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Do you think you are a slave now? Or that anyone is trying to put you into slavery?
Refuse to give up a portion of your labor to the government and see what a free man you are.
Refuse to give up property taxes and see how much land you own.
Do you think you are a slave now? Or that anyone is trying to put you into slavery?
I'm NOT a taker and my money is confiscated to pay for the poor who do nothing to contribute to society. If I don't pay taxes I could be thrown in jail. If a poor person can't pay, they get more.
This guy probably wont even get elected in the congressional election, but if he does, he won't remain in congress for long. He's too extreme for his district.
First question is why is this particular thread on the Virginia District race not moved and merged like all the other threads have been?
Second question is why is it unusual for the Head of the Economics Dept at a University to oversee Grants? This was a Grant from a Bank for a study, that's not unusual at all. It happens all the time.
It's no surprise that the HIT pieces are already coming against Dave Brat from the Far Left.
When have I ever said I object to Ayn Rand books being read and discussed in a classroom? All I have done is given my opinion on the selfishness of Rand'Band's philosophy.
I am honestly sorry. I misunderstood what you were objecting to.
So why object to someone backing the introduction of her philosophy into the classroom?
Because her philosophy is at the root of almost every problem in this nation, even if the people who are behaving selfishly don't realize it.
The key tenant of Objectivism can be boiled down to "being selfish is okay." In short, do whatever you want if it makes you happy.
With all the problems this nation faces, I don't see how anyone could support introducing her philosophy into schools except as a warning - in short, teaching it the same way people are taught about the Nazis. The last thing we need is more selfish "makers" trying to stick knives in the back of everyone else, who they (of course) consider "takers."
It's what makes you happy. You just don't like the "personal responsibility" part of her philosophy. Now if she believed in dependency you would be all for her philosophy.
"The virtues of her philosophy are principled policies based on rational assessment: rationality, productiveness, honesty, integrity, independence, justice, and pride."
"As a youth, she had been repelled by the communists’ political program."
False, I do believe in personal responsibility, I do not believe in selfishness, which is what Rand advocated.
Rand believed in winners and losers, and if you weren't rich, you were a loser.
Not true even a little.
If you read anything by Rand, fiction or non-fiction, you'd know that if she were to classify winners and losers, winners would be those who had a work ethic and wanted to earn what they had, while losers would be those who wanted their failure to have a work ethic subsidized by the more successful (she called them looters and moochers).
And in her fiction, there are plenty of non-rich "heroes" or well thought of characters, as well as tons of super rich looters/moochers.
On a personal level, she was a self-absorbed, arrogant jackass, and she wasn't that great of a writer, truth be told. Atlas Shrugged could have 400 less pages and present the entire story even better. But Objectivism, particularly where it involves natural rights and economic freedom, has some good ideas. One need not adhere to 100% of everything a philosopher ever said to agree with any one single thing. Brat certainly doesn't:
Quote:
Brat co-authored a paper titled “An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand.” Brat says that while he isn’t a Randian, he has been influenced by Atlas Shrugged and appreciates Rand’s case for human freedom and free markets.
No philosopher should be either agreed with 100% nor 0%. That is not the aim of philosophy. The aim is to present a school of thought and get you thinking. Is the philosopher trying to teach you something their way? Sure, but they are not attempting brainwashed conversion. Sun Tzu's "Art of War" has a bunch of really fine common sense in it, but we need not dismiss it entirely because it speaks mostly in terms of warfare and battle strategy. Aesop's Fables are good lessons in the rules of polite society, but should we dismiss them because no fox really ever got mad at some grapes?
And fwiw, Rand never really formally suggested a government system based on individualism, but she definitely opposed massive collectivism. Her governmental system could most aptly described (and she would want my head on a pike for saying this) as the sort of small, limited government necessary to secure, protect and defend the natural individual rights of the citizen, or what most libertarians subscribe to (and she hated Rothbard and the Libertarians of the 1960s-70s).
Brat is an Economics professor. If there is an academic specialty most properly suited to libertarian/voluntary/Objectivist thinking, it would be Economics. By and large, if a campus has conservatives and/or libertarians in its professor ranks, they'll be in the Economics dept and the hard sciences/engineering.
So nothing about Brat being director of that BB&T thing, nor him writing a paper on Randian capitalism (which like half of the econ students in the country have probably done at some point) means he is trying to recreate the world as Galt's Gulch or something.
Swear to god, the lack of critical thinking in America is frightening.
P1 - I have decided that Ayn Rand was a nazi nutbag. P2 - Brat wrote a paper on Ayn Rand
C - Brat is a nazi nutbag.
This guy probably wont even get elected in the congressional election, but if he does, he won't remain in congress for long. He's too extreme for his district.
The sooner Ayn Rand and her endless attempts to justify selfish behavior are fully discredited and buried in the scrapheap of history's other failed ideas, the better.
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)
Some people get off on helping others, even when it's non quid quo pro.
Originally Posted by urbanlife78 View Post
When have I ever said I object to Ayn Rand books being read and discussed in a classroom? All I have done is given my opinion on the selfishness of Rand'Band's philosophy.
But you refuse to see the selfishness "and greed" of the people who support big government and government dependency.
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.
-- Thomas Sowell
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