The Wrath of Ayn Rand

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/11-3

Many have commented on the remarkable callousness fashioned by this Republican presidential field. Most prominently, Herman Cain maintained that the poor and unemployed are responsible for their own plight; Ron Paul claimed that people who refrain from buying health insurance but become debilitated should not be bailed out by government healthcare—they should just die instead, his audience helpfully suggested (or hollered, rather); and just about all the candidates have recommended ever harsher, ever more absurd measures to keep out poor immigrants on our border with Mexico: double fences, electric fences, even soldiers with ‘real guns and real bullets,’ as Herman Cain put it.

What’s driving this show of meanness? You might say it’s just what the electorate—or some loud part thereof—wants. It seems like there are some seriously angry voters out there these days, and I’m sure the recession is taking a toll on people’s patience and generosity. And yet, I suspect this is no fleeting trend, but something with deeper ideological roots. In short, I sense Ayn Rand.

Rand has always had a good following, but her popularity has surged in recent years as conservatives repeatedly invoked her to counter Obama’s “Socialist” agenda. She has an impressive roster of conservative devotees: Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ron Paul. Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul quoted Ayn Rand at length during a congressional committee meeting this past year—to argue against government mandates for energy efficient light bulbs, of all things. Congressman Paul Ryan, the rising star from Wisconsin who drafted the Republican’s celebrated plan to slash the federal budget, reportedly urges all his staffers to read her works.

This is a powerful fan-base, and many have feared the consequences of Rand’s influence. I think we are seeing it now, for there are clear strains of her venom in the excesses of the Republican candidates—and beyond. Her trademark callousness is increasingly evident throughout our political discourse regarding the poor and vulnerable of society. The congressional super-committee charged with agreeing on a trillion dollars in federal deficit reduction is reportedly contemplating cuts to food stamps, while Republicans remain steadfast that taxes not rise on the rich. This, as the recession lingers and poverty rates soar, and we witness the greatest concentration of wealth among the rich since the 1920s. The Republican stance is mind-boggling in these circumstances—but Rand would certainly approve; indeed, she might favor far worse. Consider:

More at the link --

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Every time Rand's name comes up there should be reminders that she...

hid the fact that she was on Social Security and Medicare. Dunno if she had to marry that guy to collect, but using her married name on SS so her addled acolytes wouldn't catch on worked pretty well for a while.

[Larkspur]

2. Also tell people that she worshiped child killer, serial murder-dismemberer William Edward Hickman

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer Her works are treated as gospel by right-wing powerhouses like Alan Greenspan and Clarence Thomas, but Ayn Rand found early inspiration in 1920's murderer William Hickman.

SNIP

One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible.

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)

SNIP

[patrice]

3. The article points out that Randian "logic" is faulty on so many levels.

What kind of muscles are built with 3 pd weights?

Q. What kind of strength is built by using the "disadvantaged"?

A. "Strength" that would not exist were it not for weakness. "Strength" that NEEDS, "strength" that DEPENDS upon the weak.

Rand’s is a Manichean universe populated by a few great souls on one side, and the inept masses on the other; the masses would perennially muddle in their own misery if not for the exceptional creativity and bravery of a few to do great things, and it’s up to the masses to keep out of their way. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand declares “The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time.”

If strength is justification unto itself, according to AR, then authentic strength validates itself in contest with other authentic strength, one or the other to prove itself the stronger and one or the other to prove itself the weaker, the less worthy adversary, so the ultimate of ultimate strength in the Randian process-model is mutual-self-destruction of the equally powerful, anything prior to that is in-authentic strength because it defines itself relative to, in dependent relationship with, weakness.

Truly . . .

Rand’s thinking is a pleasant enough fiction for those at the top of the heap, but it’s wholly improbable, naïve—and rude.

[Springslips]

6. First post here. :-)

Ian Rand is a wedge opportunity for the democrats, if only they would use it. Ian Rand is a fierce atheist who had said some nasty things about Christianity; if she was a philosopher for our side, the Repukes would constantly knock our heads with it. Yet they pretend to be the christian party working hard to fend against our 'atheistic agenda' while they simultaneously follow the values of Rand. With this we could began to strip away the conservative coalition, and free blue collar types who only vote GOP because of social issues. (If the vote in my home state of Ohio says anything, more GOPer believe in fair economic POV than they do they theories of objectionism.)

A month ago I posted a comment on my facebook about an article representing an “Ian Rand atheism. . .” and one of my most conservative religious friend liked it.

Yet I have been waiting years and years for the Dem to do this. But they won't. I know the reason why. Many Dem are atheist and they are afraid to alienate them. They shouldn't worry of it though, what happened to this nation the last 30-years means that we should forget ephemeral concerns and focus on what needs to be done to dismantle the other side. Candidates need to bring up Ian Rand, her philosophies, and make Repukes own it or deny it. Stick an atheist to them, and watch them scramble to keep their collision from splintering into a thousand pieces.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

4. How does the religious right reconcile Ayn Rand with the Sermon On The Mount?

I know they don't think about such things and fanatics are rarely bothered by their own inconsistencies, but I wonder how a bible thumper like Michelle Bachmann can remin a Christian in her mind while advocating that people who don't work, shouldn't eat, knowing how impossible it can be to find a job in this economy.

[hifiguy]

5. Rand was a psychopathic monster

in human form.

When the history of this era is written in another century or two, she will be listed with Milton Friedman, Hitler, Mao and Stalin as examples of the worst sort of garbage humanity can vomit forth.

And her books are not "writing." That, friends, is just typing.