CPUSA: Ryan, Rand, and the Objectivist Budget (Ayn Rand = L Ron Hubbard, and followers = cult)

[zoony]

http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/ryan-rand

From a GOP Writer

Four members of the Congressional House Republican Caucus voted against Congressman Paul Ryan's budgetary "Path to Prosperity." Had I been there and had the opportunity to do so, I would have proudly been among their number. There's a simple reason for this: Paul Ryan is an "[Ayn] Rand nut."[1] His proposal isn't a path to prosperity or fiscal sanity, it’s a projection of an Objectivist vision for our society, our nation, and its future. And that's a dark path we'd do well to avoid.

I'm not the only one who has recognized this. Jonathan Chait, for example, has noted that "when Republicans [like Ryan] invoke the horrors of the national debt, they don’t actually mean the national debt. They mean big government." This is why Ryan, and many like him, despite all the talk of the perils of deficits, refuse to deviate at all from the GOP's "anti-tax orthodoxy." In the end, "[t]hey are left arguing that the debt threatens to destroy American civilization, but they would rather leave it unaddressed than agree to even a dime of higher taxes."[2]

This seeming incongruity is inexplicable without reference to Ayn Rand and the Objectivist school of extreme Libertarian thought....

(rest at link)

Most relevant quote:

This is troubling. Ayn Rand is essentially the L. Ron Hubbard of American conservatism. And Objectivism is its closest approximation of a political/ideological cult.

and

Time and space do not permit an in-depth analysis of Rand's school of libertarian thought, Objectivism, and its various wrinkles and permutations. Thankfully, its essence has already been distilled for us by Charlie Sheen: "Winning!" It really all comes down to that. And from an Objectivist perspective, Winners have a special virtue, a superiority that differentiates them from everyone else. This gives Winners the right, no, more than that, the responsibility, to be selfish. The flip side of this is a tendency to see the poor as somehow lacking in virtue- they are poor because they are lazy, because they have defective or deficient characters, because they are just not quite smart enough to make the cut.

The only thing holding back the Winners from achieving even more is the rest of us, and especially the poor and the government that supports and protects them through social welfare programs. To an Objectivist, Winners are producers; the poor are a drain, an anchor holding society back… useless mouths. The greatest sin is to take from Winners and redistribute to the poor.

In the words on Jonathan Chait, "[t]he enduring heart of Rand’s totalistic philosophy was Marxism flipped upside down. Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites."

[SkinsHokieFan]

I often wonder how a nation such as Hong Kong pre China unification, didn't have people dying in the streets and starving since there weren't any social welfare nets in that nation.

Just to add: nobody is advocating an Albania 1990s, where there were NO institutions whatsoever to govern the market place, which is why many pyramid schemes developed. There is a happy medium, and I think Paul Ryan keeps us in that range of "happy medium"

If suddenly the regulatory state was completely dismantled and there was no IRS, SEC, FAA, FCC, etc, I think the argument would be much more sound

How Hong Kong Makes Everything From Nothing
by P.J. O'Rourke
"This essay is excerpted from his book Eat the Rich."
"Hong Kong is the best contemporary example of laissez-faire. The economic theory of "allow to do" holds that all sorts of doings ought, indeed, to be allowed, and that government should interfere only to keep the peace, ensure legal rights, and protect property. ...

Jesus, it's a rich city. Except where it's Christ-almighty poor. Hong Kong is full of that "poverty midst plenty" stuff beloved of foreign correspondents such as myself....

It's a modern place, deaf to charm, dumb in the language of aesthetics, caught up in a wild, romantic passion for the plain utilitarian. ...

Hong Kong was (and to be fair to its new commie rulers, remains for the moment) socialism's perfect opposite. Hong Kong does not have import or export duties, or restrictions on investments coming in, or limits on profits going out. There is no capital-gains tax, no interest tax, no sales tax, and no tax breaks for muddle-butt companies that can't make it on their own.

The corporate tax in Hong Kong is 16.5 percent of profits. The individual tax rate is 15 percent of gross income. Hong Kong's government runs a permanent budget surplus and consumes only 6.9 percent of gross domestic product (compared with the 20.8 percent of GDP spent just by the federal government in the U.S.) ...

Hong Kong has never had democracy, but its wallet-size liberties, its Rights-of-Man-in-a-purse, have been so important to individualism and self-governance that in 1995 an international group of libertarian think tanks was moved to perhaps overstate the case and claim, 'Hong Kong is the freest nation in the world.'

Free because there's been freedom to screw up, too. Hong Kong has no minimum wage, no unemployment benefits, no union-boosting legislation, no Social Security, no national health program, and hardly enough welfare to keep one U.S trailer park in satellite dishes and Marlboro Lights. Just 1.2 percent of GDP goes in transfers to the helplessly poor or subsidies to the hopelessly profitless.

Living without a safety net, people in Hong Kong have kept a grip on the trapeze. The unemployment rate is below 3 percent. In America, a shooting war is usually needed to get unemployment that low. The "natural rate" of unemployment is considered to be about 5 percent in the U.S., which rate would cause natural death from starvation in Hong Kong. ... Economic growth in Hong Kong has averaged 7.5 percent per year for the past twenty years, causing gross domestic product to quadruple since 1975. With barely one-tenth of 1 percent of the world's population, Hong Kong is the world's eighth-largest international trader and tenth-largest exporter of services. ...

Besides Americans, only the people of Luxembourg and Switzerland are richer than those of Hong Kong. And these are two other places where capital is allowed to move and earn freely. ...

Quite a bit of government effort is required to create a system in which government leaves people alone. Hong Kong's colonial administration provided courts, contract enforcement, laws that applied to everyone, some measure of national defense (although the Red Chinese People's Liberation Army probably could have lazed its way across the border anytime it wanted), an effective police force (Hong Kong's crime rate is lower than Tokyo's), and bureaucracy that was efficient and uncorrupt but not so hideously uncorrupt that it would not turn a blind eye on an occasional palm-greasing illegal refugee or unlicensed street vendor.

The Brits built schools and roads. And the kids went to school because they knew if they did not, they'd have to hit that road. And the U.K gave Hong Kong a stable currency, which it did totally by cheating -- first pegging the Hong Kong currency to the British pound and then, when everyone got done laughing at that, pegging to the U.S dollar at a rate of 7.8:1. ...

Hong Kong was also fortunate in having a colonial government which included some real British heroes, men who helped of these the place stay as good as it was for a s long as it did.

The most heroic of these was John Cowperthwaite, a young colonial officer sent to Hong Kong in 1945 to oversee the colony's economic recovery. ... while he was in charge, he strictly limited bureaucratic interference in the economy growth or the size of GDP. ...

During Cowperthwaite's "nothing doing" tenure, Hong Kong's exports grew by an average of 13.8 percent a year, industrial wages doubled, and the number of households in extreme poverty shrank from more than half to 16 percent."

[Thiebear]

Shouldn't this be the title:
Ryan, Rand, and the Objectivist budget

also this guy is who? His writing has been featured on national and local blogs such as FrumForum and TommyWonk.

So libertarians are Charlie Sheen now? Nice... could we keep this in that coffee blog where it belongs.

[zoony]

I often wonder how a nation such as Hong Kong pre China unification, didn't have people dying in the streets and starving since there weren't any social welfare nets in that nation.

I visited Hong Kong 8 times between 1983 and 1989. Blind beggars EVERYWHERE. People laying on towels in the middle of the sidewalk with no eyes, gurgling on their own spit and begging for change. Right in front of a gold-plated skyscraper. Anyone who was there during that time would confirm this.

There were tunnels in Hong Kong that were impassable because of the amount of beggars. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Worse than the Phillipines even. At least in the Phillipines everyone was poor, and you didn't have millionaires stepping over heaps of rotting human flesh on their way to work.

---------- Post added May-15th-2011 at 01:33 PM ----------

Shouldn't this be the title:
Ryan, Rand, and the Objectivist budget

It is dumbass

[Thiebear]

It is dumbass

CPUSA: Ryan, Rand, and the Objectivist Budget (Ayn Rand = L Ron Hubbard, and followers = cult)

That looks more like a troll title that in any other topic you would have shut down?
or at least wait for you to post so that it could be spelled out that way...

[SkinsHokieFan]

I visited Hong Kong 8 times between 1983 and 1989. Blind beggars EVERYWHERE. People laying on towels in the middle of the sidewalk with no eyes, gurgling on their own spit and begging for change. Right in front of a gold-plated skyscraper. Anyone who was there during that time would confirm this.

There were tunnels in Hong Kong that were impassable because of the amount of beggars. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Worse than the Phillipines even. At least in the Phillipines everyone was poor, and you didn't have millionaires stepping over heaps of rotting human flesh on their way to work.[COLOR="Gold"]

)

There are blind beggars and gypsy's all through out Europe as well, where there is apparently a robust social welfare system. People eating out of trash cans. The only place in Europe I didn't witness this was Switzerland.

No place is immune from awful poverty. We all know this nation isn't, nor has been. The question becomes how do you make the pie bigger, and more importantly how do you make the pie bigger for everyone, as opposed to taking multiple pieces of pie from one person and giving it out to 50 other people in far smaller bits that does nothing for them, which is essentially what our system and the European system does.

Do we continue to incentivize the government getting larger (because who in the hell would vote against the hand that feeds?) or do we ween ourselves off this to the point that we won't need to spend vasts amount of money taking pie and giving it out. Instead everyone will be working to make that pie bigger and keep their share.

[SnyderShrugged]

yeah, not a big fan of objectivism either. Its a great thing that most libertarians dont either, including the 2 GOP candidates who are running.

Doesnt that make you happier Zoony? See? nothing to worry about

[SkinsHokieFan]

yeah, not a big fan of objectivism either. Its a great thing that most libertarians dont either, including the 2 GOP candidates who are running.

Doesnt that make you happier Zoony? See? nothing to worry about

I agree. Objectivism at its core should not be a guiding principle for anyone. Its way too selfish.

What Ryan is doing is not taking us to an objectivsit system. Although I feel his budget doesn't go nearly far enough in getting the biggest welfare queens (big corporations and big military contractors) off the teet.

Those companies are bloated and inefficient because of how much they get from the government. Why would they want anything changed?

[Hubbs]

I'm glad you're so excited to find an article that lines up with your thoughts so well, zoon.

[PokerPacker]

[Mad Mike]

I object to Rand's use of the word "objectivisim" to describe her philosophy. There is nothing "objective" about it. Simplistic... Yes. Moronic... absolutely. But objective?...Hardly. Rand wasn't objective. She was insane.

True objectivism is something we should all strive for. It's why I reject all political parties and judge solutions to the nations challenges Based on merit, regardless of where the idea came from.

a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.

(Philosophy) existing independently of perception or an individual's conceptions

So back on point... let me get this straight. Ayn Rand, a woman so emotionally scarred and disturbed by her experience with communism develops an extremist, capitalist, fantasy world and calls it objectivism. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

Wait... I think I've figured it out...

1. Of or having to do with a material object.

She *was* Ferengi!

[ACW]

Mods shouldn't do un-modlike behavior

[Jumbo]

Mods shouldn't do un-modlike behavior

I hope you're not going to count off-ES activities.

[Thiebear]

I hope you're not going to count off-ES activities.

Well if using this account is like the company car, you should put the bottle down.
dumbass

[zoony]

There are blind beggars and gypsy's all through out Europe as well, where there is apparently a robust social welfare system. People eating out of trash cans. The only place in Europe I didn't witness this was Switzerland.
.

I've been to Europe, too. Several times. Did a semester there.

What you're talking about is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing one. (Present Europe -vs- 1980s Hong Kong)

---------- Post added May-15th-2011 at 04:26 PM ----------

Well if using this account is like the company car, you should put the bottle down.
dumbass

Tell you what. If I find another article started by another member, where the title of the article exists followed by additional info about the article in parentheses, you agree to put "I am zoony's *****" in your signature for 1 year. And a year each for every article I find. Just reply and let me know whether you want to take me up on this.

Now if you don't accept this, just go ahead and post that you're acting like a sally.

Mods shouldn't do un-modlike behavior

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---------- Post added May-15th-2011 at 04:32 PM ----------

yeah, not a big fan of objectivism either. Its a great thing that most libertarians dont either, including the 2 GOP candidates who are running.

Doesnt that make you happier Zoony? See? nothing to worry about

Now I genuinely do not know, but I always assumed Ron Paul named his son for Ayn Rand.

I'm glad you're so excited to find an article that lines up with your thoughts so well, zoon.

I was excited too