10 Shameless Right-Wing Tributes to Ayn Rand That Should Make Any Sane Person Blush

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/147872/10_shameless_right-wing_tributes_to_ayn_rand_that_should_make_any_sane_person_blush

   
AlterNet / By Roy Edroso
10 Shameless Right-Wing Tributes to Ayn Rand That Should Make Any Sane Person Blush

As the evangelical Right's influence has declined, conservatives are adhering to another religion -- one based on the scribblings of a sociopath.

August 20, 2010  
 
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Yes, Ayn Rand, author of big books about noble capitalists who triumph over the masses, and tomes of "philosophy" like The Virtue of Selfishness, in which she beat Gordon Gekko to Greed is Good by decades. Rand always seemed like a good fit for conservatives, but until recently their fandom was a love that dared not speak its name -- either out of fear that the born-agains would be alienated by Rand's atheism, or that literate people would giggle at them.

What happened? The Republican collapse, and the arrival of an activist liberal administration in D.C., set conservatives scrambling for compelling new story lines to sell the public. Jesus, unfortunately, had been rendered inoperative by all the family-values Republicans caught in sex scandals. With Him out of the way, the atheist, market-worshiping Rand was their best bet.

The transition has been seamless. Glenn Beck regards Rand as a prophet. Tea Party people carry her name on signs. Rightbloggers talk, seriously it would seem, about Going Galt -- a phenomenon previously known as "early retirement," but now judged a political act of resistance against the socialism of our moderate Democrat president.

They're the wave of the future, so let's get to know the Randroids. What kind of people are they?

To follow are the 10 most cringe-inducing -- but sincere! -- Randian tributes I could find. There were some that were crazier, but they tended to be tens of thousands of words long and boring beyond belief. Believe me, this is probably as much as you'll want to hear from them -- ever.

1. Paul Ryan: The most powerful Randroid in politics

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[burnsei sensei]

1. If they admire Ayn Rand, then it's obvious

that they agree with her contention that William Hickman, a brutal child-killer, was a great artist.
This was the man she admired most, the man she thought most manly.
Yes, he is an apt model for the sociopathic likes of Ryan.

[HughBeaumont]

2. "activist liberal administration"?

Er . . . .. where is that? "Liberals" don't kill public options, continue costly, pointless wars or have press secretaries mockingly telling us that a universal health system working just fine up north for decades is "not reality" aaaaaaand also think that we want to discontinue the Pentagon.

OK, I want the Pentasewer to be massively defunded and defanged, but that other one about the "Canadian Care" is chickenshit stupid, even for a sniveling anti-left creep like Gibbs.

Point being is that this administration is hardly "liberal". If it were, we'd be getting so much more done that needs to be.

[d_r]

3. I started off trying to be interested

But it just kept going on and on and on. Sort of like a Rand book I guess.

[Solomon]

4. I've been reading her books lately trying to find out what the big

deal is. I read her "Anthem" and the "Virtues of Selfishness" and now I'm slogging through "Atlas Shrugged" which is a brutal read. I'm only 40% in and feels like I been reading forever. Lots of strawmen and exaggerations in that book. Haven't gotten to the point but so far the do-gooder liberal types are driving the industrialists out of business one by one. It's kind of like a fantasy fiction world in which the mass of people buttressed by public opinion have more control than the mega-rich manufacturing/industrialist class. Her basic premise seems to be the world system would be perfect if only everyone were allowed to act in their own self-interest. Selfishness is the only true morality.

Sounds to me like the teabagging crew and the powers that be have already had their run at proving this theory false. We're in the ditch now because of unbridled greed.