Robert Reich explains why Ayn Rand’s ideas have destroyed the common good.
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Rich Kacmar
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Funny how the left now claims there is an actual right and wrong. Reletivism and tolerance was the war cry when they did not have the popular opinion of culture. If the common good is based on shared values of a people, what if the values are those of Nazi Germany? Rwanda? The southern states in the 17th century? Blaming the right or the wealthy (which I do not represent either) is an easy scapegoat. Could it be that the hearts of people are both beautiful and made by God but also broken by a sin nature? This is what is causing the greatest problems in the world and it plauges the left amd the right. Could it be there is a completely different way? Seems to me that our personal rejection of God as the author of our life and our desire to be in charge is at the core of our proble.. Look inward my friends.
Friend Shawn Beaty, as you have looked inward have you found that the massacre of Jews did not occur, or that it did occur? And Rwanda? Did it occur? You say, “Blaming the right or the wealthy… is an easy scapegoat. It’s not easy; if it were easy we would not have Donald Trump as President, would we? And when you talk about “(t)he southern states in the 17th century” as an example of a mass movement that felt itself righteous for practicing slavery has it occurred to you that human beings were being captured and put to work in those southern states because people with money realized slavery was cheap labor? There is, right and wrong, for sure, and your God didn’t make it; people did. We’re out here to prove you wrong. I can’t wish you good luck in this struggle because you insult the notion of ethics and morality and simple human decency in the name of God. You blaspheme.
Trump’s claim that he identified with Rand’s fictional character Howard Roark hardly makes him an advocate of her philosophy. It merely shows that he is a shallow thinker. Those who actually practice her philosophy, myself included, regard him as a real-life version of a Rand villain.
Robert Reich is well aware that by “selfishness” Rand meant “rational self-interest” including respect for the rights of others, justice, honesty, integrity, rationality, productiveness, independence and other virtues.
Reich is also aware that Rand specifically denied that it is in anyone’s self-interest to gain an advantage by trampling over the rights of others. Yet he is counting on the common misconception that such immoral action is in a person’s self-interest and that Rand, therefore advocated such brutish actions. This is the height of dishonesty on the part of Reich.
Rand believed and explicitly stated that other people are of immense value to us and advocated mutual cooperation to mutual benefit. But she was unalterably opposed to obtaining values from others by the use of coercion.
Reich, however, favors obtaining values from the unwilling by the use of coercion, specifically government coercion. He believes that “communities” have group rights that supersede the rights of individuals and that “communities” may use coercion to take values from individuals against their will. Because of this view held by Reich and opposed by Rand, he thinks it is ok to spread lies about her and to lie about Donald Trump being linked to her somehow.
i agree. Trump’s brand is the common misconceptions of Ayn Rand.