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paulrevere

Florida

With the recent election of a bunch of neo-fascists to the House of Representatives - oh, sorry - I missed those comments by Jon Stewart - I have seen various commmentators talking about America adopting the moral philosophy of Ayn Rand. (Rand Paul is not named that by accident.) I've also noticed that this seems to be an author that a lot of strippers mention - so it got me to thinking about the connection.

It's been interesting to find out how many of the strippers whose company I actually enjoy are into Ayn Rand. I suppose the reason for this is (1) it's nice to find a stripper who actually reads and doesn't just talk about how shitfaced they got last Friday night and (2) it's perhaps something of a rite of passage amongst women in that age group and line of work (I am NOT going to lower myself to calling stripping a 'profession') who are trying to set aside any feelings of altruism they might have so they can fuck you over and take all your money. So it's logical choice, eh?

And, of course, sometimes the girls who are there to fuck you over the most are kind of interesting as long as you prepared to deal with it and fuck them over as much as you can. I occassionally do this by spending some time and effort on a girl who clearly is into manipulation and then spending my money on someone else who is more innocent mentally, but not physically. God that pisses them off - and that's fun!

I see three parts to Ayn Rand's philosophy. (1) Do whatever is best for yourself and that will be best for everyone (laissez-faire capitalism and a bit of a bastardization of Adam Smith (2) People who try to get other people to be altruistic usually do that just to take advantage of them (oddly enough, that's almost aligned with Marx saying "Religion is the opiate of the masses" and (3) Be true to yourself and you will succeed. Let's look at each of these 3 items because you must be bored shitless to have stayed with me this far.

Not surprising that strippers want to do what is best for themselves. Also not surprising that some of them are trying to get over the idea of having a conscience and so they fall back on Ayn Rand as religious saint who can console them with 'Don't worry honey - it's all best for everyone.' Well, hate to inform a few of you naive and gullible bastards of this, but neither corporate leaders, nor the Republican Party, nor even - to my chagrin - the Democratic Party has your best interest as even a remote part of their agenda and the more unbalanced the power is, the more likely you are to get screwed (and not in the good way.) Likewise with strippers - the more unbalanced the power is, the more likely you are to get screwed - and not in the good way. Adam Smith was actually trying to rescue England from a spate of monopolistic price-fixing controlled by Mercantilists and was in favor of competition when there was not a vastly inequal distribution of power. So strippers like Ayn Rand and laissez-faire capitalism because it gives them a way to assuage their conscious for royally fucking you over and doing what is in their best interest. Moral: Negotiate hard. And strippers - it's in your best interest and that's the end of it - don't try to pretend some moral good comes out of it when you act like a complete cutthroat bitch.

The second part - that people who tell you to be altruistic will then take advantage of you - has some appeal to strippers because they don't want anything to get in the way of their money making. I mean, how are they going to afford the mortgage and their daily hit of heroin if they have any altruistic tendencies, eh? So - fuck altruism. And I will grant that anyone who is purely altruistic is likely to get walked on a lot - especially with all the motherfuckers out there who are following Ayn Rand.

The final part - be true to yourself - ok, now where the fuck did that come from? Ok - this is the fucking female brain at work and why Ayn Rand, in the final analysis, is just a big douche bag. A lot of strippers took the ingenious route of dropping out of high school or college or majoring in Medieval History, even if they did go to college at fucking Stanford. And they see themselves as budding artists, musicians, animal rights activists, whatever the fuck. But they are going to be true to themselves because, in the end, that is self-centered and will create incredible beauty in the world. So says fucking Ayn - geez what kind of fucking name is Ayn anyway? So that, in the mind of 20 year old girl who may have been sexually abused or might be shooting up occassionally or whatever the fuck her issue is, gives her the right to fuck you over as much as she wants - but she will try to engage in some interesting conversation. Just don't ask her the difference between Apolo Ono and the Ohno Bird (legs of 2 feet, balls of 4 feet and when it lands it says 'Ohno')

Now Ayn Rand escaped from Russia and hated Josef Stalin. And with good fucking reason - he killed about 20 million people and I believe that still stands in the Guiness Book of World Records, although Adolf gets a mention. But what was Stalin really doing? Well, seems to me like he was just applying Ayn Rand's philosophy and looking out for himself in one ruthless motherfucking fashion.

So, I guess, Ayn Rand and Stalin and strippers have a lot in common - they're pretty much interested in one thing and one thing only - them-fucking-selves. To the extent that there are rules around out there or social enforcement mechanisms to reign in the worst of this behavior, things can still work pretty well. Hey - I have actually enjoyed 90% of the lap dances I have done! But once you release all the social constraints and make everything a power struggle, well, then you get Stalinist Russia or the Capitalist excesses of the last 10 years in the United States.

So if you wanna vote for Sarah Palin or some other dumb ass stripper for President in 2012, feel free - but at least you know what the hell you're getting yourself into now. It'll be like the most ruthless stripper you know running the country - good luck with that.