{"id":4844,"date":"2011-05-15T03:05:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-15T10:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4844"},"modified":"2011-05-15T05:14:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-15T12:14:33","slug":"danger-gop-greed-guru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/15\/danger-gop-greed-guru\/","title":{"rendered":"Danger: GOP Greed Guru"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republican Party has a greed guru.\u00a0 In fact the son of America\u2019s most prominent tinfoil hat addict named his son after her.\u00a0 Her teaching has provided a philosophical rationale that allows Republicans to take from the poor and give to the rich.\u00a0 In a nutshell, her philosophy is that government exists to serve the rich, because they and they alone are worthy of government support.\u00a0 Her ideas are not new.\u00a0 If we examine them closely we can see that see that similar thinking is responsible for the some of the greatest atrocities in modern history.\u00a0 Will history repeat itself?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"15rand\"Long before Gordon Gekko declared “Greed is Good,<\/a>” a Russian immigrant named Ayn Rand argued that selfishness was a virtue. She encouraged individuals to blindly pursue their own self-interests, without regard for the “common good.” 30 years after her death, her influence on conservative ideology is growing by the day as it becomes fashionable to slash unemployment benefits, cut heating assistance to the elderly, and gut Medicare<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example. Rand once claimed<\/a>, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject<\/strong>.” Altruism, in her opinion,\u00a0 led to tolerance for the “incompetent” common man, coddling of the “less deserving”.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jennifer Burns<\/a>, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, explains to theLoop21, “Ayn Rand believed that the root of prosperity comes not from the labor of the many, but from the genius and creativity of a few unique and talented individuals<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

As Burns elaborates, Rand divided society into two types of people, the producers and the parasites<\/span><\/strong>. The producers, including the business class and entrepreneurs, created all the value in society<\/strong>. The parasites leeched off the producers’ efforts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In Ayn Rand’s opinion, government programs unfairly robbed the wealth creators in order to give to the poor, unemployed and other leeches of society<\/strong>. Consequently, Rand openly objected to initiatives like Medicare<\/a>, unemployment insurance, and welfare support, as they simply rewarded the “weak”.<\/p>\n

“The wealthy deserved their riches,” Dr. Burns adds. “Rand felt to tax them was to punish them for being successful.”\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <theloop21.com<\/a>><\/p>\n

As vile as her perspective seems, it is not unique.\u00a0 This is nothing more than social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest.\u00a0 Here is a brief description.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I. Introduction<\/h4>\n

\"15socdarwinism\"Social Darwinism, term coined in the late 19th century to describe the idea that humans, like animals and plants, compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in “survival of the fittest.” Social Darwinists base their beliefs on theories of evolution developed by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Some social Darwinists argue that governments should not interfere with human competition by attempting to regulate the economy or cure social ills such as poverty<\/strong>. Instead, they advocate a laissez-faire political and economic system that favors competition and self-interest in social and business affairs. Social Darwinists typically deny that they advocate a “law of the jungle.” But most propose arguments that justify imbalances of power between individuals, races, and nations because they consider some people more fit to survive than others<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The term social Darwinist is applied loosely to anyone who interprets human society primarily in terms of biology, struggle, competition, or natural law (a philosophy based on what are considered the permanent characteristics of human nature). Social Darwinism characterizes a variety of past and present social policies and theories, from attempts to reduce the power of government to theories exploring the biological causes of human behavior. Many people believe that the concept of social Darwinism explains the philosophical rationalization behind racism, imperialism, and capitalism<\/strong>. The term has negative implications for most people because they consider it a rejection of compassion and social responsibility<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <University of Colorado<\/a>><\/p>\n

This is just the introduction.\u00a0 Click through for much more.<\/span><\/p>\n

As if this were not sufficiently evil of it\u2019s own accord, social Darwinism has a companion philosophy, Eugenics.\u00a0 If there are two types of people, as so many Republican leaders believe, producers and parasites, then a society should maximize the number of producers and minimize the number of parasites.\u00a0 Less inferior people means more resources for the best and the brightest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"15eugenics\"The term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for “good” and “generation” or “origin” and was first used to refer to the “science” of heredity and good breeding in about 1883.<\/p>\n

Within 20 years, the word was widely used by scientists who had rediscovered the work of Gregor Mendel. Mendel had meticulously recorded the results of cross-breeding pea plants, and found a very regular statistical pattern for features like height and color. This introduced the concept of genes, opening the field of genetics to a tumultuous century of research. One path of genetic research branched off into the shadows of social theory, and in the first quarter of the twentieth century became immensely popular as eugenics<\/strong>. It was presented as a mathematical science that could be used to predict the traits and behaviors of humans, and in a perfect world, to control human breeding so that people with the best genes would reproduce and thus improve the species<\/strong>. It was an optimistic school of thought with a profound faith in the powers of Science.<\/p>\n

The trappings of science, anyway. Even in its day, many people saw that eugenics was a dubious discipline, riddled with inconsistencies. But it was championed by a very prominent and respected biologist, Charles Davenport<\/a>, and its conclusions told many people what they wanted to hear: that certain “racial stock” was superior to others in such traits as intelligence, hard work, cleanliness, and so on<\/span><\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <PBS<\/a>><\/p>\n

This philosophy became popular in the US, especially among the super-rich, and in Germany in the early 20th century.\u00a0 Here it led to the .acceptance of the Ku Klux Klan as part of mainstream US society.\u00a0 In Germany, it led to the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

The GOP Greed Guru, Ayn Rand, remains as one of the most dangerous influences in America today,. because the path from Rand\u2019s beliefs to unspeakable barbarism is already well worn.\u00a0 They make the Republican Party a cancer on the American body politic, that must be excised.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be clear, the overwhelming majority of rank and file Republicans do not even know that views exist within their party, let alone believe in them.\u00a0 If most understood the ramifications of social Darwinism and eugenics, they would be horrified, but they do not even know what they are.\u00a0 The people who do understand, believe and are trying to bring this to pass are the Republican leadership and their billionaire financiers.\u00a0 The rest are just what the leadership calls \u201cuseful fools\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Republican Party has a greed guru.\u00a0 In fact the son of America\u2019s most prominent tinfoil hat addict named his son after her.\u00a0 Her teaching has provided a philosophical rationale that allows Republicans to take from the poor and give to the rich.\u00a0 In a nutshell, her philosophy is that government exists to serve the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}