Friday, August 17, 2012

Randian Goblins

A devotee of  the noxious Russian ghost Ayn Rand may soon stand a silver bullet from the American throne.  A terrible vista, for sure, but more interesting to me was how little the singular life of this fanboy resembled the philosophy of his mentor.

As adumbrated here, Paul Ryan has spent the majority of his life dependent on or tied to public beneficence.

The Economist (obliquely) argues here that it is almost commendable that Mr Ryan, who has survived for so long on the taxpayer trough, should parade a philosophy that would destroy for others everything that he has been given.  The implication being that his political thought is pure and clear, unaffected by his own life-course, and existing in its own pedestaled state.  

Now, I do not have a problem as such with people who profess an opinion that contradicts the foundation of their own life and interests.  Privately educated communists do not bother me, and Is should not imply Ought, etc... The Economist makes a good point:

We find ourselves always in a world mostly not of our making. If we don't care for the world as we find it, and we're really serious about changing it, we'd be stupid not to use the instruments and institutions at our disposal. 

But with this character, I just get the jittering feeling that he is the 'bad guy'.  Having spent two summers at close to the lowest point in the American economic hierarchy, a world where Randianism  means for many triple jobbing and sleepless nights, and for others the collection of long and distant genetic rent, I glare with one red eye at people at the top who advocate this stuff.   Kind of like the feeling one gets when an always friendly dog agressively barks at someone... something is, a little off, some crystal compass gone awry.  

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