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"Ayn Rand and Al Qaeda"

Posted by jmlesniewski 12 years, 7 months ago to Culture
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So, there's this:

"If comparing Ayn Rand to Osama Bin Laden sounds extreme, you don’t know Ayn Rand sufficiently."

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  • 0
    Posted by JGISSD 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Show me where I've played games. I'm here to present truth. Deal with it, or return to the safety of your hate-filled cult commune.
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  • 2
    Posted by Signofthedollar 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Do not waste your considerable intellects on the likes of JGISSD. It is just not worth it. This is a game to him. And the game is how long a thread can he make while pissing people off. Just my two cents.
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  • 3
    Posted by JeanPaulZodeaux 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    If your labor is worth more than you are being paid for that labor then negotiate a better contract. If your labor is as valuable as you think it is you are in a position to negotiate. If it is not as valuable as you think it is, stop breaking your back. Stop working harder for less and work smarter for more.

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  • 1
    Posted by Signofthedollar 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hello pointless. why don't you go play in the street. The grownups have more important issues to deal with here than to have a battle of wits with a unarmed boy. So run along sonny and do some mental masturbation somewhere else.
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  • -2
    Posted by JGISSD 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Look around, at the rest of the world. America is the ONLY developed nation that practices Capitalism where the workers are not allowed to participate equitable in wealth creation.

    Which is a kind way of saying it's not Capitalism. If you support Capitalism the way we practice it today in the US, you cannot call yourself an Objectivist. Rand would have been horrified.
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  • 2
    Posted by $ jmlesniewski 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1) Straw man, nobody ever said that--except maybe the Occupy people.

    2) I'm glad you know what every individual thinks before talking to him.

    3) Argument ad populum fallacy. "At one time everybody thought the world was flat." Your second point is an assumption on what I think.

    4) Irrelevant and ad hominem. No one asked you to compare yourself to everyone else, nor do any of us have any clue what anyone else has read (or even what anyone else thinks).
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  • 1
    Posted by LetsShrug 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ohhh business owners don't do back breaking work. I see..... and the profits don't belong to the owner of the business either. Ah. Thanks for clearing that up. P.S. "Selfish" isn't a bad word in the Gulch.
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  • -2
    Posted by JGISSD 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1) Only 2.5% of Americans own businesses. Your contention is that the remaining 97.5% who do the backbreaking work day-in and day-out are not deserving of equitable participation in our economy, for all the wealth their labor engendered. That makes you either selfish beyond compare, or a fool, or both.

    2) I was speaking more broadly. My original comment said, "the Randites of today have much in common with Al Qaeda." Randite fans of today have little in common with Rand, picking and choosing the parts of her philosophy you like, and jamming them into your pre-determined world-view, ignoring the parts you don't like.

    3) If Randites aren't a cult, why does the majority of the world see it that way? It is you that has rejected meritocracy, insisting that the rules of Capitalism dictate that the few be allowed to steal the profits of the labor of the many.

    4) I have read nearly every word Rand wrote, something very few posters to this page can claim. I understand very clearly what she was all about, and I'm not blinded by ideology like most posters to this site.
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  • 1
    Posted by $ jmlesniewski 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1) No one is trying to "take back" America in the book. They are trying to stop people from leeching off of them.

    2) The strikers are not the initiators of force in the book, and calling their ideas "religious fundamentalism" is a straw man.

    3) So you reject meritocracy, ok, that's fine, but that's no reason to dismiss people who don't with the straw man label of "cult."
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  • -2
    Posted by JGISSD 12 years, 7 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1) Trying to "take back" an America that doesn't belong to one group alone.

    2) religious fundamentalism used to justice hatred, violence, and war.

    3) An assumption their members of their little cult are more deserving of wealth and advantages than the rest of society.

    I could go on and on.
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  • -4
    Posted by JGISSD 12 years, 7 months ago
    How appropriate, since the Randites of today have much in common with Al Qaeda.
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  • 3
    Posted by $ jmlesniewski 12 years, 7 months ago
    The author also writes:
    "In Atlas, the protagonist South-American mine-owning billionaire logically and methodically kills striking American workers with sniper fire from a rooftop while Rand praises his 20-20 vision and steady hand."

    I don't remember sniper fire in Atlas. Am I wrong?
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