GOP Takes No Pity on the Unemployed

Classic. "How can you imagine voting for people who don't share my notion of sympathy for people in need?" Olbermann wonders on his MSNBC show Countdown. No matter rights, no matter justice; the mere need of some is sufficient reason for the likes of Olbermann to deprive others of their property. They should pay for unemployment benefits and free lunches in the name of "humanitarianism" and "pity," after all.

As Olbermann blasts Republicans in this condescending, patronizing rant, unwittingly victimizing "The Unemployed" as though they were a helpless, homogeneous crowd that can exist but at the mercy of the taxpayer, it never quite occurs to him who has to foot the bill, it seems. Or does it?

From Ayn Rand, "The Monument Builders," The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) 88:

Since there is no such entity as "the public," since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied conflict of "the public interest" with private interests means that the interests of some men are to be sacrificed to the interests and wishes of others. Since the concept is so conveniently undefinable, its use rests only on any given gang's ability to proclaim that "The public, c'est moi"---and to maintain the claim at the point of a gun.