The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

I read "The Fountainhead" last year and finished "Atlas Shrugged" a couple of weeks ago. I read them mainly because I saw somewhere that Ayn Rand is arch-vilain Alan Greenspan's favourite author, and I can see why.

Although the books are huge blocks of numbing rubbish they do contain a few interesting nuggets (especially A.S.) such as Government "laws" only applying to those people who agree to be bound by (or 'understand') them. One character in A.S. is taken to court in order for the government to take over his company - he does not argue his case at all, instead stating that whatever the government does to him must be done without his consent. The court demands that he argues his case but he replies with something like "I will not engage in an argument whose ultimate expression is the barrel of a gun," which I thought was a fantastic phrase and one I can't wait to use on some pompous official.

Also, A.S. is quite chilling in its descriptions of a world being run down by the money men - containing much that seems frighteningly prescient.

The messages of selfishness and elitist technocracy constantly grated, however, and I found it frustrating how Rand often very nearly got it right. While, in my view, selfishness is sometimes necessary I think that enlightened self-interest is far more useful.

Rand does seem to be the author to read if you do want an insight into the way the elites think. Chilling stuff.

[TordelBack]

The messages of selfishness and elitist technocracy constantly grated, however, and I found it frustrating how Rand often very nearly got it right.

This is what is so awful about the whole thing - the lure is individual freedom, self-determination, success through merit, hard work and rational thought, independence from the mindlessness of the herd and extortion of the corrupt.  But buried right there at the heart of all this good stuff is the hook, the awful hopeless emptiness of contempt and antipathy for your fellow humans, who exist only as impediments to your own fulfilment and apotheosis. 

I have to stop typing now because my hands are actually shaking with hatred.

[The Legendary Shark]

Very well put, Tordels.

[Tiplodocus]

But buried right there at the heart of all this good stuff is the hook, the awful hopeless emptiness of contempt and antipathy for your fellow humans, who exist only as impediments to your own fulfilment and apotheosis. 

I have to stop typing now because my hands are actually shaking with hatred.

One of the many things I love about SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE is that, despite all of it's faults, it is NOT an "improve your life at the expense of others" book. So many self-help* books are all about manipulating situations to your benefit where SEVEN HABITS urges you to stop, take a look at why you are the way you are and do the things you do and try and understand why other people are the way they are and do the things they do. It is not a quick fix, it is a paradigm shift. (In fact, it's about sixty pages in before it tells you what HABIT ONE is).



*Probably why they are called SELF help, actually.

[Professor Bear]

Too much discussion of hopeless fruitloop...  Must.  Derail.  Thread.

I quite like that Boris Johnson.  There, I've said it.
I think it's ace that he's a real politician and not something someone made up, and while I don't necessarily agree with his politics, I don't agree with strapping rockets to buildings with children in them and blasting them into space either - but that doesn't stop me liking Doctor Doom.  Johnson could be like "I have announced a tax on cats" and it's not like you can seriously come back with "that is another tax on poor people by an out of touch politician" because just look at him - how can you be surprised at anything he does?  He looks like a character created for a crudely-animated children's cartoon made by the BBC circa 1981: Mister Mayor or something like that, who lives in a run-down house with an army of rodents who inhabit his scale model of London that sprawls through multiple rooms.  For all I know this is actually how Boris rolls in the real world - like I say, just look at him.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Not wanting to engage with something that's been put here to intentional derail it but if you lived in London you probably wouldn't find him so uniquely charming. So a Tory lives up to their boorish image, he's still an arse.

During a lull in conversation recently with a person I'd only just met in a pub they went "so, I'm going to say it, I don't agree with UKIP at all but you've GOT to agree Nigel Farage is a great politician"

...no one talked to him for the rest of the evening and he just quietly got up and left.

[Professor Bear]

To return to my original analogy, I am sure people in Latveria think Doctor Doom is a massive arsehole, but people in the rest of the (Marvel) world probably think it must be great to have such a transparent politician compared to the lying, shifty, shitweasels they have.

[The Legendary Shark]

Boris is a perfect example of modern politics - hiding the truth behind a distracting facade. If he'd just stick to HIGNFY I'd be a big fan but he doesn't so I'm not. Just because a man knows how to play the engaging buffoon doesn't make the misery he causes or the City of London criminal activities he ignores and/or helps facilitate any less despicable. I'm not sure if Mugabe, Saddam or Blair would be any less monstrous had they been known to crack a joke or two.

Thread back on track again, I think

[Professor Bear]

Hey, if he was that bad they wouldn't keep electing him - he's what Londoners want, so blame them.  You don't blame a lion for eating babies if you go around leaving babies unattended in the middle of the jungle - Boris is a beast of the field, he can't help it.

[Old Tankie]

Not wanting to engage with something that's been put here to intentional derail it but if you lived in London you probably wouldn't find him so uniquely charming. So a Tory lives up to their boorish image, he's still an arse.

During a lull in conversation recently with a person I'd only just met in a pub they went "so, I'm going to say it, I don't agree with UKIP at all but you've GOT to agree Nigel Farage is a great politician"

...no one talked to him for the rest of the evening and he just quietly got up and left.

He probably left because he thought you and your companions were boring, after all, you wouldn't want to engage will someone with a different political view to yours, would you!!  Perish the thought!!

[Frank]

I'm not sure if Mugabe, Saddam or Blair would be any less monstrous had they been known to crack a joke or two.

I actually quite liked Dave Cameron's crap Dad gag - Land of Hope is Tory - in his leader's speech at conference yesterday. That kind of sub-editorial punning does make you wonder if Dave's got rid of absolutely all of those former Newscorp employees he had on his payroll, though.

At least Cameron had the decency to trade in the same only-funny-in-the-House-of-Commons groaners you expect from politicians, rather than Milliband's equally pish attempts at Jerry Seinfeld style self deprecating observational comedy.

[The Legendary Shark]

If I want comedy I'll watch Laurel & Hardy - but I wouldn't want them running a country (however, now that they're both dead they couldn't do any worse than the muppets we're currently suffering).

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

If I want comedy I'll watch Laurel & Hardy ...

You should check out the remake, Dave & Nick, although Dave's mangled the original catchphrase and replaced it with "Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Labour!"

[TordelBack]

Now I generally find Mehdi Hasan a worrying sort of public figure, a fiercely eloquent man apparently encumbered with antique religious beliefs that I find difficult to square with his obvious intelligence and insight, but how could anyone not enjoy this evisceration of a toerag and his masters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JIvARoGbS4

Of course, the Mail's biggest factual inaccuracy has yet to be challenged: calling Ed Milliband a socialist.

Meanwhile, earlier this morning I voted in two referenda in a polling station where the only other voter was my wife, and despite both of us being engaged by the issues in question, we both struggled to work out which mark on which bit of coloured paper would mean what.  This doesn't bode well.

[Jim_Campbell]

Now I generally find Mehdi Hasan a worrying sort of public figure, a fiercely eloquent man apparently encumbered with antique religious beliefs that I find difficult to square with his obvious intelligence and insight, but how could anyone not enjoy this evisceration of a toerag and his masters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JIvARoGbS4

I'm no fan of Alastair (no relation) Campbell, but, despite his many faults, he's both articulate and intelligent and I couldn't help but enjoy his merciless pummelling of Mail deputy editor Jon Steafel on Newsnight.

Cheers

Jim