Ayn Rand cared so passionately (religiously?) about her philosophy, it made me wonder: Why did she care so much whether I care mainly or only about myself? Did she ever give mature consideration to that, or to the limits of "self"? For what reason should one aspire either to establish a best life for oneself, or to help establish a decent, sustainable civilization? I don't think godless Libertarians or Objectivists hold the answer to America's future. Review Alexis de Tocqueville, to reconsider the key role for religiously based moral values in the formation of American secuilar independence, with less need for insufferably detailed legal regulation.
By now, one may have expected technology, robots, and enlightenment to have brought humanity to a life of balanced ease and satisfaction for all, sort of like Brave New World or the deck in Wally. That hasn't happened, and it appears not likely to happen. So what has happened? Was early America only a fluke, brought on because Europeans with power were only too happy to encourage those of independent classes to emigrate?
It seems that a fundamental propensity among Europeans and the rest of the world has caught up with America, to swamp American independents with masses of the sort that tend to want little more than (a) to want very much that no one else should have more than them, and (b) to reward the few among the class of "farmers of humans" who enjoy making that happen. History appears determined to pull humanity back into the muck of feudalism. That is the end to which most of our institutions are adapting. There are obvious ways to forestall the slide, but none are being adopted. Every independent minded person knows that a nation, to be a nation, must enforce its borders. To remain independent, a nation must adopt an immigration policy that favors independent minded people. It must adopt a trade policy that does not rot out its industrial base or its energy independence. It must guard against the crushing, snowballing accumulation of legalism and elitist regulation of the masses. It must preserve respect for many of the moral and cultural standards under which America assimilated. It must respect the kind of standards that are essential to decent, sustainable civilization. It must advance the kind of infrastructure and standards that facilitate competitiveness with the rest of humanity.
A decent, sustainable nation must advance beyond merely distracting its citizenry with inefficiencies that reward only sell outs and cannibals, such as: Regulators who occupy us with needless restrictions and reports, that hardly anyone reads or understands; educators who perform mainly as babysitters, raising the next generation of codependent minded sloths; taxes that discourage industry, except to export it; and health care that no one understands, that is filled with lawless indulgences.
Instead, America is overburdening its citizenry in every possible way. Our independents are overburdened with those who aspire only to be sloths, taken care of by government, and by those who aspire by power or wealth to be the new elites, aristocrats, or oligarchs --- to reduce everyone else to serfs and sloths. This is the tsunami of immigrants America has been distracted to allow to swamp the land.
It appears unlikely that what needs to be done will be done: Enforce the borders. End the income tax and the corporation tax. (They are affronts to industry, enterprise, and capitalism.) Keep death taxes. (They are essential to protect us from a rising class of new aristocrats.) Deploy sane tariffs and tax out of country transfers of money. (They are essential to keep oligarchs who own politicians from cannibalizing and selling out the country.) Establish two kinds of consumption taxes: A national sales tax, and a national consumption tax that is based, progressively, on each citizens yearly consumption. Purpose: Fund government and redistribute consumptive wealth (not income). (Reason: Protect the nation against snowballing advantages and abuses of new aristocrats.) Eventually amend Constitution to establish single payer national health care safety net. (Reason: Common standards and basic infrastructure are essential. The cost of the present multitude of scam artists and regulatory details is simply unsustainable. Meantime, use regional agreements among States to establish feasible health care programs.)
How likley is any program for preserving America against the NWO tsunami? About as likely as Donald Trump being elected President. Or as likely as American independents waking up and realizing that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are representing America or doing anything other than greasing or apologizing for our slide back to a new feudalism --- which will not be run under national borders, but under corporate baronies --- operating under a corrupt and loose hierarchy of kick backs and back scratchers.
Something about the human genome seems to make paramount the need of some to be powerful over others, and the need for others to be ruled. This appears to be a fundamental biological alignment. It is not something Independents can change or defend against merely by attempting to engage in reason with genetically inclined Aristocrats and Sloths. Thus far, America's leaders are subjugating independent minded Americans, to push us back under the thumbs of Aristocrats, with the rest of the Sloths in earth's bucket.
By now, one may have expected technology, robots, and enlightenment to have brought humanity to a life of balanced ease and satisfaction for all, sort of like Brave New World or the deck in Wally. That hasn't happened, and it appears not likely to happen. So what has happened? Was early America only a fluke, brought on because Europeans with power were only too happy to encourage those of independent classes to emigrate?
It seems that a fundamental propensity among Europeans and the rest of the world has caught up with America, to swamp American independents with masses of the sort that tend to want little more than (a) to want very much that no one else should have more than them, and (b) to reward the few among the class of "farmers of humans" who enjoy making that happen. History appears determined to pull humanity back into the muck of feudalism. That is the end to which most of our institutions are adapting. There are obvious ways to forestall the slide, but none are being adopted. Every independent minded person knows that a nation, to be a nation, must enforce its borders. To remain independent, a nation must adopt an immigration policy that favors independent minded people. It must adopt a trade policy that does not rot out its industrial base or its energy independence. It must guard against the crushing, snowballing accumulation of legalism and elitist regulation of the masses. It must preserve respect for many of the moral and cultural standards under which America assimilated. It must respect the kind of standards that are essential to decent, sustainable civilization. It must advance the kind of infrastructure and standards that facilitate competitiveness with the rest of humanity.
A decent, sustainable nation must advance beyond merely distracting its citizenry with inefficiencies that reward only sell outs and cannibals, such as: Regulators who occupy us with needless restrictions and reports, that hardly anyone reads or understands; educators who perform mainly as babysitters, raising the next generation of codependent minded sloths; taxes that discourage industry, except to export it; and health care that no one understands, that is filled with lawless indulgences.
Instead, America is overburdening its citizenry in every possible way. Our independents are overburdened with those who aspire only to be sloths, taken care of by government, and by those who aspire by power or wealth to be the new elites, aristocrats, or oligarchs --- to reduce everyone else to serfs and sloths. This is the tsunami of immigrants America has been distracted to allow to swamp the land.
It appears unlikely that what needs to be done will be done: Enforce the borders. End the income tax and the corporation tax. (They are affronts to industry, enterprise, and capitalism.) Keep death taxes. (They are essential to protect us from a rising class of new aristocrats.) Deploy sane tariffs and tax out of country transfers of money. (They are essential to keep oligarchs who own politicians from cannibalizing and selling out the country.) Establish two kinds of consumption taxes: A national sales tax, and a national consumption tax that is based, progressively, on each citizens yearly consumption. Purpose: Fund government and redistribute consumptive wealth (not income). (Reason: Protect the nation against snowballing advantages and abuses of new aristocrats.) Eventually amend Constitution to establish single payer national health care safety net. (Reason: Common standards and basic infrastructure are essential. The cost of the present multitude of scam artists and regulatory details is simply unsustainable. Meantime, use regional agreements among States to establish feasible health care programs.)
How likley is any program for preserving America against the NWO tsunami? About as likely as Donald Trump being elected President. Or as likely as American independents waking up and realizing that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are representing America or doing anything other than greasing or apologizing for our slide back to a new feudalism --- which will not be run under national borders, but under corporate baronies --- operating under a corrupt and loose hierarchy of kick backs and back scratchers.
Something about the human genome seems to make paramount the need of some to be powerful over others, and the need for others to be ruled. This appears to be a fundamental biological alignment. It is not something Independents can change or defend against merely by attempting to engage in reason with genetically inclined Aristocrats and Sloths. Thus far, America's leaders are subjugating independent minded Americans, to push us back under the thumbs of Aristocrats, with the rest of the Sloths in earth's bucket.
11 comments:
It is becoming harder and harder for young people to marry, finance a home, and raise children --- even when both spouses work. Given improvements in technology, this does not make sense. Something is amiss in how we calculate and allocate value and worth. A laborer should be able to offer services among competing employers. This becomes skewed to the extent employers "unionize" by channeling political contributions based on how much cheap labor is allowed to sift through our borders. It also becomes skewed to the extent businesses are able to claim ownership of profits, while passing on general clean up costs to the public at large, or while charging high prescription costs to Americans while dumping in foreign markets. The trade: Businesses get pols to facilitate cheap labor, while pols pretend to even things out by handing out higher public salaries.
Who gets screwed and goes unrepresented by this unholy alliance? Independent minded Americans. At some point, the idea of an America that is based on independent minded Americans gets pulled back into a new kind of corporate feudalism. This keeps those who may be genetically disposed to be Aristocrats and Sloths happy, but it is the nemesis of human freedom. New utopians are counting on all this being unsustainable. Because we elected a long line of too many leaders lacking vision (excepting perhaps Eisenhower and Reagan), we are now operating under the "vision" of a boy president and his czardom of visionary toddlers. Soon, it will be blasphemous to secular religion to espouse the philosophy of freedom of expression and enterprise under which America was founded. Matt's situation is consistent with the NWO new alignment of aristocrats and sloths. The cause of this is an unholy alliance that has simply been ignored, unrecognized, and un-confronted by independent minded Americans. Unless independent Americans wake up and demand representation, our fall back into new feudalism will be unavoidable. The fault, dear Americans, to paraphrase The Bard, is not in the stars, but in ourselves.
Rand is dead on target about the deleterious effects of unions and do gooder government intrusiveness. However, she missed the mark about what she called looters. The main looters are not do gooder bureaucrats, but crony capitalists, who just run a higher end union scam --- one that owns pols, prints money based on the trust of ordinary Americans, and then bills everyone else for the payback. Yes, this movie will perform an important service by waking up ordinary Americans to the danger of faux do gooder government. Even so, behind the scenes, a problem of at least equal magnitude consists in how our government has been hijacked to serve crony capitalists. So the monster confronting independent minded Americans is a double headed one. This monster is cannibalizing America, and many Repubs are no less beholden to it than Dems. The fact is, independent minded Americans --- who wish neither to be sloths nor looters --- are not by any stretch being effectively represented. While Rinos and Dinos cash in, the rest of us may well have reached the limit of our string. My main complaint about Rand is that her philosophy, at most, is only half a philosophy. A source of deeper inspiration will be needed if we are to restore America.
I agree that Rand's work was incredibly prescient. It's a blueprint for much of what is unfolding today. It shows in clear relief the tectonic plates of the opposing ideas that are quaking the earth today. One need not agree with all of Rand's philosophy to have a deep appreciation for the illustrative worth of her efforts. I very much intend to see the movie, and I expect there is a wide, built in audience. Still, given Hollywood's anathema to the message, I would not in the least be surprised to see it go quickly to DVD.
Re: No support in scriptures for use of force in government to regulate morality
I think I agree in spirit, if not in toto. That relates to a key point I took from de Tocqueville: The reason democracy was able to flourish in America, as like no other nation ever before, had much to do with this: that Americans, given their religious upbringing, tended to come to a point of not needing detailed legalistic regulation.
To my semantic preferences, Rand was on a religious quest (much of which I happen to agree with). Same may be said of Sam Harris. Harris indicates he is spiritual, has regard for Eastern philosophies regarding consciousness, but somehow considers himself to be an avowed "atheist." I suspect that is a dramatic stance, to appeal to his base.
There is an emotional, caring component to reason, values, and parables, i.e., a Colbert like "truthiness" --- which is beyond indifferent literalism. Atheists often get so wound up in expecting truth to reside strictly in indifferent literalism that they can become emotionally stunted and lose appreciation of a vast universe of emotional truths. There is something fundamentally odd about Consciousness and its aspect for caring, about which I expect so-called pure physicalists will remain quite confused and ill at ease --- perhaps forever. I don't see America's salvation as consisting strictly in adjustments of relations between secular law and economics. Objectivists who think god folk should be shunted aside and that god concepts can or should be disparaged and entirely replaced with strict libertarian economics are quite off the mark, to my lights.
Re: We'll need to convince everyone that there can be a better nation once these corrupt politicans are voted out of office
Well, would we have more honest professional wrestling if we got all the present wrestlers fired? Wouldn't we still have to contend with the people who actually OWN and run the show? Look. Voting out Rinos and Dinos and Undertakers and Cenas and Tripple H's will accomplish NOTHING. Our energy independence is being choked. Who is ordering that ("and I quote?") ... if not the anonymous general manager? Who started TARP? You can't make wrestling honest unless you change the nature of its clientele and its owners. You can't fix America until you're willing to identify the problem. Until then, look for professional journalism to go the way of the WWE. I don't bother watching TV news anymore. If it's going to insist on being fundamenally misleading, then it could at least become more entertaining. Until then, bring on the caped anchor men, tattooed ladies, and the rest of the clowns. Be bold, get real, and identify the problem. Forget income redistribution. Let's get some wealth redistribution. As in, confiscate the wealth of the crony capitalists and military industrial profiteers who are buying our politicians and cannibalizing our country. End the income tax. Let's get a progressive consumption tax. Plus a warm up NEWS show by the WWE --- to give us the world news before getting our adrenalin up with the wrestling show.
I had read Anthem in High School and thought it mildly interesting. I did not read Atlas Shrugged until I was 62. Immediately, I recommended it to my mom, in her clear thinking prime of 83, who thought it was the best book she had ever read. One's take on the book depends on one's purpose and what one brings to one's reading of it. Look around at the mess that "do gooderism" in government has made of our nation. Now, the mess is as obvious as the stench of backwash from a tsunami. In Rand's day, it wasn't that obvious. It took 50 years for the backwash to come, for the rest of us to see how prescient Rand was. For illustrating the contending forces that have brought us to this point, her work is unsurpassed. So, it is timely that her work should be discussed. Still, this does not mean that her work is without flaw. I still maintain she had only half a philosophy. Like Sam Harris, she seemed to sense a higher basis for morality, but, for whatever semantic reason, she deemed it necessary to take the stance of an atheist.
To my lights, Rand was right about original sin, but wrong about a guiding, reconciling, quality of consciousness that is beyond empirical or objective measure. Rand did not well connect her moral sentiments based on individual selfishness in order to identify with a reconciling, holistic, sovereign good. However, that kind of connection is essential to a well formed conscience. Without it, one tends to rationalize that goodness, at least in an economic sense, will trickle down to the little folk as a result of arms length competition among producing geniuses --- at least, so long as looters, crony capitalists, and beguiling oligarches do not corrupt or monopolize the marketplace or convert the buying of politicians into its own kind of competitive market.
Problem is, absent a reasonably educated, paid, secure, and morally inculcated middle class, what is to stop producing geniuses, of no moral suasion apart from Randian Objectivism, from competing in the buying and selling of politicians and governments? How can producers who do have regard for community based values compete with sociopathic looters, once all houses of worship, for the inculcation and assimilation of traditional community and family based values, are shunted aside --- either by ridicule or by a steady progresson of secular regulation? Any idea that a better society will unfold simply by teaching the little people to put all their trust in wide open competition among producers, while shunting aside all respect for any value higher than making a buck, is itself a half baked, crackpot idea. If religiously applied, it would destroy the middle class and return us to peonage as fast or faster than a communist nomenklatura. Rand well saw the disastrous consequences of gangster style unionism in the labor force. What she did not well see was the disastrous consequences of gangster style crony capitalism in the buying and selling of politicians, media, and governments. And that crony capitalism is the ugly underbelly part of the success story of Barrack Obama, and the decline of Western Civ.
Obvious Randian Fallacies: To suggest, in light of experience, that man is primarily a rational creature is silly. To say that man should be primarily a rational creature is ridiculous. (How much of wine, dance, sex, or fun is rational? Should man aspire to the existence of a programmed computer?) To say that the morality of free markets is interchangeable with rational self interest is wrong. Everyone sees, we do not get free markets when the wealthy engage their self-interest; rather, we get crony capitalism. To say that one ought not apply different rules to others than to oneself has a short and nice ring, but is adverse to reality. Who does not apply different rules to others, depending not only on abilities, but also depending on whether it can be gotten away with, and whether there abides a fleeting advantage of the moment? To implicate that one's present ego is one's supreme guide contradicts Rand's own life. Did not Rand work hard to ensure that her philosophy would continue to be taught, long after demise of her mortal ego? Was it consistent with ego and reason when Ellis Wyatt blew up his oilfield, rather than surrender to government control --- or was it emotional release?
What should be the way forward for America, to sift sense from our Randians (ego promoters), our Rationalists (logic promoters), and our Romantics (emotion promoters)? How can or should we bring synthesis to ego, logic, and emotion, so that we do not merely talk past one another? When will Randians recognize the religious like quest of their so called "atheistic" founder? When will Rationalists recognize the extent of their illogical attachment to a pretense of indifference ("caring indifference")? When will Romantics recognize that the "noble savage" was not noble, and that our material world is not the best of all possible material worlds? Maybe, when Randians become emotionally religious in their objectivist quest, they will begin to think in terms of what is necessary, morally, in order to preserve a decent civilization. (Hint: a foundation for family values.)
A monster is entertaining itself and keeping us diverted and off balance, by batting our heads back and forth between two grisly paws. Half of us are distracted to hate one paw, the other half are distracted to hate the other paw. Meantime, the monster laughs uproariously all through batting practice, pausing occasionally to allow umps (media) to throw fresh heads into the game. Obama and Bush are just variations of the two paws. We're in a cave, sometimes humoring ourselves with our freedom while we think Cyclops is sleeping. Electing Rinos will avail us nothing.
For a hedge artist who is "versatile in his principles," there's no such thing as bad publicity. Trump will spin this to profits, no matter which way the winds blow it. There's a vast, ready made market of suckers for showmanship. Hawkers and Actors and Clowns, oh my.
That said, the birther thing could be spun and used by an articulate person in a positive way. I hope Trump does that, but I won't hold my breath. This afternoon, Beck denigrated Birther points. He need not have. Beck was pointing out how America is being rotted out by the failure to enforce the border. Well, America is also being rotted out by the failure to have an intelligent energy policy. It's obvious as the nose on any thinking person's face that Obama is fronting a consortium that is dead serious about reducing America's influence until it is transformed into a new socialistic despotism. What's that mean? It means Obama has not been vetted --- not by a long shot. What's that mean? It means Obama is hiding a great deal about his past. What's that mean? It means Americans want to see, and should claim entitlement to see, Obama's documents. All of them.
The excuses of Obama media have gone smelly smarmy. The usual suspects with Anderson Cooper argue that for Hawaii to have issued a fraudulent certification (short form) of birth would mean it would just as well, if pushed, issue a fraudulent certificate (long form) of birth. What a con! Most folks don't think Hawaii has committed fraud. We think the information is incomplete and Obama is hiding something! Now, will we be satisfied merely by Obama showing his certificate? Of course not! Duh. We ... want ... to ... see ... the ... documents. All of them. Given the gutter and smarmy level of media work by Obama media thus far, I think we're entitled ... Anderson "Teaba**er" Joker Cooper.
An ignorant and corrupt electorate will always be bought and abused by crony banking capitalistic owners of politicians. The problem for bankers who would control the electorate is to figure out how much free stuff needs to be allowed in order to buy votes, while not giving away so much as to destroy essential incentives to work. The problem for workers is to figure out how to prevent their banking controllers from printing so much money as no longer to identify with workers as human beings. Maybe a graph could be drawn, to show how the intersection of worker comfort (or worker efficiency?) vs. banker control could be maximized, and to show how each intersection reaches diminishing returns.
I've seen charts that suggest that crony capitalism tends to be greater in other parts of the world. I don't believe it. Yes, the obvious variety of crony capitalism is greater elsewhere. But the more sinister, tapeworm variety is far more hidden, more developed, and far, far more dangerous in the West. After all, we're the ones who invented the Fed, and that is the beast around which all the crony devils dance --- worldwide. The Fed is Medusa, but with tapeworms at its head instead of snakes. I see no Perseus, Pegasus, or cure in sight. Dems and Repubs are both grown dependent upon intravenous nourishment by this monster.
Middle class voters who think their votes can prevail against the Fed Head for Crony Capitalists are its stoned dummies, diverted at whim; their awareness may as well be perpetually chained to caves by Kubaki theater (such as birth certificates, truther conspiracies, etc.). Meanwhile, the real conspiracy of a gathering of evil goes unremarked: the Rinos and Dinos serve the same master, while ordinary people cheer (and Bronx cheer) for their home teams, neither of which gives a damn for them. Was W bad news? You betcha. Is O bad news? Ditto. Can you benefit from this? Sure. Just correctly wag for the nearest home team and take the throw away candy.
Can a person influence the system, to help ring in decent civilization for availing human freedom and dignity? Probably not. But certainly not, so long as the real monster remains cloaked, or our heads remain chained to watching its Kubaki theater (mass reeducation camp). The stakes? Blue pill vs. Red pill; Danish candy (yum!) vs. Western quest; zombie following vs. authentic pursuit of truth.
Who's the hostage taker: It's the Fed led consortium of crony capitalists. Can you resist it? Well, it has the means to buy the ignorant and the corrupt (using money from their own wallets --- how cool is that?). Given how our immigration and education policies have dumbed down our electorate, I'd say resistence is probably futile, yet somehow satisfying.
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