• • David Brooks Loves to Capitalize Nouns 
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Here's a year in David Brooks's Arbitrarily Capitalized Nouns. [....] Ayn Randian Superman. August 3, 2012. "In your 20s, for example, you should regard yourself as an Ayn Randian Superman who is the architect of the wonder that is you."      View blog reactions

• • • Audio Surfaces of Paul Ryan’s Effusive Love of Ayn Rand 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | Why do lefties keep accusing Rep. Paul Ryan of making Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged required reading for his staff? Maybe because he said, “It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff,” and now we can hear him say it. Last week, when Ryan called it an “urban legend” that he was a Ayn Rand devotee -- “I reject her philosophy,” he told the National Review -- it seemed like part of an effort to take Ryan more mainstream, now that he’s a potential running mate for Mitt Romney. [....] But The Atlas Society, the group devoted to Rand that hosted Paul’s talk, is making the mainstreaming more difficult by posting the audio of his address.      View blog reactions

• • • How to Tell Paul Ryan Wants to Be Veep: He’s Rejected His Former Idol Ayn Rand 
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Alan Greenspan  |Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | Rep. Paul Ryan, looking to undercut his image as a hard-hearted Objectivist, has told the National Review of one of his favorite authors, Ayn Rand, “I reject her philosophy... It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview.” It’s a surprising statement, given that Ryan said nearly the complete opposite in 2005: “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” And she didn’t drive him into politics because he couldn’t stand her philosophy, either. Ryan made those comments at a dinner in Washington, D.C. honoring Ayn Rand’s birthday -- hosted by The Atlas Society, a group that takes its name from Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged and is dedicated to promoting her ideas.      View blog reactions