Culling the Herd

As I touched on in the last letter, there’s a discrepancy in right wing thinking on how we got here and where we’re going. In the first case we’re a hundred percent God’s Creation and in the second we’re headed towards survival of the fittest, AKA Darwinism, which happens to be evidence of, dare I say it, evolution.

Take a look at the Paul Ryan budget plan which is now also the Republican Party’s. In addition to multiple cuts in programs that help the less enfranchised, it lowers the tax rate on top income to below that of middle income. Ryan said it all with one word in a publicized prepared speech, by using “hammock” in reference to recipients of unemployment insurance money. Of course there are beneficiaries who use the system other than as intended. But he is painting with an outlandishly wide brush. I don’t see how he and his party could imply more clearly that disparity of wealth is a good thing and that that should be increased.

Paul Ryan is an unabashed admirer of Ayn Rand. For those who don’t know who she is, or was, I’d describe her as being to Twentieth Century political fiction what Rupert Murdoch is to Journalism. As an advocate of survival of the fiscally fittest she would be proud of Ryan and his budget. In her morality plays the forces of good are embodied in brilliant rugged individualists who triumph over the forces of evil, personified by socialistic antagonists. One of her novels, Fountainhead, was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper. We can expect it to be shown a lot before and next year’s election, during which time we’ll be hearing much more about her and her other monument, Atlas Shrugged.

Using Hitler in political argument is trite and simplistic.  But I’ve seen enough of those signs with Obama’s picture with the trademark mustache that I now consider it fair game. Granted, the ideal world of der Fuhrer differs in some ways from that of Ms Rand. One is based on race and the other on wealth. Hitler was less patient in making his point, using gas chambers, while Ms Rand leaned in the direction of attrition, made easy by making life harder for the less desirable. But most important, they shared the common belief that people who, by their measurement are at the bottom, are expendable and shouldn’t be encouraged to hang around.