Ayn Rand made me puke when I read her stuff when I was 16. There certainly isn’t any shortage of completely retarded ideas from the desperate Republicans these days. I can almost see how this Randian swill would appeal to the Paris Hiltons, Donald Trumps and W Bushes of the country, but how do they keep selling this shit to the lower order of conservatives? I can just see some out-of-work factory worker watching Fox News and getting pissed off because Obama wants to raise taxes for America’s top 1%.

I always thought this was cute.

When I was 16, Ayn Rand seemed to have a point in Atlas Shrugged, but 1100 pages to get to it? Anyone older who still thinks Atlas Shrugged isn't pretty laughable, well, they never grew up. Her most pathetic essay was something I read in her great objectivist book, The Virtue of Selfishness wherein she explains that mothers care for their children in some kind "contractual" way – it's a good thing she never had any children. Her most laughable character is John Galt, the great physicist whose greatest invention is a perpetual motion machine!

He didn't learn it until he was 82 years old, but even Randian acolyte Alan Greenspan admitted his economic assessments might have been just a tad full of shit. Now we have the likes of Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin to pick up Rand's banner. These idiots have always struck me as about 16 years old, so it all fits.

i'm not a big Rand fan, but she definitely has some truths to convey about the free market, which is Capitalism, and which doesn't exist in Amerika.

i find it most hysterical that so many people are being deceived by the "left vs. right" mantra. do the facts matter any longer to anyone?

for example:

• the fact that running up enormous debt is detrimental to the future of any economy, personal or governmental; • the fact that the government is SUPPOSED to be limited by the Constitution and be accountable to the rule of law; • the fact that if/when the government refuses to obey the law, We the People have the Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances as guaranteed by the 'accountability clause' -- the last 10 words of the First Amendment: “... and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

perhaps We the People would rather continuing to ignore these facts, along with this Federal Government.

WAKE UP FOLKS! the real matter is not about "left vs. right" it's about LIBERTY vs. CONTROL!

for more information, go to www.GiveMeLiberty.org .

Frenetic:

That cartoon nails the "Rand Fallacy" pretty well.

Tim wrote:

"anyone older who still thinks Atlas Shrugged isn't pretty laughable, well, they never grew up."

Taken as a parable, I'm not sure how laughable it is. I still think the end of part 1 (Wyatt's Tourch) is an incredible scene which could make for some fantastic cinema some day.

However, Ayn Rand's works are just that- parables. And anytime we attempt to base reality of parables, we are in for disappointment.

I also think perspective has a lot to do with it. I am hardly a wealthy industrialist, but as a small business owner who has had more than a fair share of fights with the IRS and Dept. of Revenue, I sometime fantasize about the "what if" presented in the "Shrugged".

Atlas Shrugged

Zaphod, As a consumer you should also be concerned with the safety of cars and the food supply and air quality, for example. You might also be concerned about SEC regulation of WallStreet.

Here's some fantastic cinema

Soylent Green is a 1973 dystopian science fiction movie depicting a future in which global warming and overpopulation lead to depleted resources on Earth. This in turn leads to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables, and meat are rare, commodities are expensive, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including "soylent green" wafers.

Some other fantastic cinema

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's searing expose of the meat-packing industry, was given a reasonably realistic screen treatment in 1914. The film traces the "progress" of a Lithuanian family as they head for the purportedly greener pastures of the USA. The family ends up in Packingtown (a thinly disguised Chicago), where they go to work at the stockyards and slaughterhouses. The famous scene wherein a man accidentally falls into the rendering vat is vividly realized. Upton Sinclair himself appears at the beginning and end of The Jungle as a form of endorsement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Thanks Gypsy Sister. That point was made in the write up:

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's searing expose of the meat-packing industry, was given a reasonably realistic screen treatment in 1914