Laziness Unfair to Ayn Rand

In response to Brent Budowsky's Laissez Unfair article published at http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/032309b.html#When:10:15PM

Mr. Budowsky calling Ayn Rand Alan Greenspan’s goddess of laissez-unfair is unnecessary, inaccurate and intellectually lazy (something Ayn Rand, Objectivists and most thinking humans would oppose). Alan Greenspan moved away from Ayn Rand’s idea of Objectivism long ago and Alan Greenspan’s mistakes are Alan Greenspan’s mistakes, not Ayn Rand’s (a point with which Ayn Rand, Objectivists and most thinking humans would agree). But, for the intellectually lazy, what is one more blight on the pyre of misunderstanding of Objectivism?

In “The Virtue of Selfishness,” Ayn Rand clearly states that the selfish person is a self-respecting, self-supporting human being who neither sacrifices others to her/himself nor sacrifices her/himself to others. The primary virtues of the Objectivist ethic are rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, trade and pride. The Objectivist ethical code is one of rational self-interest. Laissez-faire capitalism is the objectivist social system. Objectivists, and it would be hard to call Alan Greenspan an Objectivist, are opposed to any government intervention in business. “Government ‘help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off,” states Rand. Ayn Rand would be no more supportive of the U.S. government bail out of industry then she would have been of the Chicago School Projects tyrannically imposed privatization in Latin America.

Why, Mr. Budowsky, would you finish an otherwise poignant and prescient article with a statement that calls into question your intellectual rigor?

The Neo-Radicons

Obama has been President for less than three months and before that had been a Senator for three years and eight months and in that time missed 314 of 1300 votes or 24% (I know that because I watched some Fox News during the run up to the election), how could a man with so little time in office and so little experience have anything to do with the U.S.’ current economic situation. Even if you could blame the U.S. economic collapse on sub-prime loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or even the Clinton Administration’s hard line against Redlining (Clinton was eight years ago), where was the canary in the coal mine? Where was the partisan outcry twelve, ten, eight, six, four or even two years ago while all these bad notes were being written?

“Are there no more Conservatives in D.C?” “Can the U.S. survive four years, God forbid eight, of Obama?” William Ares survived Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush. You Neo-Cons have a few choices; you can love it or leave it, you can arm up (okay, just load what you got) and take the country back or crawl into your Cold War bomb shelter and ride it out. Any way you choose, it will be hard to plot a future without severing your moorings to the ghost of Ronald Reagan (he was 20 years ago). This is it though, your time to shine, everybody loves the underdog, you're not the majority any more you don’t have to be silent, let your hair down and your freak flag fly you neo-radical anti-government conservatives, you Neo-Radicons.