Takers and Makers
Now that President Obama is out of the closet and stands revealed as a petulant and resentful socialist, who values the collective over the individual and sees the productive class as vampires feeding on the weak and the downtrodden, let’s give equal time to Ayn Rand, via her architect, Howard Roark, in The Fountainhead.
First, the president:
If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Yeah, right. Only someone who’s never accomplished a thing in his life except get elected to various offices could say something like that. His statement bespeaks anger, pettiness, jealousy, destructiveness and rage — in short, everything we’ve come to expect from the Parasitical Left.
Contrast Obama’s “Kinsley gaffe” (defined as when a politician inadvertently blurts out the truth) with Roark’s famous defense speech from the 1949 movie starring Mr. All-America himself, Gary Cooper. You don’t have to be a Randian to cheer sentiments like these:
The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks; the parasite copies. The creator produces; the parasite loots. The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men… The parasite seeks power. He wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery.
Look at history. Everything we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots… It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective.
So there it is, Election 2012 in a nutshell: the individual vs. the collective.
We know which side the president is on. Which side are you on?
Also read:
So everybody has a road in front of their place, and everyone has teachers, and the people who take advantage of that and succeed have to credit the gummint, but the losers who don’t take advantage of their opportunities aren’t mentioned?
In other words, ask a democrat if you have a road in front of your house, why are you still a loser?
You’re right, Stan. Roads pass by the producers and losers alike.
Before Obama and his government of looters can steal credit for the succeeders, they’ve got to accept all the blame for the losers.
Because the unspoken corollary of Obama’s assertion that no one is responsible for their own success is that no one is responsible for their own failure. Obama lives this corollary (It’s Bush’s fault! It is the fault of the GOP! Bitter clingers, too!) and all of the freeloaders (moochers, in Randian parlance) in the Democratic party live this corollary as well.
Obama’s comments are so laughable, it’s pathetic. So we didn’t build the roads…so what? The government didn’t build the bulldozers, graders or construction equipment used to build the roads! It didn’t drill the oil for the fuel and lubricants used in the equipment! You didn’t make that asphalt Mr. President, Koch Industries did!
I could go on and on! The bottom line is that has been answered decades ago and Milton Friedman talked about it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8
Answering the Obama-tard is so easy. I’ll go with Milton Friedman over Liz “Tomahawk” Warren or Ausin Goolsby (wasn’t he married to Tonya Harding?) 8 days a week and twice on Sunday!
Funny thing is, when Milton Friedman made this video we lived in a world where the US enjoyed a stable sconomy, growing wages for working class and middle class wage earners, where an honest days work was rewarded with an honest days pay.
Once his economic philosophy was put into action by Reagan and his acolytes that world began rapidly dissappearing. Wages have stagnateed while executive compensation has skyrocketed. Financial engineers began running companies rather than those rooted to the production of the product.
How precisley do you explain that away?
The argument in Friedman’s video is sound, no doubt, but the application of his economic philosophy is too easily corrupted as evidenced by the trends I mentioned above and the 3 major economic collapses our economy suffered over a 23 year timespan.
One last point to make in general terms. Obama was not saying you did not build your own success, all he is saying is that you relied on the products of the society of which you belong, the infrasturcture, the police force, the education system, to achieve that success as well. Right now those componenets of society are being eroded under the name of Reaganism. Maybe these are not the things reaganism stood for, but these are the practical effects of it.
And I guess we have to thank the teachers for high drop out rate, the failure to educate and the release of so many functioning illiterates on the world.
But what the heck, when parents want choices, like obozo putting his kids in private school that is shot down.
So why are so many failing and dropping out of school if they are doing such a good job.
And somebody better tell me about Jobs, drop out, Gates, wasn’t he a drop out, Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller–isn’t he still living off the wealth stolen from others as obozo would have it, from his family.
And what about the Kennedys, wealth based on booze. But we don’t worry about dems with money.
And John Kerry and the marrying into wealth, that he could never accumulate on his own,
> So there it is, Election 2012 in a nutshell: the individual vs. the collective.
Nonsense. As always, it’s proud Marxists versus cowardly Marxists. As Ayn Rand pointed out in The Anatomy of Compromise ( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/compromise.html ), the cowardly Marxists will always lose to the proud Marxists, regardless of who wins this election:
“1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
“2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
“3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.”
Give up hope on your own time. Discouraging words like this are counterproductive to the cause of reason, individualism, free markets and liberty. Walsh is suggesting how Rand’s words can become a rallying cry for the right. This would be a great and hopeful step if it were to become true. Yes, the Republican Party is influenced by a mixture of welfare state and capitalism ideas, but its leaders are still associated primarily with capitalism and is still the only game in town to at slow down and reverse the collectivist onslaught that is the Democratic agenda. You are taking Rand’s words out of context and being defeatist. Please reconsider before making such posts here and elsewhere.
It is true that the original Progressive movement was bipartisan. Historians all acknowledge that. But what is less apparent is the slow, steady infiltration of progressivism by communist ideas. I made that clear in my latest blog: http://clarespark.com/2012/07/19/communist-ideas-go-mainstream/. To sum up, I show that the original Progressives were for regulated capitalism, with deference to experts who would fend off both “laissez-faire individualism” and the looming Left (the IWW and the Socialist Party). The 1930s promoted “the common man” and this populist aesthetic was just fine with the CPUSA.
I applaud Michael Walsh’s trotting out of Howard Roark. He (Walsh) is an artist and knows whereof he writes.
Thank you SO much for mentioning that ‘the original Progressives were bipartisan’- and that the Left is Progressivism suborned by communism.
Both claim sanctity and eternity, and forget these were but cover for the criminal ambitions of Progressive ‘leaders’ past.
I believe the Right is more strongly rooted in traditional wisdom, because at one time the Bible was the nation’s schoolbook.
(I consider the literate traditions- Greco-Roman-Jewish- to be all of one piece, the Classical literate culture. Most of the 3rd world never even invented an alphabet, thus the difference in mob appeal and tactics by the left as they recruit allies.)
Where did rand’s bizarro ‘philosophy’ come from? This is always a crucial question, although one often discouraged. In her personal life, Rand was a viscious, amoral, ruthless creep. Now the fact that her philosophy justified treating other people like they were department-store dummies (or inflatable sex-dolls), as the Marxists liked to say, is no coincidence. Basically, Rand meets the definition of a sociopath — a person who has not matured psychologically beyond the age of two years. We all know what little monsters these kids are, who haven’t yet grasped that other people are members of their family/society and must be considered before acting on one’s whims. I’ve noted recently how similar to a 2-year-old many Libertarians are. Their entire philosophy is nothing but a justification for ignoring other people. Although some Rightists consider Libertarians at least situational allies, they fail to grasp that almost no humans exist who value economic freedom more than personal freedom. The most financially conservative pedophile will come down on (so to speak) the side of sexual libertinism as opposed to sound monetary policy every time. So, Libertarians might work with Rightists at times, but never on moral/social/important issues.
Greg Swann’s #3 above is why, whenever either of the Left or the religious right move too fast and expose too much of their true core, damage control consists of retrenching to the middle in order to re-muddy the waters. They insist that whoever it was on their side that tipped their hand didn’t really mean that, they misspoke, were misquoted etc. They cannot afford clarity.
I find it telling that the Left being aided and abetted by what I call “militant middleists”, the sort of pragmatic intellectual lightweight who complains about “extremism” as if that word actually means something. A prototypical case in point is James Joyner at Outside the Beltway; here he is waving away “Randian nonsense” with one hand (sans argument, as usual) while extending the other to a desperately floundering Ezra Klein.
Unfortunately, Mike, while it is true that the individual versus the collective is indeed the defining and underlying issue of our times and of all politics, this election does not offer us that alternative. The establishment GOP is anti-Tea Party, and were more interested in screwing them than in winning the election. The Tea Party should be operating on the premise that no matter who wins the election, they will be the opposition. They have to fight the Left outright — but must also keep Republican feet to the fire, to keep the “militant middleists”, RINOS and similar squishy compromisers of the conservative/GOP establishment from selling us out.
True,while the republicans are our second cousins,they also ride in the wagon.
Scratch a “militant middleist,” a so-called “pragmatist” and a “moderate” and find a state supremacist.
The really disgusting thing about the empty suit we call Barack Obama is not that he simply can say “you didn’t build that” and take undeserved credit for things others did; what’s more galling is that in reality, Barack Obama would not only have NOT HELPED someone build a business but he would have ACTIVELY OPPOSSED IT. The man has all the character of vomit.
I have news for you, Mr. Obama: With very, very few exceptions, every road, every street, every bridge in this country was built by a private firm. Every one of those was started by an entrapreneur.
That also includes all the bridges and roads to nowhere, devised mainly to throw some cash to political cronys.
Roads pass by doers and losers alike. If a road in front of a building was all it took to succeed in business, everyone could be a success.
Ayn Rand put it so much better as this bit of dialogue illustrates.
I’m with Walsh all the way…………until the very end when he says something stupid: “So there it is, Election 2012 in a nutshell: the individual vs. the collective.” Really? Where is the Roark figure? It would be great if such an election were in the cards this November, but it’s not even close. The only place that election is taking place is on blogs such as this, not in reality.
Of course the sharp distinction Walsh makes here is not yet a part of the national dialogue. Not yet, anyway. But how will Rand’s words and the sharp distinctions she makes ever become part of the dialogue if they do not percolate up from blogs like PJ Media. The phrase that was stolen from Hillel the Elder by Obama and other leftist comes to mind:
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Perfect contrast.
Obama’s statement was scripted.
I’ve been hearing it verbatim on left-wing radio for some time.
It’s a rather good way to know what he’s going to say next- then the Left can repeat it in ‘discussion’ to attempt a good, entrenched cliche.
I hear the Right echo chamber as well- it works. Gossip or wit moves the herd in this direction or that in rather efficient ways.
Cliches (memes) are low-cost, low-energy little information darts; I call them ‘sound RNA’. Imbed the hook and it will grow, taking processing space. If partition space (ideas) can achieve a good fit- behavior seems consistent. If ideas don’t fit well, we get the unbalanced.
Why, then, do people disagree- or agree?
To me, both the Left and the Right- or any two sides- sound alike.
Both make the same claims about the other side. The other side is either crazy, lying, or evil. ‘Cognitive dissidence’ only applies to them.
I realized I was hearing a process, not ‘truth’. Only physical mechanics are ‘true’ or ‘untrue’- they work or they don’t.
Why do different groups repeat different ‘truths’, regardless of consequence?
Why do unrelated ideas come grouped together in camps, with little or no relation to each other? We can hear a statement for or against something, and guess the speaker’s probable position on several other statements- whether they are related or not.
We are seeing a group phenomenon.
We are a social animal, it is our deepest instinct.
Humans use sound signalling to mark their ever shifting position in the branches of the tree. ‘I am above you, below you, beside you.’
The sounds allow us to count allies, or estimate enemies.
Who outnumbers who? Thus we make the social calculation.
Detail or accuracy don’t matter as much as declarations of loyalty.
We all have an audience in our mind. We are wired this way.
We perform accordingly.
Cognitive dissidence depends on the goal. Do we see our ‘audience’, our identity group, as dominant or rising? Common understandings or the desire for ‘power’: new rules?
‘Our’ rules, or theirs? ‘Our’ consensus, or theirs?
Who outnumbers who?
Those of you interested in how Ayn Rand saw education as a seminal tool against the West should download her 30 page or so short story “The Comprachicos” widely available on the internet. She penned it about 1970 as a reaction to the student rioting which she saw as a reflection to trying to remold the human mind emotionally so that it was even more susceptible to the herd instinct.
I am afraid my work on the social and emotional reorientation and change in values emphasis in this Administration’s P-12 and higher ed reengineering transformations of purpose would bring on an “I told you so” from Rand. Her mentor, Isabel Paterson, would recognize an attempt just like in the 30s to use the power of the state to make 2+2=5.
I don’t think that creator vs parasite, human ingenuity vs just another part of Nature feud was better portrayed than with the wager between economist and advocate for human creativity, Julian Simon, and environmental alarmist and population alarmist and activist Paul Ehrlich. Simon won the wager but it is Ehrlich’s desire to retrain the human mind via education to tolerate servitude and accept parasitism from the state that is about to prevail under the Common Core implementation documents. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/learning-to-learn-or-how-to-replace-old-minds-with-sustainable-new-ones/
So yes 2012 is a seminal election. We have to assert that the concept of the individual remains of primary importance in the West as the only real bulwark against statism, collectivism, and the power of the herd with a bad idea. Especially with access to OPM.
The President’s statement boils down to “If you’re successful it’s because the government allowed it” but that also means “If you’re not successful it’s because the government allowed it”. Government created the rich and Government created the poor. In short, the poor are poor because their elected officials want them to be poor. That seems like a powerful statement to take to the “hood”. And, as it happens, it’s also true.
Why does President Obama want you to be poor? Why didn’t President Obama allow you to be rich?
It’s because he hates us.
And guess what…it’ll take a lot more than merely voting Obama out of office to effect any kind of a turnaround
Even in a best-case scenario, many of us won’t live to see any turnaround, and some of the rest of us will be waaaaaay too old and infirm to avail ourselves of any new opportunities that may present themselves.
Do you think that when the Obama campaign uses ‘revolutionary’ font or make speeches like he did in Roanoke that they are laughing at all of us?
They know the inside joke, they are Marxists, and that the compliant (AKA criminal) media refuses to cover them for what they are.
Are You In?
The initiates understand the real messages.
Hidden within are code words the the cells- ‘prepare to activate’
With his statement Mr. Obama is not only expressing his contempt for American business he is also stating in simple terms why he feels no compunction for taking anything you have earned and giving it to someone else. In a nutshell he has expressed the left’s justification for redistribution of wealth.
Will also point out that even that is bogus, as when you look closely the left always has “wiser heads” who because they work so hard to do that redistribution are entitled to special perks and rewards. In that respect they are no different from communist leaders who used their politics as an excuse to grasp power and control over the people.
“Yeah, right. Only someone who’s never accomplished a thing in his life except get elected to various offices could say something like that. His statement bespeaks anger, pettiness, jealousy, destructiveness and rage — in short, everything we’ve come to expect from the Parasitical Left.”
Yes, everything about Obama and his life has been filled with anger, pettiness, jealousy, and rage. “Hope and Change” my butt. Obama definitely believes in “Hope and Change,” though. He hopes to change this country into a socialist collective, and that cannot stand. He is now out in the open and embracing true socialism, wanting to literally take as much as possible away from the people who produce things in this country and give it to the people who do nothing.
We now have a clear choice in November. Do we remain a free people grounded in individualism, as Gary Cooper was, or do we throw in the towel and follow the European social welfare states into bankruptcy? The choice really is ours to make in November and the country’s future literally depends on what We the People do. Pick well, America, because in today’s American revolution we don’t have to use guns or armies or vast navies. All we need to do is vote. Never has so much been on the line for this nation. Never has our responsibility to defend the Founding Father’s republic been so great. Vote, and please keep us free men and women, as well as free INDIVIDUALS.
Lovers of liberty have already lost. Stop wasting your time pretending professional politicians like Romney will change things, and prepare for the inevitable. I would say our last chance to pick a path at the crossroads was 4 years ago, except for the fact that our choice in the general election (without Ron Paul) was between a fascist (McCain) and a socialist/fascist (Obama). How many more presidential election cycles will we go through spouting the delusional pretense that, “this is our last chance.” It’s over. We lost.
Yes, a lot of freedoms have been lost. But as you can see at this blog, we still have freedom of speech. If you are discouraged and are rendered hopeless because your one and only answer to America’s eroding freedom lost his presidential bid (Ron Paul), so be it. However, you are wasting the freedom of speech you still have by being defeatist.
Ron Paul wasn’t perfect anyway. Snap out of it! Or get out of it!
Well, all this talk about government being the problem, and the evils of socialism, lead one to wonder why the Scandinavians, particularly Finland, are way ahead of the US, and now look at Canada’s economic performance. Those countries pay their taxes, in a number of cases, high taxes. The US is in permanent decline because of its glorification of greed
On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news: For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American.
According to data from Environics Analytics WealthScapes published in the Globe and Mail, the net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.
A few days later, Canada and the U.S. both released the latest job figures. Canada’s unemployment rate fell, again, to 7.2 percent, and America’s was a stagnant 8.2 percent. Canada continues to thrive while the U.S. struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair.
One little thing never mentioned about Scandanavian socialism: it worked very well when Scandanavia was just chock full of Scandanavians. It even worked in Minnesota!
Now, with the no-go zones and feminist law protecting rape squads, excuse me, ‘immigrants’, not so much.
Trudeau, that North Korean trained spy, almost broke Canada.
Alberta saved her, so of course the Dipper commies are trying to grab that bit for themselves. And forget Canadian healthcare- it’s only for the healthy or available to greedy, grabby Dippy loyalists.
From Bristol Palin. Yes, that Bristol Palin. What a wonderful idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzZ0XNptRMA
She is asking for help:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bristolpalin/2012/07/i-built-this-mr-president/
Obama has never run a lemonade stand; but he is against the kids who have. The only private enterprize he possibly ever ran is that he could have sold a few joints.
He never built a road; he never built a bridge. He despises people who have.
Gary Cooper was an interesting person,reportedly very much a believer of self reliance, independence and all those “cowboy” virtues he often portrayed. (Assuming he was a young man now starting out) Coop probably couldn’t get hired in Hollywood today!
Why counter one jerk (Obama) with another (Rand) ?
Ayn Rand was a jerk, huh. Your ad hominen offers everyone reading here evidence of your own jerkiness.
The President’s comment that “successful people didn’t do it on their own” is predictable. When one desperately wants to rationalize that government has a moral right to your money and property, then one must first be able to rationalize that government is the progenitor of all wealth and property.
Charles Krauthamer, M.D., observes that Obama’s world view is the limited vision of a Community Organizer [CO]. A CO has to tap into the political control of a city to issue threats and get concessions.
It is the Chicago mob in the late 20′s and early 30′s. You cannot succeed unless . . .
Because Obama never ran a lemonade stand or even one stop above that – sold Girl Scout cookies – he has no idea of how the world works. Obama has gotten pushed up the ladder because of affirmative action and someone pushing him hard.
Any success – merely running for office or Michelles’ cush job in Chicago – are the result of knowing the right players and gaining their influence and confidence.
If left on his own, he would play basketball with the hoods and hang out at the corner. Dressing well does not make on a Leader.
Poor Michael having to distort what the President said to make a point – “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Any honest person would know what he meant but then I’m talking to you so that’s a problem to begin with. Most honest people who listen to what he had to say was that he was referring to the building of bridges and roads and infrastructure and it was that the businesses didn’t build. But when you can rile up an ignorant base then anything port in a storm eh?
So do you have problems with what Willard states?
“There are a lot of people in government who help us and allow us to have an economy that works and allow entrepreneurs and business leaders of various kinds to start businesses and create jobs. We all recognize that. That’s an important thing.”
Or this:
I know that you recognize that a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the banks, the investors. There’s no question your mom and dad. Your school teachers. The people that provide roads, the fire, and the police. A lot of people help.
What is it about plain english that you have trouble with?
He could easily have qualified his remarks to say something else, but he didn’t.
“business” is the antecedant of “that”. Even acknowledging obama’s inability to speak grammatically except when the words are written for him, there is no mistaking what he meant to say. It isn’t even a question of grammar.
He would have said “If you you’ve got a business, you have to realize that the business depends on foundations that were built by other people”.
But, of course, he didn’t say that. He said what he said, and the meaning was and is 100% clear.
Further evidence is that the profoundly stupid remark is perfectly consistent with his ideology, which is that government must control everything and that the role of individuals is to be subjects to their masters. It’s why he is attempting to cram two 2,000+ page laws down the country’s throats, among thousands of other pieces of evidence.
What is it about understanding communication that you can’t comprehend. It’s difficult enough when politicians are in campaign mode to not make gaffes as they all do. But here if you are honest( and it doesn’t appear that way to me) when listening to the President speak he paused after he said business and he then referred back to the bridges and roads and even his body language did the same when he pointed. But then if you feel you have an advantage why be honest right?
The “he’s dumb” defense is a good one. It’s the best he has. And it’s based on the truth.
Again, the man had plenty of opportunity to make his statements more clear. That he didn’t can only be attributed to one of three things: your idea that he is too dumb to know what he said, that he meant what he said, or that what he says has no bearing whatsoever on what he thinks (which would be a reasonable explanation if the totality of his remarks were not so consistently anti-business). Unfortunately for your “he’s dumb” theory, what he said is perfectly consistent with his ideology, and perfectly consistent with all of his remarks that day. He is dumb, but this time, he said what he meant and he meant what he said.
But if liberals didn’t have fantasies to cling to, they would have to deal with reality, and wouldn’t have anyone to blame for their self-induced problems.
Scanner you don’t seem to be to bright if you need to make up a straw man to knock down. No one said he’s dumb except you and he didn’t need to correct his statement because he didn’t think anyone would be “dumb enough” to take it out of context. I notice even you didn’t comment on recent statements by Mitt saying the same exact thing.
It does appear you have a problem with honesty even to yourself. Is that learned or genetic?
Well then, the only thing to do is to wait a few days until his campaign staffers have had time to do their polling, whether the final meaning agrees with the actual words or not. “just words” after all. What’s important is what the words mean after they are poll-tested.
He’s still the greatest orator of all time, it’s just that you can’t tell what he means when he says it. And the words don’t count until he says they count. They are virtual words, until he commits to them. And the meaning of the words is quantum until he commits to the meaning.
He really is a genius.
Oh please. Here we go with the Holy ‘teachers, cops, and firefighters’ line again. And maybe some captured banks and your two daddys.
Allow this, bozo. We OWN them. WE own the government. We ALLOW the government.
Okay, that was a bit harsh.
I know you meant ‘make possible’, not ‘allow’.
Apologies.
I’m not allowing anything – those are Mitt Romney quotes
Not only did I quote the president accurately, I provided the actual clip in which he said those very words, in the context in which he said them. How that can be described as “distortion” is beyond me. But hey — who are you going to believe? Obama’s apologists or your lying ears?
Here’s Mark Steyn on the subject: http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-364707-build-golden.html
“His statement bespeaks anger, pettiness, jealousy, destructiveness and rage”
I’m not so sure that it bespeaks those things in himself, even though he is definitely trying to fuel those emotions in his marks.
For him personally, I think the guy is a calm and collected grifter whose primary emotion is self-love.
He’s just running his con. It’s not all that personal for him. He may have some hatreds arising from having no father, and because he suspects he has been lied to about who his father was, and he is a hard-core marxist from his mother’s milk, but there isn’t a lot of evidence to prove he’s a galactic hater (or, at least, the evidence can be just as easily explained as his shell game). It’s all manipulation for him. He’s a sociopath/psychopath actor who stumbled into the greatest con of all time.
The president was wrong. His intent was to say that you didn’t build it ALONE. Fine, but EVERYBODY didn’t build my business. My example is right along the lines of this article, and will lead right to point number two. A man might hire ten thousand people to build a building, but did any one, or any combination of them, build it? No, they assembled it, or assisted in its assemblage. The man who hired them built it.
To point number two. Roark is wrong. Ayn Rand is wrong. Roark was hired, paid to do a job, draw a picture, design a building. It is irrelevant what they do with it after he’s drawn it, it is THEIRS. According to everything a capitalist SHOULD hold holy, that work was paid for, and can be discarded, modified, or used in whole or in part without penalty or condemnation. What they CAN’T do is use it without giving credit to Roark for having designed it, or use part of his design without giving him credit, or credit something to him that he DIDN’T design. But they own his work, and can modify it, and have someone else change it again, and again, until is suits them.
Capitalism. It’s the normal way of doing business for thousands of years.
You are wrong about Rand and Roark. Please read the relevant passage(s) in The Fountainhead, or listen more closely to the movie clip.
Roark clearly states to the jury that his price for designing Cordtland (a housing project for the poor) was that it be built *precisely* as he designed it. That WAS the contractually agreed payment for designing an apartment complex that would address the specified needs and be buildable within budget, which nobody else could see a way to accomplish. He did. So, in essence he was “donating” the usual financial compensation in trade for the intellectual and artistic satisfaction to be derived from his innovative act. – He was not paid.
Because his design was altered in innumerable ways to suit the desires and predilections of clients who had contributed nothing except the task, while assuming for themselves the right to ignore their obligation to him, he felt justified in dynamiting the place. The jury’s verdict was an acquittal.
Rand is making the point that all human effort is freely traded by the participants, and that this is the only valid moral relationship among the producers of value and its beneficiaries. To find otherwise would be to recognize a superior right of looters.
We are asked to grant her “poetic license”, if you will, on the other issue(s), such as the one of unilaterally taking the law into one’s own hands.
That would be an issue in real life, which in the story is glossed over by means of Roark stating that by all common legal and professional, social, conventions he would not have had recourse to justice in a typical court. This little “deus ex machina” is brought out so as not to obfuscate the larger issue of the rights of the creators/producers of useful innovations as opposed to the looters’ typical actions of first vilifying the creators, but then to appropriate their creations for uncompensated personal gain and aggrandizement whenever they feel like it.
Rand clearly states and supports this ESSENTIAL issue, the core of The Fountainhead’s theme.
As long as the “left” can keep the right believing they are in an idealist showdown with all their political talk, they have lost nothing.
It is the same people who are the “winner’s” over and over no matter what political machine seems to be in power.
In his book “Capitalism and Freedom” (1962) Milton Friedman (1912-2006) advocated minimizing the role of government in a free market as a means of creating political and social freedom. An excerpt from an interview with Phil Donahue in 1979.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
Among those who helped you make your business are all the farm boys who died keeping America free.
Howard Roark is a “creator”, is that the “Creator” of the DOI? I’m confused. So, Howie gets ripped off in a contract dispute, Alisa Rosenbaum makes a career out of it. Bravo.
Have you read tis?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/20/irs-labor-department-persecute-idaho-man-after-appearing-on-obamas-enemies-list/comment-page-1/#comment-6046968
A splendid lesson for the young people of America;
Become a dope snorting, irresponsible punk like Obama, and you may grow up to be President of the United States!
#23 Doc Neaves Roark designed the project without compensation on the sole condition the project was built as he designed it. The design was changed; thus Roarks condition was violated and he was not compensated for his design by having it built unaltered as contracted. Ayn Rand is correct you are in error; I suggest you reread the book.
Sha—–zam!
MICHELLE OBAMA’S MIRROR REFLECTIONS FROM MOTUS: THE MIRROR OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.michellesmirror.com/2012/07/saturday-week-in-review.html
So nowadays, if you are a Roark, you can just dump your waste anywhere, pay your workers next to nothing, forget about any safety regulations.. just go for it. Rand lived in a different time. a time when we did not recognize that our resources were actually going to be limited, a time when most corporations hadn’t admitted or paid for huge public health problems they created, ie the tobacco industry, the love canal, I guess it was a fine time for those people surging ahead following their dream. I wonder how wonderful it was to those who drank the water, developed the cancer, or black lung.
Truth is, most people, myself included, either just don’t see, or don’t want to follow those pesky stop signs which prevent us from devastating the lives of others. It is so much easier to be free. As a nurse… believe me, i would prefer not to wash in between, would prefer to restrain the elderly, would prefer to go fast, rather than careful. Ayn had wonderful heroes who faced few real restrictions except the malevolence of others… I don’t think that is the case today. Seems that the more we know, the more we set up regulations. Hey, back then, Hambutgers and hotdogs, with mayonaise, and cheese, and chips and beer were just fine… Too bad we had to find out about cholesterol etc. Personally I think libertarianism is akin to being a pre-teen… just go for it.
Atlas Shrugged Part 2 will be in theaters Oct 12, 2012.
What is the net effect of importing and exporting of goods and services through international trade?