Ayn Rand

[RussellK]

We have a resident billionaire in our town. He married into the Walmart family. His son is a pretty good athlete. Good enough he could have made the college basketball team as a walk on. But he was offered, and he accepted, an athletic scholarship. There are only so many slots offered. There was a lot of criticism that money used for a guy that could easily afford his education could and should have gone to a more needy student. The billionaire cried foul. After all, a scholarship is an honor. Why should he not be entitled to the same honor as a poor fellow. I don't know. This one was murky for me. No so for the University. They saw the endowment coming their way very clearly.

[steve74baywin]

We have a resident billionaire in our town. He married into the Walmart family. His son is a pretty good athlete. Good enough he could have made the college basketball team as a walk on. But he was offered, and he accepted, an athletic scholarship. There are only so many slots offered. There was a lot of criticism that money used for a guy that could easily afford his education could and should have gone to a more needy student. The billionaire cried foul. After all, a scholarship is an honor. Why should he not be entitled to the same honor as a poor fellow. I don't know. This one was murky for me. No so for the University. They saw the endowment coming their way very clearly.

Let me see what happens when I break this down using my rights/property rights stance.
I'd start with the scholarship, who owns it? Whose property? Probably not one person but instead a group. You would think or at least like to think that the group behind the scholarship would want it to go to someone who couldn't afford it. So first it should be them who uses discretion, or give the money THEY own to whom they want. If not, there loss, up to those who give the scholarship the money to evaluate if that is the right thing to do.
Then there is the family that took the scholarship, they didn't pay into I would guess, they can afford the school without it, so you would think they wouldn't take it, but not many people won't take something that is offered to them. (If you were giving a brand new VW or fully restored one from a local business, you'd probably take it even though some other family in town could use a car more, not to say you wouldn't later help someone else out)The person who is doing the offering has the choice.
It would be neat to know more about the Scholarship group? IE, who funds it, is it voluntary funding? If it came from involuntary tax payers money that is even worse.


Interesting bringing up scholarships. Sorta off topic, but
I have spoken of Cecil Rhodes in the past.
He is one who is known for things like "say whatever it takes to get elected, cause it don't matter if you don't get elected, then once elected do what you want" and "we will use the two party system, making the people think they choose different men with different views". He was also big on round table groups that led to things like the CFR and Trilateral Commission.
When he died he gave a large amount of his money to starting up The Rhodes ScholarShip Trust. http://www.rhodesscholar.org/
It is for people going to Oxford, I think you will find many if not most of the people who get these scholarships come from money and didn't really need it and also have a certain Ideal or believe. I will spare you further conspiracy theory stuff ATT. Many people in Obama's, Clintons and Bush's cabinet are/were Rhodes Scholars.

[ruckman101]

Ayn Rand is an apologist for the elites of laissez faire capitalism. Her views echo those of supremacists.


neal

[steve74baywin]

Ayn Rand is an apologist for the elites of laissez faire capitalism. Her views echo those of supremacists.


neal

I think Ayn Rand had faults and short comings. In other words I think I could do a much better job at it it than her. I don't about writing novels, but explaining a philosophy anyway.

She lacked certain knowledge,
I don't think she knew enough about the conspiracies going on in this country.
I think she emphasized the Altruism and selfishness stuff too much and mostly couldn't explain it well enough. Maybe she didn't emphasize it too much, maybe the media did. IE, it is to show how one extreme being pushed on people is to their demise, and not really something anyone does anyway, no one really giving themselves completely to others, it was more of a guilt trip put on people by the leaders to get them into these social programs, yet in every day life hardly anyone is a Altruist. . Kinda a doublethink issue. She was speaking from her place and time in this world. She came from Russia at a young age.
Her principles are sound, most things people think are bizarre or crazy does stem from a lack of understanding, part of that due to the usual media crap, the other part due to a lack in her communications skills, probably due to spending her first twenty years as a Russian.

Edited for grammar and typos.

[BellePlaine]

I associate Rand’s values with encouraging a person's self-esteem. To me, self-esteem is an expression of self-love and worth. I think that having a strong degree of self-esteem will help a person improve (perhaps even overcome) every challenge that anyone could face. It should be fostered.

[ruckman101]

I associate Rand’s values with encouraging a person's self-esteem. To me, self-esteem is an expression of self-love and worth. I think that having a strong degree of self-esteem will help a person improve (perhaps even overcome) every challenge that anyone could face. It should be fostered.

I agree. Nothing wrong with self-esteem. However, if that sense of self-love and worth is based on demonizing others as inferiors, then that isn't a true expression of self-esteem.


neal

[steve74baywin]

Hey, Steve. How are you?

You asked if anyone has read Rand. I assume you were looking for thoughts and feelings about the writer's work, so I will share mine.

I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. As novels, they were lacking, but I would guess that many people who are into Rand aren't as concerned with the literary aspects of her writing: they are more interested in the ideological/political content of her work (which I did not find persuasive--I read Sylvester's thread, so I know I am in the minority here. If anything I say comes off as disrespectful instead of disagreeing, I apologize in advance. I really enjoy reading and thinking about opposing viewpoints).

I think that a case could be made that Rand's work is the libertarian/conservative equivalent of a liberal/hippie book like Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. For example, one of the primary thrusts of her work is that capitalism works best as a system that is entirely free of government regulation. My view of recent events (the economic collapse, for example) and the role that supposedly rationally self-interested people played in them suggests differently, but that's just my view.

Her books could be viewed as self-affirming, because they do encourage individuals to achieve their goals and focus on the self in the pursuit of one's dreams and goals. It is the degree to which they stress a view that could be called egocentric that prevents me from fully getting on board the Galt Line. I think that you can/should stress the importance of the individual and the importance of him/her pursuing excellence without viewing a great number of your fellow citizens as "moochers and looters," two groups that, in the worlds of Rand's novels, appear to be majorities. I am not in disagreement with the idea that there are people who live on government handouts (justly or unjustly), and I believe that steps should be taken to end this practice for those who are, in fact, just lazy (a group that my personal experience has shown to exist), but I don't believe that in our world, the existence of one group truly affects the other. Our world is replete with brilliant people who have followed their dreams and achieved their goals. One of them just announced he would be resigning from the CEO position at Apple. A counter-argument would be that Jobs is only one example, but for the word genius to have meaning (and Rand stresses that the genius must be allowed to rise), its usage must be limited. I think a case could be made that Rand's theories about the difficulty of the brilliant ones achieving true success are more useful to those who are not geniuses and may be looking for someone to blame for their frustration over their own failure to ascend to whatever lofty pinnacles they have deemed success.

That's merely the view of an admitted non-genius.

Some feminists theorists (using the term here to refer to those who criticize literature from a feminist view point) really like Rand because of her portrayal of Dagney Taggart and her powerful treatment of sexuality: male, but especially female. In a time when much of culture was doing everything it could to deny that women had anything to do with sex, Rand did the exact opposite.

My aesthetic critique of these novels is that they are bloated, the characters are flat, and the sentence-level writing is uninspired.

Two cents given! Would love to hear other thoughts.

Hoping everyone in its path is unaffected by Irene,

Dave

Very nice, I appreciate that thoughtful post.
You are probably right that it was the philosophy most loved and not the literacy abilities.

What I would add or comment on that you posted is this.
I still think free markets are best, even though people will act in their own interest and we have to be vigilant, in a free society we need to be just that, free, and I would also like to point out we haven't had a free market systems in at least 100 years, so we can't fairly judge how that works. But, socialism and communism do seem to show how people stop trying and society almost collapses, but when people are free to do their dreams, things flourish. One of my personal views is that government needs to get out of the way and just protect our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and not be some giant protector with tons of laws and rules, that end up hindering, besides the fact that the very rich people we want protection from end up being the ones that influence government anyhow, so most of the rules end up being bad for us anyways.

[ruckman101]

Yes, Citizen's United is a very bad rule that hurts us. I'd like to see it repealed. Curious though, that the small government proponents want to roll away the rules that are actually good for us, but bad for greed.


neal

[ruckman101]

Laissez-faire proponents argued during the Irish potato famine that saw 1.5 million people die that to give the Irish free food would be an act against nature. Compassionate.


neal

[steve74baywin]

Yes, Citizen's United is a very bad rule that hurts us. I'd like to see it repealed. Curious though, that the small government proponents want to roll away the rules that are actually good for us, but bad for greed.


neal

We'd need to go rule by rule to sort this one out.
I have shown before that most rules that appear good of us the people would not be needed
if we just stuck to Individual Rights. That is right, They wouldn't be needed if we still had a gov that protected our Rights. Instead, people in power have gotten the people to think they need rules invading individual rights to get big corps to be fair. This thinking is how they got people to give up their rights. You Neal have pointed to what I see as an important part in messing up this free country. The point I make often, people were deceived into thinking they need the gov to violate someones rights to property for their own good, after they get the people to do this they have the people by the balls, cause the people have just begged the gov to throw away the very thing we fought for, protection of rights. So now the people rights are violated often, things are turned upside down and we now look to a mommy gov to tell us our rights.


Tell me more about this Potato famine.


Edited add, Citizens united can be good, but if they are united on freedom, not partisan politics created by the elites. What we have today is Citizens Divided by a conquering of the minds. People, not Citizens need to be united on freedom, not using force to stack cards a certain way. Citizens have been united to commit wrongs.

[ruckman101]

No spuds for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

I feel the heavy boot of repression on my neck from the EPA (sarcasm).

When I cite Citizens United, I'm referencing the Supreme Court decision granting Corporations personhood, and unlimited political donations of cash. Yeah, my $ free speech potential pales compared to BP. That's where the division between citizens is being fostered, encouraged, developed and exploited, by corporation's $ free speech, not the citizens themselves. They are being bought.


neal

[steve74baywin]

No spuds for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

I feel the heavy boot of repression on my neck from the EPA (sarcasm).

When I cite Citizens United, I'm referencing the Supreme Court decision granting Corporations personhood, and unlimited political donations of cash. Yeah, my $ free speech potential pales compared to BP. That's where the division between citizens is being fostered, encouraged, developed and exploited, by corporation's $ free speech, not the citizens themselves. They are being bought.


neal

I bet I can find alot of negatives that come from the EPA.

I did not find anything yet about "Laissez-faire proponents argued during the Irish potato famine that saw 1.5 million people die that to give the Irish free food would be an act against nature" yet, however, I did find that they had anything but a free society but instead "laws restricting the rights".

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29

Laws that restricted the rights of the Irish

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish Catholics had been prohibited by the penal laws from owning land, from leasing land; from voting, from holding political office; from living in a corporate town or within 5 mi (8.0 km) of a corporate town, from obtaining education, from entering a profession, and from doing many other things that are necessary in order to succeed and prosper in life. The laws had largely been reformed by 1793, and in 1829, Irish Catholics could again sit in parliament following the Act of Emancipation.

Seems like they had restrictive laws on the right of people to own property.
Sounds like they needed a Declaration of Independence like we got.

[ruckman101]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

It's exceedingly easy to enact and enforce restrictive laws against a group of people you feel are sub-human in comparison to your own superiority.

First paragraph under the "Europe" section.


neal

[steve74baywin]

When I cite Citizens United, I'm referencing the Supreme Court decision granting Corporations personhood, and unlimited political donations of cash. Yeah, my $ free speech potential pales compared to BP. That's where the division between citizens is being fostered, encouraged, developed and exploited, by corporation's $ free speech, not the citizens themselves. They are being bought.


neal

I missed this portion of your post first time around.

I don't know much about that. What I do think is the Corporation thing is out of hand and muddied.
Without getting into the history of corporations I think I can still cut threw this.
Corporations don't need any special laws. They are still owned by people, however there is fancy legal docs now making them a corporation. But, in the end, property rights still could prevail and if the government wasn't (as I say) turned upside down, on it's head, we wouldn't have this. Rights are inherent in us people, but a while ago this got flipped and people think rights are privileges the King or gov gives us, we took a major step backwards.
If gov was still views as being set up to protect our Individ Rights, as opposed to the grantor of privileges, then our rights would be protected, and a corp would not be able to violate our rights, and a corp actually still being owned, and those who own it would also have protection of their property rights. This would be a mute issue, there would be nothing to discuss just because some people got a legal thing created by lawyers called a corporation. This is an issue that is entered into the equation by the flipping on the head of this system, by the losing of a gov set up to protect the rights of humans.

[steve74baywin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

It's exceedingly easy to enact and enforce restrictive laws against a group of people you feel are sub-human in comparison to your own superiority.

First paragraph under the "Europe" section.


neal

I think that there falls under the smoke and mirrors section.
The mixing and merging of words, word magic, the tower of babel striking us.
I can't say too much on it. For starters we are talking about a country that isn't free like us, in fact it is the country of the King that we wrote the Declaration of Independence to. Whether a gov is to give free food to people would require us knowing things. If it ain't a free country and the people are peasants of the kingdom, then that there is the problem, they need to be free. For someone to site natural law and capitalism in a country and during a time when people couldn't own land and all the other things they couldn't do just seems odd. I'd say we are speaking a different language, that is I and them. Reminds me of when of what I used to say here, "begging the king for more scraps", over there that seems to have been the case, over here though we are not supposed to have a King.