Who is David Henderson?

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, June 15th, 2011 - 63 comments
Categories: capitalism, Satire - Tags:

Randian superhero David Henderson has withdrawn his genius from New Zealand in protest at the collectivist government that has persecuted him and attempted to distribute the fruits of his talent to parasites. In a short statement after leaving the country, Henderson said other Atlases would join him in strike and “stop the motor of New Zealand“.

63 comments on “Who is David Henderson? ”

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  1. Oleolebiscuitbarrell 1
    15 June 2011 at 11:16 am

    Is that the article you intended to link to?

    I only mention this because it says nothing about him “withdrawing his genius from New Zealand in protest at the collectivist government that has persecuted him and attempted to distribute the fruits of his talent to parasites.”

  2. handle 2
    15 June 2011 at 11:22 am

    Wrong David Henderson, you nong. The story is about the Auckland one, not the Christchurch randian. Both property developers.

    • The Voice of Reason 2.1
      15 June 2011 at 11:30 am

      And both of these geniuses are now bankrupt.

    • Pascal's bookie 2.2
      15 June 2011 at 11:32 am

      Randian; adjective or noun? Either, as it so happens.

    • Blighty 2.3
      15 June 2011 at 12:04 pm

      both David Henderson’s are the kind of people that Randian’s tell us are the Atlases that carry the rest of us.

    • felix 2.4
      15 June 2011 at 2:18 pm

      Not enough people say “nong” these days.

      • Lanthanide 2.4.1
        15 June 2011 at 5:32 pm

        I love nong, it’s a great word. I probably don’t use it as much as I used to, though. Generally I’m simply not in the presence of someone deserving of the name :/

  3. vto 3
    15 June 2011 at 11:32 am

    Is this not what Clark did on the very night of her election defeat?

    Just swap a bit of the “satire”.

    Talk about getting the pip.

    • The Voice of Reason 3.1
      15 June 2011 at 12:10 pm

      Except HC ddidn’t break the law by leaving the country and she left the place in good shape. Shame it’s been stuffed up since then, but meh …
       
      Henderson has done a runner because he’s too gutless to face his responsibilities, face the investors or face the law. What a saddo.

    • felix 3.2
      15 June 2011 at 2:15 pm

      What, skip the country to run away from her bad debts?

      Don’t think so v.

  4. queenstfarmer 4
    15 June 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Satire aside, here’s the most despicable part of this:

    During a hearing to determine whether Henderson’s proposal would be accepted, it was revealed he had paid only $17,000 in tax over a 16-year period – less than someone on a minimum wage would pay.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10731544

    This is a guy who’s been living in a luxury penthouse apartment, jet-setting around the place. And minimum wage workers contribute more tax than he does. If that isn’t a corrupt system (and it happened under Nat & Lab govts) then I don’t know what is.

    • johnm 4.1
      15 June 2011 at 2:28 pm

      Hi Queenstfarmer
      Yes 100% right. Seripsos too is another tax dodger.In the current neo-liberal set up major serious,criminal tax dodging has become the new high roller sport. Up to 100 billion pounds of tax payable is dodged every year in the UK helping to propel that country into the dire straits it’s now in. UK UNCUT is a protest group openly confronting the tax dodgers in the UK-the same ones the gutless Cameron government has neither the stomach or the desire(Same side!) to sort out-result? Ordinary poorer brits are now priced out of tertiary education, ’cause the Government can’t pay for student loans to them which are payable back!

  5. Tiger Mountain 5
    15 June 2011 at 12:23 pm

    Libertarians whinge on about the only legitimate role of the state being to provide coppers, armies and prisons to protect their property ‘rights’ and then this ungrateful prick legs it without using said available services!

  6. Jenny 6
    15 June 2011 at 1:11 pm

    I suppose Henderson isn’t as bad as Edward Hickman the prototype “superman” that Ayn Rand admired most.

    Who was Edward Hickman?

    “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

    Ayn Rand

    I suppose this description of Hickman by Ayn Rand could fit Henderson as well as Hickman.

    • Bored 6.1
      15 June 2011 at 1:41 pm

      The lovely Ayn suffered heartbreak when she demanded in a superior way somebodies love. The chosen “superman” ran away, fast, proving his superior judgement.

  7. Rich 7
    15 June 2011 at 1:18 pm

    I never realised there were two of them. It’d be funny if the courts couldn’t tell the difference and locked them both up for three years.

  8. Bored 8
    15 June 2011 at 1:30 pm

    Both David Hendersons are dreamers who think that markets go up continually and that you can constantly leverage this with other peoples money. Both David Hendersons enjoy an unwholesome relationship with our pockets via the taxman. A lot of greedy fools gave both David Hendersons excessive access to their cash.

    • MikeE 8.1
      15 June 2011 at 2:20 pm

      as you sure you don’t mean the tax man enjoys an unwholesome relationship with both hendersons pockets?

      From memory it was the IRD that incorrectly went after teh CHCH henderson for close to a mil, destroying his marriage, bankrupting him and more.

      /just sayin

  9. felix 9
    15 June 2011 at 2:21 pm

    He’s just acting in his own rational self-interest, right actoids?

  10. Rusty Shackleford 10
    15 June 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Just finished reading Atlas Shrugged last night. Pretty good. Many parallels to reality.

  11. Oleolebiscuitbarrell 11
    15 June 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Fuck you David Henderson. Writing poetry to emphasise your rational selfishness:

    http://authors.simonandschuster.com/David-Henderson/30281290/biography

    See how I stuck it to the objectivists there?

  12. Craig 12
    15 June 2011 at 4:38 pm

    Ayn Rand was a basket case anyway. Her brand of objectivist libertarianism was a personality cult that engaged in indoctrination sessions and harrassed those who deviated from her doctrine. She was a Charlies Angels fan, homophobe, addicted to prescription drugs and chain smoked her way to her grave. It’s amusing to see Randoids puffing away on their cancer sticks out of a desire to emulate their dubious icon. One hopes that they will soon join her.

    And yeah, I know, there are gay Randoids. I’d love to know why, given Rand’s virulent homophobia, but as with any sectarian philosophy, they’re sad, intellectually distorted, pathetic and warped individuals.

    • Rusty Shackleford 12.1
      15 June 2011 at 4:41 pm

      So you don’t have anything substantive to say about her philosophy? Good to know.

      • Colonial Viper 12.1.1
        15 June 2011 at 4:59 pm

        Oh I have one, her philosophy of maximising individualstic happiness and self fulfillment didn’t do much for her.

        • Rusty Shackleford 12.1.1.1
          15 June 2011 at 5:03 pm

          Wasn’t she rich and famous and hung out with high society types and she is still talked about today? Doesn’t seem like too bad of an effort to me.

          • McFlock 12.1.1.1.1
            15 June 2011 at 5:10 pm

            Still talked about today? So is Dr Suess – and he had greater depth to his works than Rand.

          • Draco T Bastard 12.1.1.1.2
            15 June 2011 at 6:17 pm

            Well, she was rich and famous until such time as people realised that was whacko at which point she became rich and lonely. And she’s still talked about today because, unfortunately, her delusional philosophy has made a large impact in the most powerful country in the world.

      • felix 12.1.2
        15 June 2011 at 5:05 pm

        “So you don’t have anything substantive to say about her philosophy?”

        In fairness, Rusty, neither did she.

        • Rusty Shackleford 12.1.2.1
          15 June 2011 at 5:21 pm

          You guys keep proving my point. You jape and jest but don’t have anything really substantive to say. You haven’t even linked to someone who does. It seems to be taken as writ that Ayn Rand is, was and forever will be a giant poopy face and that seems to be intellectually rigorous enough for everyone. If her philosophy is so bankrupt it should be a piece of cake to refute.

          • Blighty 12.1.2.1.1
            16 June 2011 at 5:12 pm

            how about:

            “So what, and who, was Ayn Rand for and against? The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.

            What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

            This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.””

            http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-right-wing-followers-are-scarier-than-the-manson-family-and-the-gruesome-story-of-the-serial-killer-who-stole-ayn-rands-heart/

  14. Craig 14
    15 June 2011 at 4:53 pm

    One might as well call Lyndon LaRouche’s weird views ‘substantive.’ Randian objectivist libertarianism is akin to other hyper-sectarian creeds like Trotskyite and Maoist marxist-leninism or fundamentalist Christianity, which may explain its lack of political influence outside its hallowed but unfortunately deteriorating “icon” of the US economy. I can think of better ‘promised lands.’

    • Rusty Shackleford 14.1
      15 June 2011 at 5:07 pm

      In what way?

      I would say they are not the same in that the examples you cited are statist creeds whilst libertarianism is not. I would posit that liberal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism ideals have quite a lot of political influence. Just not as much as they should have.

  15. Craig 15
    15 June 2011 at 4:55 pm

    However, happily, her badly written potboiler novels make excellent doorstops, even if they aren’t particularly high when it comes to literary merit.

  16. Oleolebiscuitbarrell 16
    15 June 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Fuck you, David Henderson. Basketball is a team game. We’re all in this together you objectivist freak:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Henderson_(basketball)

    • ianupnorth 16.1
      15 June 2011 at 10:50 pm

      That is exactly the kind of article I want to mark for deletion – who gives a shit about American basketball player? Nearly as boring as golf!

  17. Craig 17
    15 June 2011 at 5:48 pm

    Unfortunately, Rusty, Randian objectivist libertarians themselves have often espoused political philosophies that are more akin to statist neoconservatism. Added to which, it is quite possible to be an economic ‘libertarian’ but hyperstatist enemy of core civil liberties and human rights like womens reproductive freedom and even democratic institutions themselves. Rousas Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, Gary North and the rest of the theocratic fascist “Christian Reconstructionist” movement fall into that category. These people believed in anti-abortion terrorism and execution of lesbians and gay men. Actually, some of their acolytes still do.

    To give her some credit, Rand wasn’t anti-choice on abortion, and opposed Reagan to the hilt over that. Just not much else.

    • Rusty Shackleford 17.1
      15 June 2011 at 6:01 pm

      Thanks. I don’t disagree. Now for some libertarians who are goodies.
      Ron Paul
      Tom Woods
      Bob Murphy
      John Stossel
      Drew Carrey
      Penn Jillette

      And some dead goodies.
      Thomas Jefferson
      Frederic Bastiat
      Murray Rothbard
      Robert Nozick

      I’m sure there are plenty of good people, not interested in politics, who don’t even know they are libertarian, simply because they don’t bother to think about this stuff.

  18. Craig 18
    15 June 2011 at 6:15 pm

    Ron Paul is an anti-abortionist. Therefore, he cannot be a proper libertarian because he favours statist interference with women’s reproductive choices. Apparently, that’s a major core of contention between him and libertarian/individualist feminists like Wendy McElroy.

    • Rusty Shackleford 18.1
      15 June 2011 at 6:22 pm

      Actually, I’m pretty sure he says the federal govt has no role in this issue. It’s for the individual states to decide.

      • Pascal's bookie 18.1.1
        15 June 2011 at 8:08 pm

        You might want to think about that some more there Rusty.

        Relatedly, there s the Civil Rights ACT that I understand RP also thinks was a federal intrusion on the States right to allow (and enforce) segregation.

        Murray Rothbard, likewise, famously argued for an alliance between ‘libertarians’ and neo-confederates who were mostly concerned about retaining the rights of southern states to treat African-American citizens as second class. It’s hard to argue that these are liberal arguments. One can argue them on the basis of property rights, but to do so is to privilege property rights over civil rights, no?

  19. Rodel 19
    15 June 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Michael Cullen had a word or two about Mr Henderson some years ago ….. Can’t remember it exactly but it was about the time of Henderson’s film film about the heroic and honest little battler who fought the might of the IRD.

    • Oleolebiscuitbarrell 19.1
      16 June 2011 at 9:48 am

      Like the author of this article, you have the wrong David Henderson.

  20. Rodel 20
    16 June 2011 at 8:28 pm

    I think not.