From Rational Public Radio comes an interesting essay about the two factions within the Republican Party - the Ayn Rand faction and the Jesus faction:
This may surprise you but I'm about to agree, in very large part, with the left wing Christian group American Values Network. They recently wrote an essay claiming that Jesus and Ayn Rand were incompatible. That you couldn't hold the values of both simultaneously.
On the surface, that shouldn't be a very controversial position. After all Rand was a notoriously militant atheist philosopher. With the rise of the Tea Parties, Rand's influence has been growing. Rand Paul R-KY assigns some of her work as required reading for his staffers. The Solicitor General, arguing before the eleventh circuit court that Obamacare violated the "constitution of Ayn Rand", but not the constitution of the United States.
After long decades of violent rejection of Rand, the GOP is starting to accept some of her ideas. Slowly, and incompletely no doubt. However, Just as the Republicans of old despised Rand for her atheism (see National Review's slanderous review of Atlas Shrugged) the left hates her for her unflinching support of Capitalism and Free markets.
Rand has risen high enough on the collective radar of the collectivists that they feel the need to counter her influence. American Values Network has released a startlingly honest and accurate attack on her.
"GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible."
Don't get me wrong, they couldn't be more mistaken in their evaluation of the moral status of Rand and Jesus. However, they couldn't be more right about the conflict between the two. On one hand, there is the mystical altruism commanded by the Bible. The purest political implementation of Altruism is Communism.
Hit the link to read the rest.
This may surprise you but I'm about to agree, in very large part, with the left wing Christian group American Values Network. They recently wrote an essay claiming that Jesus and Ayn Rand were incompatible. That you couldn't hold the values of both simultaneously.
On the surface, that shouldn't be a very controversial position. After all Rand was a notoriously militant atheist philosopher. With the rise of the Tea Parties, Rand's influence has been growing. Rand Paul R-KY assigns some of her work as required reading for his staffers. The Solicitor General, arguing before the eleventh circuit court that Obamacare violated the "constitution of Ayn Rand", but not the constitution of the United States.
After long decades of violent rejection of Rand, the GOP is starting to accept some of her ideas. Slowly, and incompletely no doubt. However, Just as the Republicans of old despised Rand for her atheism (see National Review's slanderous review of Atlas Shrugged) the left hates her for her unflinching support of Capitalism and Free markets.
Rand has risen high enough on the collective radar of the collectivists that they feel the need to counter her influence. American Values Network has released a startlingly honest and accurate attack on her.
"GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible."
Don't get me wrong, they couldn't be more mistaken in their evaluation of the moral status of Rand and Jesus. However, they couldn't be more right about the conflict between the two. On one hand, there is the mystical altruism commanded by the Bible. The purest political implementation of Altruism is Communism.
Hit the link to read the rest.
2 comments:
Two of the most striking omissions in Atlas Shrugged which made it seem more contrived and fictional were the absences of any references to religion or children. The only "children" were accounts of Dagney and Frisco as teenagers.
Every party is going to have a wide array of opinions, especially when we have an equilibrium of two parties.
Republicans are far more tolerant of diverse viewpoints in their ranks. They routinely allow pro-abortion and pro-gay rights members to speak at their conventions, while the Democrats apply ideological purity tests.
It's far more curious how the Democrat party holds together. They've got gay-hating union thugs from Michigan and Chicago, lots of anti-semites and Jews, and competition for power among the various underprivileged groups.
Even libertarians have their infighting with hard-core anarcho-capitalists and those who believe in minimalist government. I've described libertarians as Conservatives who like drugs or Liberals who like guns.
Different is good. It's a good thing that more people are reading Rand, but we shouldn't take her too seriously. No rich industrialists are going to go on strike, and Galt's Gulch is a contrived fiction.
They recently wrote an essay claiming that Jesus and Ayn Rand were incompatible. That you couldn't hold the values of both simultaneously.
Well, there's always Supply Side Jesus
;)
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