"Ayn Rand," Sith Lord Wannabe

"Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." - Alan Greenspan, friend and follower of Ayn Rand.

So Paul Ryan, who looks like the Compleat Dork/Nerd/Geek, says he was been very much influenced by Ayn Rand. I shake my head.

To quote the Dork: "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff."

A few years the Geek was served a letter signed by numerous theologians and Jesuit priests: "In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love."

I ain't even Catholic but their criticisms were right on the mark.

Ayn Rand's real name was Alice Rosenbaum,and she wasn't American but an immigrant Russian Jew. She was also anti-American, although her followers can't figure that out. They can figure out she was anti-Christian, but have problems wrapping their brains around the fact she was just another pro-Israel Jewish atheist who would have put Israel over America and had no problem sending Americans to die in meaningless wars.

What people say - especially women (and the grotesque Rand, like Betty Friedan, was barely a woman) - doesn't matter. It's what they do. And what Rand did in her life showed her to be a self-centered hypocrite and a fraud.

I refer to Atlas Shrugged as "the Talmud Lite." These days, Rand would be a neocon, all of whom are at their core cowards, traitors, and fucked-up WaffenPussy. For one thing, even though a rabid atheist, she somehow still supported Israel and considered the Palestinians subhuman if not nonhuman.

Long ago and far away, she'd be a Sith Lord Wannabe (Objectivism can be considered a variation of the Sith Code). Darn if I can remember the exact quotes, but the Sith were described as believing in pure good and pure evil (perhaps it was they believe in absolutes, which is the same thing). This was apparently a dig at the inept George Bush, as as the bit in one of the movies about "If you're not for me you're against me" (again, not an exact quote).

Those quotes can also apply to Rand, who narcissistically believed in pure good and pure evil. (As in,"Me good, in fact the greatest person who ever lived; everyone who disagrees with me, evil and not human"). This was so bad with her that her friends used to argue if she was evil and insane. They couldn't figure it out.

One Objectivist psychologist diagnosed Rand with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Paranoid Personality Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. To which I'll add: yep.

To show how crazy she was, she admired a guy named William Edward Hickman. This psychopath raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl, Marion Parker, and cut her body in pieces (being a serial killer, she wasn't the first person he murdered). Then he dumped her dismembered body in front of her father, who, not surprisingly, started screaming.

Rand was outraged that Hickman was hanged (she called it “The mob’s murderous desire to revenge its hurt vanity against the man who dared to be alone”). But then, there are quite a few women out there who are serial killer groupies. Maybe they think these guys are misunderstood and that love will save them. Or maybe it's just that silly female Drama Queen nonsense.

Rand's best-known hero, John Galt, was partly based on Hickman. I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

This is what she wrote about Hickman: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should...[he has] “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

Superman? That's the description of a psychopath, i.e., someone with no conscience. All serial killers are psychopaths, and many of them are cannibals and necrophiliacs. Think Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, who had sex with their victim's body parts. Think Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer who murdered at least 71 women. (Significantly, Rand referred to altruism as "moral cannibalism.")

Rand's fans, when confronted with the truth about her, go into immediate brainlock overload. They can't handle the truth. Cognitive dissonance hurts and they immediately go into the main psychological defenses: self-deceptive, denial, and projection ("You don't understand Rand, but I do! Did you even read her? If you did you didn't understand her!").

Whatever.

All Randroids are stamped from the same Irrational, Hysterical and Hostile cookie-cutter. Like all fanatics, they've never had an original thought in their lives.

Rand is simple to understand, like Communism ("Me good; you bad"). She's also grandiose, and the immature and uneducated almost always fall for that.

For some reason I've always been immune to her. I read Anthem when I was 12 or 13 and it was the only novel I read at that time that disappointed me. And when I read Atlas Shrugged in my 30s I thought, "How can anyone believe this crap?"

Apparently many people do.

Wilfredo Pareto was the guy who came up with the 20/80 Law: 20% of the people have 80% of the brains. 20% of the people have 80% of the wealth. And so on.

Rand's fans think they aren't just the 20%. They think they're the one percent, and everyone else is vermin. Let's just say believing that is not conducive to good mental health.

Fortunately Objectivists will go nowhere. The whole movement is just a circle jerk.

As for libertarians, they have to give her up. Libertarians need to become American patriots and stop supporting anti-American beliefs such as open borders. And supporting State-created corporate monstrosities such as Wal-Mart, for that matter.

As for Paul Ryan, I hope he's grown up enough to see through Rand. And if he ever says he now considers her nonsense, watch her fans howl. Most probably from their parent's basements, while they lovingly caress their Holy Bibles that Contain the Answers to All - Atlas Shrugged.

“If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life." - Alice Rosenbaum