"The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting; the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one's eyes shut."
-Ayn Rand, 1946
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11 comments:
I don't like Ayn Rand. She's a blowhard.
Dad-
I agree. Thanks.
lefty-
I totally respect your opinion that she is a "blowhard" but what do you think of the quote? It's 60 years old yet could have been written about today.
Be a little careful here. This seems to communicate that people who believe in a global economy, and let's cut to the marrow here, support the war in Iraq, do so out of ignorance, ie, with eyes wide shut. That may be true in some or many cases, and so is it true that people who oppose the same ideals do so because their friends do, or because oft repeated talking points have become synonymous with truth. I read and research much more than most of my opponents, and still I am accused of being uninformed or suffering from memory loss. There is an intellectual argument for either stance.
How can a 60 year old quote communicate an opinion about a current war? True, it caught my eye because of the way I feel about a lot of current society. Scott, I know you are well read and I truly respect you for that. Unfortunately you and I are together in a minority though our opinions differ. I respect someone with an informed opinion who oposes me much more than someone who walks through life blindly supporting our government. I don't believe people who support the war do so out of ignorance. I don't think I ever communicated any such thing. I think the people who don't question anything are ignorant, and again this is in the most literal of terms. Lefty has a very good point. When our society is one in which we can't survive without a 60 hour work week and two incomes, how can we be fully informed in this fast paced world? If one wants to have a loose handle, one watches the local news, or reads the headlines of the local paper, which cannot help but be biased in one direction or another. Being a watchdog for either side of a policy is tough work that most people don't have the time or effort to do, and I can't blame them. However, if we become a collectivist society like the one Rand abhorred it will be because people have no opinions, not because they have the "wrong" opinions. There may be intellectual argument for either stance. There is no intellectual argument for "accept[ing] collectivism by moral default."
Lefty, thanks for coming back with a full opinion. Maybe you're right that it could be about any point in histry. If so, we should never let the statement leave our radar, no matter who is in the White House. And besides the premptive denial of paranoia, I don't think you're paranoid ;)
I was playing connect-the-dots, from the quote to what I understand of your own beliefs. Ayn Rand is lambasting people who refuse to examine the content of ideas, and such is stance of many war opponents, who think anyone who disagrees with their enlightened ideas is ignorant.
Lefty Girl, no offense intended, exemplifies what I think is wrong with the left/Democratic stance.
I think the war in Iraq is a clever diversion for all of the legislative changes that Bush II and his non-conservative Republicans have enacted. I think that Bush needs the war to keep people, even smart liberals, from paying attention to the things that are going to have a more lasting effect on our society.
This keeps the right in power, in my opinion. When I hear this kind of talk, any thought I ever had of listening to liberal rhetoric is gone. This is nothing but conspiracy theory, without any substantive argument to back it up. Democrats are viciously pursuing any angle that will discredit the administration on pre war intelligence, which is their right, and even responsibility, if there was even a chance it were true. But they will keep hammering at it until the next set of Republicans takes office, then the Democratic leaders will get together and ask each other what went wrong, and when Lieberman tells them what, they'll publically flog him.
It's really too bad, because I would vote Democrat but for the war issue. I'll vote for any Dem that opposes this globalization push, that gets tough on immigration, that has a plan to create jobs here in America. I want the best of both parties.
Scott - I don't think most liberals or Democrats are paying attention to anything except the war. That is the problem. Democrats are not talking about the real issues - they're whining about the war. Their attentions have been diverted.
What I have said is no more a conspiracy theory than our government believing that Saddam possessed WMDs. Pre-war intelligence? Even Colin Powell admitted that he f-ed up. And like I said in my previous comment: "Before anyone calls me paranoid, prove me wrong." You have not met this burden.
Scott - I think you misunderstood what I was saying - I was saying that the Democrats are being collectivists. They are not thinking clearly on any front. The only united front is the anti-war effort. I disagree with this - the Dems won't be successful until they unite on more than this front.
BTW, 2 notable Democrats support the war: Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman. Bet that one of those names just made you cringe.
Me calling out the problem in the Democratic Party does not keep the right in power. You may not want to hear what I have to say, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong or that I don't have a valid point. The right is in power for a multitude of reasons - but don't worry, they are self-destructing as we speak. It is the nature of this game.
Besides, Bush just admitted that 30,000 Iraqis have died. These are mainly civilians. How low-ball do you think that number is? Is our pre-war "intelligence" enough now? Bush didn't want to collect more evidence - he was ready for the sentencing phase before the rest of us had even heard about the evidence. Ridiculous.
And all this talk about the Republican party like it is a higher form of life has got me a little wound up - the Republicans are making the mistakes that LBJ (a DEM) made 35 - 40 years ago! They're just copying the Democrats of yore.
I think the point of the quote and the point my dad made is what really matters: live you beliefs. Believe in something. Be a skeptic; question what is sold as fact. In this administration, being a skeptic means questiong the war, which is not an unpartiotic thing to do, it is a right gauranteed to us by the constitution. In the next administration, be it republican, democratic or independent, don't stop questioning. I don't know that I agree with lefty that the war is a legislative diversion. Frankly I don't know much about the legislative policies (or lack thereof) associated with this administration. If the war is a legislative diversion it is certainly working. What I do believe is that the Iraq war is a diversion from the greater problem that we cannot win a "War on Terrorism". As a (supposedly) secular country, we don't know how to fight a relgious war. We don't know how to fight an intangible idea. It's not a place, it's an attitude that has roots all over the world, something we were not prepared for. I think the governement speculated on the threat that Hussein presented and sold it to us. We know where Iraq is, we know who we have to tear down to win, and we thought we could succeed at it. The pre war intelligence does not need to be discredited, the proper intelligence simply did not exist. And the person who questioned that, well you know what happened to him and his wife.
And while I'm on the subject of packaging an idea and selling it, the ability of the republicans to do it successfully is why they're in power. The average voter knows nothing of the "liberal rhetoric" you are referring to. The democrats just can't package their ideas and sell them to the American people the way the republicans can. They can't win based on the fact that they're "not republican" the way Kerry thought he could. They need to identify themselves with a stand (again, believe in something, stand up for something) in order to win over the public in the next election.
lefty-
I didn't mean to disregard what you wrote. It took me like a half hour to write what I wrote because I hadn't poperly formulated an argument. I agree. Democrats need to unite on more than just one front.
Ok, I just saw all the replies. I'll give them attention tonight or tommorow. I love it!
I would be more apt to take opinions more seriously that the war is just a distraction while Lord Palpatine, er, I mean Pope Bush II, er, I mean George Bush builds a clone army to ostensibly fight the terrorist Lord Greivous--if it didn't sound so damn familiar, like a bad sequel. I don't feel compelled to prove anyone wrong because it's like proving there is no Santa Claus. We were attacked by terrorists, and we are fighting back--unless of course you would like to tell me about how we knew about it, or even engineered the attacks. Iraq is a strategic location in the heart of the middle east from which a working democracy can send shock waves from a focused epicenter, and the ripples have been felt already. And, oh yeah, Sadaam was a bad man. Not the only bad man, but a bad man nonetheless. All considerations taken into account, Iraq was central to the effort of dismantelling terrorism.
In my humble opinion of course.
There does seem to be consensus that Democrats, or Republicans, aren't concentrating on the important issues, and we are coming apart. Like I said, the Dems have an opportunity to be leaders, but they are squandering it with these pointless attacks on the administration, who they accuse of misleading when congress had access to the same intelligence. They are showing their own incompetence by claiming to have taken the word of the executive branch when it was their job to independently research and come up with their own conclusions.
Man, there is just too much to reply to, and I gotta get back to work.
Thanks all for not taking my comments personally.
I'm with you, lefty. I was nervious with the way things were going, but I shouldn't have been. It's so easy for these things to turn nasty, but I really do have fantastic, respectful readers.
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