Michigan Business Leaders Have Linked Their Operations With State Government to Assure Higher Profits...

...Without the Need for Strong Performance.

The endless loop of repeated shibboleths and mantras telegraphed by the ideology of this Michigan View blog are not conservative, they are some contrived form of hybrid thinking invented and promoted to cover a vast chasm of real world political and social danger arising from the ascendency of this very contrived political and cut-and-paste philosophical point of view-having at its heart an anti-Jesus thrust.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy Sides With Ayn Rand Against Jesus

From one of several feeds in the circular references promoted by the Mackinac Center and the sponsors:

"The critical tension between Rand and Christian theology is on human worth. Christians affirm the inherent and very high value of individuals because of their creation in the image of God. Rand values human beings only for their achievements. A person who does not offer value is a leech, a 'second rater.'"

The "rugged" in the form of the Mackinac Center's Rugged Individualism is useful to those who want to divorce themselves from co-operative community, from individual participation as citizens in government as a legitimate function of social organization.

We have seen how certain wealthy Michigan residents have used cunning and ability to "plunder" bit-by-bit their way to immense riches. This kind of money-making remains suspect and just a millimeter this side the line to legal-even forbidden by some national governments.

Now operating a system, similar and drawn from the model they developed, which promotes itself as somehow the genuine American way of a honest, credible business plan, it's harvesting huge profit from its admission to the Asian Market. This Mackinac Center co-founder and underwriter actually churns tens of thousands of recruits, sells they overpriced products in a what some define as a product-based pyramid scheme. It maintains a tight, top-down control on its organization in a manner repeatedly taken to court and into legal conflict.

It certianly took a "rugged" individualism to devise and carry out this phenomenon. Always on the line with what is barely legal, it has endured, in large part, by its clever decision to seek direct involvement in state and federal government and political activities furthering its select causes-not the least of which is seeking its own survival and wealth protection.

This license to prosper, while taking advantage of the nature of the human greed, coupled with a historic Calvinism, is a sectarian dogma that puts the "elect" above and in power of control over the "non-elect" and thus infuses this kind of Ayn Rand modus operandi with a "god-blessed-us-over-you elitism that consumes the best of community and continues to raid the assets of the community commons for the furtherance of personal wealth and power of this elite; aggressive powerbrokers thusly attempting to extend the power of wealth out over to the children of the elite for perpetuity.

There is a steely indifference to others deep inside this set of elites. They harbor and foster class warfare. Overlooking the path they took to gain wealth at the hardship and expense of the dreams of others, and operating on a plan that could only provide a limited success for a chosen few over the tens of thousands of eager raw recruits-who expend much time, energy, soul, and money to duplicate the success controlled and managed from atop the pyramid, these elites among the founders of Mackinac Center have made a mess of both Christianity and capitalism. Their source of wealth, viewed on a workable and restrained level, can be sustained and duplicated in the pursuit of providing for the needs of self and society. It's a failed model-unsustainable.

The critical tension between Rand and Christian theology is on human worth. Christians affirm the inherent and very high value of individuals because of their creation in the image of God. "Rand values human beings only for their achievements" and not for whom they are as individuals, part of the human community. The Mackinac Center has wrangled the stiff corners of rampant capitalism and its many abuses into a type of civic religion that denies the fellow human and falls short of the known plan of God for society.

An Aynian maxim: "A person who does not offer value is a leech, a 'second rater.'" The brainwashing and the propaganda of the past 3 decades from the MacCen have centered on finding a way to mollify critics, take command of the public opinion by means of a bargain that allows Mackers near, to total, access to the editorial pages and the story lines of the state's flagship newspapers. They have been gifted the prime source of philosophical and political opines for far too long.

What positive good has the Mackinac Center delivered for Michigan? Did it shelter us from the ravishes of the Bush Economic Debacle? Did it inspire a new vision for the state as a more progressive and effective aid to work-a-day life? Are the workers and middle class citizens and their children more economically well-off after years of hectoring by the Mac Cen?

Has the Mackinac Center created a positive and pro-active state culture as opposed to the present negativist culture so derided by Rick Snyder?

Nitpicking and fly-specking has become the high art of the MacCen. Its ability to negate any opinion other than that of its own has become oppressive and smothering to the public normal discourse.

There is of course, a true purpose for the Mackinac Center: To promote and prosper the highly sought goals of its private membership, to punish and defeat its perceived enemies in both politics and the world of economic and ideological pursuits.

In it's defense, the Mackinac Center would present itself as a faithful guide to the "free market." Free it is not. Every way and manner it can, the MacCen has skillfully utilized the power of government to defeat government as it would serve any group or purpose other than itself and its utterly selfish ways.

Hunter Baker writes concerning Ayn Rand:

"Though Rand certainly made no secret of her contempt for those unable or unwilling to engage in true exchange of economic value, she was right to tell interviewers that she was no totalitarian because of her abhorrence for the use of force. She did not believe in compulsion. Instead, she wanted a world in which a man stood or fell on his productivity. Rand saw production as the one great life affirming activity. Man does not automatically or instinctively derive his sustenance from the earth. He must labor and produce."

"This was Rand's bedrock and explains why she had such contempt for those who try to gain wealth through political arrangements. She saw this parasitism on every point of the economic spectrum from the beggar to the bureaucrat to the purveyor of crony corporatism."

Herein lies the piercing condemnation of the Mackinac Center, straight from Rand herself: The Center deserves condemnation and contempt because it has (and continues to) use power and money to further "gain wealth through political arrangements" and Ayn saw this abuse for what it is, an ugly "parasitism on every point of the economic spectrum from beggar to the bureaucrat to the purveyor of crony corporatism."

Elaborates Hunter Baker in "Understanding Rand" on May 4, 2011, concerning the recent re-lease, the remake of Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

"Government action occurs under the rubric of equity, but these people who 'move the world' - as one conversation in the film expresses - do not understand what claim the government has to order their lives or to confiscate the fruits of their labor. THE VILLAINS OF THE PIECE ARE NOT SO MUCH ANY WELFARE CLASS AS MUCH AS CORPORTISTS WHO WANT TO LINK THEIR COMPANIES TO GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS SO AS TO ASSURE PROFIT WITHOUT THE NEED FOR STRONG PERFORMANCE. THEY GO ON ABOUT LOYALTY AND PUBLIC SERVICE, BUT IT IS A MASK FOR MEDIOCRITY AND GREED."

And this is exactly what the Mackinac Center has done. With the legislature on a rip, Michigan "corporations" and certain business interests have now successfully "LINK(ED) THEIR COMPANIES AND ENTERPRISES TO (MICHIGAN STATE) GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS SO AS TO ASSURE PROFIT WITHOUT THE NEED FOR STRONG PERFORMANCE."

Over the next 2 years nearly 3 trillion dollars harvested by class warfare will be ladled out to Snyder's business backers with no provisions or parameters for performance-thus there is no need for strong performance. Thus the Snyder business bailout becomes "a mask for mediocrity and greed."

That is simply not right, that is not fair, that is not efficient.

Original Post.