Ayn Rand: Relevant in the present day?

While searching for a copy of Machiavelli's "The Prince" in my family bookshelf, I picked up a copy of Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness."

One particular passage stood out to me...

"The ideology of socialization (in a neo-fascist form) is now floating, by default, through the vacuum of our intellectual and cultural atmosphere. Observe how oftem the present administration is invoking 'the public interest.' Observe what prominence the issue of international prestige has suddenly acquired and what grotesquely suicidal policies are justified by references to matters of 'prestige.' Observe that during th recent Cuban crisis-- when the factual issue concerned nuclear missiles and nuclear war-- our diplomats and commentators found it proper seriously to weigh such things as the 'prestige,' the personal feelings and the 'face-saving' of the sundry socialist rulers involved (p. 106)."

This was written in December of 1962. Is it relevant in any way not quite 47 years later, or is it not? Why or why not? What do you think of what Rand said?

Ayn Rand never stopped being relevant 'round these parts.

Rand will always be relevant as an object lesson in tedious writing.

Rand said a lot of things:

"An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, but only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn)."

"Abortion is a moral right -- which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?"

"I do not know enough about [gun control] to have an opinion, except to say that it's not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, noncriminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It's not an important issue, unless you're ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn't very practical."

"It's a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people -- they are not carried for hunting animals -- and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim."

All of which her worshippers will dismiss as "just because I believe in some of what she says doesn't mean I believe in everything."

You answered your own questions. Just what are you trying to say?

Is there a problem with not aspiring to be a Rand clone?

Oh right, your brain can't handle anything but 100% one way or the other.

Has there ever been any serious discussion of the possibility that the Goddess might not be infallible?

Tell us again how there's no reason why everyone can't live within their means?

Tell me where I said "everyone".

You abandoned the thread without finishing your thought.

But back to the topic:

"So-called libertarians are my avowed enemies, yet I've heard many reports on their attempts to cash in on my name and mislead readers into the exact opposite of my views."

I said what I had to say in that thread. You went off on a non sequitor/strawman about how I must get my ideas from CNN (which I barely glance at now and then when I'm in airport terminals) and it wasn't worth replying to you.

And now you're dodging my direct challenge.

You've hyperfocused on a stylistic flourish and completely missed what that post was about. Never mind.

No, I just haven't given you the binary answer you're looking for.

Or maybe it's a trinary. In response to Rand one must (A) accept all of her teachings wholesale, (B) reject all of her teachings wholesale, or (C) remain silent about anything that prevents one from (A).

Is that how it works?

Or is it possible for you to say "I like this about Rand, but not this"?

Have you been ignoring all the Rand threads around here? That's the sort of thing loads of people say about her and her writings. Now what is wrong with that?

What are rights then? If something is so inviolable, why does it matter where it is in it's lifespan?

Who is she to dictate the function of her child's body?

How will John Galt defend himself then?

If others avail themselves that privilege illegally, is it not prudent to let us all do so? Why should the good suffer at the hands of evil? Why should we deliver our lives to society's hands? Does this not contradict her own message of self-responsibility and self-sufficiency?

Rand is to Rothbard as Rammstein is to Laibach.

I was asking *you*.

I fear too much government control. People forget the Comité de salut public, or commitee for public safety run by Maximilian Robespierre and the "rein of terror" in France. This is what happens when those in power think they know what is best for all. Socialism gives up too much freedom IMHO.

Uh, no, that was me asking you in my first post of this thread. Either give up or stop stalling.

Not to mention the Gulag or the Great Leap Forward.
Too much government control is far worse than too little.

Oh dear god, the joke has actually written itself here!

Okay, here's your binary answer: No. Happy now?

I'd say substitute "turgid" for "tedious." As a speaker, on the other hand, she could be incisive:

"Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program."

I think I may have found my new sig.

It's so cute when someone makes a "new" discovery. This must've been what it was like when Columbus told the natives he had discovered them.

You can't really blame them though. I know next to nothing about Communist infighting either. So if I were to google "Trotzky + Lenin + infighting" I'm sure I'd come up with hilarious shit as well that those on the opposite end of the political spectrum would find just as tedious because it's been discussed for the past 90 years.

You are the one who's been trying to make things binary. How is this thread so confusing that you can't tell garamet from Prufrock?

I'd say both. You don't expand a 200 page book to 1100 pages without both tedium and turgidity. Rand was highly repetitive, utterly predictable, and excessively ornate in her writing. It's appropriate that her disciples treat her writing as a bible because the bible is the only non-Rand book that comes to mind that's essentially written in Rand's style.

OMG! Drake! He did it again!

This was your question:

I doubt you were expecting an Asyncritus-length response. Then again, maybe you were.

Interestingly, you've yet to state whether or not you find Rand relevant in the present day. That, plus the OP's absence of opinion, seems to answer the question by default.

Monosyllables R Us?

What in the blue hell are you talking about?

Well, so far Post #13 has at least addressed the question, by raising more questions.

Hate to interrupt the Sunday meeting of the Fuck, Yeah Club, but where's the enthusiasm from the rest of you?

Or is it a matter of "It's a Rand Thang...you wouldn't understand"?

Maybe we're not all Rand worshipers the way you're so desperately hoping?