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.
