking at IT companies and how they helped create the crash.

I think they were published in the forites, fifties and or sixties.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 12:46 PM

Don, let me be clearer. I liked your Barsoomian joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 01:16 PM

I read her in the late 50's and 60's.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Wyrd Sister
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 01:58 PM

The person who gave me 'Atlas Shrugged' to read (c. 1979) is now Chief Executive of the British Bankers' Association. I didn't like it then and I like the thought even less now.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 02:15 PM

IMHO there is a world of difference between AR's writing and DOestoyevsky's, or anyone comparable to him. The difference is in the depth of the characters. AR's whole intent, in creating characters like Dagney Taggart and Hank Reardon, was to embody a polemic, to put a face on a message, much like a ventriloquist uses a dummy. The result was pretty two-dimensional characters. Her weak-spined bureaucrats are similarly drawen in two dimensions with exagerrated features, cariactures of genuine human experience.

Fyodor, on the other hand, almost went too far in the other direction, but at least his people were rich in individual personality and experience, and real human passions.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 03:37 PM

I agree to a point, Amos. Atlas Shrugged is, literarily, a thousand page polemic, and the characters are little more than two-dimensional cardboard stereotypes. But she was so gung-ho on writing a world-changing novel that she lost her perspective—and her ability to evaluate her own work.

Actually, she said her favorite writer was Victor Hugo. (Sorry, Alisa baby! Nice try earlier on, but you shoulda quit while you were ahead.)

Granted, Skivee, my attempt at a joke wasn't really a knee-slapper. I was merely trying to underscore my contention that the hero-types in Ayn Rand's novels emerged triumphant in the end because the world they operated in was a fictional representation, and didn't really exist--like Burrough's Mars (aka Barsoom) that John Carter romped around on—not the real Mars.

I'm aware that there are those who think an "allegory" is a large lizard-like reptile that lives in the Everglades and "analogy" is a condition in which you sneeze a lot, but beyond that, I'm not real sure what GfS got all tittery about. Stumbling to a different drummer, I guess.

By the way, Skivee, thanks for posting the link to the Ayn Rand bio. I was aware of all this myself. In fact, her first novel, We the Living (1936) is fictional, but vaguely autobiographical in that it's based on incidents of her life in Russia before she emigrated to the United States. By the way, H. L. Mencken praised it highly. And although it's highly political, as a novel, it may very well be her best novel.

The Fountainhead was published in 1943. The movie adaptation came out in 1949. It starred Gary Cooper (not Gregory Peck), Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey. Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, and by that time, she had a substantial following as a result of the success of The Fountainhead, based on its theme of the importance of personal integrity and a willingness to stand or fall on the courage of one's own vision.

Not a bad theme, I'd say.

In fact—and speaking of Gregory Peck—when it comes to personal integrity and willingness to "lay it on the line"—one of my particular heroes is Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch in the movie.

If you have not read this book and / or seen this movie, your education is not complete.

But back to Ayn Rand:    Bennett Cerf, who owned Modern Library and Random House, and who published such writers as William Faulkner, John O'Hara, Eugene O'Neill, James Michener, Truman Capote, Theodor Seuss Geisel, (so must have known something about writing) also published Atlas Shrugged, even though he vehemently disagreed with much of Rand's philosophy.

I am not convinced that those who insist on trashing her ability to write are not responding much more to her objectionable ideas than they are to her actual ability to string words together.

But the upshot of the whole thing is this:   as indicated by the political philosophy of Ron Paul (although he's talking around the crucial subjects these days so as not to let it ALL hang out) and the ideas expressed (most obviously through placards) at Tea Party demonstrations, the ideas of Ayn Rand are influencing a large number of minds these days.

You are aware, are you not, that the Libertarian Party was started by a group of Objectivists (the official name of those who embrace Ayn Rand's political ideas)? And that Ron Paul has run for president before? As the Libertarian candidate?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 06:07 PM

Don, I like your analysis of AR.
Regarding the much more worthy Harper Lee, I heard a story once of writers at a party discussing her.
One writer dismissed her for only writing one book. Another author, known for prolific output, remarked, "Yes, but WHAT a book."

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 06:12 PM

The link was from Guest 999.
My comment of "me , above" was for the post betwixt. I lost my cookie several times yesterday, and I was trying to avoid confusion. fail.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 06:25 PM

Sometimes one's enough.

If someone were to ask me what book I would seriously nominate as "The Great American Novel," rather than some great, sweeping, panoramic saga, I would respond with To Kill a Mockingbird.

Atticus Finch = personal integrity.

Don Firth

P. S. And the movie held up to the book. Gregory Peck's portrayal of a quiet, dignified man who stood solid as a rock on his principles was superb. On a TV interview I heard him say that it was his favorite role.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 06:27 PM

Thanks for straightening that out, Skivee. And thank YOU, 999!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 07:27 PM

////Actually, Rand Paul is not named after Ayn Rand. His given name is Randall and he went by Randy until his wife started calling him Rand. ///

Yeah, I've read that a million times (it's actually "Randal" with one L) but I don't believe it. Methinks the shoe doth fit just a bit too satisfactorily here.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 01:45 AM

Don, reportedly Peck was doing scenes and noticed Lee weeping quietly behind the camera, and went up to her. When he asked her why she said she was crying because they were filming a perfect image of her book.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 12:14 PM

Is it 'normal' for 'so-called liberals' to make such a commotion out of every LITTLE nano-non-important-trivia, and blow it out of proportion such as, to whom a candidate MIGHT have named his kid after??????!!!!???
Jeez!..Get a life.....

GfS

P.S....outside of the bottle!
Un-fucking-believable!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 12:29 PM

For a look at an Ayn Rand "ideal" world rent "Mad Max After the Thunderdome"...

In her world there is no sharing... Just fighting...

No thanks...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 01:18 PM

Just a thought..........

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 04:02 PM

GfS:—    "Is it 'normal' for 'so-called liberals' to make such a commotion out of every LITTLE nano-non-important-trivia, and blow it out of proportion such as, to whom a candidate MIGHT have named his kid after??????!!!!???"

No, considering the intellectual level of the average voter these days, it's definitely NOT normal.

But such bits of "trivia" give one a good indication of the premises a candidate's (or any person's, for that matter) philosophies and beliefs are based on, which, in turn, can give a pretty good clue as to how he or she would behave once in office.

Even moreso if, later on, the person tries to deny it or cover it up.

One does need to pay attention if one is going to be an intelligent voter. Or campaign worker.

Or human being.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 08:29 PM

Don: "No, considering the intellectual level of the average voter these days, it's definitely NOT normal."

Agreed!
Maybe WE the people should object to the dumbing down, of the populous, through the propaganda media, and help safeguard each other, from their antics!...Which, as you know, I've been trying to do, even on here...but ..well you know...some indoctrinations have certainly taken a strong foothold...even with people who should know better!!

GfS

P.S. We do have a vehicle........MUSIC!

I thought this was cool for a bit of honesty!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 08:39 PM

I don't know if Mr. Paul named his son after Ayn, or if Romney drove for 12 hours with a diarrhetic dog on his car roof, or if Newt nailed half of DC while impeaching Clinton for his unworthy peccadilloes, or if Santorum is just a hate-filled hatey-guy.
What I do know is that, as a liberal democrat, I wish my guy was running against better people. You know, for the sake of the country and all that.
Just once I'd like to go into the voting booth and say "I don't know who to vote for; they're all so good." sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Songwronger
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 10:00 PM

The Fountainhead is a very strong book. Dynamic. Place several headstrong people on a collision course and stand back tosee what happens. I couldn't work up much interest in Rand's other fiction, but The Fountainhead is a great book. In my opinion.

Odd how this degenerated into trash talking about Ron Paul's family. And I'd be curious to know who a liberal democrat considers to be "my guy." Do you mean Obama? He's not a liberal. He's a banker's representative. The banks are the new robber barons, so Obama's kind of a headstrong Randian character, in a way, working to place the interests of the banks ahead of the interests of the rabble.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Songwronger
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 10:05 PM

•Obama's 1st Chief of Staff was Rahm Emmanuel, who was on the board at Freddie Mac when it was plagued with corruption and accounting scandals

•Obama's 2nd Chief of Staff, Bill Daley (of the Chicago mob Daleys) was (is) VP at JP Morgan Chase

•Obama's 3rd Chief of Staff is Jacob Lew from Citibank, where "the unit he oversaw invested in a hedge fund that bet on the housing market to collapse."

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 10:35 PM

It's well beyond Ron Paul...

It's about an entire segment of rich people, most who have cheated and continue to cheat, who have used power and corruption to benefit them at the detriment of others...

Rand is fine with that... After all, in her perfect world it is all about dogs eating other dogs who, in turn, eat other dogs... It's all about failure by those who should have known better than to play by the rules... Tough shit... You should have cheated... You should have stole... You should have used your daddy's money to change the rules...

John Galt is no hero... He is a thug...

Ayn Rand would oppose the interstate highway system... She would have toll roads, toll sidewalks, toll air, toll gravity and toll everything else where rich people steal the poor shmo's shit and the poor shmo's labor everyday... That is Ayn Rand's "personal responsibility" world... Were the rich stay rich and everyone else just works as the rich's slave class...

Too bad, you losers... If you didn't want to be losers you should have picked rich parents... Eat shit and die you losers... Next time pick rick parents like we did...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 11:31 PM

I'm beginning to think that these current political issues REALLY ARE all about "class warfare." Ayn Rand's writing certainly go to the heart of the matter.

If there's anything I've learned from my 174 years, it's that this struggle, the rich against the poor, will NEVER end. It will go on and on and on.

These days I find that music, and catching a trout on a fly line, is quite theraputic! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 11:35 PM

Too bad there isn't a "like" button on Mudcat!

✔^Like

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 11:36 PM

Ya' gotta do both, Bob...

Look out for yourself and your own peace of mind but know that Marx was correct... The cheated will always try to stop the cheaters... Human nature to not live like slaves...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 02:39 AM

Deckman: "I'm beginning to think that these current political issues REALLY ARE all about "class warfare."

FINALLY!!..A light bulb shineth!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 02:58 AM

It's an old story!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,skivee, guesting in
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 10:47 AM

I love the depth and breadth of discussion on ms. Rand's work. Boy-oh-boy I never would have guessed that this thread would have lasted to 100.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 11:12 AM

Skivee: "I love the depth and breadth of discussion on ms. Rand's work. Boy-oh-boy I never would have guessed that this thread would have lasted to 100."

Well, some knuckleheads spent WAY too much time on stupid minutia....Here, here's a song, just for them..

The depth of the question

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 02:41 PM

And some knuckleheads are so self-absorbed they wouldn't notice a Tyrannosaurus Rex until it bit 'em on the ass.

Minutia indeed!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 03:58 PM

Or for that matter, a Republican until it bit him on the ass.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 04:03 PM

"do what you want, because there's no reason to do otherwise."

That's the motto of the current Republican Party,and the first plank in their 2012 platform, ain't it?

Exploitation R Us.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 04:06 PM

Well, GFS, anybody who isn't enjoying this conversation is certainly welcome to walk away and do something else.

landscape painting is reputed to be soothing

While I didn't enjoy much of what I read by Rand, I found most of the comments of those that actually like her work to be quite worthy of reflection and comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 05:09 PM

Below (somewhat related to this thread) is a copy of a post that one of my FB contacts shared.... as much as I dislike what it says, I am honest enough to admit I do see some logic and some truth in it. This does not mean I'm a convert to capitalism, as I will forever hold onto my beliefs in the humanitarism of socialism. I also am aware that my personal views are utopian in nature. But I do recognize the fault in humans (poor and rich) that greed, jealousy, egotism distrust, lust for power, clannishness of the classes do overtake all humane elements (sad to say).

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 05:41 PM

number 6 ... I find your posting (above) very interesting. I wonder what you would make of this true story ...

100 years ago, when I was younger, I taught beginning guitar classes at my local community college. I did this for five years and I also helped to put on some three day folk festivals. It was fun, I had classes with grandparents and their grandchildren in the same class. This local interest in guitar, and folk music, caught on and hoots, concerts, etc., started popping up. This was between 1974 and 1979.

As my class, "beginning guitar", was an elective, on the first night of each class, I asked who in this class was taking it "for credit." To those that raised their hands, I asked them to speak with me after class. I then told them that, because they were taking it "for credit", their grade would be an "A". Everyone else got something less.

The class was very happy when the news leaked out. And, I didn't hear any complaints from the administration!

I haven't remembered that story until I read this thread again! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 05:58 PM

That merely demonstrates that not all economists understand political systems or logic. Who is suggesting no differential at all in salaries? If he (or she) wants to argue about the effect of different ratios of top 5%:median salries, do so, but don't be naïve enough to insist on a 1:1 as the basis

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 06:26 PM

DMcG ... a question: Why shouldn't a 1:1 ratio be the basis? bob(dekman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 06:39 PM

Communism, at least theoretically, may claim that everyone should have the same salary. But I know of no mainstream political group that would call themselves socialist that would suggest the ratio of top salaries to the median should be restricted to, say 10:1 never mind 1:1.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 06:42 PM

... And I've certainly not heard Obama say it!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 06:53 PM

This entire idea of everyone making the same amount of money is nothin' but right wing horse shit... No one on the left has come within a gazillion miles of suggesting that...

Horse shit is horse shit...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 06:53 PM

Number 6, these are all the kind of arguments that Ayn Rand put forth. And they all sound very glib. But they are simplistic. And wrong.

First of all, one is making an unwarranted and prejudicial leap of logic to use an expression like "Obama's socialism." This makes all kinds of assumptions without substantiation.

There is a big difference between earning an A in class on one's own merit, and obtaining a huge wad of money from others by offering loans they may need (mortgages, for example), bamboozle them into accepting usurious rates that will have them paying out four or five times the value of the house, and then, if they get into financial straits, taking the house away from them and keeping the money they've already paid in.

When those who "earn" the high grades do so by stealing them from the students who have to struggle—that's not anywhere near analogous to the described classroom situation.

I really hear Ayn Rand talking here!

####

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

No, but you can even things out so that one portion of the population is not living in abject poverty while the other has more wealth than they can spend in dozens of lifetimes and are living in lavish luxury.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

Not necessarily. I am receiving a regular monthly Social Security check. I paid into the system during my working years, and that money is mine. It's owed to me. That was the deal!!

But there are those who SAY that things like Social Security are unearned and undeserved government largess.

By the way, banks and financial institutions call that an "annuity." They think it's fine when they do it.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

True. Such as, say, building and maintaining public roads, bridges, infrastructure in general, maintaining police and fire departments for the protection of citizens, maintaining a military for protection from external enemies......

Taxes are the dues you pay to live in a civilized society.

And it's only right that those who benefit the most should pay the most.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

True. But the overall wealth remains the same.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

This simply doesn't happen, nor will it ever. It is an extremely rare person who lacks the ambition to "make it" in the real world and is willing to wait for others to take care of him. In fact, it's frequently more likely that the kid who is born in a mansion will be content to live off papa's dough than to do something to actually create wealth.

This classroom example is another "John Carter on Barsoom" example. It makes a good story, and both Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan loved that kind of thing. Remember Reagan's example of the "welfare queen?" He went on about how she was working the system and living in the lap of luxury from her welfare checks, and it turned out after considerable investigation, that she was a figment of Reagan's imagination. No such person. Nor could it have happened. But a lot of Republicans bought it!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 07:06 PM

Public Education: Socialism

Roads: Socialism

Police: Socialism

Parks: Socialism

Fire departments: Socialism

Defense: Socialism

Sewage treatment plants: Socialism

City water: Socialism

Airports: Socialism

Stadiums: Socialism

Sidewalks: Socialism

Dams and levies: Socialism

Postal Service: Socialism

I mean, let's get real... Every industrialized country on the planet and many that aren't are socialistic countries... So for folks to accuse Obama as being a "socialists" is laughable... Where it may make folks feel all warm and fuzzy it also makes them either liars or morons...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 07:54 PM

I knew that Obama thing mentioned in that post of mine would throw it all off. Let's don't get hung up on Obama, and let's just leave him out of the equation. Anyway, Obama's socialism is far from a being socialist .... That post of mine relates (in very simplistic terms) to Ayn Rand's philosophy, and yes in part (in all honesty) it does make some sense. let's face it.

Arrogance, distrust, greed (for money and/or power) are the bane of human existence. That is why capitalism (Ayn Rand) and socialism (Karl Marx) will never succeed.

Bobert ...that list of yours is not socialism at all .... it's all part and parcel of any government albeit liberal, or conservative.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:04 PM

No, it's all socialism whereas the general public owns a portion of those things, though their ineterest may be very small...

Do not confuse economic and political systems...

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:13 PM

I don't understand why people get so upset, and yes angry over the writings of Ayn Rand, or on the other side of the spectrum Karl Marx. There is nothing to be frightened of. What does concern me more than any of the writings of these two are the human elements that regardless of political philosophy overrides any humane treatment and basic rights of all humans.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:17 PM

ok ... Bobert ...that list of yours is not socialism at all .... it's all part and parcel of any government albeit liberal, or conservative and either of their economic principles.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:26 PM

Define socialism, bill...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:45 PM

to make it easy I scammed this off of The Fee Dictionary ....

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 08:55 PM

Well, bill... If you just take the wiki definition which includes:

1. social OWNership and

2. cooperative management of the economy

...then the US, as well as most industrialized countries fall into those categories...

Who OWNS all the things I listed above???

The US economy runs on an infrastructure managed by whom???

Get it???

Ain't rocket science here...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 09:07 PM

Geeesh Bobert .... I was keeping it simple and to the point ....below is the 3 first paragraphs on Wiki .... which pretty well defines what the Free Dictionary defined it as.

What you listed above are the basic principles of any democratic and yes un-democratic government adheres to .... you forgot to add the one point where it's the government job to ensure the trains run on time ....   ;-)

Anyway here's the first 3 paragraphs from Wiki if anyone want to take the tiem to read.

Socialism play /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/ is an economic system characterized by social ownership or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.[2] There are many variations of socialism and as such there is no single definition encapsulating all of socialism.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organized within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]

A socialist economic system would consist of an organization of production to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital, and accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time.[5][6] Distribution of output would be based on the principle of individual contribution.

As a political movement, socialism includes a diverse array of political philosophies, ranging from reformism to revolutionary socialism. Proponents of state socialism advocate for the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as a strategy for implementing socialism. Social democrats advocate redistributive taxation in the form of social welfare and government regulation of capital within the framework of a market economy.[7] In contrast, anarchism and libertarian socialism propose direct worker's control of the means of production and oppose the use of state power to achieve such an arrangement, opposing both parliamentary politics and state ownership over the means of production.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 09:17 PM

Well, if one hates Obama then, yeah, you take the "collective ownership" of everything... Mean of production... Air... Gravity, Etc...

Problem is that nothing these days is *pure*... What we have are hybrids of this and that...

One could argue that China is a "communist" country, meaning that everything in controlled by the government but, in reality, China is a hybrid, too... There are "flaming capitalists" operating in not only China but Russia... Sweden, thought to be a "socialist" country is highly capitalistic...

Let's get real here, bill... There are no "pure" economies... Even Cuba has recently allowed people to own businesses... Is Cuba a capitalist country???

Bottom line??? We are all hybrids... The US is very much socialistic when it comes to public ownership of lots of stuff (see list above) and very much a capitalist country and lots of stuff in between...

To argue differently is to turn ones back on the real world...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 09:31 PM

BTW, in Ayn Rand's world everything would be privatized... Little Suzie and her dog, Spot, riding her trike down the sidewalk in front of her house would be billed to Little Suzie's parents thru a little chip in Little Suzie that deducts money from Little Suzie's parents account every time that Little Suzie rides her bike down that sidewalk in front of her house...

Ayn Rands says, "Tough shit... You should have bought that sidewalk rather than let Boss Hog Sidewalks, Inc. from buying it..."

That is the Any Rand world... Everything is owned by some person or corporation and the rest of the world are renters... Only the rich own... Everyone else rents... How is this all that different from slavery???

Guess who is buying all these foreclosures??? Give up??? Rich people and they are renting them back to their new slave class...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 10:06 PM

Bobert, ol' pal, I think you have it all wrong. We's socialist thro8ugh and through. Could you imagine an Merica where Ms. Rand's philosophies prevail. Somebody who doesn't pay the fire department would have to watch their home burn while the firemen laughed,business interests would write laws, and the cops would have given those Occupy New York punks a good whacking with nightsticks and pepper spray. I mean, hey, there's just no chance that crap like that would happen in the good 'ol'USofA, because...ah...hang a sec...

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 10:11 PM

You be da' man, Skivz... I mean, complete pinko commie... I bet you write left handed... If not, you've enjoyed too many left hand cigarettes... That's the way I see it...

But then again these Costco glasses ain't all that good... Cheap, but not all that accurate...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 11:04 PM

geeezuz H. ...... I never knew it as this ..... United Socialist States of America ..... great idea for a song ... lemme see now... yes .... back in the USSA, you don't know how lucky your are boy (to be sung along to the tune of Chuck Berry's surfin U.S.A) ... ok, but now on the serious side .... us Canucks better be careful ....having a big socialist country sitting right on our doorstep ....whew

wiLLiam ..... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 11:10 PM

Yeah, that's about it, bill... You do have a big socialist state below you... But you have nothing to fear... Europe is socialist... China is... Russia is... Pick a country and you'll find socialism... Welcome to the real world...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 11:14 PM

..... I've been on the Madcat too long, and too much for one day .... think I'll turn off the old puter and get back to the real world.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 01:50 AM

From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jan 12 - 07:06 PM

Public Education: Socialism

Roads: Socialism
Police: Socialism
Parks: Socialism
Fire departments: Socialism
Defense: Socialism
Sewage treatment plants: Socialism
City water: Socialism
Airports: Socialism
Stadiums: Socialism
Sidewalks: Socialism
Dams and levies: Socialism
Postal Service: Socialism



Though, that is true...
.................and too much of it seems to be the hope of MANY..and is What?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:45 AM

. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

True. Such as, say, building and maintaining public roads, bridges, infrastructure in general, ...

I'd not even go so far as 'true'. If we simply substituted 'the market' for 'the government', we'd get to 'The market cannot give to anybody anything that the market does not first take from somebody else.'
Is that also true? If it is, then there can be no growth, which would be an odd stance for an economist. Otherwise, adapting Margeret Thatcher's famous (mis)quote that there is no such thing as society, then there is no such thing as the market: there are only market-traders. Then you need to come up with an explanation why one particular trader, the government, is at a unique disadvantage to other traders whereby they all have the means to conjure something out of nothing but it is inherently impossible for a government.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:59 AM

So, are you saying that people are governed by what they buy?..or what they want?..whether it be a bigger government?...bigger market??...or bigger 'wants'??......'What's in your wallet?'

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 07:39 AM

Exactly, DMcG... And "the market" has finally attained what it has wanted for a long time: complete control of the government... It has been it's goal going back to FDR and turned the corner in the 80s when it partnered with the Reagan administration to bust unions... Since then "the market" has been in the driver's seat and the working class just indentured slaves with no parole date, juts death...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 09:47 AM

"And "the market" has finally attained what it has wanted for a long time: complete control of the government."

"Since then "the market" has been in the driver's seat and the working class just indentured slaves "

Bobert .... you make statements such as those and then you previously declared the US is a socialist state.

In a Capitalist economic system the market (means of production, money/captial) is controlled by private business and let's face it these days private business are $Big$ corporations. I agree, in the U.S. these corporations have the government serving them (definately not the people). The profits flow up to the shareholders and a little, little bit trickles down to the workers, the indentured slaves as you say. Under capitalism everyone works for their own wealth and you can say their own welfare.

In a Socialist economic system the market (means of production money/capital) is controlled or owned by the government were everyone works for wealth that is in turn distributed by the government to the workers. You get the drift. I certainly would not believe that Obama would go for that.

Just because the government controls the post office, controls road repairs, fire and police departments airports and ensuring trains run on time does not constitute the country being 'socialist'. You btw mention education .... in a socialist state university education would be free .... you certainly don't see that in the U.S.

Socialist countries ... there a very few and have been very few ... man's obsession with greed and lust for power probably has been to blame for that.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 10:17 AM

Wrong, Bill... I never called the US a "socialist state"... What have have said - over and over, BTW - is that the US, like every other country, is a hybrid state... Every country has some level of socialism and every country has some level of capitalism...

It the mix that makes them different...

There is no such thing as a a "socialist state" or a "capitalist state", for that matter...

The problem here is that the Republican party in particular has done a masterful job with their PR and demonized words - as if these words were "absolutes* - and once demonized these words take o a life of their own and can be used as weapons... Rather than accept the reality that all states are hybrids the Republicans use their "black 'n white", "good 'n evil" demonetization saying that Obama is a "socialist" knowing that they have carefully laid groundwork with their massive PR that will scare people...

A "socialist"??? Horrors... Masses running thru the streets like from some 60's Japanese horror movie...

One request, bill, por favor... If you are going to debate/discuss please por favor don't misquote me and then argue with me using stuff that I haven't written... That is intellectually dishonest...

Gotta go...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 10:19 AM

... oh and I should mention that list of yours are services provided by federal and local governments that are paid for by the hard troden workers via taxes, such as sales tax and income tax taken out of their ever shrinking pay checks .... the wealthy corporate barons pay little when it comes to income tax .... yup, definately not socialism. Smells more like capitalism to me. The U.S. is so far off the radar when it comes decent health care, care for the old, care for the young that it cannot even call itself a social welfare state.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 10:48 AM

We agree on that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 11:45 AM

Bobert I think we agree on pretty well everything .... my problem is understanding (and it's probably the difference of our interpretation of socialism) the deep fear many Americans have on a government providing adequate care on it's citizens ... i.e. healthcare, good education, decent care for all it's people ... what some may call socialist benefits, and which I call just providing the basic humane rights on which all people require and deserve.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 01:20 PM

Yup, that has been my point all along, bill... The right uses "socialism" as a scare word against anything that our government might do that provides the population with the basic needs...

By pointing out to them that there are many things our government does that might be considered socialistic, including bailing out Wall Street, we defuse their scare tactics...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:10 PM

Don't have time to cuss and discuss at the moment, but I want to make this observation:

I have never considered myself to be a socialist (note lower-case "s"), but the more I look at such things as surveys of which countries in the world have the happiest, most contented citizens, they all turn out to be ones that are heavily socialistic. Free (government supported, tax financed) education, including college, good quality free health care, care for the elderly and disabled, many other things, along with limits on how many hours someone can be required to work, mandated vacations (so many weeks per year), and all kinds of other benefits. Yes, their taxes are high and they bitch about that, but when pressed on the matter they wouldn't change a thing!

The Scandinavian countries in general and a couple of others. Last I read, Denmark tops the "contented citizens index."

Americans have tried to turn "socialism" into a swear-word. Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Finns just smile and shake their heads.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 06:19 PM

Don ... With great respect ... because you KNOW just how much I love and respect you ... I'd suggest a slight change to your last posting. You said; "Americans have tried to turn socialism into a swear word ..."

I would respectfully suggest that it is NOT Americans doing that ... it's those %&^^*(%^$%# republicans! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 07:19 PM

Yup!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 07:38 PM

Yup!!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 09:37 PM

who are the %&^^*%^$%# republicans may I dare ask ..... ;-)

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 09:47 PM

ANY AND ALL republicans ...

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 09:52 PM

Yeah, seems that all of them are willing to let 1/2 of the population fall into poverty...

Tough shit...

The Charlotte Observer reported in September that 1/2 of American families live at 125% of the official (ha) poverty rate or less...

Do the math...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:37 AM

"I don't understand why people get so upset, and yes angry over the writings of Ayn Rand,"

I'm not mad that Rand wrote her horseshit. I'm mad because the Republicans elect people naive and stupid enough to believe it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 01:51 AM

bILL

Your example assumes that the only reason that the students are there is for grades. It is not realistic. some students, probably many students would study to learn. They would also go to the administration of the school for not rewarding their work and and for lying about the President.

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

In the 50's we had the highest taxes in history and the most prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

Horse shit. Society pays for poor people one way or another. Less welfare, more prisons, also, the money the poor people receive comes back into the economy and eventually back to government coffers.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

Of course it can. it can print money.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

Of course you can. You cannot multiply wealth with tax break which rich people use to buy Italian cars and invest in China.


5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

I know a lot of people who have used Unemployment Insurance and welfare in Canada and a few here. Almost none would not have preferred to work.


But what Obama wants to do is take the taxes and invest the way Eisenhower invested in the highway system. That is not socialism. It is conservative capitalism. We need to compete with China and Europe. If we don't if we just give tax breaks where much of the investment gets exported, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 02:32 AM

We have a capitalist/socialist form of government, so to speak. The social programs, enumerated by Bobert, are, or should be, to maintain the infrastructure, and provide government services. Fine. However, if everything were government run, and owned, where would the money come from to pay for all this? Taxes?..From who?...The government owned and run system, who gets their revenues from borrowing????..and the interest comes from where?..more borrowing??
Now if capitalism goes berserk, where 'anything for a buck' means screwing people around, such as we have seen, and the bankers and Wall Street crowd, make their money, from transferring funds, from here to there, and a profit is gleaned every time it passes through their hands, NOTHING is produced, and no wealth is generated. Just money passing around! To argue one side, over the other, to where things get out of balance, lends itself to the two extremes 'duking' it out, and begins a remedial cycle of one side trying to 'fix' the damage from the other side of the extreme.....and remember, every paycheck, written by the government, comes from BORROWED money..and as it is now, our collected tax money only pays the interest for that BORROWED money. Either way, the productivity, of a nation, is being squelched and the people hurt.....and by the way, WHO is arranging this borrowing and lending??.......................capitalists!....and that system is corrupted...affecting the whole.
...and Bobert, who has just released a CD, FOR MONEY, should get that money for his efforts.
He could always share all his revenues to be divided to all the other participants of Mudcat, who are down on their finances, or to Mudcat itself, for providing the 'infrastructure' to advertize his product....I mean if it was purely 'socialistic'.....but in practice, I think he would object...the same way people also object, and fear the notion that all their creativity, and productiveness should be forcibly taken from them, and re-distributed...with NO say as to who and why.
Nor would he be too happy to have all his 'profits' gleaned from him, by greedy 'middlemen', who would make more than he, as the artist who WORKED for years, with his talent to produce his music.
That, my dearly beloved, is just common sense...

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 07:31 PM

No country on Earth has a government that owns and runs everything, China, Russia, Cuba included...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:51 PM

Is the Vatican a country?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 09:54 PM

Heck, Skivz... The Vatican is a hybrid, too... Go tyhere and the6y'll sell you anything but the underwear yer wearing... Might sell it back to you, too...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 02:05 AM

Bobert: "No country on Earth has a government that owns and runs everything....."

That's R-i-i-ight!....Ever wonder why?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 09:40 AM

No, I don't... I don't do "absolutes" when it comes to political science...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 10:50 AM

The Big Lie about social programs, repeatedly flaunted by business-centric thinkers, is that they are Socialism.

They are not socialism. They are social programs. There is a huge difference.

The Government of the United States does not, and has no desire to, own the means of production. It consistently encourages and admires the private ownership and development of the means of production.

Let's stop being stupid about this abuse of the word "socialism". Caring for human beings and trying to build a more perfect union is not "socialism". It's human decency, a characteristic which informed the the Founding Fathers, but seems strangely lacking in the ranks of Boehner's Boneheads.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 11:26 AM

Yeah, sorta like the difference in structure, of, let's say Apple, versus Solyndra!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 06:08 PM

I'm not afraid of the term socialism. First of all, there never has been a purely socialist society but there have been socialist leanings in our democracy,
Social Security and the post office as an example.

Socialism was intended to be a political system that cares for human needs
and democratic unity. It was perverted in the former Soviet Union and other places in the world. The US could use more socialism in its governance. It doesn't have to be a complete socialism but the role of government needs to be helpful for its citizens, particularly when it comes to health insurance, and parity for the opportunities for all economic levels.

As Thom Hartmann says, we don't need the government making our shirts or clothes but unions are important so that we don't have 23 "right to work for less"
states.

Ayn Rand is a true reactionary. She grew up in a dictatorship in the USSR and emigrated to America where she formulated her reactionary ideas. Her ideas
are half-baked and inconsistent, wanting complete autonomy while in her later years drawing Social Security benefits. Her romanticism of the entrepreneur
who claws his/her way to the top doesn't take into account the role of corporate managed CEO's who are not the rugged individualists that she lauds. They are corporation men/women who are part of a corporate decision-making system and even if they are making robber's wages today, they still must answer to others.

Perhaps if she wanted to applaud someone who was true to her warped idea of success, she could champion the late Jimmy Hoffa, a rugged individualist.

Or even Karl Marx, a rugged individualistic economist.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 07:17 PM

Okay, GfinS... Maybe you'd like tell the folks how the money that was "lent" Solyndra was actually spent and what collateral the tax payers still hold...

But I don't think you'll answer because no other Obama haters will answer it... They probably don't have a clue about any of this other than link right wing bloggers who also are clueless and want to remain clueless...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 08:02 PM

..or what determined the 'loan/grant'(?) in the first place...You'd think if the money came from a demand, rather than an idealistic wish, tied to an agenda, perhaps the way it was allocated, or spent would have been with a little more forethought, scrutiny and care. Wouldn't you think so, if it was your money, from your company?...that you worked hard to get, in the first place??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 08:40 PM

So you won't answer that one... Okay, answer this one... Do you realize that the loan guarantee was begun and pushed heavily onto the Obama administration by the Bush folks who had been pushing for the loan going back to 2006???

No???

Geeze... How could you miss that, GFinS...

Let me guess... Maybe because you are getting 100% of your information from "Americans for Prosperity", the Koch brother's BS propaganda machine...

Why don't you spend a little time getting some facts and quit with the propaganda that BIG OIL has crammed into your head???

What??? You don't do facts??? Why not??? They get in the way of the right winged narrative??? Geeze... Must suck to be stuck in Propagandaville...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 09:38 PM

Both of you high thinkers is gonna be able to agree that the money wasn't over-sighted very well.
The difference is that your Libertines will get pissed that lots of public funds were wasted on a scam operation that contributed nothing to advancing solar power generation.
Conservators will simultaneously gleefully selectively misquote Obama to make it seem like this was his personal Teapot Dome scandal,claim that the misquotes are the inside story that the libertine media is suppressing, link it to Obamacare (tm), claim that it proves that Obama is a foreign muslin who makes god-fearing women get pregnant, have mandatory abortions and live on welfare.
In either case there should be jail time for those who scammed, whatever their politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 10:02 PM

No, it wasn't... But let's look at the realities... The money went into building a manufacturing plant which, BTW, we taxpayers now own and will be used/bought somewhere down the road... It is equity...

Second, in building the plant, tens of thousands of people had jobs... That money went r4ight into local economies and those folks who built it weren't on "unemployment"...

But BIG OIL doesn't want anyone to know this...

BIG OIL hates solar... They are perfectly willing to sabotage it any way they can and let the Chinese own solar... They only love oil, oil and more oil...

Two administrations were involved in Solyndra but to hear GFinS and BIG OIL tell it it was all on Obama... That is BIG OIL's BIG LIE....

One of us is a "high thinker", Skivz... The other just parroting propaganda... You pick...

B~