Ayn Rand's Influence on the 21st Century

originally posted by: ketsuko
Actually coffee by itself is not to my taste.

Well, that makes one of us. I like my coffee how I like my women.









Ground up and in the freezer.

a reply to: ketsuko

So you are guilty of using those memes? I hope not. They are shallow and generally poorly thought out.

Excuse me?

Okay, I guess you're too worked up to talk rationally.
You asked how in the world I took it as a 'personal attack.' I answered that it was because you addressed your response to me, and said, "You....."

Mod note:

Please stick to the thread topic.

Thanks

(do not reply to this post)

self-edit. Thanks, masqua.

Anywho....
so....

I think we've got a good foundation here for exploring what she ACTUALLY stood for vis a vis what people THINK she stood for.

originally posted by: Hefficide


Rand wants to paint a picture of a world where only Michael Jordan merits playing. Without the team, and the support they provide, he's nothing. Without him, the team is mediocre. It's symbiotic - something Rand doesn't just miss - but openly demonizes.

What bothers me is not that Rand had her ideas, nor that people choose to like them. It's that so many in the current Republican party, holding high office, list her works as an influence. Hell, the hero of the Right is freaking named after her. That is a blatant sign of the disaster playing out before us.

Excellent Post.
Ayn Rand epitomizes the entitlement mentality where it is all about me.
And that has infested the halls of DC puppets and their masters as well that make millions off of others and then accuse others of acting entitled.

We used to be a country with a Constitution where it was for all people but that is long gone now that DC is owned by Big Money who do not represent their majority of Americans.

Going on the religious side a bit: I recall from my younger years that Satanism to the core is the celebration of the Self. I have no need for anyone else or anything or God even. I do it all on my own.

a reply to: jacobe001

While Satanism and Objectivism have some very superficial similarities they are, in their essence, different.

a reply to: jacobe001

We used to be a country with a Constitution where it was for all people but that is long gone now that DC is owned by Big Money who do not represent their majority of Americans.

Bingo.

Yes. That.
She is the epitome of the 1% mentality: that everyone else can go to hell - she doesn't care.

Just as the corporations don't care. They don't care. She said that the Constitution would be better if they swapped the 'government shall make no law respecting Religion' to

"The Govt shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade." That is a quote.
That is what she said in a speech.

It's disgusting.
Wall Street was her God.

originally posted by: jacobe001

Going on the religious side a bit: I recall from my younger years that Satanism to the core is the celebration of the Self. I have no need for anyone else or anything or God even. I do it all on my own.

I just did a google search for that exact ideology and the first place that came up was the Church of Satan.
It looks like Anton Lavey, the founder of the Church of Satan was an avowed worshiper of her.

en.wikipedia.org...

Some accuse LaVey of paraphrasing the Nine Satanic Statements from Rand's Atlas Shrugged without acknowledgement, though others maintain that LaVey was simply drawing inspiration from the novel.[27][28] LaVey later affirmed the connection with Rand's ideas by stating that LaVeyan Satanism was "just Ayn Rand's philosophy, with ceremony and ritual added"

a reply to: jacobe001

Would you say it's ALL because of Rand or that her writings are just another brick in the wall? Again, it's not that I'm a fan of hers but I do like fairness. I'd think the latter and I do realize the question is flawed. Is she a brick, a huge influence or a small influence would be more proper, I think.

a reply to: jacobe001

Very interesting. Yes - that's why I wonder how Hard-Right-Wing-Christian-Conservatives can offer her up as exemplary and a champion of their causes. It's just a major disconnect, imho.

originally posted by: TheSpanishArcher
a reply to: jacobe001

Would you say it's ALL because of Rand or that her writings are just another brick in the wall? Again, it's not that I'm a fan of hers but I do like fairness. I'd think the latter and I do realize the question is flawed. Is she a brick, a huge influence or a small influence would be more proper, I think.

Good Question....

I do not know, but I do know that there are members in DC that supported her teachings, and least we forget, many high ranking politicians and Big Business Members also attended the Bohemian Grove over the years, watching the mock sacrificial burning of an owl. Then there is the Skull and Bones club that many presidents came from.

Perhaps they are all Satanists after all and Rand's teachings added to their self worship

I think she is a bad influence that is pushed as exactly that to whomever will hear the message honestly. A polished turd if you will.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
She was a fiction writer, her books it started a whole movement were a bunch of socialists started thinking they were capitalists and the next best thing since sliced bread. For the most part she was a psychotic individual who wrote a bunch of books, and likely had a bunch of pet peeves. It coincided with the times were a bunch of people fresh off the government tits both low and high and mommy and pappy's fortunes and got in there heads that they were some great capitalists and movers and shakers when they were like I said merely opportunists who were at the right time and place to believe that nonsense, basically in America at that place and time it was pretty much a given. If they would have tried that anywhere else in the world, they probably would have gotten a quick trip to Siberia if not just the bullet in the back of the head.

To say that her or her ideology moved the times forward is like saying Bill Gates invented computers or that Al Gore invented the internet or that prosperity of Bill Clinton years in office were solely on his merits, and never mind the hundreds of thousands of other things which have been going on for literally ages, oh like lets say the rise in technology which had nothing to do with who was in which club, and to get situations and things to were they were then and now.

Her books were fiction, more fantasy to say the least, and she had a thing for certain quirks and fetishes, which are shown in her main protagonists books. Basically she was like every other woman of the time only she decided to write a story about her fetishes about masterful men in power and control. Today that is known as the S@M crowd, or the bored housewife crowd.

In today's age, her books and her is akin to the whole 50 shades of gray which is has sold like hot cakes everywere, proving once again that age old fetish of women worldwide the tall handsome filthy rich and kinky playboy, is still going strong, basically the main protagonist in that movie and I did not even watch it or read the book, but i would beet that if you put them side by side with the main protagonists of her books...Well they would share a lot of similarities, if not carbon copies of each other.

Hopefully this movie and book 50 shades of gray book does not also turn into a social, political and ideological movement as well. But you never know.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

Her books were fiction, more fantasy to say the least, and she had a thing for certain quirks and fetishes, which are shown in her main protagonists books.

She also wrote several non-fiction "philosophy" books....
and she gave lectures at prestigious universities about her views.

I have not taken much interest in "50 Shades of Grey," turned off by the comments and reviews and things that I've heard.

So I can't agree or disagree with that assessment, but I believe you if you say it reminds you of her.

Anyway, thanks for your contribution. I'll look further into "50 Shades".

a reply to: burdman30ott6
HA! Socialist communist Russia was never socialist or even communist, it was for the most part totalitarian fascist state in the hands of a few people and groups, and that whole cold war thing. That was just propaganda to get the war economy moving on both side of the fence.

They even tried to do it again in this day and age, have been at it for over 100 years, the latest being the whole escapades into the middle east to free them from there resources. But it has not quite worked out like it used to. That is simply because everything works in its time and place, when that time and place moves on...Well that is it.

Basically what I am saying is, we are living and in the past, all of that at one point in time in your kids kids futures, baring some things coming down the line, well it will be considered the golden ages.