...And tonight's musical guest, Rush!

Libertarians pick on Democrats the most, but Republicans have operated such a market-distortion scam on behalf of the rich: like a lower rate for capital gains, which contradicts their and libertopian claims that the government should stay away from promoting winners and losers, manipulate tax policy to serve interest groups, etc. Stossel wants to get rid of the FDA, not just reform it etc. He wants a return to the Gilded Age. BTW even Ayn Rand despised speculators and the worst of Big Finance, and didn't confuse them with "real producers." Current aynal-retentives don't get that well enough.

What's Rush's going to play, Music from An Anal Cyst?

Funny how libertarians never include the military in "big government", probably because military spending provides a really handy method of transferring wealth to those corporate titans the libertarians are so enamoured of.

Stossel is not a "libertarian activist". He just plays one on TV. He is nothing but a bought-and-paid-for professional liar and shill for corporations who profit from harming the public.

Any "libertarians" who believe that John Stossel has a "libertarian" bone in his body are gullible dupes -- the kind of people the totalitarian Soviet communists used to call "useful idiots".

In other words, he's a perfect match for the Fox News audience of weak-minded, ignorant, mean-spirited Ditto-Heads who have been brainwashed into slavishly believing any line of BS that corporations want to spoon-feed them, as long as it is branded "conservative".

What Secular Animist said. And he's a jackass who can't—or won't—make a distinction between fiction and reality.

Shorter Stossel:

"Dagney Taggart FAP FAP FAP"

Atlas Shrugged or global warming

Gee, I wonder what Ayn Rand would have said about global warming? (Actually, I can make a good guess.) Here's a funny thing: a brief Google search for libertarian solutions to global warming turns up nothing at all. The vast majority of libertarians are climate change skeptics or denialists, and I think it's pretty clear why: addressing climate change will take collective action, and that would up-end the foundations of libertarian philosophy.

I've long wondered why Stossel's Randian nuttiness didn't draw more attention and derision from his peers.

Mike

Secular Animist! Oh how we have missed thee. Where have you been? I miss your well punctuated and passionate harangues against Americas Ultra Rich Ruling Class.

So, Stossel's new show is going to be Fiction??

Hopefully Stossel will continue to overheat about meaningless or imagined drivel and eventually burn up through internal combustion.

Maybe Stossel should look at why Republican'ts are so worried that a public option would not create a 'level playing field'. It's silly.

...And tonight's musical guest, Rush!

Rush's Randian beliefs are limited to artistic freedom. These days, drummer/lyricist Neil Peart describes himself as a "liberal libertarian." Precisely the same term that Markos Moulitsas uses to describe himself.

Ayn Rand predicted what?

Big government, nice-sounding legislation like "The Preservation of Livelihood Law," which mandated that Hank Rearden's production must not be bigger than any other steel mill, to make it a level playing field. It's silly.

Is that a new law passed by this Congress?

No, but it's what Wesley Mouch, the evil bureaucrat in the book, passed. And what Tim Geithner and what Barney Frank might like to pass.

Actually, I think the interview shows - yet again - that Lloyd Grove is an idiot.

John Stossel : This is what happens when brother and sister marry.

"No Child Left Behind"

Ayn Rand was an atheist. I wonder how many conservatives even know that? That would explain why she thought screwing over and exploiting other humans was just fine. Conservatives are inherently self-conflicted creatures, professing to be Christians while living decidely unChristian lives.

Once the acne clears up, the clearest remaining sign of an adolescent personality is adoring references to Ayn Rand.

If this show appears on Fox Biz Channel, will anyone actually know it?

What exactly does total non-parasite John Stossel "produce"? I mean, other than excreta.

I'm sorry, but anyone who reads Atlas Shrugged and doesn't immediately realize what a simplistic, juvenile pile of crap it is is a moron.

Hear here, DH Walker. I revisited it recently and the stupid is just paralyzing.

Ayn Rand was an atheist. . . . That would explain why she thought screwing over and exploiting other humans was just fine.

No, it wouldn't.

Rand was an atheist -- a very aggressive one. She felt atheism and conservatism were the biggest threats to a true Objectivist philosophy, unless you want to includ the uber-evil of socialism.

Oh, and she was very much opposed to Ronald Reagan, even going so far as to urge her Collective members to vote against him in 1976.

I wonder if these conservatives realize whom they are climbing in bed with?

Of course what everyone, including Rand herself, never mentions is that the utopia created by John Galt was only possible with the creation of his mystical 'engine' that creates energy from nothing. That neatly bypasses all the pollution, distribution, concetrations of wealth and other problems associated with energy production today (and in the 50s). It eliminated the need for collective production of the power needed to sustain our modern lifestyle.

Nice trick on her part. Free energy would solve most of our problems. Unfortunately we live in the real world.

Where's that wrestler to beat the shit out of Stossel again when you need him?

I wonder if these conservatives realize whom they are climbing in bed with?

Well, since you used the words "conservatives" and "realize" in the same sentence, I know this question is rhetorical.

Still - no, as SecularAnimist says, conservatives will "believe" anything that they think supports their side, regardless of whether it's true, whether it even makes any sense, or whether it completely contradicts something else they "believe". They don't see arguments as having factual basis or logical underpinnings - they see them as magical incantations. All they have to do is pronounce (or type) the words out, and they "win" the argument - which is all they care about anyway.

thorin-1 wrote: "Of course what everyone, including Rand herself, never mentions is that the utopia created by John Galt was only possible with the creation of his mystical 'engine' that creates energy from nothing."

In that regard, Atlas Shrugged was, among other things, a work of science fiction. Rand's first novella, Anthem, was even more overtly a sci-fi fantasy story.

Once upon a time a struggling science fiction writer addressed a sci-fi writers' convention and said, "Writing stories for the pulp magazines at three cents a word is all very well, but if a man really wanted to become rich, he would start his own religion."

That writer was L. Ron Hubbard, who went on to write Dianetics and found the science-fiction religion known as Scientology. And he did indeed become very, very, very rich.

Ayn Rand had much the same idea when she created the science-fiction religion known as Objectivism.

I don't think she ever got as rich as Hubbard, though -- probably because she didn't invent an "E-Meter" to audit her followers' progress towards the Objectivist equivalent of becoming "clear". If she had, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News would be selling them like hotcakes to the Ditto-Heads, and the Objectivists would have their own navy, just like the Scientologists.

Fox should just call the show "BS" and they would be fair and balanced for once.

Rand claimed she based her philosophy on pure reason. Lots of people read that and are impressed by it. Unfortunately, Rand knew nothing about reason or philosophy. She was a writer and a novelist. She worked for Cecil B. DeMille. She didn't truly understand what science and reason are about. Her epistemology sounds good to the novice, but the necessary experimental backing doesn't exist, and she didn't understand that it is necessary. One of her major premises is that resources are, by definition, unlimited. (Thus, the generator that violates the 1st law of Thermodynamics.) She literally doesn't know what she is talking about. And it is easy to spot that by reading Atlas Shrugged. Anyone who doesn't spot that doesn't know what they are talking about, either.

Tim H wrote: "Rand claimed she based her philosophy on pure reason."

And we all know what "pure reason" gives you:

Garbage in, garbage out.

In that regard, Atlas Shrugged was, among other things, a work of science fiction. Rand's first novella, Anthem, was even more overtly a sci-fi fantasy story.

You can also make the argument that everything Rand has ever written is just Anthem in different (and usually several orders of magnitude more) words. The only meaningful addition to Atlas Shrugged are the rape fantasies.

... If she had, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News would be selling them like hotcakes to the Ditto-Heads, and the Objectivists would have their own navy, just like the Scientologists.

That's just your engrams talking. What you need is a good auditing.

There are some similarities between Objectivism and Scientology. Rand's foundation or whatever she called it used to (and probably still does) offer very expensive tape-recorded lectures where one would be allowed to sit in a room with other suckers and take notes. Not as bad as the Scientology classes, but still. And Rand, of course, performed her own sort of "dead agenting" with the Branden schism.

I only read 'Atlas Shrugged' this year, to see what all the ruckus was. Toward the end, I recalled Steve Martin in 'The Jerk,' his wealth and sanity gone, forlornly stumbling down the street with his pants around his ankles and a lamp in his arms, moaning, "All I need is this, right here..." Galt made more sense, then. I can picture that scene with Stossel. It's fun.

A pathetic, hyperbolic fantasy, Atlas. But when you look at what's selling to that crowd, it fits right in. It appears those who would go, stay here, with us. I doubt they would need any commentators there, anyway, with all those noble & lofty thoughts they would of course already have.

I thought "Stossel" was dialectical German for what falls out of the rear end of a horse.

He seems to have gotten his books confused. The author who predicted today's society was George Orwell, not Rand.

"And to think, ABC let this insightful media professional slip away."

And to think, ABC hired this dweeb in the first place.

Stossel? To Stossel? Sounds like it has the potential to make a good verb rather than a noun. I'm thinking along the lines of the redefinition of Santorum. Any ideas?

Hey, wait -- didn't Rand predict a future dominated by corrupt corporations run by looters colluding with an equally corrupt government to rob the public and destroy human life rather than create genuine value?

She was right.

It's just that soi-disant conservatives are in charge of everything.

Sorry to be late to the discussion about noted journalist John Stossel.

I present to you, IMHO, the finest interview ever conducted by Mr. Stossel.
Scratch that. It's the finest piece of journalism ever conducted in the history of mankind.

Someone remarked that libertarians never talk about the military when it comes to cutting big government. Not all libertarians think the same way about every issue, and I at least would heartily agree that it's incredibly wasteful to outspend the rest of the world combined on military spending, and would agree that much of that spending is corporate welfare, which is totally wrong in all its forms and should be stopped.

I love the reference to Barney Frank. At least Tim Geithner actually wields some policy influence. On any plausible ranking of political power and authority in America, Barney Frank comes in about 600th. Not the least influential Congressman, or even the least influential Democrat--but close!

He's not even very ideological... just a run of the mill backbencher, although a recognizable and senior one. Why, oh why, did Stossel happen to mention his name, I wonder?

Someone remarked that libertarians never talk about the military when it comes to cutting big government.

The larger point here is that 99% of people who call themselves "libertarian" are really just dishonest party-line Republicans who don't want to have to answer for all of the shitty things Republicans have done and continue to do.

On any plausible ranking of political power and authority in America, Barney Frank comes in about 600th.

uh, not that I have any love for Stossel, and I know Frank is a popular whipping boy, but as chairman of the House finance committee, he does rank quiet a bit higher than 600 at the moment. I'd put him up around the top 25 in congress, especially in light of events over the past year.

I enjoyed Stossel's first show. His guest Jerry Taylor from Cato was very eloquent disputing the religion of global warming and the facts that its advocates ignore.
As a 63 year old Objectivist, it never ceases to amaze me at the echo chamber, as shown above, of the invective and outright "hate" the left displays in their ad hominem and ad captandum monologues. "Atlas Shrugged" is the most brilliant novel I've ever read and illustrates the murder of the human spirit which today is best exemplified by the so-called "progressives" in this country.
For Rand, laissez-faire capitalism (true capitalism disassociated from politicians with their grants, subsidies,government created monopolies,et al) is a natural consequence of living by the ethics of egoism that itself is a consequence of recognizing the supremacy of reason (not hyper emotionalism as most of Rand's critics). Sir Isaac Newton was considered by many to be narcissistic, egocentric, etc. but yet his theories stand on their own. Criticism of a founder of a theory, as stated by Michael Shermer of "Skeptic" magazine, "...does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the theory."

Gentlemen, Ladies,
One day the American electorate is going to understand that the current Republican/Democrat, Liberal/Conservative, Palin/The Forces Of Goodness, Right/Left dichotomy is a false choice.

Libertarians, as a very general rule, don't give a rip if you worship a god, God, gods, mouse droppings, or any of the old Greek and Roman pantheons of deities.

Libertarians, as a very general rule, have enjoyed and benefited from Ayn Rand's novels. They generally have issues with Objectivism. Most of them are aware that Rand thought libertarianism was an indefensible philosophical position.

Libertarians, as a very general rule, are more suspicious of government quotas, subsidies, and set-asides for business than they are of welfare for individuals. The main reason? Corporate welfare is more harmful.

Where in the hell do you find John Stossel defending any of this mess?