Dr. Anne Wortham
Here's a brilliant African-American woman who believes strongly in the teachings of Ayn Rand. Very fascinating is how she describes that liberal colleges will not hire her because she refuses to tow the line of teaching Black students to be victims. Instead she believes in teaching them to be independent and pull themselves up from their bootstraps.
How incredibly sad it is that people like her are ostracized, yet Permanent Victm preachers like Barack Obama and Al Sharpton are held up to high esteem. How incredibly sad indeed.
This video has been removed from YouTube but if you're at the University of Maryland then you can watch it here.
Labels:
Ayn Rand,
Permanent Victim Syndrome,
philosophy,
U.S.
26 comments:
Ummm yea, sure, That's why we don't like her: we don't want to be told that we can do it for ourselves. I hope you can sense the sarcasm! We dislike her because she, in many ways, has chosen to look at only one side of the equation. It's not that we (as liberals) deny personal responsibility, but rather that we believe in seeing reality as it exists and have chosen to fight the bully instead of the underdog. Forgive us for wanting to open doors to freedom and not merely get out of the way! "Hey, the door may be locked, there may be hurdles to surmount, and 100 boxes blocking your entrance, but you can make it if you work hard enough." Using this logic will leave an individual spending the majority of his or her life jumping hurdles and moving boxes. By the time he makes it through the door, it will be time to exit this world. This is the callous logic we are trying to move away from. Life/liberty is precious and we believe in making it possible for as many people as possible to enjoy the full extent of it. "We will focus on helping people reach their full realization of self. We will help (as in lend a hand) remove the hurdles and boxes so that you too can join in the blessings of life." This is the change that we as "America" desire. Forgive us if we reject and abandon her and that stale ass argument and mindset that have dominated America for far too long.
LaMarre
Morehouse 08
Tulane Law School
J.D. Candidate 2011
I trust you realize that other socialists before you have also spoken eloquently about Utopian equality.
They found, as you shall, that equality forced upon all is actual achievement for none.
Structural inequality means some people start off ten paces behind others...is that so hard to understand?
Or maybe even 1,000 paces behind others. But legislation to effect things like affirmative action, equal pay for work of [so-called] equal value is not the answer for it backfires upon itself by killing the incentive of those who are willing to work the hardest.
I realize that you think that the more socialism in place, the better we'll all be. History has proven you wrong. Is that so hard to understand?
"Free people can never be equal. Equal people can never be free." I don't know who said that or if it is simply a time-proven proverb. But truer words were never spoken or written.
In order to GIVE something to one, there must be an authority powerful enough to take it from others. When there exists such a power, then neither the receiver nor the giver is free.
The greatest equalizer of all is freedom. Freedom is a state of existence in which each man and woman is unencumbered by any power or authority, save God's, and is free to succeed or fail based upon his/her own efforts and talents.
We don't have any such freedom in this country because we have foolishly commissioned government to take from the producers and give to the non-producers, I suppose to boost the fragile "self-esteem" of the non-producers. Doing that, however, dampens the morale of the producers, the very people who should be encouraged and cheered on.
When a test is given - - one for employment for example - - and one group of test-takers is credited with a ten-point advantage (based solely upon their grouping), then the better qualified applicants (the ones who should be getting the jobs) must score 10 points higher than the lesser qualified applicants just to maintain parity. Achieving a respectable score of 85 loses out to a dismal, barely-passing 76, and the lesser-qualified - - often unqualified - - gets the job and the employer and his customers lose, right along with the people who should have been employed in the first place.
Call it what you will, but that is socialism, Communism, Marxism and it doesn't work for the PEOPLE, it only works for the elite who seek to dominate and control the people and profit from their toil.
Common people are such fools.
Brilliantly said, Fred, absolutely brilliant! What you're stating I first learned about with equal eloquence from Ayn Rand's book, "Atlas Shrugged". The concepts therein are very foreign to many Canadians and an increasing number of Americans too. Sadly.
You may find this website very interesting: http://conservativefunhouse.com I've heard the gents on there say very similar things as you have on their weekly videos.
Thank you again!
I am a latin woman who left her communist/totalitarian country when I was a girl and went to live in another country.
In that country I lived with all the restrictions that a foreigner confronts when you are a legal resident. Even to work I had to ask for permission and was restricted to work in certain companies only, that country is Mexico.
Now this (USA) is a unique country, I always looked up to this country because I knew that here you could succeed if you wanted to. Believe me! it was a wonderful change, from night and day, when I moved here.
I am an american citizen and love this country, it is hard to see how people don't understand that if the government controls your life "there is no freedom". I saw this in Mexico, the media could not criticize the government or there would be reprecautions, and believe me, there were!
Freedom is what allows you to be successful, there are no limits to your aspirations, it's up to you to get where you want to get. Oh! but when the government interferes in your life, there is no motivation to do anything, what for? There is no reward coming your way, you almost work for the government, since they will take a big chunk of your efforts to throw them away in any of their unuseful/wasteful programs.
Those who think that socialism is a good idea, I tell you, it's not!!! Once they start, they never end...I wonder why there are so many that are so self-defeated and so many that are naive???
The beautiful thing about life is to do your own thing and get rewarded for it. When you feel accomplished you are more giving, happier and inspired to do more. A system that restricts your freedoms and obstructs your success has a terrible and negative effect in the economy of a country and on the lives of its individuals.
Have you ever seen americans trying to flee this country in search of a better life? NO!!! But you see the rest of the world trying to come here in search of the "American Dream"...why so many want to take this away???
I urge you to think about it!!!
Diana
2 Brilliant comments in a row, and from entirely different people no less. Muchas gracias, Diana. I've reposted your amazing words in a new blog entry of their own.
I can't agree with M.LaMarre, and setting the obvious arguments against Socialism aside, I would bring up the fact that there are physical hurdles to success and there are internal personal hurdles. You only address the former.
These restriction to success need more than just "to be openned" and all shall be cured.
Success is a process, not a passage, not a line in the sand.
People can't be awarded success, anymore than they can be awarded knowledge, pride, or prowess in action. A man can be successful in one area and less-so in others. The battles we fight are diverse! One man may think his life has meaning by himself playing a guitar well, and another, by being a good husband and provider.
To another, success is being skilled at robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, and I suspect that is where LaMarre, in his/her ignorance fits in the grand scheme.
It is the challenges that make success something that is rewarded. In "moving the boxes" or striving towards the "door" as LaMarre calls it, true value is earned.
Value is created, not bestowed.
We gain value in our life by becoming better people, and we all have to start at some level. We are born on some level and work up if we have the desire, or stay put, or sink.
Going through the door doesn't mean you become a better person, because there isn't a door; there is continuation of life. The "full realization of self" comes from the self. You can't give it to anyone, no mater how much you want to.
"Forgive us (because)we reject and abandon (America) and that stale ass argument and mindset that have dominated America for far too long."
An interesting mindset you have, and I place my cards on the table, and counter your false interpretation with facts:
The "reality" that the Victory of Vietnam, was our leaving it alone.
1,100 US soldiers were killed each year for ten years, and 3 million Vietnamese died in the three years following this victory. That was good?
No more "real" than Pro-choice, where the one who has to die has no choice. That is good?
No more real than the belief that homosexual pairings hurt no one. Does society, parents and friends not count, their pain not real?
Millions died and continue to die for these "liberal realities," yet you talk of boxes. As our world turns to liberal ideology, it doesn't get better. It gets profoundly worse. The boxes you build are no less a box just because you build them.
LaMarre, I don't forgive you and can't join you in your delusion.
I remember history too well, and see now too clearly.
I live in Japan, I am one of the few that moved from America.
Not because I hate it, but because I love the principles it is built on. They are needed in more places in this world. Even Japan.
I am not trying to take from the rich and give to the poor, I am trying to give hope to all.
There are challenges here. I didn't come here because there were fewer challenges; I came here to be part of humanity.
There is no substitue for freedom, and the opposite of freedom isn't war, it is slavery.
Liberal slavery, even well intended, is still slavery.
Freedom, even conservative, is still freedom. I would rather be free and poor, than equal and level in chains.
The world has been dominated by chains for too long.
Obama and his ilk hold the chains out and people like you, LaMarre, are all to happy to slap them on people like me.
I will not put my name here, because I don't trust you sneaky liberals.
Yabba Dabba Doo. A famous man once said that (a lot) but I don't think he was for real. It is going to be interesting to see how people react now that all of the free stuff they thought they would receive is found to not be so real either. Or free.
It is important that at least this one human being chose not to jump on the band wagon. Her voice denotes freedom in the strongest sense of the word.
Ayn Rand got so many things right about people and their tendency to move into herds that travel the paths of least resistance. Sadly, the image she saw of the man holding his arms out as if to carry the world was her greatest mistake. Hint: it was not Atlas or even John Galt...
Howard Roark laughed. And so do I.
I use to believe as Fred - that tests should determine who gets a job, who gets in a school, etc. The problem is that tests only measure whatever achievement the designer wanted to measure. In general, the better school you attended, the better you do on such tests. Such tests do not measure innate intellegence, ability, desire, drive, etc. There must be other measures to achieve the best results....DJ
In reality, the distance one starts behind another is not largely set by society, structural racism, or any other spectral excuse. The distance one is behind or ahead is primarily the degree to which one chooses and forms ones character.
Consider how many people have overcome obstacles to succeed. Booker T. Washington, Dr. Walter Williams, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas - and many, many more - a lot of whom did so before the post-war civil rights movement. I recommend to the reader a study between the approaches of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. To be kind, DuBois's efforts did more to hurt black Americans than the KKK ever could, and Washington's di dmore for black Americans than any leader since, from DuBois through NLK, Jr. and Obama.
This principle applies not only to race, but to the myriad of other characteristics that people, at various places and times, find uncomfortable. Southerners are viewed as stupid by Northerners, particularly in the technology fields. Feminists carry prejudices against men. Conservatives and liberals tend to reject each other. Short vs tall, thin vs fat, etc. Need I go on?
We all face obstacles that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. A person of character will overcome them, with excellence, and it doesn't take a lifetime. But it does take strength of character, honor, virtue, self-education, humility, and courage.
Blaming others is the easy way out, the preferred method for the coward and the lazy.
As for me and my house, we choose the higher path of excellence.
Anonymous – but once again, you are arguing about all tests as if they are all the same. Many employers require mechanical aptitude tests to work with machinery, test your problem solving ability, your ability with numbers, etc. Of COURSE they “test only measure whatever achievement the designer wanted to measure” – that is WHY they are testing, is it not?
I have taken many such tests in my career and I have never seen one that was set up to see what race I was or if I came from an impoverished area. They are designed to help the employer find the best fit for the company and get the most for his money from the individual they are hiring. Would it be fairer if a person who charms their way in with no real skill wins without the test?
It never ceases to amaze me how someone who thinks it is unfair to test someone to make sure they CAN do what they are claiming, thinks it is perfectly fair for a company to be mandated to look past someone who is perfect for the job because they are NOT from a certain race. That is lunacy. If business prospers – so does America and her people.
If a business looks past great people because of their race or sex – then those great employees will wind up working for a company that does not. Their selection of employees will be greater and they will succeed in overtaking the other company. The world does right itself through individual achievement when freedom prevails, but forcing it to right itself overnight with generic laws only hampers both businesses.
What if your dream job required you to have a certain advanced degree, but the school you have to attend to get it was forced to take 50% of the student body with no prior training in that field. How could that not hamper your education when the school is spending so much time just getting the other students up to your current education level instead of extending your own? I am a reasonably smart fellow, but put ½ of a class at my level of knowledge in advanced classes at MIT and see what happens. I would have to assume some of tomorrows greatest minds would miss out on knowledge they would have gleamed had me and my associates not been there.
You can throw that “acceptance exams are culturally biased” excuse all you want, but they are in place for the betterment of the student body as a whole – even if some are lacking. What would happen if 100 years ago we told the best sprinters to never beat the guy in last place by more than a second? I would wager our top sprinters today would not be as fast as they are. Holding someone back from their absolute best does not make the other people any better – it just makes the best people worse.
The more evenly educated the class is as a whole, the more they can learn from the educator – and from each other. We (myself included) are not all born to be geniuses, just as we are not all born to be top athletes. You can not train everyone into a top athlete. You are born with it or you are not.
Why is it that most liberals believe all of us are born with the same drive to succeed and that it is stripped from some of us by others? If we can be mentally challenged, physically challenged, financially challenged, or economically challenged – why can’t someone be motivationally challenged? We all want the best things in life, but some want it enough to get out and earn it while others want it handed to them. If everyone has these things, they are no longer the best things in life; they are the normal things in life. Do you know anyone who would work a full time job and a part time job while going to school so they could get an average job and be able to afford to send their kids to an average school?
If you give the carrot to the horse whether he walks or not – which is he more apt to do?
For those of you who don't believe her, you also should read, "My Grandfather's Son", a memoir by Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas. Anyone, man or woman, black, white, or oriental can make it in the US as long as they have a goal, fortitude, honesty and FAITH in themselves and God. Believe it or not, just look around to see the truth.
Diana the immigrant from Mexico gets it. Freedom is not free. Socialism does not work. The Great Society created by President Lyndon Johnson was nothing more than insuring he would be relected if he chose to run for office again. This sham did nothing for those he targeted but take away the freedom and shackling them to the Democratic Party until they were smart enough to realize they were still enslaved. Diana the Mxican Immigrant knows Socialism oes not work. Why people who are young abled body Black Amercian citizens choose to live rent free under section 8 housing,destroy neighborhoods by hanging out in front of there free unit selling dope, figuring out who is not home then robbing there houses is only one example of Goevernment Social enablement at its best. In the work place when a promotion is not given them the race card is used.
Pathetic ain't it you Socialistic ideal pansies who are so guilt ridden you choose to through away your freedom to appease those you are threatened by that they remain away from your neighborhoods and workplace. Guess what the fear is here. The entire country is now a Ghetto.
I am of mixed ethnicity. My relatives from many generations before me were slaves and servants. I am grateful for their character and tenacity and sacrifices. But I have shed the "chip" that many Africans still carry today looking for restitution for their suffering. I say "africans" because Americans are just that-- they live in the US and do not associate and blame their place in society today with the slavery of the past. If you continue to identify with your culture as slaves then that is where you will remain. Have more self respect and pride in yourselves and stop looking for handouts. Break yourselves out of the bondage of excuses because our forefathers were slaves....take pride in the fact that we are free people with free choice. Stop inhibiting yourselves with excuses. Be accountable for yourselves and your children and all the generations to come.... be AMERICANS!
Have any of you people heard of this little system called social democracy? There is a compromise between pure socialism or communism and greed-driven capitalism...and it WORKS!!! Look at the Scandinavian countries, for instance. They are social democracies, and they are better off than Americans on pretty much every indicator of wellbeing (physical and mental health, infant mortality, life expectancy, life satisfaction, crime rates, and on and on). Why? Because inequality breeds social problems, and social democracies have less inequality. You capitalists can keep your rediculous "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality in a social democracy. People at the bottom just don't have as far to go. You greedy people can have more, just not as much more as you can have here in America. How about one vacation home instead of two so that everybody can afford to feed their children, okay?
Sadie,
In your little diatribe you implied that you live in America. North American Radical Leftists like you also spew forth the Big Lie that Europe is the nirvana that all the world should be striving toward.
To imply that all is perfect in the "Scandinavian countries" indicates clearly that you don't know of what you speak.
But you don't even need to look that far. Canada experimented with socialism in the 1970's and it was an abject failure. We are still trying to find the right balance today but I assure you that it's far to the right of where you want to drag America.
Sadie please, you want the US to look like the Scandinavian countries? Are you crazy? These Scandinavian countries have been Islamasized and are tired of it. Even European countries are growing tired of the strong arm tactics of the extremists. This is what liberalism breeds. I speak from a perspective of having relatives that have come from the Middle East and my father lived in your beloved communist Russia. He told me something very interesting during the current election, and that was that he noticed how very similar Obama was to Lenin and Stalin.
Sadie please, you want the US to look like the Scandinavian countries? Are you crazy? These Scandinavian countries have been Islamasized and are tired of it. Even European countries are growing tired of the strong arm tactics of the extremists. This is what liberalism breeds. I speak from a perspective of having relatives that have come from the Middle East and my father lived in your beloved communist Russia. He told me something very interesting during the current election, and that was that he noticed how very similar Obama was to Lenin and Stalin.
Liberalism does not breed extremism that is seen in the Middle East. I don't believe Sadie was referring to such a thing. And just because the little experimentation that Canada conducted with Socialism failed, doesn't mean that it couldn't work elsewhere. Besides they're not talking about socialism in full, it would be taking the positive ideas and parts and using them to help our current problems around the world and here. Also, where did the thought that all liberals believe that "Europe is a nirvana that the world should strive for." come from Pelalusa?
Dear Anon,
I'd love to answer your question but I don't respond to Anonymous posters. Be a man (or woman), identify yourself, and then let's talk.
Robert
It doesn't matter how long the ladder is between the "haves" and the "have-nots" as long as there are not any wrungs missing. The "pull yourself by the bootstraps" mentality may be ridiculous to Sadie, but it is the law of the jungle. Why should someone who has earned two vacation homes give one of them to someone who has only produced hungry mouths to feed. A lioness only gives up portions of her kill to other members of her pride when it is in her best interest to do so. I know this language sounds harsh to liberals, but they should at least rejoice in the fact that the law of the jungle is green.
Well said, Mark! If some feel your language is "harsh" I don't believe they're looking at the big picture. What good does it do a human being to consistently give them a break over everyone else?
Imagine being a parent of two twin boys. One boy you raise traditionally, letting him feel the thrill of success - in school, in sports, in life - and also the lessons & pain of failure.
With the other boy, you constantly make excuses. You bug his teachers when he fails tests at school so that he will pass the class anyway. You petition his soccer league to no longer keep score and instead just focus on participation. When he quits his summer job after a few days just because he's bored, you excuse that and compensate him with a larger allowance and take him to Disneyland to feel better.
Which young man do you think is better prepared to succeed in life?
Dennis Miller shares his thoughts.
Anonymous,
If someone gave us a "golden key" to life all you would do with it was to cash it in and spend the money then ask all of us to help you out!
Which is probably what each of us would do because we believe in compassion. Yet, that compassion ends when you do not help yourself!
Freedom isn't free. My ancestry came to this country because of taxation, and not being able to think as they chose.
When you realize you are only paying for everyone else and not honestly getting anything out of it and you are miserable then you will KNOW that we have sat back and let the government take too much control of your life and you aren't happy with yourself.
Just as the new nominee for Supreme Court...she determined what she thinks is fair but didn't judge according to our Constitution. She created policy and now only so called "minorities" who didn't pass the test are allowed to take jobs that people who are truly qualified for cannot.
I saw true diversity at its best when a very large utility company needed someone to fill a position that required the person to have a degree in accounting and speak Spanish. They could only hire, by law, a female of oriental descent who spoke Spanish, not someone qualified with a degree in Accounting and spoke Spanish!
Anonymous, please look at yourself and your friends who are trying to get a free ride or golden key to life and it doesn't exist!
Just as Pigs cannot Fly...this new "Change" in our government isn't going to fly.
I heard the President tell us last night on the news that we have a moral duty to support his health care program. SO, what is it? He has published nothing. We have HR 3200 and three other bills in the house and three in the Senate but none from the president. Then he tells us that he believes that he is his brother's keeper. That is indeed a strange statement from a multimillionaire whose brother lives on less than $100 a year in a hut. If he has treated his own brother that way, what should we expect from him. His care and attention to his aged grandmother was not exactly heart warming either. I believe Dr Wortham is correct. It is necessary for each of us to make our own way. we have a right to do so. What we do with our effort and talents is up to us.
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