Whether for Ayn Rand or Bill OReilly poison, Democrats need an antiserum

[lostnfound]

Or, "A Hair of the Dog that Bit Them".

Most of the now-sheepish-but-silent rightwingers that I know are STILL likely to vote for Bush again because they cannot ditch the idea that a big government (with big social programs) is the worst of all evils.

The rugged individualistic American dream is attached at the hip to this view.

Where is the Democratic antiserum to this? Democrats often try to counter it with facts (about the size of "defense" expenditures, or data from social program successes in other countries, % of welfare beneficiaries that are children) or personal stories about impoverished individuals. But this does not enlarge or reshape the worldviews of the public.

What brief statements of philosophy can we as Democrats agree upon which contain an element of the "rugged individualism" mythos but transform it into something which supports a more supportive society?

We need to paint a bigger vision; not simply try to paint over the old one.

[brainshrub]

1. The Serum is called:

Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith and John Locke. Read them. Re-read them. Then hang out at DU.

[Redleg]

8. Ahhh- Classic Liberalism!

'Tis a wonderful thing!

[lostnfound]

17. If that's your advice to the OReilly listeners, be prepared to wait awhile

Do they have Jefferson, Smith, and Locke in cartoon format? Can they shout and stomp on Fox or Crossfire?

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Ayn Rand's philosophy is outdated and useless in these times.

This whole "rugged idividualism" bullshit has no meaning in today's increasingly interconnected society. Everyone I know who has embraced Randian philosophy early in life has rejected it as they've gotten older, and concerns like kids, house and car payments enter into the picture.

Anybody with a conscience knows that all human beings are connected and to quote Jawbox singer J. Robbins, "No human chords are strung without a resonance in other lives." If you live in a cabin in Montana, Rand might hold some relevance and give you succour and you can feel good about being an objectivist, but that shit won't fly in any medium-to-large sized city. We are here on Earth to help each other out, not to vanquish our "enemies." In fact, if you think in terms of "me against the world" like a good Randian, it's time for some therapy.

Why democrats should have to pander to that crowd is beyon my comprehension.

[Redleg]

6. Good point about Rand.

Durkheim's "The Division of Labor" is much better for helping us understand complex interdependence of post-modern society and its implications for social organization and behavior.

[mitchum]

12. Beautifully said, RandomKoolzip

[jfxgillis]

14. LAUGH. Reminds me of the NYTines article about NH ...

... where the "libertarians" are ostensibly going to congregate over the next few years to try to implement their "theories." One of the reasons they chose New Hampshire over other possibly easier states to influence (Alaska, Wyoming) was, I swear to God:

PROXIMITY TO BOSTON.

Now it's true that one of the reasons I like Boston is its proximity to NH--I take a quick drive up there once a month to stock up on cigarettes, but at least I don't make a huge self-righteous idiotic STINK about "devotion to principle" over it.

[Character Assassin]

19. One is either devoted to principle, or not.

Now it's true that one of the reasons I like Boston is its proximity to NH--I take a quick drive up there once a month to stock up on cigarettes, but at least I don't make a huge self-righteous idiotic STINK about "devotion to principle" over it.

No one is 'making a big stink' about it.

[jfxgillis]

23. ??? Did you miss my point?

The so-called "libertarians" moving to NH ARE making a "big stink" about "devotion to principle."

And they're full of horseshit

[lostnfound]

16. That crowd is huge and if we can't expand their views we won't win

Many see house and car payments as part of the rugged individual "stand-on-your-own-feet" measurement.

I read Rand and rejected it as I got older. But there are still a lot of people listening to Bill O'Reilly which seems all about me-against-the-world. There are ALOT of people who still think that they are working hard to support big social programs so that others can do nothing.

More moderately, there are ALOT of people who think that self-help is right and government-help is wrong. What do we say to them?

I believe that much of the resistance to Democrats comes from this simplistic attitude.

[RandomKoolzip]

20. Well, unfortunately...

Most of those people who still believe in that stuff are always going to believe in it, despite overwhelming evidence that would contradict their views. And there will be some among that number who will change their views, but it's doubtful that anything "we" say will be the impetus behind that change.

And if we accept the conceptual framework ameliorated by the uses of phrases like "self-help" and "government-help," then nobody will ever be sympathetic to liberalism, because the very terms of the debate are faulty and misleading. Asking to choose between those two options, termed verbatim, will always produce and answer of "well, of course, self-help is better." But you see, it's a leading question, like "Do you still beat your wife?" Because it doesn't acknowledge any attenuating circumstances which may cause a person to seek public assistance, like a sudden medical condition or accident which may bankrupt a person already living paycheck to paycheck. It's turning a multi-faceted and difficult issue into a black and white choice, which we can all agree is not a good thing.

And frankly, the crowd of apolitical apathetic paycheck-to-paycheckers is way larger than the Randian crowd. I think the real assignment would be to get THOSE people out and vote, rather than to attempt to convert dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. Mention Ayn Rand to your mechanic next time you get your car fixed and see if you get anything but a blank stare. It's THAT guy's vote we need, not some ivory towered self-titled intellectual John Bircher type living in his own fantasy world, because the mechanics outnumber the Bircher/Randians by like 600 to one.

[wryter2000]

3. Uh,

Bush is the opposite of what they want. Huge government, enormous deficits. Borrow and spend corpocrats. Repeat after me: borrow and spend corpocrats. That's our new mantra.

[ldoolin]

4. American history itself

Hmm...I've been thinking about this myself.

The Boston Tea Party, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Robert LaFollette, Theodore Roosevelt, Jack London, Eugene Debs, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Edward Abbey, Michael Moore, Al Franken...

And on the other side, King George III, the Know Nothing Party, slavery, robber barons, the Ku Klux Klan, child labor, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Father Coughlin, Ayn Rand, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Rush Limbaugh, Timothy McVeigh, George B***, Faux News, and other assorted usurpers and creeps who have periodically crawled out from under their rocks.

There's a common thread here. This country was founded on liberalism. In fact, it was founded by a bunch of goldurn revolutionists. Every major crisis period in this country - the American revolution, slavery and the Civil War, the struggle to organize the labor unions, women's suffrage, the Great Depression/New Deal, World War II, Civil Rights - was settled with the side of liberalism and progress coming out victorious, and the right wing retreating with their tails between their legs. The American "rugged individualist" mythos is in no way incompatible with liberalism, or even with socialism (reference Jack London.)

The divide in America is, and has always been, between the Patriots and the Tories. There's a reason that "Tory" is synonymous with right-winger or conservative.

Just my two cents on the matter :)

[sweetheart]

5. is fountainhead and atlas shrugged that bad?

I actually liked those books... a great read.

Perhaps you want more like orwell: 1984 and animal farm

Perhaps reading marx's communist manifesto is not so bad either.

I agree with you, the ideological inertia has been weaker in the democrat camp, with fewer thinktanks and lobbiests specializing in human rights for all people... all human rights.

That is the long term solution... more democratic thinktanks and media lobbies that the ideology grow and develop where it has withered.

I think the most penetrating view in to the republican ideology and its failures is "the world we're in" by will hutton. Here's a link on amazon, its not available in the US (no suprise). http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349114714/qid=1070216285/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/026-7047712-4628456
will hutton was editor of the guardian/observer for years... the book is brilliant.

The second book that cuts deep in to the ideology is: "data smog" by david shenk http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0349109486/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-7047712-4628456

Finally, methinks we need to somehow buy or take over a national newspaper... that usa-liberal-today put a benchmark out there for what news reporting really should be.

[ldoolin]

11. Rand

Oh, her novels are good reads all right. It's her non-fiction, and the Randroid cult, that scares me.

[lostnfound]

15. Human Rights for All People is the right chord

You hit the right chord with your post, sweetheart.
Can it be played over and over, drummed into the common culture?

Human Rights For All People is as much a part of the American mythos as the 'rugged individualism' fantasy.

To answer the pervasive libertarian viewpoints that talk about wanting government off their backs or out of their checkbook, we say yes, government should not be on our backs it should be a tool that we are wielding, wielding toward the dream of defending the right to life, liberty & pursuit of happiness to all people.

None of us wants 'government on our backs'; that's why we need participatory democracy.

[lostnfound]

18. Thanks for the book suggestions, they both look very interesting

and I will check them out.

[legin]

7. To go basement issue as usual for me

Dr Yaron Brook (president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, who i think is the guy who turns up on Fox News)

The Dr bit probably ain't in Philosophy.

"His years of service in Israeli Army Intelligence,..."

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/brook.html

[legin]

9. It would be interesting to know

exactly what mainstream Ayn Rand scholars think about the 'Ayn Rand Institute'.

Being hyper-cynical if you are going to do propaganda properly you want to take in a few cultural organisations too, along with PNAC and AEI.

When Dr Yaron Brook is interviewed on Faux, he does so with the twin angels of Philosophy and Literature perched on either shoulder, which is quite powerful.

You can pay for the 'Ayn Rand Institue' to come top of any Ayn Rand google search.

[legin]

10. And I would deduce that

Dr Yaron Brook may possibly have stoped working for israeli military intelligence when he moved to the u.s. but he certainly works for a branch of israeli intelligence now, in some way, because he is too important an asset.

[Another Bill C.]

13. Ayn Rand's children

It's many years since I read Ayn Rand's books and bought into her philosopy. I was single and legitimizing an extreme self-centeredness really appealed to me.

Later, I married, had children, and found myself dealing with single parenthood. My situation didn't fit into Rand's philosophy very well. I don't recall that, in her books, Rand deals with children at all. I don't think she could have dealt with children without compromising the basis of her beliefs.

With no children, there was no accomodation for a future in her writings. There only seemed to be a self-gratified present.

[specimenfred1984]

21. The US is mostly propagandized sheep

That's why Soros is throwing millions at ousting Bush. We only have 2 choices; un-brainwash the masses or brainwash them with new information.

Money buys the lapdog media, the lapdog media then passes along whatever message they are paid to transmit. By Nov 2004, Bush will be "framed" as a liar, a crook and lacking a vision, feeding off of what we already know is true.

The only alternative is to attempt to un-brainwash dittoheads, a much more difficult and time-consuming job. They are pre-programmed to believe racist crap, to defend racist crap and to prove themselves correct by defending racist crap. In other words, they are hopeless illogical inhuman robots, only capable of receiving flawed information presented to them in a preformatted mode of a propagandizing media.

The message is Bush is a liar, it's the sad truth and it's got money behind it.

[bain_sidhe]

22. Barn raisings and community picnics

Barn raisings - sure, you could build your own barn, but then you wouldn't have any time to do the rest of the work on the farm. If everybody comes together one day a week and builds a barn for somebody, one day it's yours, one day it's a neighbors, and *everybody* benefits, both in the short run and the long run.

Community picnics - everybody brings a "dish to pass" but you end up with a huge spread that everbody enjoys. It only "costs" you one dish but everybody eats well.

I guess a Uber-meme would be "many hands make light work" - one of my folks favorite slogans.