Ayn Rand is a favorite author of GOTea Partiers and Wisconsin's newly elected Senator Ron Johnson. Those keepers of family values no doubt could Rand's book "The Virtue of Selfishness" in their list of favorites.
I find it very curious how the "big thinkers" on the TEA Party side of the borderline can push the self-righteous, philosophy of Ayn Rand and, at the same time, embrace the teachings of Jesus. Then again, I don't pretend to be judge and jury. That ain't my job.
Stranger ingredients have been blended together to make a fruitcake philosophy that appeals to groups of individuals who do not know the facts and think for themselves -- regradless of which end of the political spectrum you hang your hat. Think lemmings...
Below are a few interesting quotes from the "The Virtue of Selfishness." This is a slim paperback that can be picked up cheap at most used bookstores. You can get a good idea about the single-mindness of Rand's philosophy by watching the movie "The Fountainhead." You can see her philosophy in words OnTheBorderLine blog site and in action at the Hudson school board meetings. I suggest, after you watch "Fountainhead," watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Ghandi."
The words of Ayn Rand...$$$$$$$$$
On faith:
Faith is a malignancy that no system can tolerate with impunity; and the man who succumbs to it, will call on it in precisely those issues where he needs his reason most. When one turns from reason to faith, when one rejects the absolutism of reality, one undercuts the absolutism of one's consciousness -- and one's mind becomes an organ one cannot trust any longer. It becomes what the mystics claim it to be: a tool of distortion.
On reality:
There is only one reality -- the reality knowable to reason. And if man does not choose to perceive it, there is nothing else for him to perceive; if it is not of this world that his is conscious, then he is not conscious at all.
On pride:
Pride is one's response to one's power to achieve values, the pleasure one takes in one's own efficacy. And it is this that mystics hold as evil.
Pride has to be earned; it is the reward of effort and achievement; but to gain the virtue of humility, one has only to abstain from thinking -- nothing else is demanded -- and one will feel humble quickly enough.
On humility:
Humility is, of necessity, the basic virtue of a mystical morality: it is the only virtue possible to men who have renounced the mind.
On sacrifice:
A sacrifice, it is necessary to remember, means the surrender of a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a nonvalue. If one gives up that which one does not value in order to obtain that which one does not value -- or if one gives up a lesser value in order to obtain a greater one -- this is not a sacrifice, but a gain...But if sacrifice is a virtue, it is not the neurotic but the rational man who must be "cured." He must learn to do violence to his own rational judgement -- to reverse the order of his value hierarchy -- to surrender that which his mind has choosen as the good -- to turn against and invalidate his own consciousness.
On selfishness:
The root of selfishness is man's right -- and need -- to act on his own judgement. If his judgement is to be an object of sacrifice -- what sort of efficacy, control, freedom from conflict, or serentiy of spirit will be possible to man?
"...What's missing with this president is power—a strong grasp of the powers he possesses and the willingness to govern the country with them. During the past two years, this missing quality has been consistently obvious in his rhetoric and substantive policy positions. There is a cloying Boy Scout quality in his style of leadership—the troop leader urging boys to work together on their merit badges—and none of the pigheaded stubbornness of his "I am the decider" predecessor, nor the hard steel of Lyndon Johnson or the guile of Richard Nixon.
