Bashing Ayn Rand

[Mustang]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

All true. And let's not forget that the rich GET rich through the exploitation of labor. Now, I totally understand that statement SOUNDS communist in nature. I don't mean it to. It's just that businesses (and hence business OWNERS) make profit by paying less than the market value of the work their employees perform. So, at the very LEAST, the employer/employee relationship is symbiotic. Rand would have everyone believe that the worker is wholly dependent on the entrepreneur whereas the truth is that the entrepreneur is ALSO dependent on the workers for both the production of their products and to purchase their products. So, like I already said, the workers perform most, but not all, jobs at a rate of pay that is less than the value they help create. Otherwise, there could be no profit. (It's questionable whether upper management's high rate of pay qualifies in this manner). Then, the workers' disposable income puts them in the position to actually buy the products that are produced.

Now, in an Ayn Rand utopia, it's highly questionable whether John Gault could survive, let alone thrive in the business world she envisions.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

Ayn Rand interviewed by James Day 1/2 - YouTube

Rand on corporate welfare [supply side economics]:

Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution…
The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
​

==============f

Rand wasn't far off on science and sociology:

Abortion is a moral right; an embryo has no rights...

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a “right to life.” A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term.
"Of Living Death," essay from "The Voice of Reason" by Ayn Rand, 1968
​

==============f

Rand had white trash dialed in:

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism...

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race -- and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin."

The policy of the Southern states toward Negroes was and is a shameful contradiction of this country's basic principles. Racial discrimination, imposed and enforced by law, is so blatantly inexcusable an infringement of individual rights that the racist statutes of the South should have been declared unconstitutional long ago. ​

The Southern racists' claim of "states' rights" is a contradiction in terms: there can be no such thing as the "right" of some men to violate the rights of others.

Excerpted from "Racism" by Ayn Rand; first published in The Objectivist Newsletter, Sept, 1963; later, in "The Virtue of Selfishness"

​

 

[Redfish]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

All true. And let's not forget that the rich GET rich through the exploitation of labor. Now, I totally understand that statements SOUNDS communist in nature. I don't mean it to. It's just that businesses (and hence business OWNERS) make profit by paying less than the market value of the work their employees perform. So, at the very LEAST, the employer/employee relationship is symbiotic. Rand would have everyone believe that the worker is wholly dependent of the entrepreneur whereas the truth is that the entrepreneur is ALSO dependent on the workers for both the production of their products and to purchase their products. So, like I already said, the workers perform most, but not all, jobs at a rate of pay that is less than the value they help create. Otherwise, there could be no profit. (It's questionable whether upper management's high rate of pay qualifies in this manner). Then, the workers' disposable income puts them in the position to actually buy the products that are produced.

Now, in an Ayn Rand utopia, it's highly questionable whether John Gault could survive, let alone thrive in the business world she envisions.

is that so? please explain how the following got rich by exploiting labor: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Charlie Daniels, Bette Midler, Donald Trump, Bill Maher, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Elvis Presley, Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi.

I could list 1000 names, but lets start with these.

What Rand and her character Galt believed is that everyone should earn whatever they have and that the govt should not impede business success by trying to make everything "equal". Equal means equally miserable--ask the people of north korea.

 

[BlindBoo]

Daily Kos? Really? You cite the Kos Kids?

Are you saying Ayn didn't idolize Hickman?

I think he is saying that you do not understand the message of the book.

What book? The subject I posted on in those links was not about a single book she wrote although one did mention her books as a collective work. But that's okay I understand he nor you took the time because of the "source".

She was, as McCain so elequently stated about the loonies in the Senate "A Wacko Bird"

 

[Redfish]

Are you saying Ayn didn't idolize Hickman?

I think he is saying that you do not understand the message of the book.

What book? The subject I posted on in those links was not about a single book she wrote although one did mention her books as a collective work. But that's okay I understand he nor you took the time because of the "source".

She was, as McCain so elequently stated about the loonies in the Senate "A Wacko Bird"

Well, as they say------opinions are like assholes. everyone has one.

McCain has become the poster boy for wacko birds. Its what happens to all of them when they stay in govt too long.

 

[BlindBoo]

I think he is saying that you do not understand the message of the book.

What book? The subject I posted on in those links was not about a single book she wrote although one did mention her books as a collective work. But that's okay I understand he nor you took the time because of the "source".

She was, as McCain so elequently stated about the loonies in the Senate "A Wacko Bird"

Well, as they say------opinions are like assholes. everyone has one.

McCain has become the poster boy for wacko birds. Its what happens to all of them when they stay in govt too long.

McCain is an Angry Bird........

 

[Mustang]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

All true. And let's not forget that the rich GET rich through the exploitation of labor. Now, I totally understand that statements SOUNDS communist in nature. I don't mean it to. It's just that businesses (and hence business OWNERS) make profit by paying less than the market value of the work their employees perform. So, at the very LEAST, the employer/employee relationship is symbiotic. Rand would have everyone believe that the worker is wholly dependent of the entrepreneur whereas the truth is that the entrepreneur is ALSO dependent on the workers for both the production of their products and to purchase their products. So, like I already said, the workers perform most, but not all, jobs at a rate of pay that is less than the value they help create. Otherwise, there could be no profit. (It's questionable whether upper management's high rate of pay qualifies in this manner). Then, the workers' disposable income puts them in the position to actually buy the products that are produced.

Now, in an Ayn Rand utopia, it's highly questionable whether John Gault could survive, let alone thrive in the business world she envisions.

is that so? please explain how the following got rich by exploiting labor: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Charlie Daniels, Bette Midler, Donald Trump, Bill Maher, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Elvis Presley, Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi.

I could list 1000 names, but lets start with these.

What Rand and her character Galt believed is that everyone should earn whatever they have and that the govt should not impede business success by trying to make everything "equal". Equal means equally miserable--ask the people of north korea.

I think you understand that I'm referring to Ayn Rand's reference to workers in manufacturing and the production of products. Strictly speaking, that would include Gates, Trump, and Ford. As an economy becomes more diverse, it's not as cut and dry. For example, intellectual property rights create wealth, but ultimately a product has to be produced for sale. So, entertainers (like Elvis) who ultimately sell records, and authors (like Obama) who sell books still have to get their records and books produced.

Rand's idiotic notion of utopia would result in extreme inequality which would lead to social unrest, political upheaval, and ultimately, revolution. If you don't believe that, take a look at history. If revolution is the end result, then it couldn't have been a utopia, could it?

 

[Sallow]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

I tried to read the Fountainhead when I was a kid..and got 3/4 of the way through. Even then I realized it was a sociopath's handbook.

Selfishness and Greed aren't traits that should be lionized.

 

[Polk]

I find it very interesting that the party that most actively promotes Christianity also promotes Rand's economic philosophy that vigorous attacks traditional Christian teachings.

 

[Doubletap]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

I agree that Atlas Shrugged is a difficult read, thats probably why most liberals who claim to know what its about have never read it.

What she believed personally has very little to do with the message of the book.

Why do you think that personal responsibility and personal freedom are bad things?

Why do you think that personal success is bad?

Why do you believe that for one man to get rich another man has to be made poor?

Why are liberals unable to think logically?

Liberals will avoid reality, but they can not avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

 

[Polk]

As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn.

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it's masses that count, not men.

The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion 'for a good cause' who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others - to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder - for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of 'a good cause',which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by 'a feeling' -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied soley on his own 'good intentions' and on the power of a gun.

The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing.

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that mend are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another - and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice.

The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying 'frozen' railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to 'defreeze' them.

The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had "a right" to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had "a right" to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not.

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man's mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it's only a matter of seizing the machinery.

The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, 'I don't care, it's only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.'

The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels.

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, 'Me? I'll find a way to get along under any political system.'

The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? - no reality - how can you prove that the tunnel exists? - no logic - why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? - no principles - why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? - no rights - why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force? - no morality - what's moral about running a railroad? - no absolutes - what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing - why oppose the orders of your superiors? - that we can never be certain of anything - how do you know you're right? - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - you don't want to risk your job do you?

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, 'Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?'

The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, 'The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.'

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt's Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.

Really cheap, simplistic writing by one sick puppy.

If you read that quote, you have read the whole book. Seriously. I just saved you weeks of torture.

I'm sure you preferred Marx. Oddly enough liberals won't own up to whose ideals they revere.

We get it. Everything you dislike is Marxism.

 

[Defiant1]

As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn.

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it's masses that count, not men.

The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion 'for a good cause' who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others - to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder - for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of 'a good cause',which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by 'a feeling' -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied soley on his own 'good intentions' and on the power of a gun.

The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing.

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that mend are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another - and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice.

The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying 'frozen' railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to 'defreeze' them.

The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had "a right" to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had "a right" to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not.

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man's mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it's only a matter of seizing the machinery.

The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, 'I don't care, it's only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.'

The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels.

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, 'Me? I'll find a way to get along under any political system.'

The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? - no reality - how can you prove that the tunnel exists? - no logic - why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? - no principles - why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? - no rights - why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force? - no morality - what's moral about running a railroad? - no absolutes - what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing - why oppose the orders of your superiors? - that we can never be certain of anything - how do you know you're right? - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - you don't want to risk your job do you?

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, 'Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?'

The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, 'The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.'

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt's Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.

Really cheap, simplistic writing by one sick puppy.

If you read that quote, you have read the whole book. Seriously. I just saved you weeks of torture.

The book should be retitled and republished for upcoming generations.......


It could be called............Hope and Change

 

[JakeStarkey]

Ayn Rand interviewed by James Day 1/2 - YouTube

Only by friends and family, and by philosophical loonies.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Randians crack me up even more than Star Trekians.

 

[mmmjvpssm]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

You mean like liberals who have never read the bible? It's quite possible to agree with one's politics but disagree with their take on religion.

Ayn was correct --sorry you didn't like the way she expressed it.

Who said liberals don't read the Bible? I read the authorized King James version about 20 years ago, and also the Catholic version. Just a few months ago finished a Bible in a Year program, I forget which version. And now I'm reading the original 1611 King James version and also the Wycliffe and the Geneva.

 

[Doubletap]

The highest tribute to Ayn Rand, abundantly in evidence here, is that her critics must distort everything she stood for in order to attack her. She advocated reason, not force; the individual's rights to freedom of action, speech, and association; self-responsibility, NOT self-indulgence; & a live-and-let-live society in which each individual is treated as an END, not the MEANS of others' ends.

How many critics would dare honestly state these ideas and say, " . . .and that's what I reject"?

 

[Katzndogz]

The same kind of venom is directed to all intelligen women and intelligent black people. Liberals despise intelligence.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

The highest tribute to Ayn Rand, abundantly in evidence here, is that her critics must distort everything she stood for in order to attack her. She advocated reason, not force; the individual's rights to freedom of action, speech, and association; self-responsibility, NOT self-indulgence; & a live-and-let-live society in which each individual is treated as an END, not the MEANS of others' ends.

How many critics would dare honestly state these ideas and say, " . . .and that's what I reject"?

Ayn Rand was against corporate welfare [supply side economics] and about as specific as it gets that fetuses have no rights, so she wasn't all bad.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit...is-sorely-missed-post7283199.html#post7283199

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Atlas Shrugged should have been a short story. It is by far the most repetitive drudgery ever written.

I would wager most of the alleged conservatives who fly her banner don't even realize she was a hardcore atheist objectivist, and that objectivism misses an understanding of human nature by a country mile.

I agree that Atlas Shrugged is a difficult read, thats probably why most liberals who claim to know what its about have never read it.

It's not a "difficult read" at all. A 4th grader could read it, if they had the patience.

It's a matter of bad writing, not "difficult" writing.

What she believed personally has very little to do with the message of the book.

Actually, the entire book is nothing more than a mouthpiece for her ridiculous philosophy.

Why do you think that personal responsibility and personal freedom are bad things?

Why do you think that personal success is bad?

Why do you believe that for one man to get rich another man has to be made poor?

Why are liberals unable to think logically?

I always find it pretty funny when people make statements like yours, then accuse the other side of "not thinking logically".

I don't think you understand what "logic" is.

 

[Sallow]

Hmm..

Ayn Rand's The Little Street

In 1928, the writer Ayn Rand began planning a novel called The Little Street, whose protagonist, Danny Renahan, was to be based on "what Hickman suggested to [her]." The novel was never finished, but Rand wrote notes for it which were published after her death in the book Journals of Ayn Rand. Rand wanted the protagonist of her novel to be "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."[4] Rand scholars Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Jennifer Burns both interpret Rand's interest in Hickman as a sign of her early admiration of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, especially since she several times referred to Danny (the character which Hickman 'suggested' to her) as a "Superman" (in the Nietzschean sense).[5][6][7]
William Edward Hickman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia