Who Is To Blame?

Ayn Rand and Objectivism hold that the only legitimate function of the government of any country is to protect the individual rights of its citizens. It does so is by the legal means of force and coersion. At bottom, these are the only tools governments anywhere have to carry out their activities. In a free society they are used to protect the productive activities of its citizens. Governments cannot produce anything. Their support comes strictlyfrom the producers of society, the businessmen and the working men and women whose property goes, voluntarily or involuntarily, toward that end. What the US government is doing now is what it has done for nearly 100 years via the manipulations of the Fed, various "bailouts" subsidies enacted by congress and supported by the other branches of the government, welfare programs, use of the law of eminent domain, etc. Like all other governments of the world, it is doing what governments to best---destroy. Only, it is aiming its destructive power, not at an enemy invader, not at at criminal gangs, but at the very pillars of civilization. Producers have gone along with this process for generations, and taken on burden after burden piled on them through taxes and inflation. It is a dead-end road, at the end of which lies only destruction. Ayn Rand warned of this over 50 years ago in her epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged." It is happening today.

dobrologist,
Rand's central premises are so challenging to some of the basic assumptions almost everyone is brought up on, that many feel threatened and simply attack. Altruism, which she identifies as evil and destrutive, is implicit in both religious doctrine and the secular vaguely collectivist fashions which permeate the intellectual mainstream. The psychological difficulty of overthrowing ideas so basic to our world view is impossible to overestimate, particularly if these ideas are not questioned until full adulthood when attitudes harden almost into stone. The logic may be irrefutable, but one cannot force a mind to follow logically where it simply refuses to go. One of Rand's most important insights is that human consciousness is volitional.

Libertarianism--almost as good as believing in Santa Claus around Christmas time, isn't it? This moron is an embarassment to a national magazine. He should be shunted off to the far corners of a very very marginalized blog somewhere safe from impressionable childre-- say instapundit or somewhere else equally dubious.

No doubt the damage is already done, as there are a lot of children who desire nothing more than that the 'natural' state of the 'market' will take care of everything. And when it doesn't of course, they just claim, it wasn't 'natural' enough!

Here's a quote to sleep on::

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
--Wendell Berry

If you want a full critique of the myth called libertarianism click <a href=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/22/19035/815>An Explication of The Poetic Myth of Libertarianism</a>

It sounds as though the Ayn Rand institute should look at the history of the Roman Empire beginning at the time of AD 476 until the middle ages. The height of that period was around AD 534. This time period was the only time that pure objectivism was fully realized. Pure free market capitalism (unregulated) will affect society and the environment the same way as in a post nuclear war aftermath. However, the only thing that will be missing would be the radiation and charred material (ashes, melted sands and vaporized metal); the blighting would be identical.

"the primary cause of the housing bubble was the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates at 1 percent in 2003."

Wrong! Problem is not the low interest rate. Problem is with loans with high default rates, especially when securitized throughout financial system mutiple times and mis-valued. Just another form of Ponzi scheme by the financial industry. Thus the core problem is inadequate regulation. Financial stability, like all 'games,' depends on appropriate rules--that means government regulation. I suppose the viciously ruthless and free-market idealogues prefer the law of the wild.

It???s terrifying to learn that any intellectually respected leader actually believes the ridiculously shallow individualism of Ayn Rand. It makes the Bushite ideologues seem like rigorous thinkers.

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan???s admiration of Rand???s Objectivist philosophy was apparently widely known to the press and the financial community. That it was not widely publicized and scrutinized is dismaying, even to this old cynic.

Like Orwell???s 1984, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were reactive parodies of hideous collectivism. Unfortunately, unlike Orwell, Ayn Rand didn???t recognize her one-dimensional characters were parody. She believed her works were serious philosophy.

Her characters Howard Roark, Hand Rearden and John Gault were idealized lone genius creators. They appealed to me, perhaps appropriately, in my adolescence. But, neither they nor Ayn Rand acknowledged any cultural or historical debt for their achievements.

To my mind, the logical extension of Rand???s Objectivism is a kind of cultural survivalism. Get the government out of the way, and everything will be owned not by those who create it, but by those with guns.

I do not understand how or why people have gotten it into their head that the current crisis has anything to do with the free market.
The US economy is about as close to the free market as post-Stalinist Russia was.
Billion dollar bailouts is not a sign of a free market. In a free market, the failing companies would be eliminated by natural selection and more competent competitors would thrive, thus improving the economy.
You can't compete? You lose! And everybody wins in the end.

wow. Okay. This isn't government, and it's not capitalism...it's GREED and SELFISHNESS although Ayn Rand doesn't believe in those things as 'evil', and she sure should have. This is what happens in a ME society. Let's watch what happens as people are forced to enjoy the simple things of life, and regain their focus on what really matters in this world. Love (the opposite of selfishness) as poured out through Christ. Let's get our eyes off of US and put them on Him. May the wonders abound.

Wow. For cult (and that's all these people are) who constantly espouse personal responsibility; they sure do seem to blame everyone else for the failures of their teachings.

"There' is a way that seems right to a man but leads to his destruction." [Bible] Objectivism is a sweet temptation, but it ignores the nature of man and rests on the assumption that a system can be set up free of distractions. It is a Utopian delusion; a satisfying delusion because of its consistency. In the world of Ayn Rand the unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance is happily avoided. That's why so many morons embrace it.