The importance of Ayn Rand for modern conservatism would be difficult to underestimate. This has always been ironic given her staunch atheism, something that is completely at odds with almost everything in conservatism in America today. Less ironic is the recent revelation that Ayn Rand was a hypocrite: she secretly accepted government assistance instead of relying on the proceeds of all those books in which she decried government assistance.
A heavy smoker who refused to believe that smoking causes cancer brings to mind those today who are equally certain there is no such thing as global warming. Unfortunately, Miss Rand was a fatal victim of lung cancer.
However, it was revealed in the recent "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by Scott McConnell (founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute) that in the end Ayn was a vip-dipper as well. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).
As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help."
But alas she did and said it was wrong for everyone else to do so. Apart from the strong implication that those who take the help are morally weak, it is also a philosophic point that such help dulls the will to work, to save and government assistance is said to dull the entrepreneurial spirit.
In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.
Source: The Huffington Post
She only got lung cancer because of her stupid, pig-headed denial that her smoking caused cancer in the first place. It would have been one thing if she had at least admitted that she knew the risks and wanted to do it anyway because she enjoyed smoking. Instead she lived in denial -- perhaps in order to avoid accepting any moral responsibility for getting the disease that killed her. Waiting, isn't accepting full responsibility for one's choices one of the principle of her philosophy?
This would be consistent with not accepting moral responsibility for refusing to live up to the principles which she demanded that everyone else live by. Randian apologists have argued that there is no hypocrisy in taking back the money one once had to give up in taxation -- and up to a point, they have something like an argument. Unfortunately what little they have quickly falls apart.
First, if her accepting government assistance really was principled and completely consistent with her philosophy, why was it apparently concealed? It should have been well known already as a demonstration that despite having money "stolen" in taxes, she was still able to get it back in the end. Why apply for the assistance under a name that would keep the information quiet?
Even more significant is the fact that a person suffering from lung cancer will likely take far more from the system than they paid into it. The surgery she underwent alone may have used up all that she paid into it, and that doesn't include whatever her husband took out of the system. If she had carefully calculated what she had paid in plus interest and took only that, no more, then one could argue that she stuck to her principles. We have no evidence that this occurred, however, and strong reasons to think that it did not.
In her own words, then, wasn't she little more than a parasite on society, stealing the fruits of others' labor instead of using her own resources and accepting the consequences of her own bad choices in life? Then again, the movement she spawned doesn't seem to be any different. The Tea Baggers all complain about "government health care" for others even as they happily draw on Medicare and Social Security to keep themselves alive, comfortable, and privileged.
Ayn Rand's philosophy is not one that any sane, rational adult can live by consistently any more than it's a philosophy that any successful, prosperous society could adopt. Ayn Rand wasn't insane so as soon as it was plain what her real choices were she chose to path of government support and abandoned her own failed philosophy. She just didn't have the courage to admit how much of a failure her philosophy was before she died.
There is another interesting parallel to be drawn from this: Ayn Rand's behavior tracks disturbing well with the behavior of so many religious leaders. How many of them preach one thing from the pulpit then do something else behind closed doors? How many priests inveigh against homosexuality before their congregation while their male lovers wait for them in some motel room? How many priests promote the virtues of abstinence and chastity just after molesting an altar boy? How many preach the gospel of Jesus then at the end of a hard day drive their luxury car to their multi-million dollar mansion?
I wonder how many Republicans who pooh-pooh general assitance of any kind, or Rep./Dem who are wealthy still collect SSI and Medicare when they are 65. They probably do. They feel they desearve it.
In defense of Ayn Rand, fortunately, her writings are available for those who are interested enough to read them. Her position on public welfare is stated in her article “The question of Scholarships,” published in The Objectivist, June 1966.
“Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others–the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it.”
I’m sure you saw that this “defense” was already addressed above.
Not really. It says that if the system is there anyway, even if you don’t agree with it, might as well take advantage of it. That seems reasonable to me.
The fact is though that she did ended up being a parasite through her smoking. She could have avoided it entirely, yet didn’t. I do feel she is “morally guilty of robbing her opponents”, and therefore is a hypocrite.
“by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it.” Parasites?
What does that make her?
There is no justifying or rationalizing her views- they are anti-christ by definition. She just took Nietzsche to the next level. And she was a master liar. Example:
“Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others”…Hold up a second, that’s true!…but let’s keep going…
“and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others” Now that’s a lie! Your money is property in trade to pay taxes, your share. Everything henceforth in the logic is a lie. As was her life’s work.
Wait, wut?
So by paying taxes for public use items such as roads, utilities, the common defense, you somehow thinks this makes it ok for the govt. to steal from the Citizenry under the color of law and give away the money earned by the working to the lazy who don’t work?
You sir, are an idiot.
It’s a shame that you still get to vote.
I’m not seeing how it was addressed. Rand didn’t fault people who needed assistance from taking what was available. Her ire was directed at those who set up the system, not those who turned to it when they were in need.
I can still see the hypocrisy charge sticking, I’m just not seeing how your article addresses her stated position on taking public assistance. She seems to have been ashamed of doing so herself, but lots of people are.
It starts with “First, if her accepting government assistance really was principled and completely consistent with her philosophy, why was it apparently concealed? ”
Especially important is the part beginning with “Even more significant is the fact that a person suffering from lung cancer will likely take far more from the system than they paid into it.” We can reasonably conclude that she and her husband did not merely take a “small restitution,” but rather took out far more than what they paid in. In her philosophy, she accepted money taken by force from others, making her complicit in theft.
Yes, she did. In your own quote she labels people “parasites” who ask for public assistance. That’s not the people who set up the system; the people who set up the system are the ones responding to the requests from the “parasites.”
She should be, since in her own words she qualified as the sort of “parasite” she otherwise attacked.
Henry Solomon produced the quote, but since it is handy:
“The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it.”
Rand is clearly making a distinction between people in need of assistance who didn’t ask for welfare to be institutionalized and the people who ‘clamored’ for it. For her to be the parasite she was referring to in the quote, she would have had to have advocated for welfare. Instead, she found herself in the position of ‘victim’ she refers to in the quote, someone who didn’t ask for the system but without moral obligation to refrain from using it once it exists.
As I said, I can see a case for hypocrisy based on her words and actions, but I don’t see where she indicted herself…she did what she advised others to do in the same situation.
Thanks, Austin, I see where you’re taking your point from now. I didn’t take ‘small restitution’ literally, I suspect Rand considered whatever someone got back from the system after many years of work and paying taxes to be ‘small restitution’, but that’s just my opinion, and at least I see where we are diverging.
I imagine she hid it because she figured most people would pounce on it as hypocrisy despite her caveat about accepting public assistance. She was right about that, which doesn’t mean she wasn’t a hypocrite for not choosing to die in her apartment without medical attention, despite her ‘escape clause’; and possibly also a hypocrite for hiding it. On the other hand, I doubt I’ll be in the mood to deal with my critics when I’m dying either.
I am Andrew Ryan, and I’d like to ask you a question. Is a welfare queen not entitle to the sweat of your own brow?
She was a liar from the start and hoodwinked those never checking their history. She said she fled Russia in 1919 0r 1920 because of the Communist plan to begin collectivisation of farms, etc. Stain introduced that policy in the 5 Year Plan in 1928. If an initial lie how many more?
Then why did she hide it? Why not proudly proclaim that she got back “restitution”?
Who said that she “hid it”? In what way did she “hide” it? (Hint: regardless of what name she applied under — and why wouldn’t she apply under her married name rather than her pen name? — it would not be a matter of public record.) Did you expect her to issue a press release? Why would she?
Except that she didn’t take some small restitution. That only applies if you take back less than was taken from you. She did the opposite.
You have no actual evidence of this. Just speculation.
Because she’s taking back something that was stolen from her. It’s something to be proud of if one actually believes the philosophy in question.
It’s a far more reasonable conclusion that the opposite, which is that her operation and treatments and all the other assistance cost less than all the taxes she paid. Cancer is very expensive and operations are very expensive. That’s a great deal stronger of a position than mere “speculation” and you can’t offer an iota of evidence or argument against it.
It’s hilarious how you engage in petty semantics when it’s in defense of someone or some idealogy you agree with. At least TRY to be objective when you make an argument or it comes off like Rush Limbaugh….which, by the way, is NOT good, regardless of what you might think.
It would not have mattered if she took government assistance or if she was a billionaire. Her philosophy is still wrong. She made several intellectual mistakes throughout her career (like her nemesis Karl Marx).
Her followers always try to hit the “reset button” on capitalism. Thus the Great Depression is blamed on the New Deal even though it began well before FDR’s term and such government organizations like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Rural Electrification provided temporary jobs and pushed forward scientific discoveries and improved farming. Conservatism is a philosophy based on amnesia. If conservatism in the form of religious edicts and capitalist royalism worked their never would have been any alternatives thought up.
America is going bankrupt from imperialist wars (fought on behalf of capitalist enterprises). You can’t balance the budget and fight a war at the same time. It is something that history has proven over and over (like the failure of conservative ideologies).
unbridled free market economy in today’s ailing economy and broken family structure will leave most people homeless and in dire straits. after all, it didn’t help out the queen of capitalism herself now did it. ayn rand and her tough talk on taking no government hand outs spent the last years of her life leaching off the government. so typical of a kosher hypocrite such as herself.
You are missing a very important point. Ayn Rand said that it was wrong for a government to TAKE in the first place. She does not fault the people who GET from the government.
She said that the problems arise when the government (the looters) take by force from those who produce.
This is VERY different from being a hypocrite.
Also, all of the quotes attributed post mortem… why do you belive them? only because they fit your political agenda?
…I mean it was only yesterday that Obama’s social worker told me that he said, when he was a student at Harvard, that the illuminati had arranged for him to become president of the USA in 2008, and that they would arrange a marriage with Michelle…
are you gonna go and quote that kind of garbage too?
Yes, she does.
Ayn Rand did not die from lung cancer. She died from heart failure. She was successfully treated for lung cancer. Quote,
Rand was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1974, but she underwent surgery, which she reported to be “a complete success.” She also stopped smoking at this time. There is no evidence that she experienced any recurrence of the cancer or that it was directly involved in her death, which did not come until 1982.
So there!
This article rests on very flawed arguments and inaccuracies. It fails to recognize that Ayn Rand, as a tax payer, payed into the social security and medicare systems, so why should she not benefit from them? She might have condemned the nanny state, but she paid into the system–it’s only logical she would try to recoup her wealth. Also, the article takes great leaps to take side swipes at religious people and global warming critics–this is a gratuitous effort to appeal to lefties because the writer’s arguments can’t rest on its own merits. Additionally, the article claims how difficult it would be to underestimate Rand’s influence on Conservatism. Again, this is evidence of the writer’s ignorance. Just look at William F. Buckley’s and Whitaker Chambers’s strong rejection of Rand’s views. Again, this article rests on very, very weak and inaccurate arguments.
Then why can’t you name one?
Two responses were given to exactly this argument. So why didn’t you address either of them?
When people show a consistent pattern of denial of science, it’s reasonable to point this out.
The fact that not all conservatives who have ever lived have agreed with Rand isn’t a counter-argument to the idea that she is influential. To gauge the her influence, we can look at how often she is explicitly cited and how popular her specific ideas are. Do you really want to go there? Do you really want to look seriously at the two?
Then name one.
As a very staunch atheist, and a long time reader and fan of your website, I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in this article. I am a libertarian and I detest socialism almost much as I do religion, why would you use your page on atheism as a platform for something political that is entirely unrelated? Ayn Rand would have never supported the Tea Party and I resent your ignorant and incorrect attacks on her legacy.
Yet you are unable to identify any actual errors in the article.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong…but the whole “Surgeon General has determined that Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health” thing started in the 60′s.
Ms. Rand probably started smoking in the 1930′s or earlier.
Saying: “She only got lung cancer because of her stupid, pig-headed denial that her smoking caused cancer in the first place” is presumptive in the extreme.
By the time those studies and warnings came out, the damage for a lot of folks had been done.
Considering the first use of “Coffin Nails” for cigarettes was in 1888 you’d think any and all smokers would have known that they probably weren’t good for you. It would be interesting to find if anyone had done studies on smoking pre mid century for instance.
Also Rand’s incidence of smoking, cancer and other vascular events could be argued to have had long term effects on her cardio health even though she’d quit smoking 8 years before.
Lets summarize the points mentioned above.
1)
Ayn Rand advocated laissez fare capitalism, therefore, she was against institutionalized welfare system.
2)
But the institutionalized welfare system is a reality. It is not voluntary system, one has to pay the taxes.
3)
Because of these facts mentioned above, I understand that getting something back of the system is a form of restitution.
4)
She was a heavy smoker and she refused to accept the risk that it can lead to lung cancer.
5)
Ayn rand received healthcare from the institutionalized system.
6)
Some people argue, that her contribution to the system were much less that she has received from the system.
7)
She received the healthcare under her family name.
Some people conclude that because she was against any form of institutionalized welfare system and healthcare in particular yet she received it under family name, not her own, she is a hypocrite.
My question and comment:
A) Question:
Lets assume that her contribution to the system were far more than she received. What difference would it make? In this case, would it make her philosophy acceptable to here opponents?
B) Comment:
In such an institutionalized welfare system there is no way how to do the profit/loss balance. It is very hard just to imagine, what else Ayn Rand could do with her money. She could have invested them and be better of than what she has received from the medicare system. There is no way how to do a comparison other than through imagination. … but the task to concretise it properly whould take an other novel, not a comment.
Then why not publicize it? If it’s reasonable and laudable, there’s no reason to hide it.
It would mean that she wasn’t a hypocrite. It would mean that she didn’t cheat on her own philosophy when it served her interests.
Oh? Why not? I don’t see how hard it is to calculate taxes paid and then the rough cost of medical care.
Your points are all addressed in the article. Sometimes in detail. So why not address what was written directly instead of bringing them up as if they were somehow new ideas? It suggests you didn’t really read the article, never mind the times this points were discussed in comments already.
With all due respect, I think the fundamental error in this article is your assumption that Rand’s mention of the “parasites” who “clamored for” welfare institutions refers to taxpayers who benefit from the system they’ve payed into. I’ve read all of her work, and it’s clear within context that the “parasites” she was so disgusted by were the wealthy, powerful people who seek to influence government policy for their own direct benefit (and the politicians whose careers benefit by it). My point being that your main premise is an assumption, not an established fact. I’m not asking you to critique my critique; I’m asking you to establish your principal assumption as fact.
Also: As adult human beings on planet Earth, can we not at least agree that the headline you chose is an embarrassing piece of propagandist drivel? “Welfare Queen”?? “Living High on Government Assistance”?? She made a living in her profession, payed into the Social Security system, then made use of that investment when she developed cancer. You should expect yourself to be above that kind of tragedy-mining, opportunistic, cheap attack.
Ayn rand sold millions of books -she probably
put in more than she got…. and then besides her
money recieved by medicare she still payed for her
food and rent from her earned money … which is not
what welfare queens do (they take all their money from government get extra funds by deliberately
getting pregnant use food stamps or cards).
she definately had self esteem to only use her own money for food. and after her death had enough money
to set up the ayn rand institute .Making capitalism
important rather than gurus (including the technical
guru who runs a large corperation) is helping atheism.
Sometimes an idea can become much bigger than the individual themselves to follow. It depends on your worldview. Yes many who make claims of something fall sorely short of what the claim is. Ideas are powerful and even if the one who speaks it and gives it life falls short that does not mean the idea is very well bad, it just simply means the person found it much more than they can handle. How many of us who say we would never steal anything at all but find ourselves in a terrible way make the choice to steal to survive? Even the strongest and most idealist man or woman could find themselves weak for only a moment and give in to some tempation. It is the way of the human condition. We can judge from our chair those with high ideals when we discover they had “feet of clay.”
Can you truly say that you would never do wrong if the circumstances occurred to put you on the spot? Yes the idealist Ayn Rand failed. Her failure only details her flaws. The idea she presents in “Atlas shrugged” is a very important and valid one. Man can achieve inspite of what a group, such as a government, tells them otherwise. Her words inspire inspite of her human shortcomings.
When any leadership in government seeks to control the actions of the population by any means at its fingertips, that is leadership out of control. They use the law as its weapon because most people will follow the law, until the law cannot be followed anymore.
So, you admit that she did wrong and disagree with all those apologists who are insisting that she did nothing wrong?
OK, prove it.
So, when speed limits are set for any road, the government is out of control. When the government outlaws pedophilia, it’s out of control. When the government outlaws murder, it’s out of control.
No wonder people fail to live up to your system — it’s ridiculous.
And people will follow the law of gravity, until gravity does not work anymore. Tautologies are so much fun, but also so superficial. Maybe that’s why they are the foundation of Objectivism – they are meaningless to everyone who’s moved beyond first semester philosophy.
I can see how this looks extremely bad for Ayn Rand. But come on guys, it was lung cancer. She paid federal taxes, she paid social security, as we are all forced to. Even though she hated the system, she was forced into it, as well as forced to use it to save her life. I am against social security in general, but I do pay into it, and in doing so I will use it if neccesary. When Ayn was a child she had the same beliefs, but still had to stand in Russian food lines or starve. And one more thing, nobody is absolutely perfect in the execution of their ideals. I believe Ayn Rand was a women of integrity, and I think all you naysayers are being a little unfair.
So, she was a sick parasite.
That justifies taking back out of the system what she paid into it – but no more. Taking more made her a parasite.
And will you refuse to take out any more than what you put in? If so, then you’re consistent and actually live up to the ideals you espouse. If not, then you’re a hypocrite and – according to Objectivist philosophy – also a parasite.
I read every single comment, and every one of your replies here, and its quite plain to me that the only parasite here is yourself. I surely hope you dont introduce yourself in social circles as a “journalist” because my slimy friend, you are not. How in the f**k did you get a job writing, unless it’s just as a shill for hardcore left wing agenda propagandists? Best of luck creating your “utopia”.
The depths of ignorance and plain un-truth in this article is massive, and isnt even worth the time it would take to re-educate & embarrass you with facts. I assure you probably wouldnt know a fact if it slapped you in the forehead. Using your webpresence to manipulate words to further your agenda is just about the scummiest thing any human could do on the internet in this day and age. How ironic that you want to smear her as being greedy and selfish….. I thought this was a website about atheism? roflmao
So it’s worth your time to make accusations, but not worth your time to substantiate those accusations? That sounds rational and moral.
More accusations lacking substance. Is this something you learned reading Rand?
You sure do speak in a condescending manner, for someone so against Rand’s point of view, i would’ve imagined the opposite.
Okay, so to begin with, where do you base your assumption of her taking in more than she put in? I mean, if I’m not mistaken, tax brackets are significantly higher for the wealthy than they are for other classes; she had two best selling novels along with other works of at least moderate sales plus her screen plays and interviews. With that in mind, it is reasonable to believe that she put in quite a great amount to the system.
In regards to “if her accepting government assistance really was principled and completely consistent with her philosophy, why was it apparently concealed”, how do you figure it was concealed? Because she didn’t use her pen name? I will go ahead and assume that you do not understand the concept of a pen name to an author based off of your statement. It is a name used when publishing books, not on legal documents, hence the usage of her actual name. There is a difference between not publicizing it and hiding it; do you publicize your daily activities to everyone one who reads your posts? I’d have to imagine otherwise.
Furthermore, i may be incorrect, but from my examination of all of her works and interviews, that the highest moral priority of her view, Objectivism, was betterment of the self, your own needs among all others, or selfishness, while not inhibiting, interfering, or prohibiting the rights of others . A parasite would be those who contribute little and demand much at the expenses of others; i.e, the middle and lower class wishing to tax the higher class due to obvious factors of jealousy and groomed animosity. By no definition was Rand a parasite.
Please don’t associate the Tea Party with Ayn Rand, she was more intelligent than that horribly despicable party. Common misconception that they follow her views; they clearly do not, as their interference with individual rights makes so evident.
In your replies, you seem to ask for the errors to be pointed out in your article, aside from the ones i already listed: Ayn Rand died of heart failure, not lung cancer. You say Rand is a hypocrite, though you fail to prove it, only base your article on your own assumptions. Considering that she had both lung cancer and a corrective surgery, I’m assuming she accepted the responsibility for her actions, but hey, who knows. You say her philosophy was a failure, and that she refused to accept that it was a failure; by definition, it is impossible for a philosophy to be a failure due to it being a point of view making your statement incorrect.
So yea, I’m looking forward to a rebuttal, preferably a competent one; nice try, but i feel your article was poorly formulated, distasteful, unjustly arrogant, and all around a bad idea. I don’t understand why you harbor so much resentment of her, she was one of the greatest authors of all time, my personal favorite, a damn good economist, and in my opinion, genius. I don’t find her philosophy as hard to live by as you seem to.
You guys are hysterical. The worship of the woman is amazing. She has become a god to those who say they are godless!! LOLOLOL there is no example of the society goddess Ayn Rand talked about except in her mind oh or Somalia
Thanks for the laugh
her philosophy neither failed nor succeeded on the wings of one eagle … to claim “She just didn’t have the courage to admit how much of a failure her philosophy was before she died.” is just ignorant. She was, in this case, a hypocryte — that in itself does not make her ideas wrong any more than her living by her words would make them right.
Moral absolutism based on incomplete or incorrect data seems to be the problem with most political philosophies. I think it would be helpful to strip away all the meaningless ideology and figure out a basic common goal. From there if we could take human nature into account while accessing the most scientific method of reaching that goal maybe we could finally get somewhere. But this would require people to give up firmly held beliefs and approach problem solving in a rational way which doesn’t seem too likely to happen in the near future. Maybe in the meantime technology will advance sufficiently to completely address everyone’s basic needs. That will go a long way towards giving us the breathing room to develop a truly workable and universal philosophy.
Let’s get this straight: Liberals that recommend money be forced from people at the point of a gun think that those same people from whom the money was confiscated have no moral authority to recover at least a small portion of it? These same liberals demand that all confiscated funds be limited in their disbursement to those that recommend the confiscation in the first place. Why is that not theft? Don’t think “taxes” are collected at the point of a gun?? Try refusing long enough, try resisting the “authorities” strongly enough and you will be shot dead by some drone Sheriff’s deputy or Treasury agent. Unless you are stupid enough to believe the evil Harry Reid’s statement that our tax system is “voluntary”.
Nope, you don’t have it straight – which is pretty amazing, actually, given how it was made clear more than once already. How’d you miss it?
No, morally competent adults recommend that others not be hypocrites.
Of course they are. If you won’t contribute what’s necessary to pay for the society you benefit so much from, you loose freedom in that society.
Don’t like taxes? Move to Somalia.
It was her money…Ayn Rand was forced to pay into the government Social Security system her entire life and she paid plenty. Now the Left Wing Twits want to keep her money and steal it to give to PARASITES? What? When did Ayn Rand’s money, or your money paid into SS, become the Government’s money? Huh? SS is not welfare…unless you have never paid into the system. Rand paid and paid and paid as do everyone who works…now why would she not want to get some of her OWN money back? Duh? Why is the Left so stupid?
All of it? Are you sure? This is an issue that was already addressed in detail above. Either you don’t know because you didn’t read the article before commenting, or you do know but decided to write a comment that completely ignores what’s already been said.
Neither says very much about your reasoning skills.
Actually, Rand probably did not ever collect back all the money that was taken from her in taxation. She became successful in the 1940s, and her books were made into Hollywood films. I would like to see an accounting of her expenses, but it seems quite plausible that the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars that she burned up in medical expenses through public assistance in the 19700s did not equal all the money she paid out in the form of taxations that she opposed throughout her life. After all, 30 years is a long time. The Gov’t takes an awful lot of money out a millionaire’s pocket over 30 years.
Really? Why do you think she paid millions in social security and medicare taxes?
This arguement is revolving and through its revolutions in the comments on this page, is she a hypocrit is she not? on and on, fails to address an important aspect of Ayn Rands thinking. Because the arguments here are based on the idea that Rand is a “victim” of a system already in place wemust look at what type of system she thinks would exist if this system did not. OK. Taxes only for roads, bridges and national defence, (anything else i left out?). Then that leaves public health and welfare out. So what happens to people? oF COURSE MAN Y DIE. iS THIS WHAT lIBERTATRIANS AND aYN rAND CONSERVATIVES WANT? sORRY CAPSLOCK..fixed it. Is that a world that you would want? A nation that allows its people to die from starvation, malnutrition, diseases, childbirth? is that what we would want our nation to be like? With modern technology, it is reasonable to use tax dollars for the public health and welfare. Remember the story of the epidemic of cholera in England? And it came fom one well. A scientist figured that out. Then London began a program of pulic health with the water wells. It paid off and no more cholera deaths. Do you think that they should have done nothing? Do you think that poor people should die? If you do how far are you willing to take the idea of people as “parasites” on society? Should we eradicate the parasites. How like nazi germany did? Oh well have fun “Libertarians” not a very libertated world you imagine, it is one of horrors worse than you can imagine. Daydream on, but not while driving a large co2 producing SUV on the way to get your flu shot while stopping at ’1000 cows per burger’ Mickey D’s. Oh that poor mom next to you in CVS using a medicaid card for her flu shot? Scum just run her over.
Everything being said here is irrelevant. The moment the author of this article and of the Huffington Post article it references, invoked the logical fallacy of “Appeal to hypocrisy”, the entire intent of this article failed. Say what you will about Ayn Rand, but the validity of objectivism is completely independent of any actions she may or may not have taken.
Please, only continue arguing here about this article if you have no idea what a logical fallacy is, for the rest of us however, there’s nothing of value to see here.
Those of us who actually know something about logical fallacies also know that there are both legitimate and illegitimate uses of tu quoque.
No conclusions about the validity of Objectivism are asserted on the basis of her personal hypocrisy.