Why Are We So Crazy?

Tags

conspiracies, editorial, government, terrorism

I’ll leave it to you to wrap your head around the events in Boston. I woke as usual, turned on the TV, and was bowled over with lockdowns of neighborhoods and then the entire city of Boston, the death of a young man who only yesterday was only a face, and the race to locate the brother who was trying to escape.

I shake my head in disbelief, for after all my 63 years of experience, I have yet to understand what motivates people to do these things.

I’m not interesting in speculation at this point. Rather I speak to the first issues that now come to those of us who are “normal.”

The Contrarian breathed a sigh of relief. “At least they entered the country well before Obama took office. That will stop the usual blame-it-on-the-Black-Man.” I too joined in with the hope that the remaining suspect would be brought in alive. This for the obvious reason that I hate our murderous tendencies in the first place, but admittedly because I hope the young man might inform us as to his motives. That might stop some of the conspiracy theories about them and their intentions. Of course it will never stop all of them. We are the best conspiracy theorists in the world I think.

Conspiracy is a simply defined crime: the agreement between two or more people to commit an unlawful act. In a few places one overt act toward the commission of the crime must be taken, in most not. It is known as a crime with an active actus reus, meaning that people can join the conspiracy at any time and be fully culpable of the entire enterprise, whether or not all parties are known, or even when some are acquitted.

As any lawyer will tell you, it’s a crime that almost never goes undetected for long. If “loose lips sink ships” well, people who are criminally liable for serious offenses are all too willing to spill their guts to save their own skins. Somebody gets an attack of conscience. Somebody thinks “things went too far”. There are as many reasons as there are words to explain why conspiracies don’t work.

Yet, to the American public there is a conspiracy under every rock. And more to the point, they are almost always massive, involving tens of thousands of co-conspirators and lasting over decades and sometimes longer. We have always loved conspiracies, for some reason they make us giddy. It’s as if we and we alone have uncovered this intricate, vast, complicated plot. We feel deliciously smart. Yet we are actually silly, and not a little unhinged.

We are prone to believe that inexplicable events can be explained by reference to covert groups of various sorts and sizes. They effect our political, social and economic well-being. In the end, it’s just easier to posit a conspiracy than to dig deeply and see all the various factors that contribute to any particular situation. It’s also a good way to attack something when you have no other good reason for doing so.

Ulterior motives figure prominently in the creation of conspiracy theories, and that may be the key to understanding why they are so popular. You tell me that President Obama is not a legitimate president because he was not born in the USA. The evidence for that may be weak to non-existent, but of course since I hate him for my own reasons, I’m more than willing to believe this conspiracy exists. For indeed, if it’s obvious that he is not a citizen, there must be those who are “covering up” that fact for “nefarious” reasons. The conspiracy widens and deepens as you adopt it.

Usually conspiracy theories relate to the government. But there are two big ones that don’t. One is the conspiracy to teach evolution when as everyone really knows, God created the earth as enunciated in Genesis. This theory is held by fundamentalist Christians and includes by requirement that the not only biology scientists are involved in this massive conspiracy, but also astronomers, physicists, geologists, archeologists, paleontologists, and a host of others are also in on the deception.

The other one, that tangentially involves the government is that of climate change. This is a direct attempt by Democrats to favor green technologies and give them tax breaks in lieu of oil and gas interests. It’s all about getting grant money for scientists in universities.

These conspiracies cross all countries and are international in scope. They involve scientists who are all “part of the lie” and who are by choice wasting their professional careers to help sustain them. They have gone on for a couple of hundred years in the case of evolution, and a good hundred years when it comes to climate change.

Here are a list of general categories of conspiracies prominent today or recently:

1. The central banking institutions are the means by which large organizations seek to impose a “one-world government”.  Just assume that everything is being orchestrated by  shadow people–including wars,  and depressions.
2. False-flag operations are devices used by the OWO groups to deflect attention from themselves. If the terrorists in Boston are all killed, inevitably, whatever answers law enforcement gives as to their motives, some will assume it is to deflect attention from the real reasons, and the real perpetrators. There are some who believe there is such a false-flag conspiracy regarding 9/11. The same is true of the Kennedy assassination.
3. Wars are sometimes thought to be begun by the “military-industrial complex” for their own purposes. Iraq is often believed to have been started not for noble goals of eradicating WMD but for oil. There are some who believe that our own Civil War was started for other purposes than those who learn as children.
4. Most assassinations are subject to conspiracy theories. JFK of course, but also RFK, and King and Malcolm X are commonly thought of as conspiracy cases. Diana, Princess of Wales is another death thought by some to be the result of a conspiracy.
5. There is the whole “Clinton body count” which claims that Clinton regularly assassinated his enemies and there has been a conspiracy to cover it up.
6. The unbelievable list of Obama conspiracies–his birth, his college record, his law license, his religion. They have may twists and offshoots.
7. Various conspiracies involving religions–Jews drink the blood of Christians, Catholics sacrifice babies, Jesus was married.
8. Various claims that we have technology that is being deliberately supressed, such as electric cars, super cheap energy, cures for diseases.
9. Conspiracies to hide the fact that the government is developing cloaking technology, invisibility, mind-control, time travel, weather control, man-made earthquakes.
10. Conspiracies that involve military technology gone awry–which accounts for various “accidents”-death rays, electromagnetic weapons, and various other top-secret weaponry that sometimes causes things like the Haitian earthquake.
11. Media technology is being used by some to institute Big Brother or mind control. The use of movies and television shows to “desensitize” us to some events so that the government can conduct such things in the future.
12. Medicine routinely suppresses “cures” to keep their businesses going, as well as creating diseases to destroy races or groups of people.
13. Alien conspiracies which posit that alien races have visited the earth regularly and are involved in shaping the earth to their purposes, evil or otherwise.

There are more. The groups involved that you hear about regularly include the Bilderberg group, Freemasons, Scull and Bones, the Illuminati, Jews, Opus Dei, the Trilateral Commission, the Mafia. There are more of these too.

Of course, after Boston, there will be more. What makes us so prone to this stuff? Are we just looking for the “quick” answer? Are we unwilling to delve into the myriad threads that actually cause events to occur? Are some conspiracies more plausible than others? If so, is it because we like the claims of some and not others?

Jump in and share your thoughts.

List of conspiracy theories–Wikipedia (source)

Related articles

• Conspiracy Website Not What You Think (huffingtonpost.com)
• Anonymous, the Boston Marathon bombing, and conspiracy theories (sago.com)
• Boston Marathon Truthers Begin Conspiracy Theories (conservativebyte.com)
• A Thought on Conspiracy Theories (unseenvariable.wordpress.com)
• Top 10 Conspiracy Theories in the World (americanlivewire.com)
• General Conspiracies – Poll: 28% of Americans Believe in a “NWO” Conspiracy (disclose.tv)
• Conspiracy Theory Poll Results (publicpolicypolling.com)

Advertisements

Searching for the Gem

Tags

estate sales, gay marriage, GOP, government, Health care, lifestyle, sequester, teabaggers

Are you a junkie?

“Psst, come over here so we can whisper.”

Does your heart go pit-a-pat at the idea of buying other people’s stuff at bargain prices?

Yeah, I know. It’s just too good to pass up.

I like estate sales way more than auctions. I hate to wait for hours for “my” item to come up and then the bidding starts about a kazillion more than I could ever pay in the first place.

Estate sales are neat and tidy. Everything is already marked.

We went yesterday to a great one. Chock full of lawn and garden this and thats. I mean stuffed with planters and statues, chairs and tables. Just stuffed. We bought a bear carved from a log with a welcome sign. That went at the front door, hoping to distract from the lovely? piece of patio stone with the words “The Payton” carefully painted on it, a gift from our handyman. Of course it’s Peyton and not Payton and it should have an ‘s at the end. We must of course show it. We would not be rude.

We also got “Juanita” a two-foot terra-cotta Indian woman with long braids and an ample girth. She’s in the living room hopefully giving off good vibes. Then I splurged on a copper sculpture that is a series of rings mounted on a disk. I guess I should take a picture, but anyway it’s a piece of authentic art produced by a sculptor here in Las Cruces. I also picked up a glorious leather purse on the cheap which is the perfect size.

We are going back today when things are “half price” an ultimately “best offer” to gather up some garden urns and perhaps some wall artwork.

I am so freakin’ tired of the word, and all it entails.

I am so tired of idiots.

Boehner looks more and more the boob as one-trick pony. If he says, “it’s time to get serious about spending cuts,” I may hire a thug to go to DC and beat him to a pulp.

It’s time to get serious about kicking your ass to the curb.

It’s time to get serious about kicking the Tea Bibbers to the curb, permanently.

It’s time to require a basic test to anyone who wants to run for a government office. Prove that you can read. Prove that you can think. Prove that you can count to 100. I don’t know, something. I’ve heard more stupid from people who got people to actually vote for them for some office than I care to remember.

Seriously, my dog could do the job. Seriously, I think he could.

I really think this is gonna happen.

I mean I really do.

I think the Supreme Court will overturn California’s anti-gay marriage legislation.

About 30 other states have similar ones. They should fall too.

If the Court does invalidate it, hopefully it will be on a denial of equal protection under the law, a constitutional precept. Us constitutional law trumps and any state law or constitutional provision.

Game over.

Then perhaps we can get on with other issues rather than continuing our relentless attempts to punish people who aren’t like us.

The same will probably not be said for the Voting Rights Act and section five. That is probably going to fall. And that is a shame. Instead it ought to be upheld and broadened to cover the entire country. And it ought to prohibit any attempt that tries to disenfranchise any group of people, be their students, the elderly, or ethnic minorities. Voting is our most precious right. We should bend over backwards to make sure than everyone who wants to can. And maybe we should mandate that everyone does.

The GOP assured us that they would NEVER go willingly into the land of Obamacare.

They would kick and scream, they would throw themselves upon grenades if need be.

No never!

But political realities have a way of changing stubborn minds. Fearing that his time in office is limited, Governor Scott of Florida has had a change of heart. Chris Christie saw the logic of the situation as well.

Bobby Jindal has not. Which is a pity, since he counseled that the GOP must stop being the party of stupid. He’s the one of stupid for continuing his hold out. I mean who wants to be in the same camp as Ricky Perry from the grand old state of delusion, Texas? I mean Bobby, you still have New Orleans! You are not in Mississippi or Alabama, fighting for your very IQ life. I mean really Bobby.

Well it just ain’t about Obamacare though.

It’s about everything these days.

It’s about immigration, and gay rights. It’s about women’s rights. It’s about taxes, and loopholes.

How to rid themselves of TEA! When all the respectable Republicans (assuming they exist) just want a cuppa joe.

Boehner looks sad most of the time.

He must weep a lot at night.

The Tea Bibbers on the other hand, are all gleeful. They are too stupid to know any better.

I tell ya, it is so unfair to elephants to have them embarrassed this way in association with jackasses. I mean is that an irony or what?

We’re hitting around 70 degrees here today. I mean that is enough to make a heart sing is it not?

Related articles

• GOP Congressman Introduces Constitutional Amendment To Permanently Ban Obamacare (thinkprogress.org)
• GOP Search for Black or Latino Messiah (atthetable.newsvine.com)
• Conservative justices wary of Voting Rights Act (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court (consortiumnews.com)
• Voting Rights Act Supporters See Glimmers Of Hope In Anthony Kennedy (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Obama To Urge Supreme Court To Overturn California Gay Marriage Ban (sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)

And You Thought Things Would Be Different?

Tags

Barack Obama, editorial, extreme rightwing, government, liberalism, Mitch McConnell

One of the best things of a second term, is that the President is no longer looking over his shoulder to a second term, and tempering his remarks accordingly. That this is so, is perhaps a fact of life that is regrettable, but it would be a lie to suggest that first-term presidents don’t.

That said, there is much disagreement depending on whose ox is being gored. From the left, and I think fairly from the middle one hears that the Inaugural speech was masterful, and depending on his success, it may go down as one of the best given. Mr. Obama painted a picture that surely speaks to the heart of most of us. We have problems, indeed we do, but the solutions should never be placed upon the backs of any one segment of the population. The poor, the old, and the suffering should not bear the burden of our answers to grave problems, at least no more so than those who shoulders are sturdier, broader, and relatively unburdened.

For many of us, the President’s call for real efforts to help cure our environmental ills comes woefully late, but still is welcomed. The naysayers, propped up by the coal and oil industry “think tanks”, will squawk that this is all a hoax, and the Christianists will point to self-servingly-interpreted vague pieces of scripture and suggest that it would be an affront to God to presume to be causally involved in the destruction of our planet, but the evidence is strong and uniformly speaks with one voice–humans have seriously compromised the health of this planet.

On the Right, of course one hears the laments of the loser–“I heard no statement of wanting to reach across the aisle,” whines Senator John McCain. One might respond, “well Senator, tell us once in the last four years when you have done one thing other than complain that WHATEVER was contemplated by the Administration was wrong.” Yes do tell us Senator.

The Right found themselves shut out and they are pouting. Well, they have shut themselves out and it is clear that whatever is done at this point will be done by revising the filibuster rules so that a majority can once again actually pass legislation in the Senate. It will be done if at all, by the House, if Representative Boehner has the moral fortitude to begin bringing legislation to the floor absent the Hastert Rule, an arbitrary rule which says, “thou shalt not bring before the chamber a bill for which you don’t have a majority approval of your own caucus.” In other words, we will pass no legislation with bipartisan support, but only if we, the majority agree as a majority.

Beyond this, the President will have to come to us, the public and impress upon us the need to push our own representatives in government, to get off pot and actually govern as we elected them to. That is what the Address suggested to me at least.

No minds were changed I would hazard a guess.

Mitch McConnell, cries tears, lamenting, “the age of liberalism” has returned.

Well, yes, damn it it has. We, the left are unabashed in our efforts to bring liberalism back. We glory in the liberalism of Abraham Lincoln who had that liberal idea way back when that no country could continue to exist while enslaving a portion of its people. We glory in the liberalism of Theodore Roosevelt who curbed the power of big corporations by breaking them up. We glory in the liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt who ended a depression by putting people back to work improving our infrastructure and instituting social security so that people had the piece of mind of knowing their last years were not going to be spent in grinding poverty.

We glory in the liberalism of Lyndon Johnson who finished the work started by Abraham Lincoln, giving all citizens the same ACTUAL rights previously entombed only on paper in some states.

We glory in the liberalism of Barack Obama who began what for many of us was a long quest to secure access to medical care as a basic HUMAN right, not a privilege for only those who could pay the price of ever greedy medical conglomerates and doctors.

We await the big issue of immigration where we seek to invite our Latino brothers and sisters to join us in citizenship. We await the full rights of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters coming to be across the land. We await fair wages for all. We await fair wages for women doing the same work as their male counterparts.

Yes, we are unabashed in our liberalism.

But has anything changed for the extremists and those who kneel before them? No I suspect nothing at all. If the following is any example, the Right will continue to fawn and bow before the tiny but vocal hysteria that is the howling extremism of nuttery:

Mitch McConnell sent out this frightening e-mail to his supporters near or on Inauguration day:

My friend, our freedom is under direct assault.

From those who want take your guns. From those who want to shred our Constitution, and as our good in friend Rand Paul from Kentucky says, from those who want to be King.

Let me tell you, Mitch McConnell is ready to lead the fight to protect your rights.

Nobody’s freedom is under assault Mr. McConnell, and to continue this sort of sordid partisanship is beneath the office you hold. Nobody is shredding the Constitution, and given your utter disdain for the President, if there was one single piece of information that he was, you would be moving heaven and earth to encourage a House vote of impeachment. No one is trying to take anyone’s guns Mr. McConnell, only perhaps trying to remove from the public domain weapons that have no legitimate purpose other than to kill as many PEOPLE as possible, as quickly as possible. Nobody is trying to be a King, and I would suggest that you might read up on your British history since you and Mr. Paul might be a bit limited in your understanding of  what a monarchy is. Perhaps you might read Plato and get a firmer grasp of the various sorts of governments. Just a thought.

So, no nothing is changing. Because stupid men continue to act stupidly and in their own singular interests rather than for the common good.

Related articles

• Senator McConnell Angry Over “Liberal” Obama Inaugural Address (lezgetreal.com)
• “Investigate Senator Mitch McConnell making $24 million in 6 years on a $193,400 a year government salary.” (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
• Mitch McConnell Makes Congressional History: He Filibusters Himself (No Joke) (themoderatevoice.com)
• The Reviews Are In: Obama’s Inaugural Speech (billmoyers.com)
• The president liberals were waiting for is (finally) here (bangordailynews.com)
• Dennis Hastert Blasts Boehner for Violating ‘Hastert Rule’ (crooksandliars.com)

Wing-ed Nuttery Expands the Stratosphere

Tags

Alan West, Election 2012, electorate, GOP, government, Joe Walsh, Mitt Romney, teabaggers, voting

 

 

The uh, polls are ticking up nicely for the President. The RNC and the Willard team of dupids tell us not to dismay. It’s not a concern. Willard will just keep endorsing the likes of Steven King and clasping the back of Pat Robertson, and promising not to take “In God We Trust” off our coins, and all will be well.

He will not wipe out Obamacare (we embrace the term now), he’ll keep the good part. Forget that the good parts are paid by the mandate requirement. Willard knows that such facts just get in the way and it sounds ever so much better without truth. And in the end of course, since he won’t save the good parts anyway, no matter.

Suddenly, there are not gonna be any tax cuts for the rich. Willard had the hundred-dollar bills removed from his ears and heard that. Any “appearance” of tax cuts will be eaten up by closing the deduction loopholes. Which ones? Oh, trust me, Willard says, I’ll tell you AFTER you elect me. You are gonna elect me no?

See the way I sees it, Mr. Willard is gonna lose (Pelezzzzz God). And the finger pointin’ will commence. And Willard will blame Ryan and the Tea People, and the (doncha think the Tea people remind you of sea horses? I do, so keep that image in mind). As I was saying, the Tea People will blame  Willard for not being authentically enough CON-SERVA-TIVE. Now the rank and file, of which there is very little rank or file left, will scratch their armpits and be faced with the dilemma of the century–SHOULD WE CUT BAIT? Meaning shall we removing the icky chum from ourselves otherwise known as the Tea People.

Otherwise, it seems to me, the GOP may want to rename itself to  AWK which stands for Angry White Knownothings.

Meanwhile, back on the plantation, Alan West, who is really white with a very thin veneer of black which he has to touch up CONSTANTLY, opened one of his orifices and proved but again that he has nothing but cat’s eyes marbles floating around in his head. (Shake him, really, you can hear the rattle).

So he says that the President’s campaign slogan, FORWARD is actually some commie thing, because it “sounds” like something Marxist-socialist to him. But then he hears bats in his own belfry, so I’m not sure that we should attach too much importance to that.

Now Alan, I do beg you, in honor of your name, go WEST young man, and don’t stop until you are about 4 miles off the coast of California, breath deeply and go swim with the fishes, Sea horses if possible. (And before one of your bright lights tells me that they are not actually called Sea Horses any more, save it. I know that, have no clue what they are called now, and don’t care to look it up!)

Another AWK is the wonderfully stupid and thoroughly disgusting Joe Walsh, the dead-beat dad running for re-election in Illinois. I’m told it’s not at all likely that well will have old Joe to kick around much longer, so we must grab our stupid fix while we can.

Joe did not like it much that Sandra Fluke spoke at the DNC. He’s of the Limpaw persuasion that she’s a lazy slut. She is supposed to quit law school and get a  job according to Joe. He thinks we are raising children who feel entitled to government help. But then Joe doesn’t take care of his own kids much. I guess he thinks its pretty okay if his ex-wife does whatever she needs to to meet their needs. It’s certainly not his job.

Joe will be getting his own “JOB” come November when the seven people who support his candidacy are over whelmed by several tens of thousands from his district who are ready to shovel the shit out the door.

I do keep up on the news on Sunday, I just don’t write about it. I ran across a couple of thing you might find either useful or informative. One is by one of the best, Juan Cole at Informed Comment. Do go and read his letter to Mitt: You Don’t get to Say That.

If you are into charts (and frankly I think they make a lot really clear really fast, Little Green Footballs really shows you just how not-socialist President Obama really is. Spending is down, the growth of Government is down. (If you didn’t see the smack down on Rand Paul by Paul Krugman do please follow this link. Paul actually thought the government was expanding which suggests that those GOPers who don’t lie, are spectacularly uninformed.)

Oh and Nate Silver has Obama having an 80% chance of re-election now. These numbers probably won’t hold, but they are certainly good news and have the Willard Team on the defense.

What is gonna be fun now is watching all the excuses for losing. One such dope is a blogger by the name of John Hinderaker, who laments that we are at a tipping point with nearly 50% of the people now receiving some form of government assistance, so it’s natural they will vote their personal interests “rather than the good of the economy.” Sour grapes huh John?

On a personal note: our little guy is at the shelter today getting his manly parts whacked off so he cannot do the nasty with any of the girls in the neighborhood. He took it like a man, walking stoically to his impending OPERATION. We are waiting for the call later this afternoon to go pick him up and shower him with lots of neutery type gifts. I already ripped all the nuts off his boy toys.

 

Related articles

• The Manufacturing of Willard Romney, Human, Is Here (esquire.com)
• On “This Week,” Paul Krugman Schools Rand Paul on Government Employment (crooksandliars.com)
• Mitt Romney Could Be the Biggest Hypocrite in the History of Hypocrisy (crooksandliars.com)
• Pat Robertson: Democrats Are The ‘Party Of Gays, Godlessness, And Whatever Else’ (thinkprogress.org)
• An Unserious Man (nytimes.com)

 

“THE American People” Think You Are All NUTZ

Tags

Constitution, government, political philosophy, representation, US

We hear it from all quarters: “The American people. . .” We want and don’t want tax raises, we do and don’t want universal health care, we do and don’t believe in global warming at the hands of ourselves, we do and don’t believe in creationism, evolution, this or that war, this or that light bulb.

It’s enough to make you wretch.

The fact is, it’s pretty unclear whether anybody speaks for me at all, most of the time. I seem to be yelling out my instructions and positions to a mostly deaf government.

We have individuals who believe they have a mandate to do X simply because, often by only a few thousand votes, a minority or bare majority has voted them into office. They seem to believe that everyone voted for the exact same reasons. They shrug off concerns for minority opinions (which our Constitution was developed exactly to protect!), and pontificate about what they are going to do, giving it that stamp of imprimatur every few sentences, “The People of the US want us to . . .”

Which of course begs the question. What do we have a right to expect? Should our representatives run on a platform and then if elected, even if only by a plurality, set about putting it in motion? Or should they be forced to “compromise” to include their minority position. At what point does an individual “win” be so overwhelming that the minority can be ignored? Are there moral considerations that make this wrong on some issues no matter how small that be?

Of greater question is just what type of representation are we expecting? Was that different at the countries political inception than now? Should it change? Why? For both Houses or just one?

Philosophically, there have been two general ways of representing one’s constituents. In the first, the elected official, by way of town halls, questionnaires, office hours, and such makes every attempt to discern the general desires of the majority of his district or state. He or she then acts according to those perceptions. Kind of like a referendum on every issue approach.

This probably worked pretty darn good in the 1800’s when we weren’t so darned diversified by occupation, religion, ethnic background and all that. Today? Is it truly possible to know? Are you not simply gauging the “very very interested” who participate in polling, questionnaires and town halls and e-mails?

Is there anything special about the representative? Does she have some greater knowledge on issues, or at least certain of them, that make it unwise to trust in the mob?

This brings us to the second method. This theory claims that implicit in the election is the acknowledgment that the official is in fact specially informed, and thus is in a rare place to make the “best” decision for the “most” people. And certainly only she has the special knowledge reserved for “high clearance” information and certainly the relative merits of tradeoffs with other representatives. Shouldn’t this count?

This also worked pretty darn well in the 1800’s where your Senator might well be the rancher on the spread next to yours and a person you might reasonably share similar interests with.

So it all comes down to what do we expect? Do we know? When is the last time you had THIS discussion with yourself or anyone else? Does it matter what the answer is? If is doesn’t then heck, I’ve just wasted your time. If it does, then we are wasting our time arguing until we determine just how many believe what.

We haven’t even got to the question of K Street and it’s influence. We pretty much all agree it shouldn’t exist. I think we do at least. If our politicians are owned already by another entity, than what kind of representation we believe in is pretty much a dead issue, until we have plucked off the parasite clinging to our elected official.

I have no answers. I seldom do. Do you have an opinion? Let it fly.

Related articles

• A Congress of Wimps (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)
• Representatives not eager to hold August town halls (dailykos.com)

Know Thy Enemy

Tags

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, capitalism, economics, free-market economy, GOP, government, Objectivism, Paul Ryan, philosophy, Rand Paul

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s epic novel that has become the spiritual guide for the likes of Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. They, so we understand, have made it required reading for their staffs.

I’m only about half way through (it’s over 1,000 pages), and I can already tell that anyone who thinks this is some kind of model of how to run a country is, well, not exactly playing with a full deck.

Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia, and pretty much that’s all you need to know. Her thinking is utterly shaped by her hatred of Communism and those who brought it upon the earth–the intellectual elites in the form of “progressives.”

Her heroes in the book are all brilliant industrialists, those who work because they  see the only virtue as being the quest to create. It is the purpose of existence.

Juxtaposed against them are the progressives, those who teach and those who are not capable of creating. They pursue as their virtue love of humanity and the need to help one’s brother.

Where it all goes horribly wrong is in the extrapolations. The good guys are perfectly good and the bad guys are perfectly bad. It gets down to even sex. For the good guys sex is a million fireworks going off at once as to perfect people unite in creative glory. For the bad guys, sex is that dirty little animal drive reserved for faceless men and women in back alleys.

In a nutshell, Rand creates draws out the pitfalls of the nanny society to such absurd extensions and the glories of unbridled capitalism to inhuman heights, that they ultimately are laughable. That anyone could take this as a serious likelihood worldwide, is indeed quite juvenile in their thinking. Indeed, they are incapable of anything resembling critical thought.

The fact that most philosophers have rejected her theories of “objectivism” relying on utter reason as the basis for all knowledge, and her belief that only a pure laissez-faire capitalism can protect individual rights, hasn’t stopped those who champion her cause. Of course it is a rather convenient excuse for corporate greed. And surely she would have nodded at Gecko’s shout: “Greed is good.” She promoted selfishness a proper and “good” thing after all.

Ironically, she was very much against religion of any kind, finding it failed the “reason” test. I say ironic because today her most ardent supporters are the know-nothing TeaNutz®. A healthy percentage of them are also ultra right-wing Christianists who wish in the end to form a theocratic state modeled after their strange interpretation of the bible. Ayn would have shuddered and be repulsed by such notions. Given that the average TeaNutz® imbiber has neither read Rand nor has a clue of anything she wrote, this is pretty understandable. You can imagine that the GOP elite is not rushing to inform them either.

She would have whole-heartedly endorsed the idea of calling industrialists as “job creators” since she found workers as parasites, necessary ones to be sure. Among her friends and presumably fellow travelers is one Alan Greenspan. Other admirers are Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavericks and John P. Mackey, owner of Whole Foods.

It is not hard to extrapolate from her portrayal of the wealthy as the true “victims” of society to the idea that it is a near-religious sin to think of taxing these superior folk. That is essentially the Republican mantra. After all, they are the fountainhead (pun intended) of the successful state.

I have to admit that I am enjoying the read. I love tomes (I read Aztec for god’s sake!), and this one is about par for the course, wildly boring in spots, full of soapbox rhetoric that passes as “conversation” and a plot that is fairly obvious. I am about half way through and long ago “guessed” the outcome. Still, the characters are interesting and like I said, I like these kinds things. (I’ve also read War and Peace TWICE.)

Still, reading the book or even reading a Wikipedia bio on Rand explains a good deal of what would otherwise be inexplicable regarding the GOP. What is amusing most of all is that the silly TeaNutz® continue to have no clue. It is quite clear that the GOP elite neither cares nor is interested in pursuing the social aspects of the trailer-livin’ right. They are prepared to give lip service and that only. Rand was in favor of abortion rights, she had an open marriage, and she as I said, had no use for religion whatsoever.

 Much of the “shadow” GOP feels the same. This is simply about money, and making sure that money goes to the right place and thus power is retained where it should be. The little folks are just to be patted on the head, thrown a crumb or two once in a while, and assured that “efforts are being made” to effect a moral government based on the bible. To the degree that a number of them feel that this is “ordained” by their unique interpretation of the bible, that is well, gravy.

I don’t say read the book. You may not have the fortitude to sign up for that long a haul, but do at least familiarize yourself with its basic outline and the life of its writer. And do pay a bit closer attention to those who promote this science fiction as “where we are headed” if a certain black man continues to guide the ship of state.

Related articles

• Articles of Faith: Did Ayn Rand and Austerity Politics Kill Compassionate Conservatism? (swampland.time.com)
• The Ayn Rand-Satan Connection Revealed! (reason.com)
• Rand Paul Agrees With Mitt Romney: “All Of Us Are Corporations” (alan.com)
• Ayn Rand and the GOP vs. Jesus (tinyfrog.wordpress.com)
• Atlas Shrugged (gabriellapinto.wordpress.com)
• The Dark Side Of Ayn Rand (lukeford.net)

Well, It’s Pretty Done I Guess

Tags

Democrats, GOP, government, poltiical theory, Rousseau

We got some sort of a deal. I’m not liking a lot of it. It could have been better, but then again, it could have been worse. I don’t care to examine it in detail. I’m just tired.

Through all this I’ve been reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I like tomes, and this is about average. Not the best written by far, but a readable story. Ayn Rand is another thing. She paints caricatures of characters. They, be they Capitalists or Progressives, are so distorted as to be laughable.

After nearly three hundred pages, I suddenly sat back and went, “Whoa, this is the bible that people like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan demand their staffs read!” I mean, it’s laughable and scary at the same time. The Capitalists are brilliant and virile, the progressives are dull and soft. How anyone could base a political and economic philosophy on such fantasy is beyond me.

Yet, I recognized too that there is a deep and ultimately traversable chasm between most Democrats and most Republicans. We don’t see the world at all the same. And it is this divide, strengthened by the extreme right who are wickedly ill-informed yet ideological fanatics, that makes governing a near impossibility.

Rousseau talked about a “social compact” between government and the people:

Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.

The devil is of course in the details. Republicans would argue that any such contract is merely for those services that individuals cannot do themselves, since as defense from foreign countries, and provisions for a monetary system, mail, and roads. Beyond that Republicans prefer that all people are free to create a livelihood and make individual agreements as they wish without government interference. If government does anything, it protects the right of business to operate unfettered by loathsome state or local regulation.

Democrats, I believe, see the compact as much more. Protection is not limited to merely physical defense, but involves a duty to take care of its vulnerable citizens such that the great worth of the state is used in part to protect those who are unable to successfully compete in the market place. Part of who they protect against is the insatiable greed of business.

No doubt the purist system that Republicans so love, once worked perfectly. We had the exactly perfect mix of farming/manufacturing/services ratio. We had the right amount of untamed, open land to explore and settle in. But all too soon our cities grew, and business ran up against competitions, and entrepreneurs looked for ways to get an edge. The easy choices were wages and working conditions. As the poor grew in size, government stepped in to regulate and then protect those who individually had no leverage against big business.

Republicans call Democrats “bleeding liberals”. One of the reasons the debt ceiling crisis careened perilously close to the edge was that Republicans knew that Democrats would protect the “nanny state” items of social security, medicare and so forth in return for giving in on taxing the most wealthy at a fair rate. And they were mostly right in this.

Republicans see the state of our country much as Eisenhower viewed the European theater before Normandy. The war was going badly, and we were on the brink of losing. Only a major strike, accepting severe losses could turn the tide. Republicans see the state of the US much the same. Hopelessly mired in a welfare mentality, with increasing numbers dependent and expecting the government to support them, they are willing, to accept the high “losses” that will accrue via draconian cuts in welfare “entitlement” programs. They see them as necessary pain to be endured. Of course the pain is not going to be born by them.

They of course cannot voice this Republican truth. To do so would be to court annihilation at the ballot box. That is why you hear the perverse crap of “in a recession you cannot raise taxes.” Nobody ever bothers to stop them there and ask why. No economist backs them up on this. Taxes up or down don’t correlate to the economy quite simply. And worse, the Bush tax cuts never created a single job. Where were all those “job creators” the GOP speaks of?

No, the mantras of no taxes in a recession, and “we have a spending problem” are simply untruths used to avoid the philosophical position that the only way to right the ship of state is to dismantle all social programs. Surely a bloodbath of misery will follow, but when the dust settles and the sun returns, we will have a country reduced to able-bodied and Protestant work-ethic workers, ready to dig in and make America great again.

That is pure Ayn Rand. It is fantasy. It is not even good fantasy. It is not rational economics 101. It is not good political theory. It is nothing but the wilful desire of business interests who have paid for their politicians, their twisted think tank “reports”, and ultimately their puppet TeaPeople who like lap-dogs, scurry around the table looking for the scraps that are always promised but never appear.

It is greed, unbridled, bloodthirsty, take no prisoners greed. Who says that Corporatocracy was not just another word for ARISTOCRACY. Let them eat cake!