Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin claims he has a “knack for numbers.” Not long ago, he unveiled his GOP budget proposal titled “Path to Prosperity.” Rachel Maddow criticized members of the media for their fawning coverage of Ryan and his
financial “magnum opus.” Said Maddow: “If the Beltway media could stop making out with Paul Ryan for long enough to look at what’s actually in his budget proposal, they might notice that some of the important numbers in it appear to be made up.” She added: “I doubt that actual numerically based fact based information will penetrate the smoochy smoochy love bubble surrounding Paul Ryan right now…there’s this cult of him being brave and bold and doing this difficult workout every morning. What he’s just introduced is not a feature on grit versus glamour in today’s GOP. It is not a pinup. It is not the brave story of a strong boy in a tough environment. It’s the official Republican Party budget for 2012, and the numbers in it are so wrong they are occasionally funny.”
Anne Lowrey summarizes Ryan’s proposal in an article in Slate titled Model Misbehavior: Why Paul Ryan’s budget numbers don’t add up: “Tax cuts to wealthy Americans foster prosperity that moves millions of (less wealthy) Americans back to work, with increasing wages. High earnings and employment bolster tax revenue. When combined with huge cuts in domestic spending and radical changes to Medicaid and Medicare, the budget balances out in about 20 years.” Lowrey goes on to explain, however, that Ryan’s plan relied on numbers provided by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis—which have been exposed “as a bit fantastical.”
Harold Meyerson wrote the following about Ryan’s budget proposal: “The cover under which Ryan and other Republicans operate is their concern for the deficit and national debt. But Ryan blows that cover by proposing to reduce the top income tax rate to just 25 percent. He imposes the burden for reducing our debt not on the bankers who forced our government to spend trillions averting a collapse but on seniors and the poor. The reductions in aid to the poor, says the budget blueprint that Ryan released, will be made ‘to ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.’ That’s a pretty good description of America’s top bankers, but Ryan’s budget showers them with tax cuts.”
Ryan claims his budget proposal is a “compassionate” one—but Pat Garofalo begs to differ. Garofalo says that the “Path to Prosperity” would “double health care costs for seniors, endanger vital Medicaid services, and likely increase taxes on the middle-class to finance tax cuts for the rich.”
E. D. Kain thinks that Ryan’s budget is not serious one. He says that it’s ideological—and suspects “that its intention is to shift the debate and make the Ryan budget the leaping off point for further budgets.”
There are many who would agree that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” is indeed based on ideology. One might ask what the ideological foundation of his thinking was when he prepared the 2012 GOP budget.
Jonathan Chait provides us with an explanation of why Ryan’s budget helps those at the very top while hurting the middle class and the less fortunate in his Newsweek article titled War on the Weak: How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers. In the article, Chait wrote about what has motivated both Paul Ryan and the Tea Party:
“In fact, the two streams—the furious Tea Party rebels and Ryan the earnest budget geek—both spring from the same source. And it is to that source that you must look if you want to understand what Ryan is really after, and what makes these activists so angry.
“The Tea Party began early in 2009 after an improvised rant by Rick Santelli, a CNBC commentator who called for an uprising to protest the Obama administration’s subsidizing the “losers’ mortgages.” Video of his diatribe rocketed around the country, and protesters quickly adopted both his call for a tea party and his general abhorrence of government that took from the virtuous and the successful and gave to the poor, the uninsured, the bankrupt—in short, the losers. It sounded harsh, Santelli quickly conceded, but “at the end of the day I’m an Ayn Rander.”
“Ayn Rand, of course, was a kind of politicized L. Ron Hubbard—a novelist-philosopher who inspired a cult of acolytes who deem her the greatest human being who ever lived. The enduring heart of Rand’s totalistic philosophy was Marxism flipped upside down. Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites.”
A couple of weeks ago, Tom Ashbrook moderated a discusson about Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan on his radio program On Point with Jonathan Chait, senior editor at The New Republic, Anne C. Heller, journalist and author of “Ayn Rand and the World She Made,” and Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. The program was titled Ayn Rand’s Resurgence. In his summary of the program, Ashbrook wrote: “The American budget battle so far is really a battle of ideals. And at the back of a vocal chorus on the Republican/Tea Party right sits the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand.” Ashbrook and his guests talked about “what it means to have “Atlas Shrugged” in the middle of the budget debate.”
Click here to listen to the program.
In an article for The New Republic, Jonathan Chait wrote more about Ryan, his budget, and Ayn Rand:
Ryan would retain some bare-bones subsidies for the poorest, but the overwhelming thrust in every way is to liberate the lucky and successful to enjoy their good fortune without burdening them with any responsibility for the welfare of their fellow citizens. This is the core of Ryan’s moral philosophy:
“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 said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” …
At the Rand celebration he spoke at in 2005, Ryan invoked the central theme of Rand’s writings when he told his audience that, “Almost every fight we are involved in here on Capitol Hill … is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict–individualism versus collectivism.”
The core of the Randian worldview, as absorbed by the modern GOP, is a belief that the natural market distribution of income is inherently moral, and the central struggle of politics is to free the successful from having the fruits of their superiority redistributed by looters and moochers.
There is no doubt that Ryan has been impressed by the words and works of novelist/philosopher Rand. He declared his admiration for her in Facebook videos that he posted in 2009.
Facebook Videos Posted by Paul Ryan
Ayn Rand’s Relevance in 2009
Ayn Rand & 2009 America, Part 2
The Truth about GOP Hero Ayn Rand (Think Progress)
So there you have it—a GOP budget proposal for 2012 brought to you by Rep. Paul Ryan, acolyte and admirer of Ayn Rand. It’s a “path to prosperity” for those who are already prosperous.
SOURCES
War on the Weak: How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers. (Newsweek)
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand (The New Republic)
Rachel Maddow Tears Into Beltway Media For Paul Ryan Budget Coverage (Huffington Post)
Who’s hurt by Paul Ryan’s budget proposal (Washington Post)
Model Misbehavior: Why Paul Ryan’s budget numbers don’t add up (Slate)
Paul Ryan’s ‘Compassionate’ Budget Would Gut The Food Safety Net (Think Progress)
Paul Ryan And The Republican Vision (The New Republic)
The Man Behind Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan Got the Tax Cuts Wrong, Too (The Atlantic)
Paul Ryan’s Budget Proposal Would Increase Public Debt Relative To Extending Current Law (Think Progress)
Paul Ryan’s Multiple Unicorns (New York Times)
What’s wrong with Paul Ryan’s budget? (Washington Examiner)
Tea Party Embraces Ayn Rand (Frum Forum)
nailed it, HenMan
and she looks like a demented peter pan
HenMan:
I do like your reductionist explanations. Pure genius.
Ayn Rand= Novelist> Philosopher> Slut> Rejected Slut> Embarrassed Slut> Angry Slut> Vindictive Slut> Anachronism> Irrelevant> Forgotten. R.I.P.
BIL:
I have an unfair advantage in the Joseph Priestley department. He was the subject of my senior thesis many years ago and a fascinating yet remarkably humble man. It’s easy to remember when you’re immersed in the mans life. Historian, scholar, chemist, theologian, political scientist, religious dissenter, clergyman, grammarian, philosopher, discoverer of oxygen, he was the Da Vinci of his age. Plus who can forget a man who quite courageously confronted his own rather minuscule shortcomings when he said, “I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.”
Amen, Rev. Priestley. Amen.
fuguewriter
This disproves your point of view. Once again: it could not have
happened without fiat currency
==========================================================
what would your suggestion be, base it on a metal? the california gold rush and the nevada comstock mines altered the price of silver and the u.s. had to change the weight of its coinage.
at the rate we’re digging into the earths crust and/or cataloging asteroids one good find could bankrupt or at least undermine the worlds economy.
a fiat currency, if properly regulated, provides flexability and stability.
mespo,
Got to love that Twain.
There was no concession, just another demonstration of your stupidity. But now, on to your ridiculous rebuttal . . . which is oddly enough couched in you initially claiming victory for no apparent reason again . . .
“Then you admit that the government lied, and affirm that it is a thieving agency. Quite a concession. Separate, discrete contributions and a regular accounting statement showing one’s contributions and government’s pledged recoup amounts don’t make your case stronger. Besides, why would the government offer “aid” to those who were reasonably well-off? Rand was doing fine and was not destitute”
I admitted no such thing and in fact proved that the government has the legal power to tax. It also has the legal power to spend those tax dollars on the common good. You make up whatever answer it is you want instead of the ones given apparently.
“False. That question was not raised. The question was: was Rand a hypocrite? I demonstrated that she was not. The truth or falsity of her ethical arguments regarding government are quite separate.”
Whether you raise a question directly or not does not negate that you are committing the logical fallacy of begging the question. The question was Rand a hypocrite and the answer is yes and I’ll stand by the earlier assessment as to why.
“> not only legal
Talk about begging the question, if the question be raised.”
You question the legality of taxes, falsely equating them to theft, and I showed you in the Constitution where Congress has the specific power to tax. That’s not begging the question. That’s kicking your ass.
“> essential funding mechanism of government since the invention of government
A deeply conservative argument. Rand was clearly too progressive for you.”
Hardly. Rand is too simplistic and evil for me is a more accurate statement. All governments operate off of taxation. There are none, I repeat NONE, that do not tax. Just like a lever requires a fulcrum, governments require taxes. It’s the basic mechanic: communal action to guarantee safety and other benefits funded by communal monies. Communal monies that are collected and called “taxes”. It’s simply the way things are, but if you think being in denial about a fundamental structural fact of a thing is “progressive”, then maybe you should take up basket weaving because a refusal to recognize reality in the face of overwhelming evidence (in this case, all of recorded human history) is called “delusion” in psychiatric circles.
“> Since social programs are … altruism
Not by Rand’s definition: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html . You’re confusing categories, besides; “altruism” is a category of individual ethical choice, not purported government intent. (You’re wrong even there. Politicians use then to influence the electorate. Study the history of the founding of Social Security. Even you cannot be so out of focus as to think that politicians, like Bismarck, uphold welfare programs out of empathic goodness.) Your argument, based in ignorance of Rand’s system, fails.”
You making up terms to suit your argument isn’t going to change that social programs are by their very nature social altruism designed to address problems in society and that the power to tax and spend for these purposes is legal. The ignorance here is entirely yours. I proved she was a hypocrite by using her own words. Deal with it or be in denial, I’ll let the original argument stand.
“> as an objectivist.
Another fail. I’m not an Objectivist.”
If you are not that which you act like, then what are you? Simply stupid? (That was a rhetorical question.)
“> The faulty premise here is that altruism is evil rather than a survival trait.
Again, you are ignorant of Rand’s views”
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” – Ayn Rand. If altruism is not moral then it must be by definition immoral or amoral and therefor evil and/or undesirable in the view of Rand. That altruism is a special survival trait is well documented by biologists along with other cooperative behaviors. That you are ignorant of the science is simply your problem.
“> Lawful taxation”
Oh, I’m quite familiar with natural rights versus legal rights. A familiarity that doesn’t change that taxation is still both necessary as an operation of government and lawful according to the Constitution.
“>> ‘of society’ is not in the Constitution, bub.”
> Really?
Show me where is says “of society” or concede you’re ignorant of the Constitution as well.”
Laws a made to apply to societies, half-wit. The original argument stands.
“> Madison and Jefferson were influenced by utilitarianism found in the writings of John Locke and John Stuart Mill.”
mespo is correct, my typo. I was indeed thinking Joseph Priestly. That very same typo cost me 5 points on an exam one time, mespo. I blame the actor Jason Priestly. He and that stupid show of his caused some kind of brain lock against Joseph.
“> Hating the selfish, the venal and the generally sociopathic is no vice.
But since Raqnd was not selfish (in your meaning)”
Oh, but she is selfish in how I mean it:
selfish\ˈsel-fish\, adj.,
1: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
2: arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others
She wrote “The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism” in 1964, a collection of essays and papers by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden about how great it is being a self-centered egoist. You know, someone who acts out of concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others. Or maybe you don’t.
“> the social compact
Which does not exist.”
Really? It’s only the foundation of all legal systems, well accepted by the Founders including Madison and Jefferson and was the centerpiece of the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. In fact, Locke’s notion of the social compact is found in the Declaration of Independence, a document not just unique in content but unique in specifically stating the social compact terms by which this country was founded. Just because you don’t believe in it or understand it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
“> I hate Hitler
Godwin!”
Not Godwin. Argument by analogy as both Rand and Hitler promoted evil concepts. I didn’t call objectivists Nazis. That would be Godwin. First – obejectivists don’t have the balls to be Nazis and second – it’s a fair comparison since both of their ideologies hinge upon Übermenschen and Untermenschen.
Then the rest of what you say is pure drivel not worth addressing.
Wow.
I sure am glad I waited for that “reply”, Fugue State.
It was the very definition of sound and fury signifying nothing . . . except perhaps you’re own woefully inadequate skills at argument.
My 7:04 PM rebuttal stands as is, your twaddle reply notwithstanding. If you want to think otherwise? You knock yourself out there, Fug-ie. I’m not talking to you anyway, but rather around you.
Seriously . . . if that’s your “A” game in argument? Don’t quit your day job and never try to represent yourself in court. That was just sad.
“Fact is, she [Ayn Rand] was an ethicist who made the non-initiation of force and the respecting of individual, *natural* rights the centerpiece of her social philosophy.”
****************
“In Rand’s biocentric ethics moral behavior is judged in relation to achieving specific ends with the final end being an individual’s life or flourishing. The act of deciding necessitates the investigation of how an action pertains to what is best for one’s own life. This is not done in a duty-based ethic that is limited to precepts and rules. In a duty-oriented ethical system rules or duties are placed between a person and reality. In a biocentric ethics what is moral is the understood and the chosen rather than the imposed and the obeyed. Principles are valuable ethical concepts that do not require imperatives or obligations as their justification.
Altruist moralities hold that morality is painful and difficult and involves ideas such as self-abnegation and self-sacrifice. Contrariwise, an egoist morality, such as the one found in Objectivism, maintains that morality is natural, attractive, and enjoyable.”
~Professor Edward Younkins, “Ayn Rand’s Ethics.”
Ms. Rand philosophy is essentially egoism. She finds no use for compassion, empathy, or anything except exacting justice as defined by her concepts of value, and self-fulfillment as defined by the person. William F. O’Niell in his scholarly critique, With Charity Towards None, makes the best analysis, but I’m partial to Mark Twain’s indictment of Objectivism, “What is Man?” You can read it here:
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-whatisman.htm
An excerpt:
“Old man: That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number of qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate, Charity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach misleading MEANINGS to the names. They are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them that they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at all–Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man’s every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it we owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still. We ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered.”
(…)
“Young man: Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been taught that he is the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes it; in all the ages he has never doubted it, whether he was a naked savage, or clothed in purple and fine linen, and civilized. This has made his heart buoyant, his life cheery. His pride in himself, his sincere admiration of himself, his joy in what he supposed were his own and unassisted achievements, and his exultation over the praise and applause which they evoked–these have exalted him, enthused him, ambitioned him to higher and higher flights; in a word, made his life worth the living. But by your scheme, all this is abolished; he is degraded to a machine, he is a nobody, his noble prides wither to mere vanities; let him strive as he may, he can never be any better than his humblest and stupidest neighbor; he would never be cheerful again, his life would not be worth the living.”
I find these very fine summaries of the two competing positions.
Madison and Jefferson were influenced by utilitarianism found in the writings of John Locke and John Stuart Mill.
**********************
I suspect Buddha meant John Locke and Joseph Priestley both of whom greatly influenced not only Madison and Jefferson but J.S. Mill as well. The point is still the same.
rafflaw,
“Prof. Irwin Corey made much more sense than Ayn Rand.”
Are you trying to annoy poor fuguewriter? For shame!
Buddha,
Well, you dun it! You put a bee in fuguewriter’s bonnet.
Elaine,
Prof. Irwin Corey made much more sense than Ayn Rand.
[ [ pt 3, and final ]
> Madison and Jefferson were influenced by utilitarianism found in the writings of John Locke and John Stuart Mill.
You now expose yourself to mocking laughter. Take a look at the birth date of John Stuart Mill. As for Locke, he was a natural rights man as well. Jefferson was full of warnings of the danger of the mob and of abrogating the rights of individuals.
> Hating the selfish, the venal and the generally sociopathic is no vice.
But since Raqnd was not selfish (in your meaning), venal, and “generally sociopathic,” your hatred comes from other sources.
> the social compact
Which does not exist.
> I hate Hitler
Godwin!
Your ignorance of Objectivists is par for the rest of your course. There’s much to criticise about [some of] them, but what you say here is probably serving the function of horror-movie thrills, plus a sense of moral supreriority. If Objectivists were characteristically sociopathic murderers and rapists and such, I might entertain your conclusions if not your fals premises. But they don’t. If anything, they tend to be dweeby and mild, far too much so. Rand herself was quite the opposite of a sociopath. Plenty to criticise about her personally, but that’s quite beside the point here. Fact is, she was an ethicist who made the non-initiation of force and the respecting of individual, *natural* rights the centerpiece of her social philosophy. Your twaddle about some kind of transcendent tribe is chaff in the wind, comparatively.
> I hate killers and pedophiles too.
Wow, you’re so daring.
> Enemies of civilization deserve no less.
What a shame that your advocated system has led to the cracking apart of things we observe all around us. Clearly, then, you suffer from self-hate.
> I now return you to your natural state, fugue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue
I never left.
[ end. ]
[ pt 2 ]
> as an objectivist.
Another fail. I’m not an Objectivist.
> The faulty premise here is that altruism is evil rather than a survival trait.
Again, you are ignorant of Rand’s views: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html .
> Lawful taxation
You are unfamiliar with the very basis of the school of thought to which Rand belongs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights#Natural_rights_theories
Again, you are demonstrating the danger of identifying the legal with the moral. (If there’s no morals, then on what shall law be based? Pure democratic vote? Dangerous.)
>> ‘of society’ is not in the Constitution, bub.”
> Really?
Show me where is says “of society” or concede you’re ignorant of the Constitution as well.
[ cont. ]
Buddha Who Emitted A Pile of Bullshit –
Thank you for your concession. To complete this demonstration of the psychological dynamics of BS’ing, onanistic time-wasters, I’ll post (in parts) the answer I can clearly see up above. Have fun flinging poo at one other.
***
fuguewriter
1, May 10, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Buddha Is Typing Way Much –
Then you admit that the government lied, and affirm that it is a thieving agency. Quite a concession. Separate, discrete contributions and a regular accounting statement showing one’s contributions and government’s pledged recoup amounts don’t make your case stronger. Besides, why would the government offer “aid” to those who were reasonably well-off? Rand was doing fine and was not destitute.
> Petitio principii
False. That question was not raised. The question was: was Rand a hypocrite? I demonstrated that she was not. The truth or falsity of her ethical arguments regarding government are quite separate.
> not only legal
Talk about begging the question, if the question be raised. You’re on mighty dangerous ground here in identifying what is moral with what is legal. Shall we Godwin this early?
> essential funding mechanism of government since the invention of government
A deeply conservative argument. Rand was clearly too progressive for you.
> Since social programs are … altruism
Not by Rand’s definition: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html . You’re confusing categories, besides; “altruism” is a category of individual ethical choice, not purported government intent. (You’re wrong even there. Politicians use then to influence the electorate. Study the history of the founding of Social Security. Even you cannot be so out of focus as to think that politicians, like Bismarck, uphold welfare programs out of empathic goodness.) Your argument, based in ignorance of Rand’s system, fails. And considering the horrific entitlement bomb hurtling our way – how much more than $100trillion is it? – and the absolute unsustainability of the system, it’s not even sustainable “altruism.” As Rand and others warned for decades, the poor are going to do a lot worse under a bankrupt Federal government. Hobbling or destroying the economy is not compassionate.
So your construct fails. No hypocrisy. Truth is, you don’t know Rand. You have a general emotive understanding of her as some kind of “Machiavellian” ogre who purportedly hated welfare and welfare recipients, and all else is rationalization. The crowing about her hypocrisy is as ill-informed as it is pervasive on the net.
[cont.]
Still formulating an answer you are now going to try to post-date or are you truly flummoxed by your own stupidity?
Neither.
Laughter.
You do know nothing ever comes out of moderation here, right?
Elaine M. –
Unable to reply to *simple* economic reasoning. 🙂
Buddha was Bullshitting –
Your practice insults don’t even reach my back to roll off it, so save the keystrokes.
Wager, or concession.
Sudden attack of cowardice?