Saturday, October 27, 2012

Ayn Rand Institute Questions Whether Obama Has Read Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Institute Questions Whether Obama Has Read Ayn Ran =- Lucia Greaves, Huffington Post::

October 26, 2012 - "After President Barack Obama said in an interview with Rolling Stone that Ayn Rand's books are largely for teenagers who are 'feeling misunderstood,' the Ayn Rand Institute is questioning whether the president has done his reading.

"'President Obama claims he has read Ayn Rand, but you wouldn’t know it from his recent comments," said Don Watkins, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and co-author of Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government. 'To be an individualist, Obama suggests, is to be concerned with yourself with no regard for other people -- indeed, at the expense of other people. That is a total distortion of Rand's individualism'....

"'The President is pulling the same old trick that collectivists have been pulling for the last hundred fifty years. Rather than openly defend the proposition that you have a duty to serve society, he misrepresents and smears individualism....

"'Rand's argument is that other people are a tremendous value to an individualist: as teachers, friends, trading partners, lovers. But the key to successful human relationships, she argues, is that there should be no sacrifice of anyone to anyone.... Unlike the President, Rand doesn’t confuse ‘caring for others’ with having the government forcibly redistribute your wealth to others. She recognizes that our main obligation to other people is to respect their freedom.'"

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/ayn-rand-institute-obama_n_2024497.html
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