Ayn Rand

[steve74baywin]

I am listening and looking into Ayn Rand thanks to this post by MConverse.... Anyone else familiar with Ayn Rand?

Oh wait, maybe I should pay her no attention, she doesn't have sealed, verified thoughts stamped by a minister of jesus.
http://www.aynrand.org

On liberals, conservatives, and freedom:

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?

Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King.

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive-- and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state-- but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.

[chitwnvw]

I read The Fountainhead. I seem to remember the end getting real preachy. It was a long time ago, what do I know...

[Quadratrückseite]

I just finished her book The Fountainhead, and am right now reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm about a third of the way through it. It's got some eerie parallels to today.
Sylvester talked about it awhile back:
viewtopic.php?t=2697&highlight=atlas+shrugged

Here's a good article on her:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/busin ... ref=slogin

I'm surprised you didn't find her sooner - she is linked to some of the founding principles of the Libertarian Party - her "philosophy" is know as Objectivism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertaria ... bjectivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)

[steve74baywin]

A blast from the past.
I thought there was a thread about Ayn Rand. I first heard of her on this site. I think there is another thread.
I really do appreciate the Free Speech Forum on this site.

[thesamwise4]

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

[Lanval]

Fun fact about Rand: She based her philosophy on a noted serial killer. To wit:

"She [Rand] headed for Hollywood, where she set out to write stories that expressed her philosophy—a body of thought she said was the polar opposite of communism. She announced that the world was divided between a small minority of Supermen who are productive and "the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent" who, like the Leninists, try to feed off them. He is "mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned." It is evil to show kindness to these "lice": The "only virtue" is "selfishness."
She meant it. Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough"

Nice, eh?

Now check this out ~ from Rand's description of Howard Roark (the protagonist of The Fountainhead)

"He was born without the ability to consider others." Kind of like Hickman...


Here's the original link ~ it's a slate article reviewing 2 of the recent biographies Rand


http://www.slate.com/id/2233966

Mike

[ruckman101]

Fun fact? Creepy.


neal

[Lanval]

Fun fact? Creepy.


neal

Sorry, not enough sarcasm there I guess. I dislike Rand, both because she's selfish and because she's dishonest.

Spent her later years scooping up Social Security, like the avaricious charlatan she was. Gov't help is wrong for other people, I guess.

Mike

[steve74baywin]

Fun fact? Creepy.


neal

Sorry, not enough sarcasm there I guess. I dislike Rand, both because she's selfish and because she's dishonest.

Spent her later years scooping up Social Security, like the avaricious charlatan she was. Gov't help is wrong for other people, I guess.

Mike

I wonder if she paid into Social Security? It does seem it is taken out of our incomes against our will. Doublethink. The amount of stuff people seem to conveniently sweep under the carpet is amazing. Why should she not take back a portion of money that was taken from her for that purpose? I doubt I will get an answer to that.
Some just like to throw around lies and hope no one catches it, as if he is is talking to elementary school kids.
How low is that to down someone with mis information? I say very, very low.

Edited to add
The Doublethink here is this.
I am almost certain of this, that we all know that money is taking from us for Social Security.
So if we pay into Social Security becuase the government says so and they say the money is to be given back to us for retirement, how come one speaks as if someone is taking a free hand out from the gov? Are they lacking in intelligence and or do they not have enough cognitive thought happening to put the two together? Or have they been conditioned to be repeaters of information, and they really don't know what they are saying, they are walking around in a trance state most of the time, or are they intentionally misleading to support their cause? Which of those three is this? Maybe there are more possibility's than those three.

Edited a 2nd time, to add
Lanval, my replies to you comes back as rude, but I want you to consider why.
Countless times you do more than just state your case or provide backing for it, you instead put so much effort in downing and insulting that you really do miss some very obvious things. Taking Social Security by a retired person who paid into it does not fall under a government handout, we pay into it. To attempt to throw a dig at Ayn Rand about being selfish to probably add to the two or more times you tried to say I believe in what I believe because I am selfish, is making you look pretty bad. You want to come on here tauting that you have all this college education, which I am sure has some value, but you instead blatantly mis-represent things. We aren't as dumb as you may think on here. I will keep showing the errors of your ways if you keep it up. What I honestly feel is happening is this. Your belief's are seriously being challenged, you then take this as a direct attack on your person, hence you then shift to more effort in taking me down, than discussing intelligently.

[Lanval]

There are no "errors in my ways" Steve.

Rand paid into Social Security, yes. But she took more than she paid in. Doesn't matter though; here friends who argued like her refused to take SS on ideological grounds. Rand didn't. Thus she is a hypocrite, not by opinion, but by example.

I don't think of this as an "I'm right ~ you're wrong" situation; you're free to believe what you want, and we can discuss that. But all discussion hinges upon being able to agree upon a set of shared premises from which the participants work forward. We don't seem to have those here, and I disagree with the premises you seem to hold, for the most part. Thus I argue from the position of: "Let's define what we can in real, objective terms" Once we get there, we can discuss what things mean/represent/signify/suggest.

I do think a stronger grounding in history, and an acceptance of certain facts (I mean facts in the literal way ~ actions that occurred regardless of your feeling about them) on your part would help. Also, you seem to usually assert we're the sheep and misled. Why is the majority always wrong, and you always right? Doesn't simple math suggest to you the problem with that approach?

My perception is that Rand was a dirtbag, and her ideas were based on a sick, twisted idea which she expressed pretty clearly in her diaries. I can't ignore this fact (doesn't matter how you feel about it ~ it's there), and don't feel you should either. In any case, as before, I wrote that not for you (because I know you disagree with my view on this) but to others who may not be aware of the intellectual origins of Rand's ideas, which I find despicable.

Note: I totally re-edited this to be less condescending and attacking; Russell's comment below might well apply to me (at least in this instance, if not others) so a tip O' the hat to RussellK. Russell ~ any little parts you need/want? Next time I hit the junkyard, I'll see if I can grab you something cool...

Mike
Mike

[RussellK]

She was a fruitcake plain and simple. I didn't know she was hypocritical also but somehow I'm not at all surprised.

And Steve? How about stopping with the condescending remarks, and the "one of us" remarks and the attitude that you alone have the answers, that a countering opinion couldn't possibly be correct. How about a discussion? You know? The kind that involves give and take. Something like really? I didn't know that. But I did read this. Because quite frankly while this train wreck might appeal to my prurient interest, something akin to a school yard squabble in the fifth grade, I'm not seeing the value. And maybe I'll share one other bit of insight. People with an agenda tend to swiftly lose their audience.

[steve74baywin]

She was a fruitcake plain and simple. I didn't know she was hypocritical also but somehow I'm not at all surprised.

And Steve? How about stopping with the condescending remarks, and the "one of us" remarks and the attitude that you alone have the answers, that a countering opinion couldn't possibly be correct. How about a discussion? You know? The kind that involves give and take. Something like really? I didn't know that. But I did read this. Because quite frankly while this train wreck might appeal to my prurient interest, something akin to a school yard squabble in the fifth grade, I'm not seeing the value. And maybe I'll share one other bit of insight. People with an agenda tend to swiftly lose their audience.

Russel, this reply of yours surprises me.
I have been fully engaged in a conversation in this thread and others. It should be clear, at least I would have thought, who came into the thread, made accusations that I and others needed to be corrected for our apparent errors. When I found info to support my belief's, the other person stopped responding
As far as the comments in this thread.
1)I am right on the Social Security issue. If you are forced to pay into it with the promise to get it back, that is not taking a hand out. That example is clearly tainted things to prove a point. In fact, it has become obvious in the other thread that he is doing that.
2) Is there prove she paid in less than she took out, counting inflation?

What I see happening here (on this board) (in other threads) again is this. Good efforts have been made by others to promote their view. They might have attempted to find facts to support what they have huge feelings about, but when they have failed to find facts and could no longer discuss, they have started insulting and using cheap shots.
Unfortunately I have let my self be suckered into that. I will not allow myself to be lowered into these pissing matches. My many unanswered good replies to others are there still in the post, and I will be here to reply again.

[RussellK]

I had an associate that constantly railed against all those leeches on welfare. Then she had a baby and found out she qualified for WIC. Then she stood in the cheese line and railed about all those leeches on welfare. I confronted her and she got pretty huffy about it saying she had a job - she paid her taxes - she was entitled to it. I guess she was applying the same logic. From my point of view there is a certain degree of ethical purity missing.

[steve74baywin]

I had an associate that constantly railed against all those leeches on welfare. Then she had a baby and found out she qualified for WIC. Then she stood in the cheese line and railed about all those leeches on welfare. I confronted her and she got pretty huffy about it saying she had a job - she paid her taxes - she was entitled to it. I guess she was applying the same logic. From my point of view there is a certain degree of ethical purity missing.

The waters are muddied as I say sometimes.

Things should be looked at on an individual case basis.
Who funds something, how are the funds gathered, etc, etc. Whether one likes it or not
this needs to be done.
Welfare is tough to figure out where the money comes from, some of it from the state taxes, some of it from the Fed taxes. Taxes done on the general public in many cases to pay for a variety of things, and then also welfare.
Social Security is taken from Pay checks, a deduction from a persons pay check for that reason, or better yet, people pay into it based on there income. Employers might also contribute some now. So yes, there is a difference, and this does matter. Some like Rand, or my self, who stands here and says you shouldn't use force to take that money from me against my will, and you don't listen and still take the money from us against our will, then knock us for taking some it back. That really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It would be one thing if people said, Okay, we will no longer take it from you, we won't force you to pay, but then we still took the check, then you would have something to say. But the people/gov never said Okay, we won't take it from you anymore. The people/gov still take it from them. To knock them for taking back what you took from them against there will, against their reasoning, and with force, that just makes me scratch my head.
And that there is why the Selfish thing is really messed up, calling us limited gov types selfish, it is probably a great example of the fingers being pointed back at the person who says it.
1) A person thinks these programs are so good that they force you to pay.
2) Some people say this should not be allowed.
3) People who want it are so selfish they still take the money from the other people against there will
4) They then point fingers at them when they take back the money that they didn't want taking from them, but guns were used to take it from them, so when they participate in this program that force was used on them to force them to use it, now that they use some mock them. Yeah, still don't make sense to me. Force someone to be a part of a system and force money from them, but then knock them when they starting getting some of the money back that you forced out of them. ???????

I took financial aide for my son. But I said this about that. If they came to me today and said I could opt out of this (pay by force) tax system and fiat money system I would, and if "I would", and then I would find a way to pay for the school out of my own pocket. But for now "I will take the aid" because they have not giving me the choice yet to "opt out". They still are using guns to force me to pay, they still are creating money out of nothing and borrowing, devaluing my dollar. Until they give me the choice to get out of it, of course I am going to take back a portion of the money they stole from me.
That is a good way to put it, they steal money from you and then offer to give you some back, who would be wrong to take some of it back.

[steve74baywin]

More on Rand taking SS and why I think it is not correct to say, she was against SS, she later received SS, she is bad, evil, selfish hypocrite.

The main point might be this, things need to be separated, thoughts and such.
I can stand here and say it is wrong to use guns to force money from people to pay for things others want.
Money still gets forced out of me to pay for things.
If I later take back some of that money, that is okay.
Now, also, even if I said it was wrong to take the money by force, and, people no longer took the money by force, but later on in life they still gave me or offered the money for retirement, that would be there choosing, I also can be grateful that they are giving me this money, even if I didn't have to pay for it. That is an act of goodness, goodness on the part of the group that is giving it to me, even though I did not want money taking from me by force, that still doesn't mean I should or could never take anything given to me. I can still voluntarily give money to people or groups, and I can still voluntarily receive money from people or groups, and, I still say that charity needs to be volunatary and these forced gov programs are wrong.
There is still the issue of
A) Is it right to force money from people for what you think is right?
B) If money was forced from a person, of course they should get back what is offered to them.
c) If some group wants to give an old person money to help them to live, that is okay. If that person never paid into it, they can still take it, it is the choice of who ever owns the money to whom they shall give it to. That is charity.
d) All the above can be observed, it still doesn't remove the question of whether it is right to force people to be charitable. Just because one is against using guns to take the money from people, that does not mean they can never give or receive.
It really takes alot of thought to understand Ayn Rand.
Not saying some of you can't give it that thought. But the media, or people who haven't given it much thought, can run away with words or phrases and make the way out of proportion. But, with some further thought, they can be brought back down.