Ayn Rand - Saving American Liberty

[HaUriel1]

Loss of Freedom Alert:

Notice the cigarette smoke throughout the clip? That is also concrete evidence that our freedoms have slowly disappeared since this was recorded. The smoke Nazis would not allow their useful idiot, Mike Wallace, to get away with endangering Ayn and the film crew's lives with second-hand smoke today!

[HaUriel1]

I like how Mike Wallace responds to Ayn's statement that he knows as well as she does that the country has never been offered a real choice by completely ignoring it and shifting the subject to the crony capitalists he accuses her of admiring.

The more things "change" the more they stay the same. There hasn't been a journalist who isn't bought and paid for since at least Mark Twain.

[MrAtlanticstar72]

I wonder if atlas will shield us from the suns radiation next year? Maybe he will drop the ball entirely

[pastthebar]

I am reading Atlas Shrugged now. She is a great philosopher, but only a mediocre writer. She is way too verbose. The descriptions she uses should be summarized with dialog; but that's just my literary criticism. The book SAYS something, and that is the most important thing to take away.

[SanguineBullet667]

dictatorship by corporations.

[spectrumVerX]

@SanguineBullet667 Which is not the capitalism she was talking about. Governance by corporations is corporatism, not capitalism.

[generationkeeper]

It's definitely time for Atlas to Shrug!

[Hanksand]

@generationkeeper Your about to se him shrug in a way that will shake Ron Paul into power!

[foamulator]

These Lefties love to play the "what if" game, instead of addressing political reality of today, Massive Government intrusion into all aspects of our lives and outrite theft of our money through the ever-growing tax system, both federal, and state,and local, ( and soon to be : a "World Tax", via energy taxes or some such marxist scheme.

[sdavis3398]

I wonder what she'd think of government regulation if, in its absence, she lived near a river downstream from an unregulated chemical plant that was dumping dioxin into the river that her kids played in.

[natritious1]

@sdavis3398 well, she has a right to retaliate if they initated force on her and her kids

[AnarchoAssassin]

@sdavis3398 She would move to another area.

[bichepo]

@sdavis3398 the reason chemical companies CAN dump dioxin into waterways in spite of overregulation is because they are afforded protection of the government. In Rand's ideology, the government would not have as its agenda to protect companies 'that are too big to fail'. Realize all this regulation is an attack on small businesses, doesnt affect the multinationals. In the world of Rand's philosophy, the dioxin dumpers would face justice/do jail time if they caused harm. 

[veronicanbetty69]

The US is screwed...the Libs have killed it....

[tstruss912]

Ayn Rand...dangerous to the eyes and mind alike.

[billysunerson]

@tstruss912 Your "argument" fails to compel me. Try claim, data, and warrant next time.

[tstruss912]

@billysunerson Because groups cannot exist without empathy/altruism lest they start resembling that abomination of a show called, "Jersey Shore", or breaking apart. If somebody only cares about you because it benefits them, would you really want to be a part of that group?! Think about it: why do troops go back in for the fallen? The logical, selfish action would be to leave them behind. A group like that would attract few. We all must be altruistic because reciprocation is not always possible.

[billysunerson]

@tstruss912 Much better. We need less mudslinging and more open discussion of ideas. Most people who disagree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy don’t fully understand it. I’m not being condescending, what I’m saying is, people assume they understand the words she uses without bothering to check her definitions. It is usually a matter of semantics, and terms must be clearly defined before any substantive discussion can follow...

[billysunerson]

...If it’s not that, then usually it’s drawing premature conclusions and making unfounded assumptions which are inaccurate, which seems to be the case with your stance.

Ayn did not say that you should only care about a person because it benefits them. She does not have anything against empathy and concern for others, only against altruism as she defines it. I’m willing to bet a Christmas ham that you’re using the term ‘altruism’ differently...

[billysunerson]

(3 of 4) She has no condemnation either for soldiers who go back for their fallen brothers, because they are following their values. What she is against is the idea that men need to serve others in order to justify their existence, that his moral duty is to sacrifice, i.e. to give up a greater value for a lesser value; to be a sacrificial animal. She is against this idea being forced on everyone...

[billysunerson]

(4 of 4)

In summary, the argument you have made against her is an unintentional straw-man; your assertions of her beliefs are inaccurate. So far, you don’t actually disagree with her (at least in these points.) She goes into a bit of detail on the subjects which you are talking about beginning at around 5:30 in the video entitled "Ayn Rand - Objectivism vs Altruism"

[aberjay1]

Your response was that of a political spin doctor. In your astute opinion, what qualifies a person to be a recognized philosopher?

[billysunerson]

@aberjay1 You claim my "response was that of a political spin doctor." If it is, you'll need to use facts and logic to prove it, because right now, it's not an argument, just a dubious statement.

I don't really appreciate the condescension in asking for my "astute" opinion. Lets just talk calmly about the facts and leave pride out of it.

You asked "what qualifies a person to be a recognized philosopher?" What on earth does it matter if a person is recognized by others as a philosopher?

[billysunerson]

@billysunerson That seems to imply that if enough people believe what someone says, then it must be right. That would be the appeal to popularity fallacy. If Ayn Rand's philosophy is true, then it doesn't matter if even one person believes it. Some things are true whether you want to believe it or not. The only thing we need be concerned with is finding out if it is true based on its merits alone. The only standard to judge anything by is rationality and rationality alone.

[aberjay1]

Just like the Bible, people are twisting her words into what makes sense in their own mind. this Immigrant from Russia, is true genius, and she is correct, we have enemies in both parties. Corruption is running amok in washington in general, and in the Whitehouse in particular.

[jazzbo66zz]

@aberjay1

Rand substitutes the tyranny of the market for the tyranny of the state and this is a role she was made for. Rand is no more a philosopher than Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. Presentation is everything when you are trading on myth.

[aberjay1]

@jazzbo66zz so, in your opinion, what qualifies a person to be a true philosopher?

[jazzbo66zz]

@aberjay1

I like the assignation you dreamed up for this jibe, "true philosopher". Would that be a true lover of truth? There are a range of criteria that Rand's work does not satisfy, beyond failing to earn the recognition of her peers but the question is facetious on its face. If Rand is your idea of a philosopher then more power to you. If Rand is a philosopher in your opinion then perhaps everyone is? I mean who would not be? Rand suffers from being a member of Jean Paul Sartre's generation

[ralliart2000]

@jazzbo66zz There is no such thing as "the tyranny of the market".

[pneumatictrousers]

she wanted to appear as the lone voice in the wilderness but if you actual study depth psychology you would start to realize she became more and more mentally ill.

[1divahead]

@pneumatictrousers ITS CALLED ASPERGER SYNDROME!

[7Sonnel]

she has predicted and we are here

[twosquirrelly]

The Gilded Age was a period of laissez-faire capitalism, and it was a nightmare for the majority of the population. Then after WWII (thanks to the progressive tax rates, unions, minimum wages, etc) the middle class flourished as well as the rich. What the rich seem to have forgotten is that when the majority of the pop. has money to spend, they spend it, and the rich stay rich. EVERYBODY benefits.

[Bigturns33]

Smartest woman who has ever walked the earth.

[jazzbo66zz]

@TheCrookedTimber

Why not apply your own ideology? The belief that the existence of a public sphere constitutes a "socially deformative and dehumanizing ideology" to the case of 2.5 million US prisoners, Americas homeless millions or the existence of a thousand military installations? Capitalism is a state and conflating that state with liberty is a function of rhetoric that is readily traceable to similar cold war ideologies of good vs evil; Rand, Buckley, Hoover, Kissenger, Kristal et al.

[jazzbo66zz]

@TheCrookedTimber

There has never been a debate between capitalism and socialism in in the US aside from the popular unrest that surfaced during the depression. McCarthy succedded in manufacturing an all purpose freestanding, if imaginary enemy that served to skew popular culture to the right but not with reference to any tangible evidence of Kremlin influence. Buckley and Rand epitomized the pseudo- intellectualization of big business's anxieties concerning nascent middle class discontent.

[jazzbo66zz]

@TheCrookedTimber I stand corrected. The point I intended to make is that Buckley & Rand both functioned in the context of popular culture, using TV and mass market paperbacks. Buckley was probably the less pedantic of the two but both were really standing on the same soapbox created by Senator Joe McCarthy & the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950's. Both served as apologists for a hierarchical class structure and the interests of social economic and political power that ruled it

[jazzbo66zz]

Why does capitalism require so much rationalization? AR never bothered to visit a US prison an Indian reservation or a ghetto. For "intellectuals" of her ilk Capitalism functioned as a Camelot on paper. She never concerned herself with nor could she imagine its outcomes, for one, that by centuries end Church State and the Fortune 500 would merge into a global Capitalist dictatorship operating a 1,000 military bases & a gulag holding 2.5 million prisoners in bondage to her bankrupt ideology

[adarkblond]

@jazzbo66zz

Very astute. Ayn's prime student Alan Greenspan, idolized her and was a functionary of her principals. That's proof of how ill conceived Objectivism in action can be. He sat in front of Congress, after driving the world's economy into a nosedive, and admitted that the ideology that had been his for 50 years was tragically flawed. Globalism has been the fruit of Ayn Rands 'Philosophy'.

PURE E-VILE!

P.S. RROSS29 The super rich and connected elites, not 'the Jews', are our enemy.

[rross27]

@adarkblond You mean the super richest elites in the world like the stockholders in the Federal Reserve? Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff, Oppenheimer, etc? Or perhaps just the common crook like Bernard Madoff?

[legalizeliberty]

true news

LibertyPoet

website

[jazzbo66zz]

@rross27

Ayn Rand was a failed novelist whose work was dismissed as banal and derivative in her life time & went ignored by critics. She did no scholarly work and never earned any academic recognition as a result. Rand was a right wing ideologue after the fashion of WF Buckley and like him was not invited to present papers at conferences but whose publisher arranged appearances on talk shows as an eccentric misanthrope, used to wet the appetite of viewers for overblown low budget rhetoric.

[rross27]

@jazzbo66zz Good comment. Although I detected hints of Marxist philosophy in her words more than (TRUE) "right wing". (Much like the words of modern day Neo-Cons). She believed when a country was more technologically advanced, less developed countries should automatically submit to their occupation. (As she said on Donahue in reference to Israels policys). This reminds me of Kissingers comment on "useless eaters". The cornerstone of Socialism is mandatory labor with death as the final penalty.

[jazzbo66zz]

@rross27 Does Capitalism promise immortality? I suppose "death is the final penalty" for anyone who submits to existence. The proposition that any publicly organized health care program is a manifestation of totalitarianism leaves me wondering why the idea of a social democracy does not have Canadians goose stepping around Montreal? I suspect the ideology of fear at work in America pertains to an underlying insecurity & sense of a loss of control rooted in psychology and probably not reality.

[rross27]

@jazzbo66zz Haha! According to the evidence I have read about all the scientific experiments on humans that have occurred in the history of America, Canada, etc, I have to agree. The use of the word Totalitarianism is always good concerning the bloodline family’s agenda because it is another name for the NWO philosophy. I agree that the USA is in a perpetual state of neurosis. But what are its intentions? Using false fear to promote false war? You got it. George Orwell (Eric Blair) 1984. 8)

[rross27]

@jazzbo66zz Correct me if I am wrong but Canada follows what Britian does not America and the English embraced socialism. By the way, nearly the first thing Stalin did after he took office was created a Socialist "health care" program. Later the people realized they were headead for the Gulag's (prison camps), or to be shot against a brick wall. After over 100 million people dead under Socialism/Communism in the last century, how could anyone possibly believe in it? PROPAGANDA!

[jazzbo66zz]

@rross27

Having read your post I quickly deduced that Stalin must have been reincarnated as Obama who is now showering niggrahs with free money. I have been moved by the powerful logic of your belief that the only way to defend ourselves from totalitarianism is by moving quickly to prohibit majority rule. I think we could all stand to learn a good deal more if you hosted your own talk show. Have you thought about it?

[rross27]

@jazzbo66zz Now your just posting nonsence and building straw men to attack, so we are finished here...never mix emotion with philosophy.

[jazzbo66zz]

@rross27

When you speak albeit somewhat emotionally of "straw men", might we consider your "Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff, Oppenheimer, etc" fairly representative of that category? As a philosopher who professes to a knowledge of what in your words are,"Most of the Communists in history..." would you support reconvening the moribund House Unamerican Activities Committee to investigate the influence of communists in the present day government ?

[adarkblond]

@rross27

She was explicitly anti-communist having had lived under the rule of communist law. How ever I see that he principal students like Greenspan and his regime have used her philosphy to justify their rigging of the economic system to benefit themselves without regret nor moral code to guide them. Because Ayn's code expressed fulfilling pure self interest as a virtue. Isn't that pure capitalism if you remove and humanity from it?

[rross27]

@adarkblond Most of the Communists in history have claimed in public to be against Communism. When they are caught RED handed, the words, "I'll take the 5th" come to mind. More interesting on the Federal Reserve is that every single chairman since its inception in 1913 has been from the same religion. And by the way Karl Marx's daddy was a Rabbi. Study the Bolshevik Revolution and know who's behind Communism and the funding of it. Parasites are destroying America, not free market competition.

[correll28]

@jbecker8082 true, but what is the whole coubtry going to go on strike

[dogpoke]

Ayn Rand despised Reagan and William F Buckley as she would any conservative today.

Buckley would debate anyone on his show except her.

[lolzerlolzer]

read fountainhead, extremely inspiring novel. Atlas Shrugged will be next to advance my life.

[correll28]

a peaceful non-compliant revolution against our corrupt government is the only way to reverse this trend. power to the people

[jazzbo66zz]

@correll28

It sounds like you resent single moms/ food stamps. What you propose is simply a recapitulation of the existing status quo.How about actually changing something via a non-compliant revolution against accumulated wealth, social prestige and political influence. How about defunding Haliburton, Raytheon & Rockwell Martin? How about blocking the control of ownership by rent & mortgage interest over us? How about slashing the $ trillion budgets of the Pentagon & $60 billion for prisons?

[olga2415]

the Industrialists were not the ones with the money. They were the ones with the ideas and talent to make their ideas a reality. They , of necessity , were forced to succumb to the funding of their projects by the Robber Barons.

[olga2415]

She was correct on this point, wasn't she? Here is a quote I found recently: "Reason deserves to be called a prophet; for in showing up the consequence and effect of our actions in the present, does it not tell us what the future will be?" A. Schopenhauer [Ayn Rand could Rationally discern where the acts of our culture could lead.]

[UkieOli]

who needs a heart, who needs a conscience? WHAT A BITCH!

[tothemax01]

@UkieOli She's got a brain, and a good one, and such a thing is good at determining the right course of action. 'Following your heart' would mean to follow something which doesn't actually think or make decisions, thus absolving one from being responsible for having actually thought about something before you did it.

[Tarbos]

She is basicaly saying u do not need government control at all. Witch it is true. sad to say some people who do not produce would most likly die off. but is it that bad? I don't think so.

[Hydra773]

@Tarbos

No. In fact what do you think is the system that is best for a person who cannot produce either because they are lazy or were born with a disability? The best place for them is in a capitalist society. If people only understood that we are generally good in nature they would realize we don't need welfare programs to help other people, there would be donations and charity for those people, and they could still most likely work some jobs.

[tothemax01]

@Hydra773 The charity has always been the objectivist cop-out. Charity is a voluntary action yes, but everything after that, the rewarding of need etc, is blatently incompatible with objectivist philosophy. This direct contradiction would have made Ayn Rand fume. Objectivism, if it were being honest, would simply make the ascertation: "if you cannot live without the sacrafice of others, you deserve to die".

[Vierotchka]

What exactly was Ayn Rand (and, by extension, her admirers)? Find out at:

h t t p : / / tinyurl . com / ydee4zd

[HapaLife]

My father met this woman before she died, and he said she was one of the kindest people he had ever met. The tough exterior she presents in interviews is merely for the presentation, she really is a darling.

[Vierotchka]

Psychopaths are masters at pretending to be kind.

[HapaLife]

@Vierotchka

There is no reason for you to say that. It says in your profile you're 62. Grow up.

[Vierotchka]

In what manner is making a statement of fact immature? The only one who needs to grow up here is you, obviously.

[UkieOli]

@Vierotchka  Yes, that's the trick.

[BRYAN351]

There are now voices & parties for the pro-capitalism/pro-liberty ideal Ayn Rand spoke of back then, the Libertarian party and the Constitution party.

[AVoiceCrying33]

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: I.

[Ayn Rand, Anthem]

Why do God loving God fearing people support economic policies created by a well known atheist?

[jfk1976]

king james (who commissioned what ended up being the most popular bible translation) was a homosexual. dont dismiss the ideas just because the vehicle through which they entered the world isnt to your liking. rand believed in a separation of government and economics, like the separation of church and state... so by her own philosophy, her ideas regarding religion are separate from her economic policies.

[AVoiceCrying33]

On that I do have to disagree because her view is one of self over the common good, I believe that her philosophy can lead to rewarding greed and penalizing poverty, The other extreme of Communism Penalyses success I will grant you that But look at the tax policies of Reagan and Bush, yes they helped the top earners but they hurt those that need help, and that is selfish and When you don't love God with all your heart and you don't love Your neighbor as yourself that is what you will be

[Antimatter3D]

@AVoiceCrying33

Economics and politics are separate from religion. And, they should be, or else we would still be worshiping the way King George wanted us to worship when our country was founded.

[AVoiceCrying33]

I agree they should be seperated by control of a particular sect or denomination or religion, but they shouldn't be separated by the values that come from them, IE the values of the common good, charity, peace, justice, and love and you can't find any of those values in Ayn Rand economics, it is all about profit and self.

[AVoiceCrying33]

Also I know the irony that some Christians and their economic policies don't show those values either. I mean Ronald Reagon and George Bush's economic polices were very Ayn Randian and they were part of the Christian Right

[maskedphrogg]

You really need to go back and brush off your Ayn Rand collection. Or borrow some if you don't have any in your personal collection. The Bush Doctrine and Economic Policy is exactly what Ayn was warning us about. Bush was a collectivist. To badly paraphrase Shakespeare, Socialism by another name is still a collectivist ideology. To place someone else's, for that matter everyone else's benefit above your own is to volunteer to be a slave.

Do you truly want or need a master to guide your behaviour

[fomastephanovitch]

This is the type of view non-americans should support the USA adapting.

The only reason privatisation is viewed so pejoratively is because the great goliath protectionistic USA uses it to gobble up foreign assets.

Fuck hope, change and yes we can can, some of us think for ourselves.

[howitzer24]

Cue Peter Schiff and Ron Paul

[thomaserossi]

Mike Wallace was always a staunch communist. The country is not run by majority rule. The purpose of the constitution is to PREVENT a tyranny of the majority and to enhance individual liberties. As a communist Wallace denies this. He denies history. He denies the words of the Founding Fathers. Instead he steers the conversation to collectivism.

Good riddance. I'm glad he's gone.

[trehansen]

The Founding Fathers were not a collective force. They were individual men who came to a compromise. They all had differing visions as to what road they wanted to see the country head down.

I also do not think they should be propped up on some pedestal like a deity. I mean for fuck sake they couldn't even agree on abolishing slavery.

Also the bill of rights was the rebuttal to the government. The constitution empowered the Federal government.

[Elasaltaculos]

like a prophet, yet shunned and demonized

[wheetypeedy]

my next book is Atlas Shrugs

[caltrop69]

It's a good book.

[TheKuffarKid]

It's a tough read but stick with it. Noone I've known thats read it regretted doing so.

[fomastephanovitch]

It is not a good novel but it has terrific ideas.

This is just my opinion of course.

I'm left but I prefer to be around people who think for themselves.

[duvalians1]

Great book!

"This is not a battle over material goods. It's a moral crisis, the greatest the world has ever faced and the last. Our age is the climax of centuries of evil. We must put an end to it, once and for all, or perish-we, the men of the mind. It was our own guilt. We produced the wealth of the world-but we let our enemies write it's moral code."

"but we never accepted their code. We lived by our own standards."

Ayn Rand's character - Sebastian d'Anconia

[maskedphrogg]

Brings back warm memories of first meeting Sebastian in print. My favorite character behind Dagny Taggart. Though Dagny may have been a schoolboy crush, I was but 16 the first time I read Atlas Shrugged.

John Galt came off as other worldly, was almost difficult to cheer him as a character even.

[MrWinston1984]

Who is Ron Paul?

[coltrane1966]

Who is John Galt? Where is John Galt?

[drkangravewing]

Even back then she could see both parties heading in the same direction.

[TimeWarp66]

To be fair, the Republican party of today is far more pro-free-market than they were back in the 50's and 60's.

[wetalmorker]

I suppose you have a point, but let me ask you this; What really changes when one party overtakes the other?

Answer: The rhetoric, nothing else.

[maskedphrogg]

You may think that a "fair" treatment, but it is in no way an honest one.

[michele11804]

@drkangravewing She would move, quickly.

[Ron01104]

Dan Rather is a progressive and see how he goes after her.

[burnhippiesforfuel]

you mean mike wallace?

[fzqlcs]

too bad her warnings were not heeded