As a liberal, do you agree with Ayn Rand in any way?
As a moderate and thinker; In only one way.Roark’s contract with Peter, the weak willed, significantly lower skilled architect, should have been honored in full and precisely. Thus Roark had grounds to be angry and had every right to have his work be used solely on the terms he set. How he over-dramatically brought his case to court was wrong in all aspects. A cheap dramatic device at best so he could make his windy speech.In summation.No, she was utterly wrong as a putative philosopher for most all of her work and even more so as a person. Even as a child of the Red Menance /McCarthyist years of WWI onward.She was an obvious misanthrope, as someone stated here in a response. That is an understatement or under-estimation of her amorality as a person, wanna-be cult figure and writer. She could tell a story. But a viciously, abusive bi-directional romance is not art, and her writings certainly are not a guiding philosophy to run any nations government by.‘All that glitters is not Gault.’
Why do people hate on Rand Paul?
As a libertarian of the anarchist verity I don't vote. I much prefer Ron Paul since he came out as an anarchist after he retired from congress. Rand supports some very un-libertarian things like his immigration policy, though it's possible he's just trying to garner support from the neo-conservatives. I don't hate him, but I don't like him as much as his father. I suppose anything that helps awaken people to the ideals of liberty is a good thing. This is the same reason I don't balk at Glenn Beck calling himself a Libertarian. The only presidential candidate I'll ever vote for is one who promises to fire everyone in government.
Why do people specifically Democrats hate Rand Paul so much?
He's not like his father, but he's better than everyone else in Congress except a few republicans and a few democrats. He's honest, he has principles, and he actually cares about this country. I mean Democrats would rather have Hillary Clinton as president than Rand Paul. Do you people not understand that Hillary Clinton is like every single politician out there: She just wants votes. She doesn't have a plan to cut spending. She lied about Benghazi, and she is a warhead, which Paul isn't. Why do Democrats hate Rand Paul so much?
Why are liberals and conservatives so hostile towards each other?
I have sometimes heard that in a democratic society the liberals are the engine and the conservative are the brakes, and the vehicle needs both if it is to function properly. In my youth, the country functioned reasonably well because liberals and conservatives agreed upon some basic principles.Dwight D. Eisenhower, no one’s idea of a liberal, was certainly ok with the concept of Social Security. He said “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”Today’s so-called conservatives are not merely the brakes, they want to put the vehicle into reverse! They would have us abolish Social Security, the ACA (which barely passes for a health care system), food stamps, meals on wheels, family planning, Medicare, Medicaid and anything else that uses tax money to help the needy. Their number may have been negligible in Eisenhower’s era, but now these deluded souls appear to make up some 40% of the population, many of whom are actually beneficiaries of these social programs!The Republican party has gone off the deep end and has lost touch with reality. They are no longer the other side of the coin. This is not your father’s Republican party.
How did you come to be a liberal or a conservative?
I became a Conservative somewhere around 2002. I was 41 years old. There were three significant parts. I was working a contract in Houston, TX the year that Enron crashed and burned.I read this book. Koba the Dread. I never had any idea how many people Stalin had murdered and how cruel the Soviets had been. It’s really not anything that’s taught. So while people were moaning about how evil it is for 20,000 employees to be laid off, I realized that Stalin murdered that many people every month for years. And I grew up thinking that racism was worse than Communism. Plus I learned that only about 3,500 people have ever been lynched in the history of the US.I became ‘rich’. I was a highly paid consultant and I remember what it was like living in TX, (while my home is in CA) and trying to get immediate credit for my first check of about 7500. I suddenly realized how average people (like bank clerks) hate rich people, and how back-stabby people become when they are in a position to hate and spread rumors. I started noticing that kind of talk more.I stood in line at Walmart to buy something and I witnessed about 6 completely different kinds of people buying very different things and even paying differently. And then I suddenly understood how markets create opportunity for everyone.I ended ‘being’ a Conservative somewhere around 2010. Maybe before. The dates aren’t so important. I primarily recognized how Republicans fight against being proper Conservatives (by which I mean Hayekian Conservatives). In that retrospective it helped me understand what was wrong with being a Progressive.[1] That writing brings more of the spirit of feeling to what I was going through.Footnotes[1] Found Writings, Liberal Narratives & A Strange Realization
Are Republicans so afraid of Obama that they have to give 2 response, 1 from Rubio another from Rand Paul?
Same reason as a couple of years ago when Michelle Bachmann gave the teahasist response. The two wings of the GOP just cannot agree. Rubio embarrassed himself tonight with that slurp of water. See the link. And Rand Paul, the teahadist, will never be taken seriously. There was a crying need for a good response, but, once again, the Republican party shot itself in the foot. Why not John Boehner, the most powerful Republican in Washington outside of the Supreme Court? He, at least, could have laid out the current state of discussions between the White House and Congress. Aside from their foibles, Rubio and Paul are too junior to matter.
Why doesn't liberal University curriculum include Ayn Rand books even when Rand is more comprehensive and coherent than Descartes, Hegel or Kant?
I don’t know much about Descartes, Hegel or Kant but I know enough about Ayn Rand’s espoused philosophy to understand why it’s not part of normal curriculum.You put your finger on the problem with the statement “Ayn Rand covers ontology, epistemology as well as ethics in her philosophy”. Her philosophy maybe comprehensive but it’s conceptually shriveled and skewed towards a strange assessment of our actual dynamics here. Her main deficit is that she made unfounded leaps from an adequate postulate that says, we assess things as subjective observers in an objective world, to complex ideas like morality and government. The various concepts that she extrapolates from this founding premise are not logically made but rather they are presented as secondary postulates. Her assessment of these ideas was forged from her bout with communism and she rationalized their connection immediately to the founding premise. Her premises were not constructed in a rigorous or inclusive manner. The complicated concepts that she is trying to work with cannot be presented at such a foundational level. Her philosophy is crusted into simple slogans and it offers material rewards for some followers. I believe that it is often presented as a philosophical license for our modern capitalistic behavior and it is a very poor choice for a conceptual blueprint.
Liberals: Is there a conservative that you may disagree with, but whom you have immense respect for?
Obama was pretty conservative, and Bill Clinton was very conservative. But I respected both.Bill Clinton was absolutely opposed to gay marriage, and Obama was until his second term.Bill Clinton’s policy’s led to many thousands (perhaps millions) being pushed off welfare, but with no real graduated way out…. loss of medical insurance, loss of the safety net that was once provided, everything was yanked away all at once thanks to the GOP’s attack on “welfare queens”Clinton’s crime control policies led to mass incarceration - which of course was unbalanced so that many more blacks and latinos would suffer than whites (though I am against whites, blacks and latinos suffering so that the crime control industry can make soulless profits).Both Clinton and Obama used military power in multiple nations… so both were playing to the geopolitical positioning that is a conservative position.Both allowed for tax-cuts on the top 2% to continue (Obama allowed the Bush era stupidity tax cuts to continue).Both allowed for cut spending on national programs that assist the poor.Neither would remove Cannabis (or other organic compounds) from Nixon’s ridiculous scheduling under the 1971 Controlled Substance Act.Tens of thousands would go to jail or prison under both for the possession of cannabis and other god made plants and fungi.Clinton had NAFTA (though it was really Newt Gingrich’s deal), and Obama had the Korean free trade deal… both of which helped kill American Union jobs.So, when you step back and think about it for a minute… maybe I am not crazy. Maybe both Obama and Clinton were pretty conservative after all…. and if the media supported their agendas, then what’s that make the media..?Certainly not a liberal media… but I digress.The fact of the matter is that America is a staunch conservative stronghold, and even our democrats would be right-wingers in most European nations. The constant attack on “the left” is really just an attack on the “right wing moderates” not being sufficiently conservative.The fact is: we haven’t had a liberal president since LBJ - and even he was pushed by conservative policy makers to pursue a war for conservatives.
Is there a slight chance that Rush Limbaugh is a secret Liberal trying to destroy the GOP brand?
He doesn't really care. He's just in it for the bucks. He'd go liberal in a minute if he thought he'd make more money that way. But he won't because it wouldn't work: Only conservatives need the constant re-enforcement of their crazy beliefs that makes conservative talk radio such big business. Just check out the relative numbers of conservative vs liberal radio talk shows. While you're at it, have you ever noticed the kind of commercials they run on those conservative shows? They're the only places I've ever heard commercials like this: "Are you embarrassed by your inability to read? Are you unable to go out to eat where they don't have pictures of the food on the menus? We can help." Seriously, they run commercials like this ALL THE TIME on Rush Limbaugh!