Ayn Rand: How everyone’s favorite spouse-swapping, godless pulp novelist and dorm-room doyenne became the Tea Party’s new mascot

NewImage
One of my favorite artists -- Drew Friedman -- draws two of my least favorite people -- Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand. It appears on today's cover of the NY Observer.

Jump on the Rand Wagon! How Ryan Resurrected Ayn

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Justin Maurer

It’s known by now that “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan” is an anagram of “My Ultimate Ayn Rand Porn”, right?
- Editz
  
  Also works out to “Man manipulatory trendy” too.
- GawainLavers
  
  Now it all makes sense! They had most of the anagram covered, and they just had to make up a nonsense word with an “i”, two “t”s and an “m”.
- http://plantsarethestrangestpeople.blogspot.com/ mr_subjunctive
  
  Also:
  
  Immoral Ayn Rand-Type Nut
  
  Um, Pro-Ayn Rand Mentality?
Heyref

An old joke from his California Governor days was that Ayn Rand was Ronald Reagan in drag.
- Brainspore
  
  I think they may have diverged a bit on the subject of just how much Jesus should be in your government, though.
Snig

Some great quotes from reviewers of her works:
Diana Trilling: “Anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper rationing,”

Dorothy Parker: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
- Jorpho
  
  Is that what Parker was talking about? It is a very famous quote (and well it should be), but I didn’t know she was writing about Rand.
  
  Is there a source for this somewhere? Oft-repeated as it is, Google does not reveal where exactly it originated from.
  - Snig
    
    This article cites it, doesn’t supply a reference. You could ask the author if he has one.
    
    I ♥ Dorothy Parker.
  - Brainspore
    
    [EDIT: lots of ill-timed posts today.]
  - Saltine
    
    The quote is apocryphal according to this slideshow: http://mhpbooks.com/slide-show-when-writers-attack-other-writers/
    
    It’s worthing going thru the slides. Lots of great insults there. My favorite is Vidal after Mailer punched him: “Once again, words have failed Norman Mailer.”
- Navin_Johnson
  
  The Flannery O’Connor quote is great:
  
  “I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.”
- petertrepan
  
  I was offended by it — not as politics, but as literature. Ayn Rand had an insulting opinion of how much my time her opinion is worth.
  - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
    
    A 80 page monologue does not make a climax
http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

Apparently the AdChoices algorithm doesn’t get the irony of running the ad for Atlas Shrugged Part II under this post.
- Jorpho
  
  Gee, I thought I heard that Part I bombed so badly as to eliminate all chances of Part II being made. (The Invisible Hand of the Free Market gave it the finger, as it were.)
  - Brainspore
    
    They had to make some budget concessions for the sequel. All the railroad scenes will be shot using close-ups of the model train set in the director’s basement, and the part of John Galt will be played by an irate cat in tiny coveralls.
    - mccrum
      
      Hopefully his radio broadcast at the end will be a little shorter then…
    - http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm
      
      I’d pay to watch that. You may just have outlined the formula for next year’s feel-good summer blockbuster.
      
      Your suggestion is also the most satisfying answer yet to the question “Who is John Galt?”
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Mielke/100001114326969 Marc Mielke
      
      I’d give it a watch if they replaced the entire cast with cats.
      - sitzmark
        
        Catlas shrugged.
    - http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
      
      Oh. You beat me to it.
    - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
      
      That sounds rather watchable
      
      http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x93uh0_the-soup-i-love-toy-trains-4-17-09_fun
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    I could google, but I don’t want to know I only want to wonder incredulously and out loud “They made -that- into a movie?” I’m guessing dvd-only?
    - Gerald Mander
      
      Part 1 got a limited theatrical release and pretty much the reviews it deserved. I watched 20 minutes of it on Netflix. It seems genetically engineered to be an MS3K candidate. I highly recommend watching it in the comp;any of some smart and extroverted friends and two pitchers of margaritas.
  - http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
    
    Part II is GO!
    
    They’re using Xtranormal to animate the characters, with live-action shots of John Stossel’s Lionel set.
  - petertrepan
    
    Part II was destroyed by its creator because it was so good that we aren’t worthy to see it.
http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait

paul ryan’s been pumping some ire. i mean iron.
- millie fink
  
  I’m waiting a little more than half-expectantly for his texted dickshots.
Pedantic Douchebag

Fitting, seeing as she was a “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrite.
- mccrum
  
  Well, “do as I actually do” requires work and moral turpitude, so you can see why a lot of people just can’t be bothered.
http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.peterson.566 Jonathan Peterson

It’s a shame Rynd isn’t still around to call out the Tea Party types as gutless for clinging to religion. Be even better if Jesus was around to call them out for missing at least 50% of the great commandment.
- Brainspore
  
  I like the way this summit is shaping up. Let’s throw in a few Republican presidents while we’re at it! President Eisenhower could call out conservatives on runaway military spending, and Reagan could speak up about how tax increases are actually sometimes necessary, and Teddy Roosevelt could just start punching people in the face.
  - naught_for_naught
    
    Bully!
  - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
    
    And Rutherford B. Hayes wonders why nothing is being done for Paraguay.
- GawainLavers
  
  You just gave me a flash of inspiration! I never understood it before, but now I do: the Tea Party is just the “blessing” resulting from a “non-legitimate rape” encounter between Jesus and Ayn Rand.
  - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
    
    At this point I think they have more in common with the Pharisees than Jesus.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-Faull/100003118602056 Bob Faull

Surprised no one has posted my favorite comment about Rand and her disciples:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” (source unknown, by me at least).
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=39603889 Lauren Seals
  
  John Rogers, on his blog, kfmonkey. http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html down at the bottom
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  I was a bit younger than that, worshipped LoTR & anything related, read The Fountainhead and thought “okay..um” Then read Atlas Shrugged and thought “Bullshit, about contemptuous assholes that would actually -need- orcs to fashion the sick utopia they dream of excluding people from” Or something like that, vomited, and woke up an adult.
  - Gerald Mander
    
    We had to read Anthem. I got bad grades because I refused to treat it as literature. Even in high school, my position was pretty much, I’d put the worst Ace double sci fi hackwork next to this and it’ll still kick its little tract ass.
disillusion

Ah, I remember high school and how Atlas Shrugged was one of our reading assignments. I also remember that my grades in English were pretty damn bad as well… I wonder if the two are connected.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Huhn, they required The Fountainhead where I was in the 9th grade, but I had read it already and barely attended that class anyway, so i didn’t reread it
IronEdithKidd

Well, it seems a lot of protestants have latched onto the greed-is-good teachings of the “prosperity gospel” with nary a hint of irony. Why not accept Rand’s claptrap as a legitimate economic philosophy?
- http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
  
  You said “claptrap,” which reminded me of a line from Arrested Development: “How am I supposed to find someone willing to go into that musty old claptrap?”
  
  Then the next post mentioned the words “arrested development.”
  
  Just thought I’d point this out. Carry on…
sdmikev

They all suffer(ed) from the same thing – arrested development.
It’s the only explanation for libertarian and teabagger-types…
naught_for_naught

Rand is really attractive to the millions that believed themselves destined to occupy the thin, leading edge of vanity’s bell curve, only to come up short of their expectations: “It’s not my fault I’m average; it’s these damn constraints that have been forced upon me!”

Rand’s work is the vector of a spiritual contagion.
Richard Molpus

I prefer this version…

“There are two novels that can change a bookish Twenty-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Das Kapital. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable theories, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
- jetfx
  
  Get back to me when Das Kapital is widely read by 20 year olds in America. I would recommend you giving it a try too, as it isn’t anything like Atlas Shrugged, nor is it a blueprint for Communism – it’s actually an attempt to understand how capitalism as a system works.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    Or when there’s think tanks pushing Das Kapital as propaganda on schools ala The A.R.I. with Rand’s books.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Das Kapital is not a novel. Any “bookish” twenty year-old who can’t figure that out is a waste of skin.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif In answer to the “Atlas shrugged 2″ ads that I too see now
- dragonfrog
  
  I’d watch that movie.
  - naught_for_naught
    
    We could call it “Atlas Shat”
- Pedant
  
  Having read Atlas shrugged the comic isn’t very funny. The main characters are not above doing whatever menial work they’re required to. For instance, one works in a burger joint for a while if I recall correctly. He is just supposed to be very good at it to fit in with the story with regards to doing everything to your greatest ability.
  - Pedant
    
    Ah, Hugh Akston
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    Yes, and without all the lower castes holding them back the main characters will be free to apply their best efforts to planting carrots and onions without taxes or government coercion to hamper them.
    
    Consider the original working title “The Strike” and the theme of the book, that pushed too far the imagined superior class shall withdraw their glorious contributions and watch it all crumble without them there to hold it together.
    
    Then what?
    
    The cartoon is spot on.
    - Pedant
      
      I Don’t follow your argument. In the book many retreat to the valley – part of ‘the strike’ – where they perform menial work for each other and their free time in working on what they really want to.
      The ‘Then What’ is preusmably them getting on without others free-riding on their endeavours.
      To me the book (although in a lesser amount to the main plot), indicates that anyone can do well in the randian principles. This would include gardeners and servants.
      (getting the names from wikipedia now)
      As previously mentioned Hugh Akston who was flipping burgers, Owen Kellogg, the assistant to Dagny, Gwen Ives, Pat Logan, etc.
      
      There are plenty of good arguments/jokes I’m sure you can come up with against the book, but as none of the main characters are afraid of hard graft, and the secondary ‘good’ characters work in more menial areas, the comic just doesn’t ring true.
  - Jorpho
    
    In truth, Mr. Notely hadn’t read Atlas Shrugged either when he made that particular comic; years later, he wrote on his site that he, too, thought said comic wasn’t quite kosher.
    
    He did revisit the subject on two other occasions subsequently:
    http://www.angryflower.com/murgal.html
    http://www.angryflower.com/intbon.html
    - Pedant
      
      Heh, the second one made me chuckle. That speech was the biggest load of waffling crap I’ve ever attempted to read. I think I got to about the third page of it, realised it wasn’t going to get any better & skipped to the end.
JonCarter

That was a rather crappy article in the Observer. Seemed like a cut and paste job of every other article written about her.
- GawainLavers
  
  Well, at least she’s finally getting the attention she deserves.
Gerald Mander

Check out Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show interview with Rand. She is the single most humorless individual I have ever seen. I honestly wonder if she’s anhedonic. http://youtu.be/4doTzCs9lEc
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  Her anhedonic affect could be partly attributable to being Russian. My grandmother was Russian and this interview with Rand really reminded me of her (and she wasn’t anhedonic) and a lot of her Russian friends.
  - Nutrition Industry
    
    So, a bottle of vodka between them might have helped or hurt (with pickles and brown bread, of course)?
  - Gerald Mander
    
    I’m aware of a Russian proclivity for sadness and melancholy, but an anhedonic appearance is a new on me. My understanding is that Rand did have a pretty hard younger life, which could account for that, too, I guess.
    - Nutrition Industry
      
      In my experience, Russians default to sadness and melancholy as a world view, but they are very hedonic with regard to drinking, drinking, dancing, and laughing at a good joke (especially one filled with pathos or dirty sex references).
      
      To give a sense of magnitude, US folks have trouble understanding British humor and most don’t get French humor at all (but they would if they tried harder and learned some French). For Westerners, Russian humor is more on the French end rather than the British end.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  I remember reading that one of the writers for ‘Malcom in the Middle’ based Lois’ nasty mother on her.
  - mccrum
    
    “You better stop reading before you get the eye cancer!”
TrollyMcTrollington

I don’t get it. Never read her stuff, but appreciate the irony that some of her biggest fans in government are thrilled when government helps out their pet industries, and that none seem to be proclaimed atheists.
- http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
  
  Here’s my favorite:
  
  “A banking company, BB&T Corp. of North Carolina, has given $30 million in grants in the last decade for various universities to teach [Atlas Shrugged]. Most recently, in March, 2008, BB&T gave UT-Austin $2 million for a Chair in the Study of Objectivism. Then in October, BB&T took (wait for it) $3.1 billion in bailout money.” — from Whiskey Fire, via The Picket Line
Ryan Lenethen

LOTR Ayn Rand style:
http://slacktory.com/2012/06/ayn-rands-the-lord-of-the-rings/

My favorite bit:

Gandalf nodded. He exhaled a cloud of smoke from his pipe. “Certainly. …Shall we discuss the metallic alloy for, say, three hundred pages or so? The actual plot of the book can wait.”
“I insist that we do so!”

As much as I recall some of the dubious ideas she was trying to come across with in Atlas Shrugged, the part I struggled with most was simply she when on and on about minutiae that really had nothing to do with anything and didn’t add to the story, except to make it 1000+ pages long.

I mean knock her all you like, but people have be at least spurred to discuss the topic ad nauseam, this thread included. Some authors are just bad like that, in that they go on about the most trivial unimportant things forever describing them, for no more apparent reason than to fill pages.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Apologies to SMBC theatre
  
  “Biggest Book is Best Book”
- mccrum
  
  Where is love button? That was brilliantly done.
- Gerald Mander
  
  Star Trek: Next Generation Ayn Rand style: Fandom Shrugged. “Who is Jean-Luc?”
mattcornell

I’ll just leave this here.
http://twitter.com/erg79 Evan G.

No discussion of “comic” and “Ayn Rand” can go without mentioning Benjamin Frisch’s series of Ayn Rand comics on Wonkette:
http://wonkette.com/415825/thats-objectivist-ayn-rand-in-the-21st-century
- http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
  
  Wow!! That is just so objectively…..awesome!!!
noah django

just leaving some stuff here
Boundegar

I’m just annoyed all the troll comments are removed. I’m dying to see what they said! If only there was a way, like clicking open a spoiler tag.

I adored Ayn Rand, too, when I was in high school. I was even wonky enough to have read her later stuff. I’d outgrown her by college, thank God.

Some folks never outgrow her, and until recently I just found them amusing. Now that they have their hands on the levers of government, I suppose it’s time to fight back. *sigh*
- Brainspore
  
  You can get a recap of all those comments by visiting a site that shall not be named but rhymes with “WhineBlandQuacks.com” (Note: ignore this link, automatic Disqus formatting.)
- jetfx
  
  It was only one troll and about half the comments were questioning how a poster could be so stupid as to not agree with Ayn Rand’s ideas. The other half were just spamming links to some Ayn Rand fan site instead of engaging with other posters’ arguments.
- rattypilgrim
  
  I have a theory that once boys (and Ayn Rand appeals to boys seeking a philosophy, not to mention Nitsche, sp?) grow up and stop thinking the world revolves around them and they might fall in love and maybe have kids, then they see how they would rather embrace the good things in life, unabashedly, and that’s when they turn their back on the selfish old lady and empathy kicks in.
  - http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
    
    You mean having kids and naming them “Rand?”
    - rattypilgrim
      
      That old man (Ron) never grew up. Not that all young followers of Ayn will. But I think most get past her narrow viewpoint. Naming your son after her just shows how extreme R.P. is.
UncaScrooge

People are too dismissive of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. They are awfully quick to point out her character flaws, as if a little hypocritical behavior totally negates all meaning that could be derived from her work.

For instance, Objectivism greatly resembles the philosophical musings of the great Marquis de Sade. The fact that his philosophical dissertations are bookended by descriptions of child-rape and poop eating shouldn’t be an immediate cause for their dismissal.

Please, take Ayn Rand’s philosophy and this post very, very seriously.
- TimRowledge
  
  Certainly, Unca. I’m so seriously interested that I have to know – should it be “Ayn rhymes with Whine, or Ayn rhymes with Pain”?
- mccrum
  
  I disagree, I consider her personal character flaws just icing on the entire seven layer ramble of a staggeringly selfish unsustainable philosophy cake.
- http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
  
  As someone who actually DID take her seriously, allow me to reply. First off, I read every single one of her books and even subscribed to the outrageously expensive (no surprise there) The Objectivist, which, by and large, had her quoting herself mainly from that god awful 100 page speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged.
  But then I went to college and the spell slowly wore off. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is a fatal flaw at the heart of Randism (and for that matter, Libertarianism). And that is that the whole thing is predicated on the idea that people, and by extension, corporations, will act, on the whole, both rationally and in their own interests. It is the ‘rationally’ part where the whole thing breaks down. This is just demonstrably false.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    Good on you, Pratt, for trusting your inner critical thinking. That’s what separates you from the brainwashed.
  - septimar
    
    Rand didn’t think that most people will act rationally. Her books are full of characters having irrational beliefs. What she did say was that everyone *should* be rational. Capitalism without a rationalist foundation can’t work she believed, which is why Rand would be disgusted by today’s Republican Party, as it relies heavily on Christian mysticism.
    
    You and many a few other commenters here were once Randians but changed your opinions. You then rationalized your change in opinions as “growing up”, as if age made you wiser. Young people often have radical ideologies, Objectivism, Socialism, Environmentalism etc. The reason why young people lose these ideologies is generally not because they become more intelligent, but because they grow tired under adulthood, it wears them down and they mistake the compromises society makes them do with common sense.
Nutrition Industry

I love the picture, but I’m not sure I quite understand the Paul Ryan – Ayn Rand link based on what has been in the news and such. I read Atlas Shrugged and some of The Fountainhead, and the philosophy would seem to support the protests to the “you didn’t build that road” comment. Is there that much more to it?
- Boundegar
  
  Read up on Alan Greenspan. It’s beginning to look like there’s a whole sick little fraternity of them, and they’ve infiltrated the government they hate so much.
- rattypilgrim
  
  Um, Paul Ryan has said Ayn Rand formed his philosophy and he gave all his staff copies of “Atlas Shrugged” (and his fiancee). This is the same Ayn Rand who worshiped a child killer and despite her rants about surviving on your own happily took her Social Security and Medicare.
  - Nutrition Industry
    
    Thanks ratty,
    
    I got that part, but I had the impression from the news that Ayn was somehow imparting deeper philosophical meaning to Ryan’s budget ideas/proposals. Just a minute ago, I watched the 1959 Mike Wallace interview with Ayn and wondered if it was “everyone for themselves!” Wow, imagine if that had happened during the disaster in Haiti, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. I hope that isn’t the point that Ryan is adopting!
    
    Boundgear: Anything specific? I am not an economist. Just curious how an author I read on a lark is suddenly is in the limelight about our economy.
    - rattypilgrim
      
      Sadly, that is exactly the point Ryan has adopted since he was in high school and he never grew out of it.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    He gave his staff his fiancee? I still can’t figure out the rules for that Family Values thing that they’re always talking about.
    - Nutrition Industry
      
      No, just copies of his fiancee. Ryan has discovered the secret of cloning and is keeping it from us John Galt style. :)
    - rattypilgrim
      
      My bad. I meant he gave his fiancee a copy, too, (how romantic is that?) however I’m sure he would have given his fiancee to his staff if it fit into his Randian world view. Oh, it’s all Freudian and metaphorical and they don’t even know it.
      - Nutrition Industry
        
        It wasn’t your bad. I just liked the play on words! :)
    - Gerald Mander
      
      No, he gave his staff copies of his fiancee. Slippery thing, English.
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

Might I suggested for leisure reading?
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345687368&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned
http://twitter.com/carboncow shawn feller

wow, what great comments…

Those who hate on AR seem to know a lot more then those who love her…reminds me of how most Atheists seem to know more about the bible then the average fundie!
- Gerald Mander
  
  There’s nothing like shutting down someone authoritatively.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Gijs-Peetsold/100000380468783 Gijs Peetsold

A five foot neon dollar sign next to her casket? Seriously. Aside from taste issues she apparently failed to grasp the notion know that money derives its value from the willingness of the collective to enforce it as something with value? I mean,money is really the ultimate collective scheme: something that has no practical value but is deemed valuable anyway only because everybody says it does.
- http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
  
  I also wondered why she deigned to use English or any other existing language, rather than making up one of her own from scratch. Language, to me, seems about as collective as anything could be.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Gijs-Peetsold/100000380468783 Gijs Peetsold
    
    shrrpllkkk ptffkknntt wadadada hahahahaha!
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Ayn Rand Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York wgah’nagl fhtagn.
Brainspore

I don’t remember any of the protagonists in “Dreams from My Father” committing rape.
http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose

From what I’ve learned of Ayn Rand’s sex life, and within the context of the novel, the scene I think you’re referencing about half way through “The Fountainhead” is her idea of seduction.
Brainspore

I read that she once defended the scene by calling it “rape by engraved invitation.” Which I gather is her way of saying “it’s not really rape if the girl is a cocktease.”
retchdog

hasYour : punctuation,(2) goneGalt. . . ?
Brainspore

How about the parts of the book where Dominique herself refers to the incident as a “rape?” That’s the term used both in her internal monologue immediately after the incident and much later in the novel when she matter-of-factly describes her first sexual experience with Roark to another character.

Her exact words? “He raped me.” Not “we enacted a rape fantasy.” Not “I lured him into breaking into my bedroom to have violent but mutually consensual sex.” Rape.

I’m not making up unfounded charges here. If Rand didn’t want her hero to come across as a rapist then maybe she shouldn’t have included a scene where he rapes someone.

It’s mildly disappointing, if not surprising, how many of Rand’s fans seem to have little firsthand knowledge of her actual work.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

This doesn’t demonstrate she had a sense of humor, it shows she tried to understand it and came up wanting.
jetfx

I think “The Truth” you posted actually reinforces the “The Myth”. If she had that to say about laughter, I doubt she had much of a sense of humour. I mean come on, to laugh at yourself is “spitting in your own face”? That’s the sign of someone who takes themselves too seriously.
retchdog

but she doesn’t have a problem with “superior” states exterminating “inferior” ones through their governments, e.g. native americans (by the english and french colonies) and palestinians (by israel). what’s up with that?
Brainspore

Douglas Adams has a line in the first Hitchhiker’s Book saying, essentially, Jesus Christ was nailed to a tree for suggesting that people should be nice to each other.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what Ayn Rand’s philosophy dictated. The most pathetic, pitiable character in “The Fountainhead” was the one who dedicated her life toward helping the poor, the sick and the disabled. Rand is less “be nice to each other” than “look out for number one.”
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

You got laughed at by Ayn Rands standard of what humor is because you make assumptions without evidence to be derisive while cloaked, which is evil.

I had some low marks too, yet aced every test I ever took. Because I was young and rash and didn’t give “the man” all that power over me with the homework and such, not because I am unintelligent.

If Gerald received bad marks for standing by his convictions, he’s a better example of the good aspects of what you pretend to be than you are.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

I didn’t hate it, but it’s disciples certainly queue up for some serious dislike, don’t they?
millie fink

Pompous troll is pompous.
jetfx

Clearly you are not aware of Hong Kong’s massive public housing program. The vaunted free market makes it so expensive to live in Hong Kong that public housing is required to ensure that there is a work force available.
Brainspore

For a guy who’s so big on “independent thought” you sure do seem to enjoy that copypasta.

[Edit: large block of text I was replying to now removed.]
millie fink

You forgot to to add a /sarcasm tag.
noah django

you noticed he created his account for this thread, right?
no good can come of feeding this troll.
Navin_Johnson

Rand didn’t inspire much wit in her followers did she….
jetfx

I get her point alright, but you’d think the proof of her sense of humour would include a joke she once told, rather than some digression about the necessary conditions for proper humour.
Brainspore

@twitter-21631841:disqus
I did not ignore that link, I disputed its relevance. I quoted “The Fountainhead” verbatim. You’re the one trying to misrepresent what happens in the story by posting a bunch of links to your Ayn Rand fan site.

There is nothing in Rand’s novel to indicate that scene was part of a “rape fantasy.” It was clearly (and repeatedly) described as an actual rape, later revisionist backpedaling by the author notwithstanding.

“She was a cocktease who secretly wanted it” is not a viable defense for breaking into a young woman’s bedroom and sexually violating her. This should be so self-evident that it need not be argued.
retchdog

“Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?”
retchdog

so, your decision to not spend 10 seconds formatting your spammed copypasta was heroic and rational?
retchdog

uh, didn’t see anything on that page speaking to this point (and, no, the “fascism” entry doesn’t count; this is about violence to spread capitalism, not establishing a totalitarian state). her opinion about israel/palestine came from her own mouth while being interviewed on some tv show (donahue?); it’s on youtube.

you should feel free to ignore me; others may or may not. no one’s taking you very seriously.
Navin_Johnson

Here’s the old lady in the flesh on Donahue calling Arabs “Primitive Savages”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2uHSv1asFvU#!
jetfx

Have you read Das Kapital? At least the first volume? Or anything Marx wrote about capitalism (which is like 90% of his work)? Because to make such a bald statement about it suggests that you haven’t and don’t have a clue about what he said on the issue.

Rand and Marx share similar understandings of capitalism, they just differ on whether the system is a good thing.
Navin_Johnson

Love that she had such a great sense of humor that Randroids feel compelled to make websites that clinically argue that it was so….
Felton / Moderator

Funny how she calls them racist immediately after calling them primitive savages.
Snig

Really? That concern troll just changed my life. I’m going to give up my looting ways and start developing alloys.
Nutrition Industry

I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.

Right?