WHY IS THERE NO LIBERAL AYN RAND ???

[Whirlaway]

Very interesting piece............I highlighted the key observation (IMO).

That’s the question Beverly Gage poses on Slate.com yesterday, with the even more instructive subtitle: “American conservatives have a canon. Why don’t American liberals?” She comes to this question because of the fact that Paul Ryan cites Rand, along with Hayek and other conservative heroes, as inspirations for his thought.

Obama–he cites mostly . . . himself. Most other modern liberals cite . . . no one.

Perhaps Gage should consider the obvious hypothesis: liberalism is brain dead. But here’s the case Gage lays out:

[O]ne of the [conservative] movement’s most lasting successes has been in developing a common intellectual heritage. Any self-respecting young conservative knows the names you’re supposed to spout: Hayek, Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Albert Jay Nock. There are some older thinkers too—Edmund Burke, for instance—but for the most part the favored thinkers come out of the movement’s mid-20th century origins in opposition to Soviet communism and the New Deal.

Liberals, by contrast, have been moving in the other direction over the last half-century, abandoning the idea that ideas can be powerful political tools. This may seem like a strange statement at a moment when American universities are widely understood to be bastions of liberalism, and when liberals themselves are often derided as eggheaded elites. But there is a difference between policy smarts honed in college classrooms and the kind of intellectual conversation that keeps a movement together. What conservatives have developed is what the left used to describe as a “movement culture”: a shared set of ideas and texts that bind activists together in common cause. Liberals, take note.

This is not a new question from liberals who look up long enough from their primal quest for power to ask whether their intellectual shelf is bare. A few years ago Martin Peretz wrote in The New Republic that “It is liberalism that is now bookless and dying.

. . Ask yourself: Who is a truly influential liberal mind [on par with Niebuhr] in our culture? Whose ideas challenge and whose ideals inspire? Whose books and articles are read and passed around? There’s no one, really.” Michael Tomasky echoed this point in The American Prospect: “I’ve long had the sense, and it’s only grown since I’ve moved to Washington, that conservatives talk more about philosophy, while liberals talk more about strategy; also, that liberals generally, and young liberals in particular, are somewhat less conversant in their creed’s history and urtexts than their conservative counterparts are.”

While there is something to this lament, it seems slightly overstated. Even leaving aside the popularity of fevered figures such as Noam Chomsky, one can point to a number of serious thinkers on the Left such as Michael Walzer, or John Rawls and his acolytes, or Rawls’ thoughtful critics on the Left such as Michael Sandel. However, the high degree of abstraction of these thinkers—their palpable distance from the real political and cultural debates of our time—is a reflection of the attenuation of contemporary liberalism. Whereas the left-liberal spectrum once had a vision of the good society based on large ideas accessible to the general public, today liberalism comes to sight more often as pure snobbery, a set of formal values adopted in place of serious political thought, perhaps best expressed in Thomas Franks’ unintentionally hilarious title What’s the Matter with Kansas? Franks wonders why lower and middle class voters align with Republicans when this is purportedly against their economic interests, without ever perceiving the irony of Upper East Side voters overwhelmingly choosing against the party that wants to reduce their income tax burden substantially purely as a cultural statement. Duh.

To continue with Gage:

Liberals have channeled their energies even more narrowly over the past half-century, tending to prefer policy tweaks and electoral mapping to big-picture thinking. When was the last time you saw a prominent liberal politician ascribe his or her passion and interest in politics to, of all things, a book? The most dogged insistence on the influence of Obama’s early reading has come from his TeaParty critics, who fume constantly that he is about to carry out a secret plan laid out a half century ago by far-left writers ranging from Alinsky, the granddaddy of “community organizing,” to social reformer Frances Fox Piven. . .

The problem is that most liberals couldn’t put together the sort of intellectual short list that conservatives now take for granted even if they wanted to. In my Yale seminar on liberalism and conservatism, I try to assign some plausible candidates: Arthur Schlesinger, Reinhold Niebuhr, Betty Friedan, Michael Harrington, Martin Luther King, John Kenneth Galbraith. Undoubtedly many people reading this essay can come up with alternatives, and register strong objections to any of the above. But liberals rarely ever have the conversation. Putting together the conservative side of the syllabus is always vastly easier than putting together the liberal one, in part because conservatives themselves have put so much time and energy into the selection process.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...l-ayn-rand.php


As a side note; Sandbox posters can attest to the lack of mental acuity exhibited by the lefties; they rarely start intelligent threads and their responses to opposing ideas are typically juvenile namecalling and void of any intellectual response (think CJ, WTF, Fast Goon, Little Stevie, et al). Without an intellectual foundation to argue politics; they are forced to resort to namecalling, stereotypes, and attempts at demaning the opposition.....they are doomed to fail....progressiveism is a dying ideology......here's hoping Obama is it's last great gasp.

[JD Barleycorn]

I once opined on a local radio talk show that conservatives say to read the Constitution and liberals always want to tell you what the Constitution says. I laughed out loud when the liberal co-host, when discussing the Constitution, said "let me tell you what it says" less than an hour later.

Liberals don't really read too much and what they do read is not what you would call classical reading. It is the crap that comes from Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and Jon Stewart.

[Guest123018-4]

They do, he is Karl Marx.

[nevergaveitathought]

liberalism at its highest, most enlightened levels is a feeling not conducive to rational argument.

it is a superority of attitude that allows superior people to feel good about themselves, we are better, we are smarter, we are more caring, we have self esteem in spades. it also has imbedded in it unspeakable fear. fear of the lower classes, fear of their children. how do you argue these things?

[joe bloe]

"Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky is a bible for the left. Hillary almost went to work for Alinsky instead of going to law school.

Here's the dedication of "Rules for Radicals." It's dedicated to Lucifer.

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.
-- Saul Alinsky

[Whirlaway]

Although it is their bible; Marxists politicans (like Obama and Clinton) don't dare quote it in public; instead they quietly work the Alinksy rules to "transform" us without our consent.....they are dishonest and anti-American.


.

Originally Posted by joe bloe

"Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky is a bible for the left. Hillary almost went to work for Alinsky instead of going to law school.

Here's the dedication of "Rules for Radicals." It's dedicated to Lucifer.

Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.
-- Saul Alinsky

[WTF]

You stupid mother fuckers are the liberals of your day. You are just to God Damn ignorant to realize it.

Neo Cons, good Lord. You do not even know WTF you are. You are no different than a so called Liberal. You try and ram your views down others throats! That is not a true Conservative. If you weren't so dangerous , I'd feel sorry for your silly ass posts.

Ya'll really think Paul Ryan has a plan to save Medicare? That right there shows how very little you know about Liberal/Conservative issues.

Whirly you are the biggest anti American poster on here next to joe blow. JD is nothing but Big Government. That is all he has worked for, the government or government funded programs! Stupid SOB does not even understand that College would be about half the size it is if not for Big Government. Without big government he rails about, he wouldn't have a job!

[CuteOldGuy]

The reason there is no liberal version of Ayn Rand is because no one has ever struggled and risked their lives to escape the yoke of freedom, and then wrote about its horrors.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

The reason there is no liberal version of Ayn Rand is because no one has ever struggled and risked their lives to escape the yoke of freedom, and then wrote about its horrors.

Ayn Rand wrote a book of fiction that you Willie Wonks take as nonfiction.

In real life she did not believe in God , she got that part right.


...if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.... the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

[Whirlaway]

Trotsky could be the left's version of Ayn Rand. Trotsky fled the horrors of Stalinist Russia, but even after witnessesing the brutality of Marxism he didn't abandon it....he continued with Trotskyism (another form of Marxist Totalitarianim)..but history has passed Trotsky bye it seems, Ayn Rand is still going strong.

[CJ7]

Rand the atheist republican?

who knew?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Although it is their bible; Marxists politicans (like Obama and Clinton) don't dare quote it in public; instead they quietly work the Alinksy rules to "transform" us without our consent.....they are dishonest and anti-American.


.

Speaking of Bibles...


http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_ARand.htm

1. For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners. [Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual]
2. ...if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.... the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]
3. Playboy: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life? Ayn Rand: Qua religion, no - in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very - how should I say it? - dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith. [Playboy interview with Ayn Rand]

[WTF]

Originally Posted by WTF

Speaking of Bibles...


http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_ARand.htm

1. .... the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]

Do you Ayn Rand lovers understand WTF she is saying?

She is the Paul Ryan of her day. They say one thing and you silly sheep hear something entirely different!

[WTF]

Originally Posted by CJ7

Rand the atheist republican?

who knew?

These silly SOB's didn't for sure.

Watch them scurry away or stutter up a defense...

[nevergaveitathought]

what does ayn rand having been an athiest have to do with the liberals not having any coherent arguments to put forth...oh wait yeah..its another incoherent argument