Ayn Rand on Ron Paul

[The Free Hornet]

And yet you waste your time with Ayn Rand. Anyway you're a spineless coward. I asked you a simple question about why Ayn Rand thinks homosexuality is immoral if she isn't religious and she isn't basing this on N.A.P. You could have just said "She bases it on X" whatever the hell X is. Instead you want me to waste money on some book that may explain Ayn's view and you're doing this a few days before a major moneybomb? Seriously? You're that infatuated, and incompetent, about her? Whatever dude.

As it pertains to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Objectivism, this is the official answer (per wiki - I don't have Peikoff's book at hand):

After Rand's death in 1982, her heir, Leonard Peikoff, publicly disagreed with some of her views. Peikoff argued that homosexuality itself is not open to moral judgment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_and_homosexuality
[you could say it was "icky" to her - but it was not a philosophical tennant - she clearly wanted Uncle Sam out of the bedroom]

Many of the Rand detractors conflate Rand's personal opinions with the philosophy of Ayn Rand (Objectivism). She wrote enough to piss off just about everyone and her legacy (ARI, Peikoff, the offshoots like Brandon, Rothbard) only complicates matters. It is easy to find negatives like her stance on intellectual property:

http://blog.mises.org/16549/mossoff...care-about-intellectual-property-objectivism/

Other negatives include her extramarital affair, treatment of friends/associates (the frequent schisms). So she wasn't perfect. Ron Paul himself makes the mistake of being a Christian and believing in Gandalf.

I try to judge Ayn Rand and Ron Paul by their accomplishments and not look for tangential reasons to tear them down.

 

[Xenophage]

As it pertains to the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Objectivism, this is the official answer (per wiki - I don't have Peikoff's book at hand):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_and_homosexuality
[you could say it was "icky" to her - but it was not a philosophical tennant - she clearly wanted Uncle Sam out of the bedroom]

Many of the Rand detractors conflate Rand's personal opinions with the philosophy of Ayn Rand (Objectivism). She wrote enough to piss off just about everyone and her legacy (ARI, Peikoff, the offshoots like Brandon, Rothbard) only complicates matters. It is easy to find negatives like her stance on intellectual property:

http://blog.mises.org/16549/mossoff...care-about-intellectual-property-objectivism/

Other negatives include her extramarital affair, treatment of friends/associates (the frequent schisms). So she wasn't perfect. Ron Paul himself makes the mistake of being a Christian and believing in Gandalf.

I try to judge Ayn Rand and Ron Paul by their accomplishments and not look for tangential reasons to tear them down.

I totally agree with you, this is the sensible position. Rand herself said as much about Aristotle, her favorite philosopher. "His virtues outweighed his vices." By the way, I could have included intellectual property in my earlier post about contentious issues I've been on the minority side of that argument plenty of times in RPF mega-threads!

 

[undergroundrr]

I'm still looking for the perfect vehicle for the liberty message. They all come up short, but there are so many excellent ones - Ron Paul, Ayn Rand, Stephan Molyneux, Walter Block, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, etc etc. I can tell you positions from each of them that I violently disagree with. But if the world's differences on political and moral issues had been on the level of the differences between these people for the last 100 years, we would be free, prosperous and jetting around the galaxy in Millenium Falcons right now. I'd take any of them for a president.

 

[Xenophage]

I'm still looking for the perfect vehicle for the liberty message. They all come up short, but there are so many excellent ones - Ron Paul, Ayn Rand, Stephan Molyneux, Walter Block, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, etc etc. I can tell you positions from each of them that I violently disagree with. But if the world's differences on political and moral issues had been on the level of the differences between these people for the last 100 years, we would be free, prosperous and jetting around the galaxy in Millenium Falcons right now. I'd take any of them for a president.

QFT

 

[heavenlyboy34]

QFT

+1

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

A big part of the issue, I think, surrounding Ayn Rand is that the people who took up the mantle in her name took her rhetoric and used that as the basis of their position. Case in point: Israel/Arabs.

It's why I get annoyed when people describe Ron Paul's foreign policy as "declare the war, win it and come home". There's none of the nuance, philosophical understanding, or intellect that leads to that statement present in that position. Taken strictly as policy and without context, it would be an absolute disaster as a foreign policy, and would hardly be non-interventionist.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

A big part of the issue, I think, surrounding Ayn Rand is that the people who took up the mantle in her name took her rhetoric and used that as the basis of their position. Case in point: Israel/Arabs.

It's why I get annoyed when people describe Ron Paul's foreign policy as "declare the war, win it and come home". There's none of the nuance, philosophical understanding, or intellect that leads to that statement present in that position. Taken strictly as policy and without context, it would be an absolute disaster as a foreign policy, and would hardly be non-interventionist.

True. Sadly, most voters don't like to think of things beyond the complexity of sound bytes.

 

[Revolution9]

I just wanna say I learned way more from Stan Lee and Marvel comics growing up as far as the true symbolic state of affairs is concerned than I did the insufferable plodding of Ayn Rand's writings. And.. My name is Randy and I got called Rand all the time growing up by various groups and I know for a fact my parents did not name me after her.

Rev9