Ayn Rand, Welfare Queen

Ayn Rand: I am not a fan. At all.  And I've tried!  Lord knows I've tried.  I've read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, We The Living and two (2) different biographies of her.  See, people base their entire philosophies, lives and (in the case of Alan Greenspan) Federal Reserve policies on her.  I was trying to see what the appeal is.

I failed.


As far as I can tell, she has been providing excuses for sociopathic behavior amongst the socially inept since 1957.  (And no, I'm not saying that all Ayn Rand fans are socially inept sociopaths, but hang with the Objectivists for any length of time and you know EXACTLY who I'm talking about.  They're the crazy right-wing answer to the obnoxiously proselytizing vegan.)


So reading this today?  I LOLed.

Money quote:

However, it was revealed in the recent "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by Scott McConnell (founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute) that in the end Ayn was a vip-dipper as well. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).

As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help."

 I mean, I'd LOVE to pay for the best medical care out of my own pocket like a proper, upstanding citizen, but it's SO EXPENSIVE.

Oh, Ayn.  What would John Galt say?

And the defenders are out in force, I see, in the comments on the article.

Their argument seems to be, "Well the JACKBOOTED THUGS in the MARXIST GOVERNMENT STOLE that money FROM HER WITHOUT HER CONSENT TO USE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE LOOTERS AND THE MOOCHERS!  She had a RIGHT to take some of it BACK!  And she only GOT $11,000, she MUST have paid more in THE LEGALIZED THEFT THAT IS CALLED INCOME TAXATION over all the years she was in the United States!"

One, she might've only gotten $11k in Social Security payments, but I can damn well guarantee she got more in Medicare.  Lung cancer treatments are and were expensive.  Clearly, she was worried that it would entirely wipe out the fortune she had amassed; is it likely that she had paid out more in taxes than her entire net worth at the time?  Not even in your most fervid John-Bircher nightmares.

Two, if she felt so sure that she was acting in sound principle when she signed up for this, why did she feel the need to use a pseudonym?