What do you call a guy who mutilates an 8 year old child with a bomb,
just to make a political statement?
In Tribute to
The Greatest Star Who
Never Lived
CLOSE OUT SALE!
The Politics of the Twilight Zone:
Where Ryan Meets Ayn
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Here you
will first learn about the "logically water
tight" web which this despicable woman, Ayn Rand
created to dupe everyday people into people believeing they were
somehow"immoral" if they stood up to the
selfishness and greed which inevitably comes with the
unregulated
Laissez
Faire capitalism she
championed.
Simply put, this book reveals the bizzare labyrinth of
philosophical smoke and mirrors that Rand used to dupe
millions of people into believing that traditional golden-rule
morality was immoral, and that hatred, selfishness,
greed, and hatred and contempt for the vast majority of
people on
this planet was some kind of "virtue." Sound
like Romney, Ryan and the rest of the crazed tea partiers?
That's
not at all an accident. It is because they have all entered into Rand's
web of deception, been bitten by the spider, and are now showing the
effects of her poison.
In the course of the unfolding of Rand's grand scheme, you will learn
about the logical fallacy, used not only by
Rand, but most other advocates of the far
right, called
entitizing. This technique is what is behind such expressions
as "war on terror" and "life begins at conception." Have you
always known these expressions were somehow weird, but never been able
to explain quite why? This book will explain it.
Learn also
how Romney and Ryan are constatantly entitizing "freedom,"
and
how they all learned how to it from that master of
deception, Ayn
Rand.
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THE GRINCH WHO
STOLE CHRISTMAS?
Good will toward all... except members the LGBT community of course.
The Church has ways of treating such heretics! Just ask St. Joan of
Arc. (Know why these scum bags really
burned her alive?)
LaPierre: NRA's Chief Kid Killer
Latest Statement from Mitt Romney
CLICK
HERE!
New Clint Eastwood Movie Trailer:
Dialogue
with an Empty Chair
Mitt's Wet Dream
Fantasy: ending
Social
Security AND Medicare;
putting the elderly onto the streets. And Mitt calls this
"decency and hope." Yeah, right.
Reality
Sorry your space ship to Golub crashed Mitt! Our
collective Etch-A-Sketch memory of you
being cleared right Now! Bye Bye Mittens, you mean heartless bastard!
Have fun Firing More
People at you rotten Bain Capital! But remember, whatever happens,
you'll still suck!
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM NOW!
...
and when the
Republican party rapes
the middle class, and the poor, by taking away home mortgage
deductions, Medicare, and social
security that too will be a gift to
us that God
intended! And if the evanazical voters who
talk to Jesus vote us in, that will prove that
it's God's
will! Does Paul Ryan agree? Click
here to find out!
Welcome
to
cramitmitt.com
cramitmitt.org
cramitmitt.net
cramitmitt.info and antirand.org
Sponsored by:
Romney and Ryan for China 2012
WHO
IS ROB ZERBAN? WHO
IS ROB ZERBAN?
"This
is Rob Zerban
Speaking!"
Hope
you
enjoyed the little John Galt parody here. But Rob is
certainly no John Galt. He is much better than that little mama's boy.
He is a small businessman in Kenosha Wisconsin (about 50
miles
from where my
Great Grandfather was an early settler in the 1860s) running against
Paul Ryan (who thinks he is
John Galt) for his House Seat. Yes, Ryan is
hedging his bets, running for both VP and
his old house seat. Wisconsin law allows that. The race
is very close, and even 5 or 10 bucks donated to his campain would be
much appreciated.
Click Here to Donate to Rob's
Campaign.
Romneyware is
Vaporware.
Romney Numbers are POOTA
Numbers
Vaporware?
That's a term which originated in the
computer industry to describe either hardware or software announced by
a company, but didn't really exist. But announcing just the same helped
the announcer to compete in the marketplace. For example. IBM by
announcing its System/360 Model 91 3 years early, it cut into
competitor sales because it was superior to anything the competitor
had. The catch, of course, was that for 3 years the Model 91 was
"vaporware" and did not exist. Competitors trying to sell real
computers, in other words, had to compete with a fantasy machine. Sound
familiar? It should, because in the first debate with Obama, Romney
pitched the political equivalent of vaporware, which we here dub
Romneyware. He also had lots of POOTA (or POOMA) numbers.
POOTA (sometimes POOMA) numbers. And old acronym used by aerospace
engineers for figures nobody believed: Pulled Out Of Thin Air (POOTA)
or Pulled Out Of My A** (POOMA). So however you chose to spell it, this
s what Romney's figures all were. Perhaps they should be called POORA
numbers (where the R stands for Romney).
Got
no Time
to do the Math? Yeah Right, Paul-loves-Ayn Ryan
It's obvious what Ryan is now saying. He's going to take from the
jobless, senior citizens, the disabled, and those making under
$100,000/yr. and give to rich scum like his running mate. This "no time
to do the math line by line" is just con-man talk. Anyone who has ever
been conned before knows that. The ultimate plan is to take us to an
Ayn Rand utopia, where the rich and the powerful dictate to everyone
else. It's really that simple. See The New Feudalism. Link below.
Paul
Ryan the
Flim Flam Man
Click here for
a 17 min video
by a man who ran against Paul Ryan
Also Sprach Das Romnoid.
Here is the latest folks, just hours before the first
debate. Social Security is "welfare" now. You get
back some
of what you paid in all you life, and the Romnoid calls that
WELFARE. Old people should forget about retirement, and go
out
and find "good paying jobs." Where? In China, obviously. This is where
Romney and his ilk sent them all. The common cockroach which works hard
morning noon and night to keep your storm drains open deservues more
respect than this Robot of the Right.
Williamic Park?
Does anyone know if enough genetic material from William the
Conqueror survives so that he could be brought back, much like those
dinosaurs in Jurassic Park? If you could, you'd have the ultimate
Republican. You wouldn't need Romney or Ryan
anymore. You
wouldn't even need to worry about elections anymore. One man would own
the whole planet and everyone and everything on it. He would
be
like John Galt on steroids. A true Ayn Randian wet dream.
To really understand
Paul Ryan (and to a lesser extent Mitt Romney), one needs to understand
something about Ayn Rand, the goddess of Laissez Faire Capitalism that
Ryan and the rest of the Tea Partiers almost literally worship.
Basically, Rand held that nobody has any duty to anyone, save possibly
ones self (Technically, Rand denied there even was such a thing as
duty, because Kant said there was, and she was out to deny everthing
Kant ever said--- aside from one or two things she plagairized
from him. Yes, "Galt's Pledge" in Atlas Shrugged
is lifted right out
of Kant). Being "moral" according to Rand meant acting in ones own
"rational" (whaever the hell that meant) self-interest. All
transactions freely made between one individual and another were, by
definition, "moral" in Rand's morality, regardless of consequences for
3rd parties not partners to the deal. Like much of Rand, sounds
reasonable until you begin to think about it--- which most of her
followers, like Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan, never do. What is wrong
with this simple "free trade" between individuals principle?
Suppose Smith pays Jones a thousand dollars to murder Smith's wife, and
both mutually consent "freely" to the deal? Is this moral?
Following Rand's principles,
it is. Likewise if Smith sells Jones a company employing 1000 workers,
and Jones lays off all the workers and hires virtual slave labor
overseas to do the work. This is one but one of many reasons why Ayn
Rand was such a total intellectual fraud. It is why no
respected
academic philosopher subscribes to any of her theories as well--- just
mean, rich, nasty, and heartless billionares and slime politicians like
Romney and Ryan.
Romney in Ohio:
‘My heart
aches’ for struggling Americans
Hahaha! At long last, Mitt has said something funny!
Yes, Mitt's heart aches for you! Perhaps Patsy Cline sang it
best. Click
here to hear Patsy Cline sing it better than anyone else.
She was the best! Don't you miss her? We miss you Patsy! You had so
much class! You were a beacon of beauty and truth!
On Mitt Romney Not Getting Why
Airplane Windows Don’t Open
The question, or the
issue, everyone is evading: this is a man who supposedly "earned"
hundreds of millions of dollars. Is it really possible that someone as
utterly stupid as Mitt Romney could *earn* that much money?
If
not, how did he get it? And what does this say about the socio-
economic and legal system. (aka "free market" capitalism)
that
enabled this scumbag to amass that much wealth, without doing any good
for anyone else in return? On other words, we have a system in which
hard work and innovation no longer get you anywhere. It's a system that
rewards deviousnes, bribery, and trickery, and theft. This is
what capitalism has become. A game of murderers and thieves,
"competing" to out do each other. Not a lot different conceptually from
inner city street gangs. Basically, it's the same model with vastly
different scales. This is what Mitt Romney, more than any
candidate in the past, represents. It is now literally and
figuratively staring us in the face.
Did
Mitt Borrow "Money from his Parents" to Start Bain
Capital?
Hell
No!
See
some of Mitt's finacial backers in action. Think
they'd never do here what they did in other countries? You decide.
Click Here
About
the 47%
No
doubt you've heard the Boco Raton tape. This is the total Ayn Rand
mindset. It shows Romney is every bit as much a Randian as Paul Ryan.
Everyone is either a "producer" or a "looter" in this childish
mindset. The only "producers" are businessmen. If you punch a
clock, you're a "looter" stealing your wage from your employer (who in
fact "produced" the money he paid you). Just as significantly, Romney
thinks he, the Walton family, etc. do not depend on government
for
anything. Ayn Rand's idol Aristotle saw through this 2400 years ago.
The more you have, the more you depend on government to protect what
you have. Like cops to prevent banks where Mitt has his money deposited
from getting robbed. And how about Mitt's and Walmart's
employees?
They need to public transportation to get to work. They need government
subsidized medical service to stay alive so they can continue working
for Feign Capital. (Or is that Bain Capital? Whatever company that is
that makes rugs that lie like Republicans). Bottom line, Ayn
Rand
was a very shallow and inept thinker, although she was extremely street
smart. She knew how to dupe and deceive. In her world,
everything
is bipolar: black or white; nothing is gray. You produce or you loot.
If you're not a business hack like Mitt, you're a looter. (Just as an
aside, doesn't Paul Ryan draw a paycheck can get full health converage
from Uncle Sam? Isn't that snide little bastard part of the 47%.
Without government, where would this little prick be)?
So, just who are the real looters in the real
world? Mitt
has hundreds of millions he didn't used to have. He *earned*
that? He deserves to have more than 1000 times the wealth of an
Einstein, a Jonas Salk, a Neil Armstrong, or 10000 that of a
Beethoven or a Schubert? Give me a break!
Mitt
Romney: Logan Act Violator?
CRS Report for Congress Received through
the CRS
Web
Order
Code RL33265
Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority:
The Logan Act
February 1, 2006
Michael V. Seitzinger Legislative Attorney American Law Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress
Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The
Logan
Act
Summary: The Logan Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953, states:
Any
citizen of the United States,
wherever he may be, who, without authorityof the United States,
directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or
intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent
thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United
States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or
both.This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply,
himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof
for
redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such
government or any of its agents or subjects.
The Logan Act was intended to prohibit United States citizens without
authority from interfering in relations between the United States and
foreign governments. There appear to have been no prosecutions under
the Act in its more than 200 year history. However, there
have
been a number of judicial references to the Act, and it is not uncommon
for it to be used as a point of challenge concerning dealings with
foreign officials. Although attempts have been made to repeal
the
Act, it remains law and at least a potential sanction to be used
against anyone who without authority interferes in the foreign
relations of the United States.
So take that evil smirk off
your face and
Cram
it !
YOU're
not the President Mitt!
And thank God you're not!
You're only helping freed the frenzy.
STFU!!! You're an IDIOT!
For,
as we have said, the art of the sophist is a money-making art which trades on apparent
wisdom, and
so sophists aim at apparent proof... for
sophistry is an appearance of wisdom without reality.
----Aristotle
(Quoted from
Aristotle's On
Sophistical Refutations,
171b32-7. Tr. E. S. Forster. Loeb Classical Library Vol. 400 (Harvard,
1955). P. 63 )
Far
Right Wing Pointy
Heads
Hitting the Debt Ceiling
July 27, 2011
Some
call it
political theater. but there's really nothing the least bit
entertaining about it, unless of course like "Rand" Paul Paul Ryan,
Eric Cantor, and others, you happen to be part of the Wall Street "Good
'ol Boy" Network looking to foist another rip off scam on the American
People, bigger even than the "housing bubble" which embezzled billions
from private retirement accounts (those AAA derivatives based on junk
loans, that were held largely by retirement funds). The plan now is to
really "go for broke" and "privatize" and then bilk not
billions,
but trillions from the Social Security Trust Fund. Why should "Good
Christians" want to do something so heinous? The answer is very simple.
Because they need
the money,
just as a junkie needs
another fix, a megalomeniac needs
more power, and a pathological sex addict needs
another orgasm. You'd
better beleive, these scoundrels will be cream'n for a week if they
pull this one off. However, what ever maybe left of the capitalist
system will be in smolders. Such is the life of an addict-- and those
within the sphere of his influence. It has been said correctly that
addictions (alcohholism included) destroys falilies. The sort of
addiction we are dealing with here destroys civilizations.
So, if the
capitalist
system hasn't collapsed yet, it is clear that it is about to. All this
garbage about "free markets," deregulation, and "free speech rights"
for corporations, going back to Ayn Rand devotee Ronald
Reagan, has brought us to the very dramatic dead end which is
now
tying up phone lines to Washington. Too little, too late. Neither
"grand plan" is going to be enough to fix anything. Rather, as any
competent economist will tell you, spending cuts will smolder what's
left of the "economic recovery." To put it simply, it's like the "Bush
tax rebates" of some years ago in reverse. Cuts in social security and
Medicare will mean millions of people have a lot less money to spend.
That will mean millions of small business owners now borrowing from
personal savings to barely stay afloat will go under. It all snowballs
downward from there. You don't need a Ph.D. in economics to understand
this, folks.
In short, the dogma of big corporation
profits
before people is going to have to be cast aside because the masses
simply are not going to be able to tolerate it any longer. A
managed economy is going to have to be a big part of the final answer.
Having the US government seize US Banks, oil companies, and other large
corporations may well have to be another. Last but not least,
a
constitutional amendment declaring that living and breathing human
beings are the only "persons" under the law will be of paramount
importance. Until that happens, Wall street, with its unlimited
"campaign financing" (i.e. bribes to politicians) is going to
own
both the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and Capitol Hill, regardless
of the party labels
of the office holders (if you are perplexed at Obama's willingness to
cave on social security, realize this and you won't be). This
is
at the heart of the current
problem: Wall Street wants to take control of not only the Social
Security trust fund, but the world. When they get the Social
Security funds (as the next major step in their quest for "private"
world rule), they will do with it exactly what they did
with the nation's home mortgages.
Endgame: the social security trust fund
goes
into the pockets of
the nation's ruling elite. Old and disabled people, and
everyone
else who cares about them, will be at the mercy of a lot that has
swallowed Ayn Rand's "Morality of Selfishness" hook line and sinker,
and has no use for people too old or unable to work
whatsoever. Yes, they really do want it all. That's
the
bottom line folks. You can either stand up to these bastards, or
beleive them when they tell you that what they are doing is for your
own good. and that it is God's will. The decision is yours.
Think
it through, and you just might realize that if indeed the God of these
people is the God of the Bible, Lucifer was a first cousin of the Greek
Promethius, and had a darned good reason to rebel. Do you really want
to spend all of enternity under the domination of a God as mean and
ruthless as this? So forget about "obeying your masters" as the Apostle
Paul commanded you to do. (Ephesians
6:5 1Timothy 6:1). The
Apostle Paul was nothing
more than the Rand Paul of his day.
This
is John Galt Speaking
March 18, 2011
Update
The owner of this site has sarcastically asked, "What would John Galt
say now?" Well, I've said it once and I'll say it again.
For twelve
fifty five years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John
Galt speaking. I am the man of integrity, who tells the truth to his
money hungry bosses as work, something they cannot stand. I am the man
who blows the whistle on shoddy nuclear engineering practices, to no
avail. This is why nuclear power can never be made safe. Not
because engineers such as myself cannot make it safe, but because our
managers would never let us because 1) that would raise the cost; and
2) nuclear meltdowns are actually profitable. Nuclear
investors
are interested in only one thing: profits.
Yes, my mom misquotes and misrepresents me to no
end in
her novel Atlas Shrugged. I never went on strike; the capitalists
bastards I worked for fired my ass. I thereby got branded as a whistle
blower. Why else do you think I would have worked menial
jobs?
That was all I could get.
One thing my mom says that was correct
is that the
world is falling apart because of its moral code. But what she got
backwards was the nature of the moral code the capitalist world lives
by: altruism. Oh, so those goons who fired me and others for blowing
the whistle on nuclear safety were altruists? I don't think
so!
The "moral code" that has brought the world to the brink of
destruction is exactly the one my dumb mom preached and practiced:
"looking out for number one." Just as a
little
aside, I am tired of being
ridiculed for saying "existence exists." Aristotle never said it, I
never said it. That was my stupid mom, not me. I also know full well
that it was Leibniz, not Aristotle who first said "A is A." I fully
agree with Leibniz that "A is A" is just a trivial "truth of reason"
and says nothing about the real world.
I could go on, but I'm worried about
the
radioactive cloud from Japan arriving any day now. I'm heading for a
cave in the Colorado Mountains where there is no WiFi. C-Ya.
The Free
Market is Melting Down
March 16,
2011 Update
What is happening in Japan at the Fukashima Reactor is a good deal more
than a nuclear meltdown, but of the economic social system which
produced it. No, it's not a technological failure, nor even an act of
"God" or "mother nature," which ever you prefer, because the design of
the General
Electric Mark 1 Reactor was, to
put it bluntly, crap, and known to
be crap at least since 1972 . Why then were these reactors ever built?
Because they were economically
attractive for both buyer and
seller. If you buy Ayn Rand's
Objectivist Ethics, this was a completely moral transaction because
because it was freely
made by
both parties. Herein lies the utter stupidity of Rand's so called
ethics: The Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and the builders were in
actually not the only "parties" to this deal, because hundreds of
thousands of other people were put at risk. These people, some of whom
may now have to pay the ultimate price for this rotten
design,
are the "forgotten men of of cheap nuclear power," to use an
expression of Rand herself, slightly altered to fit this state of
affairs.
But this crappy design is just the
beginning.
Acting in their own "rational self interest" (i.e., in such a way as to
minimize costs and maximize profits) the builders of these plants
played ever proverbial trick in the proverbial book-- falsify test
results, covering up known problems, and so forth. Throughout the
history of the nuclear power industry, there have been countless
nuclear whistleblowers, who have sacrificed their careers to make
nuclear power as safe as it reasonably
could be. Tragically, the
sacrifice of countless careers (no
body wants to hire a
whistleblower) by countless nuclear engineers, technicians, and other
workers, was not enough. Tonight as I type this, an unknown number of
brave Japanese military people are deliberately sacrificing their lives
in the hope of keeping their country inhabitable. And in so doing, they
are acting completely contrary to the "Objectivist ethics" of Ayn Rand.
If this these combined facts do not convince you that Ayn
Rand's
so called "morality" is in fact an utter perversion of morality,
and diabolically evil, nothing will.
The
Free Market is Death
June
19, 2010 Update
As
I type this, at the wonderful Vons Supermarket (not being facetious
here, this is the nicest Vons anywhere) Near Vermont and Sunset in
Hollywood, the News is that the CEO of British Petroleum, Tony Hayward
is attending a "Glitzy yacht race around England's Isle of Wight." Does
this not rank right up there with Nero playing his fiddle while Rome
burned? Or could it be that Hayward knows for certain something the
rest of us naysayers only suspect? namely, that this well in the Gulf
of Mexico isn't ever going to be taped, and that Planet Earth has now
beome, in a manner of speaking, planet Titanic, and we're all going
down? If that's so, it makes perfect sense for Hayward to say in effect
"the hell with it all" and go have some ocean fun while that is still
physically possible? Why worry what history may say about him when
there's not going to be
any
history?
It makes sense. But don't blame Hayward. As the
defendants at Nuremburg put it they were just following orders. Hayward
likewise was just following orders-- the orders of the free market.
The Free Market is theft
It's theft, pure and simple, of the poor by the corporate
elite.
Witness the private paramilitary (many Israeli) now patrolling the
streets of New Orleans, preparing for "gentrification (i.e., theft from
mostly poor Black people of their "former" homes). This is
what
"free market radicals" (such as Rand) have wanted for decades. Now
we've got it. In brief, what America has is no longer a government
but corporate mafia rule.
June
3, 2009 Update
About the proposed closing of 80 % of California's State Parks
As this is being written, Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger and his band of right wing
fellow Republican swine (with apologizies to the
animal
anti-defamataion league-- no real pig is as evil as Schwartzenegger and
the
Republicans in Sacramento, we know) are just about creaming in their
jeans at the prospect of a Randian /libertatian/neocon dream about to
come true in California. Schwartzenegger is proposing the closing of
80% of all California State Parks (100% of all that have camp ground
facilities). "Hey, Stadt Parkz, daz izt Sozializm!" Donzt you
know dat!? And what do they expect you to do? "bend over and take
it," as the saying goes. Why is this supposedly "necessary?"
Because this is what conservatives have wanted for decades? Yes, but
it's also because the state's wealthiest, who can afford to fly to
Europe if they
want to vacation, don't like paying taxes. In brief, this is their way
of saying "screw you" to the working people of this state-- the very
ones who are being asked to bail out the nations biggest corporations
and biggest banks.
In response,
you have two choices: light up a bowl, and open a can of Bud or Coors
Horse Urine and watch
a ball game (what Schwartzenegger and his gang expect you to do), or
you
can get active and do something about it.
Mid-February 2009 Update
Most
of what you will read on this site was written approximately two years
ago. So, with all that has happened in the U.S. and the world
economically in the last two years (much of it under the tutelage of
Rand protege Alan Greenspan), I decided an updatewas long
overdue.
What we are witnessing now is the virtual meldown of the entire world
capitalist system. To the best of my knowledge, even Karl Marx never
envisioned anything quite like this. If anything, it's like an
inversion of what Marx envisioned. The workers of the world, generally
speaking have not united (except after the fact, a few isolated spots
like Iceland). In America specifically, the American Worker has been
far too busy downing his Bud or his Coors as he watched his favorite
professsional sports team on the "tube," to be bothered with anything
as ho-hum as making revolution. Instead, the system has "burned itself
out" or "melted down" on its own. This "nuclear melt-down of the world
capitalist system" was neither engineered nor brought about by the
working class. It is rather the culmination of the Reagan Revolution
begun some 28 years ago. Perhaps we could trace it back a bit further
to September 4, 1974 with the swearing in of Alan Greenspan as the
Chairman of President Gerald R. Ford's Council of Economic Advisors
(word is that Ayn Rand accompanied Green Span during the festivities
surrounding that swearing in).
In either case, it was with the Reagan
Administration, beginning in January 1981 that "deregulation" and
"privitization" became mantras under the general rubric of "supply
side" (or if you prefer, "trickle down") economics. Those around at the
time will surely remember Arthur Laffer and his "Laffer Curve," Office
of Management and Budget Director David A. Stockman, and the
embarrasing December, 1981 Atlantic Monthly Article "The Education of
David Stockman." In that article, Stockman admitted to a
reporter
that Reagans 1981 "Kemp Roth" tax cut was little more that "a Trojan
Horse to bring down the top (tax) rate" because "It's kind of hard to
sell trickle-down."
Horrifying as all of this was to those
to the left
of center, it was just the beginning. Add to that Reagan's elimination
of medical deductions and "tax averaging," both of which significantly
benefitted the middle class, and Reagan's touch anti-union stance with
his firing of 10,000 PATCO air traffic controller union members, the
pattern soon becomes clear. A major effort to transfer wealth was
underway: from the middle to the upper. The middle class, in other
words, was headed for extinction. It's former members to join
an
increasingly impoverised lower class. "Trickle down" was in
actuality a misnomer for "Flow up."
What's next for the "middle class,"
those who "own"
their own homes?" For many of these people, whose "equity" has gone
negative with the housing crash, the "American Dream" of home
ownerships has become a nightmare. This is especially true of those who
purchase during the "bubble" phase of a few years ago-- thinking that
"people will always need to live somewhere,
therefore housing prices will keep going up indefinitely." Their real
estate brokers and their lenders, of course, all know that this was not
true. But both made small fortunes for themselves through "lending
magic." Now, while some of these recent buyers struggle to hold on,
many have already their homes and it's a buyer's market now for
foreclosed bank held properties. Many lenders have either failed
outright, or been consumed by slightly stronger institutions (often
putting the acquiring institution itself at far greater risk of failure
as a result). A scenario where everybody loses? Not quite.
Remember the 18 Billion of bonues the executives of these failed
institutions paid themselves just before their institutions went broke?
These "good old boys" did quite well for themselves. Hey, if you're
going to run your institution into the ground, good Objectivist and
capitalist principles dictate that you do it at a profit, right? Also,
I have heard reports of failed mortgage packages being sold to
Billionare investors at one cent on the dollar. Eventually someone
is going to have to own all of these empty foreclosed homes, right? You
now have a hint of who these owners just might be. Rememebr what I said
at the outset of this update, about the Reagan Revolution's (with a
little help from Newt Gingrich's Contract on America-- remember that?)
plan to eliminate the middle (home owning worker) class? That
particular revolution is
being televised. Nearly every day, you see reports of tens of thousands
of jobs being lost, and countless homes being foreclosed. Cities like
Dayton Ohio, which were heavily dependent upon the failing U.S. Auto
Industry, are particularly hard hit. The only ray of hope on the
horizon is President Obama's stimulus package. But even the most
optimistic of analysts aren't expecting any immediate results from
that. In the mean time, more big financial institutions teeter on the
verge of collapse.
In all fairness, it must be admitted
that what is
happening now with the bailout plans of first the Bush administration
and now the Obama Administration are nothing like what Ayn Rand called,
or anyone else would call "Laissez Faire" capitalism. But at the same
time, it must be realized that it is because the kind of Laissez Faire
capitalism Ayn Rand (more than anyone else) advocated was more
completely and more fully realized under the G.W. Bush administration
than at any prior time in history that these pseudo socialist
plans have, out of desperation, been implemented.
If one wants to make a comparison
between the current real situation and the one Ayn Rand fictionalized
in Atlas
Shrugged,
the heroes and the villains have switched places. It's the "Galt's
Gulch" crowed, controlling their assets from their mountain hideaway,
that have caused the collapse. Now this same group has gone crying to
the Wesley Mouch and Mr. Thompson types begging for help. In Rand's
novel, the collapse comes about in the main because the "smart people,"
the people with brains and skills, have all gone on strike. IN the
current real situarion, many skilled people are indeed out of the
economy and have been for years. But it's not because they went on
strike. It is because the Laissez
Faire
economy found little use for them. Experience American engineers, for
example, have been pushed out of the work force because under pressure
from major Silicon Valley contributors, Sen Barbara Boxer has long
pushed for "H1B visas." These allow foreign students registered in
places like UCSD and UCLA to stay and work in the country for six years
after graduation. Not only is this a rotten deal for the older more
senior engineers who get put out of the work forece, it's a rotten deal
for the California tax payer who funds these institution. Looking out
for their own best interests, the respective departments prefer foreign
students over American Student for a number of reasons (e.g. they pay a
higher tuition rate). Obviously, it works well for Sen. Boxer's Silicon
Valley contributers (not to mention Sen Boxer herself) as well. For the
people of the State of California, it's a rotten deal.
More to come.
The
Relation
between Capitalism and Freedom is Inverse
Contrary to what my old college professor Milton, and old college chum
David Friedman are fond of telling people, to say nothing of the
goddess of darkness that is the central topic of this site,
pure Laissez
Faire
capitalism is not a necessary precondition for personal liberty and
freedom. Nor is even the less pure, stinky kind we have in the world
today. The reason for this is actually quite simple: the more
big
business you have, the greater the concentration of economic power you
are going to have. Even former Michigan governor, and 1968 Republican
presidential primary candidate, George Romney knew that; and
at
the 1968 convention, his delegates tried unsuccessfully to put forth a
Republican platform plank opposing such massive concentrations of
economic power. No, Romney would not have been as good as RFK, but he
would have been a hell of a lot better than Nixon. Too bad he told the
world he was changing his position on the Vietnam War to one of
opposition from former support because he had formerly been
"brainwashed" by the Johnson administration. That single word was fatal
to his campaign.
Case in point: City of San
Clemente, very
recently. A street busker, a clarinetist named Patrick Crosby, after 2
years of playing in the same general area to the delight of most, had a
little verbal spat with a manager of the largest employer in town, a
bar and restaurant establishment called the Fisherman's, located on San
Clemente's municipal
pier. The Fishermans' calls their buddies, the deputies of the Orange
County Sheriff (a man himself surrounded by scandal, named Mike Corona)
and Crosby is verbally abused, and given a misdemeanor
citation for "not having a special event
permit." later changed, reportedly, to "operating without a business
license."
Just in case anyone doesn't know, what Crosby, a
solo
act, not obstructing pedestrian traffic, was doing is protected under
the First Amendment. But in places like Orange County, California, big
money and big business trump the US Constitution. Crosby will literally
need to make a federal case of his ordeal. Although he will, most
people in his situation would not be able to for economic reasons. So
much for capitalism and freedom. When Ayn Rand and my old college chum
David, and his dad Milton, speak of the freedom that goes along with
capitalism, they may think
they're talking about the kind of freedom that was recently stolen from
Patrick Crosby, but they're not. What they're really talking about is
the freedom of the rich and powerful to dominate and oppress others.
This is what "capitalism and freedom" means now, and what it has always
meant.
Who was the fountainhead, the
one who paved the way culturally, for
the neoconservative,
neofascist, racist
Laissez
Faire Capitalist thugs
(in government, in the oil industry, and companies like Dick Cheney's
Halliburten) that are now fully in
control of the U.S. government? Whose portrait is proudly displayed in
the Washington D.C. office of the neofascist right wing "think tank"
(actually, propaganda mill) called the Cato Institute? And
who was it that founded the new kind of "moral theory" than can
"rationally justify" such
things as deliberate
outright lies
about Weapons of Mass Destruction to the American people and
the world, the mass
murder of hundreds of thousands of Afghanis
and Iraqis with
Bush's illegal and utterly immoral Shock and Awe
campaign, 35,000 or more
severe
American
casualties in those two misadventures, plus an Italian government body
guard here,
or a Reuters sound technician there, murdered in cold blood by U.S.
soldiers, who afterward thought their murderous deed was something to
laugh about? Yes, according to reports I've heard, these
soldiers,
while laughing hysterically, told the brutally murdered (shot
in the face) sound
technician's family that the loved one they lost wasn't really
worth fussing about. Not at all hard to believe--- neither the deed,
nor
a Lt. Col. Steven Boylan's (spokesperson for the U.S. military
in
Iraq and Director of Combined Press Information Center) public
rationalization of the deed on
Democracy
Now as
"understandable
under the circumstances," although I'm old enough to know that
Americans didn't used to be this way. Plus, the wholesale suspension
and violation of
Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and liberties of U.S. Citizens
with the
so called "Patriot Act," (of which "liberal" Sen. Dianne Feinstein is a
strong
supporter) and gross violations of
the Geneva Conventions in the form of prisoner torture? And last but
certainly not least, who laid the "philosophical foundation" for the
decision to cut the budget for levee repair (that
might have saved the lives of
thousands of mostly Democrat
voting African Americans),
on the
part of W. Bush and the Republicans? Look
no further than the "ethics of selfishness" of Ayn Rand. But Rand was
an outspoken atheist, one might counter argue. Aren't Bush and
his cronies all evangelical
Christians?I
will answer that this way: if you truly believe that Bush (or
for
that matter, Pat
Robertson) is a Christian, then
my name's Michael, and I'm what is called an archangel. I also have a
famous toll bridge in New York (Brooklyn specifically) that I'd like to
sell you. In other words, while Bush and some of the
other members
of
the crime
family he calls his Administration do indeed publicly label
themselves Christians, the
truth of the matter is that, again, whether they so label themselves or
not, they're all
a bunch
of Randians, or Objectivists.
Their common "morality" comes not out of the
Bible, but
straight out of the 58 page "Galt's speech" near the end of
Ayn Rand's "literary masterpiece," Atlas Shrugged
(1957), and Ayn Rand's collection of essays, "The Virtue of
Selfishness" (1962).
Who
is John Galt?
Perhaps you've seen bumper stickers over the years asking that
question, and wondered. Keep reading,
keep checking for updates to this site. We'll tell you who
this fictional little moron, who knew
nothing, but thought himself entitled to "lay down the law" and rule
everything, really was.
But what's
the big deal about this speech of his? Well, this is no ordinary
speech--- of course, it's not really
even a speech. It's the
full and complete statement of Rand's supposed
"philosophy" of "Objectivism" (another misnomer if there ever was one).
So when we talk about John Galt,
we're really
talking
about
Ayn Rand herself. But Ayn Rand liked to harbor the delusion
that
Galt was something more than just a figment of her own imagination. She
speaks of him this way in her essays, and according to Barbara
Branden's biography, The
Passion of Ayn Rand, she
spoke of him in every day life as
though he
were something beyond
herself. So, since Ms.
Branden and others in Rand's inner circle went along with this little
delusion of
hers, we
might just as well too. Just don't tell any present day Rand follower
that
there really is no John Galt, please. That would be like
telling a small child
that there is no tooth fairy or No easter Bunny.
So, aside the fact that he had a mother, but no
father
(although he was by no means born of a "virgin"), who was John
Galt? As we will explain, in ever increasing detail as time
goes on, he
was, for starters, an
intellectual
thief who stole a whole scattering ideas and famous
lines from famous philosophers, such as German philosopher
Immanuel Kant, and thereafter claimed them to be his own. What is more,
he
outright lied about what these great thinkers (even Aristotle, the one
he supposedly liked) had said, counting on his listeners to be
too
ignorant, too unintelligent, or too lazy to check him out on his
assertions. Even worse, he claims, at the end of this incredibly long
winded speech, to live by a principle that is completely at odds with
the crude, dog-eat-dog capitalist system he is advocating: that he
will never treat others, merely as a means to his own ends
(this
stolen straight out of Kant, by the way). The reality, of
course is that every
big corporation wants each employee working for it to regard
his or her employment as the single most important thing
in that employee's life (they call this work ethic);
hence it inherently treats employees, basically, little more than as
means to its own corporate ends. This clearly violate Galt's
pledge. (Perhaps after 10 hours of non-stop purple prose, he was
counting on most of listeners to have long since turned him
off). Not
only that, in marketing their goods and services, customers
are
similarly seen as means
toward the end
of corporate profits. Corporations care little whether their goods or
services actually benefit their customers; they merely want to make
them to think
they do (e.g., the cigarette ads of a few decades ago, and fast food
restaurant ads today). In brief, it is the exact opposite
of
what Galt pledges that most real businesses (certainly, all big
businesses) operate by: the
corporation rules. What is
more, they not only
own society's means of production, for practical purposes, they own the people who
live in
the societies they dominate.
If you want to understand why Pat Robertson wants Hugo Chavez
assassinated, this is basically it. Chavez is standing up, and standing
up mightily, to these corporate scoundrels who think the world to be
not only a stage, but their
stage. Robertson, of course, like most televangelists, is
their paid stooge.
Rand herself, incidentally, did
exactly the same thing: those
in her inner circle, called "the Collective," were expected to cater to
her every whim. Thus the claim by some apologists that Objectivism is
somehow separable
from the way Rand lived her own life is completely false. Rand lived exactly
by the sophistry, and con artistry, she preached.
So when Galt makes
that pledge at the end of his speech, to neither live for the sake of
another man, nor ask another to live for his, he does he mean it? Well,
he half
means it. That is to say, he wants big corporations to be able
to make claims against
you and me, to treat and use
others (either as employees, customers, or geographical neighbors) to
their
own best interests, but at the same time he wants you
and me
to
pledge not to make any claims upon them in turn. In this
way, the
rich and powerful can use that power to become even richer and more
powerful, and therefore to get themselves into an even stronger
position to dominate the
less powerful.
This is the way so called "free
enterprise" has
always
worked, and always will work, so long as the majority people getting
the proverbial short end of the stick are duped into falling for it.
The only thing new with Galt is that he is
trying to sell this now as a moral
creed,
trying to convince the under class that they are moral wretches if they
don't allow big business a free hand in maximizing profits. Thus in
essence, John Galt was
one of the biggest con artists in all of pulp
fiction.
More importantly and more significantly, we
will explain to you, as this site further develops, how all
of this
garbage, which Rand, with the help of her imaginary hero-friend, John
Galt, and her various minions (these
days, mostly the likes
of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage--- not to
mention Supreme Court nominees Judge Roberts and Alberto Gonzales) have
preached for so many decades, has
finally crept
into and poisoned American culture, creating a whole
new set of social and moral attitudes on
the part of the average American, who for the most part has never even heard
of Ayn Rand. (How it is possible for someone who has never even heard
of Rand to be influenced by her will be explained in
considerable
detail later, as we further develop the site. For now, suffice it to
say that it involves the sociological notion of habitus). And
it is this cultural poisoning, we
will argue, that has made it possible for American soldiers to torture
prisoners, and to kill innocent people, such as journalists and their
body guards, and then laugh at and poke fun of their victim's loved
ones.
With the
knowledge and insight we hope to impart, it is our hope that our site's
visitors
will then see the need, and be better equipped, to
help reawaken the dormant humanistic values of brotherly love,
compassion,
equality, and
community, that were born, and once flourished, here
in
America. And if all of us passionate patriots can all work
together to save America, as a man
named Ray Taliaferro likes to say, that should be a good first step in
saving the world because at the moment, it is the rulers of America
(and their corporate financial backers) that are hell bent on
destroying the world, if not through
global
warming, and if not through conventional war, then through nuclear
weapons in space. Why
you
ask? To what conceivable end? The answer to that one is really quite
easy when you
think about it: the capitalist system works on the profit motive, and
as it turns out, wars and destruction are extremely
profitable--- you make and
sell the bombs to the
taxpayers, and then you get the reconstruction
contracts to rebuild what you destroyed (also funded by the same lower
and middle class taxpayers).
But it's not all merely for the sake of financial profit; it's also
for the
sake of the amusement
of those in control--- only, amusement
in the Harris and Klebold sense
of the term. But of course, George W. Bush is a little too
much of
a coward and
too much of a little weasel to do any of the actual shooting
himself (to say
nothing of bearing the direct personal consequences, as Harris and
Klebold did). He'd much rather have others, such as Casey
Sheehan, do
all of that for him, and simply play the part of a fighter aircraft
pilot in a San Diego publicity shot. In other words, George W.
Bush can best
be
understood as a bit of a cross between Harris and Klebold, a wanna be
Tom Cruise, and a video
game junkie. Only, the "game" W is playing is the real world. And as in
most violent video games, the more people he kills, the higher
his
score. And this just gets him off to no end. Notice, when you
understand
this, it is easy to also
understand why, when he was the governor of Texas, he just
about
had an orgasm when hearing Carla Faye Tucker (a true
Christian) had been put to death. An amoral man? Not
at all. According Ayn Rand's theory of Objectivism, George W.
Bush is
not
the sort of man who has lost, or
never
known
morality, but on the contrary, the one who has discovered
it. (See Galt's Speech in Atlas
Shrugged).
What
is www.antirand.org?
Anti
rand is new voice
on the web for
the promotion of freedom, reason, and compassion,
as well
as universal human rights for all inhabitants
of this earth--- not just Americans, not just the super rich and
powerful,
and not just the executives of large corporations and their
stockholders. That is to say, we believe that every
person who walks this earth ought to be entitled to the same
freedoms, rights, and protections that are guaranteed (at
least in
theory) to every citizen of
the United States in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution
known as the Bill of Rights (plus of course, the U.S.
Declaration
of Independence). We are further dedicated to opposing the
ever
accelerating trend toward privatization of public
property on
a global scale, and corporate domination of the political process---
indeed, we believe corporations should be taken out of the political
process entirely. As
this site intends to show, these disturbing trends were seeded
decades ago by the sophistry of novelist and
pseudo-philosopher, Ayn Rand. This site is therefore dedicated
not
only to exposing the numerous contradictions and fallacies
contained in Rand's own writings, but those being promulgated
today by her present day
followers, admirers, and
advocates. These include, but are not limited to, Fed Chairman
Alan Greenspan (a protege and close personal friend of Rand's), SEC
Chairman Christopher Cox, a self proclaimed Rand admirer, Rush
Limbaugh, and the Ayn Rand
Institute of Irvine, California. In brief, while Ayn Rand claimed
to be a champion of liberty and human
rights, all of the evidence points in exactly the opposite
direction: that
freedom
for
Ayn Rand, in the final analysis, meant nothing more and
nothing less than freedom
of the rich, the powerful, and the deceptive to oppress,
dominate, and
control--- and the freedom
of the rest of us to submit to their domination, accepting it as an
objective "fact of reality." And what is more, that such a small, rich,
and powerful minority should exercise dominion over the rest, seeking
only it's own self interest, with little or no concern for the rest of
humanity, and that the rest of humanity should accept it, Rand claimed
was a moral
necessity dictated by reason itself (on
the supposed
ethical basis of what she called rational
self interest).
Most amazing of all, the followers of Rand, who uncritically
accepted this and the rest of the nonsense which Rand called
Objectivism, Rand dubbed new
intellectuals.
This, we submit, is Orwellian New Speak par excellence.
The purpose of this site therefore, is to expose Objectivism for the
metaphysical, epistemological, and logical nonsense, and moral evil,
that it truly is.
Was Ayn Rand correct about anything?
Yes, we
think that recent history shows, beyond question, that Ayn
Rand
was indeed correct about one
thing: that ideas
do have consequences. For
example, because
of George W. Bush's ideas about budget priorities (the idea that his
misadventure in
Iraq was a higher priority than levee reinforcement in New
Orleans,
and that 40% of Louisiana's National Guard had more important
work to do in Iraq than they did back at home), tens of
thousands
of
New Orleans' sick, elderly, poor, and disabled are now either
dead, or breathing their last breaths. No, these people were not killed
by any "natural disaster," they were killed by George W. Bush and the
Republican Party's 2001 budget ax. Did the
fact that New Orleans was a predominantly African American City, and
the knowledge that mass deaths there would likely increase the strength
of the Republican
party in the region, enter into the budget considerations?
Could
it be said that Bush and the Republicans didn't exactly gamble
the lives of these people away, but actually
figured that
such a disaster (which would not only kill people, but raise crude oil
prices, and therefore oil company profits) as a potential boon
to
their interests? Oh, no; we
would never
suggest that.
Now,
just
who is Ayn Rand? Her
followers say she
was the greatest mind
that ever lived.
We at Anti rand say something quite the opposite. Ayn
Rand (1905--1982), was born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg Russia.
Her adopted first
name, correctly pronounced,
sounds nothing
at all
like "Ann,"
but more
like "ion" or "eye'n" but somewhat compressed into one syllable. After
emigrating to the United States in her late teens, and a few
unimportant (for our purposes here) career detours along the way, she
became one of America's best known novelists and essayists, to
the
point of gaining something of a cult following
beginning in the late 1950s with the publication of her
magnum
opus, a novel called Atlas
Shrugged.
Although
the "Rand movement" probably peaked in 1968 (the time of her
"repudiation" of former associates Nathaniel and Barbara
Branden, after Nathaniel broke off a long running romantic
affair
with Ayn, known to both of their respective spouses), her
influence remains enormous to this day--- both directly and indirectly.
In fact, the recent
movement toward "privatization" of everything
from roads to
water supplies might well be seen as the fulfillment of a Randian dream
of a half century ago. All
property, Rand held, should be privately held.
But Ayn Rand did not stop with
political
theory. Indeed, she herself claimed that her entire political
theory was based on a metaphysical,
epistemological, and
moral philosophy of her own invention, one which she called
Objectivism. In brief, the metaphysics of Rand's Objectivism says that
the basis of all knowledge is the so called "axiom of existence" which
says existence
exists.
Her Objectivist epistemology,(theory of knowledge) in brief, says that
things really
areas
we perceive them (whether this applies to such things as mirages in
the desert or on the road, Rand never quite got around to telling us).
The basis of Objectivist ethics, finally, is selfishness--- or more
precisely, what Rand called "rational self interest." But such an
ethics, as we shall prove, turns out to be nothing more and nothing
less than a philosophical nihilism
--- quite the opposite of the "absolutism" Rand claims it to be.
This initial page is
just a start for an
entire project The plan is, eventually, to critically
discuss
all aspects of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. In the end, we intend
to show that Ayn Rand was anything but the voice of freedom
and
reason she claimed herself to be., and that if she is seriously to be
regarded as part of the history of Western philosophy at all, she marks
its nadir.
What
is
fundamentally wrong with Objectivism?
Basically,
everything--- beginning with
the
supposed "axiom of existence" which according to Rand says "existence
exists" and "A is A." Rand attributes this nonsense to
Aristotle,
but the truth of the matter is that Aristotle never said anything of
the sort. "A is A" was first formulated about 320 (not 2300) years ago
by the German
(not Greek) philosopher and mathematician Leibniz (in a
posthumous work of his called the New
Essays)
as a "truth of reason." Such "truths of reason," according to
Leibniz, told you absolutely nothing about anything actually
existent--- whether a given thing (e.g., Bigfoot or UFOs) did or did
not exist, or about any sort of objective reality. What is more,
neither Aristotle, nor Leibniz, nor any other real philosopher
I
know has ever claimed that "existence exists." Why not? Because every
other philosopher prior to Rand (and for the most part, since) has
realized that the assertion is not only meaningless (as some
critics of Rand have argued) but outright false. This link
explains why. What
is so terribly wrong with Objectivism?
What
is fundamentally wrong with Rand's theory of knowledge? her basic
Objectivism?
Basically, what is wrong is that she claims to know the way things as
they "really are," as they "really exist" independently
of
human
cognition or knowledge. But this is, in effect, a contradiction: the
claim of a super knowledge, in a manner of speaking, beyond knowledge,
which nobody has.
Sure, it's reasonable to assume that there are things in this world
that exist independently of human cognition, the noumenal
world,
or the Ding an such,
as Kant put it in German, or the "thing in itself" as we generally
translate that phrase into English. But how can we talk about such
things as they are "in and of themselves," independently of
human cognition?
Clearly, we humans only know
what we know. We don't
know what we
don't know. But Rand is
claiming to know that which, by
definition, by her own admission, is
not known---
the world of things, untouched by human knowledge. This is
patently absurd.
But Ayn Rand has a response to this
simple truism, first formulated by Kant (with his
"neumenal-phenomenal" distinction).
She throws a little
girlish temper tantrum, and lambastes poor old Immanuel Kant
as "morally evil," "an enemy of
man's mind"--- while at the same time
plagiarizing from him elsewhere. That is to say, Rand seems to think
she can win the argument with
screams, shrieks, pouts, and
pretentious sanctimonious moral outrage. Nowhere does Rand
even try
to attack Kant's argument. This is why we call her by such names as pseudo philosopher
and sophist,
and why it's quite literally a joke to call this woman an intellectual
(to
say nothing of her blind followers). For further discussion on the
basic problem of epistemology, see my What
is Knowledge?
Need
a
short introduction to Objectivism?
Follow the link below to my One Drachma Course in
Objectivism. The one drachma charge is purely voluntary. If paid at
all, it must
be paid in
drachmas. But as far as I know, they haven't minted these
coins
for 2300 or more years, so they're a bit hard to find these
days.
Should you be visiting the ancient ruins of Athens some time in the
near future, you might look around on the ground. Perhaps the ancient
Greeks threw these 1 drachma coins around the way we Americans
do
pennies. (In case anyone wonders, yes, I do stoop to pick up
pennies. It's a big thrill for me when I find one--- something for
nothing, as the saying goes. Plus, they come in very handy at times).
A
One Drachma Course in Objectivism.
What do we mean by Universal Human Rights?
A very good question with a very precise answer--- one that is the
result of an enormous, heroic, group
effort on the part of
several
people (among them Eleanor Roosevelt), spearheaded by two great
philosophers (real
philosophers) from the middle of the 20th century: Jacques Maritain and
Richard P. McKeon. McKeon will
be familiar to some readers of this
site as the notorious "Chairman" character in Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle
Maintenance.
But forget Pirsig's paranoid description of him; the truth is
that
the man was nothing less than a sage. Follow this link to that answer. Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights
What is fundamentally Wrong with Ethical Egoism? Some
people will be surprised to learn that Ayn Rand's theory of "ethical
egoism" (or As Rand herself put it more simply, "selfishness," or more
verbosely, "rational self interest") really didn't originate with Ayn
Rand. Rand was simply the first publicly recognized figure to take the
theory seriously.
And the
reason for this is quite simple: Ethical Egoism, as a moral theory, has
one fundamental problem: you cannot preach it without at the same time violating
it! That is to say, if I am truly selfish, the last thing in the world
I want is for you or anyone else to be selfish--- on the contrary, I
want them
to be altruists, especially in their dealings with me.
That is why no real philosopher
has ever taken ethical egoism very seriously--- it's quite literally a
philosopher's joke (much like "The Society for
Solipsism"). But
Rand claims that the theory can be made valid if one realizes that reason
dictates that I recognize the equal right to be selfish for everyone.
But in fact, this introduction of the term "rational" in the name of
the theory only makes the theory more absurd. If I do in fact recognize
the right of others to promote their own selfish ends, even when the
realization those
ends is detrimental to me, I am thereby unselfishly contradicting
my own principle of selfishness! Ergo: Rand's is in
actuality a theory of irrational
self interest.
However, as we shall explain
below, if you
have attained above average political influence, power, and wealth, you
begin coming out ahead with this theory. And the more powerful,
wealthy, and influential you are, the bigger a win it is for you. But
by the same token, the poorer and less powerful you are, the
worse deal it is for you.
The way this works is not difficult to
see. Simply put, the more power, wealth, and influence you have, the more selfish
you are able to be, for the simple reason that you have a greater
ability to advance your own selfish interest. What those of far less
power and influence are able to do to further their
own interests
is small in comparison to what you're
are able to do to advance yours.
So, how does this work out practically, when
poor and powerless people (e.g., the majority of people in Kansas who
vote Republican) who are not, as the saying goes, "the sharpest tools
in the
shed," accept the hypothesis that everyone
has an equal right to be selfish?
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer! Again, this is an entirely
predictable result for the simple reason that
the rich have far greater means at their disposal to pursue their own
selfish ends, thus ensuring that they're going to come out way ahead on
this raw deal. To put it another way, Rand's moral
theory becomes a proverbial stacked
deck---
stacked in favor of the rich, the powerful, and the
manipulative. To put it still another way, Rand's Objectivist Ethics
is a con game, pure and simple, against the uneducated (or very poorly
educated) poor. And interestingly enough, Rand herself had a phrase
which
fits
this quite well (although she didn't apply it in this way): the sanction of the victim.
That is to say, the poor or middle class person who has to struggle to
make ends meet, and possibly doesn't get the medical treatment he or a
family member needs, yet buy into Rand's sucker morality,
honestly believes it right and just that he should struggle as
he
does, and be denied needed medical
treatment. Nietzsche
likewise had a phrase for this, although he didn't apply it in
this way either: the
slave morality. For
Nietzsche slave
morality
was the morality slaves invented for themselves, and used against the
former masters; here, it's the morality invented or promoted by
the former
masters for
the slaves, for purposes of duping the freed slaves into voluntarily
putting themselves back into a condition of servitude toward the
masters.
But Rand is not exactly an
innovator here. The kind of socio-political and
economic
"raw deal" we get from Ayn Rand long predates her, although it
went by different names--- such as individualism.
Why individualism? Because
like Rand's (admittedly slightly more
nutty) theory of rational
self interest, older theories
of individualism
work on the exact same lie of inequality--- that the worker and the big
corporation, for example, are "equal parties" in a "free"
employment contract. Why aren't they equal? And why isn't this truly a
"free trade" deal? Because the individual worker needs the job a lot
more than Henry Ford, say, needs the worker. The worker and his family
go hungry if he and Ford aren't able to agree on wages and working
conditions; Ford merely hires someone else, and the assembly lines keep
moving. No, we are certainly not saying individuals should not have
rights--- quite the contrary. We are simply saying that in conservative
economic theories (as advanced by some personal friends of
mine, I
must confess), so called "free market individualism" works against the
best interests of most individuals; it is that
which we at
Anti rand oppose. (By
"we," I mean not just me, but those who support my effort here
as well).
What is this Ayn Rand Institute all about?
Perhaps this
question
can best be answered, at least initially, with a concrete example of
the sort of thing these folks do. Specifically, I am referring
to
something I
wrote a few years ago in response to an outdoor bulletin board posting
at my local community
college. That is to say, the link below will be to a rebuttal counter
post I made at the time to a posted short essay produced by a
member of the staff of the Ayn Rand Institute. This posting, which I
accidentally found while perusing a campus bulletin board,
immediately made me realize that the world was still being
haunted by the ghost of this horrible woman, Ayn Rand, and the
dark shadow cast by her supposed "ideas." It is also what
prompted me to write my book (yet
to be published) about
Rand, and how her ideas have slowly crept into and poisoned
American culture--- almost
without anyone directly realizing it. Specifically, the original post
(which I will not mirror here for copyright reasons) was an indirect
but brutal attack on intellectual freedom, in the thinly
veiled
guise of an
attack a class of people which fascists and authoritarian minded people
have always loved to hate: college professors. Why? Because college
professors by and large are the thinkers
of a society, and represent the most significant single threat to the
ruling power structure. Your
teachers
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