Ayn Rand, heroine of the Cong. Paul Ryan, Alan Greenspan, and the House GOP, preached the anti-Christian philosophy known as "objectivism," the main tenet of which is looking out for your own self and to hell with everybody else. As she herself put it:
"The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains."
The plutocrat only gets his "material payment" from the underlings at his feet, but the poor dear doesn't get any love. His wonderful self "trickles down" on those of us who live in "hopeless ineptitude," but we do nothing to show our appreciation. If it wasn't for our "betters," why, my heavens, we'd be eating food with our hands and blowing our nose on our neckties.
Of Christianity, she once said:
"What is correct is that I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal...Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. [...] And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.
Yes, Jesus died for the sins of the "nonideal." He sacrificed himself for "inferiors." (This is progress of a sort. At other times, she called us "nonideal" people "parasites" and "lice.")
Gore Vidal had her number: "She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the welfare state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts."
The movie adaptation of her abysmally-written book, Atlas Shrugged, debuted this past weekend. Box office receipts were disappointing. Perhaps us underlings were unaware that a young Alan Greenspan defended this stultifying tome in a letter to the New York Times, writing:
"'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
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