"Leaving aside the distortions (equating selfishness with irresponsibility), the inversions (equating charity with his taking of other peoples’ tax money to “help” the middle class, while deriding as “selfish” the victims’ resistence), and the intellectual package-dealing (selfishness as an unqualified evil, regardless of the method one employs in achieving one’s “selfish” goals), there is something significant in this new line of attack. The Obama machine must have come to the realization that new forces hostile to his agenda are gathering in the culture. "Make no mistake, Barack Obama…a deeply philosophical thinker…was referring to Ayn Rand’s book, The Virtue of Selfishness, in which she lays out in non-fiction form the essence of the ethical system dramatized in her classic novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. These are not isolated comments, or coincidences. They come directly on the heals of the Left’s anti-Objectivist barrage triggered by the Greenspan testimony. As I previously argued, at least some on the Left understand the basic conflict."
Today, there is little doubt that Ayn Rand has become a significant element of the cultural/political debate. In a Rolling Stone presidential interview, the President of the United States was asked "Have you ever read Ayn Rand?" True to form, Obama's petulant answer pointedly misrepresents Rand's ideas, starting with the common talking point that her books are appealing only to "misunderstood" teenagers, who soon outgrow her ideas as they "get older."
Ari Armstrong demolishes Obama's straw man, and sets the record straight on Rand's ideas, and Craig Biddle followed up by explaining why adults--especially Barack Obama--desperately need Rand's objective, reality-oriented philosophy.
Yes, the Left definitely knows who must be defeated if their welfare state cancer is to be saved from a cure.
As Armstrong concludes:
Why, if Obama has read Rand, does he refuse to acknowledge her actual views? The clear answer is that Obama sees in Rand a threat to his collectivist vision. Thankfully, although Rand is not around to defend herself from Obama’s smears, her works beckon any honest reader to learn what it means to live a life devoted to the rational pursuit of one’s values and respect for individual rights.
And Biddle calls us to action:
Help spread . The left can’t live with it, and we can’t thrive without it.Related Reading:
Obama's Pre-Emptive Strike
Ayn Rand: Tea Party Voice of the Founding Fathers
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