(October 11, 2011 at 5:02 pm)searchingforanswers Wrote: Okay my conserative friends say though and I qoute "these are people whining for the rich to take care of them etc etc." Where are they coming from?
To fully understand this mentality, as with dealing with anyone else of a strong religious mindset, you have to understand the underlying assumptions (or delusional architecture) of Randianism.
Randians, or followers of St. Ayn Rand, believe that all the prosperity of society is generated by the top 1%. These are the innovators and hard working business tycoons who, by the sweat of their own brows and brilliance of their ideas create all the wealth. The rest of the 99% are useless, lazy leeches who only want to steal from the rich. For them, it's easier to whine for handouts than it is to roll up your sleeves and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
The invisible hand of the free market is their idea of God. It is perfect and always just. It rewards the achiever and crushes the incompetent. It logically follows then that if you're poor, it must be because you deserve to be poor. After all, the Free Market, blessed be its name, is perfect. If someone was poor and worked hard and played by the rules, that would mean the Free Market isn't perfect and we can't admit that now can we?
The government is the Randian idea of the Devil. It's always trying to poke its nose where it doesn't belong, trying to "regulate" which only ties up the hand of The Free Market and, worst of all, looks after the poor by robbing from those hard working and unappreciated rich.
One day we're going to push the rich too far, taxing them 38% instead of 36%, then they're going to "go Galt" on us. They're just going to turn off the flow of wealth and stop working their magic. Then we'll be sorry.
I'm an ex-Randian (or Reaganian) and I look back and can't believe all the crap I used to swallow. Living a sheltered life growing up, it was easier. Once I went to college, I made friends with all walks of life. You know what happened? I came to find that not all poor people are lazy. What a concept! Sometimes people really do play by all the rules, work hard all their lives and still wind up with nothing to show for it. Sometimes the system isn't perfect. Hence I lost that religion.
Those caught up in the religion are going to see the protest, no matter how big it gets, as just an unwashed mob of lazy good-for-nothings asking for more handouts. Hope that helps you understand.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
