Ayn Rand and Altas Shrugged are more dangerous to our republic than Hitler and Mein Kampf

[white_wolf]

I know some people will likely say I am overreacting, because Ayn Rand hasn't caused a holocaust, but bear with me. Hitler is dead and his movement, save for a few delusional fools, destroyed. Ayn Rand is dead, but her movement endures and is growing as we speak. Alan Greenspan literally studied at her feet, and we know how much damage he caused. Paul Ryan requires his staff to read Alas Shrugged, Justice Clarence Thomas requires his law clerks to read it as well. Objectiveism is a corrosive acid eating away at the moral and legal foundations of our Republic. Overtime Objectivism will cause more deaths than Nazism, though the deaths will much quieter and forgotten. We ignore Rand and her so called philosophy at our own peril, we can no longer afford to. We must combat it and destroy it. If it is left unchecked, in 100 years we won't recognize America. The time for tolerating this sick religion is over, we must fight it whenever we can and show the world how dangerous it is.

[freshwest]

1. Agreed. Hopefully the newly converted will learn who Rand's role model for her Superman was.

[jimlup]

2. Hum, I really think they are discredited afterthought except for the fact that they are used

cynically by the elites because they help them remain in power. The managers of our plutocracy know better than this but they will use it with the rabble as long as it works. The real problem is that a large fraction of our population is seriously ignorant.

[white_wolf]

3. Honestly, I think the elites actually do think they hold the world on

their shoulders. That is how arrogant and self-delusional they are.

[jimlup]

5. Yeah, I'd agree with that

They let their position of power go to their heads and this is their biggest weakness. Seriously, it is by their own delusional view of their importance that they can be brought down.

I think that "the times they are a changing" as Dylan said ... an interesting time to be alive. I just wish the outcome of good over evil were more assured.

[cali]

28. who are the elites?

[bigmonkey]

30. So, educate them about this?

Yes?

[Fool Count]

4. It's certainly done more damage already.

Even counting those US soldiers killed by the nazis in Europe, the number pales in comparison with the excess mortality due
to lack of accessible healthcare which "socialized" medicine would easily and affordably provide.

[LibertyFox]

6. Sorry

I don't feel it helps our cause to engage in such hyperbole.

We might think that Ayn Rand is a false prophet and Objectivism is a bad philosophy but I feel that preemptively comparing them to hitler is not going to lend your argument credibility, it just sounds hysterical right now.

[cali]

29. +1

and welcome to DU

[provis99]

7. Rand was adamantly opposed to democracy.

She advocated for rule by a small elite. Guess who made up that small elite? You guessed it! Objectivists!

From the Mouth of Sauron herself: "“Democracy, in short, is a form of collectivism, which denies individual rights: the majority can do whatever it wants with no restrictions. In principle, the democratic government is all-powerful. Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom.”

[applegrove]

8. We need a word to describe the incessant aggression that is drumbed into readers of her books as

they read.

[Prophet 451]

10. We already have one.

Sociopathy. Seriously, if someone followed her "philosophy" in the exact way she describes it, they would be instantly diagnosed as sociopathic.

[applegrove]

16. I mean the repetition of aggression that flips a few people into becoming followers because

at one point we were all 'little people' in a villages who had to learn to love the 'strongman' and his 'system of laws'. Hitler used repeated aggression to wear down the german population and turn many of them into followers. Rand does the same thing with her books (I read half of one of them and could not stand it). What do you call it? Repeated aggression? Serial bashing? ????

[Prophet 451]

9. Not sure I'd go that far

Rand was a sociopath and her "philosophy" is a guide for crating sociopaths. Nothing more, nothing less. You might be right because Hitler never really posed much threat to the USA and Mein Kampf only became a success because Hitler "suggested" his followers buy it. So in terms strictly limited to the USA, you might be right.

[bullwinkle428]

11. Paul Ryan supposedly urged his staff members to read the works of Rand.

As discussed tonight on the Ed Schultz show.

[white_wolf]

12. So does Clarence Thomas.

[Quantess]

13. Yes, that IS a wild over-reaction.

Have you heard Katy Perry's song where she shrieks "kiss me, you're an alien" and then Kanye West says "First I abduct you then I'mm a probe you". It's like a corrosive acid to my ears.

Bear with me, because I know that neither one of them have made any noteworthy musical achievements, but they are both very popular with teenagers. But if left unchecked, in 100 years we won't recognize music.

[white_wolf]

14. Last time I checked those songs haven't caused any harm.

Go on, though prove to me that Ayn Rand's ideas haven't caused harm to our society. The fact is, the current crisis we are in is a direct result of disaster capitalism which is promoted by Objectivism.

[Quantess]

15. LOL, I was just having a laugh.

How many people..no really. I would like to know, what percentage, have made it through a Ayn Rand novel?
In my early 20s I had a supervisor who imagined herself an intellect for starting to read Atlas Shrugged. I picked up her book when I was bored. I read about 3 pages before deciding it stunk! I have liked some of your other posts, in the past, so :)

[MessiahRp]

34. I don't think that's the point.

The people in charge HAVE made it through her books and are enacting her philosophies and worse yet, the people in charge's benefactors own the textbooks that will teach our children that Ayn Rand is required reading and the only logical conventional thought. They want to modify history by owning the textbook manufacturers, getting onto school boards, controlling every form of media and disintegrating the public school system so it can become a place for their propaganda. Randian philosophy is at the center of a war on culture as we know it and it isn't a joke at all.

[Quantess]

17. How the hell could anyone take Ayn Rand's writing seriously, is my question.

Her writing is terrible.
This must all be a joke, because I don't get it.

[taught_me_patience]

35. A little fool named Alan Greenspan

And his reckless, Randian beliefs led to the destruction of our economy.

[Newest Reality]

18. We are living in results that could as well make her a prophet,

even if it is self-fulfilling. If you find Ayn Rand threatening, isn't it better to have an articulated picture of her philosophy of life to deal with over a vague uncertainty?

The best way to deal with that perspective is to utilize it to build a strong, livable counterpoint in contrast to it rather than dwell in shock and horror over the incredible audacity of institutionalized selfishness.

It is all Yin-Yang and when you see that, you can utilize one to balance out the other rather than find yourself stuck in the opposing viewpoint without formulating a fitting response to it. In that sense, that's how you become stuck in duality when one side of a perspective ends-up keeping you where it wanted to put you, as its opposition, in the first place.

Understand the intellectual validity and thrust of Ayn Rand, see how it has affected you, then formulate a corresponding response in the most eloquent and demonstrable way you can. That, to me, is how it works as a dynamism.

[Quantess]

21. It's all Yin-Yang? Really?

:rofl:

[dkf]

19. Then why all the threads?

I haven't read her yet but you all are making me feel compelled to do so.

[Sirveri]

20. That's because Hitler is recognized. If he was obscure he'd be a greater threat today.

I doubt many really took Rand seriously prior to recent times, the same could have been true for Hitler. But then the Great Depression happened, and suddenly his charismatic answers seemed like the answer. People were willing to take that leap, they were willing to go the distance because they were desperate, and desperate times called for desperate solutions. Good thing we don't have to worry about another great depression thanks to all those safety nets we created to prevent such a thing from happening again.

[Marr]

22. If not Rand, someone else would've filled that slot.

Her writing is absolute shit, and I don't just say that because I disagree with her silly "philosophy". It's just horrible, bizarre stuff. It's like fan fiction written by a nihilistic lunatic.

She's still in the popular consciousness because she supplied a means for greedy assholes to justify their own impulses. Every era has one, and when her inevitable replacement is ushered in, Rand will be utterly forgotten.

[upi402]

23. Ayn Rand used Medicare for her lung cancer treatment

Hypocrits all. With no media, we're toast here.
k/r

[Raksha]

24. I agree. It isn't possible to destroy the neocons as an economic and polical force

without exposing and discrediting the fraudulant philosophy their movement is based on. The fact that Alan Greenspan was one of Ayn Rand's groupies can't be stressed often enough.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JCMach1]

26. No more dangerous than Dianetics

and just as frakked up!

[Hugabear]

38. Really? How many politicians are trying to make laws based on Dianetics?

Now if you had said "fundamentalism", you would have been correct - both are dangerous.

[cali]

27. oh please

what do you want to do ban her books? the people being required to read AS are likely already of said persuasion. And frankly, the way to fight her is to mock her. Have a contest for the best send up of her writing or something.

More dangerous than the Nazis?

I doubt it.

[white_wolf]

32. Currently her ideas are more dangerous than Nazism.

I can't honestly see a Nazi movement gaining any real power for the foreseeable future, but Objectivists hold power in some of the highest levels of government, the Supreme Court and Congress among them.

[checks-n-balances]

31. This video has her talking about dictatorships...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfqq4VKh1xM&feature=related

(Old Donahue show video)

[roamer65]

33. Rand was a serial killer groupie. She's human filth.

http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killers?page=1

[DeadEyeDyck]

36. Geeze,

there is 100 times more reaction to Atlas Shrugged here than on FreeRepublic, in whI also hold an open account!!

If anything, the panic on the left will only increase the box-office receipts. Look, the only people that will make sense of AS are those that have read the book and are already Randites. The movies is utterly boring to anyone else.

[former9thward]

37. How would you rank it with the deaths by communism?

Interesting that you bring up a dead ideology when you have the chance to compare it with one still with us.

[white_wolf]

39. If we are discussing pure idelogy than it is very difficult

to argue that Objectivism is morally superior to Communism. "From each according to his abilities,to each according to his needs." is the polar opposite of all Rand taught.