I’ve never read any of her books.
Worse than all that…she committed the cardinal sin for conservatives/libertarians.
She accepted public assistance.
I knew about the cigarettes. Didn’t know about the amphetamines.
Keep in mind that doctors prescribed amphetamines freely in the 50s and 60s. John Kennedy took methamphetamines every day.
She sure did. Medicare when she came down with lung cancer after railing against it for years.
Yeah. I know that they were prescribed.
I just love this idea of a drug addled philosopher coming up with the moral arguments for sociopaths.
Great thumbnail description.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
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If only he could write screenplays as well as produce quotable stAtements. 
Throwing babies off a train is not something a sociopath would imagine!
She is still pretty popular among certain groups, I would say it’s disminished tremendously even within the last decade. I thought “Atlas Shrugged” was very good and “The Fountainhead” was not as good but still enjoyable.
From the interviews I have seen on her she seemed like a fairly unpleasant person, which may have been impacted on her living in Russia for 21 years before migranting here.
Her Donahue interviews on YouTube are a must watch, she’s stone cold.
Here’s famed Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’ observation of Rand’s economic philosophy that he wrote in a letter to her:
“You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.”
Yeah, a pretty ■■■■■■ up summary.
Have never read her.
However, her philosophy of man’s happiness is what should drive him as an individual—objectivism—isn’t one I could accept.
For example, there are parents who abandon their children altogether to live someplace or with someone who makes them happy.
Does this drive of happiness make objectivism a moral philosophy? I will have to agree with the poster who describes it as worse than communism.
I think Rand would say that by having the children a person has created the obligation to care for them. I know she demanded paying one’s debts and keeping one’s promises.
I may have to read something by her, then.
A search on “objectivism” described it as a philosophy whose core motivation was the pursuit of individual happiness.
This. A million times this. I was looking for this quote so I could post it. It really helps explain a lot of unbearable ■■■■■■■■■
Are you guys performing Atlas Shrugged as a play on the forum?!
This is cool!
Miserable old crow.
“Few people know who she is”
Wow.
Here is a short comic that quickly describes where Rand fits in with other ethical philosophers
Spoilers… she doesn’t.
