r/politics • u/slaysia • Dec 19 '17

Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa
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u/Picnicpanther California Dec 19 '17

It's also extremely unhealthy to get your entire worldview, lock stock and barrel, from one tv show—especially a fictional, satirical cartoon. They can invent situations and bend it into the point they're trying to make, which makes it a lousy way to formulate your own opinions about the world.

Then again, libertarians have been taking fiction as reality since Ayn Rand.

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u/MaximumEffort433 Maryland Dec 20 '17

Then again, libertarians have been taking fiction as reality since Ayn Rand.

Rant 2!

Ayn Rand's fiction wasn't that bad. I really liked Anthem... I think I completely disagreed with the point she was trying very hard to make, but I liked it, it was a good read. There are lots of people who like Atlas Shrugged, too! (I got about a third of the way into the book, I couldn't finish it, it was so. goddamn. boring. But some people like boring, who am I to judge?) From what I've heard The Fountainhead is also a book that she wrote.

One of my favorite writers was a sometimes libertarian, Robert A. Heinlein. The difference is that nobody tried to build an entire political ideology on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Stranger in a Strange Land.

I hate it when good fiction gets abused, it's sort of like what the Nazis did with the swastika, or Fox News did with the word "balanced."

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u/FlyingChange Dec 20 '17

Thank you for not calling Heinlein a fascist. It really irks me when people go on about the "military fascist ideals" of Heinlein.

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u/MaximumEffort433 Maryland Dec 20 '17

I have to imagine that those people only ever watched Starship Troopers, completely misunderstood the plot, and never bothered to read the book. Idiots gonna idiot, though.

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u/FlyingChange Dec 21 '17

Ain’t that the truth. I think Heinlein’s politics are rather hard to pin down- he’s definitely across the board. I actually think Starship Troopers is, in a way, very progressive, especially for when it was written.