Wrong...The problem is that the lines between business and government became more blurred over time.....We need separation of Business and State.
Rand’s own philosophy had serious, fatal flaws. However, her depictions of Leftist Government Compassion Fascists is completely accurate.
If this idiot thinks that our current crisis was caused by being too free market, he has no idea what he's talking about. I don't agree with everything Rand said but she was right in saying that free markets result in a collective good.
Bfl
Summary: Ayn Rand is wrong because people don’t like it and won’t vote for it...
LMFAO!
april fools. right? this guy cannot be serious
This appears to be an April Fools posting. It’s also really, really dumb for PJ to do it.
Bookmark to rebut this fatuous nonsense at a later date.
>>who is, after all, named after her
“The name my mother gave me was Randall....First question I was asked was, was I named after Ayn Rand? But I am a big fan of Ayn Rand...”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD-R_OeP6tU
I’ve read everything she has ever written and my take is:
1) She needed an editor. She takes a great idea and beats you over the head with it for at least five pages.
2) Having Roark rape Dominique in The Fountainhead was so bizarre I read the part several times to see what I was missing. Apparently the fact that they both wanted each other made it all right and the fact the it was written by a woman makes it worse, WTH?
3) Her personal life was a shambles, she cheated on her husband and told him she was going to do it.
4) She was a hard drinker and smoker. OK, this doesn’t bother me because I have zero room to talk but if you want to be some moral authority, you might want to reflect it in you personal life.
5) I still like The Fountainhead despite the bizarre rape scene as that scene is better than the literally 100 page John Galt speech in Atlas Shrugged. Frisco’s money speech is good even if it does go on forever.
6) We The Living is an awesome book. Yes, it’s long and dreary, just like the communism the characters live in. If anyone here has read it, the parallels between it and Obamavision are scary.
Finally, I would say that what she wrote against are what is destroying this country, she was right on there. I forget the exact line but I think it’s from Toohey in The Fountainhead where he says they don’t care about people breaking laws, they want them to so they’re easier to control.
Sorry, but this piece is wrong, dumb propaganda. Had to have been an Obama voter that wrote it.
This article sets up more strawmen than a scarecrow convention.
If money is the highest moral good,
When did she say money was the highest moral good? If it was, then Ben Bernake would be the Pope of the Church of Rand because he has created the most money through any means.
Second, Rand’s ideology is morally reprehensible. Rand proclaimed such things as compassion, generosity, charity, and empathy as evil and enemies of humanity.
More strawmen. Evil? No, but they can be used for evil by those who want to force compassion. If I give food to a hungry family because it pleases me that is OK. On the other hand if that family uses their hunger to force me to empty my wallet for them then that is evil.
More than ever, the United States needs traditional conservatism — the conservatism of fiscal and social prudence that regards change and reform as not necessarily evil but not necessarily good, and views progress with reasoned skepticism.
That sounds dangerously close to the siren's song of a Rockefeller Republican, where the only argument with the Democrats is how fast to drive down the road to serfdom.
I really, really hope this was an April Fools' Day joke, and we can all have a great laugh over it tomorrow over a plate full of tree picked spaghetti, but I fear that it isn't.
Pretending that crony capitalism is Capitalism, and not it's true nature: Fascism, Kerstein goes on to mask envy and class warfare as nobless oblige, textbook Marx and Alinsky Communism.
Not even a good try Ben, we know all Commies hate Ayn.
The author should look at who has been peddling those things to the public over the last 80 years and why, and then ask himself what really is monstrous.
I disagree with some of the points made by the author.It’s been several yrs since i read “Atlas Shrugged”.But i recall the primary theme addressed the incremental encroachment by the government upon society/economy to the point where big gov had almost total control.The result was an economy that was dysfunctional-at best.I do agree that Rand comes across as a bareknuckles anything goes capitalist and(imo)rather deficient in the empathy department(read “The Fountainhead”).She was certainly flawed(quite a character!).Anyways,I’m not a “Randian”,but I agree with much of her philosophy-to a point.Thanx for the post.
Like anything else, mine the gold and leave the tailings.
“There is no way to rule innocent men...” - Ayn Rand
No need to read past here without a HUGE barf alert. The guy's a rube.
Mr. Kerstein doesn’t seem to know much about U.S. economics and either hasn’t actually read or understood Ayn Rand’s work. In my experience, communists-at-heart find Rand so threatening to their world view that they can’t get a mental grip on her meaning. To protect themselves, they misrepresent her views, and try to take her novels literally, rather than as abstract presentations of principles.
Rand had no problem with VOLUNTARY social activity, specialization of labor, complex integrated societies, and compassion/charity. What she opposed was COERCION. Through the application of reason to experience, Rand knew that socialists inevitably force others to join communal efforts against their interests and will — precisely because the type of people who join freely are the takers, not the makers. Hillary Clinton is a perfect Rand villain; her justification for forcing young healthy people into paying for healthcare for others is classic: “We need their money in the system”. Armed robbery for what she dictates is a “benevolent” purpose is ok.
Rand relentlessly exposed the Left’s game of false benevolence and compulsory altruism as a scam. “Collective” action wherein an elite determines the will of the group turns the group members into dehumanized slaves, who receive more than they contribute temporarily —until it all dries up, and everyone has nothing. Rand’s work argues, correctly, that individuals creating wealth through free market economics bring freedom and higher standards of living for all that are sustainable. But that’s not what the Democrats/Socialists/Leftists really want, is it?
“Beware of the moneychangers”. Even Rand chastized those who sought to make money for the sake of making money, or more aptly, printing money out of thin air, so that they could gamble it to make profits out of thin air. Once currency stopped being a store of value and work, and became nothing more than gambling fodder, is when the financial structure of the west started to fall apart. Once people lose faith in the currency and financial institutions, expect the events that have unfolded in Cyprus and the EU to happen here.
Rand ping. And I don’t mean Paul....