Politico: What Makes 2009 The Year of Ayn Rand?
What makes 2009 the Year of Ayn Rand is that there's a growing acceptance of the author's most stringent beliefs. Her fans disregard that Rand hated compromise — and therefore politics. She was an atheist and disdained libertarians, whom she deemed hippies and plagiarists. ("Please don't tell me they're pursuing my goals," Rand said in an interview. "I have not asked for, nor do I accept, the help of intellectual cranks.")
Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv, media with strong Randian roots, said Rand would probably hate her current moment in the spotlight. "As much as she hated people, she saved her true ire for those who were actually fans of hers," he said.
Whole story, with quotes from all sorts of pols, Objectivists, and hippies libertarians here.
Ayn Rand t-shirts still for sale!
Reason.tv's Radicals for Capitalism: Celebrating the Enduring Legacy of Ayn Rand's Ideas online here and here.
Hat tip: Alan Vanneman
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Maybe the Reason staff is playing a game of Simon Says – the first person to say anything that *doesn’t* relate to Rand loses – and none of the staff wants to lose.
So we can expect additional posts like:
Free trade and Ayn Rand T-Shirts
Donate to Reason – don’t think of it as altruism, think of it as enlightened self-interest!
Manny Kant was a hero to most but he’s just an antilife mystic to me/You gotta fight the power with Ayn Rand’s philosophy
Its not altruism.
You’re confusing charity with altruism. They aren’t the same.
Rand wasn’t opposed to charity. She was opposed to altruism. (but her critics didn’t understand the difference, or didn’t want to understand the difference).
They also don’t want to understand that the Rand-O-Rama was promoted here for weeks, and it follows several years of snarky Rand-bashing on this very same site.
Might as well rename the blog Hit & Rand.
Maybe – but at least they’re finally off the All Racism All The Time schtick. I’ll take what improvements I can get.
“Politico: What Makes 2009 The Year of Ayn Rand?”
I’m just glad 2009 is nearly over.
She was an atheist and disdained libertarians, whom she deemed hippies and plagiarists.
I recall the talk the widow of the late and great Rothbard gave telling how Rand threatened to sue Rothbard for plagiarism. Rothbard sought the council of Von Mises, who once informed of the substance of the idea laughed it off as being old before even he entered academia.
And, yeah, what’s up with the three Rand stories a day? You did that many in what a month just a season or two ago?
She disdained libertarians, whom she deemed hippies
More precisely, “hippies of the right.” That’s a distinction with a difference.