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http://www.dailykos.com/story/...inst-the-Common-Good

"One conservative making that point was Ryan. His citation of Rand was not casual. He's a Rand nut. In the days before his star turn as America's Accountant, Ryan once appeared at a gathering to honor her philosophy, where he announced, "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand." He continues to view Rand as a lodestar, requiring his staffers to digest her creepy tracts."

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Another Ayn Rand disciple was Alan Greenspan.

A pro-abortion atheist who touted GREED as a virtue, Ayn Rand has somehow become an icon to many right wing evangelicals. Go figure.

Mainstream conservatives understandably resisted Rand's disordered value system:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/04...nd-was-loathed-by-th
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But many of the Tea Party know-nothing wingers of today haste to love up on Rand. Ah, well, fads do come and go.

"In 2009 Rand began popping up all over the Tea Party movement. Sales of her books skyrocketed, and signs quoting her ideas appeared constantly at rallies. Conservatives asserted that the events of the Obama administration eerily paralleled the plot of Atlas Shrugged, in which a liberal government precipitates economic collapse."

READ MORE:

http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...-budget-plan/237082/
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Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them

Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping “moral philosophy” that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.

“Morally and economically,” wrote Rand in a 1972 newsletter, “the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.”

Journalist Patia Stephens wrote of Rand:

[She] called altruism a “basic evil” and referred to those who perpetuate the system of taxation and redistribution as “looters” and “moochers.” She wrote in her book “The Virtue of Selfishness” that accepting any government controls is “delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.”

Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism.

Evva Joan Pryor, who had been a social worker in New York in the 1970s, was interviewed in 1998 by Scott McConnell, who was then the director of communications for the Ayn Rand Institute. In his book, 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, McConnell basically portrays Rand as first standing on principle, but then being mugged by reality.

“She was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didn’t like, which was Medicare and Social Security,” Pryor told McConnell. “I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on – with gusto – we argued all the time.

“She had to see that there was such a thing as greed in this world. Doctors could cost an awful lot more money than books earn, and she could be totally wiped out by medical bills if she didn’t watch it. Since she had worked her entire life, and had paid into Social Security, she had a right to it.

But at least she put up a fight before succumbing to the imperatives of the real world – one in which people get sick, and old, and many who are perfectly decent and hardworking don't end up being independently wealthy.

Now we know that Rand was also just as hypocritical as the Tea Party freshman who railed against “government health care” to get elected and then whined that he had to wait a month before getting his own Cadillac plan courtesy of the taxpayers.

But, as I note in my book, The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy, that's par for the course. A central rule of the U.S. political economy is that people are attracted to the idea of “limited government” in the abstract—and certainly don’t want the government intruding in their homes—but they really, really like living in a society with adequately funded public services.

That's just as true for an icon of modern conservatism as it is for a poor mother getting public health care for her kids.

http://www.alternet.org/teapar...when_she_needed_them
quote:
Originally posted by Winston Niles Rumfoord:
Yeah, we saw that over on the TNF.

But if she had paid into those government programs under the force of law all of her working years, why wouldn't she want to recover some small portion of her own money?

And she's much much beternU.


Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.

When life doesn't go according to plan, and there are no other options, I suppose any preacher is capable of forgetting what was preached in a lifetime preaching.
Tomorrow, 15 April, marks the premier of two films -- Atlas Shrugged and Scream 4. Someone has an ironic sense of humor.

If. Ragnar Danneskjöld, could rob ships to retrieve taxes unfairly taken, then his creator has little problem retrieving a bit of the taxes taken from her. Especially, social security, what a rip-off.

Atlas Shrugged will play in these theaters tomorrow:

Birmingham
Rave Motion Pictures Lee Branch 15
801 Doug Baker Blvd, Birmingham, AL 35242
Gulf Shores
Cobb Pinnacle 14
3780 Gulf Shores Parkway, Gulf Shores, AL 36542
Huntsville
Rave Motion Pictures Valley Bend 18
1485 Four Mile Road SE, Huntsville, AL 35802
Mobile
Wynnsong 16
785 South Schillinger Rd, Mobile , AL 36695
Montgomery
Rave Motion Pictures Festival 16
7925 Vaughn Road, Montgomery, AL 36116
Orange Beach
Rave Motion Picture Warf 15
23151 Wharf Lane, Orange Beach, AL 36561
Tuscaloosa
Cobb Hollywood 16 & IMAX
4250 Old Greensboro Road, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405

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quote:
Originally posted by elinterventor01:
Tomorrow, 15 April, marks the premier of two films -- Atlas Shrugged and Scream 4. Someone has an ironic sense of humor.

If. Ragnar Danneskjöld, could rob ships to retrieve taxes unfairly taken, then his creator has little problem retrieving a bit of the taxes taken from her. Especially, social security, what a rip-off.

Atlas Shrugged will play in these theaters tomorrow:

Birmingham
Rave Motion Pictures Lee Branch 15
801 Doug Baker Blvd, Birmingham, AL 35242
Gulf Shores
Cobb Pinnacle 14
3780 Gulf Shores Parkway, Gulf Shores, AL 36542
Huntsville
Rave Motion Pictures Valley Bend 18
1485 Four Mile Road SE, Huntsville, AL 35802
Mobile
Wynnsong 16
785 South Schillinger Rd, Mobile , AL 36695
Montgomery
Rave Motion Pictures Festival 16
7925 Vaughn Road, Montgomery, AL 36116
Orange Beach
Rave Motion Picture Warf 15
23151 Wharf Lane, Orange Beach, AL 36561
Tuscaloosa
Cobb Hollywood 16 & IMAX
4250 Old Greensboro Road, Tuscaloosa, AL 35405

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Good post.
I hope the flick is going to be as good as the book.

Keep Marching,
Skippy

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