Something Awful makes fun of libertarians

zosima

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zosima
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There is a funny ALOD making fun of ayn rand lovers.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/awful-links/alod_atlasphere.php

In a counterstrike, the atlasphere people have modified their server rules to redirect people who are referred by something awful. You can either type the address manually or disable http refering(technically this is the correct spelling).

http://cafe.elharo.com/privacy/privacy-tip-3-block-referer-headers-in-firefox/
You might want to do this for privacy purposes anyway.

Go get some love libertarians!
 
Mycroft said:
Is Ayn Rand libertarian?
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Pretty close, I think. Although she called her philosophy 'Objectivism,' it does seem to be similar.

Here's what wikipedia says

Political and social views

Rand held that the only moral social system is laissez-faire capitalism. Her political views were strongly individualist and hence anti-statist and anti-Communist. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of rational egoism and individualism. As a champion of rationality, Rand also had a strong opposition to mysticism and religion, which she believed helped foster a crippling culture acting against individual human happiness and success. Rand detested many prominent liberal and conservative politicians of her time, including prominent anti-Communists, such as Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, Hubert Humphrey, and Joseph McCarthy. She opposed US involvement in World War I, World War II,[45] and the Korean War, although she also strongly denounced pacifism: "When a nation resorts to war, it has some purpose, rightly or wrongly, something to fight for—and the only justifiable purpose is self-defense."[46] She opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, "If you want to see the ultimate, suicidal extreme of altruism, on an international scale, observe the war in Vietnam—a war in which American soldiers are dying for no purpose whatever,"[46] but also felt that unilateral American withdrawal would be a mistake of appeasement that would embolden communists and the Soviet Union.[45] She said also that she considered the anti-Communist John Birch Society "futile, because they are not for capitalism but merely against communism."[47]

Rand supported Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, which she saw as an attack on a government that supported individual rights: "The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."[48]

Rand is considered one of the three founding mothers (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism, although she rejected libertarianism and the libertarian movement. [49]
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I wonder on what basis she "rejected libertarianism"?
 
She didn't like libertarians because they held the ban on initiation of force as a holy mantra without any philosophical basis, which her Objectivism gave it.

Libertarians, Objectivists, and Anarcho-Capitalists can tell the difference amongst themselves, but nobody else can. :)
 
It's interesting that Something Awful, a site that relies on pushing the boundaries of free speech-as-pictures, would make fun of those who are the only ones defending them. Were it up to the Democrats and Republicans, they'd have long since been curtailed. It's the libertarian impulse that saves them.
 
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Beerina said:
It's interesting that Something Awful, a site that relies on pushing the boundaries of free speech-as-pictures, would make fun of those who are the only ones defending them. Were it up to the Democrats and Republicans, they'd have long since been curtailed. It's the libertarian impulse that saves them.
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This is patent nonsense. Since libertarians are a vanishingly tiny minority even in the USA, as shown by the dismal fate of the Libertarian Party in every election, then actual effective protection of rights to free speech has been done by others, not by libertarians. E.g. ACLU, not a libertarian organization.
 
Beerina said:
It's interesting that Something Awful, a site that relies on pushing the boundaries of free speech-as-pictures, would make fun of those who are the only ones defending them. Were it up to the Democrats and Republicans, they'd have long since been curtailed. It's the libertarian impulse that saves them.
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Not really. They generaly stay within the law to the letter and when they are on the edge there are oh so much better targets to go after.
 
Beerina said:
It's interesting that Something Awful, a site that relies on pushing the boundaries of free speech-as-pictures, would make fun of those who are the only ones defending them. Were it up to the Democrats and Republicans, they'd have long since been curtailed. It's the libertarian impulse that saves them.
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So you are claiming that only libertarians see the value of political cartoons and the like?
 
Drudgewire said:
Hahahahaha. Abraham rules. :D
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Meh. The title of Atlas Shrugged basically begs to be lampooned. In the '80s, even the tv show Moonlighting did a spoof of Atlas Shrugged -- in which the Jon Galt character hires the Moonlighting P.I. firm to recover his lost rolodex containing the names and numbers of the world's Randroid heroes, such that he can't begin his great industrialist strike -- which they called "Atlas Belched".

I've seen libertarian drug dystopias called Atlas Drugged, and spoofs of failed industrialist strikes called Atlas Mugged, or where the government controls the strike called Atlas Bugged (and a proposed Porn version called Atlas Buggered). In college I was invited to an Ayn Rand spoof keg party called -- you guessed it -- Atlas Chugged.

I always wanted to write a spoof of Fountainhead called the Fountainpen, in which Howard Cork is an amazingly efficient designer of pens... but he is persecuted by the pen-making establishment beholden to quills and indigo, including the premier New York paper's two fountainpen critics.
 
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I spent way too much of my life arguing with "Objectivists" on the Usenet years ago.

From Robert Slade's review of Atlas Shrugged:

Marriage vows in an objectivist church would probably run along the
lines of "Do you promise to attempt to dominate and subdue this woman
until such time as you grow bored?" "Maybe." "Close enough. And do
you promise to applaud this man`s production until such time as you
find someone with a bigger ... corporation?" "Whatever." "By the
power vested in me by having scammed you guys out of a marriage
license fee, I now pronounce you man and appendage. May you be
unencumbered by small persons."
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Here are Rand's reasons, in her own words, for rejecting the libertarian movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert...and.27s_reasons_for_condemning_libertarianism

She was an irrational, ultra-doctrinaire half-wit in love with the cult of personality she created around herself. She demanded total obedience.
 
Beerina said:
It's interesting that Something Awful, a site that relies on pushing the boundaries of free speech-as-pictures, would make fun of those who are the only ones defending them. Were it up to the Democrats and Republicans, they'd have long since been curtailed. It's the libertarian impulse that saves them.
Click to expand...

Gurdur said:
This is patent nonsense. Since libertarians are a vanishingly tiny minority even in the USA, as shown by the dismal fate of the Libertarian Party in every election, then actual effective protection of rights to free speech has been done by others, not by libertarians. E.g. ACLU, not a libertarian organization.
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ponderingturtle said:
So you are claiming that only libertarians see the value of political cartoons and the like?
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There are those on both the right and the left who would censor some of the pictures they might have on that site.

While they could look to either party for defense of certain actions, neither one is pure in this sense.

While it's true that the impulse to restrict government is not purely libertarian, should Something Awful have to dodge and weave their way in defense of speech depending on the topic or photo type?
 
Beerina said:
There are those on both the right and the left who would censor some of the pictures they might have on that site.

While they could look to either party for defense of certain actions, neither one is pure in this sense.
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So you now admit it's a load of bollocks to claim the libertarians have actually done the successful defence of freedom of speech.

Fine! :)

While it's true that the impulse to restrict government is not purely libertarian, should Something Awful have to dodge and weave their way in defense of speech depending on the topic or photo type?
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So first of all you tried claiming a load of bollocks, then you try attacking with a vague ad hom kind of fallacious argument, and you also illogically conflate "restriction of government" with "freedom of speech". Dearie, dearie me.

Tell me, what have the libertarians actually accomplished? Anything, anything at all?
 
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