Is it better to encourage the latent fascist tendancies of Ayn Rand acolytes?

@bolwerk You are taking the concrete position that Ayn Rand is exactly who you believe she is and what she stands for. Yours is an opinion.

One must be able to look at an abstract series of phenomenons to be able to see the authoritarian end of Ayn Rand’s philosophies. Her acolytes do not understand the inevitable end of an Objectivist State, as defined by her. They do not see that Blackwater type corporations would end up controlling every pertinent street corner. They do not see that Old Money will control the game forever.

Any fundamentalist system, of any sort, is a crazy system.

I get the feeling this isn’t really a question, but that you’re taking the opportunity to just express your hatred for a certain political people.

My advice: Shake away. The strong will remain and demonstrate their worth. One could argue that democracy has failed just as much as you think libertarian or anarchist societies would fail, when you consider how little say we actually have in our government and way of life.

The good news, for folks like you, is that you’ll never know one way or the other what it would really be like under less government. There will always be a democratic republic (US) keeping us tidy and quiet. You will always be “right” because you have evidence, and anarchist types are never afforded that evidence. You’re getting what you want, so I don’t know what the problem is. Congratulations, you’ve won. Now leave the losers alone to bitch and moan, since that’s all they’re allowed to do.

In other words, why do you care?

I was an Ayn Rand fan in my youth and read all of her books until they were dogeared. As I grew more experienced and left the military, I realized that her opinions were not against authority but against authority that she did not have. She fit right in with Hitler’s master race theories.

Of course Karl Marx was wrong too. Truth is usually in the middle of the extremes. Both Rand’s capitalist-elitist attitude and Marx’s government authority, demand market theories must be mitigated and regulated. Our current economic and political climate show what happens when Libertarian theories get the upper hand. The former U.S.S.R. show what happens when socialism runs a muck.

That is one of the reasons that I don’t think one political party should run the country. Unfortunately, we have too many anti-government members in both parties running and obstructing things. The only compromises currently made are clearly in favor of corporate interests and ignore the citizens.

We need true liberals and true conservatives. The current mix of ⅔ corporatist and one ⅓ liberal elite cannot work. What we need is a clean sweep, term limits, and publicly financed elections.

@Ron_C “Our current economic and political climate show what happens when Libertarian theories get the upper hand.”

What the balls? Our market crisis is from absurd spending, and a seemingly entire lack of regard for fiscal responsibility. That is not the Libertarian way of doing things at all. And what about the political climate? It’s still irrelevant party against irrelevant parties, both of which hate each other and will do all they can to shut the other down, yet when power shifts, nothing seems to change and policies stay the same. The only politician I can even think of that is called Libertarian, isn’t even a Libertarian, and that’s Ron Paul with his paleoconservative message.

This is not a question. It’s an ad-hominem attack on a worldview that you don’t share (and, I’d wager, don’t really understand) and it’s adherants.

@Anon_Jihad Our current crisis traces directly back to Reagan. He robbed the Social Security fund to finance huge tax breaks for the richest Americans. He thought that rich people would invest in U.S. infrastructure and manufacturing instead of trading valueless derivatives and on dot com bubbles. Then he increased military spending to ridiculous levels. Subsequent presidents, of both parties, maintained that fiction, eventually started numerous wars and neglected our own country until we have the state of depression today.

The only thing to do is abandon the “trickle down” myth, abandon the war. Put our troops back to work on infrastructure projects, reinstate banking regulations, and take away incentives for sending manufacturing jobs overseas. We also need to reign in off-shore banking and deal with secret Swiss type bank accounts. If we can’t control our money and bring sanity to investment, we are doomed to becoming a two class society, few rich, most poor.

Ayn Rand has no relevance in real life economics or society, she was a sociopath just as egotistical as any Marxist.