During the Depression, her mother grew annoyed with friends and neighbors who constantly complained about the hard times they were experiencing. She began writing stories about her life as a girl. A legend was born. Later in life, Rose Wilder Lane became the sole beneficiary of a well-organized estate. The residuals from the books, movies, and the television series, Little House on the Prairie, were eventually channeled into several organizations, including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, as well as into various Libertarian organizations and projects. One of Lane’s many adopted children, Roger McBride, became the Libertarian Party’s candidate for President in 1976.
The libertarian philosophies of Isabel Paterson, Ayn Rand, and Rose Wilder Lane were soon blended with the conservative, religious, and social philosophies of three self serving men, one of whom ought to be heralded as The Great Conservative Con Artist.
RICHARD VIGUERIE
A direct marketing schmuck who figured out a way to make a buck, Richard Viguerie founded American Target Marketing in 1965, allegedly promoting “Christian” and “Conservative” principles. His fast-buck direct marketing scheme has been used, manipulated, and transformed a number of times over the years. He has at times been associated with Young Americans for Freedom, the Moral Majority, Conservative Digest, and recently basically bought and paid for the Libertarian Party, where he is appears to be promoting Ron Paul.
Viguerie, who claims to be a “Christian” has been working hand in glove with cult leader Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church of Moonie fame. His offices are in a building owned by the church.
Currently Viguerie is prostituting himself to any cable station which will let him continue his incessant denigration of Republicans. Contrary to Viguerie’s current spew, back in the 1980s he, along with Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, was among the first to betray Ronald Reagan. When Reagan refused to kowtow to their demands once he became POTUS, they treated Nancy Reagan terribly, and tried to cause enough trouble to force Ronald Reagan to not run for a 2nd term. Of course you will find none of this on your average conservative site, only how badly the GOP is doing because George W. Bush betrayed everyone.
Article comments
1 - Diana Hsieh
I'm sorry to report that you don't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy well enough to comment on it. Nothing about your summary was accurate.
(1) Ayn Rand wasn't a hedonist. She was a rational egoist. She held that life -- not pleasure -- is the ultimate good.
(2) She didn't think that "the ends justify the means," but rather regarded certain virtues -- like rationality, productiveness, honesty, and integrity -- as essential to the life proper to man.
(3) She didn't advocate that "you step over people to get your way." She advocated individual rights as the basic principle of her political philosophy -- and held that, in ethics, a person should not sacrifice himself to others or others to himself.
(4) She despised libertarians like Ron Paul and Bob Barr.
Perhaps you need to re-read Atlas Shrugged?
2 - Starchild
I have to wonder whether the author of this piece ever actually read Ayn Rand. Whether through ignorance or otherwise, SJ Reidhead badly mischaracterizes Rand's philosophy. Rand would never say that "the ends justify the means."
As a champion of non-aggression and not taking anything that you have not earned or paid for, Rand would also strongly opposed trying to prosper "by any means necessary" or "stepping over people to get your way." (I'm assuming here that Reidhead means "stepping on" people -- it's not quite clear what "stepping over" people is supposed to mean.) Although Rand believed in ethical egoism, I don't believe she ever said "greed is good." That slogan came from the 1980s Hollywood movie "Wall Street." Certainly Rand would have defended the right of people to acquire lots of material possessions, but "greed" is not merely the desire for plenty, it's the desire for what is unearned, and Rand would have wanted no part of that.
Also rather sloppy is terming Bob Barr and Ron Paul as "followers" of Ayn Rand. Once upon a time that label could have been justifiably applied to Alan Greenspan, but to my knowledge Barr and Paul were never "followers" of the author of Atlas Shrugged, merely admirers of her writing and philosophy. Both are Christian, so obviously they would not agree 100% with the atheistic Rand any more than Paterson would. Both Ron Paul and Bob Barr have been leaders in speaking out against big government greed and policies that hurt the poor, especially Paul's call to end the "war on drugs" and rein in out-of-control government that is destroying the earning power of their wages via inflation, etc., so the not very subtle attempt to brand them as defenders of "might makes right" falls flat.
Quoting Noam Chomsky as calling Rand evil, and implying that M. Scott Peck would have done the same, without bothering to say what is evil about a philosophy based on ethical self-interest and non-aggression, is intellectually lazy.
3 - Jeannie Danna
SJ, (It is quite rare to find the Far Left crunching and munching on Democrats. It happens, but not often.)
I love this sentence and I can almost "hear the bones" Now I myself am not a Democrat(I don't really belong to any party, at least I have never received talking points from one) But you have left out one political party in this paragraph, the "Conservadems"
I hope you jump in your comment thread this time SJ or I am sorry to say "I will have to stop giving you any of my energy." :)