Right Wing Movies & the 2012 Election

Joe wants to ask the Slave why he has the audacity to use the roads and brdiges he was forced to build. I mean, if he even dare to write about a free society he should walk through the ditches and forests preferably dieing somewhere on an Estate he was forced to build so as to be sneered at.

I wonder what Joe thinks of a priori knowledge? Ayn Rand is well regarded by philosophers for her arguments on what it means to be axiom. Could you imagine a philosopher attacking Rand's argument against a priori knowledge as follows: Oh yeah Rand, if you're soooo right, then why are you sucking on the nipple of the state? Riddle me that! As an aside, David Hume, one of the most important thinkers in the history of philosophy period, similar to Rand, rejected a priori knowledge.

Ayn Rand's sin was to point out the immorality of our monetary system and the role of both the owner and the worker. I personally think she ultimately got it wrong in her support for the State versus a system of volunteerism. I also wonder if because of her views on a priori she missed some things Ludwig von Mises wrote about? She states explicitly: “There is no a priori knowledge. There is no knowledge not derived from experience with reference to his writings.

 

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Rand is being used by the neocon/neoliberals in the same way as Nietzsche was used by the Nazi's as they distort the original work to suit their purposes.

 

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Ok, so in your view, the Social Security hypocrisy is ok. Now how do you explain her enrollment and use of Medicare?

So it’s ok to take advantage of the state programs she spent a life time decrying? If Rand was so right, she wouln't have needed or touched Social Security or Medicare.

 

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We don't live in the free market Capitalistic society she envisioned.

Joe basically condemns any and all Chinese to NO medical treatment if they dare to question the CCP. I mean, if wasn't for the wonderfully generousness of the CCP who gave birth to the wonderfully dilapidated medical system that was Chinese Communist Medicine they'd have NOTHING. You know, it's an ALL of NONE. O or 1. Imagine if you needed some penicillin BUT had the audacity to question the CCP - well, you should just suck it up and die. You're a 1 in the world of 0s.

I can see Joe forcing the Hemlock down Socrates throat as we speak: How dare you question the Athenian State! DIE old man DIE!!!

LOL

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But she was forced to have money deducted from her income to pay for those types of things so what right do you believe that she isn't entitled to getting what she had already paid for? You do know that many people die before they recieve any SS or medicare benifits don't you?

 

Oh, and just what is many in your view? My father and mother both died before being able to receive Social Security. But my brothers and I received survivor benefits through Social Security. But how is that germane to the discussion? It isn’t.

Social Security is not like a savings program. Individuals have no rights to recover the taxes they paid into the program, just like they are not entitled to recover any other tax they pay to any government agency. So your attempt to represent Rand’s actions as exercising a recovery right is wrong. Further it ignores that fact that if her philosophy worked, she would have never had the need to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits.

The fact is that if Rand was correct as you think she was then there is no reason she should have had the need to nurse at the public teat as she did. Obviously her philosophy didn’t work out for her.

 

not really. rand believed in some pretty fucked up shit

 

It may be possible to extricate some reasonable stuff from amid Rand's tangled meanderings, but to blame her self-identified followers for the distortions overlooks Rand's own contribution to them: she herself confused agreement with her derivative assessments of fact and descriptions of event with grasp of her essential "philosophy" - if her followers do likewise, one can hardly blame them or accuse them of distorting her views.

The observation that most of the publicly identified Rand acolytes - from Alan Greenspan and Clarence Thomas to Paul Ryan and Randall Paul - would be villains in an Ayn Rand novel, or that none of them would name themselves after a typewriter in the first place (my favorite bit of Rand trivia), does not mean that what they are up to are alien and un-Rand like philosophical believings.

 

Not exactly true and there are levels of differences... Swift boat and such....

 

I've yet to see a single argument against any of Rand's philosophical positions. Most people here don't seem to understand her philosophical arguments on apriorism let alone come up with a counter argument.

As for SSI - Why wouldn't Rand accept SSI? The only imbecilic argument I've read would be like saying a Political Dissident in China should be starved to Death and not given any food from the Communes. I mean 'if their "Democratic Theories Worked" then why are they accepting food rather than starving to Death in Communist China? It's like reading baby-gibberish. And no wonder no one actually wants to discuss apriorism and make a counter argument.


Lastly, pretty much everyone here agrees with Rand that we need a State, a Central Government, a State run Military and a Central Bank. The ONLY disagreement is the degree to how much the State should interfere with the market. Obviously, as Rand, Greenspan and all of you think we need a Central Bank setting the interest rate and directly manipulating the value of money - I guess that's an agreement with 100% involvement. The joke is, YOU people ARE Randians.

 

Well for starters, this thread is not about Randian thought. If you want to start a thread on Randian thought, please do so. Additionally there isn’t much to Randian thought. And Rand was probably one of the least objective individuals as demonstrated not only in personal but in her public life. Rand was a lesson in contradiction.

Not surprisingly Michael you are again failing to see what has clearly been placed before your nose. If Rand’s philosophy worked, she would have not needed to suck the public teat in order to support herself. This woman was a playwright and author. The government did nothing to harm that market. In fact it offered her copyright protections for her work. So your gibberish about China and “apriorism”, is just that gibberish. Rand’s philosophy failed public scrutiny, if failed in intellectual circles, it failed Rand. Now a select group of billionaires are trying to resurrect her notions for their own purposes – even to the point of purchasing over a million copies of her work and giving them away.

No Michael, this has been explained to you repeatedly and to the point of ad nauseum. But still, like everything else with you, you just continue to repeat your talking points over and over and over without acknowledging your many and frequent errors.

 

Nice lack of argument Joe. The reason we go round and round is because you don't seem to get that the same argument refutes your illogical assumption. You state Rand took SSI. OK, so what? What does that have to do with ANYTHING?

It'd be like saying this: Darwin went to Church, ego Evolution is false. Sorry Joe, but nope. It really doesn't matter what the hell Darwin did because the idea of evolution is all that matters and evolution is a scientific fact. Likewise, Rand is arguing about how we come to say something is apriori and she concludes we can't know because knowledge is ONLY gained by sensory perception. She didn't 'invent' Objectivism Joe. It's been around in one form or another for, oh, I don't know, 2500 years!

So, instead of making no sense and tossing out a red herring that she used SSI why don't you state her direct argument and counter it logically?






But don't worry Joe, QE3 is coming and then you can tell us all about how wonderful the economy is. Who knows, maybe the government will borrow another few trillion to get some holes dug and another few trillion to get them filled in - that'll really get the economy going.

QE3 here we come.... then 4, 5, 6 and on we go. Soon they'll just have perpetual QE I mean, why bother with numbers when bailing out your banking crook buddies is all that matters.

 

you clearly don't understand rand.

 

Instead of seeing “illogical arguments” where they don’t exist, perhaps you should pay more attention to what you are writing. If you go back and reread, I said the issue with Rand was the “NEED” to accept Social Security and Medicare. If Rand’s philosophy worked for her, she would not need to suck the public teat which she did. And if you would have read my previous post and understood it you would have noticed that I mentioned she took more than just Social Security. She also took Medicare. And it is relevant; because they are both contradictions to the beliefs she spent a life time decrying.

Those are the unpleasant facts for you Michael. And as with all unpleasant facts you just ignore them.

More repetition, why am I not impressed? As has been pointed out to you before no one is advocating the government pay people to dig holes and fill them up. No one is advocating bailing out “banking crook buddies”, whatever the hell that is. And QE3 may or may not happen. But if the Fed decides it is warranted, so be it. The economy is growing, that is a fact. And we need to keep it growing, and at some point to keep it growing QE3 may be needed. And if it is needed, I want the Fed to implement it. Because, unlike you, I don’t want another recession or a depression. You are just repeating nonsense yet again, nonsense that has been repeatedly pointed out to you on multiple occasions.

 

Re; bolded portion: Oh, really? Name one--other than some wack objectivist, that is."

Better yet, post your musings on any proper philosophy forum--say philosophyforums, for instance--and I guarantee that your posting will be relegated to the pseudophilosophy subforum.

But this:

Really? I've seen a few dozen; in fact, I've made a few dozen--but I'm not wasting my time here, I'll quote a few instead. Thing is, Rand never actually read Kant--fancy that, eh?--she based all her musings on some crappy lecture notes from a undergraduate philosophy course she took way back in her Soviet Union days. Now that's some fine scholarship, right? Kinda like your own, Michael.

Anyways, on to the good stuff:

By Bill Vallicella, PhD. (and what did he do his dissertation on? Why Kant, of course):

http://maverickphilosopher.blogspot.com/2004/06/rands-misunderstanding-of-kant.html

Here's another link, if you actually wish to learn something: http://intothesophosphere.blogspot.com/2012/04/priori-peikoffs-misconception.html



Edit: Oh yeah, forgot about that Logical Positivists being "neo-mystics" bit--that's rich! Now, I loathe Positivists--in fact, I don't care much for Anglo-Analytic philosophy period--but neo-mystics! That is absolutely fucking insane!

 

Oh yeah...

@ Michael,

OK, first of all, I'm no Kantian--and I'm hardly an authority on Kant; nevertheless, Kant laid the groundwork for all subsequent discussion of the a priori and a posteriori and he makes a compelling case for the FACT of subjectivity--and this is essential knowledge for the student of any philosophical strains. (No disrespect intended towards Plato's Meno, rather Kant introduced the specific terminology.)

Now, let's examine Peikoff's (I guess he would be the one philosopher who holds Rand's exegesis in "high regard"-- and an objectivist, no less) explication of a priori knowledge (from the Ayn Rand Lexicon):

How 'bout that bolded portion? Hoo-boy. How do you go about "proving" that? (Hint: you can't)

You see, contrary to your--Michael's--claim that objectivism operates strictly in accordance with scientific methodologies; well, clearly, it don't! Deduction is the key here: drawing a specific conclusion from general statements or premises.

I like arche's (the blogger cited in previous post) example:

A reasonable conclusion (prediction), no? Well, apparently, not according to Rand or Peikoff. The caveman has not yet "experienced" tomorrow and therefore his conclusion cannot be regarded as "true knowledge."

So where's that leave the scientists? A bunch of nutters, right? And surely all mathematicians ought to be institutionalized for the everyone's safety.

Of course, Kant also introduced the very much related notions of the noumenon and the Ding an sich--following in the footsteps of the Madhyamika School centuries prior, of which he was blissfully unaware. I'm guessin' you reject these as well, no? 'Course I got some problems too, being anti-essentialist (and thus securing my expulsion from the First International, along with Mikhail B. (and B.Traven, LOL)), but I suspect my "issues" are of a very different nature from yours.

But again, what about Rand? You might wanna review her screeds on "rational man" and the like to get a sense of just how explicitly self-contradictory her "Objectivist" thought truly is.

 

You can start here:

http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm

or here:

http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm

and find plenty more here:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html

 

See, now this is perfectly logical. That's nothing like Joe's notion that Rand's "philosophy didn't work cause she ended up using SSI".

You can see the difference?

As for Rand's ideas about or version of objectivism - I think it's great if she's smashed to bits intellectually. That's great as it means we're progressing towards a greater understanding of what is and is not truth. But, at least she gave it a go. I mean, have you ever seen obese parents screaming at little league players. I think to myself, why don't you get your fat ass up off the couch and YOU go do something. IOWs, Rand's ideas may be completely crap - but at least she tried to think.

Here's a question: Was Rand's ideas on the economy closer to Keynesian or Austrian economic theory? As far as I can tell Rand supported a State, a Central Bank, Corporations and a State run Military. She's much closer to most people on this board than to me in terms of what makes up an ideal society.

As for Atlas Shrugged it was a boring book and I couldn't comment on the movie as I couldn't be bothered to watch it. Business owners may get out of paying tax, but they pay the Mafia and if they decide not to, then someone is just as eager to step in and do so. The idea there's a class of "productive" people is inane IMO. I think people who are successful LIKE the IDEA they're 'special' but they're not THAT special. Sure, some are very competitive and work like dogs, but there's a MILLION more waiting in the wings, they're not THAT special. It's likely that 90% would be crushed out of existence in a free market over time if we didn't have rent seeking like patenting and regulations. Not to mention many use the levers of power to stack the deck in their favor - see all Bankers with their fractional reserve lending of fiat currency that's backed by our labor. Or they were luckily in the right place at the right time. Would Bill Gates BE as successful if a University dropout today? No, he'd probably be a middle class nobody like most people. If that.

So, the books was a fail on many levels and attracted a small following of people who don't seem to get they're not that great.

Anyway, I'm happy to read more of Kant, but TTYTT I'm more interested in (1) Ludwig von Mises for economics (2) voluntarism for society and (3) the top of the list goes to studying the benefits of teaching rational thought and peaceful parenting.

 

Mark Zuckerberg was a University dropout. He started an Internet company you may have heard of. He's now worth over $10 billion.

 

The latter, if either.

That is silly. The lion's share of the talking points and rhetoric that you employ are taken directly from Rand, verbatim. All that stuff about "initiation of the use of force," for example.

Well, with a few exceptions like this:

which Rand definitely did go in for (she was an exiled Russian aristocrat, after all).

How are "regulations" a form of "rent seeking?" This doesn't make sense to me, unless you're talking about something more specific.

More to the point, it coddles insecure, underachieving types with self-serving notions that they're being held back by "leeches." The truly impressive and successful rarely have much use for her whole revenge-fantasy ideation.