Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Who knew? Ayn Rand wrote the Constitution!!
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Zooey.
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April 30, 2020 at 6:33 pm #114438
Billy_TParticipantI know, I know. I shouldn’t care, and I shouldn’t bother reading stuff that obviously winds me up. That cartoon about the poor bloke who tells his wife he can’t leave his computer cuz someone said something on the Internet pokes at me as I write this . . .
;>)
Of course, sometimes it does make me laugh, so that’s probably okay, right?
Like when conservatives try to make the Constitution sound like it was written by Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand or Ron Paul. That the so-called “founders” took power, but set up a brand-new government in such a way, they sabotaged themselves and everything they worked for via a right-libertarian, capitalist-lovin’ anti-government document, that supposedly prevented them from exercising the power they so obviously desired. That they set up a brand new government to protect Americans from that brand new government.
Um, that never happened.
For Good or Ill, the Constitution actually gives extraordinary powers to the central government, including over the economy. Conservatives must have forgotten about the Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the pretty much unlimited “tax and spend” provisions. Again, for Good or Ill, that document granted Congress, especially, massive power over commerce, trade, taxation, spending, tariffs, science and tech, etc. etc.
Yes, Virginia, it really is legal for the government to shut down businesses, or deny them licensing in the first place. Current pandemic guidelines really are “Constitutional.”
Oh, and “capitalism” is never mentioned in the Constitution, and founders like Jefferson and Paine despised it and its rising power.
Okay, I’m gonna sign off and watch Normal People now. It’s on Hulu, and it’s really good. The novel was excellent, btw.
April 30, 2020 at 7:50 pm #114442
JackPMillerParticipantMaybe she was older than we think? She died in 1982. The Consitution was written in 1787. She had to live to be over 200 years old, unless she was a toddler.
May 1, 2020 at 11:13 am #114459
ZooeyModeratorI try to steer clear of debates with right wing Libertarians now. They live in a world of complete fiction. I really don’t know of a single principle of theirs that is actually true. Their premises are all wrong – demonstrably wrong – and consequently every policy they support on the basis of those premises is absurd. And there is just no talking to them. They think Ayn Rand is the Enlightened One, and they are holders of the sacred economic texts. They are out of their minds.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
[Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
― John Rogers
May 1, 2020 at 6:44 pm #114477Billy_TParticipantI try to steer clear of debates with right wing Libertarians now. They live in a world of complete fiction. I really don’t know of a single principle of theirs that is actually true. Their premises are all wrong – demonstrably wrong – and consequently every policy they support on the basis of those premises is absurd. And there is just no talking to them. They think Ayn Rand is the Enlightened One, and they are holders of the sacred economic texts. They are out of their minds.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
[Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
― John Rogers
That is a great quote. It has the ring of something older, though, doesn’t it? Like wisdom from at least a few decades prior to the aughts.
Preaching to the choir, but the thing right-libertarians so obviously miss is this:
“Tyranny” exists in the private sector too. They seem to think it can only happen via Gubmint.
I lean strongly left-anarchist. Aspirationally, that’s where I am. I want as close to no hierarchy, anywhere, in any form, as would be humanly possible. No centers of power, at all. None. Zip. Zilch. Any form of “power” would have to be (legally, constitutionally) temporary, on loan from We the People, leased, provisional, radically dispersed, radically decentralized, etc. etc.
What we leftists know — and to me, this is beyond self-evident — is that concentrated power in the private sector is every bit as dangerous and “tyrannical” as concentrated power via Gubmint. Under the capitalist system, of course, it IS the gubmint. The Gubmint does its bidding, etc. etc.
In short, right-libertarians are either dupes of Corporate America/billionaires or they knowingly egg on those dupes. Which means they really don’t care about “tyranny” at all. They just want to be tyrants themselves, or on the side of tyrants.
May 1, 2020 at 8:47 pm #114480JackPMillerParticipantMay 2, 2020 at 2:32 pm #114517ZooeyModeratorRight. They think the absence of government = freedom.
And, as you say, the absence of government = private tyranny. And that’s worse. Because – with government – there is at least some transparency. FOIA. Elections. Open debate. And we all know those things are seriously flawed in our system, but they are better than nothing.
Plus…theoretically, at least…government has some interest in the well-being of the country – the land and the inhabitants. Private rule is interested only in wealth/power/domination.
The fact that they don’t understand the Very Basic Fact that private tyranny is worse – and I’m calling it a fact without reservation (i.e. I don’t think this is an Ideological difference) – makes them worse than useless in the political forum. Furthermore, they don’t even recognize tyranny when it’s right in front of them anyway. Unravel THAT.
They are dangerous. They show up at capitols, fully armed, in the middle of a pandemic, at the drop of a hat when a tyrant suggests it. They preach Liberty while fostering the worst kind of dogmatic, racist domination, and a preposterous percentage of them are in complete denial that that is what they support. Libertarians are SO full of shit that, as Leftist libertarian/anarchist types, we can’t even find common ground on the Small Government issue.
Libertarians suck.
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