re: #74 SpaceJesus

and he has an entire political party right there to embrace him with open arms

Dovetail with historical fascism:

From the bottom it is simple race baiting, fear and malaise mixed with some seriously backwards interpretations of Christianity.

But at the top of the heap of the GOP mentality is the so called “objectivist” philosophy of the GOP. It forms a pseudo-intellectual veneer full of pretentious language to a program of glorified greed and indifference to others. Much can b blamed on the rather evil writings of Ayn Rand. Ron Paul liked this woman so much he named his son after her. She is the favorite author of Newt Gingrich, Clarance Thomas, Barton and of course, the Koch brothers. To be fair to Rand, greedy evil bastards would be that way without her, but she gave them high language to appear reasonable with.

Without exaggeration, it is an utterly self absorbed and self serving view of the world that would be very difficult to get further from normal definitions of goodness. She was born in Russia, got out from under the communist system after having been a teacher there. After coming to America, she insinuated herself into a certain NY intellectual and financial set. She developed a G-dless economic theory that is in all ways an exact counterpoint to the Stalinists and Marxism in general.

The central tenant she rejects is altruism and an individuals duty to other lesser people “bums” and “moochers.” She goes so far as to adamantly argue that altruism itself is evil. Her answer is a perverse and extreme view of Adam Smith which is in of itself unworkable without some form of limitless energy.

What is it with conservatives and the inability to understand that energy is conserved?

She wrote: “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.”

The implied philosophy of the ubermensch - the “individual as hero” as she put it, echoes Nietszche less than what fascists made of him. This is not lost on Americans who flirt with fascism. It is proof that taking an insane template and arguing the opposite, based solely on philosophy with no contact in the real world will produce an equally crazy result. As such, it is just as delusional, just as unrealistic in the actual world, just as heartless and just as utterly unworkable as Stalinism. However, it does very much appeal to the plutocrat. In this view, he is no longer shackled by any duty to society. In fact, society exists to serve him as he is the only one who drives it. Altruism leads to socialism. Socialism destroys all freedom. Freedom while defined in abstract and high language reduces to enjoying the benefits of the social contract yet none of the duties. So the cant goes….

But don’t take my word for it. Look at her and her philosophy for itself. You hear it dripping from the gorged mouths of plutocrats everyday. They are each convinced that they personally earned what they have and than no-one and no circumstance helped them and because of that owe nothing to society or anyone else. Simply evil.