I guess I'm trying to figure out how a woman who was a pro abortion, free love atheist got to be so popular with the right...the libertarians, I get, but the base? Why?
The other thing that's amusing and not as well known about Rand is that she happily took Social Security and Medicare when her time came under the name Ann O'Connor. Did she consider herself a "looter," a "parasite," or a "moocher?" Perhaps she figured that she paid into the system so why not take out of it when her time came. Getting lung cancer in 1974 and seeing her insanely high medical bills was more than likely another factor in her change in thinking later in life.
Even more interesting is the fact that, as scribe Mark Ames writes, Rand modeled her characters on sociopaths.
“Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Partiers dividing up the world between ‘producers’ and ‘collectivism,’” he wrote, “just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie….And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and bragging about how they are slashing these programs for ‘moral’ reasons, just remember Rand’s morality and who inspired her.”
Indeed. One has to wonder what sort of process would occur in the minds of a "law and order" Tea Partier upon learning that their religion is based on morally bankrupt individuals.
A recent piece by Jason "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario really nailed the whole Randian religion. Echoing Ames, he writes, "The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became. A conservative society is a borderline sociopathic society."
The whole piece is a very accurate analysis of the pathology that I talk about frequently. In fact, he says the same thing I have been saying lately.
Do you know why Rand’s laissez-faire utopia would fail? It’s the exact same reason a socialist utopia would fail; people are imperfect. We are greedy, envious, petty and selfish. There will always be some among us who will better themselves specifically to the detriment of others because they simply don’t care. There will always be those who, as they gain power and wealth, will want more at any expense.
Indeed. Both he and I are in agreement in curiosity in wondering what Rand would think at witnessing the Epic Fail of Wall Street in 2008.
These people are sociopaths, pure and simple.
Rand was a big champion of no regulation at all. Close your eyes and imagine what Wall Street could do with even less regulation than it had before. Think of all the possibilities. Taste the freedom.
Yeah, no. That would be a no...one giant big NO for me. I've seen that film already and it ends with the Rand worshipers beating their chests and screaming about how entitled they are to loot the nation. I just don't get the worship of sociopaths. I never will.
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.And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitution—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
Uhm, the middle class, by definition, does not need protection from destitution.
When your argument and viewpoint begins from such a point of ignorance how do you expect to be taken seriously?
It seems M is one of the few that takes this book literal as well. We are mature enough to know it is a work of fiction taken to extreme to make a point. Nobody I know 'worships' the book and extremely few people actually follow Objectivism but most do recognize the parallels. Why don't you?
Uhm, the middle class, by definition, does not need protection from destitution.
Have you completely missed what's happened in the last three years?
Middle-class Americans are in serious trouble. Millions took out "home equity" loans a few years ago, and then the value of their homes went into the toilet. But they still owe that big fat principle to the bank. Millions of middle-class Americans have lost their jobs. The ones who do have jobs have endured stagnant wages for the last decade. They work multiple jobs, or have both parents working, and still have trouble making ends meet. Hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans have been hit by illness and have been kicked off their health insurance and forced to declare bankruptcy.
America has one of the lowest savings rates in the developed world, and one of the highest debt ratios. We don't save for retirement. Most of the Americans who have old-style pensions have plans are pegged to Social Security, so if it goes bust so will their pensions and they will have nothing. But the majority of Americans have no pensions, and they don't seriously start investing for retirement until their 40s or 50s, which means that without Social Security and Medicare tens of millions of middle-class Americans will have next to nothing to prevent them from falling into poverty after they retire.
Millions of older middle-class Americans nearing retirement were hammered by the crash of 2008, and their nest eggs were wiped out. Many of them have permanently put off retirement and will have to work for the rest of their lives, because the money they were saving was totally wiped out by the scum bags on Wall Street who orchestrated the crash and are now pulling down multi-million dollar bonuses again.
So, yeah, middle-class Americans (the ones who haven't lost their jobs recently) aren't exactly destitute. But they're very worried. And when they're too old to work, they will destitute if Social Security isn't there to pick up the slack.
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But Nikto, the home equity situation was all the fault of the consumers. Don't ever blame the holy ones in the financial sector. Blasphame! Now go pray at the alter of Goldman Sachs for forgiveness.
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I for one do not miss the brilliance of the attempted strategy here - if a large percentage of people in our society receive a goverment payment/benefit at some point in their lives, even due to things like a dead parent or a subsidized student loan, and then accept criticism from only those who have never received a government payment, then goverment handouts can never be criticized.
Remember also that we cannot opt out of certain programs. Are you really pretending that somebody who believes a particular government service should be changed or reduced has a moral obligation to forgo the use of that service? I, you, Rand, et all are under no obligation to forgo government benefits. Speaking for myself, I am a citizen of this country and I, like all of you, am subject to the obligations and privileges that go along with that. It is not as if we have the choice to opt out of Social Security at a young age...so do liberals really either believe that critics of government programs have an obligation to endure the liabilities attached to the programs while forgoing the benefits? I know that allows you all to scream your favorite word - hypocrisy!
Hypocrisy is so easy. Hell, our current president thinks that folks as rich as him should pay higher taxes yet he took nearly $400,000 of deductions on his 2010 taxes and reduced his tax liability by $150,000. Does that make him a hypocrite? No it doesn’t. He believes that the tax code should be other than it is — which is in no way incompatible with availing himself of the benefits of the tax code as it currently is. Nothing in the tax code forces anyone to take deductions btw.
Here are 3 lines from Niktos post that fall along the lines of individual personal responsibility -
1. Millions took out "home equity" loans a few years ago.
Yeah, I saw those morons in House of Cards with their $30,000 kitchens. We just re-did our kitchen for a whopping $1,000. Glued laminate countertops over the existing laminate, painted the cupboards a different color and did the tile backsplash ourselves. Nobody forced them to use their homes as an ATM.
2. We don't save for retirement. and they don't seriously start investing for retirement until their 40s or 50s.
Whose fault is that?
3. Millions of older middle-class Americans nearing retirement were hammered by the crash of 2008, and their nest eggs were wiped out.
I go fishing with people who had this exact same thing happen to them, and I know Mark has mentioned that some of his relatives had their entire nest egg wiped out. In my friends case, they are in their 60's and lost 40% in the crash. Although I don't know how to calculate it because I haven't seen their portfolio, their situation, along with Marks relatives situation, sounds like an asset allocation that was waaay too aggressive. That asset allocation was probably around 80% equities/stocks. That's just way too aggressive for a couple in their 60's...so did they give their money to their local "money guy" who double dips their portfolio for fees...gets a big cut on front-end load high expense C share mutual funds he puts their money in, $200+ commissions on stock and fund sales he initiates, takes an annual management fee while wrapping your entire portfolio in 100% small cap international stocks wrapped in a variable annuity with 2.5% expenses on top of the funds expense ratio?
You see, blaming wall street can only go so far if you aren't paying attention to your retirement portfolio.
So, they aren't supposed to listen to their financial adviser and just figure it out for themselves? Then what's the point of having a financial adviser? Actually, it might be nice to live in a world where everyone did have the time to manage this stuff themselves and we could do away with the need for financial analysts all together. Honestly, we'd probably not have any more crashes. But who has the time for that when most people are simply trying to survive?
And that's the reason why people don't save for retirement. They just don't make enough money. The cost of health care alone can wipe people out.
I never said people should stop listening to their financial advisor. I certainly could learn a lot about investments and so forth from someone with many years of experience in that arena as I still have a lot to learn myself.
What I am saying is that older Americans who had their entire portfolio "wiped out", as Nikto described, or 64 year olds who lost 40% of their portfolio in 2008, absolutely 100% without a doubt had an asset allocation that was way too agressive for their age. Doesn't anyone use the Age in Bonds theory anymore?
It doesn't take that much time at all to manage it yourself the way I do it, which is to ignore people who claim they can time the stock market and continue to max out that Roth IRA and keep contributing to your 401k.
If you want to know what a financial advisor does, the most common method is to ask them — and the most common response from an advisor is that they help clients achieve their financial objectives by getting to know their needs, yada yada yada. Now, if you really want to know what an advisor does for a living, find out how they’re paid. How an advisor earns their income reveals more about what they do than anything else.
There are literally tens of thousands of advisors who, when asked, say they’re financial planners because they have a CFP. This is a misrepresentation. These advisors are financial planners by certification, not by occupation. They’re not performing financial planning as their primary source of revenue.
In other words, you hay not have an advisor, you may have a salesman. Kind of like calling a car salesman a Transportation Advisor. Wall Street is evil, but their broker/advisor is a nice guy who takes them to lunch and ha slots of cool charts for them.
Here's a link to a bit of what I'm talking about...
http://books.google.com/books?id=I0iO2stKO7kC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=your+broker+is+not+your+buddy&source=bl&ots=3xJ9Rvki3V&sig=X5eEAVq-ffXfYWFLM_2SzMcjsBk&hl=en&ei=vtm6TfqjBInw0gHFxtjLBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
...how a woman who was a pro abortion, free love atheist got to be so popular with the right...the libertarians, I get, but the base?
Uh, do you have some evidence that Huckabee supporters (which I guess is "the base") think Rand is all that? Even libertarians are split: yes, the Objectivist crowd is all gaga for her, but the Jeffersonian branch has about as much use for Rand as do your dreaded social-cons (or progressives for that matter).
Another day in silly-land, with voices only M can hear.
Not only do I doubt that all that many religious types are all that down with Rand, I'm not sure Mark has even read Rand. He seems to depend on what Rand-hating liberals say about Rand rather than going to the source itself. That would be a "primary source", Mark. You do remember those, don't you? Try some of her non-fiction, such as Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. Hell, you might even recognize yourself and one of your standard tactics in the essay Extremism - or the Art of Smearing, though with your apparent general lack of self-awareness, I doubt it.
I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead when I was a teenager. I will admit that it's been several years since I have read them but I do remember Atlas Shrugged as being overly long and pathologically obsessed with government influence. Rand's work has to be looked at in the context of her bias of growing up in the Soviet Union.
We are not the Soviet Union despite the continued fantasies of the right. Rand feeds into this very well and several libertarians I know call Atlas Shrugged their "Bible."
and several libertarians
In or out of your head? Yes, some libertarians just love Rand. Not even all libertarians, let alone all conservatives (and least of all of them, the social cons).
I take it you are being this stupid because you just don't want to talk about how Obama has sold out the left and fucked over the country? Are you slowly discovering that your hero has feet of clay? Still hoping for change? Talk about bitterly clinging to fantasies!
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