Remembering Ayn Rand's legacy of reason & freedom

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Monday, January 31, 2005 | Michael S. Berliner

[Willie Green]

Born 100 years ago in Holy Mother Russia and educated under the Soviets, Ayn Rand became the quintessential American writer and philosopher, upholding the supreme value of the individual's life on Earth. She herself led a rags-to-riches life, wrote best-selling novels that championed individualism and developed a philosophy of reason that validates the American spirit of achievement and independence.

The story of Ayn Rand's life is, in the words of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life," a life more compelling than fiction. Born Feb. 2, 1905, she wrote her first fiction at age 8 when she also showed signs of being an intellectual crusader, vowing to refute a newspaper article claiming that school was the sole source of a child's ideals.

A year later she decided to become a writer, inspired by the hero of a children's story who embodied "intelligence directed to a practical purpose." She had a "blinding picture" of people -- not as they are but as they could be.

[Willie Green]

Ayn Rand was an atheist.

RERUM NOVARUM, On Capital and Labor, Pope Leo XIII, 1891
Laborem Exercens, On Human Work, Pope John Paul II, 1981
Centesimus Annus, On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II, 1991

---

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

~Abraham Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Objectivist ping.

[Andy from Beaverton]

What kind of paper is The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review? Liberal, conservative or ???

[West Coast Conservative]

Who is John Galt?

[ClearCase_guy]

I believe that's Richard Mellon Scaife's paper -- which is to say, Conservative.

[hnorris]

I am John Galt.

[ken21]

anti-clinton.

[Chuck54]

Howard Roark laughed.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

I'll give you a hint.

It used to be the home of George Schuyler, protege of H.L. Mencken.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Isn't he the dude who's hosting the Oscars this year?

[aynrandfreak]

Thanks!

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

You're welcome.

-good times, G.J.P.(Jr.)

[Danae]

Who is John Gault?

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Among the many symptoms of today's moral bankruptcy, the performance of the the so-called "moderates" at the Republican National Convention was the climax, at least to date. It was an attempt to institutionalize smears as an instrument of national policy-to raise those smears from the private gutters of yellow journalism to the public summit of a proposed inclusion in a political party platform. The "moderates" were demanding a repudiation of "extremism" without any definition of that term...When men feel that strongly about an issue, yet refuse to name it, when they fight savagely for some seemingly incoherent, unintelligible goal-one may be sure that their actual goal would not stand public identification. Let us, therefore, proceed to identify it.

"Extremism," Or The Art Of Smearing

-by Ayn Rand

The Objectivist Newsletter, September 1964

[Willie Green]

What kind of paper is The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review? Liberal, conservative or ???

Compared to the Post-Gazette, it is supposedly "conservative",
but on many issues, it is actually "libertarian", IMHO.

[satchmodog9]

Does her freedom not extend to her right not to believe in God?

[Willie Green]

Does her freedom not extend to her right not to believe in God?

Yes, but that is also what leads to a lack of morality in her philosophy.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Just like Schuyler and Mencken, two of the finest journalists of the 20th century.

[batmast]

I'm Spartacus...