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Why Ayn Rand Scares the Left
4TheLibertyMinded ^ | December 23, 2011 | Hunter Jefferson

Posted on 12/23/2011 5:48:23 PM PST by Misterioso

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To: BillyBoy

That’s true. She did not call herself a conservative. She called herself a radical for capitalism. As for Libertarians she despised them and accused them of stealing her ideas. She did not have much good to say about conservatives such as Reagan. She said once that if you vote for Reagan may you be damned.


41 posted on 12/23/2011 8:52:28 PM PST by albionin
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To: ClearCase_guy

I thought we were discussing Ayn Rand?


42 posted on 12/23/2011 8:55:05 PM PST by semaj
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To: SaraJohnson

whatever


43 posted on 12/23/2011 9:01:55 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: wizardoz

exactly. And that is why I have a problem with people mixing religion and politics. They let their religion cloud their political judgments. It also happens in the business world. People mix their religion (or their politics) with their business. I consider myself a conservative christian capitalist and Those 3 things I keep compartmentalized so that none of them interfere with the others...or at least I make a serious effort to do that.


44 posted on 12/23/2011 9:06:20 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: Brilliant

She described what she saw the left do. She did not create the methods, she described and then showed how they are used to enslave. Using your logic one could call
the Holy Bible the bible of Satan.


45 posted on 12/23/2011 9:14:20 PM PST by ExpatGator (I hate Illinois Nazis!)
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To: Misterioso
I would point out that many of our own SoCons use the exact same argument against her as well. After all, she was an atheist who didn't put self-sacrifice for the Lord above her own needs.

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.”

46 posted on 12/23/2011 9:33:29 PM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: SaraJohnson

ROTFLOL Sure, and unicorns squirt out Skittles.


47 posted on 12/23/2011 10:06:18 PM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: albionin

Precisely. That was her thinking. She had a wonderful mind, though her thinking had its limits.

Since I happen to believe that objective truth exists... and I see that as quite rational....I am convinced of the spiritual dimension on which morality is based. Unlike Ms. Rand, my belief springs from much more than mere logic.

;-)


48 posted on 12/23/2011 10:06:55 PM PST by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo...Sum Pro Vita. (Modified Decartes))
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To: Misterioso

Well, that’s not “tan misterioso.”

May you soon be amazed at profound Mystery.

;-)


49 posted on 12/24/2011 5:34:38 AM PST by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo...Sum Pro Vita. (Modified Decartes))
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To: Misterioso

Ayn Rand would be more of a role model, had her ideas not been used to justify sending America’s industrial base to China.

In that aspect, Rand has been profoundly harmful.

Not Rand so much, more those who claim her philosophy, to justify anti-American greed.


50 posted on 12/24/2011 5:36:59 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network ("FREE TRADERS": Self-loathing Americans)
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To: Brilliant

Wrong use of “toe the line”.


51 posted on 12/24/2011 5:47:49 AM PST by Lee'sGhost (Johnny Rico picked the wrong girl!)
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To: ModelBreaker

Chortled? Like in derision? Or with the pleasure of recognizing a kind of triumph?


52 posted on 12/24/2011 6:13:30 AM PST by Principlex
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To: Navy Patriot

I think the thing the Left hates about Rand is that she made it absolutely clear that the government, the means of the Left’s power, has no ultimate power except the gun - force. The producers of value hold the final trump card in society. When they say “no more,” the Left is shown for the fraud it is. They have nothing to seduce people with since there’s nothing to hand out.

In the novel, Rearden revealed the Left’s fear when he stopped sanctioning their theft of his property. If they wanted it, they had to take it by force - for all to see. That, above all, was what they did not want people to see/know.


53 posted on 12/24/2011 6:13:35 AM PST by Principlex
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To: SumProVita

Could you provide words to describe from whence your belief springs? Speaking metaphorically, you leave the essence of yourself as a nebula, not a defined solar system with a radiating star at its core.


54 posted on 12/24/2011 6:13:41 AM PST by Principlex
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To: motor_racer

Well, for starters, her book agrees with many themes we find in Nietzsche’s works: eliminates what is weak, and glorifies and adheres to the strong (although this may sound good at first glance, it is quite dangerous). The book also clearly magnifies power and individualism as GOOD far beyond what it should. Overall, the pervasive theme of Atlas Shrugged is to use only the BEST practices ... regardless of who may be injured by this ...regardless of which traditions and beliefs will be subjugated in the process. There is the negative stereotyping in the book of “old fashioned thinking” and tradition. This becomes a dangerous line of thinking if you take it to its natural conclusions.

In other words, though there is truth in the book, particularly with regard to some economic situations, its underlying philosophy is in error and can lead to those same “unexpected results” that we see with leftist views.

The underlying philosophy that guided our Founders was that our rights and ultimate protections come from God. THAT is sound philosophy.


55 posted on 12/24/2011 6:17:23 AM PST by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo...Sum Pro Vita. (Modified Decartes))
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To: Principlex

Well, there is mystery and there is Mystery. Simply THINK about that a bit.

In the meantime see post #55.

Merry Christmas!

;-)


56 posted on 12/24/2011 6:24:43 AM PST by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo...Sum Pro Vita. (Modified Decartes))
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To: ClearCase_guy
I will say, very mildly, that had she not been an atheist, her influence would have been very much greater.

If she hadn't been a self-centered rotten person her influence would have been much greater.

57 posted on 12/24/2011 6:31:41 AM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Misterioso

Ayn lived through the liberals of her time and country and wrote about them. Her writings, and the writings of others, are the teachings we should all read to get to know the liberal’s tactics and mentality and how to defeat them.


58 posted on 12/24/2011 6:33:48 AM PST by CodeToad (Islam needs to be banned in the US and treated as a criminal enterprise.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

It might be a chicken and egg problem to some degree, but you gotta admit that the “laws we want you to break” have become a lot more numerous since Rand put it to paper in the 50’s.


59 posted on 12/24/2011 8:39:55 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: 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.

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?

... er ... the phrase "easy target" comes to mind ...

60 posted on 12/24/2011 8:53:51 AM PST by x
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