Ayn Rand, big government and Pandemics

[_MeDotOrg]

Paul Ryan's hero, Ayn Rand began the philosophy of Objectivism and the idea of the virtue of selfishness.

It strikes me that Donald Trump would be a great hero in a Ayn Rand novel about a pandemic. The Individualist Great Leader fights the bureaucrats, socialists and the self-styled 'public health' experts who want the country to run scared and destroy all that he has accomplished.

In all seriousness, how can anyone now say that a decentralized, non-federal response to a pandemic is the best was to preserve and protect the health and safety of Americans? I can understand and appreciate the idea that 'the government that governs best governs least', but I think it is dangerous to turn the idea on its head and say the government that governs least governs best. I don't think there are any Anarchists on the board. We all want a certain amount of government. I think it is better to say that we want the least amount of government that governs best.

And Public Health is an area where we should be thinking 'best' before we think 'least'.

As our world becomes more crowded and integrated, with trans-national economic dependencies and lines of production stretching across the globe, governments need to recognize that our economies are both intra-national and international. Simply put, the world economy is an increasingly diverse and complex machine, and history tells us again and again that human hubris expects complex machines NOT to break down.

Seemingly every few years we seem to need be reminded that, man keeps pushing back the frontiers of wild animals, we are going to be having diseases cross into the human genome. And when they do, they bring the possibility of a pandemic.

Governments need to prepare for the inevitability of environmental, economic and biological disruptions and their effects.

[_EAllusion]

Trump is a stereotypical Ayn Rand villain. It's almost comedic how closely he fits her questionable writing.

[_EAllusion]

A vain and stupid President addressing the nation every day for a propaganda session during a pandemic where connected corporate rent-seekers are paraded out to praise the leader in exchange for unfathomable wealth taken from frightened, compliant taxpayers sounds like the opening premise of a terrible Ayn Rand novel.

[_moksha]

Washington (CNN) - An Indiana congressman Trey Hollingsworth said Tuesday that letting more Americans die from the novel coronavirus is the "lesser of two evils" compared with the economy cratering due to social distancing measures.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/politics ... index.html

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

> Trump, I want my name on those stimulus checks

> Also Trump, I dunno why they put my name on those checks

It never ends with this guy.

- Doc

[_huckelberry]

EAllusion, you nailed that one. Her heroes are fantasy land but still located far far away from Trump

[_huckelberry]

With Trump's name on the checks it would make sense to pay them from his bank account.

[_subgenius]

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Vroooom.

[_canpakes]

Oops. subs lied again.

I feel sorry for his kids. They have no viable role model.