Obama thinks Ayn Rand is for teens (for predictably childish reasons)

Obama Thinks Ayn Rand is For Teens (For Predictably Childish Reasons) - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Brian Doherty:

October 25, 2012 - "President Obama is asked ... by Rolling Stone: what does he think of Ayn Rand? After saying that 'sure' he's read her, his answer:

"Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a "you're on your own" society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party...

"Reducing Rand's message of liberty and achievement to one of a narrow 'you're on your own' individualism shouldn't be a surprise coming from the president, though it's still sad that the leader of the nation that attracted Rand to escape the Soviet Union at some risk would say such a thing.

"There is nothing 'narrow' about Rand's vision except in that it created moral boundaries in which most of the functions of Obama's government would be seen as illegitimate, because they use threats and violence against non-aggressors to achieve social goals. As Rand summed up her own philosophy once, it really amounts to: 'Gentlemen, leave your guns outside!' That alas is something Barack 'drones away' Obama will never do."

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/25/obama-thinks-ayn-rand-is-for-teens-for-p
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