Originally posted by DoctorScribbles http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html
A very apt article in light of both current events and RWillis's latest attempt to legitimize and promote socialism via structured debate.
Read it and weep.
This paragraph is from BizarroWorld:
The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."
The author neglects to mention that the banks which are supposedly being "shaken down" were asking for hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
Libertarians are exactly like Marxists. The world keeps proving them wrong, yet they still claim that the problem is that we aren't being extreme enough.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html
A very apt article in light of both current events and RWillis's latest attempt to legitimize and promote socialism via structured debate.
Read it and weep.
"But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible."
Obviously a very informed and intelligent group of people surveyed.
None of the entrepreneurs in Atlas Shrugged would’ve sought public funds, and all the big-business types were committed to serving the public. The comparison doesn’t fit.
Originally posted by Palynka Libertarians are exactly like Marxists. The world keeps proving them wrong, yet they still claim that the problem is that we aren't being extreme enough.
If only the world listened to 'our' Gospel...
What specifically is your objection to the article? I mean, you don't see the
parallels between what Rand wrote and what is happening today? You don't
see bailouts as explicit moves towards socialism?
Originally posted by Nemesio What specifically is your objection to the article? I mean, you don't see the
parallels between what Rand wrote and what is happening today? You don't
see bailouts as explicit moves towards socialism?
Nemesio
The causes for the start of this crisis are at complete odds with what Rand wrote. Also, Rand's programs were about redistribution towards the poor. That's not what these bailouts are about.
You don't see bailouts as explicit moves towards socialism? I don't have a binary view of the world.
Originally posted by Palynka The causes for the start of this crisis are at complete odds with what Rand wrote. Also, Rand's programs were about redistribution towards the poor.
False. You clearly didn't read or understand the novel. The redistributions in the novel were expressly for the benefit of failing businesses owned by the wealthy, their failure, not their poverty, being esteemed as a virtue.
Hilarious. Reminds me of the time you tried to debate me about the merits of the ideas in Rand's writings without ever having read them even once. Good to see you're at least cracking open the Bible for your Jesus debate.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles Hilarious. Reminds me of the time you tried to debate me about the merits of the ideas in Rand's writings without ever having read them even once. Good to see you're at least cracking open the Bible for your Jesus debate.
As I pointed out in the debate, you had read exactly as much of Emma Goldman as I had read of Ayn Rand. Not a single page. I at least tried to do some amount of research into Rand's ponderous tome. You made no such effort toward Goldman's work.
But yes, I have cracked the bible for my newest debate. For even it is more enjoyable reading than Rand.
Originally posted by Palynka The causes for the start of this crisis are at complete odds with what Rand wrote. Also, Rand's programs were about redistribution towards the poor. That's not what these bailouts are about.
Huh? In Atlas Shrugged, one of the protagonists invents a metal which is
more effective than steel (greater structural strength, less expensive, &c).
The government strives to force this individual to share the formula for the
'good of the people;' specifically, to share the formula with his steel-making
rivals so that his business doesn't sink theirs.
That is: the government intervened such that businesses with inferior
products didn't fail.
I don't have a binary view of the world.
That's why I didn't ask you if America was or was not socialist. That's what
binary is: one or the other. That's why I asked you whether you thought
that the government intervention on behalf of banks (and, soon, auto makers)
which made insufferably poor business choices was a move toward socialism.
I mean: do you seriously endorse the government -- the most inefficient
vehicle for anything -- when it decides that some crappy businesses
ought to stay around (on the tax-payer's nickle) to make more crappy
business decisions?
12 Jan '09 22:21
Atlas Shrugged: A Veritable Prophecy
Back to Top