H.L. Mencken cautioned us years ago about our fellow citizens when he wrote, "Never underestimate the ignorance of the American people." Old H.L. was a pretty cynical fellow but he nailed that right on the head. Still, I was recently shocked when I learned The People of the Tea have embraced Ayn Rand as their new messiah. How anyone can profess their love for Jesus and at the same time walk around town with a copy of Atlas Shrugged is beyond me. Jesus said love the poor for they are your brothers and sisters and love your neighbor as yourself. Ayn Rand said if the poor get in your way take aboard to their lazy asses. If your neighbor is poor and threatening your property values, burn his fucking house down.
Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has said, "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 also requires his entire staff to read Atlas Shrugged and I imagine he requires Cliff's Notes as well. My Senator, Republican Rand Paul, is also a disciple of Ms. Rand's and brags that he has read all of her novels. Each man promotes policies that would crush the most vulnerable members of our society underfoot but, apparently, can't see the conflict with their Christian faith. Remember now, these two fellows make a big deal, like many politicians do, of their Christian family values. They would not sit comfortably in our church on Sunday morning. Reverend Cletis would quote liberally from the Apostle Paul and from the direct words of Jesus of Nazareth. By the time he finished his sermon, there'd be some blistered ears and some hurt feelings.
You can't serve two masters. If you ascribe to the hate-filled rantings of Ayn Rand, there is no room in your heart for the teachings of Jesus Christ. Rand and her followers, like Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Paul Ryan, and legions of others, view the "unproductive" among us as parasites. Jesus viewed the "unproductive" among us as our responsibility to be lifted up, to be loved, and to be made whole. I made my choice a long time ago. Apparently, a lot of alleged Christians have made theirs as well, the wrong one.
Note from Cletis: Watch the video and spread the word. Maybe we can put Miss Rand's philosophy back where it belongs, in the garbage can.
Original Post: Ayn Rand or Anti-Christ?
[...] The Book of Cletis wrote a very compelling post on the disconnect between the Christian right and their support of such supply -side economic policies that reek of the “let them eat cake” mentality. How on earth does the worship of Ayn Rand square with Christianity, the Golden Rule and teachings of Christ as portrayed in the four Gospels? The Gospels are replete with numerous parables and teachings that leave no room for doubt as to how Jesus would have responded to the likes of Rand. After all it was Christ who said - “And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” [...]
ReplyDeleteOne part of the foolishness here is the idea that agreeing with Rand's prediction and diagnoses in "Atlas Shrugged" - the accuracy of which has been demonstrated in the last few years to a nicety - somehow magically commits one to agreement with her total philosophy. Would this argument be extended to an atheist leftist who recommends Tolstoy or Victor Hugo?
ReplyDeleteThe other part is a specific misrepresentation of Christianity. Christianity is not a pro-Statism religion; indeed, given who killed their Savior, it tends to the anti-State. (This is something the left has not yet dealt with.) Nowhere in the Bible does it say that wealth should be expropriated and redistributed by the dubious means of government structures; it speaks of personal and *voluntary* charity. One might add, looking at the horrific debt and unfunded liabilities situation that the U.S. is in right now, that the Bible and Jesus were wise in staying away from government panaceas.
This entire kabuki charade is in bad faith. The Bible does not advocate any Progressive notions of "economic justice." The progressives who have suddenly discovered religion and its necessary role in politics - after thirty decades and more of stridently and rightly insisting it must be kept out of politics - are not sincere. After this temporary rhetorical bubble is over, they will resume their previous, also ad-hoc, declarations.
As for the "sociopath" accusation, this is what comes of copying attack website garbage. The whole thing rests upon one author - Prescott's - highly selective excerpting and chopping up of a private [i.e., thinking out loud without clarifications ] journal written when Rand was barely out of her teens, fresh from the blood bath of 1920s Soviet Russia - and still made it very clear that her read on the personalities of the observers showed that they were not appalled by Hickman's crime - she said there had been far worse, without the same spectacle of glee - but by his flamboyant and mocking defiance of society. She - who was writing about a *legally innocent man* at the time of the trial - even called him a repulsive and purposeless criminal. Enough with the disinformation and - yes - Satanizing of Ayn Rand.
Michael, I'm afraid you are very incorrect in your assessment of Christianity being anti-State as in the verse "Give unto Caesar what is caesar's..." or to treat aliens to the land like neighbors or to leave a certain amount of the harvest in the field for the poor or on and on and on. The bible is not the only source of the reason for 'redistribution'. Besides the fact that employers don't pay enough and the FRUIT of LABOR has been upwardly redistributed for decades until people who make millions of dollars a year while paying laborers in foreign countries one dollar an hour believe that is okay. They aren't earning that money. They are parasitically draining it from the economy and leaving the laborers impoverished and in need of assistance.
ReplyDeleteAyn Rand was inspired by William Hickman for nothing more than his selfish reasoning for raping and hacking up a 12 year old girl and she enshrined him as a character in one of her works. Anton Lavey stated that Laveyan Satanism that he created was nothing by Ayn Rand's philosophy with trappings added. Everything about Ayn Rand's philosophy flies in the face of a higher moral of helping others too. Pure altruism would be bad, but there's a reason why firefighters are held so high in esteem. If everyone only focused on their own "rational" self-interests, society will crumble and leave several kings and lots of dying slaves. Maybe she was an interesting thinker, but she's a great example of what happens when you don't have to do real labor and just sit around all day thinking up moral justifications for greed.
Jose -
ReplyDeleteYou're mistaken on all counts. Christianity is simply not a Statist religion and there is no Biblical ground for believing that at all.
"that employers don’t pay enough" - that is a meaningless assertion. "Enough" for what? Blame the government for replacing real money with paper and countless ill-advised interventions into the economy, e.g. Fannie and Freddie.
> the FRUIT of LABOR
This is the labor theory of value and it's incorrect. Human labor has remained the same for millenia - what changes is economic freedom and creative enterpreneurship which *lowers the costs* of basic goods when left alone. The free market is not a zero-sum game.
> while paying laborers in foreign countries one dollar an hour
Considering that the prevailing wage rate in those coutnries is $0.25/day or less, it would be kinder to pay the prevailing wage? Or nothing?
> They aren’t earning that money.
This is nonsense. If it's a free exchange, then everyone is earning it. If you are starving (most likely due to a bad government in your home country), then a dollar a day is a God-send. No pun.
> They are parasitically draining it from the economy and leaving the laborers impoverished and in need of assistance.
But you just got done showing that those workers have nothing and are impoverished. This is not economics.
> Ayn Rand was inspired by William Hickman
More nonsense copied from attack websites. Long since debunked. She said clearly that she was focusing on how the crowd *reacted* to Hickman and that he was in fact a purposeless monster and pervert. Not exactly inspirational or hero-worshipping words, especially from her.