If there is any intellectual of the last 100 years who scares the Left, it is Ayn Rand. One needs only to search her name on the internet and they will find that she is perhaps more abused and insulted than Milton Friedman and Reagan. Often the charges that most attack her with can be boiled down to “She believes that people should be self-centered bastards and not give a damn about anyone else.”
While anyone who has taken the time to read her fiction and nonfiction works knows that the above claim isn’t accurate, the fact that Rand is the target of so many wannabe-commentators reveals the amount of anger that the woman brings out in the Left. The question honestly begs to be asked – why? Why does this Russian immigrant, who died in 1982, bring Liberals to the use of such vitriol and character assassination?
The answer is actually quite simple – she makes sense. She is to Socialism what David was to Goliath and the Left simply doesn’t know how to respond to her except to demagogue and paint her as a puppet to the elitists. Unlike some of the more pacifistic fighters for the Right and Libertarianism Rand doesn’t hold back, if anything she removes the veil that the Progressive and Socialist movement has used for decades – the veil of “the Greater Good”. It had been this façade that left far too many Conservatives stammering during the New Deal, with the passing of Social Security, and the growth of Welfare. However she tore it off with her philosophy of the Individual and showed the true face of the Left with her novels.
Rand explained that Capitalism is the only Moral Economic System because unlike Socialism, Feudalism, Communism, Welfare Statism, and the Mixed Economy, Capitalism treats people as Individuals and not the sacrificial animals that all the other systems did. She preached that instead of appeasing everyone else, that one should live for his own happiness. That Innovation is created by Free Individuals and not Government coercion.
This is what infuriates the Left. Ayn makes clear how the “Good Intentions” of government regulation often lead to worldly Hell. Her novella “Anthem” shows how government constraint goes against progress. And her magna opus “Atlas Shrugged” paints the end result of a society that doesn’t give Individuals their freedom. In short, she kills the Left’s Utopian ideals with logic.
It was nearly fifty years ago that Whitaker Chambers savaged “Atlas Shrugged” in the National Review and separated the Conservative Movement from Rand. Now we are beginning to see the reemergence of Randian ideas with the Tea Party and members of the Republican Party who are influenced by her like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. It is time for the Right to admit it and embrace it – Rand is right.
I think the thing the Left hates about Rand is that she made it absolutely clear that the government, the means of the Left’s power, has no ultimate power except the gun - force. The producers of value hold the final trump card in society. When they say “no more,” the Left is shown for the fraud it is. They have nothing to seduce people with since there’s nothing to hand out.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel, Rearden revealed the Left’s fear when he stopped sanctioning their theft of his property. If they wanted it, they had to take it by force - for all to see. That, above all, was what they did not want people to see/know.
Not surprising that the Left hates Ayn Rand. What is more surprising is the hatred that some on the Right have for Rand. In the last few years, Commentary Magazine, The New Criterion, and National Review have published smears of Ayn Rand that outdo anything published by the Left.
ReplyDelete@Principlex - I believe you're quite right, though I would have to say that the Right hasn't been scared to use Force in some instances either.
ReplyDelete@Anon - I wouldn't say they outdo it, but they do go after her and it's really very sad.
Unfortunately, Ron and Rand Paul hijacked her work just as they've done to our Constitution and Founding Fathers;
ReplyDeletePaul may be an isolationist, but the Founders weren't http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/paul-may-be-isolationist-founders-werent/2054211
Ron Paul-Economic Hypocrite http://bit.ly/tAMyPa
What Ron Paul Thinks of America http://on.wsj.com/uRqlYU
To Get Ron Paul's Insanity, You Have To Understand Libertarianism
Libertarianism is to authentic conservatism what Barack Obama is to 19th century liberalism
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/to_get_ron_paul_you.html#ixzz1i5mU4gpM
Mischief Voters Push Paul To Front Of GOP Race
http://bit.ly/soNidH
I highly disagree. Ayn Rand didn't believe that governments should be so happy to send their citizens to die. She herself was against the draft (as am I).
ReplyDeleteThis is a common fallacy. Ron Paul is a Non-Interventionist. To be Isolationist would mean you don't trade or anything with other countries. And the Fact is that Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison for a while were all Non-Interventionists. They didn't believe in intervening in other countries.
And lastly, Modern Libertarianism is equal to the Paleo-Conservativism (before WWII) and Classical Liberalism (the idea of most founding fathers).
I believe Rand and Ron Paul are more like the founding fathers than any other politicians currently. Even Glenn Beck said that about Ron Paul.