Posted on 03/27/2010 11:06:47 PM PDT by razorbacks198
My granddaughter sent me this of a young conservative lady defending libertarianism and John Galt, and this person was saying that Jesus can't go along with Atlas Shrugged. I want to know what a true conservative view is on the two things.
Concur. Read Acts 6 (IIRC) where Peter says to Ananias after discovering he had lied about his donation of the proceeds of his land sale. Peter explicitly says to him “Wasn’t the money YOURS?” Not “wasn’t the money the Lords” or “wasn’t the money ours” or “wasn’t the money mine”. No, he explicitly states the resources were his to do with what he pleased. There is nothing anywhere in the Bible that says the gummint should be the instrument of our acts of charity. This is a lie spread by libtards, the origin of which is (I believe) the “father of lies.”
“Her heavy reliance on misquoted passages ...”
Name one.
I’ve read everything Rand wrote, most several times, including her journals and letters. The only near Biblical “quote” I remember is the paraphrase, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” which she approved of.
She had long discussions about religion, by correspondence, with Isabel Patterson, some quite profound. Patterson believed in God, but I’m not sure she should be called a Christian.
Most people, especially Christians will not like Rand. Nothing wrong with that, but when they lie about her, they demonstrate which has moral principles they live by. Whatever you think about Rand, she never engaged in lies about anyone.
Hank
I like your response and think it is much more concise and clear than anything I can say.
Rand worked from the basis of altruism and to an interesting extent she is correct. When one starts to get sucked into the whole idea of “social justice” vs. true charity one suddenly realizes what Rand may have been trying to communicate.
In the years that have passed since reading Atlas Shrugged with several book clubs it appears to me Rand was trying to point out how the idea of government altruism, coupled with religion as a propogandist is a device of evil.
Recently Glenn Beck with his magic chalkboards has started to diagram out this very idea of how progressives twist morality and turn it on its head. Rand’s past experiences and early life made her skeptical of religion as a place to find a true and loving God, therefore she lived out her life in the only way she knew how to protect her life.
While many discussions of Ayn Rand devolve into hateful hiss and spit matches on FR over her personal life, I find much of what Rand tried to teach us in Atlas Shrugged consistent with Natural Law. The same Natural Law spoken of by our Founder’s and the Pope.
Atlas Shrugged is well worth reading and discussing. There are two sections in the book that I have reread more than the book. One is, “The Money Speech” and the other is, “The Winston Tunnel.” Many people get hung up on the Money Speech’s first paragraph and miss or misinterpret the rest of the speech. This speech is where I think Rand tries to explain her difference between the communist concept of collective altruism and capitalist charity. She desperately dances around the idea of, “Thou shalt not steal,” in this fictionalized essay. One of the key phrases from that speech I now sign my outgoing email with is,
“An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more
than he has produced.” ~~D’Aconia, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.
The essay while it is called the Money Speech, if one considers it very carefully, even from a Christian perspective, it is about respect for your fellow man and how money can be observed as the gauge of a society’s morals. The money speech attempts to put money its proper place...a tool. As a tool it cannot be worshiped. http://usabig.com/autonomist/moneyspeech.html
And this is the exact misinterpretation I am trying to point out. A pure capitalist cannot be a looter. A pure capitalist, as demonstrated in Atlas Shrugged, first bases their interactions involving money on honesty. It is the looter who uses the flawed contract to steal your production.
I can't imagine what you've observed, but there is absolutely nothing "left-leaning" about Objectivism. You can say what you want about Rand, but she detested the left. Her entire work was dedicated to destroying the left and its authoritarian, faux-altruist philosophy.
Study up on the philosophy; it will give some context to your observations.
I like Atlas Shrugged. There is fundamental truth concerning the basics of good and bad government in this book. Truth is what it is. Whether it comes from Rand or Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is a brilliant body of work that God used in the beginnings of this nation, although Thomas Paine himself eventually became a Deist and rejected the Bible in his later years.
All wisdom comes from God. When Rand, Thomas Paine, or anyone speaks of things like liberty, individual freedom, self reliance, self government, they are speaking wisdom and that wisdom comes from God. Whether they believe it or not.
Just as the earth itself comes from God, so too does wisdom. You can worship the earth yet still deny the One who made the earth. You can worship reason and common sense, yet deny the One Who is Reason and Common Sense.
It is unfortunate, but the way of man. Worship the creation, yet deny the Creator. Yes, Ayn Rand’s books expose the lies, corruption and waste of big government, while revealing the truth and wisdom of self government. Yet she denies the Author and Source of all Truth and Wisdom, Jesus Christ. Unfortunate.
vs.
The idea of what Rand tried to teach us,
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We *want* them broken. You'd better get it straight That it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against– then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." -- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged , Ch. III, "White Blackmail"
The 2700 page law signed this past week makes us all criminals in some form or another. What is the "right" thing to do with this 2700 page law? Even our founder's would say we're not bound by such unconstitutional laws.
Whence the silly, new-age view that the most moral acts are those no one knows about.
Let me also put another anti-Rand shibboleth to rest: that she was anti-family and opposed to helping others. This is a short excerpt from "Atlas Shrugged". The character is agonizing over an order he's been given which will, he's certain, result in the deaths of several hundred people.
As Bill Brent had learned to see, by a single glance at a few numbers on a sheet of paper, the entire trackage of a division – so was now able to see the whole of his own life and the full price of the decision he was making. He had not fallen in love until he was past his youth; he had been thirty-six when he had found the woman he wanted. He had been engaged to her for the last four years; he had had to wait, because he had a mother to support and a widowed sister with three children. He had never been afraid of burdens, because he had known his ability to carry them, and he had never assumed an obligation unless he was certain that he could fulfill it. He had waited, he had saved his money, and now he had reached the time when he felt himself free to be happy. He was to be married in a few weeks, this coming June.
Rand never preached that you live your life only for yourself. She believed that we were not born merely to serve others -- but that we should choose our obligations freely and rationally.
My beliefs inform the importance of proper education.
One persons experience is but a miniscule part of total human experience. To be guided only by one’s own experience is very nearly to be guided by no experience at all.
I once had a job that involved research with artificial intelligence. That approach to developing a control system proved unreliable because in the training process a bad set of training data could teach the artificial intelligence engine to be crazy. The difficulty of certifying a control program was just transfered to the difficulty of certifying a training data set.
We have a situation where US citizens are badly trained, partucularly badly in history, the record of human experience. The only safe harbor is the contitutional limits on government power, in the sense that powers are enumerated, and any powers not so enumerated are not granted to the government. To change the enumerated powers 38 states are required.
First, big government doesn’t want to kill you. They want to defraud you, and if that doesn’t work to enslave you, and if you wont work hard enough, to torture you. Only if you are a noisy little piggy will they kill you.
Actually, she was in touch with reality, and knew that religion is a conman’s business, soliciting money for what the G-ds give for free.
I’m amused at how a few people are offended that I have personally observed by people who are rabid ayn followers - and find them only fiscally conservative.
are you intentionally misreading what I have written?
Those you observed are not very faithful to her tenets if what you say is true (and I've no reason to doubt you). Of course, I've observed similar behavior among professed Christians, too, so your point is well-taken.
Oh - I was just joking about my old man being immoral. He was the most moral person I know of. But to Kant he would have been immoral perhaps. My dad knew that “what goes around, comes around”. I had to look up what altruism meant:
1. the principle or practice of unselfish concern for the welfare of others
2. (Philosophy) the philosophical doctrine that right action is that which produces the greatest benefit to others
I think my Dad realized (and now I understand too) that the right action is that which produces the greatest benefit to others AND ourselves. When my dad (or I) treat an employee or client right - even to the point of generosity, it is also done with the thought that they’ll treat me well.
Of course I have been burned by that, but I have made up for it way more. The one time I saw my dad mad at someone (other than me!) was a painter that took my Dad’s second chance at a job and wasted it. A “recovering” alcholic that went on a bing and didn’t show for a week. I think my dad was more concerned about the guy screwing his life up than the paint job (he just got another painter).
It’s all in taking a long-term vs. short-term view of the world. An old mentor of mine commented to an old partner of his about his missuse of the technology and the poor results. His old partner said something to the effect of “there are plenty of clients out there”.
The latest news I heard of the ex-partner was his use of a fradualent Ph.D. degree trying to get a government contract.
Atlas isn't an "all or nothing prospect" few issues are. I mean if so then then the United States of America should be disbanded being that some of people who wrote the founding documents were evil slave owners. (See how easy such things can be manipulated?)
There is a difference between altruism and submitting to robbery.
In Atlas Shrugged, what is going on is robbery and enslavement operating under the mask of enforced "altruism". The main characters of Atlas Shrugged behave altruisticly to each other, loyally working and taking risks for each other. What they object to is the willfully-unproductive thinking that they have the right, by virtue of their existence, to DEMAND the fruits of the labor of the productive.
I posted a bit back in April of 09 called: Five Ways You can Shrug like “Atlas Shrugged”
Lately I have been getting lots more traffic at my site. In checking the traffic data I find a goodly part of of this increased traffic stems from searches about Atlas Shrugged and how people can shrug themselves. (I surmised such through the keywords used for the searches)
Seems people are looking for ways to throw off the yoke of heavy handed government taxes and regs here in America. That is music to my ears!
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