Picture this: a grown woman is driving around the Chicago suburbs and encounters three little girls with a lemonade stand. Upon learning that they are giving away the lemonade for free, the aforementioned grown woman goes after them like she just found the fucking Taliban making VX in a garage in Palatine. At the end of this psychotic episode, she writes about it with the intention of publishing it because she is proud of what she just did.
Did you picture all of that? Good. Now do it. Do it and you too can be a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. You can be the next Terry Savage. It is not often that I read a simple opinion column and conclude that the author is quite lucky to have avoided ending up in police custody as a result of it. This ("There is No 'Free' Lemonade") is one such occasion. In fact it is the only such occasion I can recall aside from Doug Giles' ill-advised 2001 column "A List of Problems I Have Solved By Raping Things."
I ask if you are ready only rhetorically today, because having read this column I know for a fact that you are not.
This column is a true story — every word of it.
Well there goes the insanity defense or the ol' "It was satire / artistic license!" argument.
And I think it very appropriate to consider around the Fourth of July, Independence Day spirit.
Please keep this line in mind as she explains what she did. This is what she likes to do in celebration of major holidays. Check back in November for her column about beheading a vagrant in the Thanksgiving spirit.
Last week, I was in a car with my brother and his fiancee, driving through their upscale neighborhood on a hot summer day. At the corner, we all noticed three little girls sitting at a homemade lemonade stand.
Why, this just sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting. How sweet. How all-American. How totally not a reason to lose your shit and go after three little girls like you are a starving dog and they are wearing dresses made of honey baked ham.
We follow the same rules in our family, and one of them is: Always stop to buy lemonade from kids who are entrepreneurial enough to open up a little business.
Aside from wondering why your family feels the need to have such an esoteric rule, I find it regrettable that the Savage clan does not have rules about the basic tenets of human interaction. They might have come in handy here.
My brother immediately pulled over to the side of the road and asked about the choices. The three young girls — under the watchful eye of a nanny, sitting on the grass with them — explained that they had regular lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and small chocolate candy bars.
I see nothing out of the ordinary here. Then again, I am not Terry Savage.
Then my brother asked how much each item cost. "Oh, no," they replied in unison, "they're all free!"
OH SHIT. OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT.
RUN.
I know you still can't see how this could be a precursor to a rage-filled outburst for any normal person but RUN. THERE ISN'T TIME. I WILL EXPLAIN LATER.
I sat in the back seat in shock. Free? My brother questioned them again: "But you have to charge something? What should I pay for a lemonade? I'm really thirsty!"
Note that 99.999 percent of…well, actually, everyone on the goddamn planet except for Terry Savage and Brother Savage…would have said "Aw, how cute! Thank you so much!" and enjoyed a cold Dixie cup of Country Time Imitation Lemonade Substitute at this point. That, I daresay, would be a normal response.
His fiancee smiled and commented, "Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving."
Well, one person in the car was relatively normal.
That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine.
OK, from this point forward this reads like a police report.
No, Terry, we can't imagine. Even your most devoted readers cannot figure out why you are about to start yelling at three little girls for offering you free lemonade. Your motives are as comprehensible as a Japanese game show.
"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."
Well, presumably this stuff became theirs to own when THEIR PARENTS FUCKING GAVE IT TO THEM. Wait a minute. Why am I debating you on the minutiae of your "argument" when the real question here is broader: What in the hell is wrong with you?
I bet the fiancee was profoundly thankful for this lecture. And she certainly did not turn the car ride home from their visit with you into a "If we have to see her more than once a year, we're getting divorced. In fact I have the divorce paperwork prepared. It needs only a signature." conversation for your brother.
I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.
Oh good.
Adults should always pick fights with kids in furtherance of "setting them straight." It's not only smart, it's socially acceptable and indicative of a healthy personality.
"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained. "That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money."
"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained…TO A GROUP OF SEVEN YEAR-OLD STRANGERS. Kids, if you're reading this, take Mr. Ed's advice on something: if an adult stranger ever says any of this to you, one member of your group should run to ask an adult to call the police and the remaining two should attempt to make a lot of noise and stand together to create the impression that they are a large animal.
True, that is actually how one should respond to brown bear attacks. But it will also work on Terry Savage. Trust me. And don't get between her and her cubs.
I was confident I had explained it clearly. Until my brother, breaking the tension, ordered a raspberry lemonade. As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?" And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly.
I would like to hear this story from the girls' perspective. Or perhaps the nanny's. This part would be something like "So after this bitch started lecturing us on classical economics, they asked us how much it cost. We wanted to see if we could make their heads explode, so we told them it was still free. The driver man swore at us and the old lady in the backseat pulled a stiletto knife out of her purse. Then they saw Officer Harry's car at the end of the block and they ran away."
No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy. We all act as if the "lemonade" or benefits we're "giving away" is free. And so the voters demand more — more subsidies for mortgages, more bailouts, more loan modification and longer periods of unemployment benefits.
Wait. Did you have some lemonade or not? I need closure on this anecdote, not a segue into the worst metaphor in recorded history. "Some nice kids tried to give me lemonade for free, and I decided that the lemonade represents everything that is wrong with society. Because I am psychotic. I pick corn from my own crap and glue it back on the cob. Then I eat it again. And again."
They're all very nice. But these things aren't free.
You know what was nice as well as free? THE DAMN LEMONADE.
The government only gets the money to pay these benefits by raising taxes, meaning taxpayers pay for the "free lemonade." Or by printing money — which is essentially a tax on savings, since printing more money devalues the wealth we hold in dollars.
She is now explaining that when we give the government some of our earnings, we often demand benefits in return for giving them said money.
Slow down, T-Bone. We're not all economists here. Is there any scientific effort to study and explain this bizarre behavior? Personally I am surprised that people want the government to provide things other than the Joint Strike Fighter in exchange for keeping a quarter of our paychecks.
If we can't teach our kids the basics of running a lemonade stand, how can we ever teach Congress the basics of economics?
Reach further, Terry! Reach higher! Reach! This lemonade transaction (or was it a non-transaction? I NEED TO KNOW.) represents everything that is wrong with America. It also explains why Congress doesn't understand "the basics of economics (but I bet Terry does!) The lemonade also represents AIDS in the developing world, the problem with the music industry today, and 19th Century institutionalized racism.
The other day I was shopping and I saw that wax paper was on sale. Of course my first thought was, "This is why we won the space race."
Or maybe it's the other way around: The kids are learning from the society around them. No one has ever taught them there's no free lunch — and all they see is "free," not the result of hard work, and saving, and scrimping.
I think it is valid to conclude that "no one" has ever given American students the hackneyed wisdom that "there's no free lunch."
Maybe the lesson the parents hoped to teach was that sometimes, especially when you are a person of considerable wealth, it is nice to do things for your fellow man without expecting to be paid. That it's OK to give someone 1 cent worth of powdered lemonade just to be friendly. That parents don't want their kids to grow up to be asocial assholes like Terry Savage.
If that's what America's children think
"And based on my random, double-blind study of these three girls, it is fair to conclude that they do,"
— that there's a free lunch waiting — then our country has larger problems ahead. The Declaration of Independence promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It didn't promise anything free.
Right. It promised us a government that would allocate the resources we grant to it in ways that are to our benefit. Who ever said we expected the government to do all this stuff for us "for free"? We work. We contribute. Oh wait, I forgot how the Metaphor of the Lemonade explains how we all want things for free. Good point.
Something to think about this July 4th holiday weekend.
Or, you know, fireworks and barbecues.
And that's the Savage Truth!
This is the most embarrassingly bad catchphrase I have ever seen. I recommend something like:
– I Am Completely Fucking Insane!tm
– I Can't Be Trusted with Your Children!tm
– Fluids! My Precious Fluids!tm
Despite the fact that I've trademarked that, Terry, you are free to use it. You've more than earned the right. What's that? No, it doesn't cost you anything. You can use it for free. I don't care. No. I don't want anything for it.
Oh jesus. She's advancing on me with that murderous glare again. You all slip out the back while I distract her. This may take a while.
Evan Hurst says:
Uh.
Ahem.
Speechless.
What a sociopathic bag of dicks.
party with tina says:
Honestly, this didn't even need the FJM treatment, tho it may have been cathartic to you.
This had me in tears.
Adiaphora says:
This made my night, thank you.
16shellsfromathirtyaughtsix says:
Holy fucking shit.
ladiesbane says:
"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."
Any person who would lay this BS on children would probably make her own kids pay rent, or present a kid with a bill for rearing costs on his 18th birthday. Plus nine months of eating for two, plus parts & labor. Plus tip.
Even the die-hard Randites might wonder: are they respecting local ordinances by not actually selling the lemonade, but giving it away (for the kiddie pleasure of having a lemonade stand?) Are they religious folk who want to feed the masses, and keep them hydrated, too? After reading this, I wouldn't be surprised if she said they were two midget hookers and a pimp. (But then she wouldn't have had a fit. It's okay to SELL it.)
Kevin Beasley says:
Posts like these are why I keep coming back. They help make the third shift a little less dreary.
J. Dryden says:
I can only imagine how well she'd react to a total stranger offering unsolicited 'sound advice' to her own offspring…wait, does she have offspring, and if so, has Child's Services been notified? What do you want to bet that the Savage residence is the house that all the kids in the neighborhood have been told never to go near. "I don't care if our house is on fire–you go ask that nice registered sex offender if you can use *his* phone to dial 911–you do *not* go near the old Savage place…"
And yes, my immediate thought was that the Fiancee in this story is not long for that title. "Do you agree with what she just did?" "Well, sure." "Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to refuse to be an accomplice to the spreading the infection that is your genetic code into an unsuspecting world."
Daniel says:
"There's no such thing as a free lunch." Absolute bullshit. Almost everyone in their life has won a a free McDonalds cheeseburger at some point in their lives. Thank you Savage for arguing this idiotic point and scaring children. Free lemonade might not be a major concern for a city with high homicide rates and a dwindling budget.
Aslan Maskhadov says:
It's kind of like that oil spill, but replace "oil" with "stupid" and you get the idea.
ZenPoseur says:
Holy crap, Ed. I laughed so hard, I think I woke the neighbors.
Twisted_Colour says:
@ZenPoseur: I hope you charge your neighbours at a sensible rate for acting as their alarm clock.
HoosierPoli says:
The first thing we need to realize is that any story that starts with the words "Everything in this story is true" is completely made up. She's not a sociopath, just a shallow-brained liar. I'm not sure if that's better.
Zebbidie says:
Yay! Manic phase Ed.
Surely no real person is so dead to social interaction norms as to lecture little kids on economics. I think the happily nodding nanny gives the lie. Any nanny worth her salt would be moving between the danger and her charges…and this lady would sniff of danger to me in a big way.
gruaud says:
Of course, it's a liberal strawman — but to lie about berating
seven year old children to "win" your point…
That may have cost a little too much, Terry; as you are going
to find out over the next few days.
bb in GA says:
Stupefyin'
I seem to remember reading about Jesus feeding thousands for FREE with a 2 piece fish dinner and some hush puppies that some kid gave Him…
Spirit of Giving, PASS IT ON!
//bb
Ed says:
"As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?" And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly."
I think she is stating that the nanny approved of what the children were doing – hence the complaints about the adults being part of the problem for failing to teach the children how to be Good Capitalists – and not that the nanny approved of Terry's rant.
Mrs. Chili says:
I'm still a little, I don't know, dumbstruck? by the fact that this woman PUBLISHED a story about this and admitted to dressing down little girls in their own front yard, in front of witnesses. Honest to God.
This bit – That parents don't want their kids to grow up to be asocial assholes like Terry Savage. – is what caught me. I'm raising my (middle class, not-wealthy, but not scrounging, either) kids to be as generous as they can be. Sometime – hell, MOST of the time – it's not about the gain (and it's CERTAINLY not about the money); it's about the human decency.
Hazy Davy says:
Terry, apparently, is also psychic.
I mean, even if her "capitalism is the only less one can derive from a lemonade stand" argument were true, she neglects to reveal the backstory.
Those three little girls found some spare change, which they used to buy lemon seeds. They planted them, grew them, and eventually had lemons. They sold some to local restaurants, and got some more money. Then they took a debt financing line out from the kid down the street (E.F. Hustle). With their new cash flow, they purchased sugar, cups, and a pitcher. And they began their lemonade business. Since last year, they've been mixing and selling lemonade, and profiting from it.
And now, with the cups and lemons and sugar, all resulting from their profits, hard work (and a bit of luck), they decided to give back.
Those are NOT their parents assets.
Patti says:
I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in the Savage household, where all social interactions like a Junior Achievement meeting.
BTW… came very close to having coffee come out of my nose. That would be FREE coffee, provided by my workplace, because we all know that universities are socialist institutions.
Elder Futhark says:
What wasn't reported: The "lemonade" contained a not unsubstantial amount of 7-year-old's pee, the "raspberry" lemonade nany menses, and the "small chocolate bars" a surprising amount of dog poo. Oh, and quite a bit of laxative. That was my idea. The rest was my daughters'. When they grow up, they are gonna be FUCKING AWESOME!
Bugboy says:
"The other day I was shopping and I saw that wax paper was on sale. Of course my first thought was, "This is why we won the space race.""
OMFG quote of the effing' year…
BTW, One only has to watch Ayne Rand's shifty eyes in her interview(s?) to see she was certifiably nuts.
Bugboy says:
P.S. I think it's real ironic these fools talk about these girls not owning their parent's assets (the lemonade and candy bars) but they sure sing a different tune over the so called "death tax". "That is MY inheritance" doesn't include lemonade and candy bars, I guess.
bb in GA says:
bugboy:
I think you are committing the 'genetic fallacy' in logic when you imply Ms. Rand was 'nuts,' therefore, discount what she proposed in her philosophical/political writings. Unfortunately, this is a common tactic in this age. Smear the source to discredit the idea. Rush Limbaugh is Fat, therefore…
//bb
bayou says:
What if the nanny, wasn't a nanny, but some homicidal dissatisfied customer who felt a quarter for watered-down Roundy's brand lemon drink was a rip-off? What if she's sitting there making the kids give away their stock as punishment? What does that say about American taxes?
Bugboy says:
@bb, I said nothing about her writings. I leave that to you.
anotherbozo says:
Great use of your pulpit, Ed. Now did you email this to the paper to print in its Letters to the Editor section? Why not? HIghly doubtful that they'd print it, but maybe on the Op Ed page? Some Editors like controversy. Confront the source, I say.
But then, maybe they'd edit it without asking, the way the NY Times does with my letters.
Fuck it Let them read it here.
BTW, I notice that the kids were in a "suburb" of Chicago. Was it an upscale suburb? If so, those kids will learn how to make it from their parents, without the columnist's advice, I'm sure. Showing her outburst to be all the loonier.
Crazy for Urban Planning says:
Great column Ed. Speaking to the larger picture – like gruaud said – this is just a liberal strawman about free lunch. We need to pay for everything when we have a liberal president – just not when we have a conservative! I wish the masses weren't assuaged by such crap, but as you wrote earlier this week, they are fucking idiots. What can we do? I think nothing.
Zach says:
Hah. I read this article the other day and immediately thought "Oh God, this has an Ed FJM written all over it". Way to not disappoint.
Shane says:
Free samples are a cornerstone of capitalism. Perhaps the girls laced the free lemonade with some highly addictive substance for which they control most of the market for. The next day she and her family will just inexplicably crave only that particular lemonade and when they return to the site it will now be $4 a glass. (I am pretty sure this was Starbuck's marketing strategy by the way).
Del says:
Mrs. Chili: no, no, no. The way we raise our American children to be charitable is to encourage them to save a little part of their garbage – the pop-tops from their soda cans – in a darling little cardboard house, for the less fortunate.
RayZ says:
Fantastic
Sator Arepo says:
Bugboy has it right. This is the best argument against inheritance that I can think of. Because: hey–not your money.
ChicagoJo says:
Your first mistake was reading the Sun-Times. That aside, bravo.
Bleeding Gums Murphy says:
Best read in a long while! Thanks so much!
Ed says:
Fluids! My Precious Fluids!tm actually has a nice ring to it and I'm sorry I gave it away for free.
cyntax says:
"As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?" And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly."
I get it: the nanny state! What a masterful polemicist, a veritable Jonathan Swift.
If Swift had happened to be a psychotic douchebag who combined a TEAbagger's inability to think critically with a turnip's ability to use metaphor.
glf says:
Wouldn't that be funny if that lemonade stand was some type of Sunday school lesson; kids learning to be christians, giving things away, helping others, etc. I guess an unintended lesson would be that they learned to deal with a crazy person.
Monkey Business says:
Generally speaking, when an author tells me that I need to leave now and they'll explain later, I take it with a grain of salt.
In this particular case, I wish I had, because now I'm getting strange looks from my coworkers as to why it sounds like I'm having some kind of breakdown at my desk and my eyes are red.
It is because I was crying from laughing so hard. My sides literally hurt. This may be the funniest thing I've read all week.
Paul W. Luscher says:
1. Real Murican Republican Values: If it ain't about money, or making money, it ain't shit.
2. Why do these people feel the need to turn EVERYTHING into some turgid lesson in Conservative Political Morality? Talk about humor-deficient….they make the Puritans seem like a laff riot.
sluggo says:
"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."
So they if they sold it instead of giving it away that would have ok, right??? Just wanted to get that straight. I guess everything has to have a price on it.
mothra says:
I commented at Digby's place that the killer on this is that she doesn't want the children to give away things they got from their parents, but SELL them and make a profit. So…will the parents get a cut from this in Savage's world?
Not only that, but she is assuming facts not in evidence: that the children did not, in fact buy the items they were giving away and that the woman sitting with them was their nanny. How the fuck did she know that?
comrade x says:
The thing that disturbed me most was that the standards of a modern newspaper have fallen so low that a moron who writes such drivel can be paid for it.
No wonder that nobody reads newspapers anymore!
party with tina says:
yeah, but it could also be that no one reads newspapers anymore so they've sunken to writing things like this.
party with tina says:
i mean paying writers for stuff like this, she probably accepts pencil shavings.
daphne says:
Clearly Savage would have been better off writing a column to make no point. would have been just as boring and immaterial but at least she could have avoided SOME of the ridicule.
JP says:
mothra:
I can't know for sure how she knew that, but I'm willing to bet that the lady looking over the two little snowflakes wasn't nearly as white as them. You know only such untermenschen would let kids squander the hard earned money of her masters, I mean employers, like that while keeping a stupid contended face.
jazzbumpa says:
Jesus H Christ in a hand cart – even the comments are hilarious.
I can only imagine how well she'd react to a total stranger offering unsolicited 'sound advice' to her own offspring…wait, does she have offspring, and if so, has Child's Services been notified? What do you want to bet that the Savage residence is the house that all the kids in the neighborhood have been told never to go near. "I don't care if our house is on fire–you go ask that nice registered sex offender if you can use *his* phone to dial 911–you do *not* go near the old Savage place…"
Dryden, I am in awe!
But shit like this has a real audience. People watch Beck and Hannity and listen to Rush and that other Savage – whose real name is Weiner. It's hardly any worse.
WASF!
JzB
ZenPoseur says:
After some additional reflection, I realized that Savage's attitude isn't just a travesty to human decency, it's also a bizarre corruption of the Objectivist philosophy that Savage no-doubt espouses.
I mean, the Beefcake Industrialists of Atlas Shrugged would never have gone this far. Rand's point was not that "free" was inherently a bad thing, but that the government didn't have a place giving away charity, because government charity is coerced from the deserving rich by sniveling, weak-minded, envy-driven nihilistic liberals and then wasted on the stupid. The situation in Savage's story would be analogous to one of Rand's wicked socialists (i.e. the girls with the lemonade stand) asking for money from one of her Beefcake Industrialists (i.e. the girls' parents) and then giving it away to the stupid (i.e. Savage and her family.)
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of Rand's characters ever had a problem with anything like that. The evil socialists handed out wealth that they'd stolen, not asked for. James' villainy wasn't that he wanted to give away his wealth, it was that he (like every liberal) wanted to sabotage others and bring them down to his vile and despicable level. Didn't Dagny even give a free ride to some guy who viciously stole productivity from her by sneaking onto one of her trains? Didn't the heroes offer virtuous aid to each other about a billion times through the story (once per page,) without anyone complaining about it?
You know, it isn't easy taking a philosophy as infantile as Rand's and making it even more infantile, but Savage has somehow managed to do it.
Aslan Maskhadov says:
At long last I am able to say a few words, that express my frustration with this woman's article. A lot of what I will write, nay what I must write, has already been touched upon by other commenters, and some of it will be obvious, but I am sure I cannot possibly the only one who needs to vent at this woman's article.
First of all, I believe you, Ed, were the one who used the term "Just Plain Bad Argument" in a previous article. Whether or not I am correct about that, Savage's insane story(which may in fact be made up, making it far, far worse), is a perfect example of such an argument. It is so bad, on so many levels, that one is overwhelmed in trying to explain what is wrong with it.
In general, it is a perfect specimen of the kind of "common-sense" folksy wisdom that conservatives gobble up like cheeseburgers. You have touched on this numerous times in the past, namely the conservative writer's strategy of:
1. Tell a personal anecdote about some mundane interaction you had recently(failing this, make up said interaction).
2. Explain how this interaction contains a lesson about some complicated topic.
3. Defend the idea that the topic(e.g. foreign policy or economics) is actually not complicated(a myth spread by the liberal conspiracy) but in fact just as simple as the previously described interaction.
A good example of this is an article about the evils of soccer by a professor of theology, for which I prepared an FJM style article for. The author makes a lot of bizarre arguments about the supposed inferiority of soccer(meanwhile making baseball out to be some kind of rite of manhood akin to MMA-fighting), and then out of nowhere he goes on to explain how the popularity of soccer is responsible for nearly all of America's problems.
These little parables, for some bizarre reason, actually make sense to conservatives. Never do they seem to think- maybe this is a little over-simplistic. After all, they might wonder, does she get upset any time someone is handing out free samples at the supermarket? My guess is that she gobbles them up.
The other thing that gets to me is something other posters have hinted at, which is that the story may not be true. First of all, declaring it to be true is just plain sad. You have to be seriously fucked up in the head to want to shout something like this from the rooftops. Aside from that however, there are some suspicious things about the whole story as other writers pointed out. The words about the "spirit of giving" and all that nonsense are a bit too formulaic, like the typical conservative-created strawman liberal argument.
Let us also not forget that conservative bloggers and internet users are fond of creating and passing around all kinds of totally made up stories which end up as fodder for Snopes. You know, the kind where a Marine returns from Iraq only to be horrified at seeing some liberal teacher telling his kid that Islam and Christianity are equal- after which he kicks the teacher's ass and then praises Jesus?
Jeffrey Kramer says:
The kids were giving away lemonade, but Savage was giving away something far, far more valuable: pearls of socioeconomic wisdom, capable of transforming lives and saving nations. Why didn't Savage get out of that car and demand payment for sharing this hard-won acumen? She's a fucking communist, that's why.
And everybody reading this owes me $29.37
party with tina says:
damnit jeff, you gotta leave a disclaimer at the top… what's your paypal?
displaced Capitalist says:
Zensavage: you're absolutely right. However Rand herself was often so inconsistant in her writings that it's hard to say that what the characters did in AS are truly defining objectivity.
A good capitalistic counter argument to Terry Savage's rant is that it's their money to decide what they want to do with it. She has no right to dictate to others how to spend their money; otherwise she is just as bad as the Government.
displaced Capitalist says:
Lol, I meant Zenposeur. Freudian slip. I'm sorry.
Jeffrey Kramer says:
You see, p.w.t., you've just learned a valuable life lesson about the dangers of random interactions with Internet strangers. I estimate the value of that lesson at $63, which you may forward to . . . .
(Seriously, under what political or economic assumptions is it a blasphemous act of socialism to give away sugared water, but a highly principled act of capitalism to give away supposedly valuable advice about personal and national prosperity?)
jim says:
Someone on metafilter pointed out that the publishing software Savage used to disseminate her batshittery is all open source … free as the wind.
The idiom may be old but it rings true: Terry Savage wouldn't give you the steam off her piss.
Shawn says:
Because, heaven forbid, if children want to play 'Business' or have a good time.
I do believe there is nothing in Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc. that says a 'business' ( and I use that term loosely ) HAS to make a profit. If the kids want to screw around, I bet the mother and nanny are content. It's keeping the little brats occupied. That shit isn't free, it costs some dixie cups, some lemonade and water, etc…
All that paid to make the kids stay out of trouble. At least, until some Savage comes around.
Steve from Canada says:
@bb, I think you were reaching a bit there. bugboy just said that Rand looked nuts, not that anyone should discount her views.
We should discount her views because they are adolescent fantasies, not because she looked nuts. For my part, I don't even know what she looks like, but I know she wrote worthless pulp that excites and delights the juvenile, narcissistic, and overprivileged.
She Be Crazy says:
As someone on reddit.com pointed out, the server hosting Terry's article is a LAMP stack, which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, all of which are 100% FREE! Oh the humanity! I bet if she knew this her head would explode. No such thing as a free lunch, but a free OS, webserver, database, and programming language/compiler/libraries/tools… well that's a different story.
bb in GA says:
Steve:
Sorry for over reaction:
If she were a tennis player, swimmer, or musician – being nuts or looking nuts may even be an asset (anyone remember Ilie Nastase?), but she was a writer with a particular philosopical/political view.
To be nuts, look nuts, or sound nuts connects directly to that same brain producing the ideas. To me that looks like a "smear the source – Rush Limbaugh is Big Fat Idiot" approach.
I think other posters here have aired their differences w/ Ms Rand while insulting her (memory) at the same time, which according to the rules laid out to me earlier is par for the G&T course.
In fact I think as long as you have a well substantiated opinion or facts backing you up, you earn oak leaf clusters on your G&T insult decoration depending on how creative you are.
Kinda like the abuse room before the argument skit on Monty Python :-)
//bb
foobar says:
I wonder if these are the same kids who were giving away lemonade last week while I was on a bike ride. If so, wish I could have been around when Ms. Douche rolled up.
Dave says:
thank you for one of the best laughs I have had in quite some time.
sonicwind says:
Bitch gives away her blog. You couldn't pay me to read it, though.
Tekuzo says:
Great stuff, I had to stop reading the original article because it was just too bat shit insane for me to continue.
James says:
Her column brings up so many questions she could have answered with just a little bit of more effort. For instance, I
Sheila says:
What a delightful read. Nanny should hide some vodka in her purse for incidents of this sort. For herself, of course. Would love to have heard the conversation after Savage et al left. A teachable moment in so many ways.
Graham says:
Umm, can someone tell me what FJM stands for?
Scuse my ignorance.
Blackwatertown says:
Got here via The Conservative Lie.
Crazy odd story.
Patti says:
http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/2481302,CST-NWS-savage09.savagearticle
Terry now explains that you are too stupid to understand her column (and, YES! She IS on the board of Junior Achievement!). Lemonade stands only exist in one context: to teach children capitalism, so we can beat the Soviets.
Aslan Maskhadov says:
"To be nuts, look nuts, or sound nuts connects directly to that same brain producing the ideas. To me that looks like a "smear the source
Aslan Maskhadov says:
That is strange, but it seems my last comment got cut off. Might as well delete it and this too.
IdleRevolutionary says:
Absolutely amazing. Imagine my difficulty — and eventual failure — in attempting to conceal my laughter at 2:00 in the morning while reading this. It actually gives me a warm, fuzzy that the people *really* fightin' the fight for capitalism (or in this case, almost Rand-like objectivism) are people like Terry.
practical peg says:
Found this article about a town trying to eliminate hunger.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/the-city-that-ended-hunger
the right to food
Strum says:
My assumption is your overreaction and exaggeration were done with humorous intent. However, you merely came off as a pompous ass who had no idea what he was talking about. Deliberately misrepresenting a person's argument is one thing, but your stating over and over that Savage chastised and terrorized these poor children is a far cry from what "really" happened.
Pluck says:
Really, Strum, Really!?! Why do assholes like you always need to troll good sites like this? Get your facts straight: the lady rants about innocent kids who are just learning generosity, and turns the experience into a metaphor about the state of our economy, that requires at least some degree of insanity. If she were to *rationally* present her opinions on the state of the economy, she wouldn't be getting mocked by people like this (myself included), everyone is entitled to their own opinion (although I can name a few opinions that i think shouldn't be held). Also, I believe the word you are looking for is arrogance, pomposity means that you are as great as you claim you are, but you lord it over others. So in that I agree with you, the first half of that definition certainly holds true to this guy.
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