• • The sanctity of a woman's right to decide 
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Objectivist author  | This passage by Ayn Rand helped me understand why anti-abortionists advocate what they do (Ayn Rand wrote this in 1981, when there were some women’s groups protesting against abortion).      View blog reactions

• • • Obama vs. Rand on what made America great 
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Individual Rights  |Individualism  |Objectivist author  | So President Obama has read Ayn Rand. Contrasting his ideas with what he takes to be Rand’s outlook, he tells Rolling Stone: “That view of life—as one in which we’re all connected, as opposed to all isolated and looking out only for ourselves—that’s a view that has made America great.” Though I don’t think President Obama understood Ayn Rand’s ideas (based on his description of them), it’s clear that he and Ayn Rand would have fundamentally disagreed about the source of America’s greatness.      View blog reactions

• • • In a mixed economy, regulations always grow 
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Capitalism  |Individual Rights  |Objectivist author  | Ayn Rand viewed the pattern of increasing regulation as inevitable in the kind of political system that we have, which she described as a “mixed economy.” Because we have a combination of freedoms in the form of individual rights and controls in the form of ad-hoc, piecemeal regulations curtailing those rights, Rand viewed our system as inherently unstable.      View blog reactions

• • • Why Atlas Shrugged changes lives 
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Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Image  |Objectivist author  | Hearing about the new Atlas Shrugged movie, I thought back to my first encounter with Ayn Rand’s epic novel. When I read Atlas Shrugged, I was captivated. There were complicated romantic relationships, alliances and treachery, heroes who overcame obstacles, villains who tried to stop them, and an intriguing question that seemed to be behind it all: “Who is John Galt?” And yet, it was unlike anything I had ever read before. My response was far from unique. From CEOs to college students to celebrities, people declare that reading Ayn Rand’s novel has a life-changing effect. Why?      View blog reactions

• • • Celebrate Thanksgiving the Ayn Rand way: Thank yourself 
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Altruism  |Egoism  |Objectivist author  | Children are taught that Thanksgiving came about when Pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. It seems we vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head, and how lucky we are in spite of these hard economic times. After all, our lives are so much better than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday. What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving? Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as "a typically American holiday" whose "essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." She was right.      View blog reactions

• • • ‘Atlas’ at 50 nothing to shrug at 
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Atlas Shrugged  | How did Ayn Rand reach us with such impact? Her challenge to conventional thinking, and her philosophical answers, come in the form of an intricately woven literary masterpiece. She writes of people who act on their judgment, who experience joy and loss, who have to figure out the answers for themselves – just as we need to. Presented in the form of a riveting story, we can be inspired by her new ideas, see their concrete meaning, and apply them to our own lives.      View blog reactions