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Ayn Rand GOP Paul Ryan's Hero Went on Soc Sec & Medicare

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by glynch, Apr 17, 2011.

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  1. glynch

    glynch Contributing Member

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    Ayn Rand was mugged by reality as many young libertarians/ conservatives are when reality intervenes and they get older and have heath problems. Very instructive and shame on Congessman Ryan for trying to end Medicare and therebye leave seniors like Ayn Rand to die in pain and penniless.
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    AlterNet / By Joshua Holland Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed ThemAt least she put up a fight before succumbing to the imperatives of the real world.
    January 29, 2011 |

    � Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.

    Her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).

    As Michael Ford of Xavier University's Center for the Study of the American Dream wrote, “In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.”

    Her ideas about government intervention in some idealized pristine marketplace serve as the basis for so much of the conservative rhetoric we see today. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” said Paul Ryan, the GOP's young budget star at a D.C. event honoring the author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, “Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism.”

    “Morally and economically,” wrote Rand in a 1972 newsletter, “the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.”

    Journalist Patia Stephens wrote of Rand:



    [She] called altruism a “basic evil” and referred to those who perpetuate the system of taxation and redistribution as “looters” and “moochers.” She wrote in her book “The Virtue of Selfishness” that accepting any government controls is “delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.”



    Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism.

    Evva Joan Pryor, who had been a social worker in New York in the 1970s, was interviewed in 1998 by Scott McConnell, who was then the director of communications for the Ayn Rand Institute. In his book, 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, McConnell basically portrays Rand as first standing on principle, but then being mugged by reality. Stephens points to this exchange between McConnell and Pryor.



    “She was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didn’t like, which was Medicare and Social Security,” Pryor told McConnell. “I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on – with gusto – we argued all the time.

    The initial argument was on greed,” Pryor continued. “She had to see that there was such a thing as greed in this world. Doctors could cost an awful lot more money than books earn, and she could be totally wiped out by medical bills if she didn’t watch it. Since she had worked her entire life, and had paid into Social Security, she had a right to it. She didn’t feel that an individual should take help
    http://www.alternet.org/story/14972...l_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/
     
    #1 glynch, Apr 17, 2011
  2. NotInMyHouse

    NotInMyHouse Contributing Member

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    Everyone's a hypocrite. Yao Ming's is injured. Water is wet. News at 11.
     
    #2 NotInMyHouse, Apr 17, 2011
  3. Classic

    Classic Member

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    So did she and her husband pay the taxes initially?
     
    #3 Classic, Apr 17, 2011
  4. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    #4 rocketsjudoka, Apr 17, 2011
  5. durvasa

    durvasa Contributing Member

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    I don't see the hypocrisy there.

    Someone might strongly object to a policy where money is taken from the rich and then distributed equally to everyone. They aren't a hypocrite for grudgingly accepting their share, so long as they were one of the people who's money was taken away in the first place.
     
    #5 durvasa, Apr 17, 2011
    1 person likes this.
  6. Steve_Francis_rules

    Steve_Francis_rules Member

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    Exactly. Calling her a hypocrite here relies on the same poor reasoning that leads to people calling someone a hypocrite if they don't "donate" extra tax money to the government at the end of the year when they say they support higher tax rates across the board.
     
    #6 Steve_Francis_rules, Apr 17, 2011
  7. glynch

    glynch Contributing Member

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    I don't see any hypocrisy either. The point is not whether poor Ayn Rand was forced to look to others (in this case the government) despite a life time of speaking out against such a mechanism organized by government.

    The point is that her abstract philosophical musings about how we can all be rugged individuals who should be able to self fund our own health care were in reality negated by her own life's example. E.G. It can seem theoretically good to have freedom from such coercion as red lights till two cars collide at an intersection; good to have freedom from compulsory contributions to health insurance till you can't self fund your treatment, but still want to live or prolong your life.

    Also significant was to see Rand's influence on the extreme move by Congressman Ryan to abolish Medicare in all but name.
     
    #7 glynch, Apr 17, 2011
  8. Carl Herrera

    Carl Herrera Contributing Member

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    If Ayn Rand didn't have to pay the Social Security and Medicare taxes, would she have been able to afford not receiving Medicare and Social Security benefits?

    Anyhow, I remember this being discussed in the other thread: The issue here is not whether or not Rand would have been a hypocrite according to our logic, but rather whether she was a hypocrite according to the philosophy she had been preaching. And the answer, as someone mentioned, is "yes" since taking the benefits even if she had to pay the taxes, would have violated Rand's philosophy. In fact, I recall someone mentioning that Rand had a lot of consternations about taking the benefits.
     
    #8 Carl Herrera, Apr 17, 2011
  9. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    Ayn Rand isn't gospel, her philosophy is not adhered to on faith.

    It stands or falls on its own rational merits, irrespective of her actions.
     
    #9 Commodore, Apr 17, 2011
  10. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    The politicians know there is no way medicare and ss can be touched. So they can tell their folks look we tried to do something. If they do actually do manage to touch those programs you can be sure the old folks will be voting and they will lose their jobs.

    So it is just a gesture.
     
    #10 Air Langhi, Apr 17, 2011
  11. thadeus

    thadeus Contributing Member

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    You know that "free-marketism" isn't rational at all, right?
     
    #11 thadeus, Apr 17, 2011
  12. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    how so?
     
    #12 Commodore, Apr 17, 2011
  13. bingsha10

    bingsha10 Member

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    you know america isn't a free market don't you?
     
    #13 bingsha10, Apr 17, 2011
  14. Phillyrocket

    Phillyrocket Member

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    Ryan got into politics because of Rand? Jesus Christ he's dumber than I thought.
     
    #14 Phillyrocket, Apr 17, 2011
  15. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    ah yes the "you're so dumb" response, you make a compelling case...

    leftists are the rhetorical equivalent of the schoolyard bully

    <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/V7l-pEBYeLI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RgV3PZkJmk4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
    #15 Commodore, Apr 17, 2011
  16. Johndoe804

    Johndoe804 Member

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    Paul Ryan is a dumbass. His recent budget proves it. And Ayn Rand's notion of altruism being wrong is ridiculous. She was supposed to be a 'free market' thinker, but she finds altruism morally wrong? People obviously value altruism in 'free markets', otherwise there wouldn't be so many organizations that exist solely for altruistic purposes. So for her, voluntary exchange is morally right, except when it has altruistic motives? Ridiculous.
     
    #16 Johndoe804, Apr 17, 2011
  17. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    No, it's the notion that one's existence is inherently less valuable then a strangers that she finds morally wrong.

    The idea that voluntary servitude is virtuous is what she opposed.
     
    #17 Commodore, Apr 18, 2011
  18. Phillyrocket

    Phillyrocket Member

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    Yes Ryan is dumb for falling for Rand's juvenile fiction. What do you notice about her little world? Conveniently every captain of industry is some pure of soul creature of indomitable will and spirit who seeks only to overcome the horrible roadblocks and odds that the government and other moochers have set before them. Their greed is good conquest somehow never dumps chemicals into a river, or outsources jobs to slave labor markets in some third world country, or rate sub prime mortgage backed securities AAA, or create a billion dollar pyramid scheme, or cook the books ala Enron, or dumps oil all over the Gulf, or creates blacklists, company stores, on and on and on.

    In her world there are only Bill Gates and Michael Dells somehow the Bernie Madoffs, the Enrons, Worldcoms, Tycos, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, CITI, BAC, BP, King Nut, W.R. Grace, PP and G, Adelphia, Arthur Andersen, Healthsouth, Halliburton, Nortel, Parmalat, Phar-Mor, Salad Oil Scandal, etc. are somehow missing.

    She created a world that would match her dogma eliminating what has long been the bane for conservative policies: REALITY. If all businessman acted like her characters then yes regulation would be an impediment and the government would need to be a heck of a lot smaller. That is not reality as countless decades have taught us.

    Ryan is merely another fool who read a simplified story bent to match his preconceived world view. A worldview of black and white appeals to a simple intellect who is only capable of understanding complexities when presented so conveniently dichotimized. This is what makes Rand so compelling to conservatives, it seems intelligent, sounds intelligent, but is actually overly simplified tripe.
     
    #18 Phillyrocket, Apr 18, 2011
  19. Dubious

    Dubious Contributing Member

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    It's not dumb to be a toady to the rich, they pay better.
     
    #19 Dubious, Apr 19, 2011
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