Posted on 01/31/2009 11:38:31 AM PST by Publius
Which they won by being born? Sure, I agree with that observation.
But there is also a deep insecurity in such people. They need to be on top and give orders to reinforce that conviction of superiority. Like the classic narcissist, they need others below them to provide the reflection of their own perceived greatness.
It isn’t ever enough to be convinced of one’s own superiority and not even enough to be lauded by one’s *peers*, however they define that. They need those whom they perceive to be under their whim and command in order to really experience the conviction of being essentially superior and that any extrinsic advantage (wealth/education/position) is just icing on the cake of an in-born supremacy.
The rest of us know that talent can be found walking the streets and only effort and actual results count.
I didn’t see Lord of the Rings. I tried to watch part of a movie on TV but it wasn’t the first one and I didn’t really know what was going on. I don’t know if I saw the elf queen. I did hate the “my precious” guy. Don’t know why anyone in their right mind would have followed him anywhere.
But the religious ideas is right out there glaring in our eyes today. Combine both philosophies, we have an obamanation in the making. Those who believe in a higher being versus those who believe man will destroy ourselves. Does the end of western civ matter how people view the outcome? How we get there is really unimportant, we're heading down this path, extremely fast. I have some videos, some writings etc, that you can take or leave on how religion plays into this. But, the bottom line is, if we don't stem this assault on Freedom, we're doomed. There is no other nation in the World that will promote Freedom today.. A book that is over 2000 years old, it's hard to dismiss.
I'm struggling with A=A.
Balph? Where the heck did that come from? Perhaps it’s akin to the names today.
I saw Newt give a sermon one morning for Dr. Charles Stanley. He talked about God’s place in the founding of our country. He said that our Founding Fathers believed in God and founded a nation on His principles. The thinking being that if our freedom, liberty and laws in our country are God given rights and laws, then who is man to try to take them away or change them.
Jim Taggert states the following phrase: “”Speaking of progressive policies, Orren” said Taggert, “you might ask yourself whether at a time of transportation shortages.....”
I had thought that the term “progressive” was a recent term adopted by the left, but I have seen it several times. There was also Hank’s brother collecting money for Friends of Global Progress. Does anyone know when progressive started being used as a sort of cover name for collectivism?
Unfortunately, we have gotten ourselves in the position where if the government/union/education complex doesn't create lots of simple, good-paying jobs for people who are too stupid and miseducated to do work more advanced than filling in a circle for Democrats every two years, the whole country in going to collapse into civil unrest and criminal overload.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
John Adams - October 13, 1789
Although Rand is ambivalent to religion, it's out there, and a huge part of our history. I'm finding my outlook for the worst case scenario, the purposeful destruction of the American way, the religious outcome is more appealing. I really believe, in these past couple months, God has given our country a second chance. Find him or be a master to satan. I'm just going to have to figure out what's going on in my personal life, and the stress these past couple months has brought. I can't sleep, everything is bombarding my senses, I wake up thinking, "I can pound sense into these morons", alas, satan is more powerful, bit God is there. I'll give my life to God. I'd rather be dead that give up my freedom. I've been so stressed about all this obamacrap, If the sanity is with God, I'm embracing it big time.
bit = but
Progressive is code for commie, liberal, DEMOCRAT. Who knows where it came from, it’s like compassionate conservationism, utter bull****. Ronald Reagen thought we left this on the ash heap of history. The cancer has come back. McCarthy was right.
This chapter brings us to a recurrent topic in AS, that of "fairness" and how that ambiguous phrase is used to cover a grand rhetorical con game. One hears it in the mouths of both sides, the bad guys somewhat more often than the good, but what they mean by it is two very different things. Just as no two cultures agree on the definition of the term "justice" (more on that one later) they don't agree on "fair."
In the mouths of Rand's protagonists the term "fair" might be considered interchangeable with "merited" or "earned"; that is, one's desserts being a function of one's actions. In the mouths of such as James Taggart it represents an equitable division of material possessions regardless of one's actions: meritless. Rand considers the latter immoral and I am inclined to agree.
This is the fundamental philosophical conflict between the two sides. The notion that material possessions are somehow "naturally" evenly distributed is central to such systems as Marxism, (that state of nature existing nowhere in fact but between the theoretician's ears). It is a premise central to collectivist approaches at building a society, and its corollaries are (1) that inequities of such distribution are undesirable and constitute theft by the individual from the collective, and (2) that it is the proper function of authority to remediate them.
This sort of "fairness" is reminiscent of my parents doling out blocks to my brother and myself - a game we used to call "twofer" as in "two for you, two for you," - which is a perfect metaphor for the socialist view of private property in general, to be held in the name of the collective and doled out to its individual members as deemed desirable by those entrusted to lead - the cadre, if you will. "Fair" here is to be taken however that authority chooses to define it. It is equitable only in theory - in practice never turns out that way as commentators from Orwell to Djilas have shown. Ironically, the ones calling most for this sort of "fairness" tend to be not the disadvantaged, but the advantaged, and the reason isn't that they want more material possessions, but that they want the power to distribute them. That sort of "fairness" is always arbitrary, and the power of arbitration is the power to rule.
Contrasted to this is Rand's view that "fairness" in the distribution of material goods is a function of creative activity and that those who manage it by jobbing the system are the thieves - "moochers and looters," as she puts it. It is easy to envisage Mouch and James Taggart as moochers, useless parasites on a system that heretofore could muster the surplus necessary to support them. The death of the host is in the interest of no competent parasite.
In fact, they are not. To Rand they truly are looters, and the death of the host is inconsequential to them so long as the system may be maintained. It is the system, and not the looters, that Atlas must shrug from his shoulders.
Clearly the roots of economic value within this system are creative activity, the likes of Taggart adding little value to the product but a good deal of cost. At first glance this skirts the Ricardan/Marxian Labor Theory of Value (Marx insisted it was a definition, not a theory, and refused to debate it as the latter). In fact, under the strict laissez-faire capitalism that is the root of Rand's system a commodity is worth what it takes to acquire it, and nothing more. There is, in fact, room for mooching and looting there, which is probably why all economic systems tend to display them. It is unclear that they necessarily would be absent from the post-Shrug world of Galt's Gulch writ large, but more of that later.
Substitute the phrase "social justice" for "fairness" and we may read precisely this case in every day's newspapers. Inequities in the distribution of material goods are presented as the results of systemic theft, "institutional racism," "Whiteness studies," and a host of other neologisms - and it is the putative responsibility of authority to remediate them. It's a pity Rand didn't name one of AS's villains "Jesse Jackson," or "Cornel West" because they belong there. IMHO, of course.
Sorry - “Whiteness Studies” = “Whiteness.”
This is where the age old question comes up, who is responsible for the training? The employee that wants to get ahead? The union that is working for their members to create more opportunity? The owner who wants to keep good people and create opportunity for his loyal workers? Or the Government? I feel it is the person's responsibility to create the opportunity for themselves.
Close.
Liberals will tell you -- correctly -- that 90% of Americans will live and die in the same socio-economic class they are born into. They will also tell you -- incorrectly -- that the American dream is a lie intended to convince people to live with great inequality.
Capitalism is highly selective. Not everybody is cut out for the world of high competition. Some fail once and never try again. Some are too afraid to even try.
Liberals argue that hard work and persistence are no substitute for luck. Often that luck comes from being born into the right circumstances. Therefore, those who achieve success did so by being lucky in life's lottery, not because they worked for it. There is nothing to be proud of in success. It merely means that a successful man became successful, not by means of his own work, but by standing in the right place at the right time. His success is not his own, therefore neither is his money.
This is what I'm trying to get at.
The Civil War had ended the states rights, or federalism, argument between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. The Jeffersonian impulse now aimed at capturing the powerful central government that Hamilton and Clay had wanted and that Lincoln had created. Rather than put the government at the service of bankers and industrialists, Jeffersonians (progressives) wanted to put the government at the service of the people.
Like any political movement, the Progressives spent decades wandering in the desert, but Theodore Roosevelt put them into power.
They ended up moving from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party during the Twenties, but now both parties claim the mantle of progressivism to one degree or another.
See Post #116.
Yes, I see what Rand is saying, here. It’s the foundational belief of the looters/liberals.
By George, I think you've got it!
You know, between the two of you, this is turning into a wonderful course on history, economics and political history.
Thank you! It is a great way to handle the present economic/historical/political situation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.