Donald Trump talks Ayn Rand

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-top-table-main_daily202-947am:homepage/story

Donald Trump says he identifies with Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” He praised the novel and its protagonist in a broader interview with USA Today that posted yesterday. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to ... everything,” the GOP front-runner told the paper. Columnist Kirsten Powers writes that she pointed out that “The Fountainhead” is “in a way about the tyranny of groupthink.” Trump reportedly sat up and told her, “That’s what is happening here.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...16-ayn-rand-vp-pick-politics-column/82899566/

 

[undergroundrr]

Hillary Clinton was an Ayn Rand fan. Maybe she loaned trump The Fountainhead when they were hanging out.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

A little vanity opinion:

Bernie Sanders would be a villain. I prefer Atlas Shrugged for him - he is exactly like a character in that - talks about shutting down the trucking industry like it has no consequence. I have a particular one in mind.

Ted Cruz is exactly like the (Christian socialists) / altruism in Atlas Shrugged - I thought Rand was exaggerating that a little, until I saw the quote about being anointed a king to redistribute the wealth to the priests for Ted Cruz

And no, Hillary is not like Dagny from another thread. Hillary has never produced anything in her life. Professional lawyer and politician, and crooked.

I likely favor Atlas Shrugged because people just stop supporting the system in it. Trump might favor Fountainhead because it's about an architect.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

fyi - I wasn't liking Atlas Shrugged much a few years ago, until I discovered it wasn't Atlas Shrugged that I didn't like - it was all the second handers who had wrong ideas about what it was about.

 

[undergroundrr]

trump is Orren Boyle.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Uh - undergroundrr? I put you on my ignore list awhile ago - for the same reason Rand recommends not talking to those that don't use reason to discuss things. Can't see a word you write - and it's Liberating.

Objectivist newsletter. I grew up with those - my parents had them.

 

[undergroundrr]

Ayn Rand also called willfully not seeing reason a "blank out."

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Ryan Shrugged
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/297023/ryan-shrugged-robert-costa

Representative Paul Ryan debunks an “urban legend.” ‘You know you’ve arrived in politics when you have an urban legend about you, and this one is mine,” chuckles Representative Paul Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, as we discuss his purported obsession with author and philosopher Ayn Rand. Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, recently called Ryan “an Ayn Rand devotee” who wants to “slash benefits for the poor.” New York magazine once alleged that Ryan “requires staffers to read Atlas Shrugged,” Rand’s gospel of capitalism. President Obama has blasted the Ryan budget as Republican “social Darwinism.” These Rand-related slams, Ryan says, are inaccurate and part of an effort on the left to paint him as a cold-hearted Objectivist. Ryan’s actual philosophy, as reported by my colleague, Brian Bolduc, couldn’t be further from the caricature. As a practicing Roman Catholic, Ryan says, his faith and moral values shape his politics as much as his belief in freedom and capitalism does.

This shows the difference between two men. Donald Trump thinks Fountainhead relates to business, beauty, life, and inner emotions. Paul Ryan thinks relating to Ayn Rand would be a slam and would make him a cold hearted Objectivist. Worlds of difference in their expressed opinion.

 

[undergroundrr]

Since this thread is just you and me, I guess I enjoy seeing your responses to posts you haven't read.

Committed LDS temple attendee Glenn Beck thinks he's Hank Rearden btw.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/glenn-beck-goes-galt-hank-rearden-about-pour-some-steel

"Last night on his television program, Glenn Beck announced that all this week he would be unveiling his modest plan to fundamentally revolutionize the world with something called "The American Dream Labs."

While making repeated references to "Galt's Gulch" and comparing his efforts to the things done by Thomas Edison and Walt Disney, Beck announced that his "dream labs" were working on ideas that will "blow your mind" by transforming everything from technology to education to agriculture to entertainment and even inventing new forms of energy.

And soon the people who laughed when Beck was kicked off of television "will beg for the time when I was only on an hour every day, five hours a week" because "Hank Rearden is about to pour some steel and it will fundamentally transform us" and finally make us worthy of calling ourselves Americans!"

So now trump is Howard Roark.
Beck is Hank Rearden.
With a cast like that, I'm not sure why you're so resistant to Hillary being Dagny Taggart.
Paul Ryan has decided he'll hold out for Meatballs V. Which might actually be wise the way things are going.

 

[Meritocrat]

Explains a lot. Is there a more Randian figure around today?

 

[otherone]

Explains a lot. Is there a more Randian figure around today?

Trump isn't an Objectivist. There's a difference between believing the individual is most important than the community, and being a selfish, self-absorbed narcissist.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Trump isn't an Objectivist. There's a difference between believing the individual is most important than the community, and being a selfish, self-absorbed narcissist.

You don't need to be an Objectivist to be like a character is an Ayn Rand book.

This shows the difference between two men. Donald Trump thinks Fountainhead relates to business, beauty, life, and inner emotions. Paul Ryan thinks relating to Ayn Rand would be a slam and would make him a cold hearted Objectivist. Worlds of difference in their expressed opinion.

However, Donald actually likes the book. Paul Ryan hates Rand's writings.

---
There's nothing wrong with being selfish either, according to Ayn Rand.

The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism by Ayn Rand

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”

“To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone”

“In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.”

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

Trump isn't an Objectivist. There's a difference between believing the individual is most important than the community, and being a selfish, self-absorbed narcissist.

The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
Introduction

…

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

The concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer those questions.

The ethics of altruism has created the image of the brute, as its answer, in order to make men accept two inhuman tenets:

(a) that any concern with one’s own interests is evil, regardless of what these interests might be, and

(b) that the brute’s activities are in fact to one’s own interest (which altruism enjoins man to renounce for the sake of his neighbors).
...

 

[CaptUSA]

Lol, Trump's way closer to Ellsworth Toohey or Gordon Prescott. By far.

He uses his power to dazzle and distract people from looking further into true qualities. Even the fact that he says he identifies with Howard Roark is exactly the type of thing Prescott would do.

 

[hells_unicorn]

There are a lot of people who agree to some extent with Ayn Rand's ideas on economics but were not terribly big fans of the rest of her ideas and her as a person, and I count myself among one of those. When I was an atheist I identified greatly with Rand's ethical views of rationalism and egoism, but for anyone who has any degree of love for his fellow man and any shred of belief in the Christian faith, there are MASSIVE problems both with Ayn Rand's ethics and, more importantly, the semi-Aristotelian rationalism that informed her metaphysics and epistemology. The greatest work that Rand ever penned was We The Living, primarily because it pointed out who the villains were (atheistic collectivists and socialists) without presenting a warped view of morality where the heroes are libertine, self-absorbed narcissists.

Trump identifying with "The Fountainhead" makes a fair amount of sense given its relevance to his stock and trade, and Trump does have some similar personal weaknesses to Ayn Rand, but he's definitely not an Objectivist.

P.S. - Oh, and regarding the words of Paul Krugman (aka the most retarded man with a pulpit in America), you can not be a Randian Objectivist and profess to be a Christian publicly, the Ayn Rand Institute and its entire succession of leadership from Rand herself up until the present have stated in no uncertain terms that they believe religion to be 100% irrational and incompatible with their views of epistemology and ethics, so when I hear some wack-job left-winger calling someone like Paul Ryan a Randian, it sounds like the random babble of a mental indigent.

 

[undergroundrr]

so when I hear some wack-job left-winger calling someone like Paul Ryan a Randian, it sounds like the random babble of a mental indigent.

Exactly. Rand's protagonists are defiantly anti-real world and that's what's so cool about them. Even an Elon Musk or a T. Boone Pickens or a Frank Gehry couldn't fit the very precise molds she had for her heroes. At best they'd be a mistreated Gail Wynand who somehow escaped his fate (avoiding spoilers). The real drivers of our business world turn out to be surprisingly collectivist when you get to know them.

That's why I think her villains are the most useful characters in the novels. We see the Tooheys and the Boyles and the Prescotts everywhere around us and they operate like Randian clockwork. trump (along with Adelson, Soros, the Koch's) is the archetypal aristocrat of pull.

I have to say I'm impressed to hear trump read a book. Or I guess he could have seen the movie.

 

[CaptUSA]

I have to say I'm impressed to hear trump read a book. Or I guess he could have seen the movie.

Or Benton told him he might win some stupid Ron Paul people if he mentioned Ayn Rand. It's what he thinks of us.