From: monnier@csa1.lbl.gov (JOHN MONNIER)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Masturbation to Ayn Rand
Keywords: Convenience, Rand, Masturbation, Support, Help, Tired
Date: 26 Jul 92 00:24:28 GMT
Reply-To: monnier@csa1.lbl.gov
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
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Sometimes I feel that alt.activism should be renamed
 alt.support.libertarians.guilt
	There is only so much I can take from these long, painfully sophist
 temper-tantrums against the oppresiveness of state apparati and the impending
 (and continuing)loss of white, male, middle-class "liberties."  
	How many ways must a "philosophy" be flawed before it can be allowed
 to rest. The Objectivists possess uncanny abilities, that is for sure. 
 Their shallow economic rhetoric fly immediately in the face of practically
 all of capitalist history.  They have mastered the art of simultaneously
 legitimating late-capitalist consumer attitudes and elevating it to near
 religious self-righteousness.  They have learned strong lessons from "1984"
 in their treatment of all dissenting opinions:  that is, any
 non-"libert"(y)arian thought is reactionarily cast as communist (which
 has "obviously" failed) or "fascist.  They, of course, don't stop there
 but childishly insist that fasicm/socialism/nazism/(all other not
 libertarian) are all the same.  Boy, that "analysis" sure makes your
 collective lives awfully, painfully, conveniently simple, doesn't it!
	I'm sorry this is so full of "quotation marks" but practically all
 of the libertarians so-called analyses deserve nothing less severe.  In
 so blindly, self-aggrandizing using the "individual" as your ONLY unit
 of analysis in developing public policy and personal lifestyle, you
 insult all people (in fact, the VAST majority of the world's PEOPLE--tho I 
suppose objectivism doesn't have much appeal to THOSE people anyway) who
 feel the very REAL social forces of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism,
 imperialism, nationalism, etc.. -- all very real aspects of the modern
 world which are suspiciously absent in your absurd "individualistic"
 perspective.  
	"If a restaurant doesn't allow blacks to eat there, I just wouldn't
 go.  They would be losing a significant market share and thus (thus!)
 would go out a business.  You know why? because capitalism is good
 and ironicly, the society is benefitted the most by each individual
 striving only for their own good."  Yeah, right.  If you would only pass
 your conclusions through the most rudimentary reality check, you might
 realize how your inane mutterings ring so painfully hollow against
 the negative social pressures so very dominant.
	Your idealized state of economic (enforced) anarchy of course
 assumes (requires) the current distribution of the deified private
 property where so few control so much, where whites and males have the
 overwhelmingly disproportiate advantage.  I would like to hear your 
defense (and I am sure you would defend them) of the WHITE *OWNERS!* of 
South African diamond mines.  By what righteous rationale are you going to
 use to defend the blatant theft of natural resources?  I expect, of
 course, the same rhetoric you use to defend all property rights,
 your mysterious lack of comment of the social and historical conditions 
 that TODAY place many people at the virtually COMPLETE economic control
 of the few.
	You harp and scream and whine, clinging to your CD players,  cars, and 
computers, about "theft" (taxes), about Liberty (and how the
 STATE(ominous chord bellowing in the background) is out to get YOU), 
 and how the only purpose of govt is to keep another from"physically"
 compelling you to do something against your will.  Why do you refuse 
 to recognize the all-too-real effect of Economic extorition?  Why can't
 you recognize that the overwhelming oppression in this country (and world)
 is of the economic sort.  If a person is born into a poor family, is just
 a fact of life that they can't get credit, while YOU, being more lucky,
 get credit automically?  Is the polarizing effect of capitalism and utter
 instability of a 'free market' that hard for you to see?  
	Tell me:  When a business gets a slight advantage in the market
 (better product, service, etc.) this allows the business then even
 GREATER advantage--the venerable economy of scale.  Which allows the
 business a GREATER advanatge.  Each advantage and rise in market share
 resulting in the closure and loss of competitors.  Have we not seen this?
  Is this feedback loop SO hard to understand?  What state apparatus would 
YOU suggest to keep this from happening? Oh but be careful..  All the
 inherent contradictions of your bourgeous, private property dreams are
 close to tumbling asunder under the mere glance of critical thought.  
	It is good to see on this network some actual thinking human beings
 who are not afraid to recognize that the American middle-class's
 excessive standard of living has been brought about NOT because of the
 all natural, mystical greatness of a free market, but on the through brutal
 exploitation of minorites, the third world, the environment, etc.  Instead
 of trying to steer out country back to the 1800s, you should form a
 support group to deal with your neurotic case of middle-class guilt.  
	Much to your suprise, not everyone who is not a libertarian is a
 Stalinist/maoist communist or a hitler fascist.  Much to your surprise,
 many of us can be happy without placing ourselves at the center of the
 universe.  And believe it or not, we can enjoy thinking about constructive,
 original ways in solving many of the world's problems without succumbing
 to a self-aggrandizing, knee-jerk philosophy which places at its 
 centerpiece the sophist, self-pleasing, masturbation to ayn rand and
 the me-first, lazy, knee-jerk rationalizations of our social status.
	I'm sorry that politics and sociology are not simple entities
 to deal with.  But please gain some courage and real self-respect to
 HONESTLY confront the issues that will dicate the future of this world
 and well as this country.
	I hope people can see through your feel-good justification and allow
 themselves the intellectual "liberty" to deal with issues without ALWAYS
 placing one's personal lifestyle at the moral center.  In short, your 
 tired tired TIRED! talk of liberty and freedom offers such a thin veil
 to your naked self-interest that I suspect that even you yourselves can
  see it (woah! even more guilt!) .  
	So before you respond.. Please, put your atlas shrugged down.  Put
 your Adam Smith calender away.  Write something that you've didn't just
 lift off the libertarian platform.  And think about why you are always
 SO SO SO defensive.  
	I know when all of us first encountered Libertarianism, we thought,
 even if just in the back of our minds, isn't this just a little bit
 TOO convenient.  
	Isn't it?


John Monnier
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.motss,talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism