10 Shameless Right-Wing Tributes to Ayn Rand That Should Make Any Sane Person Blush

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Roy Edroso

10 Shameless Right-Wing Tributes to Ayn Rand That Should Make Any Sane Person Blush
As the evangelical Right's influence has declined, conservatives are adhering to another religion -- one based on the scribblings of a sociopath.

August 20, 2010 |


Up until a few years ago, right-wingers who needed to believe in something larger than themselves chose Jesus. But with the evangelicals fading from the Republican coalition, and Obama's social programs making the whole "compassionate conservative" thing suspect, it look like Jesus is out and Ayn Rand is in.

Yes, Ayn Rand, author of big books about noble capitalists who triumph over the masses, and tomes of "philosophy" like The Virtue of Selfishness, in which she beat Gordon Gekko to Greed is Good by decades. Rand always seemed like a good fit for conservatives, but until recently their fandom was a love that dared not speak its name -- either out of fear that the born-agains would be alienated by Rand's atheism, or that literate people would giggle at them.

What happened? The Republican collapse, and the arrival of an activist liberal administration in D.C., set conservatives scrambling for compelling new story lines to sell the public. Jesus, unfortunately, had been rendered inoperative by all the family-values Republicans caught in sex scandals. With Him out of the way, the atheist, market-worshiping Rand was their best bet.

The transition has been seamless. Glenn Beck regards Rand as a prophet. Tea Party people carry her name on signs. Rightbloggers talk, seriously it would seem, about Going Galt -- a phenomenon previously known as "early retirement," but now judged a political act of resistance against the socialism of our moderate Democrat president.

They're the wave of the future, so let's get to know the Randroids. What kind of people are they? ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/147872/10_shameless_right-wing_tributes_to_ayn_rand_that_should_make_any_sane_person_blush/

[MisterP]

1. interestingly the World Wildlife Foundation put out a bookmark bearing this quote:

"The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves."
--Ayn Rand

Of course her point was that anything not a captain of the industry should die and make way for farms and factories from Maine to San Diego
(highlight for spoiler)

[county worker]

2. I like that Going Galt thing. It is such a hollow threat and points out the lie in what the right

is saying. It's the idea that conservatives are propping the rest of us up by their living of their ideology. That is such self serving idiocy it is always worth a laugh.