RED DAVE

I am sick and tired of Libertarianism -- so, let me start out with the following, which I origianlly posted on epinions.com.


Sometime in the late Fifties or early Sixties two similar books were published. One was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and the other was Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland. The former is an immensely long (I think it's longer than War and Peace), silly book by a crack-pot, self-styled philosopher-novelist. The latter is a late-Enlightenment dirty novel more commonly known as Fanny Hill.

Both are stroke books. Both appeal to the feverish sensibilities of 17-year-old males and not very sophisticated ones at that. (Sophisticated guys were reading Crime and Punishment and de Sade's novels or Moll Flanders.) Anyone who takes Ayn Rand's book (or the rest of her work) seriously is still engaging in a wank, whether political, philosophical, literary or economic (this last variety is currently quite popular, endless porn on the Internet notwithstanding). Anyone using Cleland's book for what it was obvious written for is at least engaged in an honest act.

For readers much past 17, neither book has much merit. But both are good for some kind of a jerk-off, should you choose to indulge. I confess to have wasted a few hours when I was young and foolish trying to read Atlas Shrugged. Its style places it somewhere below the average woman's magazine fiction of its day such as appeared in Woman's Home Companion. I gave it up after about page 25. Fanny Hill was a more constant companion when I was still too uptight to approach the opposite sex.

No one ever took Cleland's book seriously (although any book banned for 200 years can't be all bad). But, incredibly, people did and do take Ayn Rand so. I saw her once at NYU, about 1962. She was a shrill, unfortunately ugly woman (her photographs don't do her justice: she looked like the Wicked Witch of the West's ugly sister). She was not well received politically when she dismissed the Civil Rights Movement as a violation of the right of employers to discriminate! Nor was her fervent advocacy of the cause of some GE executives just jailed for price fixing on a massive scale received with much sympathy, nor was her complicity with McCarthyism, which was noted by speakers from the floor. A few months later her boy-toy Nathaniel Branden made an appearance. He was better looking, but his presentation of the philosophy of Objectivism didn't exactly set off fireworks.

Nowadays, Rand's various works are somewhat the rage. As long as self-indulgence, selfishness, racism and other neat stuff is popular, Rand will be read. How can you argue with Alan Greenspan's favorite scribe? Bill Gates probably has a copy of Atlas Shrugged by his bed like Stalin had a copy of Machiavelli.

Me, if I want to go that route, I prefer Fanny Hill.

RED DAVE

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: RED DAVE ]</p>

Seatless Bike

Mr Red Dave; I have genuinely enjoyed reading your posts. I mean that. I cannot think of anyone that I could so vehemently disagree with.
I find your absolute denial of reality to be admirable. The simple observance of well regulated capitalism in America that has led to the richest populace the planet has ever seen is totally lost on a collectivist such as youself.
Yes, one can snipe at the fact that many aren't rich here(in the U.S.), but you seem to miss the idea that capitalism doesn't offer the chance for everyone to be a millionare-just the opportunity to be better today than they were yesterday.
Wooooops. I'm out of it-I'll get back to it...

I love Ayn Rand. I'll respond to your "stroke book" theory in my next (and always highly anticipated) post.

elwoodblues

You're bitching about Rand, not Libertarianism. If you don't know there's a difference, you don't know what you're talking about. Change your title.

Seatless Bike

No, no, no... Dammit Elwood. We're talking about stroke books! Right. Once, when I was in 7th grade, there was this guy who used to steal all his dads porno rags. His dad had all of 'em. "Swank", "Hustler", "Screw", "Barely Legal", and so on and so forth... Or was it called, "The Communist Manifesto"?

Although, on the other hand, I'da banged Ayn-you know-in her twenties.

**makTHRAX**

I completely agree Red Dave, libertarians are complete idiots. Why not add Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to your list of horrible people in American history. After all, their vehement oppostion to a large government and love of civil liberties has gotten us no where. Libertarians are horrible, horrible people that should all be shot on the spot.

thx,
makTHRAX

Krieger

Heh. Everyone here supports civil liberties. However, some of us think that the ruling class does not need to become any more powerful than it already is. Being economically "libertarian" basically means that you want to remove the few protections that workers in this country have.

I know several people that would actually like to see this happen, because then (they hope) there would be a revolution.

Personally, I'd just like the ruling class to stop hiding behind their smiling politicians.

August Spies

Libertarians are so annoying. Jefferson would not support you. Get a clue. He railed against corporations and banking institutions. And while we are at it, Adam Smith would not support you. Stop trying to co-opt everyone dead person you can.

Seatless bike:

Is your post serious? I sure hope not. Cause its not much of an argument. Most socialists believe in a historical view of human progress. This means most socialists would agree that capitalism is better in many ways than previous systems.

You are not argueing against socialism by pointing this out. Socialism is just ANOTHER step forward (or at least the argument goes)

why come to a political forum if you don't even understand the basic ideas of your opponents.

P.S. for the record modern U.S. capitalism, as ANY Randian would agree, is not at all what Ayn Rand had in mind. Either you post meant they were, which means you are silly. Or you did not mean that... in which case why the hell would you rant about modern capitalism being good if the OP was talkign about Rand?

emphryio

I like your posts too RedDave but I don't think that's exactly much of a good argument against libertarianism.

Let me first say that I'm not an economist, I haven't taken any university economic classes, nor even read any economic books.

I have read most of Rands work's. (Pretty much all the fiction and some of the non.) Her stuff gave me the motivation to leave the military and go to college at the age of 23. (Not 17 I'm afraid.)

My problem with her now is that she seems to me to be really nothing more than a reaction to communism. Her work is the equivalent of, "Commuism is bad! Bad! BAD! So then the exact opposite must be good! Good! GOOD!"

I think it's actually a bit more complicated than that. I think there must always be some competition, but the very concept of civilization is based on giving up freedom or "having laws". The idea that all things economic should be excluded is absurd.

I could go on and on expressing it many, many different ways. But I think I'd be wasting my time.

Truthfully I'm kind of depressed right now to hear that the liberal Steve Kangas may have been murdered by one those absurdly wealthy "deserving men of merit."

Really it should be obvious that the best way to make money is to already have a ton of it to begin with and without economic laws the rich will get rich and the poor will get poorer.

Of course it will be said the money will trickle down. Wow! How I disagree. But I'm not remotely up to trying to explain it right now. Kangas's site would be a good example in and of itself. (There are a neglible number of academic economists that believe in trickle down economics.)

Maybe I should just go bury my head in the sand. The men with the power strangely enough like to have few economic rules, so that's what we're going to have no matter what. American democracy is a joke (corporations finance puppet candidates) and mass media is corporate propaganda.
(And it's not a conspiracy, read Chomsky!)

RED DAVE

Just to keep the ball rolling.

<a href="http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html" target="_blank">Critiques of Libertarianism</a>

RED DAVE

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: RED DAVE ]</p>

emphryio

Surely there must be better libertarian arguments than the ones Huben presents?

BTW, Huben was (this is off topic sorry) good friends with Steve Kangas, but Huben's writing quality is inferior enough that I don't think he needs to worry about getting murdered.