Friday, November 6, 2009

Ayn Rand

Steve,

Thanks very much for the post. I think I was beginning to read a lot more into your comments as a result of my admittedly brief research on Ayn Rand. As usual, you gave me a more balanced and reasonable perspective.

No, we don't have to go into her philosophy. If you like, we can go forward with more posts on health care. Now that we have each laid out the skeleton of a plan, perhaps we can put some meat on these bones. I think it would be fun to see if we can enter into some kind of horse trading and come up with a plan which we can both live with. That kind of give and take just doesn't seem to be happening in Foggy Bottom.

Yes, back in my salad days I would have called myself a Marxist. That was before I realized that just about every political philosophy comes apart when you consider they all depend on the capacity of human beings to be reasonable - and that is a pretty fragile thing to base any philosophy on.

In particular, I remember reading "State and Revolution" by Lenin - and what a glorious tract that is. I remember thinking, "Why don't people just understand how logical this is?"

So, I've got a little Karl Marx in me and you have a little Ayn Rand in you. But I think we're both reasonable men - and realize that even as disparate as Marx and Rand were, perhaps they have both provided us with valuable insights. Thanks again for the post. Let's get back to health care, shall we?

-Chris




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