Ayn Rand is right. There is no higher state than

[OODA_Loop]

So the kind of survival of fittest, unfettered by the interference of 'entitlement', that we might see perhaps in places like parts of Africa, where the weaker humans in the 'herd' are culled by starvation and disease, etc.,

is a condition preferable to what we see here in the US today?

Not that kind.

The kind where I lose my innate drive to do everything I can to work hard and sacrifice to make my offspring healthy and successful is replaced with a sense of entitlement and survival from means other than my own hand.....I am screwed.

 

[OODA_Loop]

Where on earth is the quality of life for any given society better because the needy have been left to fend for themselves,

without social intervention, or entitlement, or charity, or assistance?

Name those places.

Not quality of life. Quality of people.

Quality people beget quality societies.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So the kind of survival of fittest, unfettered by the interference of 'entitlement', that we might see perhaps in places like parts of Africa, where the weaker humans in the 'herd' are culled by starvation and disease, etc.,

is a condition preferable to what we see here in the US today?

Not that kind.

The kind where I lose my innate drive to do everything I can to work hard and sacrifice to make my offspring healthy and successful is replaced with a sense of entitlement and survival from means other than my own hand.....I am screwed.

So you won't stand behind your own prescription for the betterment of the human species, i.e., survival of fittest via the law of the jungle??

 

[editec]

In order to be a Randian devotee, one must forget all history, ignore all social science, know nothing about real human nature and completely misunderstand concepts like survival of the fittest, symbiosis, group behavior, and the law.

All one need do is subscribe to the magical thinking fantasies of Ms Rand.

And one can see that many here do subscribe to that ignorant blather, too.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Where on earth is the quality of life for any given society better because the needy have been left to fend for themselves,

without social intervention, or entitlement, or charity, or assistance?

Name those places.

Not quality of life. Quality of people.

Quality people beget quality societies.

So you can't come up with a single real life example of where your formula for human society has actually made human society better?

Might that not be cause to reconsider the merits of your position?

 

[OODA_Loop]

So you won't stand behind your own prescription for the betterment of the human species, i.e., survival of fittest via the law of the jungle??

I must stand behind it.

At the end of the day, irrespective of any belief or political structure it is truly the ultimate law at play.

 

[OODA_Loop]

So you can't come up with a single real life example of where your formula for human society has actually made human society better?

Might that not be cause to reconsider the merits of your position?

I see examples of it all around me both in application and failure of application.

 

[grunt11b]

‘Fact’: the right’s ‘four letter word.’

Here are other facts the right isn’t going to like:

Fact: it’s the 21st Century, not the 18th.

Fact: the constitution is the law of the land, not to be interpreted wrong, if it needs changed due to the change in times there is an amendment process.

Fact: we function in the context of a global economy and a global marketplace.

While this is true, we could function just at the level of our own nation. The money saved from bailing out other countries alone would save billions a year that could be used here at home. We should be taking care of our own first, not paying off dictators.

Fact: the ‘natural regulators’ of the free market system are an ineffective anachronism.

That's not a fact, that is an opinion, the free market fixes itself if government gets out of the way. GM would have failed and went into bankruptcy, Ford would have bought them out and the jobs would still have been there.

Fact: the US Constitution is a social contract designed to address the higher cause of protecting individual rights and ‘to form a more perfect Union.’

Form a more perfect union through the amendment process, yes.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So you can't come up with a single real life example of where your formula for human society has actually made human society better?

Might that not be cause to reconsider the merits of your position?

I see examples of it all around me both in application and failure of application.

Examples that apparently you aren't capable of sharing with the class.

I want you to name the countries past or present where neglecting the needy made their societies better.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So you won't stand behind your own prescription for the betterment of the human species, i.e., survival of fittest via the law of the jungle??

I must stand behind it.

At the end of the day, irrespective of any belief or political structure it is truly the ultimate law at play.

So if more of America's poor were starving or dying of disease for lack of affordable care,

we'd be a better place?

 

[grunt11b]

I'm not sure how that issue would be handled. But some means could be devised to ensure that Vets can get a reasonably priced policy without creating some vast welfare bureaucracy.

Well, it's kind of a big issue, wouldn't you say? This isn't a minor detail to be filled in. If you want to keep them from being turned away by private insurers, then you need a guaranteed issue rule. And if you want to "ensure that Vets can get a reasonably priced policy" then you're going to need some kind of rating rules to prevent vets from getting hosed simply for being vets.

Except if you're going to apply a guaranteed issue rule to just one particular segment of the population, you risk prompting insurers to exit the market for that segment. See the market for child-only policies in many states following the imposition of guaranteed issue rules (not even with any rating restrictions attached to it). And I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the child population generally has a more insurer-friendly risk profile than does the population of veterans (particularly in wartime). Which means you've now got to take steps to avoid that.

The point here being that there isn't a magical policy switch to flip and get just the results you want, you're going to employ a little more finesse in designing your approach. The world is complex.

That's why we have a VA, so private insurance companies wont have to carry the load on this.

 

[grunt11b]

a self serving state. Serving other people and a higher cause is bullshit.

Can we FINALLY call the concept of compassionate conservatism for what it was and is? It's a bullshit advertising slogan meant to soften the image of modern-day conservatives who don't really don't believe in helping anyone other than the wealthy campaign contributors who help them get elected.

One corrupting hand washes the other corrupt hand.

There is a difference in helping someone by your own free will, and being forced into it. Conservatism is about having that choice, progressivism is about making someone charitable at the tip of a roman spear.

 

[The T]

a self serving state. Serving other people and a higher cause is bullshit.

Can we FINALLY call the concept of compassionate conservatism for what it was and is? It's a bullshit advertising slogan meant to soften the image of modern-day conservatives who don't really don't believe in helping anyone other than the wealthy campaign contributors who help them get elected.

One corrupting hand washes the other corrupt hand.

There is a difference in helping someone by your own free will, and being forced into it. Conservatism is about having that choice, progressivism is about making someone charitable at the tip of a roman spear.

Indeed. Forced servitude.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Whether co-operation is ‘naturally occurring’ or not is irrelevant – human do co-operate, they form societies, social contracts, laws and constitutions to govern those societies.

To argue otherwise is ignorant.

There is a difference in helping someone by your own free will, and being forced into it. Conservatism is about having that choice, progressivism is about making someone charitable at the tip of a roman spear.

Rightist hyperbole – in the context of the social contract all agree to help benefit others – the individual is not ‘forced.’ The perception of being ‘forced’ is predicated on partisan dogma, not reality.

 

[Sallow]

Whether co-operation is ‘naturally occurring’ or not is irrelevant – human do co-operate, they form societies, social contracts, laws and constitutions to govern those societies.

To argue otherwise is ignorant.

There is a difference in helping someone by your own free will, and being forced into it. Conservatism is about having that choice, progressivism is about making someone charitable at the tip of a roman spear.

Rightist hyperbole – in the context of the social contract all agree to help benefit others – the individual is not ‘forced.’ The perception of being ‘forced’ is predicated on partisan dogma, not reality.

No one is "forced" to pay taxes. Taxes are the price of a civil society. Don't like it..you can move out of the country. Sorta like rent..don't pay that..and you'd be in trouble too. Unlike so many countries in this world...you have free will.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Ayn Rand takes a fundamental principle of the rights of the individual to an absurd extreme.

She also denies the obvious fact that mankind is first and foremost a SOCIAL ANIMAL.

Denies, not at all

The questions is one of who should be more in charge of those "social" functions

man or state

That makes no sense whatsoever.

To someone on the Left of course

they can't image a world where the State is not taking position over the individual
for all things

 

[Neotrotsky]

Ayn Rand is all the proof one needs for the absolute necessity of government.

She wasn't an anarchist, dipstick. The question is: do we need the welfare state? The answer is a resounding "no."

And what nations with absolutely no social safety net of any kind are doing better than the US?

Where, ever, has a total neglect of the needy created, overall, a better society?

Since Mexico has lower unemployment than the US now, does that count?
Their whole welfare state plan is to just dump their people on the US
which the Left seems more than happy to accommodate

 

[JakeStarkey]

a self serving state. Serving other people and a higher cause is bullshit.

Ayn Rand is all the proof one needs for the absolute necessity of government.

She wasn't an anarchist, dipstick. The question is: do we need the welfare state? The answer is a resounding "no."

Yet she was on medicare and social security, nu?

Someone, by the way, that equates FDR with Hitler is a sociopath.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Really? Is that why we've seen a precipitous decline in the human population on earth?

Not in numbers.

In quality.

Where on earth is the quality of life for any given society better because the needy have been left to fend for themselves,

without social intervention, or entitlement, or charity, or assistance?

Name those places.

The question is one of the quantity of personal responsibility and the level and kind of welfare state- not absolutes (all or nothing), like your question tries to do
No one is calling for no gov't, except you in your misleading question

Using that basis, one could easily as ask...

Where on earth is the quality of life for any society better because the state
provided everything one needed?

One only needs to look at North Korea or Cuba to see the answer

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Someone, by the way, that equates FDR with Hitler is a sociopath.

Or at the very least an ignorant, hateful partisan.