There’s already been much meaty discussion of the ReThugs’ latest attempt to sell 99% of their fellow Americans down the river, but here’s a nice concise summary for defence against facebook postings & emails from low-information relatives. ‘The Collective’ at Esquire‘s Political Blog is shrill to “Paul Ryan and the New Politics of Sadism“:
… The thoroughgoing abandonment of the notion of a political commonwealth, cheered on by degrees since the elevation of Ronald Reagan and whatever ideas people could cram into his empty head, has reached the point among American conservatives where it is now the kind of faith you find in the most unshakable of perversions. It manifests itself everywhere…
__
And the sadism is running now through the institutions of government. We have made our peace with torture to the extent that support for it now is as much a litmus test for being a Republican as opposition to abortion is. (The Democrats, of course, choose to deplore it without condemning it.) The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in the recent Thompson V. Connick decision — delivered, fittingly enough, by Justice Clarence Thomas, the walking Freudian petri dish who once opined that he saw nothing wrong with chaining inmates to a post in the hot sun — pretty much advises a man who was stuck on death row for fourteen years because of egregious prosecutorial misconduct to stop wasting the Supreme Court’s time and be grateful his sorry ass wasn’t fried a decade ago.
__
And, in the Congress, there is Congressman Paul Ryan, who is angling right now to make a career out of political sadism…
__
The object of his politics is to render political liberty subservient to economic exigencies, to render it an unaffordable luxury item available only to the wealthy, because only the wealthy are competent enough to exercise it.[…] Ryan has come to the unremarkable intellectual conclusion that more people would rather inflict pain — even vicariously, even through his greasy sadist’s smile — than receive it. He has seen that dynamic in action. Even the White House, occupied for the nonce by a putatively progressive Democrat, has signed on in a gentler way to the notion that “austerity” is the way out of our current economic morass, and “austerity” is fairly defined in this context as making other people hurt so you’ll feel better about yourself. Unemployed workers, whose pensions were looted by Wall Street sharpers, rage against the pensions of public workers, not because those pensions are so gloriously lavish, but because they exist at all. Somebody has something you don’t and they must pay for that. Small wonder that Paul Ryan thinks he can grin his way to the dystopic wasteland that he sees when he dreams of a free country. So much of the work already has been done for him over the previous three decades.
I did not remember hearing that Ryan was a Randroid. Read the whole thing, and gird your loins to fight on.
Cain
Today we celebrated the release of GNOME 3, the free desktop for Linux and other OSes! I’m mentioning it because I spent a lot of time volunteering there. They make me sane this crazy political world. Best bunch of guys ever. In any case, here is the release notes. If you look carefully, I’m in there somewhere.. chattin it up! :-)
cain
Axel Edgren
Oh Sullyyyyy I have something for you to reeeeaaaad…
moops
now that was viscerally satisfying to read.
I think this is more insightful. Handing back the plutocrats their money is just the happy side-effect that will also fill campaign coffers. The drive here is something more like this. The *wrong* people are benefiting in the great wealth distribution.
Another $10 million in some fat bastards bank account is just score keeping at this point for them. The pleasure is here. This motivates Koch. This motivates hate radio buffoons. The take home is just the reward for doing what they love.
M. Bouffant
One of my favorite factoids about the unspeakable sack of shit that is Rep. Ryan:
moops
I’m trying to understand people like Ryan, and other Randian flunkies in terms of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. That people still in stage 2 have great resonance with Ayn Rand. Most people develop a strong level 3 instinct in their mid teens. Some are precocious and bloom early, and others remain stunted in this regard. Perhaps substituting a religious model in place of developing Level 3. I’m starting to think authoritative religious training early in life leaves a person crippled in this regard.
Martin
@M. Bouffant: Yeah, they could have distilled the whole thing down to that sentence. Might as well have told us that Ryan will solve the tax revenue problem by raising the dead and taxing them at 28%.
Evolved Deep Southerner
You would lose my low-information relatives halfway through “thoroughgoing abandonment of the notion of a political commonwealth.”
Martin
@Evolved Deep Southerner: Well, it is Esquire. It’s not like that sentence came out of TV Guide.
b-psycho
@M. Bouffant:
Contradiction. Of. The. Fucking. Century.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
President Obama will never compromise with such scum – Rep. Ryan (R-Reprehensible), prepare to have your ass kicked! This president takes no prisoners, as he has proven time and time again!
.
.
Brazilian Rascal
The old saying “Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs” is a great excuse for people who hate omelettes but just -love- the sound of eggs cracking.
moops
@b-psycho:
and yet I believe he really means it, and thinks it all makes perfect sense.
He sees himself as the kind of politician that Galt could have worked with for a shiny new tomorrow. One that can recognize the ubermensch and divert the resources of society away from the leeches and to the true creators of prosperity.
He even named his proposal the “Road to Prosperity”.
He still literally believes this. Take from the doomed leeches and give to the magic men that spin tax breaks into gold.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ve spent more time than is healthy sparring with an Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan fanboy I met online, and I assure you this stuff would just wash right the fuck over his head. People call objectivism a religion, but Christ, the Catholic Church is more open to change than Ayn Rand’s death cult.
Warren Terra
I’m not a fan of the practice of unsigned, committee-written editorials, as a general principle – they tend to mealymouthedness and lend themselves to High Broderism. Even when they’re done right, as here, the unsigned aspect still isn’t to my liking.
Still, if they’ve chosen to use that method of authorship, I’ve got to give them points for owning it. Naming themselves “The Collective” is pretty damn funny.
jl
@M. Bouffant: Interesting article, but I think it repeats a widespread and pernicious falsehood:
” Every political group claims the Founders as its own, but libertarians have more purchase than most. The American Revolution was a libertarian movement, rejecting overweening government power. The Constitution was a libertarian document that limited the role of the state to society’s most basic needs, like a legislature to pass laws, a court system to interpret them, and a military to protect them. (Though some Founders, like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, wanted to centralize power.) All the government-run trappings that came after—the Fed, highways, public schools, a $1.5 trillion-a-year entitlement system— were arguably departures from our country’s hard libertarian core. ”
Then it shows a picture of a guy on his knees, I would guess a libertarian, going down on Geo Washington.
Really, none of the Founders were anything like today’s libertarians. I think that is just false. A myth, manufactured by libertarians and their reactionary facilitators.
Consider just the illustration. The article mentions Hamilton as an exception to the supposed libertarianism of the Founders, then gives a pic of Washington as if Washington was part of the libertarian ‘core’ of the Founders. Yet, Washington was Hamilton’s main mentor and sponsor in the early federal government, and a very consistent supporter of Hamiltonian policies. Was Hamilton a conman so sophisticated, and Washington a leader so dimwitted that he pulled the wool over Washington’s ideas from his first term until his death? I don’t think so.
Jefferson was assuredly not a libertarian. Jefferson was a majoritarian, with the proviso that majoritarian democracy would only work with enlightened majorities who must have a minimum level of education and civic mindedness.
Jefferson certainly did agree with Franklin that many modern notions of property were social conventions and were not ‘real things’ that could be covered by the fundamental right to private property. That is why Jefferson (agreeing with Adams) thought that banking and insurance services, for example, could be nationalized. Financial property was not the same as real property, for example. Nationalizing financial capital was not really appropriating private property, because debt based financial capital was not really property that any single person or private organization could be said to own, the same way one owned, land, or owned savings out of past income.
Jefferson could be mistaken for a libertarian in the sense that that he felt most government regulation should take place at the state and local level. But modern libertarians are not the same as states’ rights fanatics. Jefferson would have no sympathy at all with the Reason and teaGOPper nonsense over state or local government tyranny in, say, making collective decisions on garbage collection and recycling.
And Franklin was no libertarian in the modern sense at all. Franklin expressed doubts about the idea that a workable society could be based solely on atomistic individuals who would thrive by protecting their rights to this and that, without some consideration for the welfare of society as a whole.
This notion that modern libertarianism has anything much in common with the Founders’ ideas on liberty is just absolutely wrong in my opinion. I think it is a totally bogus myth, that needs to be debunked.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee: I gave up on it. They simply fall back on the whine that their philosophy has never been tried in its truest form. Which of course can only be defined by the individual.
jl
Actually, in a very important sense, Hamilton was closer to modern libertarians in one way. Hamilton did consider debt based financial capital to be ‘real’ property that needed to be protected from government, or lawless private interference. That is the kind of financial capital that modern corporations love to wield like weapons and that modern libertarians fetishize as more important the an ordinary ‘lesser’ person’s physical liberty.
Hamilton, like modern libertarians, was very reluctant to interfere with the peculiar institution of debt based financial capital. But the source for Hamilton’s opinion was not a set of goofy, sophomoric, and incoherent slogans, but utilitarian: his belief that empirically, for society to progress economically, had to find a way to control this kind capital in an economic system that recognized it as property on an equal (or almost equal) footing with other kinds of property.
And come to think of it, the article’s mention of ‘centralization’ (wrt to Hamilton’s and Adam’s departure from libertarianism) seems beside the point. The modern libertarian does not care whether it is local, state or federal government that does the interfering. Both Jefferson and Hamilton would disagree with modern libertarians violently, but the disagreement would simply appear at a different locus of government action for each Founder, national for Hamilton versus state and local for Jefferson.
Comrade Mary
This article is what finally got me to put the Esquire political blog on my browser start-up page. Damn consistent damn fine writing.
Martin
@Yutsano: Libertarianism was tried in its truest form for all of human history save the last 3,000 or so years.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I had heretofore always been amazed at how much people here love to hate Sullivan, and I had always thought it was all just extremely over the top.
Not after today, buddy. Fuck Andrew Sullivan if he has (or ever had) an ounce of respect for Paul Ryan’s poison dogshit.
Y’all were right. As always.
burnspbesq
Dr. K. is en fuego. A visit to his blog is highly recommended.
Yutsano
@Martin: Unpossible. Ayn Rand wasn’t in existence to enlighten the world with the brilliance of her ideas.
@burnspbesq: Link plz and thank you? Oh and have you two wandered over to Wild Ginger? Highly recommended.
KG
To talk about the Founders as some monolithic group is foolish. And the idea that the Constitution is a libertarian document is equally foolish (and I say this as something of a libertarian myself). The Constitution is a whole series of compromises, built out of the political realities that was the Constitutional Convention at a specific time and place.
srv
The clown-car war continues:
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Warren Terra
Oh, and a follow-up to my comment about authorship by “The Collective”: both from the ideas and from the phrasing (“foof”, “St. Francis”) it’s pretty clear that a lot of the writing was done by the inimitable Charlie Pierce, whose writing on any subject but especially politics I am always glad to encounter.
Mark S.
What’s that window called again?
I’m beginning to wonder if our politicians and media are even human any more. It’s like being ruled by aliens.
joeyess
That’s it. After reading this and after careful consideration, I’ve made my decision. I am now and from this point forward, going to refer to the Republican Party as the Donner Party.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: It’s like watching a kitten with a new toy. Krugman is almost orgasmic in his evisceration there. Too bad it won’t get much of a wide audience.
Short Bus Bully
FUCK. YES.
What a great read. Nice to know there is a little bit of sanity out there still.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
A few years ago, we went on a bus excursion to Janesville, Wisconsin. If I remember correctly we were going to see the Lincoln-Tallman House, in which Abraham Lincoln slept for all of two nights. That was the trip Marge Albrechtson had the unfortunate incident on the Lincoln bed.
Anyhow, Gloria Peters and I were dropped off beforehand at St. John Vianney’s for mass, while the others went off to see some library or other.
Congressman Ryan was there with Janna and little Samuel, sitting in the pew in front of us. During the homily, which was about “christian charity and the care of the sick”, the congressman dozed off.
I wasn’t surprised. The priest didn’t have any of the oomph our Father McInerney puts into his sermons. To hear Father Mac ranting about the hellfires and the poking in the buttocks by the little grey Cheney-demons with the little grey hooves is a unique and spiritually uplifting experience.
There was a woman sitting beside us with two little children. I assume her husband was off at war or some such. Her children were both dreadfully dribbly and not particularly pleasant all up. The boy had a tail like a rat’s tail running down his neck and badly needed a wash. He too was nodding off. It was an awful sermon.
The priest was burbling on when there was a sharp breath near my ear, and suddenly Congressman Ryan bolted straight upwards. I looked at Gloria and she was slipping her pen-case blow tube into her pocket. It took her three days to make it, but she can kill a fly with a tic tac from twenty feet.
Ryan turned around, with his face all red, and glared at the stinky little lump of boy, who woke up a little bit and looked back at him with an expression of semi-amiable incomprehension. Ryan squinted at him and sat back and promptly went back to sleep.
Five minutes later, Gloria winked at me and loaded up another tictac. Wham. Right on the tip of the Congressman’s ear. The tictac ricocheted off into the altar area, and Congressman Ryan said “Fuck” in a very loud voice, which woke up everyone, including the priest.
Being a good politician he, of course, waved it off and apologized for having a bad dream, and the mass went on.
Afterwards, there was a little parish tea, to which we were invited as ladies of obvious distinction. It wasn’t much of a spread. Honestly who serves fish paste sandwiches and Tang in this day and age? It was a dead loss until Gloria and I managed to snaffle a bottle of scotch and two glasses out of the parish priest’s office, and installed ourselves in the corner behind an ornamental ficus.
Both Ryan and rat-boy were there as well. I can’t imagine how his rat-mother got an invitation for her and her pustulant brood. Anyway, the congressman was on the hunt as soon as that little blond mullet in the Von Dutch t-shirt walked in.
Ryan pretty much ignored all the other guests as he chattered his was from group to group trying to get to the other side of the room, where the boy was happily munching on a rather mediocre scone. He ducked around the Bishop, bounced off two women in plain shoes who were standing in the middle of the room, and ended up behind our ornamental ficus. Seeing us scared him so much, he let out another almighty “Fuck!” and staggered backwards into a nun.
After he managed to recollect himself, and had apologized again, he stood in a corner for a while, glaring across the room at the bits of the little boy he could see from behind its mother’s legs.
The little boy had worked out by now that Congressman Ryan had it in for him. It was clinging on for dear life to its mother, but she suddenly walked over to us. I’m not sure why. I may have beckoned to her. I can’t recall. Anyway, the kiddy was left all alone in the middle of the room.
Congressman Ryan grinned like a crocodile (well, sort of like a crocodile but without the little teeth picking birds and the reeds and the mud). He launched himself across the room towards the Bishop, who was standing near the wet bar. Ryan’s hand was outstretched as if for a handshake, and his fingers just happened by accident to poke rat-boy right in the eye. Ryan kept on going and was soon chatting to the bishop about abortion, disclaiming all knowledge of how that “poor child” was so grievously injured and trying to fob blame off on the nun.
An ear for an eye, and blame it all on the dribbly proles and the women.
A true republican at heart.
joeyess
Here’s my favorite part:
The clearest case of pull-the-ladder-up-after-your-ascent that I’ve ever seen.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@burnspbesq: Huh. Something about his style suggests he reads BJ. It’s a particular kind of breezy, snarkiness that’s nerdy at the same time.
I sense he’d like to swear more and talk about his pets. Eh, I could be wrong.
You’re right, too. Fuego.
joeyess
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: That is one great story.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Shrill. The term you’re looking for is shrill. Agree with your points otherwise.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: You’re burning the midnight oil, Sarah. Did they get your dosages muddled or too much lapsang souchong?
Deliciously vivid.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: Of course. How daft of me to forget the shrill.
Is the publication of The Pale King of any note among your colleagues?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
I’m typing on my laptop under the covers, while hepped up on honey tea.
I’m vibrating like Newt Gingrich on his fifth honeymoon.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
I am both tired and drugged, so I r not grokking.
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
I saw what you did there.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel:
Porquoi are you drugged, Monsieur Y? Not your hips, I hope.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Sort of hip related. I’ve been having back pains, though Tylenol 3 is helping a lot. So much so that when my prescription runs out I’m seriously considering driving two hours north and buying more. They’ve discussed me getting a pain manager on board with everything else, so that will get me more functional. It’s all connected back to the hips. Kinesiology isn’t just for breakfast anymore!
Will research the book. We tend to discuss the Will Ferrel movie more. The funniest part (at least to me):
is an ITIN. Assigned to legal immigrants and resident aliens. So I could see how that could make one “disappear”.
Anne Laurie
@Warren Terra: I have wondered, based on nothing but the renowned petulance of the Sulzbergers, if perhaps the Boston Globe (a NYTimes property now, alas) doesn’t hold its contributors to a no-writing-for-other-outlets-under-your-own-name clause. Probably mere paranoia on my part, but it would explain why some Esquire contributors might be shy about claiming their rightful due.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: Oh, man. I feel ya. I’ve had two microdiscectomies in the past 10 years. I only have 30% disc material between L4 and L5. Next stop: Fusion. Please, Lord, no.
DFW was one hell of a researcher. IIRC he spent time at the IRS offices in Peoria. My GF is putting together a reading at her bookshop with friends, colleagues and former students reading selections from the new novel and other favorite passages.
Her bookstore was his favorite, he averred on several occasions. I wish you could attend and vouch for the authenticity of his details.
Angry Black Lady
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: oh praise jaysus! you’re back. we need some comedy ’round here.
@anne – there seems to be a lot of loins girding going on. i used the phrase recently, as have several other bloggers i read regularly. is this what the teabillies have reduced us to? having to gird our loins on the regular?
is there elective surgery one can get to permanently gird one’s loins? like eyeliner tattoos?
these are important questions… borne of ginger vodka.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): It’s entirely possible that things will correct once the hips stop being overcompensated, so surgery fortunately is not in the cards. At least not on my back anyway. It’s much more likely on the hips, but I’m still laying the groundwork for all that. In fact you just reminded me that I need to call another hip doc tomorrow to get his opinion on the matter. He’s apparently very experienced in doing things like replacement on younger folks.
@Angry Black Lady: Dammit. You are inspiring me to make homemade ginger ale.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: Take an extra T-3 for me (or for our homies who ain’t wid us, if you prefer). Your avascular necrosis has been on my mind. Take care.
Mark S.
So much fail:
wait for it
You know who else cited the Heritage Foundation?
Mark S.
Hey, this thing works! Thanks PurpleGirl!
Anne Laurie
@Angry Black Lady:
Well, you have to admit it sounds much more Serious & Constructive than ‘put on our big-girl panties’, which means exactly the same thing.
piratedan
is there any possibility that Ryan is related to Otto from A Fish Called Wanda?
Wolfdaughter
@Spaghetti Lee:
There’s a guy over on Salon, calls himself Bruce something something, who is another Randian. His prose is turgid enough to make it difficult to discern his point, but the posts all end with some version of “you peasants are too unenlightened to understand”. He sounds like he’s probably somewhere short of 20. In emotional development, for sure.
Quiddity
@joeyess: That was news to me, that Ryan was helped for years by the Social Security survivor benefits program. I don’t see how anyone could be an Ayn Rand disciple given that experience. Maybe it’s a kind of personal amnesia. For me, the closest parallel would be that I’ve benefited several times from seat belts and air bags. Given that, I would not advocate repeal of legislation that makes them mandatory. But someone engaging in Ryan-think would. That’s so strange.
Valdivia
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Thank you. Bows in your direction and claps. That is all.
soonergrunt
So Paul Ryan is a Randian. Well, the only thing really to say about that was already said by the able John Rogers:
rickstersherpa
@jl: I just finished reading Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington. And of course one thing that came out it was that aside from separation from Great Britain the founders divided among themselves and argued about everything. Washington himself became a through and through nationalist, who adopted Hamilton’s broad reading of the Constitution and would have pretty much rendered the states nullities. But if there was a common ideology, it was the very opposite of the Randian/Libertarian vision, the doctrine of radical Commonwealth Whig which traced back to the English Republican movement of the 17th Century of whom Locke is the most famous, but perhaps Harrington and Sidney were the most influential. And it expected the very opposite of “selfishness” of the leaders of the commonwealth. The whig ideal expected political leaders to demonstrate a virtue and renounce their personal interests and act for the benefit of all. In practice of course, personal interests and the public interests were often confused, but we are talking about the ideal.
One things I find curious about Paul Ryan and his Randism. If any of you have read Atlas Shrug (I did as a teenage boy, I think primarily for the sex scenes which, at the time, I found interesting) you quickly find out that Rand was an atheist who had utter contempt for religion, Christianity in particiular. She felt it was used to create guilt among her Randian superheroes to show generosity and charity to their moocher brethren, rahter than kicking them in the face and stepping on their fingers as they gripped the ledge of life so as to teach them “self-reliance” and to stand-up on their own two feet. Altruism was the one word she hated above all others, and there are several speeches by characters on the subject. Yet Paul Ryan also claims to be a devout Roman Catholic. I know the Church is not popular on this blog, for very good reasons I acknowledge, but really this is an example of Cognitive Dissonance on an epic scale as Rand is all about “selfishness” and the Christian ideal is about “unselfishness.”
Chris
Haven’t read the thread yet, but here’s Krugman (http://www.alternet.org/economy/64931/?page=entire) from a few years ago on the subject of sadism:
Which I suppose feeds into what people said in response to my “emotions” comment – caring and sympathy are feminine and faggy emotions, but harshness and cruelty are treasured masculine virtues.
Onto the comments…
mai naem
Okay I can’t stand Ryan because of his republicanishness etc. but I love the greasy sadist description because everytime I look at Ryan I think of how his hair looks like the kind that some people have which is always disgustingly oily and I don’t mean from hair salon product.
Chris
@Quiddity:
Because it had him relate to Ayn Rand, perhaps? https://balloon-juice.com/2011/01/28/ayn-rand-welfare-queen/
Just Some Fuckhead
@srv:
Another couple billion dollars of bombs oughta turn this thing.
Chris
@jl:
On the subject of the American Revolution and libertarianism:
I realize I’m contributing nothing but quotes here, but there was a pretty good slapdown on Sadly, No! last summer (http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/31610.html) of a troll saying that the Founding Fathers woulda been conservatives because they opposed “big, centralized government.”
Crucial part of slapdown reproduced here:
Skepticat
Now we know how a lady who wants to snare JC can do it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1373655/Tetley-launches-tea-scented-perfume-named-Le-Brew.html?ITO=1490
Chris
@rickstersherpa:
rickstersherpa
Bob Somerby also went to town Tuesday on the meme that came up in several liberal and Democratic MSM reactions, such as Ezra Klein, E.J. Dionne, and Chris Matthews about how Ryan is “smart,” “charming,” and of course “courageous.” To quote from The Daily Howler:
“Can we talk? In advancing his budget plan, Ryan makes himself the greatest darling of oligarchic American power. Ryan is a made man for life; he and his family and friends will never want for much. Whatever one thinks of his budget proposal, it’s hard to know why such a stance would mark a pol as being unusually courageous (screw the poor and middle class, tax cuts for the rich). But this framework is quite common when it comes to the brave honest Ryan—just as it was long required that pundits must cite the troubling dishonesty of President Clinton, then Candidate Gore.” http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh040511.shtml
Somerby is pretty critical of what he calls “career liberals” in the media because of their reluctance to attach names to their criticism for fear they may screw up a good gig. And he has point since you don’t see either Somerby or Kos on the cable shows or Sunday shows, probably because of their run ins with stars such as Matthews and Scarbrough.
On a substantive and political note, I think the one miscalculation that Ryanites and Petersen deficit hawks have made about moving on Medicare first, rather than Social Security, is that even upper middle class people (incomes between $100,000 to 500,000 a year, depending where one lives), who are in their 40s and 50s are going to very uneasy about seeing Medicare done away with. Either through their parents, their family members, friends, or themselves, they have had a personal encounter with a major or possible major medical problem and have seen how amazingly costly modern medicine in America can be. Maybe Tyler Cowen rationally and cooly decide that “well, if I get cancer, I just will go straight to hospice,” but I think he is an exception. I think this group, and this group does have some influence in politics and media, will eventually kill the Medicare proposal.
Just Some Fuckhead
@rickstersherpa: Wow, is he still working the Gore thing into every piece?
Bruce S
Here’s the money-quote on Paul Ryan’s commitment to Ayn Randian sociopathy: “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” – Ryan speaking at a celebration of Atlas Shrugged.
http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-more-paul-ryan-post.html
Sly
@Chris:
Not so much. Within the martial traditions of all cultures there are rather strong emotional cues that reinforce self-sacrifice, whether you’re talking about cultures in which legitimate violence is the preoccupation of the landed elite (feudal or feudal-like societies) or cultures where violence is significantly or entirely proletarianized.
Now you could argue that these cues are manufactured, designed to get people to fight and die for someone else’s land, and make a convincing case. But that wouldn’t address the fact that these cues have been to a great extent very effective in mobilizing populations toward violence, even (and especially) violence on a grand scale. In other words, it may be bullshit, but its bullshit that works.
The anti-altruism of Rand is more or less designed to resonate with selfish pricks who got tired of hiding the fact that they were selfish pricks and tried to turn the fact that they were selfish pricks into a virtue. In a Nietzschean “transvaluation of values” sort of way.
And, appropos of nothing:
Thomas Jefferson, Letters, 1814.
burnspbesq
@rickstersherpa:
“Yet Paul Ryan also claims to be a devout Roman Catholic.”
A lot of self-described “devout Catholics” seem to have forgotten Mathew 25:31-46.
Bruce S
You know, I’ve come to the conclusion that Paul Ryan is a sociopath. His plan is constructed from – not to put too fine a point on it – lies hatched by the Heritage Foundation, and his guiding light, moral center and political mission is a commitment to the doctrines of a crazy woman who preached that government, progressive taxation, et. al. were Evil – literally – and that the only virtue is commitment to one’s self.
I’m not saying he’s necessarily a bad guy on the personal level, but that as an elected official he’s sociopathic Ryan himself has said that his plan isn’t a budget it’s a “cause.” This is bizarre coming from an elected official responsible for putting a budget together – it would worry me if a liberal budget committee chair made such a strange pronouncement. Worse, the core values of his cause are based on a contempt for society and the lone individual’s will to power, while the tactic he’s chosen to promote his agenda is The Big Lie.
I don’t know that it helps anything to point this out, but characters like Ryan are not engaged in civil discourse over ideas but are on a mission to destroy socially-responsive government by any means necessary and “free” an already extremely powerful economic elite, while offering a face to the world that might well be engaging or attractive. Soft-spoken, well groomed, and even charming perhaps to some, but a sociopath nonetheless. Also…have you checked out the vacant stare?
Just saying…
Sly
@burnspbesq:
And Luke 14:13-14. And John 15:13. And Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-35. And 1 Timothy 6:17-18. And 2 Corinthians 8:13-14 and 9:6-8. And on and on and on.
One of the central elements of the New Testament is the establishment of altruism as a cultural norm. Paul in particular would be considered an outright communist by modern standards.
Bruce S
Re Sly’s “apropos of nothing” above I’m cautious when it comes to putting a lot of weight in statements bu the “founding fathers” but as a practical matter and in response to Ryan’s ridiculous fiscal agenda there’s also this from Thomas Jefferson: “a means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
in a letter to James Madison, 1785)
WereBear
Well, not to pick on Jefferson, but one can be “moral about selfishness” if we better ourselves in an Enlightened Way.
Living one’s life in a way that turns our heart into a scorched pebble has very bad consequences down the road.
“Doing good things makes us feel good about ourselves,” can be a Darwinian-type proper feedback mechanism. Altruism, genetics, etc.
Sly
@Bruce S, @WereBear:
I mostly referenced Jefferson to provide a direct contrast to the claim that Jefferson was the most “Randian” of the Founders, and nothing more. And especially not to make the case that there was any moral philosophy that they universally articulated.
WereBear
Indeed. The elevation of sociopathic traits to the same level as true moral values is the most troubling long-term aspect of the Big Media Shilling that is going on.
Chris
@Sly:
Sure, but the people who worship Ayn Rand today will still tell you that her values fit into the fine martial and masculine traditions. Because it’s not about being a prick per se, it’s about showing tough love and not mollycoddling people and building a society where men are men and stand on their own two feet.
Of course it’s horsecrap (or other barnyard substance), but we knew that going in. In this day and age, most of the people rambling on about masculine and martial values have never been near a war zone or anything so unpleasant.
Bob
The dodge that Randians tend to use is that charity will cover for those in need…freely given by people who believe altruism is evil.
Niques
@Bruce S:
Dead eyes. Scott Walker has them, too.
Wolfdaughter
@Bob:
How true! If everyone functioned as a Randian, there would indeed be no charity, and for a short generation, everyone snarling and clawing over bones and scraps while the Galtian overlords celebrate their short-term success. Then the human race would die out because it would be “immoral” to bear or sire and then raise babies.
These idiots never stop to think that you have to be very willing to give up a lot of personal autonomy, spend lots of hours doing things when you might wish to be doing something else, and big bucks, to care for and rear children.
matryoshka
The Milton Friedman legacy: get rid of social spending, deregulate, and privatize. No crying, or the Big Right Hand of the Free Market will give you something to cry about.
Maybe we were a bit hasty in dismissing the humanities from our schools and our culture.