The Truth About GOP Hero Ayn Rand

A film adaptation of the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, opened this past Friday. The release of the film has coincided with a resurgence of popularity for Rand on the American Right. The trailer for Atlas Shrugged had its world premier at this year's CPAC conference, the Tea Party group FreedomWorks has rolled out a massive campaign to promote the film, and the story's opening line — "Who is John Galt" — has appeared on numerous signs at Tea Party rallies.

At the same time, some of the right's leading political and media lights have heaped praise upon Rand. The author of the Republicans' new budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), has said Rand is the reason he entered politics. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have both declared themselves devotees of her writing. Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has his law clerks watch the film adaptation of Rand's book The Fountainhead. She's also received accolades from right-wing pundits Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, John Stossel, and Andrew Napolitano.

During her lifetime, Rand advocated "the virtue of selfishness," declared altruism to be "evil," opposed Medicare and all forms of government support for the middle-class and the poor, and condemned Christianity for advocating love and compassion for the less fortunate:

Rand also dismissed the feminist movement as a "false" and "phony" issue, said a female commander in chief would be "unspeakable," characterized Arabs as "almost totally primitive savages," and called government efforts to aid the handicapped and educate "subnormal children" an attempt to "bring everybody to the level of the handicapped."

As for the new Atlas Shrugged film, it made $1.7 million in its first three days in theaters, reasonable but unspectacular numbers for a limited release on 299 screens. But box-office watchers looking to see if the Tea Party represents a discrete market would have been disappointed. The movie grossed just $5,608 per theater over that time period, hardly a sign that groups were buying out theaters or that the movie was a pop culture phenomenon. By contrast, An Inconvenient Truth took in $70,333 per theater during its first five days on screens. That number fell to $17,615 per theater in its second week, but that number is still higher than Atlas Shrugged's more widely-available debut. And Atlas Shrugged's numbers look positively puny next to another culture-war adaptation of a popular book, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which raked in $125,185,971 over its first five days in theaters.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/18/truth-about-ayn-rand/

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[AccumulatedKnowledge]

Ayn Rand's evaluation of altruism can only be understood in a philosophical and ethical context. In the commonplace context, it simply means kindness, compassion, and charity. The kind of altruism Rand was attacking, the ethical kind, calls for each person to renounce himself and his interests for the sake of serving others. At its extreme, it could be considered self destruction. This is no caricature; every textbook of philosophy on "ethical altruism" would say this

[JOBOB335]

absolutely none of these corrupt republicans understand what ayn rand was about. every fucking one of them is just like peter keating and toohey. every one of them compromised themselves to get to where they are.

[Richardisdorky]

Has anyone ever explained to these people that she was a fiction writer? Sure they were enjoyable books from a enjoyable writer, so are Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Should we go with the Military government he suggested?

[AccumulatedKnowledge]

@fishmanMarch61 Yup, that was one of her major mistakes. As an intellectual, she couldn't comprehend the failure of her audience to understand. Quite an irony.

[woodyouliketoknow]

she was a fraud. When her ideals were applied to her own life, she cried "foul". She is a waste of time. She and Hitler, both selfish.

[fishmanMarch61]

@AccumulatedKnowledge

Thank you for the explanation; however, don't you think Ms. Rand most certainly realized that she was being interviewed by Mike Wallace for the viewing audience, an audience of "commonplace" understanding?

[BruceCamblzChin]

lmao, all you have is a video of her own words?  That's your "truth"? You don't address any points? Wow. What a fucking waste of 3 minutes.

[JOBOB335]

@BIackOp what do you mean she criticized libertarianism? and your champion is running for the republican nomination so i'd consider you right wing.

[BIackOp]

@JOBOB335 Libertarianism =/= right wing. Yet she criticized Libertarianism, get your facts straight. She was an idealist, so its a hit and miss.

[joe035]

@JOBOB335 Can you sum a person up entirely by the party they most closely identify with? Are contemporary liberals in government living up to Websters definition of what they are suppose to stand for?

[joe035]

@GooseyDusty LOL The left is good at that.

"If you can't persuade, them confuse them" Harry Truman DEMOCRAT.

[tcock852]

Anyone who has actually read Rand knows that the kind of capitalism she advocates is precisely the opposite of the GOP's idea of "capitalism". The GOP model is blatantly fascist in comparison; the Wesley Mouches, Dr. Ferris', and James Taggarts are nearly analogous to Koch Brothers, John Boehner, and FOX News.