Another Reason to Hate Ayn Rand

The impact that Ayn Rand and her pseudo-philosophy of "Objectivism" have had on Right-wing thought is probably not as great as Milton Friedman or Fredrick von Hayek but several top GOPers have taken to quoting her notions. Rand, who thought that selfishness was a virtue and that wealthy capitalists were superior beings, was basically a crackpot with a large vocabulary. It now turns out that she was admirer of a notorious murdere named William Edward Hickman. Hickman kidnapped a girl 1927, then killed and dismembered her. When caught he tried to blame someone else. Hickman was convicted and executed. It turns out that Rand admired Hickman for his ruthlessness. Which goes to show how twisted her thinking was.

The PRISM problem

The PRISM program actually started in 2007 under the Bush administration. It enjoyed the support of many Repubs who now claim to be "outraged" by the surveillance. The program has been defended by its proponents as having stopped many terroritst attacks. President Obama says "You cannot have 100% security and 100% privacy and 0% inconvenience" which may be true on the surface. But the program demands that we sacrifice too much privacy for a questionnable policy. Such mass based monitoring did nothing to prevent the terrorist attack committed by the Tsarnaev brothers, for instance. In fact such free lance terrorism might become the principal threat in the future.

In the case of the Tsaranevs, it was already known that they could be terrorists, but there was a lack of thoroughness. There has been an American tendency to rely on technology alone. That has to be reconsidered.

Get Over Yourselves Already!

The right wing follies continue, with right wing groups complaining about how they were "abused" by the IRS. The thing is that all they have "suffered" are delays in applications for tax exempt status. I think these crybabies would also feel "vicitmizec" by long lines at the Post Office. These rightists have actually gotten what they wanted; an underfunded government that doesn't work very well. So shut the hell up already!

When Progress Sucks

Salon.com has an interesting article with Jason Lanier, who points out that the Internet is actually destroying jobs and undermining the middle class. He points out how Instagram, for isnstance, helped drive Kodak into bankruptcy: "So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period. You have this intense concentration of the formal benefits, and that winner-take-all feeling is not just for the people who are on the computers but also from the people who are using them. So there’s this tiny token number of people who will get by from using YouTube or Kickstarter, and everybody else lives on hope. There’s not a middle-class hump. It’s an all-or-nothing society."

Economists speak about "creative destruction," how industrialization for example was ultimately a good thing because it created more jobs even as it drove individual artisans out of business. But the computer revolution, by contrast, is merely destroying jobs without creating anything in its place. That may be the reason why economic conditions continue to get worse in spite of all the new gadgets that keep coming out,

What to do about mass insanity?

The Right-wing have passed from hysteria into psychosis. Recently some a radio host called Pete Santilli said he wanted to shoot Hilary Rodham Clinton in the vagina. Some years ago, if somebody had said something similar about Condoleeza Rice, for example, he would've had Homeland Security up the wazoo. But these right wing morons get awai with it. The American right are a bunch of mentally unbalanced idiots with guns; a dangerous combination anyway you look at it.

This pandering to the insanity of the right wing continues at all levels. Witness the so called scandal about the alleged "targeting" of Tea Party groups by the IRS. What actually happened is that these groups didn't want to comply with IRS regulations because, amongst their other problems, Tea Partiers just don't want to follow the same rules as everybody else. The GOPers are trying to exploit the issue, big surprise, but many Democrats and even the Obama administration are pandering to the Tea Party petulance.

How long are we going to let them get away with it?

Respectable Racism

Jason Richwine was forced to resign from the Heritage Founcation. He is the co-author of a report that purports to show the dire consequnces of Hispanic immigration to the US. Richwines 2009 doctoral dissertation purports that Hispanics have lowere IQ levels than whites. This is similar to the claims that Charles Murray made against African Americans. It should be pointed out that the use of IQ tests has come under serious question in recent years, and should not be seen as difinitive. But there's the larger issue of racism at the higherst levels of academia. Richwine got his PhD at Harvard University which can certainly be considered the highest levels of academis. We usually think of racism as being a problem for the uneducated and uninformed. But the Richwine case seems to indicate that racism extends all the way to Harvard.

Niall Ferguson Admits He's Stupid

Niall Ferguson is a pseudo- historian known for advocating a vicious form of neo-conservatism. Last week at the Altergris conference Ferguson attacked the John Maynard Keynes saying that Keynes didn't care about the future because he was gay and an an 'effete' member of society." The whole thing sounds very stupid of course. It's an example of "right wing logic" which lumps everything they dislike into one category. Ferguson's comments have even drawn fire from certain right wing opinion makers.

Ferguson is now backtracking admitting that his comments were "stupid." His entire world view is stupid. Ferguson is a relic of the 1980's who preaches militarism, imperialism, and recessionist economics.