So I decided to give the guy a chance. Who knows, I thought, maybe he is an actual follower of Ayn Rand? Maybe he does, in fact, espouse Libertarian ideas. Of course, this optimism on my part suffered a mortal blow in the first 10 seconds of googling Rand Paul's name. I immediately discovered that one of his biggest supporters is the fundamentalist, hateful, and disgusting organization called Concerned Women for America. Just read the following statement these scary people make about themselves and tell me how would Ayn Rand react to this:
We are the nation's largest public policy women's organization with a rich 28-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy. We help people focus on six core issues, which we have determined need Biblical principles most and where we can have the greatest impact.And of course, Ms. Rand would have found their position on abortion to be particularly repellent:
The group also opposes abortion in all cases, unless it is to save the life of the mother. Health exemptions are considered "immoral" and not supported. It also opposes emergency contraception, including after cases of rape, asserting that ECP is actually an abortifacient. CWA asserts that most forms of birth control—and all forms of hormonal birth control—are actually abortifacients, triggering chemical abortions.After all this, how can anybody seriously claim that today's Libertarians of Rand Paul's ilk have anything in common with the original movement created by Ayn Rand? The founder of objectivism would certainly be horrified at the very idea of being associated with this group of insane Bible-thumpers who see women as baby-generating machines with no will or desires of their own. Not only was Ayn Rand fiercely proabortion, she also actively despised Christianity.
I knew from the start that the Tea Party movement was nothing other than yet another bid for power on the part of the fanatical Evangelicals. What is sad, though, is that there are still people who refuse to see them for what they are and keep hoping that this movement has something to do with objectivism.
11 comments:
I don't know how anybody can still take these people seriously. The have no idea what it is they support and want to promote. All they know is that they are angry at everybody who isn't exactly like them.
And you are right that their base is almost exclusively evangelical. Every anti-progress movement in this country has always relied on these folks for support.
The Tea Party is just the remnant, puling fringe of the racist retrograde movement Nixon started back in '68. Unfortunately, most Libertarians also fit into this movement.
They are becoming demographically less important, but they sure can make a lot of noise.
-Mike
I'm afraid that now, with the economic crisis and all, more people will join these creeps. And then when will we all be?
---And then when will we all be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map
You even will not have to move...
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Clarissa, this is just silly. For starters, Ron Paul is definitely not an objectivist, and if the son is like the father, he has "serious disagreements" with Rand as well (though both regularly recommend her books). For another thing, if I remember correctly Ron Paul is actually an episcopalian and probably so is Rand Paul (Ron Paul also disagrees with Ayn's views about altruism, though he thinks such things should not be the province of government). Third, have you ever actually looked at Ron Paul's position on government? He doesn't vote for ANYTHING outside of Article 1 Sec 8, which would make it really, REALLY hard for him to help impose any sort of fundamentalist state, Christian or otherwise. Fourth, politics produces strange bedfellows. Given the choice between Rand Paul, who they can at least trust to leave them alone, and a liberal, evangelicals will go for the libertarian every time. It's why I think the Republican party should concentrate on more libertarian conservatives, since those are the ones who get tetchy about religion, whereas hell would freeze over before the Evangelicals would go left so long as the Republicans promised not to actively campaign against religion and "traditional values" the way the Left tends to. And finally, Rand Paul has absolutely no control over who likes/endorses him, so ascribing this group's views to Rand Paul as a result of their endorsement is just ridiculous.
My very Orthodox family has a hard enough time as it is putting up with me being a libertarian. I am not sure how they would react if they found out that I was now a Christian fundamentalist.
Brianna: so does Rand Paul also have no control over the ads he places as part of his campaign? Wow, this guy seems completely out of control about everything. Is that the kind of politicians anybody wants in power, I wonder?
You are still not answering the questions about how Ayn Rand would react to an anti-abortion, fundamentalist Christian, anti-immigrant bedfellow. I wonder why it's so hard for you to answer these very simple questions.
Izgad: I have no dout in my mind that you are an actual libertarian who knows what this philosophical and political movement is about. In this post, I was talking about people who claim the name of Libertarians but betray every single Libertarian principle. If you have seen the howling masses of Tea partiers, do you honestly feel as one of them?
I do not feel comfortable with most mass political movements or in political ideologies that can be reduced to a bumper sticker. Either they mean nothing or mean something really problematic. I understand the tea-party as a loose label for those who oppose the policies of the Obama administration on the grounds that it is expanding the power of the federal government and increasing spending. I opposed the Bush administration on these grounds so you cannot hold it against me for opposing Obama as well. In practice the tea-party is also host to a lot of other more extreme things which I do not approve of. Hence I am not in any way associated with the movement.
I actually used to be a registered Republican. I recently officially changed party affiliation to Libertarian. That was my way of protesting what is going on.
This is why I profoundly respect your political positions even though I might disagree with them completely. They are reasonable, logical, coherent, and are a result of consistent intellectual effort.
What I can't respect, though, is precisely what you call "a bumper sticker movement." I see people who cannot answer the simplest questions about their political affiliations and who get very testy when the questions are posed to them. I've been searching for an intelligent, reasonable Conservative who would be willing to have discussions and explain their positions to me. I haven't had much luck so far, but I'm sure they exist. :-) Just not in the Tea Bagger movement.
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