Who Is John Galt? Maybe He's Paul Ryan

"Fearing political suicide, Republican leaders have tried to distance themselves"...

- Sounds a bit like Obama's new found passion for Porkulus 2.0. If he could save himself from political suicide, why can't others?

Josh Marshall is a passive-agressive tool, trying to paint an advance profile of Ryan to fit with his own view of the world, where only Dems' ideas are worth even considering.

Ha! So much for Ryan being thought of as rational. Brilliant post, Rachel.

So, if I have "personal" Social Security, that's different....how?

I don't want to be "empowered", but thanks anyway.

I wonder if he's a conservative christian like so many republicans are. It would be ironic in the extreme if someone advocated an objectivist philosophy while simultaneously claiming to be a christian, since the two are pretty much diametrically opposed. In Objectivism, your only moral guide is the self; greed is a virtue. In Christianity, it's how you help others, even at the expense of yourself (or at least it's supposed to be, see Matthew 25). Amazing how many conservative christians don't see any contradiction between what Jesus said and the underpinnings of capitalism (greed will save us).

Isn't a for-profit insurance company also a "collectivist system"?

Okay - explains a lot. Rand devotees who haven't outgrown this by the time they graduate from college are usually fanatics.

Let's get something straight. Ryan says laborers can be capitalists. Capitalism means that the owners of the system of production make a profit which is the difference between the cost of goods and their price. Labor is a commodity, that is, part of the cost of goods. Laborers don't make a profit, they make wages, therefore they can't be capitalists. "Disposable income" doesn't count. The simple fact that the MIDDLE CLASS is in a credit crisis, using credit cards, houses as "atms" etc. to pay for their lifestyles and expenses is the obvious proof that even they are not "capitalists". They are not producing by their labor even enough to put into savings accounts.

It's time to shoot down - no, to figuratively NUKE Ryan's false and dangerous lie which is selling a PHONY FANTASY to the American people.

The vouchers are paid for with pixie dust and leprechaun gold. I swear he forgot to mention that in the NPR interview I heard.

um, does this mean he's leaving us to suffer without him? Paul! Come back Paul!

If you take Ayn Rand out of the equation, what the congressman wants is for us to believe that capitalists have the answer to all of our problems. If that is so, then why do capitalists seem to be at the root of the financial problems that plague us? Why do manufacturers seem to have taken the manufacturing might of the country to off shore locations causing problems with their not paying their fair share of taxes and finding ways to keep their business stable with fewer employees in this country. Hmmm, lower taxes and fewer employees to pay taxes to support the parts of government that need support to survive. Seems that the conservatives have found the way to "drown the budget in the bathtub" after all.

these republican assholes against "collectivism" do so based on 1950s and 60s anti-desegregation racism, or even older robber-baron fantasies. what they don't get is that a return to a more dog-eat-dog world won't necessarily favor them as America's demographics become decidedly less white bread. the poor would eat them for lunch and their time will be permanently over. punks that they are they will be the first ones crying for special protection as their world evaporates before their eyes

Romath said:

>

Actually, while there was plenty of unrest among labor (and farmers), and the Communist Party had a bit of a following in a few large cities, the immediate spur to FDR's proposal for Social Security was a thing called the Townsend Plan, advocated by a broad spectrum of Middle Americans led by a physician named Francis Townsend. The plan was essentially an old-age pension funded by a national sales tax, and was intended to end the Depression by stimulating spending, primarily by the elderly pension recipients. It became extremely popular (Townsend Clubs in all 48 states) and seemed like it could pose an electoral threat to Roosevelt, who countered in 1935 with what became Social Security.

Hmm, the quote from Romath didn't come through. Here it is again:

"It was primarily extensive labor 'unrest' and fear of communism - the Russian Revolution example and rapid growth of the American Communist Party - that pushed the FDR-led wing to enact Social Security and such during the Depression."

This d0chebag needs thrown out of office onto his ass. He needs a thorough beating. Maybe we should tie him up and let the senior citizens he plans on starving to death have him. They'll beat his ass quite nicely.

Objectivism has been thoroughly discredited by now, any educated person. If you ever find yourself in an argument with some Libertarian just point them to Alan Greenspan, a friend and acolyte of Rand, and his testimony before Congress after the financial implosion.

What a godawful book, it's incredibly childish....secret hideaways in the Rockies, makes me laugh just to think about it. It's slightly less bad than Battlefield Earth.

If they truly believed this ayn rand crap, the first thing the Repubs should do is send back all their parent's and grandparent's social security and medicare payments as a matter of principle.

More like Milo Minderbinder.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Source unknown, but it's relevant to this discussion...

In 1932 we had pretty much unfettered capitalism. Hoover wouldn't lift a finger to help starving Americans. How'd that work out for us? A lot of citizens were declared 4F for the military due to malnutrition and starvation they went through in the early 30s.

I want the Yes Men to put on a press conference and have them embrace everything Hoover and Rand supported. Let's see if Ryan then says.

Basing your life’s philosophy on a work of fiction seems a bit silly….

So much for "promote the general welfare," I suppose. Why are Republicans always so focused on the "provide for the common defense" portion of the Preamble, rather than any of the other parts? (I don't know about anyone else, but I find it hard to "pursue happiness" if I don't have enough money to pay the mortgage or pay the doctor.)

"Despite a show of Franco-German unity on the crisis and the first statement from EU leaders pledging to safeguard the currency's stability, hopes on the markets of a German-led rescue plan to shore up Greece's critical public finances were dashed by Merkel, who repeatedly emphasised that Athens would need to put its own house in order and brushed aside all questions of financial support.

"Germany is stepping totally on the brakes on financial assistance," said a senior EU diplomat. "On legal grounds, on constitutional grounds and on principle." Another senior diplomat said of the Germans: "They're not waving their chequebooks."

An EU summit of 27 government chiefs in Brussels was the first opportunity to tackle the Greek crisis and also send a strong message to the financial markets, which have been betting against the euro for the last week.

Following talks between the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, the European commission and European council presidents, the leaders issued a statement aimed at restoring calm and voicing political support for Papandreou's programme of swingeing budget cuts and structural reforms."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/feb/11/germany-greece-merkel-bailout-euro
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The ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?

Rand didn't think any of the workers would step up and take care of things when the masters of business disappeared. I know all of my coworkers would love a chance to take over my job, and they all think they could do it better. She was also very comfortable with the fact that all the peons would starve to death because the elite masters of the universe wanted to make a political point. In addition, she had no understanding of basic economics. In Atlas Shrugged she talks about a company who must raise their prices because they are selling less and less, so they have to make more money from each unit. Supply and demand anyone? Ayn Rand didn't know shit.

Somehow it fits that an idiot like Ryan would base his economic fantasies on the ideas of a novelist.

Okay. So what are all the Baby Boomers like me to do who have worked our whole adult lives only to see our 401Ks tank and now the threat of abolishing Social Security? How can any Repubs in the desperate economic times we are in even suggest such an idiotic idea? What are all of us suppose to do? Just die??????
I am so sick of these folks who think it's a good think to jerk us around on this issue every few years.

"Stand naked at the edge of a granite cliff. Laugh, letting no one know why." Then some pretty awful things start happening to a pig. Thus begins "Ayn Rand's Head Cheese" at http://adjix.com/xpui