Re: Ayn Rand: Don't call it a comeback

[Zip]

In response to this article on Salon, Yaron Brook issued a call to arms for people to "Please post your comments about this ridiculous article. Tell people to read Atlas Shrugged and judge for themselves!"

I and at least one other (Paul McKeever) have done so. I thought it would be nice if we could read each others responses in one place rather than sifting through the 186 comments the article has generated so far.

I'll start...

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=...TCdU&ref=nf

Re: Ayn Rand: Don't call it a comeback

Is it any wonder that in the factual vacuum Mr Leonard has created with his article “Ayn Rand: Don’t call it a comeback” we find the spirit of one of her most vicious sycophants Ellsworth Toohey peering back at us?

In “The Fountainhead” Toohey paints himself as representative of the will of the masses but as with Mr. Leonard his lack of any personal genius or talent leaves him to try to tear down with words the true genius of others.

Mr. Leonard curses the very people and the very system that made the USA and the western world the bastion of freedom it is. The west is the place to which the truly oppressed and the truly needy of the world flock in droves every year. Why? Because of our freedom, and that freedom is not possible in a place without capitalism, even the weak kneed version we see today.

The Capitalism which fosters our freedom depends on the productive work of men, the ones Ayn Rand called the Atlas’ of the world. Those men work for their own pleasure, for their own self interest, but without the Atlas’ of this world we would not have all that we do. For every thief like Bernie Madof there are 100,000,000 honest businessmen working and creating, making money and paying the wages and ensuring that we, the common man have the unimaginable bounty of goods and services, bits and baubles that makes living here, in the USA and the Western world the absolute envy of every other part of the globe.

It’s a sad, sad thing that this article has been cheered by the same people who go off to work for GE, Microsoft, Ford and a host of other enterprises. Each if these companies rely on the creative genius, the drive and passion of productive men, men like those honoured by Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. This ‘article’ is living proof of the anti-intellectualism and the collectivist ideal that she cursed for her entire life.

Thankfully, any of us with cognitive skills above the level of the paramecium can discount Mr. Leonard and take the example of another of Ayn Rand’s heroes and say to him and all like him…

“But I don’t think of you...”

Edited June 27, 2009 by Zip

[01503]

Great reply, Zip.

Mr. Paul McKeever also sent a letter in, which I liked quite a bit:

http://letters.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/06...0cc2ce6e0e.html

Got a good chuckle out of this part:

Your article involved probably the most intellectually dishonest quotation of Rand I've seen in...weeks.

[Jill]

These people never give an explanation why it was personal greed or unregulated capitalism that caused the problem. They just say it.

[John McVey]

These people never give an explanation why it was personal greed or unregulated capitalism that caused the problem. They just say it.

They're coasting on their audience's presumed acceptance of a certain moral code. If the audience members accept that code then they will swallow the writer's words without question, whereas they'd be beligerent to someone asserting the opposite of those words. This is an example of how people's beliefs on ethics controls what they will accept as true or false in politics without bothering to question.

JJM