Joan Kennedy Taylor first became involved in the libertarian movement in the early 1960s, when she was a student at the Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York City. As a student of Objectivism, she espoused the political views of Ayn Rand. FULL ARTICLE by Jeff Riggenbach
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15324/joan-kennedy-taylor/
Joan Kennedy Taylor
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“Joan Kennedy Taylor was diagnosed with bladder cancer early in 2002 and was given less than a year to live. Nearly four years later, late in 2005, she died from the effects of the cancer and related kidney failure, just short of her 79th birthday.”
After consuming many tens of thousands of Medicare dollars, no doubt. Ah, irony.
Robert,
Rather a crude outlook, don’t you think?
First, you don’t know how she paid for her medical bills or the cost.
Second, there is nothing wrong with utilizing the resources given to you from the gov. or anybody else. (She didn’t make the rules. If the gov. makes stupid policies and I take advantage of them…that’s their problem not mine.)
Third, she paid income taxes over those years. Should she not be entitled to some return?
Last, by extending her life, she was able to continue her Libertarian research and writing…her passion not only enhances our understanding of libertarianism but benefits society as a whole.
If Joan did get Medicare, it was money well spent. Robert, I’m not sure I could say the same for you.
By your own logic, we would have a hard time finding food that wasn’t subsidized at some point. Guess we should all starve. We are forced to work within the system a lot.
Not to mention food inspected by the FDA, food transported by government roads, food made by workers in public schools, food grown using the help of GPS utilizing sattelites controlled by NASA, paid for using government mandated currency, and on and on and on and…..
Exactly………….
GPS is controlled by the military, not NASA
Re: Robert,
Must be wonderful to have no doubt, Robert. Plants, for instance, do not doubt. And rocks. Only us, humans, are pained by doubt. But, not you it seems.
Robert:
Joan and her physician Dr. Copeland sued Louis M. Sullivan, MD, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, for the right to enter into private contracts for medical treatment on a case by case basis. She, and four other patients, wished to pay for such services out of their own funds and requested that Dr. Copeland not submit claims for reimbursement to Medicare on their behalf. The Medicare rules state that physicians -whether part of the Medicare program or not – must file medical claims to patients in Medicare. The defendant moved to dismiss the case, and this was granted. Plaintiffs claims were deemed to be “not yet ripe”. The details are here: http://tinyurl.com/4ppbexh.
“If Joan did get Medicare, it was money well spent. Robert, I’m not sure I could say the same for you.”
Actually I can say with great certainty that even one dime spent on medical care for Robert would be a waste. Bad enough his psych-meds are likely tax-payer funded.
Too funny…I was expecting a retort from Robert.
Beefcake, you and mpolzkill are my favorite one/two liner libertarians on this site. You always have me laughing…keep up the good work:)
Thanks Dagnytg, but don’t tell mpolzkill this; he hates my guts, thinks I’m a right-wing nut-job (I’m actually just a Hoppean an-cap).
BTW, we will see a retort from Robert, but like next week, when no one’s following the thread anymore, so he can declare in his little mind that he’s gotten in the last word and “won”.
Wait a minute…
*goes back to some previous threads*
Ohmygodwhydidn’tIseethattheydidthissooner.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Thanks Dag, I am semi-retired now though (haha). You know the one about how Internet fighting and the Special Olympics are alike? (tee hee)
“BTM” *is* often one funny knuckledragger, true that. And while I’m here, “Robert” *is* truly unspeakable in his own way. His line of bull on the Arizona nutbar is some of the most obnoxious stuff I’ve ever seen a lefty write, and I’ve read a bit of that.
Agreed, both on me being a knuckledragger and Robert being utterly loathsome. Note that on the Arizona thread, where he claimed that the lunatic shooter was a “devout Misesian” he has yet to offer any evidence, just legalistic squirming. Total ass-wipe.
One of his favorite books was The Communist Manifesto.
That’s the mark of a Misean, to be sure!
mpolzkill,
Glad to see that the association didn’t insult you … Beefcake had me worried. (Though tonight I stumbled upon a discourse between the two of you (Emma Goldman article) and I now understand the differences.
I hope both of you will forgive my blogging faux pas.
(Needless to say, you’re both anarcho-libertarians and most likely agree on 99% of the issues… IMO, the only difference being perception and application.)
By the way…the comments and especially the Simpson cartoon you left me (Rothbard thread/abortion) a while back…were great…I meant to leave a comment but got side tracked.
Don’t stay too retired. It seems like the site is attracting a lot of new people many of them are not well defined in their thinking and plenty of them arrogant in their ignorance.
PS>You know, the both of you could tag team some of these guys… and that would be way too funny and extremely unfair:)
Thanks again, Dag, but if I appear to agree on 99% of issues with a racialist, Holocaust-denying vulgarian with exceptionally horrible taste in music, then I think I’m right to stop blogging here and try to refocus on other areas in life. I’ve really come to believe that economics is not the path to liberty, and certainly teaming up with goons to give verbal beatdowns to poor random schmucks does nothing for anyone but provide a few cheap laughs for the choir.
It is unfortunate that the feminist movement, which could have become a movement which could actually propel women (and evetually men) into positions of greater liberty, was actually just a ploy to enslave women under the state along with men.
It kind of makes sense, since it is an opportunity for more children to be raised and indoctrinated by the state.
Another great article from Riggenbach. Although I’m 23 years younger than Taylor, I first read Rand in 1963, and soon thereafter subscribed to the Objectivist Newsletter. At that time, most of the people I met there were like Taylor- much more like Beatniks and artist-theater-musician types than Republican political operatives. And that continued when I moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA (which wasn’t, incidentally, because Branden had gone there – it was the best, cheapest, most attractive deal I could get as a non-scholarship student in those days. I didn’t have the grades, but I had the test scores, which now count for nothing).
What a shame that Rand should have ever endorsed or encouraged her disciples to support a maniac warmonger like Goldwater. The rest was all downhill.
I spent about two years trying to reconcile the “libertarian right” with my own egalitarian sense of things. Once I dropped acid, I never looked back. And my studying with Hayek seemed to have the opposite effects it had on most other people. He liberated me from the “constructivist rationalism” of Objectivism and other dogmas. Fortunately, Rothbard was always there as a voice of sanity, finding just as much merit in the Left tradition as any other – certainly more than these right-wing, corporate militarists. Thanks, again, for all your work reviving this Left-Libertarian tradition. For those who are Feminists first, let me remind you that Feminism is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party and movement.
“dropped” as in dropped, or ceased to drop?
Clearly, the former.
These profiles educate and inspire. Bravo.
Magnificent! Thank you very much, Jeff.
The only thing missing in this article is… footnotes!
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/tactn/tactn011.pdf
Christoph, footnoter at the foot of the Mont-Pelerin
Jeff-
This is a wonderful tribute to a remarkable woman. I first met Joan and David during the second year of the Branden lectures, became the Objectivist Newsletter printer, thanklessly campaigned for Goldwater (a spirited man of sane humanity grossly maligned in his time) in Greenwich Village with the MNYRC, enjoyed an active relationship with Joan and David, and her mother, through the Persuasion years, visited with her when we were both in California, connected my son and daughter with them beneficially as they were growing up , and maintained a family and professional publishing relatinship with her until her untimely passing.
Significant in her story and the kind of person she was are the revealing experiences you write about that she had with the human potential movement in its early stirrings. Great admirer as she was of Rand’s, It would be a huge miscasting of character to pidgeonhole her as an ideologue, uncritical follower of Ayn’s philosophy or partisan advocate.
If it is possible to be an objectivist and a humanist (broadly defined) at the same time, Joan brought the qualities of intellect and reason together with discriminating judgement and empathy in human affairs in the deeply personal way in which she connected with people. To Joan, I think it is safe to day, no belief system was worth the candle that couldn’t be experienced as personally enriching. She brought a focus on this personal dimension to all of her advocacy and, I believe, it can be attributed causally to the values she saw in the objectivist, libertarian and feminist movements.
Working in the trenches with so many rights-and individualist-grounded creative, intellectual, and political people, she had a profound infuence through them on the thought of the libertarian and feminist movements — and she certainly played a significant role in helping me direct my own life through the years.
I can still hear her voice and recall her wit, considerate nature and clarity of thought in my memory.
Many thanks for your article-
Gene Schwartz
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