GOP: Ayn Rand Trumps Presidents

Cartoon by Steve Pitt, Nation of Change, 8/19/2012

The Koch Brothers' puppets, Romney and Ryan, probably never read  what some of our most respected presidents have said about the threats of unbridled capitalism.

Thomas Jefferson in 1802 wrote: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake up homeless in the continent their fathers conquered."


Republican president Dwight d. Eisenhower warned us in 1961 of a specific corporate threat. "In the 
councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists
and will persist." 

"The growing wealth aquired by them [corporations] never fails to be a source of abuses."

--President James Madison

Another Republican Teddy Roosevelt was also concerned about unfettered capitalism and unregulated corporations: “Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”  (Underling is mine.)  

A strange evolution has brought us to the point that today's Republicans consider talk of "the public good" to be blasphemous.

Then, contrary to what the Roberts' Court thinks, George Washington warned us of the corrupting power of money: "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

On the other hand, Paul Ryan, the apparent Republican vice Presidential candidate, has informed us that he is a big fan and follower of Ayn Rand, the Russian-born atheist philosopher and novelist. He apparently has read and accepted her crass individualism  as exemplified in the following:

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." (Ayn Rand)

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." Ayn Rand (So much for the Christian message of  social justice found in the New Testament.) 


"To illustrate this on the altruists' favorite example: the issue of saving a drowning person. If the person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one's own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it: only a lack of self-esteem could permit one to value one's life no higher than that of any random stranger." (Ayn Rand, 'The Virtue of Selfishness,' p. 52). (No wonder greedy corporate capitalists like her.)

More recently, Paul Ryan has tried to back away from his worship of Ayn Rand (differing on atheism and abortion), but one has only to examine the budget he pushed through the House to realize that he is still an ardent believer in the "virtue of selfishness."

Unfortunately, it appear Romney and Ryan would prefer the advice of Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers to that of  Washington Jefferson, Madison, Teddy Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower.

Check out Andy B. on Paul Ryan