Ayn Rand And The 2012 Presidential Campaign
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-08-20/ayn-rand-and-2012-presidential-campaign
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has brought new attention to the philosopher Ayn Rand. Paul Ryan says as a young man he was inspired by Ayn Rand's writing. In her novels “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” she described the virtues of private enterprise and the evils of government. Those ideas resonated with Ryan, and in a campaign video from 2009 he said, "Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism, and this to me is what matters most." Ayn Rand was also an atheist, and Paul Ryan has distanced himself from Rand's religious views. But Ayn Rand remains an intriguing figure in American political thought. Senior fellow Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute, Slate political reporter David Weigel and Stanford history professor Jennifer burns join guest host Tom Gjelten to discuss her influence.
Guests
Onkar Ghate
senior fellow and vice president of intellectual leadership at the Ayn Rand Institute.
Jennifer Burns
assistant professor of history at Stanford University and author of "Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right."
David Weigel
political reporter for Slate.
Comments
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Forget these trivial concerns. I could give two craps who the philosophical flavor-of-the-month is for some politically groomed Trojan horse - let's see something get done in Congress (of which the aforementioned Trojan horse has been a part for over a decade). Fiscal conservative my hump. A professional lawyer/politician – nothing more, nothing less (if that was possible).
Here are some things a true patriot would do to save this union if allowed to stay in office for a dozen years:
#1: War Tax (let’s pay for these corporate resource expeditions)
#2: Abolish party association from ballots (minimum requirement is to know from which party the person you are voting for comes)
#3: 8-12 year term limit on all federal publicly elected office (Serve and then get a real job outside the beltway) I mean Ryan has been suckled at the teat of D.C. since he grabbed a diploma. This man is a farce. Have some dignity, do something, and move on.
You want to weaken the government and preserve liberty? Make it less appealing to become a professional leech, liar, and thief! Down with the two-party system and the madness is conceives!
Most of the commenters here are locked into the bipartisan battle of sheep in which each side tries to weaken the other without providing any concrete solutions or viable alternatives to the watered-down political tripe that floats in the decaying mass of our overburdened and impenetrable bureaucracy.
You want Liberty? Castrate (proverbially) the politicians so that they cannot hide behind party lines and reelection schemes and make them servants of the People they were elected to represent. Stop being sheep! WE are the government and we are getting what we deserve for allowing our children to have no understanding of civics or economics.
There are no children, no elderly, no weak human beings in the fiction of Ayn Rand. In the end, as an old woman, she was as vulnerable as the parasites she despised. Her philosophy leaves me sick to my stomach. I find her writings to be akin to the meanderings of a mentally ill, socially inept, sociopath. Any politician who claims to gather ideas from a woman who openly wrote about her admiration for serial killers should give us pause. A Republican Activist in Utah has just been arrest for date raping several women. I can't help but think he read Rand extensively.