The Future IS Bright After All.
Posted by LetsShrug 13 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
I am happy to announce that I am officially over being depressed about the election and it's dismal results. For about 48 hours I was depressed, sad, stunned and, yes, scared even. Once I realized that the country I grew up in is gone I also realized a few other things. One of them being that you can't wake the dead. What do I mean by that? Well, I've spent that last 4 years trying, desperately to figure out how to wake-up my liberal friends about the dangers of Obama, the people he surrounds himself with and the policies he's put into play (not to mention the looming debt ---16 trillion, last time I looked--- that he's rung up also, but that might actually be a silver lining to the dark cloud hanging over us, but I'll get to that in a bit.)
I have studied, read, listened, researched and soaked up every bit of information I could get my eyes and hands on to understand this in a way that I could simply convey to my “friends” that I wanted to help me save this country. We talked about much, but in the end, it changed nothing. They simply bought into what was easiest to do and what sounded more pleasant to their ears. Free healthcare DOES have a nice ring to it (to those who realize it isn't FREE at all, it's nothing more than destructive). Knowing the government wants to provide a safety net (ie: welfare, bankruptcy protection, wic, food stamps, free schools, free lunches, etc etc) for anyone who falls on hard times (or simply makes bad choices and decisions, or is just plain lazy and wants to be taken care of by someone else) sounds like a good idea too. So, in the end they voted for Obama on account of him being so caring and understanding and just plain “giving”. He wasn't saying things like, “We want to get people off of food stamps and the way there is to make sure businesses can thrive and hire and make more jobs so people can find work and be self sufficient.”, because that sounds more like hard work and who wants to work hard when things are already hard? When people need help they should get help, right? Why punish them even more? Instead, punishing the rich people (the business owners, the job creators) sounded like the better option to the liberals. Tax those the evil, selfish rich people (who make jobs and tax revenue which pays for and makes all the “free stuff” possible...) TAX THEM MORE!
The reason I am no longer depressed and sad is because I've realized one more thing. I am out numbered and there's no way to win when you're outnumbered. Which means I no longer have to try and talk sense into my liberal “friends”. It means I don't even have to talk to them at all, ever again. They are a lost cause. They are the problem. They are the ones trying to destroy ME, by voting for someone who will raise my taxes (by ending the Bush era tax cuts)...((it will also raise their taxes too, but I think they missed that part on account of not paying attention)), by making the dollar worth less (QE3, printing money ...if you don't understand this part, I don't care because it's your fault for not paying attention), robbing me of my medical decisions, (obamacare), higher costs, and a mediocre Dr. because all the smart ones will have left. Subsequent inflation, making my life even more expensive. I do not believe in safety nets. I pay my own way and ask nothing of anyone else. Now that Obama has been invited to hang around, by my "friends", I now have to revise my entire plans for the future and I'll be lucky to have a cent left when all this is over. When all of what is over, you ask? The inevitable bottoming out that this country will face, that's what. Which brings me to that silver lining I mentioned earlier.
The debt is unsustainable. Taxing the rich, taxing the middle class and borrowing more trillions from China won't fix it. Giving moochers more free stuff sure as hell won't fix it either. So.... what WILL fix it? Letting it collapse will do all the dirty work that needs to be done. I don't need to lift a finger, I don't need to try and talk sense into anyone, I no longer need (or even have the desire) to try and stop it. Let's get it over with so the one's who are left can clean up and get back to how life SHOULD be in America. Free and prosperous from sheer hard work and self reliance.
The ones who voted for Obama and all of his gift giving (at my expense), will not have the slightest clue how to survive fending for themselves when their government checks stop showing up. Where that path leads to I will let you figure out (If you're capable of following logic, that is. If not then I'll let the results of your vote be your own surprise.)
I did what I could for others, but I am now out to save ME and MINE and that's it. Don't let your lack of preparedness be my emergency. I will not help you.
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” Ayn Rand.
Adios! :)
I have studied, read, listened, researched and soaked up every bit of information I could get my eyes and hands on to understand this in a way that I could simply convey to my “friends” that I wanted to help me save this country. We talked about much, but in the end, it changed nothing. They simply bought into what was easiest to do and what sounded more pleasant to their ears. Free healthcare DOES have a nice ring to it (to those who realize it isn't FREE at all, it's nothing more than destructive). Knowing the government wants to provide a safety net (ie: welfare, bankruptcy protection, wic, food stamps, free schools, free lunches, etc etc) for anyone who falls on hard times (or simply makes bad choices and decisions, or is just plain lazy and wants to be taken care of by someone else) sounds like a good idea too. So, in the end they voted for Obama on account of him being so caring and understanding and just plain “giving”. He wasn't saying things like, “We want to get people off of food stamps and the way there is to make sure businesses can thrive and hire and make more jobs so people can find work and be self sufficient.”, because that sounds more like hard work and who wants to work hard when things are already hard? When people need help they should get help, right? Why punish them even more? Instead, punishing the rich people (the business owners, the job creators) sounded like the better option to the liberals. Tax those the evil, selfish rich people (who make jobs and tax revenue which pays for and makes all the “free stuff” possible...) TAX THEM MORE!
The reason I am no longer depressed and sad is because I've realized one more thing. I am out numbered and there's no way to win when you're outnumbered. Which means I no longer have to try and talk sense into my liberal “friends”. It means I don't even have to talk to them at all, ever again. They are a lost cause. They are the problem. They are the ones trying to destroy ME, by voting for someone who will raise my taxes (by ending the Bush era tax cuts)...((it will also raise their taxes too, but I think they missed that part on account of not paying attention)), by making the dollar worth less (QE3, printing money ...if you don't understand this part, I don't care because it's your fault for not paying attention), robbing me of my medical decisions, (obamacare), higher costs, and a mediocre Dr. because all the smart ones will have left. Subsequent inflation, making my life even more expensive. I do not believe in safety nets. I pay my own way and ask nothing of anyone else. Now that Obama has been invited to hang around, by my "friends", I now have to revise my entire plans for the future and I'll be lucky to have a cent left when all this is over. When all of what is over, you ask? The inevitable bottoming out that this country will face, that's what. Which brings me to that silver lining I mentioned earlier.
The debt is unsustainable. Taxing the rich, taxing the middle class and borrowing more trillions from China won't fix it. Giving moochers more free stuff sure as hell won't fix it either. So.... what WILL fix it? Letting it collapse will do all the dirty work that needs to be done. I don't need to lift a finger, I don't need to try and talk sense into anyone, I no longer need (or even have the desire) to try and stop it. Let's get it over with so the one's who are left can clean up and get back to how life SHOULD be in America. Free and prosperous from sheer hard work and self reliance.
The ones who voted for Obama and all of his gift giving (at my expense), will not have the slightest clue how to survive fending for themselves when their government checks stop showing up. Where that path leads to I will let you figure out (If you're capable of following logic, that is. If not then I'll let the results of your vote be your own surprise.)
I did what I could for others, but I am now out to save ME and MINE and that's it. Don't let your lack of preparedness be my emergency. I will not help you.
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” Ayn Rand.
Adios! :)
... gold. Imagine that.
Trying to remember... I hope I have this right... but I think I read somewhere that the #1 holder of US debt now is the Federal Reserve.
Which means... well, I'll let you figure that out on your own.
I now happily tell those folks to their faces - that because they voted for Obama - I lost my money and can no longer donate any funds to them ever again. You should see their faces!!! They were in absolute shock. Probably the first time they thought about how they really shot themselves in their own feet. My destroying me - they no longer have my generous donations to count on!
They already steal via the Gov't how much different to go more direct in their thief.
if they do that to mt. Rushmore, well, I won't go back. those are some fine roads to cruise too
I saw his wife at the local watering hole last night. Told her "I'd like to run into your husband." She said, "What do you want to see him for?" I said, "Nothing in particular, just want to shoot the bull and get his thoughts on the election."
"He's suicidal," she said with not a bit of emotion in her voice or face.
I'm a bit surprised. I thought a man who brags about having guns, gold, food and ammo stored & ready for the Apocalypse would be delighted.
Some weeks ago she invited me to go up to the house and help him reload ammo, but I'm a bit hesitant to go invade his personal space when he didn't invite me himself.
He'll be around. We'll catch up with each other, and maybe I can talk him into taking a nice, quiet hike into the woods above me here. Where we can talk without anyone (or any microphones, heh heh) around to hear us.
Do what you can,
where you are,
with what you have.
I think it was about a year in to Obama's first term that I realized -- well, what you said above. That trying to change things is a lost cause. That I no longer have to be "civil" to people who are working to destroy me. That the only course of action that makes sense is to figure out how to profit from the coming destruction and, as you said above, "save ME and MINE and that's it."
Bravo, dude. And like you, I haven't been depressed since.
Anyway, Bravo to you.
Of course they are, now that the election is over and their taxes went up. Do you really think those A-Holes will admit they voted for Sotoro?
Old post yes. Good topic yes.
Have you considered the possibility that it is they who are right and you who are wrong?
The remark is valid - but remember it cuts both ways.
Right, wrong. Good, bad. True, false.
How do you tell?
Try- Discussion, evidence, experiment, logic.
But not- Gut feeling, authority, emotion, voting.
When it was time for me to figure out what I thought about Ayn Rand, I didn't turn on the TV or run to DailyKos - I opened a couple of her books and read them (including the entire John Galt speech), considered what she had to say, found it ridiculously oversimplified, needlessly self-congratulatory, and unsupportably Manichean in its world view. (I think even Randians are generally agreed that her writing style does her no favors, but that's a separate issue.)
I don't consider those of an opposite political alignment to be evil demons; they're having a problem with extremism that's punishing them badly at the voting booth, but unlike Mitt Romney I'm not going to write off half the nation as bad people. That is not to say that there are no bad people in the opposite party, or to say that all the people in my own party are shining saints. Instead, it is to show that in the real world, brushes as broad as Rand's don't have much actual value in seeing what's really going on, just as brushes as broad as Karl Marx's - like Rand, essentially a utopian fantasist - aren't all that useful here in the real world. Both are mostly fool's gold, with only the occasional nugget of the real article mixed with a great deal of dross.
I know that it's part of the standard Randian rhetoric, to condemn those you disagree with as unthinking; that's another disfavor she's done you, because it's not true. It is possible for people to think hard about these issues and come to different conclusions than I do. There's no shame in admitting that, just as there should be no shame for you to admit the counterpart, that one can indeed thoughtfully disagree with Rand. That doesn't make them evil. Neither, however, does it mean that I haven't thought hard as well, that I haven't gone out of my way to hear what the other side has to say, rather than unquestioningly projecting onto them what some quite biased novelist has told me they think.
You would think that Randians, of all people, would understand the danger of declaring, in effect, "I can't possibly be wrong about this." Yet that is what many people here do - and, worse, it is also what they tell themselves. The day you declare you can't possibly be wrong is the day your mind has enchained itself. Yet quite a few people here are choosing simple downrating over any kind of actual self-inquiry. That's a sad thing.
Those of us who have actually read Miss Rand's works don't have to "consider the possibility." Not only do we know that we are right, but we know WHY.
And, yes, you "know you are right, and why." Glenn Beck was "right and knew why" on Monday when he predicted Mitt Romney would get 321 electoral votes.
In short: check your premises.
In short: Check your premises.
Thought about it, took a good look around me, and concluded she was wrong. Her experiences in Soviet Russia, tragic as they were, caused her to horrifically misinterpret the fundamentals of the American economy, but her thunderous self-promoting ego would brook no dissent, and unfortunately, her acolytes have caught the same damn we-couldn't-possibly-be-wrong bug, a kind of Stalinist-worthy level of unshakeable certainty no matter the facts on the ground.
It's a common thing among missionaries - including those proselytizing Randian objectivism - to believe that the message being borne is so obviously self-evident and true that only devils and fools could possibly disagree. Sadly untrue. One can get to know it, even get to know it well, and find in the end that Rand's flaws far outweigh her virtues.
Now, I know that will be an unpopular message here, given that the very purpose of this site is to be a place where Randistas get together in self-congratulatory unison and reaffirm each others' worldview, taking turns being preacher and choir preached to. But this is exactly the kind of insularity that led to your broad electoral defeat less than a week ago.
So, it's a very simple question, and how you answer it - or in this case, find yourself completely unable to answer it - is a measure of character, of intellectual strength, and of wisdom as well. And the question is: what if Rand got it wrong, and America got it right? I know that some of you would rather eat your own fingers off than address such a question, but in such cases, your fear and anger and paralysis do the speaking for you.
Still, the question remains: what if Rand got it wrong, and America got it right?
Now, it's time for you to say goodbye and leave this place.
This is not a Junior High schoolyard where immature juveniles trade taunts and name-calling. It is a forum for grownups who wish to engage with each other in rational, well-thought-out ideas. The only reason you're here is to pick a fight.
All you've done during your short time here is ejaculate pejoratives such as "puerile," "adolescent," "straw men" and more -- without ever engaging a single one of Ayn Rand's ideas.
Unlike other social media sites, THIS one allows trolls, off-topics and flamebait to be modded down, after which no one will ever have to waste his time reading such.
You now have a choice: begin to engage in rational, adult conversation or leave. Regarding the latter, you can either leave willingly or get modded down to the point where no one ever sees your flamebait.
Your move.
There was a time when I actually got pretty familiar with Galt's speech, since it was generally referred to as the most important distillation of Rand's beliefs. What I discovered is that all of that pseudo-Aristotelian window dressing turns out to fall apart on inspection like the proverbial Kleenex in the rain. The reason University philosophy departments don't take her seriously isn't some grand Ellsworth Touhey conspiracy, but the fact that she doesn't really pass the not-a-crackpot test. All of that law-of-identity nonsense she so grievously misapplies isn't there because at root it makes sense - it doesn't, not the way she uses it - but because it gives her naive readers stars in their eyes and a false sense of authority.
Then I also discovered in listening to and conversing with Randians that, actually, even Randians generally consider the pseudo-Aristotle stuff window dressing. Most of the time they flip past all that stuff about defining existence and thought versus instinct and all that mischmasch that seems to have WWJGD so starry-eyed. It's there only so that you can say to yourselves, as WWJGD apparently does: "everything here is logically unassailable and I can simply flush that part of my brain that questions and is capable of doubts straight down the toilet, as I won't need it here."
Once again, incidentally, WWJGD confuses the concept of understanding something and accepting it. Would John Galt make the same basic mind-slave mistake?