PICAYUNE —
Moochers and looters are destroying America.
Many agree with this view today. But it comes from politically incorrect author Ayn Rand in her epic 1957 work Atlas Shrugged.
Early on, many Tea Party members ardently embraced Rand and her championship of anti-regulatory laissez-faire capitalism. Today, alignment with Rand has moved out of the public eye as more and more Tea Partiers realized she was an avid pro choice atheist.
In fact, the Russian born Rand rejected all forms of religion or supernaturalism. As stated in Atlas Shrugged, she touted “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”
A disciple of Rand was Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Bank chairman who championed the concept that free markets are self-regulating and need little oversight.
Which gets us back to moochers and looters…those who live off the accomplishments of productive citizens. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand points to a national government with oppressive taxation and regulation, to non-productive masses who see themselves as victims, and, yes, to big businesses like the fictional Associated Steel that loot whole industries for profit. These are the enemies, she says, of “the motor of the world,” the heroic minds that drive job, economic, and societal growth and productivity.
Many, particularly businessmen, see Rand as a champion of the profit motive, i.e. get government off our backs so we can profit more. Not exactly. Consider this quote from Atlas Shrugged: “Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them….Money is made possible only by the men who produce.”
To her credit, Rand first and foremost championed individuals, she called them heroes, who could build industries, produce goods and services, create jobs, and drive economies. Profit, while important, was incidental to what mattered most.
This is where Greenspan failed us and Rand. Rather than guiding his Wall Street and big business cronies to become Rearden Steel producers, he allowed them to become Associated Steel looters. Industry building, job creation, and production became incidental to profit. And so, hundreds of production industries and thousands of production jobs were outsourced to foreign countries for the sake of profit.
As presidential politics move toward the final bout, all the above becomes remarkably relevant. In one corner will be the champion of big government, moocher hero President Barak Obama. In the other corner will be the champion of big business, Republican contender and Wall Street looter hero Mitt Romney (Rick Perry called him a “vulture capitalist”).
Ayn Rand would not be surprised to see no true heroes of production and job creation on the fight card.
(Bill Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Meridian and can be reached at crawfolk@gmail.com)
Opinion
No Rand heroes on November card
- Opinion
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
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Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
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While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
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When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. -
Right to vote not ‘racial entitlement
By Donna Brazile/Syndicated columnist
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination against racial and language minorities to get “pre-approved” by the federal government before changing how elections are conducted or voters are registered. -
1st day of spring brings memories
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun
The first day of spring! My favorite month, April, is just around the corner. Now we just need one big gullywasher to get rid of the pine pollen.
Normally, spring gives me a strong sense of rebirth and renewal, but this spring I seem surrounded by moments crystallizing the passage of time.
It was a year ago, I walked up the porch to my mother’s home to box up her possessions following her funeral. -
Soaking up in tiger paw-shaped hot tub
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
No springtime ritual was better at Auburn than sitting on hard rocks at a nearby state park to let cold water rush over your feet. You wore cut-off blue jeans and Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the unofficial uniform for coeds in the 1970s, and when you left, you felt ready to tackle tests, term papers and blind dates.
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Medicaid or not, costs will be paid
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While the battle continues between state Republicans and other fiscal conservatives intent on focusing on the long-terms costs of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats, health care advocates and state hospitals intent on focusing on the short-term benefits, the fact remains that one way or another, the costs of providing health care for the poor, the blind, the aged and the disabled will be paid by the taxpayers one way or another.
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Multiculturalism is not rational
By Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley. - More Opinion Headlines
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