I propose a simple maxim for all those sound in mind and warm in heart -- that is, for most of us. It is this: Do not further the career of any man or women who is in any way influenced by Ayn Rand. Following this maxim would have spared us Alan Greenspan, whose free market obsession caused him to fail to see the Internet bubble and the housing bubble. It would have spared us SEC Commissioner Chris Cox, on whose watch Bernie Madoff played havoc.
It would have spared us Clarence Thomas, who required his interns to read The Fountainhead. It would have spared us Rush Limbaugh. It would have spared us Barry Goldwater, who said, "I do not propose to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom." It would have spared us Terry Sanford, who disappeared amorously to the wilds of Argentina.
And it will spare us Paul Ryan, who made his interns read Atlas Shrugged.
Overachievers all. The biggest overachiever, however, was Ayn Rand herself. This inauspicious lady, who inspires people of a certain bent, wrote two amateurish, critically-ravaged novels that made their way to Hollywood. In those novels and in other writings she espoused a philosophy she called objectivism, which, simply stated, called for everyone to pursue his/her happiness without regard for anyone else.
Charity is out. Compassion is out. Jesus Christ is way out. Government is out. "The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is to keep hands off."
The lady was such a kook that she wrote admiringly in her journals of William Edward Hickman. This non-gentleman was a serial killer whose most famous crime was the dismemberment of a 12-year-old girl. "He has the true, innate philosophy of a Superstar, "she wrote. "He had no regard for all that society holds sacred." Models for the intense rugged individualists -- John Galt of Atlas Shrugged and Howard Roark of The Fountainhead.
Now I do not suggest that Paul Ryan, for he is the one in question here, would be an admirer of William Edward Hickman. In fact, Mr. Ryan has publicly disagreed with three of Ayn Rand's important beliefs. He is religious, where she was not; he is strongly pro-life, where she supported a woman's right to choose; he is for spending mightily on defense, where she was anti-war. I would say that he has swallowed the ugly core of Ayn Rand and rejected her few pleasant offsets.
In no other country in this large world of ours is there a meaningful audience for Ayn Rand. Fellow Americans, this is not something to be proud of.
Remember the maxim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1KGfnn3cbc
Meanwhile, I will respond to this error: "he is for spending mightily on defense, where she was anti-war. "
No. Rand was a mighty hawk for our nation, in any war of defense, and in preparation for any such war. She was furious about the Viet Nam debacle, not because she was "anti-war" but because we did not go all out with every means to win it, including backing down Red China and Soviet Russia.
In the 1920s, when Rand was newly from Russia and learning the language, she followed a sensationalist case that was all over the LA newspapers. Like the OJ trial of our time, the central figure was believed by many to be innocent. Ladies groups and the like went on public campaigns against the kid, and it was generally hysteria. It was Rand's first exposure to a media circus, and THAT is what interested her. Her story was not planned to be about Hickman or modeled on Hickman, who she called "degenerate", but what the Hickman circus suggested to her -- a young man attacked from all sides & defiantly throws it back in the mobs face; a anti-collectivist type story. In her tale the man would be innocent.
This was in private journals unpublished until years after her death -- she hadn't written a single novel or figured out her philosophy, or learn English or understand America. In her home country criminals were men who tried to survive despite the planned starvations -- read her eventual novel We the Living to understand.
The modern left drops the context of this obscure Journal entry to smear Rand despite thousands of pages of her mature writing, every word of which speaks to the inviolability of individual rights and the evil of initiating force. This cannot be honest. It's a cynical and grotesque lie.
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/08/25/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-is-the-greatest-business-leader-of-our-time/
You'll have to try harder than that. Leftists have traditionally idolized sociopaths and mass murderers like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and the wannabes like Che Guevara. In fact Che's image showed up all over those Occupy derelict camps last year.
>In no other country in this large world of ours is there a meaningful audience for Ayn Rand.
Rand has many fans among India's emerging middle class. The publication Foreign Policy had an article about Rand's popularity in India in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue.