Posted on 06/20/2013 12:48:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
My item on Rand Paul the other day, predictably, went over quite badly in the libertarian community. The Insomniac Libertarian, in an item wonderfully headlined Obama Quisling Jonathan Chait Smears Rand Paul, complains that my Paul piece never discloses that [my] wife is an Obama campaign operative. A brief annotated response:
1. I question the relevance of the charge, since Rand Paul is not running against Obama.
2. In point of fact, my wife is not an Obama campaign operative and has never worked for Obamas campaign, or his administration, or volunteered for his campaign, or any campaign, and does not work in politics at all.
3. I question the headline labeling me an Obama quisling, a construction that implies that I have betrayed Obama, which seems to be the opposite of the Insomniac Libertarians meaning.
4. For reasons implied by points one through three, I urge the Insomniac Libertarian to familiarize himself with some of the science linking sleep deprivation to impaired brain function.
A more substantive, though still puzzling, retort comes from the Atlantics Conor Friedersdorf, a frequent bête noire of mine on subjects relating to Ayn Rand and Ron or Rand Paul. Friedersdorf raises two objections to my piece, which traced Rand Pauls odd admission that he is not a firm believer in democracy to his advocacy of Randian thought. Friedersdorf first charges that the intellectual connection between Paul and Rand is sheer paranoia:
Chait takes the quote and turns it into a conspiracy As I read this, I couldn't help but think of Chait as a left-leaning analog to the character in Bob Dylan's "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues." Those Objectivists were coming around/They were in the air / They were on the Ground/ They wouldn't give me no peace. For two thousand years, critics of unmediated democracy have warned about the masses abusing individuals and minorities. The American system was built from the very beginning to check democratic excesses.
But if Rand Paul distrusts democracy he must've gotten it from Ayn Rand.
A conspiracy? Am I imagining that Rand Paul has been deeply influenced by Ayn Rand? Paul himself has discussed the deep influence her work had on his own thinking. In college he wrote a series of letters and columns either quoting Rand or knocking off her theories. He used a congressional hearing to describe one of her novels at tedious length. How is this a conspiracy? Friedersdorf proceeds to argue that Rand is not really very militant anyway:
It's also interesting that Chait regards Rand's formulation as "militant." Let's look at it again. "I do not believe that a majority can vote a man's life, or property, or freedom away from him." Does Chait believe that a democratic majority should be able to vote a man's life or freedom away?
In the political press, it happens again and again: libertarian leaning folks are portrayed as if they're radical, extremist ideologues, even when they're expressing ideas that are widely held by Americans across the political spectrum.
Well, here we come to a deeper disagreement about Ayn Rand. My view of her work is pretty well summarized in a review-essay I wrote in 2009, tying together two new biographies of Rand with some of the Randian strains that were gaining new currency in the GOP. My agenda here is not remotely hidden, but maybe I need to put more cards on the table. I've described her worldview as inverted Marxism a conception of politics as a fundamental struggle between a producer class and a parasite class.
What I really mean is, I find Rand evil. Friedersdorfs view is certainly far more nuanced and considerably more positive than mine. Hes a nice, intelligent person and a good writer, but were not going to agree on this.
Friedersdorf waves away Rands (and Rand Pauls) distrust of democracy as the same fears everybody has about democracy. Well, no. Lots of us consider democracy imperfect or vulnerable, but most of us are very firm believers in democracy. Rand viewed the average person with undisguised contempt, and her theories pointed clearly in the direction of cruelty in the pursuit of its fanatical analysis. A seminal scene in Atlas Shrugged described the ideological errors of a series of characters leading up to their violent deaths, epitomizing the fanatical class warfare hatred it's embodied and which inspired Whitaker Chambers to observe, From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To the gas chambers go!'
Randism has never been tried as the governing philosophy of a country, so it remains conjecture that her theories would inevitably lead to repression if put into practice at a national level. But we do have a record of the extreme repression with which she ran her own cult, which at its height was a kind of totalitarian ministate. You can read her biographies, or at least my review, to get a sense of the mind-blowing repression, abuse, and corruption with which she terrorized her followers.
But the upshot is that I strongly dispute Friedersdorfs premise that Rands theories are a variant of democracy, any more than Marxs are. In fact, I find the existence of powerful elected officials who praise her theories every bit as disturbing to contemplate as elected officials who praise Marxism. Even if you take care to note some doctrinal differences with Rand, in my view we are talking about a demented, hateful cult leader and intellectual fraud. People who think she had a lot of really good ideas should not be anywhere near power.
My problem with Lew Rockwell concerns complex topics covered in 250 words or less.
That site does occasionally link to “Art of Manliness,” one of my favorite sites. I’ll give ‘em that.
I’ve heard the quotes that Randism has never been tried. Actually, although she wasn’t born yet, her economic theories were tried in the late 1800s which coincided with a tremendous growth in the wealth of the country and the average American citizen. We’ve all heard that the late 1800s was the age of the “robber barons” and the oppression of the American worker, but in reality it was the age of the greatest increase in wealth in American history. And most of it without the oppressive hand of Big Government to stop the growth. I believe that’s pretty much what Rand stood for.
You been reading Peter Rabbit lately?
Which language?
Rand is an ethical egoist. This is a belief that people should always act in their own best interest. Selfishness is a policy. She was highly influenced by Nietzsche and Aristotle (a strange combination). Whether or not people see selfishness as a positive attribute, it is precisely how people live. I see a Paul as a person that cares for others, but he is does believe that capitalism is a force for good.
The barely literate couldn’t read her works. Some of her critics,on this board, otoh.............
Finish your GED and go to WalMart for some new clothes.
You’ll bring your wit up to the next level, and women might start looking at you.
I remember getting to the famous "Galt speech", thinking to myself that finally she's going to lay it all out.
And wanting to slit my wrists about one page later.........ten, fifteen pages later he's still talking and somehow people are STILL listening to him on the radio all over the US of A.
That being said, she nails a few things in her writings:
1. The manner that leftists gain and consolidate power.
2. The hypocrisy of leftists.
3. Capitalism (free enterprise) is a superior system to statism for multiple reasons.
I think a sense of humor would have helped her a lot.........
Yeah, it’s that grimness that bothers me.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Buckley was funny.
Do you have anything to back that statement up? Or is it just something you heard?
Camus wrote better novels and was easily a more trenchant philosopher, but if Harlequin-grade melodrama is your thing, I'm happy for you.
“Finish your GED and go to WalMart for some new clothes.
Youll bring your wit up to the next level, and women might start looking at you.”
Your presumably clever comeback just proves my point.
I’m not a firm believer in democracy either. I believe in a constitutional republic of limited powers. You know, like the Founders.
Ow, citations! Go to her correspondence, and not some edited nonsense—find a volume of her letters in the raw.
I remember reading these and she not only expressed sympathy for eugenicists, but offered rather harsh suggestions about reducing the number of blacks in the country, involving castration and other nastiness.
If you want to read REAL history, skip the publications and read the personal correspondence of historical figures. It’s like reading emails today. You find out what they’re really like.
“I do not believe that a majority can vote a man’s life, or property, or freedom away from him.”
Nor do I, Ayn.
“People who think she had a lot of really good ideas should not be anywhere near power.”
i.e., people who support capitalism and free markets.
That was weak, I’ll admit. If I was on my game, you’d be quivering and hooting like an enraged primate by now.
I’m tired after a busy day farting around.
Where’s mah wife? We’re supposed to go out tonight!
That's an understatement if the following quotes attributed to her are true:
An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).
Abortion is a moral rightwhich should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?
The source for that is Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rands Ideas. And with the caveat that if this clip is not fraudulent, Ayn Rand "Abortion", then as an advocate of killing children, there's a very dark side to her.
The statement by Free Republic founder's enumerating his principles are excellent metrics by which to judge a person's character. The first three of which are:
As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-God, pro-life, pro-family...
I'm not sure how Ayn Rand measures up to Jim Robinson's core values of authentic Conservatism.
Democracy, as Madison pointed out, is “the tyranny of the majority.”
If you want to see democracy in action, look at a country like India, where there are regular elections but minorities are consistently, harshly, and routinely oppressed, no matter who is in power. That’s democracy.
We’re not supposed to be that. We’re supposed to be a country where the majority rules, but within the framework of a constitution, and minority and individual rights are respected and protected.
Is the Electoral College democratic?
BINGO!!!
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.