"atlas shrugged" will change the face of american politics

[Toro]

Ayn Rand is perhaps one of the worst authors I've ever wasted my time on. I got through 3/4ths of the Fountainhead before I tossed the book where it belonged..the trash.

It's comforting to know that before she died..she, like many Americans, had to rely on SSI because she went broke due to Medical expenses.

The irony was thick with this one.

There is no evidence to support your lie, thank you for trolling

[

Not expecting an apology..but..

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet
Ayn Rand, socialist | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Cynical-C | Ayn Rand Received Social Security

There is a thread on this somewhere.

I have no problem with Rand taking SS and Medicare. If you are forced to pay into it, you have every right to take it back out. It's tantamount to the government taking your house away and a decade later, you taking it back.

It would be a different story if Medicare and SS were voluntary, but they are not.

 

[Toro]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

I've often wondered about self-described conservatives who claim to admire Ayn Rand. You can also boil down Rand's philosophy as

"Fuck as many people as you want, even if you are married, if that makes you happy."

I have a hard time reconciling that with American conservatism. (Well, maybe not Newt Gingrich!)

 

[JakeStarkey]

America is not a social democracy nor is it a democratic Republic, it's a Constitutional Republic. We are a Constitutional Republic because the officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens.

Capitalism is economics, bigreb, while social democracy is a reform movement. Neither conflicts with the constitutional Republic. Let's review for you: (1) the Constitution is the ultimate law of the land; (2) a Republican is governed by republican representation, the election of representatives by the people. You with me on this?

Do you really want a mob rule? After isn't that what a democracy is? Imagine 51 percent of the people like me in charge. Change the laws as we please. I would repeal the NFA kill the military and place it back in the hands of the citizens militia.Just 51 percent.

Our representatives (republicanism) generally are elected democratically, with certain exceptions such as the Electoral College. Which you know. But you are not interested in the constitutional republic, but only power.

 

[washamericom]

I see very little evidence on this board that most of you who claim this book and think it is your idea of a brilliant social commentary ever read it.

I think many of you know the Title, know that your masters told you it is brilliant and are trying to fake you love for it on this board.

Some of you so self-proclaiming cons have read it, no doubt, but I doubt all of you here testifying how good it is really did.

Becase as many of you proved to me time after time that you don't read much of anything, I seriously doubt many of you waded though that deadingly boring, bloated politically science screed.

Truner Dairies, that's I'd believe most of you cons might wade through.

But Atlas Shrugged?

Not a chance.




I think many of you so called freedom loving cons are basically liars.

ask me anything... i don't know your "truner diaries"

have you read it ? are you saying it's a bad book/philosophy ?

 

[Big Fitz]

Call me crazy, but I'm going to predict that this movie will not change the face of American politics.

In this one respect, I'm siding with NYC here. I think they're right on this one.

BUT, if this movie somehow catches the public zeitgeist, it will not change politics on it's own. It will change something more important, public philosophy and national identity.

Both of those changes, down the line, will alter the nation.

Chances are slim, but it's how these things change.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Ayn Rand is perhaps one of the worst authors I've ever wasted my time on. I got through 3/4ths of the Fountainhead before I tossed the book where it belonged..the trash.

It's comforting to know that before she died..she, like many Americans, had to rely on SSI because she went broke due to Medical expenses.

The irony was thick with this one.

There is no evidence to support your lie, thank you for trolling

[

Not expecting an apology..but..

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet
Ayn Rand, socialist | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Cynical-C | Ayn Rand Received Social Security

It never says she took it.

A heavy smoker, Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974. Although she had long opposed government assistance programs, she wrote that it is perfectly moral to accept Social Security and Medicare, given the coercion used to collect the resources for such programs and the widespread impoverishment that results

Ayn Rand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Then again if it's your claim shes a hypocrite then obama would lead the way Bush three the remake.

 

[washamericom]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

i have found that in life; sometimes it will take more than five minutes to absorb the essece of a philosophy or religion, or really, any complex theory. do you feel left out because you never read it and everyone is talking about it? or have you copped an undisciplined uninformed attitude. if you feel left out than good, that was th essence of my original post. if you don't read it because conservatives like it, isn't that the same as refusing to watch fox news.? you've got to love yourself before you can love another.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The creature who at his center who he worships is himself indeed is a creature catastrophically doomed to moral and mental destruction. Ayn Rand simply had problems playing with others so she justified her isolationism from other human beings. She, and those who worship her, are to be pitied.

 

[washamericom]

The creature who at his center who he worships is himself is a creature catastrophically doomed to moral and mental destruction. Ayn Rand simply had problems playing with others so she justified her isolationism from other human beings. She, and those who worship her, are to be pitied.

nobody said worship, can you think of any recent examples in u.s. political history where adornment played a role in it's apparent success ?
i think it's more like projection of self esteem and confidence.

 

[Misty]

Atlas has been shrugging for a long time now. The more the government interferes with regulations and taxes, businesses have been moving to Galt's Gulch for decades and will continue to do so in order to run their companies their way not the governments way.

Unfortunately Galt's Gulch is china and India

If America wants to bring prosperity back to the people of this country, they need to "get out of the way" and let America prosper and stop obstructing companies' abilities to produce and not be held back by redtape and government greed of wanting money they did not earn to give to other people that did not earn it just so they can control everything and everyone.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

i have found that in life; sometimes it will take more than five minutes to absorb the essece of a philosophy or religion, or really, any complex theory. do you feel left out because you never read it and everyone is talking about it? or have you copped an undisciplined uninformed attitude. if you feel left out than good, that was th essence of my original post. if you don't read it because conservatives like it, isn't that the same as refusing to watch fox news.? you've got to love yourself before you can love another.

I would like to know for starters how a philosophy that has as one of its core principles a summary rejection of religion is in any way compatible with modern American mainstream conservatism.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

i have found that in life; sometimes it will take more than five minutes to absorb the essece of a philosophy or religion, or really, any complex theory. do you feel left out because you never read it and everyone is talking about it? or have you copped an undisciplined uninformed attitude. if you feel left out than good, that was th essence of my original post. if you don't read it because conservatives like it, isn't that the same as refusing to watch fox news.? you've got to love yourself before you can love another.

I don't have to read the whole Bible to know that it's wrong to claim that the Earth was made in 6 days.

 

[Misty]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

"Productive achievement as his noblest activity". This is surely not what liberals want. They want money from the productive activity to give to those without productive activity.

 

[Big Fitz]

Unfortunately Galt's Gulch is china and India

Actually, it's not. That's just a honey trap by the looters who are building up a larder. Socialists in China will begin to feast as soon as they see it necessary. India is becoming too unstable to remain a safe haven for long with all the agitation in the middle east.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

"Productive achievement as his noblest activity". This is surely not what liberals want. They want money from the productive activity to give to those without productive activity.

'his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life'...

...what if one is most happy when one is also unproductive?

 

[Big Fitz]

Ok, I 've read about Ayn Rand for 5 minutes, now I'm an expert. Let's discuss the mystery of her appeal to Conservatives, starting with this:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Anyone?

"Productive achievement as his noblest activity". This is surely not what liberals want. They want money from the productive activity to give to those without productive activity.

Regardless of why they are non-productive... particularly if THEY are non-productive. Getting paid for nothing is awesome.

 

[MaggieMae]

this is your last chance to read the book before the movie comes out.

i have waited my whole life for this. when i was in high school i discovered ayn rand, it changed my life , and much to my delight, would end up in a conservative website framed by objectivism.
i remember thinking, someday, once the internet is invented, this will be my political philosohpy and i will take it to the people..

life imitates art. we are dagney taggert and hank rearden (the protagonists) and the democratic party (led by one barrak obama... if that is your real name), is the government, and "mr. thompson".

you are going to be seeing and hearing and feeling atlas shrugged a lot in the coming time until the 2012 election.

as wonderfual as the original novel is, no, magnificient... the movie will better present to the masses, that big government is not only wrong, in this country, according to our constitution, it is immoral.

i further suggest that this hollywood production will play a large roll in unseating the president of obama, how ultimately and deliciously ironic. how do you like us now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W07bFa4TzM

it looks good, no, great.

Life today is a lot more complicated than when Ayn Rand was struggling to put her ideologies to fiction. The most glaring part of that fact is the global financial carnage that resulted not from too much government intervention, but too little. "Capitalism" run amok constituted a recipe for disaster, and we're still feeling the pain today.

As for the movie, I'm sure it will be good. I enjoyed the book (along with The Fountainhead) when they were must reads for the times. As for it playing a roll in unseating Obama, I seriously doubt that. Dream on. If he is "unseated," it won't be because of right wing ideologies being resurrected because of Ayn Rand. It will be because he is blamed for trying to find the middle ground between capitalism and necessary government regulation that keeps capitalism from running over the majority of Americans who are just trying to make a decent living and hold on to their God given places in society.

 

[Misty]

I think this sums up why conservatives like "Atlas Shrugged.

Directive 10-289,

"Point One served two purposes: to establish the Unification Board, and to require that all persons presently employed, stay employed in their present capacities. The age of twenty-one was selected because that was the voting age at the time. (The voting age remained at twenty-one until the first term of the Richard Nixon administration, during which time Amendment XXVI formally set the voting age at eighteen.)

Point Two was a direct response to the phenomenon of people quitting and vanishing. This was the real reason for the economic decline, as the bureaucrats half suspected, half feared. Under this point, anyone who quit and vanished faced arrest, imprisonment, and expropriation of his assets.

Point Three provided for the surrender of all intellectual property of any kind to the government. This point actually directed that holders of patents and copyrights voluntary surrender their rights, clearly an oxymoron.

Point Four simply provided that no new inventions were to be introduced for the duration. Wesley Mouch and his associates regarded new inventions as destructive of people's livelihoods.

Point Five attempted to freeze all industrial or commercial output at present levels. For the purpose of determining those levels, the Directive declared a very special fiscal year to be the year ending on the date of the Directive, which was May 1.

Point Six attempted to freeze consumer spending at the levels seen in the fiscal year ending on the date of the Directive, as Point Five had done for business output.

Point Seven was an indefinite wage and price freeze.

Point Eight, the "elastic point," vested in the Unification Board the power to decide, finally and not subject to appeal, any question not covered in Points One through Seven.

 

[MaggieMae]

I enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged, but the novel, for its purposes, fails to deliver. Rand take unbelievable characters and puts them into unbelievable scenarios, with the result of what is an unbelievable outcome. One thing I found very curious is Rand's inconsistent portrayal of the general public and public sentiment. On one hand she portrays the public as knowing, understanding, and even demanding the ideals represented by her protagonists and shows them as being frequently moved into action, like in the frequent abandonment of jobs, including railroad jobs, by many people across Rand's United States. But when it suits her she subsequently portrays the public as mindless and ignorant masses, lazy and entitled to a such a gross degree it is difficult to say whether they or the primary antagonists are the embodiment of the evil Rand suggests exists.

Rand's proper characters, both antagonists and protagonists alike, are written as if being embodies metaphors for the supreme purity of concepts Rand wished to present. This makes them believable in the Rand universe similar to how Gollum is a believable character within the LOTR universe, but unbelievable as characters that might exist in reality. While Rand does an excellent job of presenting a thoroughly thought out narrative and maintains a steady pace of developing the complexity of the plot as the story unfolds, in the end the plot itself, its developments, and Rand's suggestion about how our world might go if we so allowed it, only exists because it was so written.

incredible... you get it... this is gold... you have single handedly defined "the american people"

liberals: mindless and ignorant masses, lazy and entitled to a such a gross degree it is difficult to say whether they or the primary antagonists are the embodiment of the evil Rand suggests exists.

conservatives: knowing, understanding, and even demanding the ideals represented by her protagonists and shows them as being frequently moved into action, like in the frequent abandonment of jobs, including railroad jobs, by many people across Rand's United States.

i'm taking this to madison

Don't quit your day job. You left out that conservatives generally are CEOs of major corporations who are ONLY interested in profit, and fuck the workers who help them get there. This kind of attitude was rare in Ayn Rand's day, by the way. Also, I don't see anyone "abandoning their jobs" today because of 'ideology'. Those same CEOs eliminate jobs in order to hire cheap labor across the pond or import technical talent using H-IB visas. Hello?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Capitalism is economics, bigreb, while social democracy is a reform movement. Neither conflicts with the constitutional Republic. Let's review for you: (1) the Constitution is the ultimate law of the land; (2) a Republican is governed by republican representation, the election of representatives by the people. You with me on this?

Do you really want a mob rule? After isn't that what a democracy is? Imagine 51 percent of the people like me in charge. Change the laws as we please. I would repeal the NFA kill the military and place it back in the hands of the citizens militia.Just 51 percent.

Our representatives (republicanism) generally are elected democratically, with certain exceptions such as the Electoral College. Which you know. But you are not interested in the constitutional republic, but only power.

But you are not interested in the constitutional republic, but only power

REALLY? Unlike you I am not the one that calls America a democracy, deomcratic republic, or a social democracy. All are controlled by the majority, they are mob rule. You will only see me address America as a Constitutional Republic. Because the officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens.