Philosophy, I Need It

This recent Ayn Rand obsession amonst the teabagging conservatives is really getting my goat. Have they ever actually read her works? All of them, not just Atlas Shrugged? Do they really understand her philosophy and how badly they are cherry picking it to meet their goals of the moment? I am sorry to say I do not respect the conservative movement at all right now. Maybe if they stay consistent and actually build a real movement, I might. But the hypocrisy of staying silent while billions are wasted over the last eight years and only creating a hullabaloo when it's a Democrat doing it makes them ridiculous, not serious. And what makes them even less serious is this sudden interest in an author of a philosophy they don't even embrace whole heartedly and don't even really understand.

Dagny Taggert didn't sit idly by while bubbles formed and popped and call it capitalism. She screamed and fought while stupid non-capitalist decisions were being made. Francisco destroyed his fortune rather than allow it to be used for anything that violated his principles. John Galt didn't check out after the bubble popped, he foresaw it coming and got out so he wouldn't be any part of it. Where were all the Ayn Rand enthusiasts when the oh-so-obvious bubble was forming? A bubble that no real adherent of Ayn Rand would have had anything to do with and in fact would have been screaming from the rooftops wasn't real industry, real capitalism, or in any way shape or form objectivism. But they didn't. As long as the going was good, they stayed silent. Trading worthless pieces of paper is not capitalism and Dagny, Hank, Francisco, and John wouldn't have stood for it for two seconds. So anyone who stayed silent for the last eight years can take themselves off to Galt's Gulch as soon as they find that oh-so-not-a-capitalist Francisco to finance it for them.

A true Ayn Rand aficionado would have stood up for rights of privacy and habeas corpus and would have been wholeheartedly opposed to invading a country that never attacked us. "Let them fail" would have been their credo and they wouldn't have cared a whit for the human rights of the oppressed Iraqis. Afghanistan in an objectivist viewpoint would have been annihilated.

If it's not obvious, I've actually read quite a bit of Ayn Rand. Not just her badly written fiction, but her very well thought out treatises of non-fiction. And one thing is perfectly clear when you read all of her work. There is no cherry picking. Her philosophy is one that you adhere to totally or not at all. And I don't think your "conservative" base really understands what embracing Ayn Rand really means. Here's a primer:

• Atheist. Completely. And not just free-to-be-you-and-me atheism. Complete hatred and utter contempt for religion of any kind. No favorites, no lesser of two evils. All religion is evil in objectivism.
  
• Complete and total libertarian attitude on all social issues: Drugs, sex, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, etc. are all A-OK.
  
• No government intervention in anything but what is absolutely necessary to physically defend the country. That means no Iraq, no private consulting firms to outsource defense to (you know, those same ones who have lost billions of our tax dollars that only we liberals seemed to be upset about); no real reverence for veterans (she so conveniently omits them from her writings); no bridges, roads, disaster recovery, nothing. Tell me how much you hate government on your morning commute. Tell me how much you ate government when you have to call 911 to protect your personal property. You don't, nor should you. Because it is quintessentially American to cherry pick our philosophies.
  

In regards to the tea parties, I hear a lot about the Founding Fathers. But no group has been more cherry picked then these men. Regardless of our ideology, we take from them what we want and conveniently ignore what is inconvenient to our ideology. As a nation, we pick and choose holistically: we already decide that their decisions on slavery, voting rights, women, and property are outdated and unconstitutional. We've passed several amendments deciding that the Founding Fathers were wrong. But some ideologues conveniently forget that when citing them. Isn't it time we started deciding for ourselves and acknowledging that the Founding Fathers might be good to cite in part, but not revered? How much cherry picking is OK or not OK?

The unspoken truth about American ideology is this: We are ideologues until our emotions come into play. Once those pesky heart strings are plucked, anything—anything at all—can be rationalized. I don't care which side of the ideological divide you purport to be on. For example:

• Your upset about the 9/11 terrorist attacks so all of a sudden you're in favor of nation building.
  
• You believe drugs are OK until it causes a friend of yours to die or worse kill others. Then it's a nationwide drug treatment program.
  
• States rights rule supreme until a state decides to legalize gay marriage (Vermont); then a federal statute is required.
  
• Individual rights reign until Terry Shiavo dies.
  
• Laissez faire in everything outside the bedroom, but dictatorial tyranny inside.
  
• Individual rights in everything inside the bedroom, but collective rights in everything outside it.
  

No matter which side you're on, the majority of Americans decide issues emotionally not rationally. Philosophies demand rational thought, not emotional.

I can't decide for you what you want. I can only point out that emotional decisions are not philosophical by their very definition. I can only ask, beg, plead, that before you start cherry picking philosophers, you know that you are doing so and own up to it. Do not claim Ayn Rand when you refuse the full force of her philosophy. Do not claim economic libertarianism and eschew the necessary social aspects of it at that same time. Do not claim collective good of the all and demand individual rights for all. Most importantly, do not believe that America is divided between left and right. There is no such thing. We are all a confusing chaos of conflicting ideas and beliefs that we can only defend about 50% of. The rest are emotion and feelings that we don't spend much time analyzing. Very few of us spend any time reconciling these beliefs, only using our lizard brains to decide which is right and wrong without any rational thought going into it.

Can we be done with hard line adherence sometime soon? Can we truly embrace both a Virtue of Selfishness and a sustainable society and figure out how it all works? Can we all determine at some point that we all need a philosophy and that philosophy doesn't have to adhere to a published standard, only a rational one? Can we please stop opposing for the sake of opposing and stop ignoring the fact that we cherry pick every day from those we both revere and despise?

Can we, in short, create an American philosophy?

Do They Not Know What Teabagging Means?

I'm all in support of protests. I'm a liberal, protests are our bread and butter whether they work or not. But anyone giving up their free time to go do something is to be commended. Even when it's worthy of ridicule. Again, I'm a liberal, we eat ridicule for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a midnight snack. But conservatives aren't so used to this type of protest and its accompanying ridicule.

So I say good luck with your tea parties, but don't expect much. Not because you aren't sincere or because you're a small minority, but because protests in general don't garner much attention until they are constant and sustained. You're new at this, take a lesson. Just because you decided to start screaming when a Dem goes on a spending spree while staying silent when a Repub does the same thing, don't start crying when the world doesn't stop and stare at you.

Andrew Sullivan sums it up best, in my opinion:

As a fiscal conservative who actually believed in those principles when the Republicans were in power, I guess I should be happy at this phenomenon. And I would be if it had any intellectual honesty, any positive proposals, and any recognizable point. What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.

And on the same note of "rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't" I encourage you to watch the great Jon Stewart's take on the conservative "rage." It's not tyranny, it's called losing. Hey, I do sympathize (sort of). I know rage and being discounted by the majority of the country. And like I've said before, you may be right in some ways in the end, but it doesn't matter. It won't make you feel better. This country will swing right and left and back and forth as we take our halting steps towards constantly trying to evolve and perfect our country. No ideology is 100% right, but all are often right for certain moments. The right wing's ideology failed us and maybe if they showed the slightest bit of intellectual honesty in admitting how and where it failed, there might be an opportunity for discourse about how to tailor plans between the liberal and conservatives to right it. But lacking that, we're going to move ahead.

At least you're in good wingnut company; the far left is none too happy with Obama either, albeit for different reasons (national security, war spending). When did anyone think this guy was an ideologue? He's not. He's a pragmatist and you're never going to be totally happy with a pragmatist's decisions because they won't adhere to one fixed ideology. Yes, Obama leans liberal on several issues, so did Bill Clinton. But they are also both people who will switch that position—particularly on the economy—depending on the situation at hand. Cutting government made sense in Clinton's era, expanding it makes sense now. That's the history of this country. But for conservatives, it seems history began on Reagan's inauguration day and nothing before matters and nothing but the resurrection of his body like Jesus Christ (hey, had to get an Easter reference in somewhere) will satisfy them for the future. Again,pace your rage or you will have a very long 4-8 years. Don't burn out too early.

Oh, and happy zombie weekend!