“the core of the right-wing ideology that Rand spearheaded was a rejection of moral obligations to others.”
I would like to see anything that Rand wrote, which rejected morality as a basis for ANY dealings with anyone. As a further aside, Nearly everything the woman wrote was warning us about the very policies of the US government, and of the other corruption, which brought us the recession in the first place.
Utterly incredible. It’s sad to see a Christian magazine publishing sheer stupidity in the name of affirming Christian principles. Why not just write an honest article detailing the trainwreck of her personal life? It’s a silly exercise to try to prove every idea she had was wrong. If she would have been a aeronautical engineer, would this bozo be busily trying to prove that an atheist cannot possibly design a good inlet for a jet engine? It’s laughable.
You’re making some good points.
Liberals also reject their 'moral' self-obligations to others, relying instead on forcing others to fulfill those obligations in their place.
"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values." --Ayn Rand
It would probably be more accurate to say that she gutted morality, rather than rejected it.
Exactly. It was clear enough to me her beef with "morality" was entirely with the subset "charity" and the premise that it it should be dictated by government.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, lots of folks use her personal conduct and views on religion as a reason to dismiss her political and economic philosophy, without really understanding the separateness of the issues.
If anything, the fault with her political & economic philosophy was just a small matter of degree. The economic system here was intended to be laissez-faire, but never purely so, and our political system of separated powers was supposed to be the force that kept things in balance. I'm not sure she completely understood the founding principles of the United States and the central government's constitutional powers, and the dissection of history that went into their construction, and I attribute her absolutist view to that lack of understanding. But that is neither a reason to throw out the whole thing.