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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The 7 strangest libertarian ideas"
The 7 strangest libertarian ideasby Richard Eskow, AlterNet, at Salon
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/03/the_7_strangest_libertarian_ideas_partner/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
"SNIP.........................
5. Selflessness is vile. From libertarian avatar and prophet Ayn Rand: The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.
Aid workers. Doctors Without Borders. Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. Mother Teresa. In this libertarian view, all of them are parasites who make parasites of those they servebecause, of course, the free market would eventually eliminate poverty. (Never mind the millions who would starve in the meantime.)
Not only are these good people parasites in this libertarian view, they are deliberately parasitical (in motive). They lack the nobility of character needed to act purely out of self-interest, like the murderer Ayn Rand so admired. As Mark Ames reported in 2012, Rand,
.........................SNIP"
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)when she decided that accepting Medicare and Social Security (under a phony name, of course) was a better choice than dying broke when she had lung cancer in her final years.
She never accepted the idea that her chain smoking had anything to do with the cancer, and never explained why, with all her yakking about self-reliance, she could never amass enough cash to deal with her own life.
And yet there is an Ann Rand Institute with people believing her bullshit.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)It shows just the tip of a very cold iceberg that is Libertarianism.
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)Well, for all the talk of Rand Pauls adherence to principle, were learning that hes actually highly malleable when it comes to his policy positions. And as for his willingness to buck the Republican establishment, were seeing that whenever he does bend on policy, its usually in the direction of the Republican consensus. He did it on immigration, portraying himself as both a hardline border security proponent and an advocate for comprehensive reform, depending on which viewpoint dominated Republican thinking at the time. And now that Republicans are pressuring President Obama to take unspecified military action against ISIS, hes abandoning his much-derided (in Republican circles) anti-interventionist foreign policy rhetoric in favor of the bellicose posturing of the rest of the hawkish GOP.
If I were President, Paul wrote in an email to the Associated Press, I would call a joint session of Congress. I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily. Thats an overly simplified version of what the U.S. is looking at when it comes to confronting the terrorist group. Any U.S. effort to destroy ISIS militarily will require a huge commitment of men and materiel, along with political commitments from regional actors, and will take years.
And as Steve Benen points out, this is a complete flip from what Rand Paul was saying just last week about Americas role and responsibility in confronting ISIS:
A week ago today, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal condemning interventionists, who are quick to use military force abroad with little thought to the consequences. Over the course of his 900-word piece, the Republican senator was dismissive of the hawkish members of my own party.
A more realistic foreign policy would recognize that there are evil people and tyrannical regimes in this world, but also that America cannot police or solve every problem across the globe, Paul wrote. Only after recognizing the practical limits of our foreign policy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of the U.S.
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/03/rand_pauls_flip_flop_nightmare_non_interventionist_now_backs_war_in_the_middle_east
I think Rand is serious about running for the republican presidential nomination and is "bending" some policies that are not popular with republicans.