Ayn Rand, Objectivist Principles and Capitalism

You need to get out more.

They belong to the literate fraction of the greater society, in all its variety, that remains when you have formed the subset of serious Rand admirers - a subset which encompasses a very narrow range of types, only attractive in adolescence when they still have potential.

Or, as the guy put it:

The oddest thing about Randites is how often and how closely their lives and careers and manifest worldviews (Christianity!?) and chosen political allegiances resemble those of the villains in one of Rand's "novels" (she might have been ahead of her time in one respect - the "graphic novel", in degraded form as glorified comic book, might have been her ideal medium). Look at Alan Greenspan's bio, Paul Ryan's, W's administration, the Tea Party pols in general. It's almost as if the repressed and festering envy Rand's villains would so often seem to have harbored toward her favored characters if such complexity had been possible for her has emerged as a political entity in the US.

Which grants her too much - fascism is much older and deeper and more solidly motivated than Rand's politics of the personal.

 

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Oh no! LOL.

 

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It's a sad state of affair.

 

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You're a hack. Tea party hack. A nonsense machine.

 

Heh. Truth is, I don't like Rand much either. Ssshhh. Don't tell anyone.
Also, somewhat interesting that you allude to my fascination, when there are many posters on the other side of the fence who can be relied upon to drop any pretense at civility as soon as her name is mentioned.
I like to wind them up. Watch how the responses change from the measured and controlled, to the bile driven angst one becomes more accustomed to. Sometimes, within the confines of a single page.
What is more real, do you think? Painstaking, measured responses? Or the vitriol often resulting as soon as a Rand thread starts?
there are those who will tel you that when a man loses control of himself, you have hit a nerve. I'm inclined to believe that a lot of the things Rand had to say about the likes of... you know who... is true simply because it's is often so obvious she hit a nerve somewhere.

One has no need to actually argue against Rand haters, is the thing. There is no arguing with them, in terms of so-called "civilised" argument. The divide between Rand supporters and detractors approaches the same level of conflict religion does. there is probably more than one reason there is a correlation between the two.

Apart from watching the Rand haters begin to slaver (which says so much more about them then it does her) you only need to read the more... "measured" responses, such as that of Iceaura.
Read it carefully. Very carefully. Do you not see it?

What I like about Rand, more than anything else and regardless of how much I agree with what she has to say (which is, to be open, a fair amount) is that she is one name one can rely upon when looking to determine the true nature of those you are speaking to. She strips away pretense, masks, and feigned civility.
You don't "apply her philosophy". You use her as a counterweight to those who insist you apply theirs.

Some guy said something up there about 14-year olds, and two books.
He'll never understand the influence Rand has had upon the way people actually think.
If there is one thing she has done successfully, it is to demonstrate so ably (if by nothing more than adversarial opinion), that there is more than one way to determine what respect is, or to whom one should direct respect.
Personally, The one thing I took from Rand at such a young age, is that there is no man I'll ever respect simply because he exists. And that there is more than one way to look upon an opinion. You look for motive. Particularly among the self-described selfless.

They're always the same people. They preach love, they preach understanding, they preach compassion, they preach respect. They hate Ayn Rand.
But they will only tolerate you within the confines of their own understanding. Within their rules. Within some twisted, hypocritcal version of the Hypocratic Oath that dictates you show respect to everyone, regardless of whether or not they deserve it. Most importantly, you must show respect to them. This theme is at the core of all their arguments.

The only way some can gain respect is be the beneficiary of the philosophical belief that everyone deserves it.

 

Yes. Madison Avenue's ad men need to study how the rich have been so successful in selling a system that enriches them; (Top 10% get half of all income) and gives the US the worst, by far, of all advanced nation's Gini index - I. e. the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few in spite of the clear existence of a more productive* per person, social economic system (Scandinavian social democracy.) that has been demonstrated for more than 100 years.

As they say: "Ignorance is Bliss." (Bliss for the already very rich, and ignorance for the masses of voters in the US's social/economic system.)

Here is life global rank (1 = longest lived) and life expectancy data from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

#7 Iceland with 83.3 years.
#10 Sweden with 83.0 years
#17 Norway with 81.9 years
# 23 Finland with 81.0 years

#35 USA with 79.8 years.** The average of the top four Scandinavian countries is (83.3+83+81.9+81)/4 = 82.3 or 2.5 years more than in the USA.
Interestingly world's happiest people, the Danes, who drink a lot of aquavit, eat a lot of pork, and smoke a lot (including Pot in legal drug outlets/ bars) are slightly below USA at #37.

* Go here to see list 119 privately owned Swedish companies:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Sweden
And note that the population of the well educated Swedes who created them is less than half that of the NYC area! More than 1/3 are very well known important international companies, including: Ikea, Volvo, Electrolux, Saab, Skype, Tetrapack, Errison, AstraZeneca, Huskavar (world leader in chain saws),SwedishMatch(world leader in wooden matches), Hasselblad (World's best film cameras) and half a dozen software companies. - Not bad for a highly creative and productive well educated population of less than 10 million!

I made privately owned bold as many brain-washed Americans think "social democracy" = communism, with government ownership of the "means of production." In Sweden 95% of all companies are privately owned. The government owns a few basic ones like post office, much of the transportation system and some of the power companies (I think).

BTW, Sweden has so few in prison, that they are now in the process of closing four un-needed prisons; but don't let facts interfere with your chanting:
" USA, USA, USA, - We are the greatest. " (Chants are well known form of self indoctrination that help keep the top 10% with more than half the income of the US.)

** Other sources like CIA fact book give US life expectance of only 77.9 years. That is 4.4 years less than the average of 4 main Scandinavian countries. Why I say "more than 3 years more life expectancy at less than half the total cost." Again I note for those who did not read post 59, that the average Scandinavian Debt to GDP ratio is less than 50% while that of the USA is more than 100% - Don't you think they have a much better system? Or do you prefer the "Goodies Now! Send the bill to the not yet born who don't vote." US system?

 

The Average life expectancy in Japan is 86.5. A full 4 years more than these Scandinavian countries. Why? The Average life expectancy of White Americans living in Washington DC is 83.1 years. Why? Or a full 0.8 years more life compared against these Scandinavian countries. West Virginia OTOH is 75.1. Nearly a decade lower.

I don't recall the Scandinavians drooling at the chops to invade Korea (and lose), invade Vietnam over a complete lie (and lose), invade Afghanistan (and lose), invade Iraq over a complete lie (and lose). I con't recall the Scandinavians building a multi-million dollar website, pretend it was a functioning healthcare website, and then fleece their populace out of $300 million. Nope. That shit only happens in the good ole' dumb-arse USSA. I'm also pretty sure any schools in a Scandinavian country that attempted to graduate functional illiterates would be shut down in short order.

Get this, as a 'Free' adult you can get on your bike and ride your bike in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland *GASP* without a helmet! Try doing that in "Progressive" Socialist New York or California. Nope. You'd be lucky if the police State didn't shoot you in the head. You can get on a bus in Germany without showing a ticket. Why? Because it's assumed you paid. You can walk in ANY city in Japan at midnight without fear of being mugged. Many Japanese I know don't even lock their houses - or can't!

We are not them.
They are not us.

Just like they are not Japan and die 4 years earlier because of it. And guess what, you're never going to turn Scandinavians into Japanese. And you're never going to turn lying, cheating American warmonger morons into honest, hardworking, educated Scandinavians.

 

Where did you get the life expectancy data for white males in Washington DC or West Virginia? You have been known to fudge and misrepresent data Michael.

I don’t recall Americans doing that either.

That’s probably because Scandinavian nations have universal healthcare. Actually, functional illiteracy in Scandinavian countries varies between 8% - 10% as opposed to the US which has a functional illiteracy rate of 20%. Most schools in Scandinavia are public schools too – you know, run by “govment”.

LOL, as you know some of those countries do regulate and require bicycle helmets. And there are places in the US where helmets are not mandatory as well.

Ok, so it might be easier to cheat the bus system in Germany, is there a point?

.

The point remains; the evidence shows the US healthcare system is very inefficient and increasingly ineffective. And European “socialized” and Asian “socialized” healthcare systems are more efficient and more effective that the US healthcare model. And the point remains, you cannot point to a single example of a successful libertarian healthcare model.

 

The Japanese do have the greatest life expectancy of any nation, and good public health care like Scandinavians, but when they migrate to the US, their American children have little if any difference in life expectancy from other Americans. They live longer mainly because of their diet and perhaps some because of communal modest exercise, even when old.

 

The "same people"? As I am the only named poster in this category of "they" who are "always the same", it may be relevant to point out to you that I have spent no time here preaching respect, compassion, or love - and also I do not hate Ayn Rand, any more than I hate the author of the Tarzan novels or the Tom Swift books or the Just So Stories or The Once and Future King. I can even observe that the Tom Swift books and Ayn Rand novels are badly written, while the Tarzan original and Just So Stories are not, without implying hatred of any authors whatsoever.

So you are - what's the term, oh yeah - wrong. In error. Badly mistaken. How do you suppose that happened?

Thing is: I have not seen the head of a major Federal oversight agency completely fuck up his job and wreck his country's economy and hurt so many people so badly by making decisions directly guided by his adherence to Edward Stratemeyer's adolescent philosophizing, or the social insights of Edgar Rice Burroughs's tales for boys. I don't think someone who publicly claimed to have acquired his major political inspiration and ambition and fundamental guidance from "The Jungle Book", or even "The Once and Future King", would be raised to such positions of responsibility or lauded in such manner as so many Rand devotees have been.

I do hold the adult men with political power who ground childishly destructive political ideologies and justify ugly abuses of their fellow citizens by way of Ayn Rand's supposed "objectivist principles" in contempt. Are you perhaps mistaking that contempt for hatred of the author of the "The Fountainhead"?

So there appears to be a significant flaw in your employment of Rand's writing as a litmus test of - what was your term - "social subset". You appear to be incapable, for example, of describing that subset. And that flaw would be, in my observation, that you actually buy into her writing, as an adult - you think, for example, the set of Atlas Shrugged fans is a wide and varied range of people for whom it makes reasonable and adult sense, while the people who find Rand's serious influence in the affairs of grownups and State governance to be alarming is a "social subset" of no great range or variety, with a few notable character traits in common all.

You post here, for example, that you think people who despise the political influence of Ayn Rand devotees are deficient in their appreciation of genuine heroic and individual achievement - a bizarre misapprehension perhaps correctable with moderate doses of Chaim Potok or the like (compare "My Name is Asher Lev" with "The Fountainhead", or observe the readership of Richard Feynman biography, maybe).

So far so good - you were 14? Fair enough. Part of what you were supposed to go on to, in adult literature, is the nature and range and variety of those motives - so that you would have some idea of what you are looking for, and an ability to recognize it, and an appreciation for how perception of motive can change one's perception of opinion and vice versa. Otherwise, you might end up thinking people are claiming to be selfless when they disparage the influence of greed, or motivated by envy when they recommend heavily taxing rich people to fund government services. You might have read Marx next, and come to see how economic class is a factor in the mutual relationship of opinion and motive. You might notice, say, that the opinion "black people are lazy reliants on welfare" has a different basis in motive among the rich in the US than it has among the poor, or that the heroes of the wish-fulfillment science fiction novel "Atlas Shrugged" look much different to ghetto adult women than they do to suburban teenage boys.

One obvious factor is the high level of socialized medical care available to most white DC residents, not enjoyed by West Virginians in general. Another is the much greater wealth of white DC residents compared with both the average Scandinavian and the West Virginians.

Rich people with socialized medicine live longer than poor people without socialized medicine.

 

Except it's not socialized medicine for the rich because we don't have socialized medicine. If we did have socialized medicine then they'd have a lower life expectancy.

What we have instead is one group of people (federal employees) using force against another group of people (private citizens) to pay for the tail-end remnants of what was, at one time, some of the best and cheapest medicine in the world. The kind of medicine many highly socialized countries only drempt of replicating. One we took for granted and turned into a rent-seekers wet-dream. As a matter of fact, it's become such a rent-seeking market that there are hundreds of thousands of students all across the USSA wasting decades of their lives, subsidizing our medical research interests, with their $100s of billions of dollars of wasted tuition on nearly useless undergraduate degrees in biology that they use to get a waiter job with (they never did like math).

Thus, the more apt comparison would be the wealthy elite from countries with socialized medicine (ex: Chinese Communist plutocrat or Sultan of KSA) that fly to the USSA and obtain the best healthcare that money can buy. See, our Federal Employees are really no different than any other counties corrupt bureaucracy. Our Federal Public "Servants/Masters" get access to the same level of medical care as a Sultan of KSA or a Communist Plutocrat (which many are) while the rest of the general public get's shit public service, shit public hospitals that are just as likely as to kill you off then return you to health - oh, and the bill for our political masters state-of-the-art fascistic healthcare.

#3 reason you die = Amerikkkan Healthcare

 

Most of the white residents of DC enjoy government paid health care, and a large fraction of them get it from government owned and run clinics and hospitals. The DC area is among the richest in the US for white people.

Nobody else has found that to be true, on the entire planet and throughout history. Why do you think it would happen in the US, when even in the US the exact opposite happened after Medicare and the VA and Social Security?

 

Ok. I pointed you out because your writing is actually a little more ... whats the word I'm looking for... measured? no...hmmmm...
Believable. See, you're the type who can influence opinion. Like Tiassa. doesn't mean I have any more respect for you than anyone else, it means i have to take care not to give you any more creedence (clearwater, revival) than you deserve.
It means I know you're the type others are going to read and pay attention to. Hence the reference.
Don't take it to heart, man. I'm not disrespecting you, I'm disrespecting them for reading you.
Who are "they"? Who cares.

Backatcha.

Ok, now, here's what you should know.

The author of a book or three is not responsible for those who claim to have read and understood that book.
This is akin to you decrying the actions of those who claim to read the bible once and then proceeded to destroy a village in the name of god because the village mayor claimed to be a christian.
You idiot. You can not detract from someone who has written a work of philosophy because some of her followers have acted only in accordance of their own understanding of it.
Don't you get it? This is exactly the type of... "thought"... which has led to Abrahamism being what it is today.
Do not perpetuate that shit.

No. But you're in this thread because you saw Rand's name. Same as me.
Don't deny it. I'll call you out as a liar.

Again, No. I simply refuse to. They show themselves. They already have shown themselves. You either get it, or you don't. I'm not going to force down any particular pathways, and particaulrly not while I'm guzzling a bottle of Tullamore Dew.
Do you really think it's you I'm speaking to? Still telling yourself you're speaking to me? Do you really think I give a damn about anyone other than those who, whether I know of it or not, laugh just a little at those who have posted in this thread?

Some parts of it, yes.
Now tell me which parts I buy into. That's the measure, you see.
Don't tell me who you are not. Tell me who you are.
You see, Iceaura, there's only one side of this equation you come down on. Almost as predictably as I'll come down on the other.

Wow... Read again, and interpret for me please? I'm half way through a bottle of and I still can't make head nor tail of it.

Nah, just kidding. I do actually understand your... point.
And no, I do no such thing.
I'd tell you what I find "alarming", only... there is a problem. I'd have to write a novel.

I wonder, sometimes, if Rand's mistake wasn't as simple as alienating people who actually have half a brain. Because in my view there is no doubt whatsoever she at least acted a a counterpoint to...
well, perhaps even you.
I know you're winning. It's ok, I won't even be alive when y'all get your way.

I have a question, though, for you.
I wonder. Do you think "Gattaca" could be the result of people like me? Or you?
You're going to have to provide your reasoning in response. How about you show me what you have. Just for something different.

Take a look at this thread again.
Do you honestly think those here despising her political influence appreciate individual achievement outside their own philosophical preference?
Do you want to know what the attraction is to some philosophies? I'll tell you. It's that there are those philosophies which grow more a result of their devotees than their initiators.

And you are, what... name dropping here? If you're attempting to demonstrate you're more well read than I am, then go for it. There are many here who would no doubt be.
Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that will help you. Also, don't ever think that discussing the readership of Feynman will help you with regard to Rand's views.
It's so hard to say, time and time again... over and over. Rand wouldn't have given a floaty gold shit about what Feynman's readership would have thought of him. And that is one thing so many of these idiots in this thread never seem to be able to grasp.

Yes... and? I thought I'd said that, perhaps in another thread, somewhere... elsewhere. Sheesh. So many times one has to go through this, one tends to forget where one actually has.
Unfortunately, all one has in the way of reply these days, and far too often couched in rhetoric disguised as wisdom, is that when one "grows up" one will understand.
Which is, unfortunately, what I have by way of reply here.

Did you just see a number, expressed as age, and stop thinking?
Preconceptions are far more particular to age, not youth.

Well, yes, you're quite correct. The heroes of Rand appear differently to ghetto women than they do to suburban teenage boys..
In much the same way a Roman emperor appeared differently to Germanic tribesmen than he did to Romans at the battle of the Teutoberg Forest.
uh... duh?

The "heroes" of Rand are the ones who gave those ghetto women the ability to watch Oprah fucking Winfrey on their Tv's every day while they're whinging amongst themselves about how poor and disadvantaged they are.
It isn't Rand giving the USA that sense of entitlement they have which is gradually spreading to every other nation on Earth. It's begun to make itself felt even where I live.


Nobody gives a flying fuck about the opinions of ghetto women, other than yourself and those like you, because, in all honesty, their comfort has absolutely nothing to do with "advancement" in general.
They contribute nothing. they give, nothing. they simply are.
They benefit from those who are more than they are.
And you.... think they have value. Other than in giving birth to a zillion more children on a planet which already has too many.

Some people do, others are. The next generation of those who are are the result of those who did.
You, and those like you, want to make the "are" more important than the "do", by means of curtailing the ability of those who do to do and perpetuating the perecption that those who are, are really important.
It is not Ayn Rand who has a generation of Americans sitting on a couch watching Oprah Winfrey tell them they're all special snowflakes. Oh, no.
Yet those who are in this thread claiming to have read and understood Rands will be claiming it is.

Perhaps this statement gives more evidence of your understanding than anything else.
What the hell has this got to do with Ayn Rand?
Why don't you demonstrate here, right now, how you think this is relevant.
Go.

 

Why do liberals just assume white skin is the source of all evils?

In the NBA, most of the players are black. This is not because of some black conspiracy, but it is simply because these black males work harder and are the best in this sport. It is all about free market forces and a form of natural selection. All have the same rules and chances. There are no quotas to game the system. Washington has laws on the books that prevent discrimination because of race and sex. Liberals also created laws of quota's based on race and sex preference, which is a paradox and implies discrimination. Liberals have a paper trail to mark their laws of discrimination based on sex and race.

Based on this logical inconsistency, I would guess that liberals project white racism, because they do not believe in the free market, but rather believe in centralized control. The liberals claim not to be racists, yet created quota laws based on race. It is a used car salesman making a false claim. What they accuse others of, which is forbidden by law, is what they have done using the law.

The bottom-line is the free market results in more blacks in many sports because they have the most talent. Nobody in business wants to hire and feature second rate talent since this will not make money. Competition is tough and you need to compete. This is not centralized planning but natural selection. Stacking the deck and cheating with hypocrisy is what the liberals do, as reflected by quotas. They project what they do.

Any Rand was more about free enterprise, so the cream rises to the top, like in nature. Government can make laws that, like bubbling air into pond water, allows the sediments and scum to rise to the top. We need to get rid of the hot air so the sediment settles and the cream rises as it will.

Say we added political hot air to the NBA, to make the league more like social demographics. We hot air need more women, other races, children and elderly in the league due to some emotional abstraction. This abstraction allows sediment to rise; second rate leaders. With this new demographics, forced by law, the blacks that remain continue to dominate due to natural talent. Now you will need to change the rules, because it will be very obvious that the original NBA was not based on race, sex or age preference, like the hot air, but because of natural talent. More hot air needs to added via laws to handicap the best players. The pond scum rising is the scam artists who benefit by the race baiting.

 

@ wellwisher,

The Free Market defines what the cream is and then sells us the cream. Too many times what the Free Market sells us is nothing but pond scum masquerading as cream, and being the good little consumers that we are, we lap it up. How a society lets the Free Market place a value of a gazillion dollars on a sport athlete, CEO, celebrity, etc..., is nothing more than criminal while poverty and hunger still exist.

 

This isn't a playground, where clueless misdescription is backed by physical presence and therefore can commit "disrespect". Your only presence here is your posting, and at that level of obliviousness cannot disrespect anything but other people's time.

I did mention the relevant one or two. You missed that? How?

OK: One of the parts you buy into is her description of those who disparage her influence on adult political behavior (that they are "all the same people", a "social subset", preach compassion, etc, while advancing a particular agenda of deception they do not admit, and so forth). You have swallowed that wholesale from her writings, and regurgitated it here practically verbatim. It's quite obviously mistaken, was the observation - which makes it easy to spot as derived from Rand's writings (flagrant and specific error is much less likely to be the result of convergent reasoning than plausible argument from common observation).

But I wasn't discussing Feynman's biographer's readership (not Feynman's, of course) with regard to Rand's views of anything, but with regard to your views of Rand's critics as posted here in all their simple, physical, demonstrable error. Rand's critics are not as you describe them, here or anywhere - (and my observation that you have internalized Rand's "arguments" receives repetitive verification).

Like this:

Like I said, you need to get out more. This is cluelessness on stilts - in an adult, or an adult's writings.

I'm not.

My criticism of Rand's novels themselves, as opposed to the influence of them on the behavior of her "followers" (pretty much all of them) was limited to the observation that they aren't as well written as some others in the "young adult" category. I never said they weren't suitable for their audience - teenage boys - or their proper role in the world.

Strongly influencing the decisions and behavior of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, justifying the policies and legislative programs of the Republican Party, guiding the formulation of executive oversight policy for the US as a nation, is not a reasonable role for such writings. If you want to absolve Rand herself for such aberrant influences, as one would absolve J K Rowling from the consequences of a school's allowing its twelve-year-olds to fly rocket powered sticks in team combat, you can do that without misdescription of Rand's critics, surely?

Uh, OK - so then the next generation of those who do are the result of those who are, apparently - Rand's heroes being childless, and the raising of children being so vehemently excluded from the world of what is "done".

 

Just who is a “liberal”, anyone who disagrees with you? And where is your evidence that liberals assume white skin is the source of all evils? I think that is more right wing fantasy than anything resembling reality.

You were doing ok, until you threw in quotas. Quotas have been out for decades now.

Oh no, it’s that infamous conservative paranoia showing its ugly head again. And free markets have nothing to do with racism.

It helps to have some subject matter knowledge. Quotas ended in 1978 with a ruling issued by a “liberal” US Supreme Court with the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke ruling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_California_v._Bakke

That is just more twisted irrational right wing thinking.

 

This isn't a playground? Then what the hell is it?
I'm disrespecting my time simply by being here. Replying to the likes of you. Of course, I do have the excuse that I'm as drunk as a monkey's uncle. What's yours?

... someday, I'm going to have to meet this monkey's uncle.
Perhaps even the monkey.

Fair enough. I did do that, and while I think (actually, I know) this because I've actually read Rand... as opposed to those who claimed to have, and by simple observation, that I'm probably correct. But would you please explain why this:

wasn't worthy of similar comment? Or perhaps those you perceive to be on "your side" are immune to prosecution. Thing is, you see, that what I said had more truth to it than what they said. Point being, there aren't any "real" Rand supporters here at all. Most of them have better things to do. Here's something else... most of those who have read Rand and actually understood her, wouldn't be in government either. That these threads always seem to devolve into political rhetoric is rather amusing.

But you're here... attacking me. Now go look in a mirror. The thing you'll find staring back at you is one thing I intensely dislike.

So go ahead. Point out those parts of her writings you feel are quite obviously mistaken.
While you're at it, misrepresent again which parts of those writings I've "bought into". Verbatim? Show me. Show everyone.

Thing is, you go on about people swallowing a writer verbatim, but you don't allow for the possibility of said writer being an influence, rather than a bible. You'll sit there and find things you don't like about Rand in order to "prove" she's an idiot. What you won't do, is concede that there are things she said which are quite observant and can be seen every day when you take the time to actually survey your fellow man.
That's why you're an idiot. Your mind is closed. And you're in this thread because you saw the name "Rand", and you wanted to know what was being said.
Like I said... same as me.

*Snort* Rand's critics have been very well described here. They've described themselves, I didn't need to type anything other than something like this - in order to point it out for those who actually have eyes.
That you can say "Rands critics are not as you describe them, here or anywhere" speaks volumes. And, frankly, has just given me a reason not to bother with you beyond this post.

I actually said I read her when I was about fourteen. I haven't read her since.
The point is, though, that for a fourteen year old, Rand actually did give me (and many others) another point of view.
You're like the bloody Christians. You'd like to burn every book which doesn't gel completely with your own point of view. Let's not allow those poor unformed minds read anything other than what you deem suitable. Let's not allow any perspective beyond our own.

Someone said "Well educated and well informed voters are the best antiseptics in the fight against stupidity, ineptitude, and corruption".
Thing is, Rand detractors think that only applies to themselves.

Yes, you are.

So, with all you've written above, you now say "pretty much all of them". And, apparently, only those ideas which are well written and expressed deserve any attention.
By all means, continue to expose yourself. I'm enjoying you.

Oh. Fine, ok.
So... what is? Something which gels more completely with your own particular political views, obviously?

As I said, in case you missed it, the exercise is rather pointless. Apart from the fact that I don't own any of her books, I'm not on any particular crusade... which is, as an aside, very much the province of her detractors as much as it is her supporters.
I've mentioned this before, in other threads (there are so many of them!) - you can always spot someone who claims to have read Rand but actually hasn't. Or, of course, there is always the possibility they're simply incapable of intellectual absorption.

Uh, no.

... not even worth bothering with.

 

This, incidentally, is almost exactly what I'm talking about.

While they might be worthwhile discussions, they aren't pertinent to a Rand thread.

That any thread involving Rand always contains these discussions in the background speaks volumes regarding the understanding of Rand herself. It's like going into a thread about Christianity and seeing hundreds of posts about the Roman Empire.

 

Then why is it you are always cheerleading the fairy tales and those who tell them?