Much Ado About Evil: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Why are we called upon to celebrate an atheistic, hedonistic, self-centered cult goddess, Ayn Rand, and her specious fiction extolling the Virtue of Selfishness?

Ayn Rand's Massive Cult Fictions Have Become the Tea Party "Scripture" Now leading Michigan GOP'ers plan a "Goddess" Rand celebration of the triumphs of godless selfishness on the Lansing Capitol.

What an insult to the honest men and women of Michigan!

In Michigan's present economic crisis unmitigated selfishness (as espoused by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged) is not the answer. Indeed, her veneration of arrogant, egotistic selfishness is at the very heart of the reason for the collapse of our national economy and ego-centric selfishness is a corrupting outrage against our Founders' moral principles.

"God forbid the mainstream news media should ever mention this, but there was once a time in America when citizens thought of government as their friend, and no one with any brains took the theory of free market capitalism as espoused by Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman very seriously. In fact, it was considered a ridiculous idea, and individuals who took it to heart, like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater or William F. Buckley Jr., were considered laughable.

"Of course, it was a different time in America then, a time when Keynesian economics was king, when most American families lived comfortably on one income, and when the rich and large corporations paid taxes at much higher rates.

"In those days average Americans knew instinctively, if not intellectually, that a "free market" system that took power away from government and allowed Big Business to run the show was just a scam to screw the little guy; that unfettered capitalism without strong government checks and balances led to-- at best-- robber barons like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, and-- at worst-- fascist dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.

"And they knew something else, like our Founding Fathers, they knew the cornerstone of American democracy was the common man, not wealthy individuals or large corporations. And from World War II until 1980, this paradigm remained safe in the land of the free, if not always in practice, at least in principle."

-- John F. Miglio

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