Ayn Rand calls Libertarians "monstrous, disgusting bunch of people"

Agorism said:
Post-Modernism\Deconstructionism has nothing to do with hippies. Rational and scientific persons acknowledge it not just hippies, and I certainly consider myself a post-modernist.
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If you are a post-modernist, how come you are so certain of your personal views, such as those on evolution and conspiracy theories?
 
Agorism said:
There are "Libertarians" on Hotair that demand all Libertarians vote Bush\republican because "otherwise the Democrats will win" and they also hate anarchists and antiwar hippies.

This was the type of "libertarain" Ayn Rand was.
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lol!

Ayn Rand said:
Now I want to give you a brief indication of the kinds of issues that are coming up, on which you might want to know my views.
1. The Presidential election of 1976. I urge you, as emphatically as I can, not to support the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. I urge you not to work for or advocate his nomination, and not to vote for him. My reasons are as follows: Mr. Reagan is not a champion of capitalism, but a conservative in the worst sense of that word—i.e., an advocate of a mixed economy with government controls slanted in favor of business rather than labor (which, philosophically, is as untenable a position as one could choose—see Fred Kinnan in Atlas Shrugged, pp. 541-2).
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"AR:They are not defenders of capitalism. They’re a group of publicity seekers who rush into politics prematurely, because they allegedly want to educate people through a political campaign, which can’t be done. Further, their leadership consists of men of every of persuasion, from religious conservatives to anarchists. Moreover, most of them are my enemies: they spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas. Now, I think it’s a bad beginning for an allegedly pro-capitalist party to start by stealing ideas."

Oops, she was wrong!
 
freshjiva said:
Lots of claims, no substance. Ayn Rand might have been dealing with a different "brand" of anarchism or Libertarian Party in the 50s thru 70s, so maybe that could explain her disgust.
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I think it has more to do with her big fight with Rothbard.
 
hugolp said:
I think it has more to do with her big fight with Rothbard.
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She probably had a big ego and didn't want to see other people supporting capitalism if they weren't her followers. I have never been a fan of Ayn Rand, although I recognize that we share some of the same political beliefs. I always roll my eyes when John Stossel or Reason or someone has to tell us "Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant Today."
 
Jeremy said:
She probably had a big ego and didn't want to see other people supporting capitalism if they weren't her followers.
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She thought a moral revolution was necessary for capitalism to succeed in the long run. She believed the reason capitalism didn't last in the United States was that the Founders didn't have an ethical system that could justify supporting their excellent political philosophy. The anarchists disagreed with this, and that's why she opposed them.

You might disagree with Ayn Rand's analysis of what is required for lasting capitalism, but it doesn't mean she opposed anarchists because of her "big ego" and desire to not "want to see other people supporting capitalism if they weren't her followers".
 
I know a lot of Objectivists whom support the current wars in Iraq/Afghanistan.
 
Vessol said:
I know a lot of Objectivists whom support the current wars in Iraq/Afghanistan.
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I know a lot of Objectivists who don't support those wars.

I think Ayn Rand would've been against it, considering she opposed U.S. involvement WWI, Vietnam, and Korea.
 
low preference guy said:
She thought a moral revolution was necessary for capitalism to succeed in the long run. She believed the reason capitalism didn't last in the United States was that the Founders didn't have an ethical system that could justify supporting their excellent political philosophy. The anarchists disagreed with this, and that's why she opposed them.

You might disagree with Ayn Rand's analysis of what is required for lasting capitalism, but it doesn't mean she opposed anarchists because of her "big ego" and desire to not "want to see other people supporting capitalism if they weren't her followers".
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She called libertarians hippies etc. She would say this about Ron Paul. She said she would rather vote for a marxist than Ron Paul? Why? Ron also definitely meets her description of someone eager to jump into politics for education. According to her, it wouldn't work. But Ron (and others like Harry Browne) obviously proved her to be false.

The ironic thing is she made collectivist statements in that interview, lol!
 
Jeremy said:
She called libertarians hippies etc. She would say this about Ron Paul.
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I'm not sure about that, she supported Goldwater. Also, when she criticized the libertarians, I believe she was criticizing the anarchists involved in the growing libertarian party at the time.
 
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low preference guy said:
I'm not sure about that, she supported Goldwater. Also, when she criticized the libertarians, I believe she was criticizing the anarchists involved in the growing libertarian party at the time.
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You mean like Harry Browne? Or Lew Rockwell and gang (Rothbard)? Tom Woods? He's certainly not a hippie! The word anarchist makes no sense because it is used in various ways. So I don't even know what she was referring to in the interview. It would be a lot easier if she actually explained what she was saying instead of just insult her non-followers.
 
I think you'll find that nearly any Objectivist today also calls themsevlves a libertarian (small l), but doesn't endorse or join the Libertarian Party. Personally, I think Ayn was 100% RIGHT about the LP, and I am not and never will be a member of that party.

Also, I generally agree that anarcho-capitalism is contradictory, and as an atheist I do not endorse the theologically motivated politics of some libertarians. Regardless, I can vote for a person I do not agree with philosophically as long as we share most of the same political goals. A vote isn't a moral endorsement of every aspect of a human being's life: it is an endorsement for a job, and your decision (like the decision of any employer) ought to be based on your judgements about how well a person could perform that job.

So there's no confusion: While I'm defending Ayn in some respects, I'm also disagreeing with her in others. She was prone to errors, especially as she got older. I don't hold it against her, though. Her virtues outweighed her vices, so to speak.
 
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Jeremy said:
Why didn't she say specific issues she disagrees with? She attacked the people, not the ideals. Probably because she agreed with their ideals...
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Ouch. Ayn Rand really went to town on the Libertarian Movement.


Ayn Rand’s Q & A on Libertarianism

Q: What do you think of the Libertarian movement? [FHF: “The Moratorium on Brains,” 1971]

AR: All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies, except that they’re anarchists instead of collectivists. But of course, anarchists are collectivists. Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That is worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.​
 
Anarchism (libertarian anarchists, anarcho-capitalists) is obviously not collectivism. Or maybe she could define anarchism for us?
 
Jeremy said:
Anarchism (libertarian anarchists, anarcho-capitalists) is obviously not collectivism. Or maybe she could define anarchism for us?
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Ayn Rand Lexicon: Anarchism


Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction: . . . a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy: even a society whose every member were fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy; it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government.
 
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