LIBERALISM, CONSERVATISM, PROGRESSIVISM, OBJECTIVISM, ETC.

Is that true? She was on government assistance?

 

It depends on how you define welfare. After she came down with cancer, she enrolled in Social Security and Medicare, even though she had an estate of $500,000. There are no wealth limits to those programs. What a moocher!

Ayn Rand Was A Secret Welfare Queen - KnowledgeNuts
https://www.quora.com/Did-Ayn-Rand-really-accept-Social-Security-and-Medicare-in-the-late-1970s
FACT CHECK: Did Ayn Rand Receive Social Security Benefits?
Did Ayn Rand Live on Government Assistance?
Ayn Rand and the VIP-DIPers | HuffPost

Not something her followers like to spread around.

 

^^^ Dafuq???

That contradictory bitch! How did I never know this??

 

Objectivism is a Secular Cult. Like other cults, they keep the Dear Leader's skeletons in the closet. Psychologist Albert Ellis, founder of rational-emotive therapy, asked the question in his book Is Objectivism a Religion? (1968), later expanded into Are Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism Religions? He answers “Yes”. Some writers go farther and call objectivism a “cult” (M. Rothbard, 1987. The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.” Liberty; Michael Shermer,1997 “The Unlikeliest Cult: Ayn Rand, Objectivism and the Cult of Personality”, Why People Believe Weird Things; Jeff Walker, The Ayn Rand Cult. Although I think the comparisons may be overdrawn, these studies do bring out striking similarities between the secular Objectivist movement and religion.
Ayn Rand’s Objectivism: The Cult of The Dirty Diaper
Wealthcare
The Unlikeliest Cult in History

But my favorites are Christopher Hitchens
ayn rand cult - Yahoo Video Search Results
And John Oliver
ayn rand cult - Yahoo Video Search Results

Because of Obectivism’s emphasis on absolutes, Ellis, himself an atheist, father of rational-emotive therapy, characterizes Objectivism as a “dogmatic, fanatical, absolutist, anti-empirical, people-condemning creed.” He argues that like other religions, Objectivism reflects a desperate need for certainty in an uncertain world. Rothbard and Schermer, also atheists, are intrigued by the paradox that an explicitly atheist movement, purporting to being anti-religious and devoted to reason, could take on the characteristics of fundamentalist religions. Rothbard (1987) remarks that Objectivism “promoted slavish dependence on the guru in the name of independence; adoration and obedience to the leader in the name of very person’s individuality; and blind emotion and faith in the guru in the name of reason.”Shermer opines that “in this postmodern age of moral relativism Ayn Rand stood for something clearly, unequivocally, unreservedly and with passion.” (Shermer, 2011. The Believing Brain, pp. 46-47). According to one biographer, Jennifer Burns: "Rand intended her books to be a sort of scripture, and for all her emphasis on reason, it is the emotional and psychological sides of her novels that make them timeless.” The history of the movement bears uncanny parallels to that of religious movements, with its apostles, true believers and heretics. It began with a small inner circle of believers around Rand which she sarcastically called “the Collective”. One of her early disciples, Nathaniel Branden announced, in language resembling a Christian's description of Jesus: “Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived. Atlas shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world. Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth. No one can be a good Objectivist who does not admire what Ayn Rand admires and condemn what Ayn Rand condemns.” (Branden, 1989. Judgment Day: My years With Ayn Rand).

When he mentions “what Ayn Rand admires” and “what Ayn Rand condemns” he is including aesthetic and scientific judgments. In a parallel to Communist countries, Rand’s personal tastes became absolutes on matters of music and art. The best art, she said, was “romantic art” which depicts man as in control of his life. She disliked Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart”, so they were “condemned” in the eyes of good Objectivists. Likewise, again paralleling the Soviet Union, certain scientific theories were condemned. Modern physics, especially the theory of relativity and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, was at variance with her mechanistic theories of causation and was therefore condemned as “Kantian”. As Branden later observed, after being excommunicated by Rand, “there was a cultish aspect to our world, a group organized around a charismatic leader, whose members judged one another’s character chiefly by loyalty to their leader and her ideas.” (p. 256)

The first major schism came in 1968, when Rand's extramarital romance with Branden turned sour and he and his wife were expelled from the movement. Objectivists were forbidden to associate with them or to buy his books. Many who wanted to continue their relationship with the Brandens left the movement. The second in command passed to Leonard Peikoff. After Rand died in 1982, he founded the Ayn Rand Institute in 1985.. Peikoff announced that Objectivism was a “closed system”, with no changes allowed to Rand’s doctrine. He also instituted the principle of “Sanction”: the obligation of Objectivists to disassociate themselves from advocates of false beliefs and “inherently dishonest ideas”. This led to a second major schism, when Objectivist David Kelley was denounced for violating Sanction by giving a speech under the auspices of a Libertarian book store. The Libertarians were condemned for being soft on religion and dovish on foreign policy. Kelley was expelled, and members were forbidden to continue to associate with him or the new Randian organization that Kelley formed in 1990, the Atlas Society, which proclaimed itself to be an “open system”, subject to revision. Kelley, a believer in such heretical ideas as tolerance and benevolence, was possibly “corrupted” by his postmoderninst dissertation advisor Richard Rorty. All this is detailed in a book by Jeff Walker, 1999. The Ayn Rand Cult, detailing the history of the movement during and after the founder’s lifetime and explaining its cult-like character.

One peculiarity of Objectivism as an atheist movement is its hostility to skepticism. This is explained at length by the Objectivist who has written the most about atheism, George H. Smith. (Atheism: The Case Against God, 1989; Why Atheism? 2000). Smith is a relatively non-dogmatic, libertarian-leaning Objectivist. Yet his devotion to Rand and her ideas is evident in her many sayings that he quotes in support of his arguments, which are fundamentally Randian in character. The problem with skepticism, he explains, is that it suggests that reason is somehow inadequate. “The skeptic and the Christian, united in their belief in the impotence of reason, are philosophical cousins.” ( Atheism: the Case Against God, p.128) He explains that Ayn Rand ‘s “contextual approach to knowledge provides a solid framework for our critique of skepticism” and he proceeds to defend the infallibility of reason with Randian arguments that are astonishing in their innocence. Reason, he thinks, can give us the Truth--a rationalist position which many of us thought had gone out with powdered wigs and the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century.

 

Regarding my post 10: It's not bullshit! Headline todays business section lt allows workers bosses to dip into tips. "Under the new proposal, employers could use workers tips for essentially ANY PURPOSE, as long as the workers were directly paid the federal minimum wage $ 7. 25 an hour. " $290 a week for 40 hours, grand total of $1,160 a month. Approximately $17,60.00 a year if worked full time. Whoa--their in the money now! Detractors are calling this change--wage theft.