Another Twit Misinterprets Rand in an Attempt to be Clever

I don't have a lot to say about this Letter to John Galt because it echos many of the typical anti-Rand arguments and misrepresentations we've heard a thousand times before, things like "Greenspan said capitalism failed, therefore it's true!" and "Rand said rational people never work or live together!" and "Rand demanded omniscience and absolute genius in order to be Objectivist!"  It doesn't matter that Rand never said nor implied any of these things nor that somehow people like Mr. Chandler can argue that Greenspan "distanced himself from Rand" but that he also somehow continued to accurately reflect her ideology even as he took on a job that was antithetical to that ideology.

One thing I want to call out is this bit:

One last thing: don’t confuse the criticism of Rand with a left-wing rant. Just as Rand had a problem with many
American conservatives, including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, many conservatives also reject Rand. Not only did her virulent atheism alienate some conservatives, but her entire body of her work was often rejected by them. Consider the late William F. Buckley, the founder of the conservative National Review wrote: “Ayn Rand is dead. So, incidentally, is the philosophy she sought to launch dead; it fact it was still born.”

On this count he has a point: Objectivism has its detractors on both the right and the left, but I am certain that we should not accept an argument from the mob on this or any other topic.

Also, "if some rent-seeking, paper-shuffling, value-destroying people try to join you in Galt’s Gulch" then they would have to take the oath and they would have to suffer the consequences of thier incompetence and surely Mr. Chandler isn't arguing for anything else for these people.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at 03:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Category: Importance of Ideas
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