Ayn Rand Speaking With Precision for the 99 %

The Evil of Supplicating to Men Who Produce Nothing, in Order to Produce:

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honestly becoming a self-sacrifice - YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOUR SOCIETY IS DOOMED."
(emphasis added)

-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author

Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"


Original.

My Wealth vs. Government Taxation

My wealth and success are the direct result of my individual effort and rugged determination to make something of myself. Thus my wealth is a sure indication of God's specific blessing on me.

Too many individuals are slothful, inattentive and other-directed, and often are found in need of money or assistance in some manner. There are those who cater to the needs of the poor, the indolent, the lazy and have devised and used the coercive power of government to find means to provide for such "leechers" in society.

Most often it's the sinful lives of individuals that produce deadly disease, poor health, mental atrophy, and enscounce irrevocable habituation of lifestyles that hinder and prevent them from taking necessary "personal responsibility."

Sin Is Expensive
Throughout our declining culture "sin" has undermined the American Dream. Abandonment of families, children neglected and abused by parents, dishonest actions, sexual aberrations and unbridled license, theft on the job, rampent drug use, these all lend themselves to a real dashboard costs. The data is there.

The single mother with an illegitimate off-spring, a brain eaten away by drugs and delusions, the slothfulness of the "lazy" living on unending welfare, the "welfare cheat," these and others committing petty crimes, frauds, and major felonies are a dead weight on my economic well-being.

All things that are sinful, created by the sinful acts of others, cost me money. Those are high costs, borne by those with resources and some measure of income and/or wealth. Right bearing "strict values" activists must act to put "sin" under strict control and set real limits for the future. Isn't this what we learned from our Puritian Fathers? The Killer Clincher

To tax me, to coerce me to surrender my "blessings from God" is a very great evil. If you take from me my resources to enable those unworthy sinners who will not work and do not take "personal responsibility" for themselves, you (as represented by the police powers of government) are robbing me of God's Blessing. Therefore, I have a god-given right fight back, to defend myself from government taxes that are stripped from me to give "unearned" support to, and prosper, those who refuse to care for themselves.

Sin may come on other forms than that of the criminal mind, the mooch or the indolent welfare recipient. We view the worker who organizes to have power to participate collectively in the inner workings and privileged areas of business ownership that bear upon working conditions, safety, and wages, etc. as another kind of "thief." The union worker takes from ownership the powers of control over their own realm and makes demands that are inconsistent with the sterling standard of a right to "hire and fire at will."
We must defend the "divine rights" of proprietorship and wealth to be free of "sin's takings."

"It is a policeman's duty to protect men from criminals -- criminals being those who seize wealth by force. It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman's duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property -- then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman."

-- Ayn Rand, (1905-1982) Atheist & Author, Source: Atlas Shrugged, P. 535 (1957)

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Greedy Bros Koch-Bought & Paid for Visi-Galts: The Randian Libertarian Spawn - Gleefully Storm the Gates of the People’s House in Lansing, MI

Commentary on Americans for Prosperity arranged Tea Party Rally in Lansing on April 14, 2011.


Greed mars man's earliest defiant quip was a departure from God's plan for mankind: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Today, haughty and aggressive mavens and devotees of a "godless" Ayn Rand dain to gather on the Lansing capital lawn to demonstrate, to the bodaciously broadcast to the entire populace the grand scope of their rebellion against paying their rightful share in civic order and loudly lauding their pride in personal irresponsibility.

Tea Party rogues should be contributing citizens and taxpayers-problem solvers not trouble makers! Responsible Citizenship is vitally important to the common good of Michigan, local community and brotherhood.

Dick Morris and the "GOING GALT" - "JUST LEAVE US ALONE" rabble have captured the Michigan Republican Party. 

The threat that Tax Party rabble rousers have engendered is purposeful, it is intended to force a "John Galt" rebellion on Michigan thereby inflicting harm on the institutions of the state, turning away the needy, the poor, the elderly, and further punishing the already unemployed (400,000) with less help. This rally calls for a somber dirge, not a wild-eyed celebration of Know Nothing triumphism by radical tax-haters.

Perchance we ask, why shouldn't some delusional individuals be caught up in the current angst, anger and confusion? We've seen such before. We are now being reminded of other cults that arose in the land, that had in their misshapened mindsets. Cultist ardently belived in revolutionary "good they would do" in compliant submission to the exaggerated perception created by their cunning leaders. Such cult movements have arisen out of a yearning for a "shortcut" to more personal power outside the rules and order of democracy and the rule of law which underpin a just, functional, and caring society. We have recently been reminded of other cults e.g. the Ku Klux Klan which marched, 17,000 strong, on Lansing in the 1920's to express their anger and fear, attempting by doing so to call attention to their regressive agendas. This recollection is not to equate the Koch created and owned Americans for Prosperity, Dick Armey's Teapartisans, and associated groups gathered today with the Klan per se; it is but to warn; extravagant and radical deviation from the personal part we all must play in the welfare of our community and stubborn withholding of our caring attention to our fellowmen are on the slick and selfish path to chaos and ruin.

"Going Galt" is going to godless ruin! 

Be warned. We should not glory in repeating the error of serious destabilizing regression into the annals of dangerous ideologies in the regretful past. Tearing down is much easier than building up. Neglect of civic institutions and proper government is much easier, and less costly than their proper maintenance and enhancement.

Ayn Rand's Visi-Galts, marching on Lansing today, are entirely convinced that they and they alone can make things "better" by cutting down America and Michigan-as we have known it. They are activated because they feel their property and assets are threatened by government and the hated tax. Fixing things civic is not in their toolboxes. They are radical "Taxhaters." This could, and can only, happen because of the Wall Street/Bankster economic crisis (brought on by complete and utter dedication to the worship of Corporate Selfishness and Greed) has undermined our nation's stability and way of life. It is true: There is great turmoil and there are great fears. These Tea Party/Koch Libertarians, political usurpers, all glory in their opportunity created by this great historic economic crisis.

The Visi-Galts, the Teapartisan/civic barbarians, fervently denying personal responsibility to the community, selfish and greedy, thrive on fear and aggression which enhance their campaign. Disaster Capitalism suits Teapartiasns in their delusions.

The Tea Party rally today is a neo-pagan bacchanalia; a bold display worshiping their "godless" goddess, Ayn Rand, creator of the factious John Galt. - It's an UGLY & UNHOLY veneration of SUPER SELFISHNESS drawn across the background of our monument: The Peoples'House.


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Just-Leave-Me-Alone Tea Party Hero John Galt Be Praised: The High Hypocrisy of Galt’s Creator, Ayn Rand

Commentary on Michigan Tea Party announcements of showing Ayn Rand movies, and upcoming Rally run by American for Prosperity in Lansing on April 14, 2011.
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Just-Leave-Me-Alone Tea Party Hero John Galt Be Praised: The High Hypocrisy of Galt’s Creator, Ayn Rand, Who Died Ignominiously Swaddled in Her U.S. Government Benefits of Social Security & Medicaid

St Ayn didn't die nestled with her fabled John Galt in her imaginary mountain enclave, known as "Galt's Gulch." She took Government subsistence.

Rand took benefits under the name Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor). Thus the harsh, arch-anit-social welfare activist and critic died swaddled in U.S. GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL SECUITY!

Tea Party's, "godless" St. Ayn expired bestowed with full government entitlements. This Tea Party false heroine none-the-less will be lauded on Lansing's capitol steps tomorrow. by the nefarious Dick Morris. How bogus is that?

Ayn Rand: 

"The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breaches or fraud by the others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against the victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his."

- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

In St. Ayn's view accepting government assistance and social programs (paid for by the general public to serve us all in our old age or hour of greatest need and fewest/depleted resources) is the to give into an act of a "gang" that is "bigger" than the individual. It must be the lone man, standing alone, who must to be a true man. That ideal man, Galt, must be the sole source of his own destiny and welfare. The government, in Ayn Rand's eyes, as expressed by her rugged individualistic fictional hero, John Galt. (Now the main character in the new and much ballyhooed Tea Party/Libertarian cult film: Rand's Atlas Shrugged, just released) is "a nightmare machine designed to annihilate morality (a specialized definition by Rand espousing "selfishness as a virtue, and egoism as the highest achievement of her view of "morals.")

In Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the government, when it puts regulations and lawful restraint upon the intense and selfish purposes of man or corporations, takes up the "role of man's deadliest enemy" and most significantly Rand's assertion leads to her false conclusion that by extracting taxes from John Galt, St. Ayn's fictional, rugged entrepreneural individual, government is "welding" coercion and force, via its police powers, to collect taxes.

Washington Independent's David Weigel reported the following from "Ask Dr. Helen" Smith and others the subject of Atlas Shrugged:

"Smith (who is know for resurrecting the Galt Theme) was a little ahead of the curve of what has become an incredibly popular meme. Across the broad conservative movement, from members of Congress to activists to economists, Rand's final, allegorical novel is being looked at with fresh eyes. According to the Atlas Society, a think tank that promotes and analyzes Rand's work, sales of "Atlas Shrugged" have tripled since the presidential election.

"One congressman says that Rand wrote a "rulebook" that can guide conservatives through the age of Obama; another calls Obama's policies something right out of the mind of Rand. One economist says that Rand's fantasies have become reality. "Smith is one of many activists citing Rand to explain their decisions to sell their stocks, or to explain why the president's "demonization" of run-amok CEOs is aggravating the economic slowdown. The popular meme is giving critics of the president's policies a way to explain why, they believe, it's doomed to fail - because Rand predicted all of this.

"'...Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.)- in an interview with TWI, 'I had a guy come up to me in my district and tell me that he was losing his interest in the business he'd run for years because the president wanted to punish him for his success. I think people are reading 'Atlas Shrugged' again because they're trying to understand what happens to people of accomplishment, and people of talent and energy, when a government turns against them. That's what appears to be happening right now.'

"The plot of Rand's novel is simple, despite its length - 1,088 pages in the current paperback edition. The United States is governed by bureaucrats, 'looters' and 'moochers,' who penalize and demonize creative people. The country is in decline because creative people are disappearing - they have followed the innovative John Galt to a mountain enclave, 'Galt's Gulch,' where they watch society crumble. Creativity has gone on strike (the working title of the novel was 'The Strike'), and the engine of capitalism cannot run without it."
Ayn Rand's Intellectual Dishonesty and Rank Hypocrisy: When the reality of cancer and pending death faced her, she willingly applied for and accepted the U.S. Government social programs: Social Security and Medicare."

Joshua Holland, writes the following in an article "Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them THE TEA PARTY AND THE RIGHT":

"'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)."

St. Ayn was a hypocrite, but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest. 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.'

Wrote Rand in a 1972 newsletter:

"'Morally and economically the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.'"

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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 Capitulated to the Lure of Collectivism

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.'"

Rand had paid into the system, so why not take the benefits? It's true, but according to Stephens, some of Rand's fellow travelers remained true to their principles.

"Rand is one of three women the Cato Institute calls founders of American libertarianism. The other two, Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel 'Pat' Paterson, both rejected Social Security benefits on principle. Lane, with whom Rand corresponded for several years, once quit an editorial job in order to avoid paying Social Security taxes. The Cato Institute says Lane considered Social Security a "Ponzi fraud" and 'told friends that it would be immoral of her to take part in a system that would predictably collapse so catastrophically.' Lane died in 1968."

Original Post.

Much Ado About Evil: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Why are we called upon to celebrate an atheistic, hedonistic, self-centered cult goddess, Ayn Rand, and her specious fiction extolling the Virtue of Selfishness?

Ayn Rand's Massive Cult Fictions Have Become the Tea Party "Scripture" Now leading Michigan GOP'ers plan a "Goddess" Rand celebration of the triumphs of godless selfishness on the Lansing Capitol.

What an insult to the honest men and women of Michigan!

In Michigan's present economic crisis unmitigated selfishness (as espoused by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged) is not the answer. Indeed, her veneration of arrogant, egotistic selfishness is at the very heart of the reason for the collapse of our national economy and ego-centric selfishness is a corrupting outrage against our Founders' moral principles.

"God forbid the mainstream news media should ever mention this, but there was once a time in America when citizens thought of government as their friend, and no one with any brains took the theory of free market capitalism as espoused by Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman very seriously. In fact, it was considered a ridiculous idea, and individuals who took it to heart, like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater or William F. Buckley Jr., were considered laughable.

"Of course, it was a different time in America then, a time when Keynesian economics was king, when most American families lived comfortably on one income, and when the rich and large corporations paid taxes at much higher rates.

"In those days average Americans knew instinctively, if not intellectually, that a "free market" system that took power away from government and allowed Big Business to run the show was just a scam to screw the little guy; that unfettered capitalism without strong government checks and balances led to-- at best-- robber barons like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, and-- at worst-- fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.

"And they knew something else, like our Founding Fathers, they knew the cornerstone of American democracy was the common man, not wealthy individuals or large corporations. And from World War II until 1980, this paradigm remained safe in the land of the free, if not always in practice, at least in principle."

-- John F. Miglio

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