Ayn Rand was a nutcase! Libertarianism is crazy!



Ayn Rand was a prominant Libertarian thinker, and I recently found on Youtube an interview that was conducted with her in 1959. The woman was clearly a nutcase and how anyone could/does take any of this crap seriously I will never know.
Watch the creepy shifty eyes as she is interviewed. Observe the complete lack of emotion. What a cold hearted woman this truly was.

In the first part of the interview, the interviewer tries to prompt some form of emotion in her by making wider statements about how we should care about each other as a society and in response to this, she gives the typical robotic bland libertarian answer of how we should not concern ourselves with others and be selfish and even makes the point that caring for others makes us into "sacraficial animals".

"What's wrong with loving your fellow man, why is this kind of love immoral?" asks the interviewer and she just spews a load of crap trying to actually make some kind of logical argument which amounts to pretty much saying she thinks it IS immoral because everyone by nature is selfish and can't bring herself to even empathise with what the interviewer is saying. She then goes on to say she agrees that there are very few people in this world worthy of being loved.

Shes cold and emotionally vacant and talks complete bullshit.

Now watch her shuffle in her chair and shift her creepy eyes around as she is then asked about Americas achievements in social protective legislation - her reply? "It is terrible". "You see destruction all around you" (WTF!!!) and we are "moving toward disaster" which will effect the whole world until basically the protective legislation and welfare state are completely abolished. She feels the welfare state means "everybody is enslaved to everybody".

Interviewer Mike Wallace then makes an excellent point- that all of these things came about democratically- because people wanted them to happen. People arn't exactly enslaved if they want welfare and they want protective legislation and so on now, are they?

Well, Ayn Rand then comes right out and flat out says she opposes democracy. Her reply is that no one should be able to vote a mans property or freedom away from him and disagrees that if a majority votes in favour of an issue that it makes an issue right.

She then goes on to talk about how the government should basically be restricted to doing nothing other than protecting property rights and stopping criminals and that anything beyond this is "initiating force". The interviewer then asks if she is completely opposed to government tax, welfare legislation, unemployment benefits, regulations during stress ect. She replies "that is right, I am opposed to all forms of controls" - "for the separation of the state and economics" and believes that this seperation results in "peaceful co-operation and justice and harmony".

The interviewer points out that this would lead to a dog eat dog type of society, which is precisely what it would do.

The most outragous part of this whole interview for me is part 3, where Ayn is asked "How do we build roads? Sanitation facilities? Schools? If the government should not have the power to tax, are you saying we have to depend on the trickle down theory...." (in other words that rich people will benefit society left to their own devices).  Ayn then asks- "well who pays for those things?" the interviewer says "all of us do".. So what Ayn then basically goes on to say is that it is wrong to take taxes "by force" from the wealthy- that we have no right to tell wealthy people how to spend their money- we have no right to take money from the wealthy and spend them on things like hospitals and schools. "You believe in the good will of all human beings , especially the super rich to provide these things?"- Ayn rand just answers that "no good will is necessary, only self interest". What kind of utter bullshit is this? Seriously?

At no point does she comment on the fate of people who are unemployed in a society where there is no state help for the unemployed. Basically those people will just be left to sink into poverty. When asked where all these crazy ideas even came from, Ayn replies that they came from her own mind- her crazy, messed up mind!

Libertarianism is an ideology TOTALLY devoid of compassion and seems to think we live in a world where there are no other people who we must interact with, care for or concern ourselves with. We have to just live in our own little bubble and only care about ourselves and do everything out of self-interest and selfish gain. The most sickening thing about this is that despite all this talk of selfishness being this amazing human quality, it is Libertarians who then turn around in answer to questions like "what is going to happen to the poor in society when government help is taken away?" they say stuff like "well CHARITY will step in and help and the wealthy will give to charity" ect ect. What a complete load of crap. Not only is this a load of crap- it is a DANGEROUS ideology.

Amazing isn't it that workers produce and create and do all of the work- and all the money goes to those at the top and this trend is reflected in wider society as a small proportion of society have the lions share of the wealth whilst the other 80% or 70% struggle to get by. And despite the fact you have this rich elite, creaming off the wealth created by the workers, getting insanely rich, basically STEALING the wealth and productivity of the workers, these Libertarians then turn around and say that taxing those rich people to provide help to the poor in society is "THEFT"! What an absolute load of horseshit!

The reason Libertarians hate taxes so much is because taxes go toward building SOCIETY. Roads, hospitals, schools, helping the elderly and disabled and the poor. Society can rot in hell as far as they care. Everything could be falling to pieces, people could be dying in poverty and Libertarians don't give a shit about any of this so long as the wealthy elite are protected. What kind of a sick attitude is this and why would anyone really support this crap?

I mean lets think about this for a moment. I realise there are people who abuse the system but what do you actually think would happen if we took away all the assistance for the unemployed right now? It's obvious what would happen. The free market would not magically produce all these jobs and come skipping to the rescue. The people who are unemployed would have absolutely no money, that's what would happen. They would have no money for food or for their housing. There would be millions of people in poverty overnight. Why would you want to do something like that? Why would you want to enflict such mass misery and poverty on millions of people who cannot find a job under a capitalist system which by the way, even top capitalist supporters admit cannot produce full employment? That's right- capitalism cannot produce full employment. Unemployment and capitalism work hand in hand.

Should the NHS be privatised?

It seems the Tories are racing towards NHS privatisation. Is this a good idea? I used to think so. Until recently, viewing the behaviour of many speakers in the US during their healthcare "debate".

Why should healthy people have to pay for the unhealthy? The government can't even run the post office effectively, let alone healthcare! Universal healthcare will lead to "death panels". The government will control your health. The free market is always more efficient ect ect ect...
These are all the sorts of arguments put forward on the anti-universal healthcare side.

The bottom line is, having lived in a country which has universal healthcare, I just dont' feel any of the accusations are true.
The fact is, we are blessed to live in a country where we can access medical care free at the point of need.
The idea that anyone should have to live in fear of getting ill because they do not have enough money to get access to decent medical attention is crazy.

The poor mother with little money cares just as much about her childs health as a rich person cares about their children. Why should people with more money get access to better treatment?

It is true that the NHS has faced long waiting lists, but you need to question why this is the case. Have we had governments in power over the last 30 to 40 years which are committed to the NHS? No, we have not. We have had governments which have continually privatised and slashed funding.
The previous Labour government unfortunately continued the trend of moving the NHS toward privatisation, however, it did increase NHS funding- and in my opinion, improvements have been noticable.

As for why should healthy people pay the price for unhealthy people, this happens with insurence premiums under private systems anyway. And if you happen to belong to a certain "group" which is deemed more likely to need medical attention, you will pay the price.
Does free healthcare encourage unhealthy lifestyles? I really don't see this as being the case.
The very people who advocate the "minimal government" , "abolish the NHS" argument would also have tobacco advertising made legal again, taxation on cigarettes and alcohol would be abolished, regulations on the food industry would be torn up and got rid of.
The idea that living in fear of being able to afford medical treatment will encourage healthy lifestyles doesn't seem to hold ground in reality. America has tremendous problems with obesity, yet it does not have universal healthcare.

The media frequently blast the NHS and talk about how it "fails" to deliver the care people need, but when do you ever see a newspaper headline praising the hard work of Doctors and Nurses and the many lives which are saved every single day??

Finally, to borrow an economic term, I think it is clear that health is an externality. That is, it is in your interests that not only are you healthy, but that the people living in the community around you are healthy.
The strict individualism of the hard right does not play out in reality. Health IS a social issue. There is such a thing as "public health" and it should be of concern to all of us.

The Tories Economic strategy

What is the Tory strategy for economic growth? Well it seems to be that their plan is to make huge cuts in public spending coupled with a VAT increase, whilst also working towards scrapping the future Jobs Fund.
Yep. Great plan. Axe loads of public sector jobs so that these people are left with no choice but to go on unemployment benefits thus increasing the social welfare bill and also leaving people with less spending power. At the same time INCREASE the tax on sales.
All I see and hear when I turn on the TV & radio at the moment are adverts saying "beat the VAT increase!".
The Tories also plan to scrap the Future Jobs Fund which was a £1 billion investment made under the last Labour government to help young people avoid getting trapped in long-term unemployment.
Having been unemployed myself for some time when I was younger I can say that unemployment does eat away at you and make you depressed. That stage in my life felt like a waste. The longer you are unemployed, the harder it is to get a job and you gradually lose your confidence. I think it makes perfect sense to be helping young people through these difficult economic times so that we do not have another "wasted generation".

Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a strange ideology in that its adherants present almost utopia-like visions of what the world would be with their system in place, and yet can offer no real examples in the world or at any time in history where Libertarianism in "pure form" has ever existed to demonstrate that their claims are true.

The Libertarian ideology has much in common with Anarchy- it is opposed to "government intervention" in mostly every form. In Anarchy of course, there is no government, and what you get is a system where the strong thrive and the weak perish. Libertarianism however, allows for a very limited form of government, where people voluntarily pay for this government to exist and set some basic laws aimed at protecting people from "force and fraud", enforcing these laws using a police force and military.

It is important to note that taxes under a Libertarian system are voluntary. Central to the Libertarian argument is the idea that "taxes are theft" and that the government has no right to take your money if you do not choose to give it.

So if the government stops collecting taxes then how does it provide things like schools, hospitals, roads ect? The answer is, under Libertarianism - it simply doesn't. Everything gets privatised.

There is confusion as to whether Libertarianism is to be defined as a Left Wing or Right Wing ideology. Many Libertarians will reject the "Anarchy" label.
This is strange because lets suppose under their system people voluntarily decide NOT to pay any taxes- how then can the government afford to provide a military or police force if it has no money? There is no use in setting laws if there is no means to enforce them, therefor this system would be no different to anarchy.

This scenareo is hardly unlikely. Libertarians constantly complain about taxation and yet they expect once the system they support comes into practice, suddenly these very same people will all start VOLUNTEERING to pay taxes to the government!

Libertarianism can be an attractive ideology because it is (at first glance) seen to be a consistent ideology- it supports non-government intervention in both economic AND social matters whereas other ideologies are a mixture of different ideas. However this consistency falls apart when one realises that in a debate on any given issue, the biggest division is not between Libertarians and non-Libertarians, but amoungst Libertarians themselves who seem to endlessly bicker.

Debate and discussion with Libertarians is something that personally I have found to be frustrating. The ideology is very rigid. Basically it is Libertarians Vs. the world- if you support anything other than Libertarianism, you are a supporter of "big government fascism" or you are a "communist" or whatever.

Ultimately I find the problem with Libertarianism is that it does not mesh with reality. Libertarianism talks a lot about "individualism" and how there is no such thing as society. Libertarians "just want to be left alone" from "government intrusion" ect. Yet the reality is, we all live and interact with other people all the time and have to function in wider society.

The assumption behind Libertarianism is that government action = loss of freedom.

Actually, I think there are plenty of instances where lack of government action has equaled a lack of freedom and plenty of examples where government action has enhanced rather than diminised peoples opportunity, freedom and safety.

Libertarians do not believe in Democracy- which they loosely define as majority rule, because they consider it to be a form of "tyranny" and at risk of the "majority" making bad decisions. A free market system, Libertarians argue, is much more responsive to peoples needs. Under a free market system, we vote with our money. We have the power to "take our business elsewhere" if we do not get our needs met. Since businesses must make a profit to survive, it is argued that businesses will yield to peoples demands.

I think there are two things to be said about this argument. The first is that on the one hand, Libertarians oppose "majority rule", but at the same time they support a system which essentially is "majority rule" anyway. Think about it. A business is going to become bigger and more dominant the more people buy their products. That doesn't mean to say the majority of people are making rational decisions. The products being purchased might be bad for them or bad for the environment ect. But if it's what lots of people are buying- then that business becomes bigger and more dominant. On other hand, if only a small number of people demand a certain product, there is going to obviously be a much smaller market. So the whole market is shaped around "majority choice".

The second thing to be said about this is that if we vote with our money, then this clearly is not "fair", since some have a lot more money than others, and consiquently a lot more power to shape the market.

Libertarians are extremely selective when promoting their ideology. They will say "look at this country, it has higher living standards - this is due to it having Libertarian charactaristics and if it were only even MORE libertarian, it would have even higher living standards!".
They will then point to "government intervention" as being to blame for virtually every social and economic problem in existance.

The reality is, many countries in the world today have a mixed economy consisting of both private and public and Libertarians are simply trying to attribute everything positive to their ideology and everything negative to "government intrusion"- and yet they ignore many achievements of government intervention and ignore the many failiures of the "laissez faire capitalist markets".

This blame game is very ironic because Libertarians often speak of how they consider "taking responsibility" to be a very important attribute.

I have personally come to reject the ideology of Libertarianism because I feel that if it were put into practice in the real world, it would basically result in Anarchy - where the most ruthless in society end up controlling everything at the expense of everyone else.

Back to the 80's with the Tories

So, since May 2010, Britain has had a Tory government once again. Having observed them for a couple of months now I have come to the conclusion that it looks like we are seeing a repeat of recent history.

The set up is familiar- the story goes that in the late 1970's, Britain was a wreck. Strikes and unions had brought the country to its knees, unemployment was an outrage, the economy was in tatters- we were the sick man of Europe. And then Margaret Thatcher got in, administered her "tough medicine" and saved the day, making Britain Great again.
Now, the story goes, that our countrys economy is in crisis. There has been the global recession. We are saddled with huge national debt. Labour got in and wrecked the economy again, and now its the Tories to the rescue, again.

But are the Tories really so great at running the country? Back in the late 70's when unemployment was at around 1.4 million, Thatcher campaigned with the famous poster "Labour isn't working". What happened? Did Thatchers oh so brilliant economic policies lead to a fall in unemployment? No, the fact is, unemployment shot up to well over 3 million. All she ever did was blame others for this.

Child poverty rose rapidly under Margaret Thatcher. The economy went from boom to bust. There were fewer opportunities and support available for the average person to move forward in life.
Even the idea that taxes were made much lower for the majority of people under the Conservative governments of the 80's and 90's is a myth.

What about quality of life? It can hardly be claimed that Thatcher created a nation more at ease and with fewer strikes.

Thatcher pioneered the Privatisations of the 80's. Now our energy prices are going through the roof, and many people struggle to pay the bills, hitting elderly people especially hard.



As for public services, the NHS and education suffered. The Tories present themselves as being "tough on crime". What really happened under the Tories? Between 1979 and 1997, crime DOUBLED.

The myth goes that the Tories are the Eurosceptic party- and yet it was a Conservative government that took this country into the common market and sold away more and more powers to the EU.

The myth is also that Tories are against mass immigration- when in fact under Thatcher, the numbers of immigrants coming into Britain continued to rise.

On virtually every major issue, the Tories failed. And now the past is repeating itself.

David Cameron is an eton educated snob. He is an arrogant PR man. So far his "coalition" government with the Lib Dems are showing ALL the classic signs of yet more "Thatcherism".

100,000 NHS frontline staff predicted to go due to NHS cuts, which the Tories promised they wouldn't do.

The increased threat of crime due to cuts in police budgets and police numbers.

Increased university tuition fees.

Broken promises on Europe and Immigration.

The Tory attitude is and always has been that when everything is falling apart- the government should just step back and do nothing.

The contradictions in right-wing ideology

Political ideology is a more complicated issue than one might assume. The more you study it, the more you begin to realise terms like "left wing" and "right wing" are not very well defined.

For example, depending on the establishment of the day, certain opponents might be labelled "communists" or "nazi's", and yet when you examine these labels in greater detail, they may contain no substance at all.

Having researched political ideology for a while now, I have come to the conclusion that there are many false assumptions which confuse the political spectrum.

If you take economics, you can broadly define the "right wing" as leaning towards the laissez-faire free market capitalism, and "left wing" as leaning towards a planned and regulated economy.

The confusion arises when the "social" aspect to ideology comes into play. Many on the "right wing" will identify themselves as being pro-family values, anti-immigration, opposed to the "decline in moral values" in society, tough on crime and of a socially conservative, religious outlook.

Many on the left are commonly percieved to be less religious, in favour of multiculturalism, tolerant of diverse lifestyles and so on.

But in my opinion, these aims and attitudes are the exact opposite of what each ideologies said economic system will, in practice, achieve.

I shall focus here particularly on right-wing ideology. It is my opinion that very Capitalist economic systems bring about a very social darwinist "survival of the fittest" type of society, as opposed to the religious values that social conservatives talk up.

The right wing talk of "family values" and envision a society where the nuclear family is the norm, where community life is abundant and national pride is strong, and yet they support an economic system which places "individualism" at its very heart.
"There's no such thing as society"- as Margaret Thatcher once said. How can you develop strong community relations in an economic system based on constantly competing with your neighbours?

Surely for family life to flourish people need to spend time together- not all of their time working. People need to have enough money to afford to live in a decent home. And yet those on the right wing will oppose such measures as maternity and paternity leave and oppose the minimum wage and so on.

Those on the right continually talk about immigration. And yet it is the very capitalist economic system they support which encourages mass movement of people. Such phrases as "British jobs for British workers" are meaningless in a capitalist economic system. Globalisation can and does result in jobs going overseas and in migrant workers moving in to compete for local jobs. Measures to restrict immigration are bad for big business.

I do agree that our welfare state needs to look after our own people first- otherwise it is simply unsustainable to have large numbers of people not paying into the system sponging off of it. But many on the right use the fact that there are foriegn and domestic "spongers" as a reason to ABOLISH the welfare state altogether.

I do not feel that Captialism encourages a more "moral" society by any means. Just take a look advertising used by businesses to sell their products. Businesses encourage us to feel that without their product, you are socially unacceptable. They do this by saying their product will make you smarter, younger looking, more sexy ect ect, and the implication is that without it you won't be quite as sexy and cool as everybody else who does own the product.
"Sex sells" is a well known saying in business. Just take a look at our celebrities and modern movies. Do any of these things set good examples for children? Most movies now are full of sex and violence- because that is what "sells".
And yet - those on the Right wing continually complain about the moral decay in socity, despite capitalism playing a very large role.

Capitalism is all about self interest. Big businesses don't CARE about family values, or doing what is for the good of society, or in national interest. As long as they can make a profit- they will do it. If that means bringing in multitudes of immigrants to the country because these people will accept lower wages- they will do it.
If that means making men and women work all hours of the day on a low wage so they barely get any family time together and can barely afford the nicer things in life- they will do it.
It doesn't matter if encouraging alcohol consumption 24/7 in pubs, clubs and at football matches leads to anti-social behaviour if that's what makes a profit.
Doesn't matter if encouraging young teenagers to dress in a sexually provocative manner is "bad for social values"- because it's making a profit.
It doesn't matter if families are destroyed, communities are divided, moral values are destroyed and national identity is eroded, as long as they make their money and it benefits their selfish interests- none of that stuff matters.

So when right wing politicians promote capitalism and "social values" in the same breath, I honestly believe they are speaking in very contradictive terms.

Opinion: Haribo "brat child" TV ad undermines parental authority

The recent Haribo Television advert begins with a father sitting in a room where he is being interrogated by his family for allegedly indulging in the Haribo Starmix. What could of passed as humour quickly deteriorates into a blatant undermining of parental authority when what is presumably the fathers younger daughter who is refered to as "detective Mills" is summoned into the room to make him sign a confession. The young girl appears, hands on her hips yelling "alright sunshine, sign the confession!" as she proceeds to bang her hands on the table, shouting "look into my eyes". It is barely seconds after the father wimpishly gives in to her demands.

What sorts of messages does the Haribo advert give out to children? In my opinion it clearly sends out the message that if children shout and they bang, the parents will submit to their demands. This is hardly a sensible idea.

Watch the Haribo advert here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAfOwDyZpzs