From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 00:28:02 MDT
Olga contributes a set piece of venomous liberal propaganda.
(Propaganda that I agree with I call by a nicer name.) In
the recently established tradition, may one inquire what this
has to do with Extropian issues?
Was there anything that you wanted to do beyond sticking it
to conservatives or libertarians who might be reading the
list?
Is there an argument against Ayn Rand's beliefs that you
would like to make, besides just saying how it makes you
"break out"?
Why do you think that you might be kicked off the forum for
criticizing some book on the recommended list? Are you
serious? How can you imply such a thing? Why, I wasn't
even kicked off the list for contributing to the <I-word>
thread; and I don't think that it even crossed anyone's mind!
Damien also echoes the following piece of erudite critical
thinking:
"Oh dear oh dear oh dear".
Come now, even liberals [admittedly cheap and shameless
slam] can do better than that!
As it happens, I myself don't happen to be a huge admirer of
Ayn Rand, but so what? WHAT EXACTLY DID SHE SAY that bugs
you? We should *talk* about it, if you want, not just denounce
the Extropians movement through some kind of guilt by association.
And we should try to talk about it in very reasoned, cautious,
judicial tones, if you can do that.
Lee
(who fears he may have lost his temper but doesn't care)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Olga
Bourlin
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 8:45 PM
To: extropians@extropy.com
Subject: Longevity and Ayn Anti-Venom
I've admitted it to the list before - I have this problem with Ayn Rand. I break out
(tears? laughter? hives?) when I see her name. I just poked my head into the new
Extropians List Guidelines, and saw Ayn's name there again, keeping company with all the
other erudite recommended books. Oh dear oh dear oh dear - I may be kicked off the list
for good, but I needed some anti-venom fast, and what follows is pretty lame, but it
helped me exorcise running into Ayn. You who may be acquainted with Russian toasts know
that one of the most popular ones simply goes: "Long Life!" If you read the following,
this rambling tirade may make some sense to you:
PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT ON MEDICARE POLICY, AS DELIVERED TO RESIDENTS OF THE HEMLOCK FARMS
DISCOUNT ELDERCARE FACILITY
Statement by the President
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. It's great to be back in Florida. And it's a real pleasure
to be here at the Hemlock Farms Eldercare Facility, looking out over so many dazed and
toothless faces. Now I know it's hard to hear me over the creaking of wheelchairs and
raspy din of the second-hand respirators which keep you clinging to your spent and empty
lives, but I wanted to take a few minutes to talk at all of you about my plans for
Medicare.
As you know, Medicare is one of the few remaining pieces of pork barrel legislation passed
by the closet Socialist Lyndon Baines Johnson as part of his so-called "Great Society"
initiatives of the mid-1960's. Now sure, Johnson may have been from Texas (and had the
longhorn in his pants to prove it), but at the end of the day, he was just another
bleeding heart liberal - never mind that he had the patriotic balls to send thousands of
American boys off to Vietnam to die gruesomely in a war he knew was hopelessly unwinnable.
Today, I'm here in front of all these television cameras to impart the impression that my
administration is not doing everything in its power to completely eradicate Johnson's
time-tested Medicare program and replace it with a system that will line the pockets of my
pals in the insurance industry and put your Truman-voting asses six feet under in crushing
medical bills.
Now I understand how popular Medicare is with poor seniors like yourselves. It's like
another chunk of Social Security, except earmarked for doctors with lousy Bahamanian
medical degrees who suckle at the Federal cash teat by poking and prodding at those
walking corpses you call bodies. Makes you wonder why old LBJ didn't just combine Medicare
and Social Security into one program called "Fat Handouts for Lazy Old People Who Were Too
Stupid to Invest Enough Money From Their Lucrative White Collar Jobs to Retire Comfortably
Without Begging for Help Like Some Brandy-Soaked Hobo." But that's another issue.
For far too long, my enemies in the Democratic party have used the issue of Medicare as a
vehicle to disseminate the truism that Republicans really couldn't care less whether you
people live or die, on account of you're all too poor to contribute to our campaigns - and
even if you did, you're far too decrepit and sickly to get to the polls on election day.
Well just let me say one thing: it is important to me that people not believe this. I
mean, we know there's not going to be any butterfly ballots down here in 2004, and that's
why we need as many of you on our side as we can get. And so I want each of you to take it
to heart when I say I honestly think of you as so much more than just digestive systems on
legs, and that I would never exploit your collective snowballing senility by assuring you
that I will not do all of those wildly destructive things to your healthcare plan which
I'm actually secretly planning to do.
(Scattered feeble applause.)
Thank you all for listening. Please give my best to the big guy upstairs. You'll all be
seeing him sooner than you think.
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