War on the Weak: How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers.

[highplainsdem]

From Jonathan Chait at Newsweek:

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/10/war-on-the-weak.html

War on the Weak
How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers.

-snip-

In fact, the two streams—the furious Tea Party rebels and Ryan the earnest budget geek—both spring from the same source. And it is to that source that you must look if you want to understand what Ryan is really after, and what makes these activists so angry.

The Tea Party began early in 2009 after an improvised rant by Rick Santelli, a CNBC commentator who called for an uprising to protest the Obama administration’s subsidizing the “losers’ mortgages.” Video of his diatribe rocketed around the country, and protesters quickly adopted both his call for a tea party and his general abhorrence of government that took from the virtuous and the successful and gave to the poor, the uninsured, the bankrupt—in short, the losers. It sounded harsh, Santelli quickly conceded, but “at the end of the day I’m an Ayn Rander.”

-snip-

One conservative making that point was Ryan. His citation of Rand was not casual. He’s a Rand nut. In the days before his star turn as America’s Accountant, Ryan once appeared at a gathering to honor her philosophy, where he announced, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” He continues to view Rand as a lodestar, requiring his staffers to digest her creepy tracts.

-snip-

The class tinge of Ryan’s Path to Prosperity is striking. The poorest Americans would suffer immediate, explicit budget cuts. Middle-class Americans would face distant, uncertain reductions in benefits. And the richest Americans would enjoy an immediate windfall. Santelli, in his original rant, demanded that we “reward people carry the water instead of drink the water.” Ryan won’t say so, but that’s exactly what he’s doing.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. I am so frickin' sick of Ayn Rand dittoheads!

The woman was a con artist. The L. Ron Hubbard of political thought.

[highplainsdem]

4. +1

[enough]

5. And guru to Alan Greenspan:

from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan

snip>

In the early 1950s, Greenspan began an association with famed novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand that would last until her death in 1982.<26> Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.<26>

Greenspan was introduced to Ayn Rand by his first wife, Joan Mitchell. Although Greenspan was initially a logical positivist,<35> he was converted to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism by her associate Nathaniel Branden. During the 1950s and 1960s Greenspan was a proponent of Objectivism, writing articles for Objectivist newsletters and contributing several essays for Rand's 1966 book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal including an essay supporting the gold standard.<36><37>

During the 1950s, Greenspan was one of the members of Ayn Rand's inner circle, the Ayn Rand Collective, who read Atlas Shrugged while it was being written. Rand nicknamed Greenspan "the undertaker" because of his penchant for dark clothing and reserved demeanor. Although Greenspan was once recognized as a proponent of laissez-faire capitalism, some Objectivists find his support for a gold standard somewhat incongruous or dubious, given the Federal Reserve's role in America's fiat money system and endogenous inflation. He has come under criticism from Harry Binswanger,<38> who believes his actions while at work for the Federal Reserve and his publicly expressed opinions on other issues show abandonment of Objectivist and free market principles. However, when questioned in relation to this, he has said that in a democratic society individuals have to make compromises with each other over conflicting ideas of how money should be handled. He said he himself had to make such compromises, because he believes that "we did extremely well" without a central bank and with a gold standard.<39> Greenspan and Rand maintained a close relationship until her death in 1982.<26>

snip>

[KG]

2. 'rich as our rightful rulers'? nothing new, been this way since the am. revolution.

[subterranean]

3. I think that's always been the GOP's view.

Ronald Reagan just made it acceptable to express that view openly again.

[jwirr]

6. Significant that this uses the title War on the Weak. Edwin Black in

his book War on the Weak points to the beginning of this in the eugenics theories. But where did their philosophy come from? Survival of the fittest is pure Darwinism but that is not the only philosophy that pushes the above idea. Double predestination is another. It claims that God sees people in two different ways - one as his people and then those people he has rejected from the beginning. These rejected subjects do not have the option of being forgiven as God sees them as evil itself. (IMO this is false doctrine at its worst).

So when we in the 21st Century join the right wing christians and the ayn rand followers we are definitely having a war on the weak, an economic war and a religious war.

This was of course the most popular philosophy in the late 30-40s also.

[Volaris]

7. Ive been thinking about Rand-ian philosophies a bit lately....

and it occurs to me, that even the very rich seem to think its bullshit. Not by intuitive or internal thought processes, but by extroverted, external action.

Rand states that in any capitalistic system, the strong survive, and the weak and stupid die. Right? (don't get me started on how modern followers of Rand seem to adhere to the schizophrenic idea that ECONOMIC darwinism is just Jim-dandy, all the while rejecting actual, BIOLOGICAL darwinism, thats another thread entirely)

Well---

When Wall street was faced with the prospect of death by its own, failing hand, it wasn't the economic populists who were holding press conferences-- begging, crying, pleading with the American Taxpayer for Trillions of $s to act as a crutch for those who had been lamed by the Darwinian Lion of their own greed.

It was Bernanke. It was Paulson. It was GREENSPAN. It was every Wal-street (yes thats a wordplay on Walmart=)) Robber-Baron Tycoon Grifter who, until that point, had absolutely REVELED in their own magnificence, as they gave birth to Globalized Finance, debt-based currency and a Growth Model that would last --FOREVER!!!--(DUH!--how could it be otherwise, since God Himself decreed it so???)

It was the Rand-ians.

It was so because they know DAMN WELL that Govt. (especially in a place like America, where Democracy is supposed to reign supreme), sure as FUCK has a useful purpose, and that that useful purpose would have been well on display if they had been allowed to die. Because it would not have been just the poor and unfortunate (who's jobs have all been shipped overseas) among us that would have been in line for food stamps and unemployment checks. It would have been every Wall-Street middle managing paper-pusher and half the bankers in this country, too. They chose CORPORATE welfare over ACTUAL welfare, (all the while proclaiming that it was necessary to the survival of the Growth---FOREVER!!!!--- system, and hoping no one would notice that an argument for corporate welfare is STILL an argument for WELFARE...see what they did there?) because to do otherwise would be to let the little people in on the BIG SECRET...The welfare state (as we have conceived it in America) ACTUALLY WORKS AS INTENDED; Rand-ian Economics is BULLSHIT (because, when push comes to shove, NOBODY wants to get fed to the Lions); and every single one of them KNOWS IT.

And now WE do, too.
Peace (and differing opinions and other insights are welcome, as always.)