[ryan71]

“Yet and still, her virulent atheism has made her controversial on the right, where, it would seem, she would find a more sympathetic audience.”

Really? I sense the opposite is true. The controversy about her atheism seems to come from the left.

[exPBRrat]

Very interesting, thank you for posting this.

[Safrguns]

I always found it kind of interesting that though she was an atheist, her fictitious story prophetically parallels the events of the rapture prior to the tribulation. (John Galt representing Jesus who gathers the producers [believers] letting society crumble upon itself)

[Loud Mime]

ping

[Ragnar54]

I had forgotten her comment about “printing-press rights”. Thanks for posting.

[pepsi_junkie]

Ayn Rand warned us a recipe for how totalitarian societies emerge. Yes, they sometimes begin with an dictator sweeping aside a government at the point of a gun (French, Russian, Cuban revolutions) but they also sometimes start with a slow, stead, legal erosion of fundamental liberties. With each small reduction in individual liberty, the central power gains more authority, more control. Eventually it stops consenting to be ruled by the people and decides to rule them instead. And what are the people to do then?

As you read her works, it's striking how many "ripped from today's headlines" examples you will find that line up exactly with what she wrote 60 years ago.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

“The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.”

[Badabing Badablonde]

I was completely enthralled by every Ayn Rand book I ever read.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Rand reminds the Right that there is no acceptable form of totalitarianism - even one based on Biblical tenets. It not her atheism they hate, per se - it's her admonition that the Right isn't going to produce better quality dictators than the Left does.

This why Republicans are in no more hurry to repeal ObamaCare than Democrats have been to repeal the Patriot Act. Every politician thinks that once they get their hands on a totalitarian power structure, they can dictate benevolently and wisely. They are hesitant to toss aside the structure because of the "good they can do" with it. The Founding Fathers knew different, and gave us a framework to stave off such inane ambition. Unfortunately, we are tossing it aside.

[Misterioso]

Describing Rand’s atheism as ‘virulent’ is dishonest. More like ‘unapologetic.’

[Noumenon]

Atlas Shrugged is not a novel. It's a documentary.

[Talisker]

I find people who “hate” Rand amusing. Rand described how totalitarianism worked, and linked that explanation to the protection mechanism of the Constitution. She had her characters act out what the Founders explained through political philosophy. So what’s to disagree with? It’s like arguing with a mechanic about how a car works. It’s not something to argue about - it’s just the facts. Cars work a certain way, and so does totalitarianism. People either block it by countering its mechanisms, or they don’t, and it takes over. If it takes over, it destroys everything and collapses civilization because it can’t do otherwise because it is innately parasitical. Period.

[Billthedrill]

Thanks for the ping! Publius and I have done such a reconsideration in our Who Is John Galt?. Some people who dismiss the novel out of hand have only considered one aspect that they find distasteful - for our friends on the right (if you can call it that) that issue is often atheism. There's a very great deal more to the book than that. Certain others read it in high school and consider that they have "outgrown" it when at that age one really doesn't have the intellectual horsepower to give it the consideration it is due. Or so Publius and I think, anyway.

Certain other critics find Rand's personal life to be either too inconsistent with her precepts or too thoroughly consistent, at least with the more convenient ones. I think that's a little like criticizing Milton for kicking his dog, but that's just me. Give us a read and see what you think.