• • Do “Reforms” Ever Hurt The Rich? 
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Capitalism  | The tyrants in Orwell’s 1984 used Newspeak to trim the size of language down to a point where even conceiving of less tyrannical government became impossible. The Ayn Randian word manipulators use a more subtle means of word control, giving words that can’t be avoided in economic debates meanings that always seem to serve their own purposes.  

• Religion: A Natural Part of the Human Species 
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Atheism  | [T]o me it appears self-evidence that atheism itself often leads people who would otherwise be religiously inclined to gravitate toward ideologies; Marxism, Objectivism, radical Feminism, “Skepticism” as a way of life and a fierce self-identity, even the bizarre crowd that goes by the name of Atheism+, which is as dogmatic, closed-minded, and intolerant as the most rabid fundamentalist Christian extremist or old-school anti-Vatican II Catholic sedevacantist.  

• Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frank Frazetta 
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When I was in the 7th grade I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs.  My fascination with his stories continued through high school.  There was of course Tarzan but there was also Barsoom and Pelucider not to mention Venus.  Silly fantasy but it could have been worse – I might have become interested in Ayn Rand.  

• Orthodoxy: Liberty’s Other Enemy 
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I have never called myself a libertarian, which still, as a label, makes me uncomfortable. Some who adopt it — a minority but enough to matter — seem to be invested in one or other “orthodoxies of liberty” — a series of positions that they are convinced are the only reasonable outcomes or implications of the broader principles of liberty they espouse. Here are a few that I have come across [...]. A life is fully human at conception. A life has no moral value until it can exist outside the womb. Churchill was a warmonger. Lincoln hated liberty. [....] Marriage is between a man and a woman, by definition. Marriage is between any people who want to get married. A Constitutional Republic is not a tyranny but a Constitutional Monarchy must be. Taxation is the exact equivalent of theft. Ayn Rand is a panacea. And worst of all, two people who really understand liberty could never disagree about any of these.  

• • Perhaps Mr. Gohmert Can Have an Epiphany 
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There once was a Randroid idjit
Who claimed the gum’mint illegit
But when his house caught on fire
Rather than be called a liar
He just stared and stood and fidget.

In other words, deal with what’s in front of your face FIRST, and then worry about ideology. Or, helplessly watch your world burn.  

• • #1ReasonWhy Women Avoid The Sexist Tech Industry 
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I spent my early 20s in the narrative spun by Ayn Rand, one of “merit” winning over … whatever the alternative was. I ignored sexual innuendo, drank my Scotch (what real journalists drink, I was told in all seriousness at age 17) with the best of ‘em.  

• • • Weekend Book Review – Ayn Rand and the World She Made 
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Alan Greenspan  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  |Personal life  |Image  | With the Ayn Rand cultist Paul Ryan becoming the Republican Vice Presidential Candidate today I thought this might be a good opportunity to republish my reveiw of the Ayn Rand Biography by  Anne C. Heller from 2010.  

• Romney Veepstakes 2012: Why Mitt Should Pick Chris Christie 
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Paul Ryan  | “Romney Faces Pressure From Right to Put Ryan on Ticket,” says the Times. “Why not Paul Ryan?” asks the Journal. Well, because then the election could turn on the Ayn-Rand-loving Ryan’s far-right budget slashing tax rates for the rich and slashing Medicare and other essential programs for everyone else.  

• • • Blogging Atlas Shrugged: Chapter 6 
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Atlas Shrugged  | My entry on this chapter is going to be shorter than others But I really liked this chapter. And also hated it. Ultimately, I had what I think was an epiphany that made me at least a little more sympathetic to Rand and some of her acolytes.  

• • • Blogging Atlas Shrugged: Chapter 5 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Ayn Rand’s fiction is usually eerily missing children or much thought about children, she seems to have put this chapter here just to annoy me. For here are children. Sort of. Child versions of our adult protagonists anyway, who act in almost all ways like short-statured versions of their adult selves.  

• • • Deconstructing Atlas Shrugged 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Ayn Rand’s naive ignorance of history, and of how a real business functions–it’s painfully obvious she never ran one–was already subtly visible in the first two chapters of her magnum opus Atlas Shrugg. But nowhere have I found that naivete and ignorance better illustrated than in Chapter 3 of Atlas Shrugged.  

• Round and round we go without any progress despite the passage of time 
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Capitalism  | This rapidly-declining nation of misinformed, intentionally ignorant, congenitally stupid, easily distracted, and generally disinterested, selfish, delusional and apathetic citizens probably deserves the full wrath of Republican and Ayn Rand Conservative policies that are a complete anathema to ethically-minded and critically-thinking Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even most non-believers. Many people who lack education, information and intelligence that are easily misled, confused and duped need to see the full destruction of their political and economic system and society itself to finally understand and learn even the basics of human behavior, ethics and clear thinking.  

• What Capitalists Don’t Know: Without Democracy, Capitalism Dies 
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Capitalism  | [T]oday’s 1% are squeezing the blood out of the middle class, creating conditions of predictable eco collapse, and have no doctrine more sophisticated than Ayn Rand.  

• • A Reminder- How Government Helps Make the “Self-Made” Man 
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Individualism  | There are myths proclaimed by some right-wing partisans and Ayn Rand acolytes that “rugged individualists” working alone have been responsible for America’s great accomplishments and that government is the enemy of progress. In their quest to reduce taxes, particularly for the wealthy, and cut the size of government, this myth has been promulgated by ideologues to gain support from the middle-class, needed to elect legislators who share their vision. Unfortunately, many Americans have accepted this narrative and because of it, often vote against their own interests.  

• • • I Dreamed I Saw Ayn Rand Last Night 
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Atlas Shrugged  | I dreamed I saw Ayn Rand last night,
She moved her writing quill,
And shaped with it a dollar sign,
This Queen of Ryan’s Hill,
Gave me a royal chill.
 

• • Thoughts on Ash Wednesday 
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Egoism  | During many long prior periods of human history and most noticeably during the last 30 years, a more sociopathic/psychopathic view of human existence has been advocated and practiced. This worldview embodies principles wholly contrary to the promotion of love, compassion, justice, tolerance, transparency, honesty, mutually-beneficial relationships, and other long-term attempts to improve the human condition on this planet. These ideals only favor the shallow short-term financial profit maximizing motives of a few. Ayn Rand is merely one of its last proponents whose writings have captured the imaginations of many selfish and delusional people in the U.S. and among our global oligarchy who want to justify their insatiable greed, unethical behavior and complete callousness towards the rest of humanity.  

• • Unleashing The Ugly 
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Altruism  |The Fountainhead  |Egoism  |Inaccurate  | Conservatism, like Dr. Jekyll, has undergone an ugly transformation. Those who claim that mantle these days say they stand for liberty. However, they have long forgotten Edmund Burke’s caveat: “But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” [....] Instead, they have turned to Ayn Rand, who confidently proclaimed: “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” For Rand, selfishness was a virtue. The central problem each human being faced, she wrote, was simple: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”  

• • • Time To Listen To Ayn Rand 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Paul Ryan  | Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a read so turgid it makes Das Kapital seem like a John Grishamz novel, is the acknowledged inspiration of some leaders in the House of Representatives such as Paul Ryanz. Even House Speaker Boehner the other day made a reference to this Rand ideological pot boiler, suggesting that America’s present economic malaise is related to the rich going on a kind of strike (the theme of Rand’s shrugger) in response to threats of tax increases. Are Rand acolytes reading their master right when it comes to taxes? Perhaps not.  

• Dreams of yet another War 
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OTB’s Doug Mataconis and I never agree on any thing economic or domestic – he is after all an immature Objectivist/Randian jerk; That said we usually do agree on foreign policy and war.  

• Let Republicans Have It All 
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Progressives and Democrats have thwarted the full implementation of many conservative policies so we really haven’t adequately unleashed the sociopathic and psychopathic Ayn Rand tendencies of our private sector.