But Where Were the Scientologists?

Lede of the week:

A battle of political extremists ended in the throwing of meat and condoms Friday as about a dozen protesters from the LaRouche Youth Movement interrupted a lecture by an Ayn Rand Institute speaker.

[Via Wendy McElroy.]

Comments

[Paul]

What?

[Ammonium]

"Global Capitalism: The Solution to World Poverty and Oppression" That's some extremism.

It's interesting how interrupting a speech about capitalism and throwing things into the audience is considered an exercise in free speech.

[Syd]

They were only expressing support for safe sex and the Atkins diet.

[thoreau]

Witnesses said a purple-robed protester also interrupted the lecture, claimed that he was Ayn Rand and threw condoms with Vice President Dick Cheney's and other political figures' faces on them at the audience.

I don't remember USC being nearly as much fun when I was there.

[tarran]

In defense of the Larouchies (something I never thought I'd ever type), the Ayn Rand Institute has become pretty blood-thirsty of late. If the U.S. were to attack everyone they have called for, it to attack, it would run out of bombs before it ran out of enemy states. I mean, they want the U.S. government to simultaneously fight Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. I'm sure the Chinese, the Russians and the Saudi's would sit idly by and allow that to happen. And we all now how freedom flawers when states fight global wars.

Personally, I think the idea of Larouchies and Objectivists battling each other is a hoot in a Jerry springer sort of way.

[J sub D]

Oh, to be young and stupid again!

[LoneSnark]

I'm not sure Ayan Rand thought the state should be in the business of initiating force, even if it is against other states. Or am I confused?

[Chuck]

Wow. There's a LaRouche Youth Movement? That's kinda creepy.

[FSM Worshiper]

"These LaRouche people have some sort of psychopathology," Bernstein said. "I hope they get the help they need."

Perhaps they should see Nathanial Branden, he is a psychologist. Oh, wait, I forgot, Ayn Rand called him evil because he had sex with someone besides her.

[jp]

This article has to be a put-on. Right?

[James]

But...was the meat IN the condoms? This would be sending a different message entirely.

[frogman302]

The Objectivist article has got a good point. The terrorists attacked because they were idol-crazy madmen not because they were poor.

And also, they attacked because they saw Capitalist ideals infilitrating their people through the ways it's come to everyone in the world and they rejected it. They think if they hurt the "heart" of capitalism aka the US it will make their extremist cause look good.

Interestingly enough, it seems to have gotten more of the middle east behind their cause than ever, while isolating the middle east even more from the rest of the world.

[sam]

Yay!

As someone who goes to a school that's periodically innundated by LaRouchies (hint: it rhymes with "Pee-Doubleyou"), it makes me glad to see them bringing the same kind of thinking that leads to the singing of Christian Hymns in German as an attempted political tool against other crazy people, as opposed to just indifferent assholes from New Jersey.

[Karen]

I wonder what drugs you have to take to sign up for the LaRouche Youth Movement?

[fishbane]

They're just fighting the Randians over there so they don't have to fight them over here.

[Grand Chalupa]

What is the LaRouche movement? I looked them up on Wikipedia and all I got was that they listen to Bach, like Plato and are against the "baby boomer lifestyle", whatever that is. Can anyone tell me in English what this group believes?

[Syd]

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche

[Cheap-Shot Artist]

Sadly, the Objectivists in the audience had no use whatsoever for the condoms.

[Grand Chalupa]

Sadly, the Objectivists in the audience had no use whatsoever for the condoms.

We really need to get together and fund a study to see if this is true or not. At least to see what their need of condoms would be relative to leftists and moderates.

My guess is moderates would have the most sex. They are most easily adaptable and get along with with a wider range of people.

Then right wingers who are more likely to come across as alpha and get laid. Likely to be cops, soldiers, fireman yada yada yada.

Lastly is leftists who are too big of perfectionists and pessimistic to have any kind of human relationships.

I don't think libertarians would fare too well, sorry to say. I'd say they probably would be more likely to be on one side of the spectrum or other. Either Star Trek nerds who die virgins or scrappy, energetic John Galt like characters.

Someone please do a study on this.

[Akira MacKenzie]

In short, the LaRoucheies are: Prohibitionist, Holocaust denying, anti-gay, sexist, mercantilist, conspiracy kooks.

[Shem]

I think leftsts would probably be more likely to be second in that survey, mostly because they're around women who are much more likely to be willing prior to marriage. In short, leftist chicks put out, conservative chicks, by and large, don't. I also think that it's a pretty big assumption that cops and firemen tend to be more right-wing. I've found, growing up around them, that they tend to be pretty moderate, (apoltical may be a better term) with a very slight edge for conservatives among those who care. As to soldiers, officers are far and away more conservative, but I think (and I have much less basis to judge here) that enlisted fall into the same category as firefighters and police.

Libertarians, and Objectivists in particular, don't get laid. Just not enough women in the movement. The fact that they work more closely with the abovementioned conservatives doesn't help this, though.

[thoreau]

I once tried to read a LaRouchie pamphlet. It made no sense. Depending on how you read it you can arbitrarily label them as left or right, but the truth is that they exist in some universe so topologically messed up that left and right mean nothing.

OK, not that left and right mean all that much in this universe either, but still.

[Shem]

I play a game with them on campus where I try to get as much high-end material from them without paying or giving them contact information. I managed to get 20 "Children Of Satan" books (sugested donation-$20) before they retired it. A friend made them into a paper-mache bust of Dick Cheney. Irony is beautiful.

[Jeff P.]

I knew Andrew Bernstein back during Peikoff's Understanding Objectivism lectures in NYC (85?). He was a fun guy. Huge Stones fan. He probably collected as many of the condoms as he could before leaving.

[Grand Chalupa]

I think leftsts would probably be more likely to be second in that survey, mostly because they're around women who are much more likely to be willing prior to marriage. In short, leftist chicks put out, conservative chicks, by and large, don't. I also think that it's a pretty big assumption that cops and firemen tend to be more right-wing. I've found, growing up around them, that they tend to be pretty moderate, (apoltical may be a better term) with a very slight edge for conservatives among those who care. As to soldiers, officers are far and away more conservative, but I think (and I have much less basis to judge here) that enlisted fall into the same category as firefighters and police.

Libertarians, and Objectivists in particular, don't get laid. Just not enough women in the movement. The fact that they work more closely with the abovementioned conservatives doesn't help this, though.

I dunno why you assume people only mate with people who share their poliical views. Are we talking about people who are dedicated to the movement or just people who share libertarian positions in the general population?

I'm really stumped, I can imagine leftists being at the top of the list or bottom. It makes sense that they smoke pot and don't care too much about what others call "traditional values" but then again I've met many who are life hating losers.

My hunch is your politics probably don't make that big of a difference in if you get laid or not. I would bet that people who care higher than average about politics tend to have less of a social life regardless of their positions.
That's why I said moderates probably get laid the most, since they care least about politics.

That's also why I think the social sciences are a joke. Pretty much a bunch of emotionally unstable people trying to work through their issues at taxpayer's expense.

[GILMORE]

Libertarians, and Objectivists in particular, don't get laid.

pppppppttthhhhp.

right.

depends who you are, not what you think.

(although i've never met anyone who volunteered themselves as an 'objectivist', and would guess i probably wouldnt fuck them if they did.)

when i was at college in the south, the 'anarchist/libertarian' types were bangin (between all genders) far more frequently than the typical college republican fratrat. in the north, where i'm from, the libertoid types tend to come from the smarter-hipper well-read urban set - not the anti-social suburban dork type as much - so i dont know how these generalizations work really unless you generalize from your immediate peer group. which obviously says more about you than it does political thinking as it relates to sexual activity. 🙂

although i'd probably guess that self-stated 'libertarians' engage in anal sex 500x as frequently as anyone who calls themselves 'conservative'.

or, rather, are proudly willing to admit it in a survey 🙂

Conservatives (a la the haggart/foley/'name your catholic priest' variety) are probably under-reporting their level of scoredom among boywhores, senate pages, each other.

JG

[steve]

Sounds like it was an amateur production of the final scene of Marat-Sade.

[Gunner]

There really is no better place for this condom throwing article to be published then the Daily Trojan.

[mk]

from the wikipedia article:
The problem with making the revolution, LaRouche apparently had concluded, was that women are castrating bitches.

Ah, and I thought the LaRouchies problem with Ayn Rand was political. It figures.

[ChrisO]

I once tried to read a LaRouchie pamphlet. It made no sense. Depending on how you read it you can arbitrarily label them as left or right, but the truth is that they exist in some universe so topologically messed up that left and right mean nothing.

Same here. The wife and I got handed a LaRouchie pamphlet some time ago, and the gist of it was that Felix Rohatyn was (a) secretly connected to the Nazis, and (b) behind everything bad that had happened in the last 60 years. However, after browsing the pamphlet, I still wasn't sure exactly who the fuck Felix Rohatyn was, and was rather unconvinced that he was a Nazi puppet, given that he was apparently a young lad when Godwin's Favorite Dictator was workin' the boots-and-mustache look.

I think we kept the pamphlet just to get a chuckle or two. From what I've read, however, the LaRouchies are just this side of the Moonies when it comes to brainwashing their recruits. I always feel bad whenever I see those kids hawking that LaRouchie crap outside the Foggy Bottom Metro stop, because I'm worried that they've gotten themselves into some bad shit.

[Bee]

I would have guessed that Libertarian types would be swingers.

I am so sorry that this story did not make the local TV news here in LA. This would have been far more entertaining than, say, USC's football game.

[highnumber]

I've got two things in my LaRouche file. He ran some sort of primetime network tv special years ago about his plan to put us on Mars. It was so long ago that I am unclear on whether he wanted to send undesirables or just good folks there.
For years he has also had guys carrying paranoid, nutty anti-immigration signs walking up & down State Street on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The first time I saw them I stopped, read the sign, and, being a little tipsy from the glug, looked the guy in the eye and said "F**k you." He looked right back at me and said "F**k you, too." Now I ignore them.

[Postmodern Sleaze]

I love the LaRouchies. I still remember the time Harley Schlanger took me out to dinner to try to recruit me for the movement and we had a long chat about Nietzsche, Plato and Leo Strauss. Crazy as fruitcakes, those guys are.

As for sex and objectivists, I had the best sex I've ever had with an objectivist stripper. No condom, however...