A brilliant reply to Randian fanboy at Rotten Tomatoes

[Swede]

Sophist on 04-15-2011 11:32 PM
> Oh, do shut up. Unions are "the masses of those people who live off the efforts and motivation of the few?" Spare me. Which "few" do school teachers live off the efforts of? Or policemen? Or firefighters? Are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers mooching off of Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison?

What about the SEIU, what small group of geniuses are they leaching off of? What about the United Auto Workers, are they exploiting the efforts of the "few" that run the auto companies (said efforts mostly consisting of making decades of idiotic decisions and losing market share to Japan)? Unions are how we got the 40 hour work week. Do you know why it's no longer legal to send twelve-year-olds into coal mines? Unions. Do you know why your employer can no longer force you to buy everything from a company store or work in conditions that will kill you with silicosis before you're 25? Guess. Union members had their heads cracked, got shot, got killed by private armies of thugs (and sometimes the Actual US army) so that workers could negotiate with companies as partners, as equals, not as serfs begging their liege for an extra crust of bread.

The existence of a large and vibrant middle class is one of the key factors that allowed this country to prosper and grow as much as it has, and Unions built the middle class. The idea that the primary mover of the American economy is the irreplaceable contributions of singular geniuses is one the most mendacious and harmful of modern fairytales. And the idea that the "masses" who do most of the actual work that creates the wealth of this nation banding together to bargain for a modest portion of that wealth that they created is " off the efforts and motivation of the few" is so vile as to border on sociopathy.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/comments.php?reviewid=1977645

[Canuckistanian]

1. It doesn't "border" on sociopathy

It IS sociopathy. And it's close to being institutionalized.

[SharonAnn]

6. The actual LOOTERS are the wealthy, the oligarchy. Lincoln

himself said the wealth comes from Labor and that Labor is therefore ranked over Capital.

The workers are the producers.

I don't get why people don't see it?

[BobbyBoring]

8. People don't see it because they are bombarded

With LIES all day, every day. Rush was explaining the wisdom of tax cuts today and all "The Magic" that happens when you lower them. He cited the Bush tax cuts and how they created jobs. For Christs sake, the Bush tax cuts have been around for 8 years and we have fewer jobs. Even the dumbest of dumb asses should be able to figure this out if THEY WOULD THINK.

But they don't. That's why~

[Plucketeer]

13. Most folks of today

grew up without ever knowing the struggles that Unions won over. Most folks today think that 40-hour work weeks, weekends, child labor laws and such just have been the norm since time began. Heh - I'm surprized the oligarchs haven't commissioned a new bible that denounces these things as against the will of god. With the GOP's hands in the church's pockets, you'd think they could get preachers to tell their flocks about the evil decadance of such cushy labor arrangements!
You can SEE how corporations are try ing their best to eliminate these assumptions with today's workers. Part-timing them to avoid bennies that unions clawed and bled for, like health care, retirement, and compensations. One of the last places I worked, they juggled your hours so you'd technically work 48 or 50 hours a week without them being obligated to pay any overtime for the hours over 40. My schedule was so crazy that I quit after a few months. Not that I didn't need a job - I did. But I damn near crashed while coming home a couple of times because I fell asleep at the wheel! I quickly concluded that NO friggin' job was worth my life!

[libmom74]

18. They do have a minister

David Barton that preaches that collective bargaining and taxation is against God's word in the bible. Lawrence Odonnell was talking about him last night. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42653890#42653890

[NICO9000]

25. Maybe the warrior Jesus they love so much

Will be back soon to kick the asses of cretins like Barton, Phelps, Jones, etc.

[Martin Eden]

9. Beat me to it.

K&R

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. "...close to being institutionalized?"

So you're an optimist?

:)

[DainBramaged]

2. Dying of old age or accident is their only cure, they are aliens, impervious to feelings

[rustydog]

3. Thank you for this! I will use the information in my conversations

with a couple of stringent anti-union co-workers!

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Swede.

[freshwest]

5. Thanks Swede! I'm going to remind the next Randian to leave their fiction with it!

:yourock:

[Snoutport]

7. k & r

[bluestateboomer]

10. K&R!

[Motown_Johnny]

11. holy crap... ya gotta rec that one

no getting around it

[BrklynLiberal]

12. Absolutely brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. kick and recommend!!

[PatSeg]

15. The guy he was responding to

probably is living in his parent's basement, living off their "efforts and motivation".

[teabaghater]

16. Wasn't it Rome,

when they lost their "middle class"(workers) the "rich" found they didn't know how to do anything, cook, sew, garden on and on. So somebody has an idea, they still NEED to have someone implement it.

[Enthusiast]

17. That is positively beautiful!

If only this was widely understood. It is the classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

[lark]

19. K&R

Brilliant response and 100% true. Too bad Repugs don't recognize truth since it doesn't fit in with their "me only" philosophy.

[Forkboy]

20. Too many long words. The target audience won't understand it.

I found the abridged version though...

"You idiots."

:)

[harmonicon]

21. I'm in agreement until this "middle class" crap is rolled out again.

This fucking trope needs to die. There is now, as has been for the past few hundred years, only a very small middle class in this country, and it sure as hell isn't union workers. Post WWII, the working class were given access to many things which had previously been only for the middle class and the wealthy; cars, electronic gadgets, vacations, etc., but never the power. If I gave you a yacht and a suit that costs more than you make in a year, would that make you wealthy? No, it wouldn't (sure, you could sell them and be richer than you ever imagined, but you still wouldn't be one of the upper crust). Same goes for what happened to the working class. I'm not complaining about standards of living being raised, mind you, just the labeling which has only served to divide worker against worker. If this giant "middle class" in our country exists, who pray-tell is the lower class?

[tclambert]

24. According to tax figures, the middle class is about 30% of the population.

From a chart in http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html we can see that, going by Adjusted Gross Income (AGI or NAMBLA), the bottom 50% make less than $33,048. That does not seem middle class to me. The top 25% starts at an AGI of $67,280. That seems middle class. So maybe down at the 60th percentile we start to see middle class incomes. Then at the 90th percentile, the top 10%, we see AGI's over $113,799. Six figure incomes always seem rich to me. 60th to 90th percentile is 30%. So, I'm calling the split 60% poor, 30% middle class, and 10% rich.

Now some may argue that these days $113,799 is still middle class--upper middle, but middle. Maybe. The top 5% starts at an AGI of %159,619. Is that rich? The top 1 percent, about 1.4 million taxpayers make more than $380,354. You gotta admit that's rich.

Somewhere else http://www.tax.com/taxcom/features.nsf/Articles/0DEC0EAA7E4D7A2B852576CD00714692 I saw the top 400 individuals make about $344 M each. (I almost said "earn" instead of "make" there but how can anyone EARN $344 million in a year? Wait, I know! Get up early on Tuesdays!).

[harmonicon]

26. but I highly doubt that those making even a few hundred grand a middle class.

"Middle class" has a very real and functional historical meaning. The middle class was the new merchant class; the bourgeoisie. These are the factory owners, the bankers, and other capitalists, in contrast to the wealthy who are/were the land-owning gentry.

Basically, if you work for someone else, you are not middle class. If you don't work at all, but have money, you're wealthy. Anyone who is in debt for anything (mortgage, car payments, etc. not counting debts on paper that are actually money making investments) is not middle class.

[bleever]

22. Standing ovation!

:applause: