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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Would Ayn Rand approve of Paul Ryan?

I  usually shun the topics of the day, but wanted you to see Roderick Long's post at the Bleeding Heart Libertarian blog ; Ayn Rand's comments about Ronald Reagan are quite amusing. Incidentally, while libertarians tend to emphasize their differences among themselves, the Rand quotations would serve as an example of where they agree. I doubt that Robert Anton Wilson, or many other people who have sometimes call themselves libertarians, would disagree with Rand's Reagan comments. 

2 comments:

Rob Pugh said...

Whether or not Ayn Rand would disapprove [and I don't really think of myself as falling into the Ayn camp] I find it pretty easy to dismiss him, leaning libertarian as I do. Summed up better than I could in an article I read - "‎"Libertarians, meanwhile, should find it easy to reject Ryan. He's a hawk with a rotten record on civil liberties: bad on the Patriot Act, bad on indefinite detentions, bad on surveillance, bad on the border fence, bad on the drug war. On the economic front, he has backed the bank and auto bailouts, Medicare Part D, even Davis-Bacon. His reputation as a free-market stalwart rests on his exaggerated reputation as a budget hawk and his habit of praising Ayn Rand.""

Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) said...

Hi Rob, thanks for dropping by.

Rob is referring to Jesse Walker's piece, available here:

http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-meet-the-new-second-fiddle-sam