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?