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Post by JonathanE on Mar 13, 2009 20:44:13 GMT -5
I left, but long before Bush. Nixon did it for me. Damn, you're old. ;D I kid, I kid. Damn, I AM old. Experience counts... ;D
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Post by ltfred on Mar 13, 2009 21:00:52 GMT -5
Didn't John Galt and his friends actually, you know, contribute to society first in that novel? Just asking. No. Their employees did all of the work. They just fucked around and stole half the worker's paychecks. Onc they pissed off the rest of society heaved a sigh of relief and got back to doing the work without the good-for-nothing looters stealing their cash. It's something Ayn 'Cthulu' Rand never understood: the Atlas' holding up the world but never being rewarded for their work are members of the working class , not the upper. If I offend any Ayn Randites out there, my purpose wasn't to offend, merely to point out the bankruptcy of her philosophy, simplistic and selfish. Inhuman, actually. They should be offended. In fact, they should be mocked and laughed at. Unendingly. They shouldn't be able to board a bus without being humiliated. Some philosophies are so inerringly wrong and ignorant of normal human emotion (like compassion, heard of that?) that their proponants do not deserve argument. They deserve disgust. Kmers Rouge top the list, followed closely by neo-Confederates, but Randroids are certainly up there. Noam Chomsky got it right when he called Ayn Rand 'the most evil intellectual of the last century'. To a bunch of randroids. An early reviewer also got it right when he said that 'Atlas Shrugged can only be called a novel by greatly devaluing the term'.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 13, 2009 21:56:16 GMT -5
Well, I've always considered the Rand "philosophy" to be awfully simplistic.
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Post by ltfred on Mar 14, 2009 0:08:07 GMT -5
Well, I've always considered the Rand "philosophy" to be awfully simplistic. And wrong.
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Post by devilschaplain2 on Mar 14, 2009 1:36:29 GMT -5
Well it's not the first time conservatives decided to base their views on a work of fiction: As for me, I'm going to base my new political philosophy on Tom Clancy novels, who's with me?
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Post by Death on Mar 14, 2009 4:55:58 GMT -5
No. Their employees did all of the work.
managing and being an engineer is also working. And at the start of the book he was a concientious worker. But he seems to get the who is exploiting who bit arse around.
It's quite funny really , he is made out to be some kind of ingenue that learns the hard way .
But what is really annoying is the assumption that the exploitative upper class are somehow better than the rest of society and crucial to it's welfare.
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Post by darthtoxic on Mar 14, 2009 11:36:14 GMT -5
Before the election I heard quite a few conservatives say they'd leave if the dems won. Well the dems won and they still won't go. To play the devil's advocate, however, a number of liberals - including many celebrities - made a similar claim about leaving in 2000 and 2004 if Bush won. Of those liberal celebrities, only Gore Vidal kept his word; he spent about 6 months winding up his affairs and moved to the southern part of France. Everyone else is still here. A chapter of the NRA even bought George Clooney a one-way bus ticket to Canada to rub it in. Didn't Terry Gilliam give up his U.S. citizenship because of Bush?
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Post by xaria on Mar 14, 2009 12:00:24 GMT -5
on youtube i found a rather amusing series of videos of a liberal going on about his love for ayn rands work and using her work to assault conservatives.
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Post by xaria on Mar 14, 2009 12:02:53 GMT -5
Didn't Terry Gilliam give up his U.S. citizenship because of Bush? i thought you couldnt give up US citizenship once you have it. i remember a friend on another forum complaining about that- he moved from the US to the UK and didnt want to go back ever but they wouldnt let him become all-british.
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Post by Death on Mar 14, 2009 13:08:15 GMT -5
Didn't Terry Gilliam give up his U.S. citizenship because of Bush? i thought you couldnt give up US citizenship once you have it. i remember a friend on another forum complaining about that- he moved from the US to the UK and didnt want to go back ever but they wouldnt let him become all-british. You can and it's not that difficult. Just go to the embassy and say that you want to formally renounce your citizenship. It's a legal procedure much like the naturalisation process in reverse. I expect they prolly talked him out of it, telling him he'll lose all the wonderful privileges that no other country could possibly ever provide..
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Post by Tiger on Mar 14, 2009 19:15:31 GMT -5
To play the devil's advocate, however, a number of liberals - including many celebrities - made a similar claim about leaving in 2000 and 2004 if Bush won. I do remember seeing something back in early 2005 about how emigration to Canada was up since November. But yeah, the whole "I'm leaving" thing is rarely anything but bluster. As for me, I'm going to base my new political philosophy on Tom Clancy novels, who's with me? I (subconsciously) did that when I was 14. I doubt it's actually all that rare. I've seen posters on RR seriously take Rainbow Six as representative of the environmentalist movement, and Tom's pro-torture, pro-war, black-and-white worldview pretty much sums up Republican foreign policy.
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Post by devilschaplain2 on Mar 14, 2009 21:20:22 GMT -5
Oh shit.....um......how about "Moby Dick" instead?
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Post by Angel Kaida on Mar 15, 2009 10:58:22 GMT -5
Nope, sorry, I base my life philosophy on Moby Dick. Well, I haven't read it, but from what I've heard, it's kinda close... actually, never mind, let's go with Reanimator (not the racist parts though).
It should be noted, for those opponents of Ayn Rand saying that the upper class is holding up the world - her world was a highly romanticised one, where the people at the top are actually decent, intelligent human beings who do significant work and understand and care about the inner workings of the companies they own, whose workers are well paid and enjoy their work, who oppose corporate shenanigans wherever they see them. It's quite obvious to everyone ever that the novel wasn't meant to reflect reality, and I'd say the fact that most of the heroes of the novel are in the upper class is likely more a necessary part of the plot than anything else. For those who are slightly more familiar with her work, you'll note that Roark was not a member of the upper class. And it's interesting to note that the major antagonists in AS are also members of the upper class.
Also, UGH, neocons! GTFO my Ayn Rand! Your socially conservative, corporate-welfare-paying, war-mongering asses are not welcome in my Gulch!
Also, ITT, ltfred pretends he's read a book that he clearly hasn't actually read, or hasn't the memory to recount correctly. Up to your usual standard, so I can't say I'm disappointed in you, pfc.
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Post by darthtoxic on Mar 17, 2009 7:33:17 GMT -5
Nope, sorry, I base my life philosophy on Moby Dick. Well, I haven't read it, but from what I've heard, it's kinda close... actually, never mind, let's go with Reanimator (not the racist parts though). Lulz, just the other day I was telling my girlfriend about the racism in the stories that was (obviously) absent from the film, and how it made my respect for Lovecraft drop a good ways. He was still an awesome writer though.
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Post by booley on Mar 17, 2009 8:12:07 GMT -5
Lulz, just the other day I was telling my girlfriend about the racism in the stories that was (obviously) absent from the film, and how it made my respect for Lovecraft drop a good ways. He was still an awesome writer though. Yeah Lovecraft was racist. I used to think he was just a victim of his times but eventually it's become clear that he was overly racist even by the standards of that era. But I still love his writings and anything Lovecraftian. Since I was never looking to his stories a s a guide to life (Cthulhu help us if they were supposed to be) I can think the man is a choad when it came to race and still love his work. I do the same with Michael Chrichton or Arnold Swarzeneger. Besides which it's fun to prosetylize Cthulhu to a fundie and let them think you are being serious.
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