I'm not familiar with Ayn Rand. Did she predict the sort of things the Bush Adnministration did? The warrantless wiretaps, the torturing, the suspension of habeas corpus, etc? Kudos to her if she predicted that and she was writing in the 70's.
She doesn't really get into that stuff.
Of course when I read about people trying to put everything on the dude who has only been in office a month, I can't help but remember the I-have-a-kid money handed out in around '01 (I didn't have a kid then, just remember my friends saying "I'd like to send this back to Bushy but ultimately it'll be fun to spend it too") and the stimulus last year while Bush was still in the white house.
The stuff that's happening has been starting slowly for a LONG time.
Been there, read that, several times. I like it but feel free to skip her famous "I am repeating the same ideas over and over again for 50+ pages" dissertations; they add nothing to the novel (to any of her novels actually). I'm also not that huge of a fan of her female characterizations.
OR just read those pages! It's the radio speech, for anyone who doesn't know...as soon as you get to a radio speech, skip it. Or only read that. One or the other.
If this is what you really believe, I really, honestly, feel sorry for you. What a horrible way to view your life, and to view others, i.e. thinking that their only goal in doing things is to get something for themselves.
I do certain things because it is the right thing to do, not because I want a pat on the back. I do it because I can, and, because i can, I have an obligation to those around me. The obligation does not come from me getting anything back. It comes from doing the right thing.
Oh gosh don't feel sad! Once I read the book and really thought about it, I felt free! I felt happy! Finally it made sense!
You are getting something out of it...you are getting th eknowledge that you've helped and that you feel you've done the right thing. Do you ever give to a charity or person that you really don't like? Send some money to the much maligned "octo-mom"...still feel like you're doing the right thing? Most people don't (I'm personally not as against her as most here are). Send some money to a place you don't believe in...you probably won't, why would you? And that shows that you're getting something from your charity.
And it's OK. It's fine. It's all good. It's not a bad way to live, realizing that our organisms really won't let us do something that's against our innate selfishness...if I throw myself in front of a train to save my son, I'm still saving my son even if I die. If I throw myself in front of a train to save a stranger, I'm still saving a stranger. etc. It's fine!
We've decided to call second mortgages "home equity loans".
No one dies anymore, or even passes away; instead, they all "pass".
We don't have secretaries anymore; now we have "assistants".
I have relatives who have gotten second mortgages, I say "die" almost all the time instead of the euphemisms, and my lawyer SIL certainly has a secretary!
I got about three quarters of the way through the book before I realized that I really didn't care what happened to any of the characters. As a work of fiction I thought it was really poorly written and just wearying to read. She hammered home her philosophy so much that it disconnected me from the plot.
You quit during the speech, didn't you?
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To me, Rand is like the ultimate in republicanism, which really doesn't exist. If it existed, I'd be republican. It doesn't, but I don't like some of the liberal stuff, so I'm in limbo.
And I have thought of Rand OFTEN since Clinton left office (I read Fountainhead as a requirement for chiropractic school back in '92, and read Atlas Shrugged on the advice of my younger brother who had read it for AP English in high school and LOVED it). But it all started long ago.
And i was reminded of it again the other day. LOL, put a comment about it on a friend's facebook page, when she posted something very something similar to the OP's post (her politics are also similiar to Dawn's, though perhaps more on the war-mongering side rather than just the "support the war that's going on" side that I think Dawn's on).
But what's funny is that it was the Navy that reminded me of it. Right now I guess the Bremerton base is trying to get the WA state ferries to NOT cut schedules, even though they need to, b/c it would put a hardship on the employees that need to get over to Bremerton.
And that's all over Rand's stuff about the downfall...one group making another group do something that isn't sustainable, just to serve the other group...taking money from a stone and expecting the stone to continue even though it just can't...
I remember 8th grade social studies, and learning that republicans are "hands off", laissez faire...if that actually existed, I'd be all over it. It's not, they still want to legislate stuff, just different things than the other side does, LOL.
Anyway, she's a good read! I think I read Anthem and was bored to pieces by it, though I don't remember why.
Skip the radio speech!
