Ayn Rand (and Ron Paul) Madde This Nation More Selfish

Because things like legal mar1juana and fewer drone attacks are a sideshow and have vastly less impact than things like abandoning teh modern system of laws & regulations based on nutjob constitutional dianetics - they are a byproduct of his plan to revert us back to the Gilded Age and as a consequence, make the world safe for plutocracy.


When you do the math with these byproducts, it's easy to see who wins. For example it's fun to say Ron Paul is anti-corporate welfare, but when you balance this out against his goal of saying "hai guyz, no more bailouts, but ALSO NO SEC FTC FDIC CFTC ENFORCEMENT OR COMPLIANCE OR ACCOUNTABILITY WHATSOEVER" - that's an easy equation to see who wins.

 

I guess I am mostly on your side on this one, but where in the hell did this figure come from? To my knowledge, Lee Farkas and his woebegone apprentice are the only executives who are serving hard jail time for 2008.

 

If freeing the market results in corporations abusing the market, then something is wrong with the corporations. We can put rules in place temporarily to reduce the impact/probability of it happening, but ideally and theoretically, the goal is to reach a position where a free market results in fair participation from all participants.

While Ron Paul seems to be great at supporting the free market, I can't see that he has placed enough emphasis one how to correct the artificially engineered components of free markets (in this cases, im talking about businesses and legal entities) which are a danger to free markets.

I think that he is still more sensible than other candidates who seem to support putting policies in place to support an economy which is being artificially kept alive, which operates on the assumption that free markets are the perfect model, and which is clearly getting further from that assumption. Tinkering with domestic numbers can be hugely advantageous, but if the core is flawed, then you are just doing eternal patchwork. This kind of trial and error process is best left to academics.

From an outsider perspective, I would say that the US economic mess is a mess of principles rather than mathematics. In that sense, Ron Paul holds the strongest principles for improving the economy, although he doesn't have the greatest mathematics or most exciting campaign promises.

Overall, as always, it seems to be a very dissapointing group of options for the American people.

 

What is this 1% bull****? Really? You've narrowed down all the world's problems to that 1%? Awesome. To a casual reader who wandered into D&D you sound as crazy and conspiracy minded as a Ron Paul

And blaming Objectivism for making this nation selfish is like blaming Zionism for making this nation selfish. Ayn Rand? Seriously? That's what's wrong with Ron Paul and this country?

I say blame Animal Farm next.

As for Paul what do you expect? He's a contrarian. He's right at calling out issues but has no solution. Take Iran. He's right that it's both base hypocrisy and a completely untenable political position that we let Israel have dozens of nukes pointed at its neighbors but expect her hostile neighbors to refrain from arming themselves. Woo congrats you're right Ron Paul. So what do you suggest then Ron? We allow Iran to have nukes? Expect AIPAC to allow the President to disarm Israel? Ron Paul has no solution. He'd be **** as President. In many ways it's actually better to let the American public be ignorant than rile them up when you have no implementable solution to the **** that you stir.

Luckily they have you to tell them how to practice it correctly. For your next post can you tell the Hebrews how to be Jewish? Then maybe post a how to for Japanese to follow Bushido? For my girlfriend, she's cool but I think she could be more. Can you post how to be a real woman? and not a woman in name only... I think she could be wearing more makeup for example.

FYI following the philosophical and moral dictates of any of the dozens of sects of Christianity makes you in fact fully Christian in both name and act. It's pretty much asinine that you think there's 1 proscriptive way to follow that particular superstition.

 

A book 99% of the population probably hasnt read made USA more selfish?

 

Glynch is special. His threads are like Basso's, except nobody b****es about them. Maybe Glynch is Basso's schitzophrenic handle. :grin:

 

I wouldn't underestimate it.

 

Ayn Rand isn't one of Paul's mentors and was not a big influence on his life and ideas.

/thread

 

wonder what rand paul thinks of that.

 

Ron believes in charity and so do his supports. Recently, they collected over 12,000 lbs of food to deliver to charities that feed the hungry...

 

She (Ayn Rand) had a lot of influence on me.

--Ron Paul

:32...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MjwuGHPilwI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Great. In a few days, the Boy Scouts will come by and take my dead Christmas Tree away in return for a small check and some canned goods.

 

I think people need to think a little and figure out he won't be able to get rid of the IRS, put us on the gold standard, and all of the other crazy stuff he preaches.

He would have the ability to

Cut spending
stop wars

 

This is a reasonable argument, but I think Paul supporters go entirely too far and just ignore these policy positions. That's disconcerting because, even with congressional limitations, he has a huge amount of sway over these matters. More to the point, congress has been leaning supportive of these sorts of measures for some time now, on either side of the aisle.

 

1. On the "stopping wars" thing...... what does that mean, exactly, at this point? Iraq's done. Afghanistan we're still in, but it's not big enough of an issue for me to accept Paul and all of his other crazy baggage. And I really don't believe either Romney or Obama will launch us into another war against Iran - I could see the other Republican crazies possibly doing it, but even for them it's unlikely. I just don't see it.
So when Paul says, "stop wars", he really means withdraw from every country we have influence in, whether it's Japan, Kuwait, or Europe, and start acting like he's freaking Jimmy Carter on foreign policy. For me, that's a hell no.
2. Why should I not take Paul at his word? Going off of it, it's like arguing that it's acceptable for a true racist like David Duke ( I'll concede that Paul's not a racist for the moment) to be in office, because Congress will prevent him from passing racist legislation. If Paul says that he want to do crazy stuff like implementing the Gold Standard, I'll hold it against him, especially as a value towards the capabilities of his judgment. I won't excuse it by saying that Congress will block him from doing the crazy stuff.

 

Good Discussion

I think everyone understands that Rand's full name is Randall. Also, just because Ron Paul has been influenced by Ayn Rand, doesn't mean that he strives to uphold her entire vision. I'm by no means a Ron Paul apologist, but I think he does have some good ideas and has been rather consistent in his voting record. I think we need a president whose going to focus on the domestic as well as simplify our tax and regulatory system while maintaining our civil liberties.

As far as the federal vs states rights, I'm a bit of a scientist in this. I think when the federal government steps in and makes mandates, it's hard to see if it's a positive or negative because there's no alternative. If states get to decide on their own version of what they feel would benefit their citizens, then I think we would have our own mini-think tanks and be able to compare the results ala Massachusetts health plan, legalizing drugs, etc.

To those who think the 1% support Ron Paul because of his desire to remove regulatory commissions rather then make them more transparent/accountable, I'd like to point you to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/billionaire-donors/2011/12/05/gIQAa3spXO_graphic.html

Also, atrocities such as the link below and Iran having nuclear weapons are definitely terrible things, but when did the US suddenly become everyone's big brother? When Katrina occurred, I didn't see an outpouring of support from countries that we annually send money to. Unless, we know for a fact that these weapons are going to be pointed at us, I don't want to initiate hostilities with anyone. If their guns are pointed at Israel, I say let Israel handle it. They are more then capable of taking out multiple countries at the same time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144098384/the-girl-in-the-blue-bra?sc=fb&cc=fp

For those who said we're out of Iraq, I say kudos to politics:
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144198497/no-u-s-troops-but-an-army-of-contractors-in-iraq

Also, if you vote for Ron Paul, you'll see more of this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...e-first-kiss-at-a-navy-homecoming?sc=fb&cc=fp

I'm sure there's more I'd like to share, but I'm tapped out at the moment. It's been a while since I've posted, but great discussion thus far beyond the little bit of vitriol being spewed =)

 

What a silly response.

The top 0.o1% didn't get where they were by backing losing horses - of course they're not donating to crazy crackpot Ron Paul - the man has no chance of ever winning. A bad investment if there ever was one.

And then he does fantastic things for them like urging tax cuts uber alles ad inifitum and dismantling the EPA and IRS and FTC and SEC and whatever - why would they bother giving him a dime?

It's buying the cow when you get the milk for free - ain't no need to put a ring on it.

Paul and his supporters are really the ultimate dupes in this regard. As I said before, the plutocracy now! brigade will gladly trade incremental Paulrandian change for a little bit of populist rhetoric.

You can have your legal pot and then we'll repeal all antitrust laws so that Roche and Pfizer can fix the price of it. Enjoy.