p.s Ayn Rand is not an economic theorist. She was a novelist (a longwinded one at that) and wrote philisophical books that weren’t just wrong, but dangerously wrong.
p.s.s if anyone would like to debate me on that, feel free.
Ayn Rand’s books weren’t wrong. In fact they showed the dangers inherent in a society that thinks it is OK to loot the earnings of the industrious for distribution to the indolent.
The only way I can imagine those ideas to be dangerous is if you are one of those misguided fools that think it’s not fair that someone else has more then you so the government should tear them down to your level.
I’m not a teabagger and I’m not against social programs but I get really tired of listening to people call the wealthy selfish because they aren’t giving their last dime to the needy.
The needy will always have needs and there will always be people who fall on hard times through no fault of their own and sometimes because they make bad choices. I believe there should be a safety net for those who fall on hard times occasionally but I don’t think that the wealthy and middle class should be required to continually support those who won’t take care of themselves. The Great Society was a Huge Failure that caused untold misery as it destroyed families and spawned multi-generational dependency on the government dole. At the point where it was a better economic deal to accept handouts from the government then to go to work, many chose to stay at home and wait for the check to come. Caprini Green was a glaring example of what went wrong.
The government should be encouraging Industry and Entrepeneurship, not Idleness, dependence and envy of those who have more.
When you glorify the needy simply because they need and villify the owners of wealth soley on the basis that they have possessions you send the message that you don’t value virtue but you do value sin. That is truely a corrupt path.
Excuse me, but at no point did I advocate communism, nore did I ever say that the rich have to give away all their money to the poor. My point, which if anyone cares to check by looking at my previous posts has been that money = power and it is the duty of the government to limit power. It is not healthy for a society and for democracy if the gap between rich and poor is too great. There needs to be a large middle class if you expect the society to function with any sense of cohesion.
I am all for incentives for action and encouraging industry and entrepeneurship, but I do not agree that the only ways to do that are to give tax breaks and removing the government from the equation. Government plays a vital, VITAL role in the functioning of people. There are other means of encouraging people to excell and improve themselves. Ayn Rand wrote about a society that did not allow its people to excell, by FORCING them to conform to the standards of everyone else. That is NOT was is happening here. AT ALL. People are allowed to excell as much as they like, but MONEY DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE EXCELLING BEYOND EVERYONE ELSE. IT ONLY MEANS YOU HAVE MORE MONEY! There are means of excelling in art, literature, engineering, computing, etc. There are thousands of ways that you can excell as an individual that don’t concern themselves with money such as status, respect or honor. The fact that you only view this in the terms of money, shows me how corrupted and narrow minded your perspective is.
One need only look at the results of deregulation since Reagan and the devastating effect that has had on the economy to see that government has a very important role to play. Civil society itself is based on compassion and some sense of sharing and sacrifice. Our financial markets were allowed by deregulation to operate solely on the base of greed and short term profits and in the process created a house of cards that crumbled in the breeze. It’s the middle and working classes that are paying the price while 1% of the country’s population profited hugely and live in overwhelming luxury. The Randian philosophy has been shown for what is, an excuse to pillage and rape.
I completely agree with you Bruce that the government is corrupt in the US. The US should take a page from the Dutch. We have very strict election laws, representational voting and strong tools for checks and balances. We know that what one must do is spread the power of the government over to the people, that way it doesnt act as a single character. The government is not one actor, it is a single body made up of all actors in the society. Which is why the Dutch are the only ones with any real libertarian policies (prostitution, euthanasia, drug laws etc) becaue poeple want them and we can take that power back from the government. The mass truly speaks for the masses here.
But that is not to say that Holland is perfect, far from it, but that has more to do with the fact that people are not perfect, and as people are government, we can’t expect it to be prefect either. So much like people and the economy, government power must be restricted and regulated also.
“p.s Ayn Rand is not an economic theorist. She was a novelist (a longwinded one at that) and wrote philisophical books that weren’t just wrong, but dangerously wrong.
p.s.s if anyone would like to debate me on that, feel free”
No a.c.d. Since YOU made the statement that Ayn Rand was “dangerously wrong”, YOU have the obligation to support your conclusion. And keep it shorter than her book ok?
~shrugs~
a.c.d
You said in part….” if anyone cares to check by looking at my previous posts has been that money = power and it is the duty of the government to limit power…” So set me straight if I am wrong, limiting power = limit money. You DID say money equals power and it is the DUTY of government to power, which you readily equated directly with money, Right? Now, how do you do that a.c.d, by confiscatory taxes, thus effectively ‘redistributing the wealth’? How can you rephrase that to make it softer, warmer, kinda like ‘choice’ not confiscation?
Another blogger was kind enough to share this a couple weeks ago, check it out.
So the criteria as you see it, is to have an economic degree to truly understand it as you do huh?
Then you blurt…”MONEY DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE EXCELLING BEYOND EVERYONE ELSE. IT ONLY MEANS YOU HAVE MORE MONEY! There are means of excelling in art, literature, engineering, computing, etc. There are thousands of ways that you can excell as an individual that don’t concern themselves with money such as status, respect or honor. The fact that you only view this in the terms of money, shows me how corrupted and narrow minded your perspective is. ”
The fact is that YOU are the narrow, corrupted one a.c.d.
You feel that the accumulation of money, the logical result of industry and effort must be CONTROLLED, LIMITED, for the good of all huh? As the government sees fit huh?
Your version of ‘going Dutch’ huh?
Actually, I have a bit of an issue with calling the government in the US “corrupt”. In almost any country, the government is a big institution, or rather series of institutions, employing thousands upon thousands of people. Corruption is simply not a “yes or no” category in such a case - there may be some people who are corrupt and self-serving, as is likely the case in any organization of this size - but how many must they be to classify the entire organization as such? One percent? Five? Ten? Fifty?
Let’s not get carried away here - many states would love to have a government as “corrupt” and “inefficient” as the US one. The quality of its governance can, and should be improved, certainly, and I am all for reasonable measures to hold its members to higher scrutiny and ensure their responsibility. Then again, pretty much anything in our lives bears improvement. The government is just one of many such things.
It is very frustrating to have people substitute dogma for reason, however, and phrases like “Government is the problem”, or “government can’t do anything right” are sometimes given as absolute truths to be accepted absolutely without reservations, footnotes or the need of lowly things such as proof. ACD makes a good point - those working in government are people, and as no people can ever be perfect, of course government won’t be either. That doesn’t mean it can’t benefit the country it is in charge of - or that it should not be expected to do just that.
John, i think obvserving the current economic situation is proof enough the Ayn Rand’s principles of non-government interference in the economy is dangerous. As I mentioned earlier it IS the duty of the government to limit power (see: John Locke). To limit the power of one person to have power over the other. I understand that this is difficult for you to understand and after having watched that little cartoon you posted, I come to understand that propoganda that you so easily buy into. I agree that there are freedoms that one should have, like religion, speech and private property, but no freedom is absolute, there are always restrcitions to freedoms in even the most basic sense, because NOTHING is absolute. And the cartoon discusses the US, but what it didnt take into consideration was the fact that the US was autotarky where it produced everything internally (the US clearly imported goods, but not at the rate which it does now).
The principles of free enterprise and capitalism applied WITHIN the confides of the US, functioned ONLY when limiting specific freedoms. By having private property, you limit the freedom of movement and activity. No longer can a person hunt or grow food on public land, but rahter have to pay tribute to the private land owner. What you dont see is that ALL of life, all of society, all of government and law is ABOUT LIMITING FREEDOMS (i.e applying restrictions to allow for the maximum freedom of all). Now let me make this ABSOLUTELY CLEAR, TAXES IS NOT REMOVING FREEDOM, AT ALL. IT IS MERELY TAXING IT TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT CONSUMED. You still have the FREEDOM to buy it, the only difference is that it is more expensive so that NOT SO MUCH OF IT IS CONSUMED. This is a reality we need to face today considering the limited resources and over population that the worlds faces today. This is just like smoking. No one is preventing you from smoking, they are just telling you to do it in designated areas. Thats the same as driving. You are not restricted from driving, you are merely told you drive in a specific areas (roads) why, because if you dont, then you can cause HAVOK AND MAYHEM!
Stop with this BS about removing freedoms, NO ONE IS TAKING AWAY YOUR FREEDOM, they are merely limiting the QUANTITY OF CONSUMPTION so that it doesnt infringe on the rights and freedoms of others.
toasteroven over 14 years ago
This seems… familiar.
OmqR-IV.0 over 14 years ago
^ It is, cartoon from Nov 2nd, a repeat.
a.c.d over 14 years ago
Yeah it was posted several months ago.
p.s Ayn Rand is not an economic theorist. She was a novelist (a longwinded one at that) and wrote philisophical books that weren’t just wrong, but dangerously wrong. p.s.s if anyone would like to debate me on that, feel free.
HUMPHRIES over 14 years ago
a.c.d, who would try to debate unarmed ?
hank197857 over 14 years ago
… still, a good read.
Mephistopheles over 14 years ago
Ayn Rand’s books weren’t wrong. In fact they showed the dangers inherent in a society that thinks it is OK to loot the earnings of the industrious for distribution to the indolent.
The only way I can imagine those ideas to be dangerous is if you are one of those misguided fools that think it’s not fair that someone else has more then you so the government should tear them down to your level.
I’m not a teabagger and I’m not against social programs but I get really tired of listening to people call the wealthy selfish because they aren’t giving their last dime to the needy.
The needy will always have needs and there will always be people who fall on hard times through no fault of their own and sometimes because they make bad choices. I believe there should be a safety net for those who fall on hard times occasionally but I don’t think that the wealthy and middle class should be required to continually support those who won’t take care of themselves. The Great Society was a Huge Failure that caused untold misery as it destroyed families and spawned multi-generational dependency on the government dole. At the point where it was a better economic deal to accept handouts from the government then to go to work, many chose to stay at home and wait for the check to come. Caprini Green was a glaring example of what went wrong.
The government should be encouraging Industry and Entrepeneurship, not Idleness, dependence and envy of those who have more.
When you glorify the needy simply because they need and villify the owners of wealth soley on the basis that they have possessions you send the message that you don’t value virtue but you do value sin. That is truely a corrupt path.
There you go a.c.d.
bradwilliams over 14 years ago
Wow! Scott said something nice about a girl.
a.c.d over 14 years ago
Excuse me, but at no point did I advocate communism, nore did I ever say that the rich have to give away all their money to the poor. My point, which if anyone cares to check by looking at my previous posts has been that money = power and it is the duty of the government to limit power. It is not healthy for a society and for democracy if the gap between rich and poor is too great. There needs to be a large middle class if you expect the society to function with any sense of cohesion. I am all for incentives for action and encouraging industry and entrepeneurship, but I do not agree that the only ways to do that are to give tax breaks and removing the government from the equation. Government plays a vital, VITAL role in the functioning of people. There are other means of encouraging people to excell and improve themselves. Ayn Rand wrote about a society that did not allow its people to excell, by FORCING them to conform to the standards of everyone else. That is NOT was is happening here. AT ALL. People are allowed to excell as much as they like, but MONEY DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE EXCELLING BEYOND EVERYONE ELSE. IT ONLY MEANS YOU HAVE MORE MONEY! There are means of excelling in art, literature, engineering, computing, etc. There are thousands of ways that you can excell as an individual that don’t concern themselves with money such as status, respect or honor. The fact that you only view this in the terms of money, shows me how corrupted and narrow minded your perspective is.
tcolkett over 14 years ago
One need only look at the results of deregulation since Reagan and the devastating effect that has had on the economy to see that government has a very important role to play. Civil society itself is based on compassion and some sense of sharing and sacrifice. Our financial markets were allowed by deregulation to operate solely on the base of greed and short term profits and in the process created a house of cards that crumbled in the breeze. It’s the middle and working classes that are paying the price while 1% of the country’s population profited hugely and live in overwhelming luxury. The Randian philosophy has been shown for what is, an excuse to pillage and rape.
a.c.d over 14 years ago
I completely agree with you Bruce that the government is corrupt in the US. The US should take a page from the Dutch. We have very strict election laws, representational voting and strong tools for checks and balances. We know that what one must do is spread the power of the government over to the people, that way it doesnt act as a single character. The government is not one actor, it is a single body made up of all actors in the society. Which is why the Dutch are the only ones with any real libertarian policies (prostitution, euthanasia, drug laws etc) becaue poeple want them and we can take that power back from the government. The mass truly speaks for the masses here. But that is not to say that Holland is perfect, far from it, but that has more to do with the fact that people are not perfect, and as people are government, we can’t expect it to be prefect either. So much like people and the economy, government power must be restricted and regulated also.
johndh123 over 14 years ago
a.c.d said, about 7 hours ago
“p.s Ayn Rand is not an economic theorist. She was a novelist (a longwinded one at that) and wrote philisophical books that weren’t just wrong, but dangerously wrong. p.s.s if anyone would like to debate me on that, feel free”
No a.c.d. Since YOU made the statement that Ayn Rand was “dangerously wrong”, YOU have the obligation to support your conclusion. And keep it shorter than her book ok? ~shrugs~
johndh123 over 14 years ago
a.c.d You said in part….” if anyone cares to check by looking at my previous posts has been that money = power and it is the duty of the government to limit power…” So set me straight if I am wrong, limiting power = limit money. You DID say money equals power and it is the DUTY of government to power, which you readily equated directly with money, Right? Now, how do you do that a.c.d, by confiscatory taxes, thus effectively ‘redistributing the wealth’? How can you rephrase that to make it softer, warmer, kinda like ‘choice’ not confiscation? Another blogger was kind enough to share this a couple weeks ago, check it out.
http://nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html
and you also said,
“p.s Ayn Rand is not an economic theorist”
So the criteria as you see it, is to have an economic degree to truly understand it as you do huh?
Then you blurt…”MONEY DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE EXCELLING BEYOND EVERYONE ELSE. IT ONLY MEANS YOU HAVE MORE MONEY! There are means of excelling in art, literature, engineering, computing, etc. There are thousands of ways that you can excell as an individual that don’t concern themselves with money such as status, respect or honor. The fact that you only view this in the terms of money, shows me how corrupted and narrow minded your perspective is. ”
The fact is that YOU are the narrow, corrupted one a.c.d. You feel that the accumulation of money, the logical result of industry and effort must be CONTROLLED, LIMITED, for the good of all huh? As the government sees fit huh? Your version of ‘going Dutch’ huh?
4uk4ata over 14 years ago
Actually, I have a bit of an issue with calling the government in the US “corrupt”. In almost any country, the government is a big institution, or rather series of institutions, employing thousands upon thousands of people. Corruption is simply not a “yes or no” category in such a case - there may be some people who are corrupt and self-serving, as is likely the case in any organization of this size - but how many must they be to classify the entire organization as such? One percent? Five? Ten? Fifty?
Let’s not get carried away here - many states would love to have a government as “corrupt” and “inefficient” as the US one. The quality of its governance can, and should be improved, certainly, and I am all for reasonable measures to hold its members to higher scrutiny and ensure their responsibility. Then again, pretty much anything in our lives bears improvement. The government is just one of many such things.
It is very frustrating to have people substitute dogma for reason, however, and phrases like “Government is the problem”, or “government can’t do anything right” are sometimes given as absolute truths to be accepted absolutely without reservations, footnotes or the need of lowly things such as proof. ACD makes a good point - those working in government are people, and as no people can ever be perfect, of course government won’t be either. That doesn’t mean it can’t benefit the country it is in charge of - or that it should not be expected to do just that.
a.c.d over 14 years ago
John, i think obvserving the current economic situation is proof enough the Ayn Rand’s principles of non-government interference in the economy is dangerous. As I mentioned earlier it IS the duty of the government to limit power (see: John Locke). To limit the power of one person to have power over the other. I understand that this is difficult for you to understand and after having watched that little cartoon you posted, I come to understand that propoganda that you so easily buy into. I agree that there are freedoms that one should have, like religion, speech and private property, but no freedom is absolute, there are always restrcitions to freedoms in even the most basic sense, because NOTHING is absolute. And the cartoon discusses the US, but what it didnt take into consideration was the fact that the US was autotarky where it produced everything internally (the US clearly imported goods, but not at the rate which it does now). The principles of free enterprise and capitalism applied WITHIN the confides of the US, functioned ONLY when limiting specific freedoms. By having private property, you limit the freedom of movement and activity. No longer can a person hunt or grow food on public land, but rahter have to pay tribute to the private land owner. What you dont see is that ALL of life, all of society, all of government and law is ABOUT LIMITING FREEDOMS (i.e applying restrictions to allow for the maximum freedom of all). Now let me make this ABSOLUTELY CLEAR, TAXES IS NOT REMOVING FREEDOM, AT ALL. IT IS MERELY TAXING IT TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT CONSUMED. You still have the FREEDOM to buy it, the only difference is that it is more expensive so that NOT SO MUCH OF IT IS CONSUMED. This is a reality we need to face today considering the limited resources and over population that the worlds faces today. This is just like smoking. No one is preventing you from smoking, they are just telling you to do it in designated areas. Thats the same as driving. You are not restricted from driving, you are merely told you drive in a specific areas (roads) why, because if you dont, then you can cause HAVOK AND MAYHEM! Stop with this BS about removing freedoms, NO ONE IS TAKING AWAY YOUR FREEDOM, they are merely limiting the QUANTITY OF CONSUMPTION so that it doesnt infringe on the rights and freedoms of others.
TAXES DO NOT = REMOVAL OF FREEDOMS!