i read her when i was 18 and got waaaaaay into LIBERTARIANISM. i even interned at the cato institute just after college. that fucking place was like a cult, like the scientology church or something.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549178)

She was correct about the danger Marxist libs posed to America and the world, and Marxist libs have been able to deflect her ideas from being implemented with the same “she’s a bad writer! people who like her are soooo weird and creepy!” shit you are saying right now.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549194)

i didn't read much of her philosophy, and i am not a philosophymo, but what i've read sounds like it's coming from a stoned 19 year old. "bro, it's like...man qua man, man."

she had good ideas but unfortunately her delivery was shit. that said, she did influence ron paul and rand paul and a bunch of others.

it is sorta humorous that she took ss benefits and medicare when she got old. libs use that one too to try to discredit her ideas. SEE SHE WAS ON WELFARE.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549206)

it's well known that she struggled with acceptance ss and medicare. in the end, she was advised that she HAD TO or else she'd be homeless and die. if she had lived up to her john galt fantasies or whatever, she'd have refused these benefits because they were "immoral" in her eyes. but she couldn't do that. this is the position many americans are in - they are destitute and social security/medicare is a necessity for them.

so in that sense, she should be ridiculed for being on a high horse her whole life just to be in a position where she exemplified why these programs exist in the first place.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#49357452)

chaos v order

Who's in charge?

Authoritatian communism, government is in charge. Authoritarian capitalism - oligarchs are in charge. Chaos basically means slavery and theft with the strongest, most violet and ruthless in charge.

Liveability can only be found somewhere in the middle, pitting the oligarchs against the government, against the criminal elements. If the delicate balance is broken and one gains the upper hand, all are fucked.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549210)

The real lesson here is that Ayn Rand was right.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#42871989)

====

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

2

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

3

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

4

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

5

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

6

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

7

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

8

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four–

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

9

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

10

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549181)

something like, "the deep, perhaps unpleasant truths that cannot be denied."

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549217)

tldr: yeah, no

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549877)

it said "salient and prophetically perceptive"

her novels are that

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549919)

on what issues are her opinions different from his?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48551090)

"Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48551143)

Look at the CA wildfires for example. CA gave the state the authority to reject insurance rate increases. The state then blocked home insurers from raising rates to account for higher construction costs and possibly climate change. Home insurers responded by not renewing policies in high-risk areas. Now that a bad fire has happened, the state is banning non-renewals and is forcing insurers in the state to cover high-risk homes. What do you think will happen next? This could all be straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48549267)

Rand's most important philosophical area of inquiry is ethics and, as a derivative, political philosophy, as well as aesthetics.

She advocates for selfishness, individualism, radical nonconformity, heroicism, elitism and capitalism. And art that reflects these ideals.

You can't really "debate" art but her critics do, which is head scratching.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#48551049)

This is why anarchism has it right more than democracy or authoritarianism in their various incarnations, though it's not THE solution either by any means

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4889697&forum_id=2#49357461)