Here is the source of much of the Republican idiocy

Ayn Rand.



Ayn Rand teaches that the only valid morality is selfishness. All Randian morality is based on the free market, and property rights are the only rights which are valid. Ownership of property is absolute and gives one the unfettered right to use or dispose of that property in whatever way the owner desires. No one may interfere with this absolute right, including the government or the community.

Ayn Rand explicitly stated that altruism and religious ethics were meaningless and wrong. They are not based on property rights and the free unfettered market and in fact can be used to justify interference with the free market and property rights.

The Fountainhead was published in 1943 and was quickly adopted by conservative American businessmen who were fighting Roosevelt and the New Deal. Rand's philosophy was also very strongly embedded in the Robert Welch's John Birch Society. Interestingly it horrified William F. Buckley.

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Here is the full 27 minute Mike Wallace interview with the Rand woman.

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OK. Here is Christopher Hitchens demolishing Ayn Rand's alleged "Objectivism."



There is really very little to add to what Christopher Hitchens said, but Ayn Rand's idiocy philosophy has been adopted by a number of American individuals who either inherited great wealth they did not earn themselves or were able to claw themselves to the highest regions of monopolistic or oligopolistic big businesses. A very few exceptions were people like Bill Gates who created new markets and had the good fortune to be able to remain at the top of the organizations they created to exploit those markets as Gates was able to do with Microsoft Corporation.

None of these individuals inherently deserve the power they have been given. A few, like Bill Gates, have comported themselves in ways that justify the social and economic power they have obtained. The problem is that when such individuals achieve such power they frequently assume they deserve it and that they should be worshiped for their combination of (mostly)good luck and (to some extent) ability to exploit their position.

Ayn Rand's Objectivism is based on the assumption that they deserve what society gave them and that the privileges they receive because of their social success are beneficial to society in general. Neither assumption is true.