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Ayn Rand's Birthday: Ideas Have Consequences
Forbes Magazine ^ | February 1, 2019 | Art Carden

Posted on 02/02/2019 2:07:03 PM PST by huckfillary

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Today is Ayn Rand's birthday. She is my all-time favorite. The Beatles are a close second. Today, more than ever, the world needs Ayn Rand.
1 posted on 02/02/2019 2:07:03 PM PST by huckfillary
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To: huckfillary

I think Ayn Rand is due for a resurgance. The truth of her ideas becomes more obvious every day.


2 posted on 02/02/2019 2:09:45 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance.)
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To: huckfillary

“All you need is Rand
(All together now)
All you need is Rand
(Everybody)
All you need is Rand, Rand
Rand is all you need”


3 posted on 02/02/2019 2:11:53 PM PST by newfreep ("INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - DAVID HOROWITZ)
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To: JayGalt

You are correct, Mr. Galt.


4 posted on 02/02/2019 2:12:34 PM PST by laplata (The Left/Progressives have diseased minds.)
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To: JayGalt

Do you know why Atlas shrugged? He didn’t know the answers, and he didn’t have a clue on how to find them.


5 posted on 02/02/2019 2:12:34 PM PST by righttackle44 (Takes scalps. Leave the bodies as a warning.)
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To: newfreep

Touche.


6 posted on 02/02/2019 2:14:22 PM PST by huckfillary
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To: righttackle44

Cute as a joke but inaccurate. He shrugged because he realized he didn’t need to carry the world on his shoulders.
He discovered individual responsibility is the way to success not making allowances for people or handicapping the strong to assist the weak.


7 posted on 02/02/2019 2:16:18 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance.)
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To: ADemocratNoMore; Aggie Mama; alarm rider; alexander_busek; AlligatorEyes; AmericanGirlRising; ...

Rand ping.


8 posted on 02/02/2019 2:19:19 PM PST by Publius
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To: JayGalt

A single individual cannot carry the world, the people just carry themselves.


9 posted on 02/02/2019 2:22:38 PM PST by CodeToad ( Hating on Trump is hating on me and America!.)
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To: huckfillary

I love me some Ayn Rand. Her atheism is wrong but she gets almost everything else right.

I decided to read her because I got into arguments with a Rand fan and wanted to do opposition research to undermine him. I started reading her stuff and was like, wow, she makes some great points.

She rattled my cage and provoked a crisis in my thinking and for that I am grateful to her.


10 posted on 02/02/2019 2:23:21 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: huckfillary

It bothers me that those who run the country, the media, all information, show by their actions and words utter ignorance on any of what Rand has ably shown. Universities ignore these truths, which would be actually helpful for new generations to learn. How sad.

Happy birthday. Wish our nation could make any use out of her works! It’s folly to ignore this stuff.


11 posted on 02/02/2019 2:24:25 PM PST by Yaelle
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To: Yaelle

Yep, and it’s not like you have to totally commit to her position. But you should at least be familiar with her arguments, which are powerful.


12 posted on 02/02/2019 2:35:14 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: Yaelle

They’re not ignorant (largely), they’re evil. They acknowledge Ayn Rand was right, but do the opposite out of spite of mankind. Pure effing hate drives them.


13 posted on 02/02/2019 2:42:55 PM PST by SpaceBar
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To: huckfillary

I’ve been trying to get my 19 year old to read The Fountainhead. I’ve even offered him money to read it.

Happy 114th Ayn.


14 posted on 02/02/2019 2:43:51 PM PST by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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To: CodeToad

Your comment is little confusing.

The Title “Atlas Shrugged” is symbolic. Atlas carries the world on his shoulders in mythology. The book illustrates the premise that we, as individuals, are responsible for our own actions & decisions and we must remain true to ourselves and our values. We need not and should not warp ourselves because others demand it, nor should people be given things, positions, purchase orders or power from a sense of fairness. Those things must be earned by actions and achievements. In condoning parasites we enable them and damage society as a whole.

When Atlas shrugged he realized that he was not being noble carrying the world; he was betraying himself and enabling the destructive force of “social justice”. Atlas needed to let the world stand on it’s own, step away like the protagonists. Atlas,the protagonists, then were free to pursue their own goals, cooperating with like minded self sufficient individuals, unburdened by false guilt.


15 posted on 02/02/2019 2:49:21 PM PST by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance.)
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To: Yardstick
She rattled my cage and provoked a crisis in my thinking and for that I am grateful to her.

Which is the sign of both a great author and an open minded reader. The idea of *not* presenting challenging speakers or writers at schools is the very antithesis of this philosophy.

16 posted on 02/02/2019 2:53:27 PM PST by Flick Lives
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To: huckfillary

“Rand’s style made a lot more sense to me after I had read The Brothers Karamazov ...”

Well, she was quite long-winded so there’s that. I will always love Atlas Shrugged for being a fun page-turner that captures so much of what the Left is about. Rand is great for a young person wanting to read something in which libtards get wrecked.


17 posted on 02/02/2019 2:58:25 PM PST by cdcdawg
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To: huckfillary

Character development was not one of Rand’s strong suits, but she made up for it with names like Wesley Mouch, who could be the prototype for Schmuckey Schumer or Nasty Piglosi.


18 posted on 02/02/2019 3:14:27 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Capitalism produces EVERYTHING Socialists/Communists/Democratic-Socialists wish to "redistribute.")
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To: righttackle44
I'm sorry.

How long have you suffered from humor-deficit disorder?

19 posted on 02/02/2019 3:20:05 PM PST by Aevery_Freeman (Roger Stone Indictment: Thinner than whorehouse whiskey.)
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To: huckfillary; Publius
Well, happy birthday, Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum! William Buckley and she used to have furious alcohol-fueled arguments over the phone about conservatism on a regular basis. I'd love to have shared a party line.

The point that Publius and I make in our book on the topic is that Atlas didn't really shrug in that eponymous work, he had only begun to. Until the bridge went down Dagny Taggart was still fighting a valiant and futile battle against a suicidal culture. When it did so toward the end of the book, that was the shrug, and the disaster to follow is only hinted at through such exemplary mini-disasters as Starnesville and the 20th Century Motor Corporation. The hammer was on the way down as Galt drew his dollar sign in the air, but it hadn't landed yet.

Part of the problem with AS as a work of literature is that past that point the work devolved from a novel of ideas into an action novel written by a Hollywood scriptwriter, which Rand was, (and a damn good one, and it wasn't even her native language). Exciting but at points preposterous. It adds tremendously to the reader's enjoyment but detracts, I think, from the novel's gravitas. Just my $0.02.

I'm dipping back into it chapter by chapter to see if I've changed my mind since Pub' talked me into the project nearly a decade ago (how old does that make you feel, bud?) I haven't. Rand couldn't have read Marcuse prior to the writing of AS but she had him captured perfectly. A lazy student could cut entire sections of AS pertaining to the villains out and paste them into a paper in any Grievance Studies class in the country and get an A, and get away with it because the professor would rather die than have read the thing.

20 posted on 02/02/2019 3:33:36 PM PST by Billthedrill
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