• • • Socialist Sticks & Stones 
Arnie Reisman, Huffington Post Altruism  |Atheism  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Individualism  |Personal life  | Who are these people yelling “socialist” in a crowded presidency? They are Republicans or Tea Partiers, for whom consistency is not a major concern. They quote Ayn Rand a lot. They say she would not see national healthcare as a right but rather as socialized medicine. They say she believed that an intrusive government is not a beneficial government. Since you like to cherry-pick your ideas and only hear what you want to hear, let me speak to all you “conservatives” who have jumped on the Ayn Rand-wagon. She was a Russian Jew born Alisa Rosenbaum. She became a devout atheist, rejecting all faith and religion in favor of reason. She rejected altruism in favor of what she called rational and ethical egoism. She favored free-market capitalism and individualism over collectivism. She rejected socialism for a very personal reason: her father’s pharmacy was confiscated by Bolsheviks.   Published: 2012-02-17