Why do we need an AYNtidote?by Floyd Blue
Because Paul Ryan's budget, and the entire new GOP vision is all based on bizarre worship of a Russian emigree (no, not Orlee Taitz), who hated commies, changed her name, came over here and fell in love with our skyscrapers bridges and machines, chain-smoked and did lots of meth, fancied herself a superior-thinking philosopher, and sadly, changed the world.
Why is she so important as to not be ignored?
Because she is still revered and worshipped by so many GOP lawmakers and Governors. She stills sells millions of copies.
It's a litmus test, when asked for their opinions on Ayn Rand. They had better say she is their favorite author, and that Atlas Shrugged is their favorite book. Like a Grover Norquist pledge, they had better give the right answer, or they are finished among their base.Like so many heroes, her "vision" has been distorted and her novel, a simple silly story about great machines and sex inside of a railway tunnel, has been fashioned into a philosophy.
That "philosophy" is harming our country every single day, as the GOP and Tea Partiers have warped her already-warped words into support of a Free Market flying unicorn, unfettered by whatever whatever, which is systematically being destroyed by President Obama.
In Ayn's world, there were great men, job creators, men who made machines and fine superior American products. Everyone else was a replaceable parasite, a drag on the economy and the wealth of the great men.She got a seriously swelled head, and started a little group of followers/true believers, who would sit around her apartment and read the manuscripts for her future work, Atlas Shrugged.
She was a chain smoking atheist, and insisted all of her followers smoked, to brazenly show man's conquest of fire. Her disciples would sit around her in utter awe and devotion (Alan Greenspan was one of these blind followers), wearing clothes of her fictional characters, buying furniture that she approved of, and basically fawning like rubes and schmucks. She was a fraud, who thought she found her romantic love in a married man (until he cheated on her, dumped her, and renounced her visions), and wanted all parasitic people (the 99%) crushed and eliminated, in favor of "great men", the makers of machines, the great minds, men of action. She supported a jailed serial child killer, praising him as bold and brave...a great man!
She derided anyone who needed public asssitance, or any entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, etc. ...until she died of lung cancer, miserable and alone, COLLECTING FEDERAL ENTITLEMENTS.
She was an ego out of control, whose very life disproved her own "philosophy". That same "philosophy" of objectivism and greed and pursuit-of-self-only has been proven utterly impractical, and it is harming our country every day now.
I am a patriotic Capitalist and I truly believe that the Antidote to Ayn is hard-working American ingenuity, Capitalism and growth in our economy, attention to supply AND demand, respect for life, and even the occasional (gasp) act of altruism.
