DOMA and Prop 8. Both History.

[kandrathe]

Atlas Shrugged imho is a cautionary tale of "parasites", "looters", and "moochers" run amok. All classes in the novel were rife with corruption, seeking to get their wealth by taking it from others who had earned it honestly.

But it isn't. It is a PROMOTION of, not a cautionary tale against, the whole "greed is good" philosophy, selfishness, and materialism.

So I thought I would attempt to unwind this mess you've made. It will probably do no good -- meaning you will ignore it -- silk purse out of a sows ear and all. But, first, let me state that I'm not an adherent of "objectivism", but you cast so many untruths and logical fallacies that it pains me to just let it stand. Rand was casting about for a philosophy to be her moral compass having rejected religion. I find her attempt interesting. Much as I find the Bhagavad Gita or Lao Tsu to be interesting. Interesting doesn't mean I'm busy reworking my worldview. Interesting does not mean endorsement either.

Her novels are designed to paint the laughable notion that somehow it is the rich who are becoming oppressed in society.

She came from the Soviet Union, where the government seized her fathers pharmacy and her family nearly starved to death. She studied philosophy, and history -- but finding the university replete with communist bullies opted to study screen writing instead. She came the the US to visit a relative, then ended up in Hollywood and met Cecil B., DeMille and actor Frank O’Connor, who would become her husband. Her novels were meant to be drama, and she drew inspiration from what she had been through and learned. She saw America as a place where people could be free.

One of the key points of Objectivism, the ideology which her novels were based off, is that selfishness and exploitation of the weak by the powerful is a good and natural thing, so how can they be cautionary tales?

You have either misunderstood, or just lapped up the pablum fed to you by others. Selfish is not the word she uses, it is self interest -- meaning that ultimately she saw a persons life purpose to be satisfying self interest. That may mean being altruistic, if by being altruistic you achieve some self interested goal. She believed that no one should throw their lives away for others, nor should anyone's efforts or life be seized from them. Obectivism is really more that people should live for themselves. The distilled version would be; 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

The simple answer is they are not, and it doesn't take rocket science to figure it out. Her stories were her sick, twisted, sociopathic version of how she thinks society should look, and for the sake of humankind, I hope that such a thing never takes place.

Did you ever hear of a guy named Thomas Harris? Do you confuse his stories for a personal sick and twisted worldview? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to separate a persons art, from the artist.

It is no surprise that much of the current GOP and prototype capitalists view her as a hero, but what is worrisome is that she seems to be developing a cult following among brainwashed high school/young college students today.

As opposed to the cult of brainwashed Marxists? Let's cut to the GOP though, since this is utterly false. The vast part of the GOP is solidly moving toward the evangelicals who reject Rand the atheist, and second Rand the live and let live libertarian. The faction of the GOP who are Tea Party hardliners on small government but socially more liberal who are the niche who are resonating with her more libertarian message -- but in order to not alienate the evangelicals hold Ayn at arms length -- at least publicly in front of the big donors.

All one has to do is have a basic understanding of what objectivism is, and read/watch any of her interviews to see that her works were not warnings, but diatribes on how she actually saw the world as it should be. Anything else is just a cover-up, or turning the facts around to make her views look like something that they really are not.

Ah, then, since ANYTHING else is cover-up, distortion and lies... Interesting argument tactic... Let's try it out; Marx is a self absorbed coward who spent most of his time mooching off Engels money to spend in beer halls getting drunk, and any claims to the contrary are the ravings of a demented, sick, twisted, perverted, deviant liar. This is the classic fallacy of the excluded middle. You are either with us, or a self hating, baby seal clubbing, nose picking, ankle biting, vermin. Well, which is it?

This same women called a real life child rapist/killer the victim in the crime he committed for being persecuted and ultimately executed for it. She was scum, her work is utter crap, and objectivism is the virtue of the sociopath (and the hypocrite).

Have you ever disagreed with the government executing people? How do you feel about the 40+ people who were executed by our government last year? Change.org has a petition signed by 1200 people to save Beunka Adams, who was convicted of an equally heinous crime.

But, again I also think you have her writing and character development confused with her again. She wrote, but never finished a screenplay, based on that guy where the anti-hero murders a KKK deep south preacher. The book was going to be -- "The Little Street", with a Hickmanlike hero; a character named Danny Renahan, who kills this evil minister in a way similar to the way Hickman killed his victims. So, in her journal, she's writing about her planning of the book, and she's writing about Hickman: "Yes, he is a monster—now. But the worse he is, the worst must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn’t it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to out-balance crime in his eyes? If society is horrified at this crime, it should be horrified at the crime’s ultimate cause: itself. The worse the crime—the greater it’s guilt. What would society answer, if that boy were to say: “Yes, I’m a monstrous criminal, but what are you? "

So, in her notes it's clear she thought he was a monster. But, she was also intrigued by his rejection of everything society has told him to believe. We shrink in horror at the crimes we see around us, yet we reject the idea that it is our society that makes the monsters.