"Ayn Rand and Al Qaeda"
Posted by jmlesniewski 11 years, 7 months ago to Culture
So, there's this:
"If comparing Ayn Rand to Osama Bin Laden sounds extreme, you don’t know Ayn Rand sufficiently."
"If comparing Ayn Rand to Osama Bin Laden sounds extreme, you don’t know Ayn Rand sufficiently."
"In Atlas, the protagonist South-American mine-owning billionaire logically and methodically kills striking American workers with sniper fire from a rooftop while Rand praises his 20-20 vision and steady hand."
I don't remember sniper fire in Atlas. Am I wrong?
2) religious fundamentalism used to justice hatred, violence, and war.
3) An assumption their members of their little cult are more deserving of wealth and advantages than the rest of society.
I could go on and on.
2) I was speaking more broadly. My original comment said, "the Randites of today have much in common with Al Qaeda." Randite fans of today have little in common with Rand, picking and choosing the parts of her philosophy you like, and jamming them into your pre-determined world-view, ignoring the parts you don't like.
3) If Randites aren't a cult, why does the majority of the world see it that way? It is you that has rejected meritocracy, insisting that the rules of Capitalism dictate that the few be allowed to steal the profits of the labor of the many.
4) I have read nearly every word Rand wrote, something very few posters to this page can claim. I understand very clearly what she was all about, and I'm not blinded by ideology like most posters to this site.
2) I'm glad you know what every individual thinks before talking to him.
3) Argument ad populum fallacy. "At one time everybody thought the world was flat." Your second point is an assumption on what I think.
4) Irrelevant and ad hominem. No one asked you to compare yourself to everyone else, nor do any of us have any clue what anyone else has read (or even what anyone else thinks).
Which is a kind way of saying it's not Capitalism. If you support Capitalism the way we practice it today in the US, you cannot call yourself an Objectivist. Rand would have been horrified.
2) The strikers are not the initiators of force in the book, and calling their ideas "religious fundamentalism" is a straw man.
3) So you reject meritocracy, ok, that's fine, but that's no reason to dismiss people who don't with the straw man label of "cult."