Randroids: Where Is Your God Now? Ayn Rand Accepted Social Security and Medicare

[Lemur]

The research looks solid, even if the writing is a bit purple. The high priestess of selfishness, the woman who declared that all taxation was theft and all public welfare evil ... well, do as I says, not as I does, yes?

Thus proving the quote: "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. "

This kinda makes me want to go back and play Bioshock.

[drone]

I guess the big question is: Did she receive back from the government less or equal to what she put in (compounded interest aside), or did she take out more? As one of the comments said, if she thought SS/Medicare taxes were theft, why shouldn't she try to recoup that which was stolen from her?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

But it's just ad hom :(

And kind of like writing an article called "Osama Bin Laden: bad dresser?"

[Lemur]

And kind of like writing an article called "Osama Bin Laden: bad dresser?"

That makes sense on no level at all, even as a criticism of the writing. Has OBL been going on and on about the evils of bad dressing? Has he targeted Project Runway and declared a fatwa against haute couture? Please reference where hordes of glassy-eyed followers of OBL have railed on in public against the evils of high fashion.

I get that you don't like the article, and think it's irrelevant. But your summary of why it's irrelevant is nonsensical.

[I]f she thought SS/Medicare taxes were theft, why shouldn't she try to recoup that which was stolen from her?

Nonsense. Her money, the money that was forcibly taken at gunpoint from her, was long gone by the time she was in her seventies. By accepting SS/Medicare she was robbing some young, productive worker, and perpetuating the exact evil she railed against for her entire public life. How could she push the objectivist agenda forward if every worker intended to "recoup" their "investment" in social security? Her whole point was that there is no investment, just a three-card monty game of shift the dollars from the productive, good people, to the unproductive untermenschen.

There is no way to spin this into a positive.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

She had ideas about stuff which can (and have been) criticized. Her own faults aren't what make her ideas bad, and focusing on her is an ad hom argument.

And, given the content of her theories, criticizing her for hypocrisy seems like a weak option, similar to criticizing bin laden for something other than terrorism (I tried for like a minute to think of a good example and got tired, but it works ok).

[Lemur]

She had ideas about stuff which can (and have been) criticized. Her own faults aren't what make her ideas bad, and focusing on her is an ad hom argument.

So by this logic, if a man who spends his life lecturing on child safety and development turns out to be a serial pedophile, this is irrelevant and ad hominem? We should take his ideas of childhood at face value? Please.

And, given the content of her theories, criticizing her for hypocrisy seems like a weak option, similar to criticizing bin laden for something other than terrorism

She wrote at length about the evils of charity and public welfare. She posited that taking from the productive and giving it to worthless peopel such as widows and war veterans was parisitism and derisible. She preached selfishness as the ultimate good. So you don't see any connection, and cognitive dissonance between her accepting public welfare at the end of her life and her entire life's work? Really? Don't be coy.

[PanzerJaeger]

As is often true, it is far easier to attack the messenger than the message itself. In this case, it is much simpler to obsess over the finances of an old lady than address her points, which become more and more prescient as America's unfunded entitlement obligations balloon.

This is an interesting example of the insidious nature of entitlements, though. One is almost always put at a social disadvantage by not taking them, thus ensuring their growth. If everyone is getting their healthcare paid for by the government and putting that money into investments, how long can the ideologically opposed hold out? The results are clear enough - massive unfunded entitlements that cannot be touched by elected officials as everyone is on the dole.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[HoreTore]

So..... Its actually the interest that's killing you, not the government programs?

Raise the tqxes then. Its your patriotic duty to buy your country back from the chinese.

Cutting spending is nonsensical, why on earth should the challenged of today pay because yesterdays rich didn't care to think about paying for what they've bought? If that's not a scam, I don't know how else to define the word.

[drone]

Nonsense. Her money, the money that was forcibly taken at gunpoint from her, was long gone by the time she was in her seventies. By accepting SS/Medicare she was robbing some young, productive worker, and perpetuating the exact evil she railed against for her entire public life. How could she push the objectivist agenda forward if every worker intended to "recoup" their "investment" in social security? Her whole point was that there is no investment, just a three-card monty game of shift the dollars from the productive, good people, to the unproductive untermenschen.

She preached selfishness as the ultimate good.

And she was just being selfish trying to get it back.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So by this logic, if a man who spends his life lecturing on child safety and development turns out to be a serial pedophile, this is irrelevant and ad hominem?

Focusing on his pedophilia would be an ad hominem argument. Whether it is relevant depends on what we are talking about, I actually don't know why you brought relevance into this since it's fairly pointless to talk about relevance is some unspecified general way.

We should take his ideas of childhood at face value? Please.

An ad hominem argument rejects the ideas based on something other than the ideas themselves. Objecting to an ad hominem argument suggests that we should do the opposite of taking someone's ideas at face value.

She wrote at length about the evils of charity and public welfare. She posited that taking from the productive and giving it to worthless peopel such as widows and war veterans was parisitism and derisible. She preached selfishness as the ultimate good. So you don't see any connection, and cognitive dissonance between her accepting public welfare at the end of her life and her entire life's work? Really? Don't be coy.

It's all relevant to the ad hominem, yes. And the ad hominem is relevant to itself I suppose, like I said it's fairly pointless to talk about relevance is some sort of general unspecified way.

She preached that selfishness was the ultimate good. That is so incredibly open to criticism that I can't see why anyone would bother focusing on her. If she hadn't accepted social security, would that say something significant about whether selfishness was the ultimate good? I think it would be just as wrong.

More generally, it is very common that we know what is right, and say to other people what is right, and don't do it ourselves. This makes hypocrisy a fairly useless ad hominem to make. People preach morals that are right, and don't live up to them, that doesn't make them not right. And in this case she was preaching one that wasn't right, and didn't live up to it. That doesn't say anything about whether it was wrong or right.

Criticizing ideas directly is a lot more worthwhile.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Don't worry Lemur, I for one do understand a PETA high priest should not wear fur, even to protect against the cold.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Criticizing ideas directly is a lot more worthwhile.

Mostly when indirectness is used as an evasive measure, or for lack of focus.


Howere, all those ideas themselves - taxes, government spending - are directly discussed ad infinitum right here on the .org. Bringing up Randgate thus serves not as a distraction, an evasion, but as a means of carrying on the debate by unconventional means, thus keeping it fresh.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Nonsense. Her money, the money that was forcibly taken at gunpoint from her, was long gone by the time she was in her seventies. By accepting SS/Medicare she was robbing some young, productive worker, and perpetuating the exact evil she railed against for her entire public life. How could she push the objectivist agenda forward if every worker intended to "recoup" their "investment" in social security? Her whole point was that there is no investment, just a three-card monty game of shift the dollars from the productive, good people, to the unproductive untermenschen.

There is no way to spin this into a positive.

Nonsense? The government took her money with the threat of force and promised to hold on to it until she retired. The fact that the money was actually gone is due to the lies of the government.

And the whole thing is, as Sasaki said, an ad-hominem argument.

I'm no Randian, but this certainly hasn't swayed me in any direction.

CR

[Lemur]

As is often true, it is far easier to attack the messenger than the message itself.

Any ideology can sound great on paper. How it works in the real world is the measure of an idea, and from what I've seen, Randroids do horrible things and then tell themselves it's okay 'cause they're special. As did their messiah and prophet. "By their fruits shall ye know them" springs to mind.

I'm no Randian, but this certainly hasn't swayed me in any direction.

And in which direction were you hoping to be swayed?

[Strike For The South]

Objectivism is like communism for the upper middle class

It sounds REALLY great when you have a support system and even better when that support system has money.

And like communism it could never be implemented, the few at the top would consolidate power and then bleed the little guy when they screw up (Good thing that hasn't happened.)

[Crazed Rabbit]

And in which direction were you hoping to be swayed?

In a clockwise direction.

I never cared for the complete lack of human compassion in objectivism.

CR