Ayn Rand Signed on for Medicare and social Security

[crimresearch]

You can rationalize it all you want, but an inconsistency between belief and action is, by definition, hypocrisy.

Even when the inconsistency is in the eye of the beholder?

 

[respect]

You can rationalize it all you want, but an inconsistency between belief and action is, by definition, hypocrisy.

Again, no one said maintaining your principles was easy or even logical. It certainly makes sense that if you pay into a program, you are entitled to receive benefits from it. But if you have a principled stance against that program, you are a hypocrite no matter how rational your actions are.

So everyone who wants a single payer universal healthcare system that has private insurance or pays for medical care out of pocket is a hypocrite?

 

[RandFan]

You can rationalize it all you want, but an inconsistency between belief and action is, by definition, hypocrisy.

I don't see how it is necessarily inconsistent or how it is necessarily hypocritical. I think you are drawing to sharp a contrast and rejecting any and all nuance.

 

[johnny karate]

So everyone who wants a single payer universal healthcare system that has private insurance or pays for medical care out of pocket is a hypocrite?

Do those people have a principled stance against private insurance, or do they just feel single payer is a better system?

I think steak is better than hamburger, but it doesn't make me a hypocrite to eat hamburger.

Even when the inconsistency is in the eye of the beholder?

The inconsistency is readily apparent. A person who is opposed to Medicare or Social Security on principle is being inconsistent in accepting either.

I don't see how it is necessarily inconsistent or how it is necessarily hypocritical. I think you are drawing to sharp a contrast and rejecting any and all nuance.

Principles have little to do with nuance, and are all about sharp contrast. You either adhere to those principles, or you don't.

 

[theprestige]

The inconsistency is readily apparent. A person who is opposed to Medicare or Social Security on principle is being inconsistent in accepting either.

Depends on the principle of the opposition, doesn't it?

RandFan can correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure Randian Objectivism doesn't include any principled opposition to getting what you paid for.

Perhaps the problem is that you don't really understand what Rand's principles were, so you have this wrongheaded conception of what might go against them?

 

[RandFan]

Principles have little to do with nuance, and are all about sharp contrast. You either adhere to those principles, or you don't.

But principles are not necessarily black and white. If you could save someone's life by lying would you or would your principle against lying prevent you from doing so ala Kant? Is it wrong to kill another person to save yourself?

ETA: I strongly recommend the free online Justice Course with Michael Sandel. He explores why principles are not as black and white as we might at first think.

 

[RandFan]

RandFan can correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure Randian Objectivism doesn't include any principled opposition to getting what you paid for.

None that I know of. If she hadn't paid into the program and took advantage of it then that would then impress me that she was hypocritical.

 

[mhaze]

Do those people have a principled stance against private insurance, or do they just feel single payer is a better system?

I think steak is better than hamburger, but it doesn't make me a hypocrite to eat hamburger.



The inconsistency is readily apparent. A person who is opposed to Medicare or Social Security on principle is being inconsistent in accepting either.



Principles have little to do with nuance, and are all about sharp contrast. You either adhere to those principles, or you don't.

You simply don't know what you are talking about. You've found a likely target, some kind of enemy and are mindlessly attacking. I invite you to actually look at what Rand wrote concerning her taking medicare benefits and her philosophy, and then report back as to whether in some fashion there is some hypocrisy or whatever.

In other words, establish the facts, and then criticize. Doesn't mean you should or have to agree.

 

[epepke]

The social security criticism I don't buy. From her perspective it would be idiotic to not take advantage of an insurance policy forced on her. It does not, IMO, make her morally inconsistent.

Social security isn't an insurance policy. It was specifically and deliberately not set up as an insurance policy. It was set up as a system by which people are paid from the taxes of other contemporaries.

Now, it would have been better in some ways if it had been an insurance policy. If it had, then the government wouldn't have had such an easy job "borrowing" from the fund to make up tax shortfalls. That would have been better. The Social Security fund would be in just fine shape if it hadn't been leeched all those decades, which leeching was made possible by accounting jiggery-pokery. There are limitations on what an insurer can do with insurance premiums, which do not exist for a tax-based wealth redistribution system such as Social Security.

Unemployment, on the other hand, is insurance. There is no problem there. If one works and pays into the fund, one has a perfect right to get it back even for the most sociopathic Randroid.

But Social Security isn't. All insisting that it is tells us is that Rand culture is full of ignorance and lies, which we knew already.

 

[RandFan]

Social security isn't an insurance policy.

A silly point but let's grant you the premise to advance the discussion. She paid into it. She was entitled to get what was promised for her input as if it were an insurance policy.

 

[theprestige]

Social security isn't an insurance policy. It was specifically and deliberately not set up as an insurance policy. It was set up as a system by which people are paid from the taxes of other contemporaries.

Now, it would have been better in some ways if it had been an insurance policy. If it had, then the government wouldn't have had such an easy job "borrowing" from the fund to make up tax shortfalls. That would have been better. The Social Security fund would be in just fine shape if it hadn't been leeched all those decades, which leeching was made possible by accounting jiggery-pokery. There are limitations on what an insurer can do with insurance premiums, which do not exist for a tax-based wealth redistribution system such as Social Security.

Unemployment, on the other hand, is insurance. There is no problem there. If one works and pays into the fund, one has a perfect right to get it back even for the most sociopathic Randroid.

But Social Security isn't. All insisting that it is tells us is that Rand culture is full of ignorance and lies, which we knew already.

It's true that Social Security isn't an ideal case. As far as I'm concerned, the "Randian principle" is satisfied the moment you are compelled to pay taxes. After that, any taxpayer-funded benefits program is fair game. You're forced to pay into the system, and now the system owes you. Better you were never forced to pay in the first place, but until that day...

Johnny Karate, of course, sees it differently: You should just wave goodbye to all the money the taxman takes from you, and never ask for anything in return.

 

[mhaze]

....If one works and pays into the fund, one has a perfect right to get it back even for the most sociopathic Randroid.

But Social Security isn't. All insisting that it is tells us is that Rand culture is full of ignorance and lies, which we knew already.

Aside from the opportunity to sling around a few smears, I don't see where you have actually said anything here. And this is nothing new - the progressive blogosphere trotted this meme out last time, JAN 2011. You guys are just repeating stuff like parrots.

Not only like parrots, but people who refuse to look at a situation objectively. That's to say, an intelligent person would ask the question "Is this assertion true" and then do a bit of googling to establish that. But oh, no, not in the world of progressive parrots.

It takes about 30 seconds to locate this:

Myth #6. “Rand was a hypocrite for receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits.”

Fact: There was no hypocrisy in Rand’s recouping the contributions she had been forced to make to those programs – for decades, in the case of Social Security. She never maintained that one should surrender expropriated property to the State. Moreover, some years before age 65, she publicly announced that any opponents of such programs should recoup their forced contributions. And she did so. She said what she would do, it is consistent with her philosophy, and she did it. Here’s primary source material on her saying it: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexi…

Myth #7. “Rand hated Social Security and Social Security recipients.”

Fact: Rand said, openly, that opponents of the system should recoup what was taken from them. (The entitlement systems themselves are bad economics and should be phased out. The horrendous unfunded liabilities they are accruing bear this out, and may be the bankruptcy of our government.) Rand was in favor of welfare being phased out gradually, over a period of years, anyhow. So many of these spasmodic arguments against her hold no water: if programs are to be phased out gradually, she obviously was not draconian about their use.

As all this shows, there is a powerful thrust to show that Ayn Rand was a purely hateful hypocrite. Unfortunately, it reveals a thrust of both hypocrisy (in a near-total inattention to fact) and hate. That Rand must be turned into a cartoon ogre on such spurious grounds – when there are some legitimate things to criticize her on (though we would do well to attempt to understand her first in her depths) – is an unfortunate display of an almost unparalleled level of reactivity to a public figure, even in our almost incredibly reactive times.

But the most astounding illogic about Rand is yet to be covered: that she was a sociopath.​

http://fuguewriter.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/internet-myths-about-ayn-rand/

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_scholarships.html

Cheers!

 

[ponderingturtle]

One might think of Ayn Rand as one of the most loathsome people ever to live. She had the highest praise for a serial killer who kidnapped, tortured, raped, murdered, dismembered and disemboweled his child victums. Fox News and most of the rest of the news media as well as the "teabaggers"( Hey, it's their sexual-play term.)promoting the Queen of Greed who should be the poster-child for Social Security and Medicare, two "entitlement"(now a deragatory term) programs to which she contributed while she was wealthy and living high. She paid for her benefits. She was, therefore, "entitled".

So she deserves it unlike everyone else then? The point is that it shows her philosophy does not work. She failed her convictions.

 

[Trakar]

Not necessarily. If she had been forced to pay into the system her entire adult life, why shouldn't she get something out of it? He main objection was to being forced to pay in. You may as well criticize her for driving on public roads, or using municipal water.

She took advantage of publically funded roads and utilized collectively paid for water systems?!

So she doesn't mind taking advantage of the benefits and opportunities afforded by public services, she just doesn't want to pay a fair and equitable share of their expenses,...that does sound like most conservatives, always looking for a free ride.

 

[ponderingturtle]

So everyone who wants a single payer universal healthcare system that has private insurance or pays for medical care out of pocket is a hypocrite?

So then she would have thought that she should be kicked into a ditch to die like the vermin she was, but the imperfect society prevented that ideal result?

 

[RandFan]

So she deserves it unlike everyone else then?

I don't think that argument was made. Why do you think that follows?

The point is that it shows her philosophy does not work.

Because? There are a number of problems with this conclusion. For one there are a myriad of other explanations for the outcome that do not involve failure of her philosophy.

She failed her convictions.

I'm not sure how. Money was taken from her. She got it back. Which conviction of hers disallows this?

 

[ponderingturtle]

A silly point but let's grant you the premise to advance the discussion. She paid into it. She was entitled to get what was promised for her input as if it were an insurance policy.

Unless of course people listened to her and ended the system.

 

[Trakar]

If the government takes my money, then the government owes me something. I'd rather the government didn't take it in the first place, but as long as the government owes me, I intend to collect. There's nothing hypocritical about that.

Are you often forced into contracts by another party, and then insist that the other party not fulfill their part of the contract "on principle"?

How does one get forced into a contract?

 

[ponderingturtle]

It's true that Social Security isn't an ideal case. As far as I'm concerned, the "Randian principle" is satisfied the moment you are compelled to pay taxes. After that, any taxpayer-funded benefits program is fair game. You're forced to pay into the system, and now the system owes you. Better you were never forced to pay in the first place, but until that day...

Johnny Karate, of course, sees it differently: You should just wave goodbye to all the money the taxman takes from you, and never ask for anything in return.

So there is no limit to social programs in her philosophy as essentially everyone paid in at some point?

 

[RandFan]

She took advantage of publically funded roads and utilized collectively paid for water systems?!

So she doesn't mind taking advantage of the benefits and opportunities afforded by public services, she just doesn't want to pay a fair and equitable share of their expenses,...that does sound like most conservatives, always looking for a free ride.

What part of the philosophy of Ayn Rand rejects any and all public services? I didn't read that part.