The power lusters, non-producers and parasites are taking over the country and Ayn Rand wrote about the mess we're headed in decades ago in her famous novel Atlas Shrugged. Obama could be a character in her book - you know, the guy that wants to control everything because he hasn't an innovative bone in his body. Rob Tracinski has a great article posted at Real Clear Politics called "The Ayn Rand Factor in The Santelli Revolt".
...In defending his stance against the bailouts, Rick Santelli referred to himself as an "Ayn Rander" a reference to the great 20th-century novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, who is most famous for her ideological defense of laissez-faire capitalism. Similar references seem to be lurking behind nearly every expression of resistance to big government. Rush Limbaugh" whose coining of the term "porkulus" helped galvanize the right's resistance to the so-called "stimulus" bill" has frequently recommended Ayn Rand's magnum opus Atlas Shrugged in recent months, as has conservative talk show host Glenn Beck.
In January, Stephen Moore caused a stir by arguing, in the Wall Street Journal, that the current crisis is turning Atlas Shrugged "from fiction to fact." And those who are warning that increased government restrictions will cause the nation's most productive workers to withdraw their talents have taken to calling this the "John Galt Effect," a reference to the hero" and the main plotline" of Atlas Shrugged.
It is no coincidence that the strongest resistance to a government takeover of the economy is coming from people influenced by Ayn Rand. She has long functioned as a stiffener of resolve and as the fountainhead of pro-free-market ideas.
I have written about this at greater length, but Ayn Rand's contribution to the philosophical defense of capitalism can be summed up in one central idea: individualism. Ayn Rand demonstrated that the ultimate source of all wealth "everything from steel mills to microchips" is the individual reasoning mind. Thus, a society that wants to prosper has to ask what is required by its thinkers and producers, the "prime movers" who originate and implement new ideas. And the first thing that is required for these thinkers to function is that they be free from coercive interference by bureaucrats, by blowhard legislators, or by federal "czars."
Ayn Rand was an individualist in the fullest sense: she regarded the unfettered individual, not just as a source of wealth, but also as an end in himself with the right to profit from and enjoy the wealth he creates, without being forced to sacrifice his happiness for the allegedly greater good of the collective. The issue, as she once put it, is not whether or not you give a dime to a beggar. The issue is whether you have a right to exist if you don't" and whether you have to buy your life, one dime at a time, from every moocher who comes along asking for a handout. She gave the clearest and most consistent "no" to that standard of morality, and the clearest and most consistent "yes" to the moral rights of the creators and producers. (Read the rest here)
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