Posted on 12/23/2011 5:48:23 PM PST by Misterioso
If there is any intellectual of the last 100 years who scares the Left, it is Ayn Rand. One needs only to search her name on the internet and they will find that she is perhaps more abused and insulted than Milton Friedman and Reagan. Often the charges that most attack her with can be boiled down to “She believes that people should be self-centered bastards and not give a damn about anyone else.”
While anyone who has taken the time to read her fiction and nonfiction works knows that the above claim isn’t accurate, the fact that Rand is the target of so many wannabe-commentators reveals the amount of anger that the woman brings out in the Left. The question honestly begs to be asked – why? Why does this Russian immigrant, who died in 1982, bring Liberals to the use of such vitriol and character assassination?
The answer is actually quite simple – she makes sense. She is to Socialism what David was to Goliath and the Left simply doesn’t know how to respond to her except to demagogue and paint her as a puppet to the elitists. Unlike some of the more pacifistic fighters for the Right and Libertarianism Rand doesn’t hold back, if anything she removes the veil that the Progressive and Socialist movement has used for decades – the veil of “the Greater Good”. It had been this façade that left far too many Conservatives stammering during the New Deal, with the passing of Social Security, and the growth of Welfare. However she tore it off with her philosophy of the Individual and showed the true face of the Left with her novels.
Rand explained that Capitalism is the only Moral Economic System because unlike Socialism, Feudalism, Communism, Welfare Statism, and the Mixed Economy, Capitalism treats people as Individuals and not the sacrificial animals that all the other systems did. She preached that instead of appeasing everyone else, that one should live for his own happiness. That Innovation is created by Free Individuals and not Government coercion.
This is what infuriates the Left. Ayn makes clear how the “Good Intentions” of government regulation often lead to worldly Hell. Her novella “Anthem” shows how government constraint goes against progress. And her magna opus “Atlas Shrugged” paints the end result of a society that doesn’t give Individuals their freedom. In short, she kills the Left’s Utopian ideals with logic.
It was nearly fifty years ago that Whitaker Chambers savaged “Atlas Shrugged” in the National Review and separated the Conservative Movement from Rand. Now we are beginning to see the reemergence of Randian ideas with the Tea Party and members of the Republican Party who are influenced by her like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. It is time for the Right to admit it and embrace it – Rand is right.
There is quite a bit to like about Ayn Rand. I will say, very mildly, that had she not been an atheist, her influence would have been very much greater.
Anthem, didnt Rush make a song about that book?
Actually, I think that Atlas Shrugged is a bit of a leftist bible. The left reads it, and adopts the tactics of the authorities in Atlas Shrugged. For example, they’ve passed so many laws that you can’t help but violate them. They enforce the laws in discriminatory fashion. They don’t have a problem with you violating most of their laws, so long as you toe their line. The instant you step out, though, they arrest you.
Had she not been an atheist, her philosophy would be incoherent.
Brilliant? Hardly.
“Rand explained that Capitalism is the only Moral Economic System because unlike Socialism, Feudalism, Communism, Welfare Statism, and the Mixed Economy, Capitalism treats people as Individuals and not the sacrificial animals that all the other systems did.”
One has to wonder where she got that idea (about morals) from ... ?
Chicken and the egg. Rand was born in Russia and she experienced the Bolsheviks in a very personal way. Then she came to America and saw that FDR and his New Deal were quite a lot like the Bolshevik way of government. She did not teach the Left those tactics — her books reveal what the Left is really like. (And the Left has been that way since 1789 and the French Revolution.)
Atlas Shrugged Part 1 movie was excellent. I hope they make the next two.
I think part 2 is in production. I also sent friends of mine a DVD for Christmas. For myself since I already have the DVD, I sprung for the soundtrack.
“There is quite a bit to like about Ayn Rand. I will say, very mildly, that had she not been an atheist, her influence would have been very much greater.”
Agreed. She did such a good job of putting the enemy into fictional characters that have a truth about them. Wesley Mouch feels like an actual guy—you’ve met him at the front of the DMV line. You see him writing new environmental regulations. That’s what drives the left crazy.
Where Rand fails is in creating credible heros. Her heros are cartoon characters at best. Even at 16 years old, I chortled when the hero nobly traces out the sign of the mighty dollar in the sky. And that failure is directly related to her athiesm.
Thanks, didn’t know that. :-\
Where do you think? Read Atlas Shrugged and find out.
I loved it as well. I hated to see it end. Can’t wait to see Part II.
She is OK in some areas but I find her philosophy of “objectivism” to be very incorrect.
What about you?
Rush based entire albums on her work.
Contrary to popular belief you don't need to have faith in a Supreme Being to have moral values. Christianity has recognized this question forever, as the problem of the "righteous pagan." St. Paul explained that God has written His laws in "every human heart." But if you don't believe in God you still have to live with yourself.
Think not only of the Christian canon, and the ancient Greek tragedies, but of the modern morality fables of "Lord of the Rings" and "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever." They each express an eternal truth: No matter how you may try, you cannot break The Law. You can only break yourself against the Law.
We knew she was right a long time ago.
The hard left is also atheist and Rand decimates their principles and philosophy with objective logic and reason, tools the left and atheists are supposed to own (according to them). They can't stand it, beaten with their own weapons.
I’m an Objectivist since 1961.
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