David Akadjian notes at AlterNet
Did Ayn Rand send Christmas cards? According to Scott McConnell's 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, she did indeed. Unfortunately, none are included in McConnell's 656 page book. Fortunately, with a little help from the Ayn Rand Archives*, we are able to present to you this exclusive, never-before-seen collection of Ayn Rand favorites.
*The representative from the Ayn Rand Archives called me a looter and screamed something unintelligible, so some Christmas cards may be fictionalized representations of actual Ayn Rand Christmas cards.
Some examples of the 21 images and the accompanying quotes:
Image: An innkeeper turning away a man and his wife.
"What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary value." --Ayn Rand
Image: Salvation Army bell ringer
"Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they
cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society." --Ayn Rand
"The Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors provide the city with a spectacular display which only 'commercial greed' could afford us." --Ayn Rand
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." --Ayn Rand
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @09:28PM
Seriously? Ayn Rand?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @09:44PM
Ayn Rand, stark naked, except for a fedora, frosted with hot jizz.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday December 25 2014, @09:58PM
Correction: hot, LIBERTARIAN jizz!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:32PM
Well, if according to the submission, she did "oral", that's a story.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Friday December 26 2014, @12:30AM
Ayn obody got time for this.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Grishnakh on Friday December 26 2014, @04:10AM
Well obviously, the piece is poking fun at her and her objectivism philosophy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Doctor on Thursday December 25 2014, @09:48PM
I really have no idea why people find Ayn Rand so interesting or why I should care at all if she sent Christmas cards or not. I don't find that such an article is in the spirit of what Soylent News was intended to be when it was created. Yes, not every article has to be strictly tech related, but Ayn Rand? At least if you asked if Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds sent Christmas cards (or wanted to talk about Bill Gates Secret Santa gift) I could see some relation to what the site is purported to be about.
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Doctor
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @10:02PM
They're not her actual cards, just sarcastic jokes that people without important things to do made because they fancy themselves amusing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 25 2014, @10:08PM
Strictly speaking, we're not a science/tech site. We're a what our members want us to be site. What you lot submit is what gets published. We have editors rather than moderators, so assuming the article isn't low quality, or a dupe, we'll probably publish it.
Today, it seems like gewg_'s feeling the need to spread some moderately light-hearted, elitist, progressive scorn. Not very Christmas spirity of him but such is life on a slow news day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @10:56PM
Not very Christmas spirity of [gewg_]
Maybe the Christians in the crowd can do something to set an example [metrolyrics.com]
--rather than looking down their noses at folks who got bad breaks then saying those unfortunate souls should pull themselves up by their non-existent bootstraps.
...and as at least 1 someone here notes in his sig, Rand died on Medicare and Social Security.
She was dishonest and two-faced to the end.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:43PM
Not a Christian here, gewg_. I'm in favor of peace on earth and good will towards men though and I can keep myself from being a prick for one day a year out of respect for a guy who tried to give folks a path to such things. Not his fault anything people get involved in they inevitably cock up.
You seem to want to paint me as a heartless guy. You'd be wrong. I wish success in life for everyone. I'm simply a teach a man to fish kind of guy rather than a give him a fish guy. Giving him a fish and saying you'll keep giving him fish if he gives you power over his life isn't kindness, it's slavery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @01:18AM
I can keep myself from being a prick
Constantly seeing the prevalence of Reactionary philosophy makes me think of Molly Ivans' great line about George H.W. Bush:
"He was born on third base and he thought he hit a triple."
When those sorts of folks scorn people who just want a real job[1] and a reasonable life--then want to make it even MORE difficult for those folks who are barely scraping by, I have a hard time keeping a lid on it.
When the affluents give with the **Why can't they just get over their complete disempowerment?** attitude, yeah, I get incensed.
The folks with the giant piles of money continue to game the system in their own favor and would be insanely happy if everyone else had NOTHING.
I don't see why EVERYONE who doesn't think/do that isn't outraged by those who do.
(That touches on my comment the other day about schools being indoctrination centers doing the bidding of the ownership class.)
[1] FDR showed that most folks just want the dignity of a proper job.
When the New Deal offered that, there were 15 million folks who grabbed it with both hands.
.
teach a man to fish
Yeah. Too many people, however, see a hand up as a handout.
...and $DEITY forbid that that effort to help is organized via the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
That has me recalling Margaret Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" statement.
Another third-baser (actually, she married wealth).
All across northern Europe there are examples of societies working together for a civilization where EVERYONE does well.
Why is the USA so perversely opposite?
-- gewg_
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 26 2014, @03:27AM
As opposed to the actual, literal handouts you're wanting to give? Educating someone how to do well in life (not remotely related to what colleges teach) may or may not help but at least it's a gamble that has them pulling their own weight at the end of it instead of being in exactly the same position this time next year.
Because we've seen where that leads. Repeatedly. Every single time it has eventually destroyed the nation it was tried in. Name me one, just one, nation that has flourished under socialism for a hundred years. Ever. In the entire history of the world. Capitalism has time and again shown it will lead to extreme growth and prosperity if you can manage to keep corruption out and not screw with it. Hell, early anarchistic societies and proper fascist dictatorships did better than any socialist nation in history. The only ones who could possibly know socialism's track record and still think it's a good idea are intellectuals.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28 2014, @08:13AM
I often like explaining being an anarchist as being a libertarian socialist, because it drives people like you to apoplexy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Friday December 26 2014, @01:49AM
...I'm simply a teach a man to fish kind of guy rather than a give him a fish guy...
The flaw in this is when there are no fish. Knowing how to fish helps no one in that case.
...Giving him a fish and saying you'll keep giving him fish if he gives you power over his life isn't kindness, it's slavery.
I don't see anyone being enslaved, unless you mean that if they don't vote for the guy who will give them a fish the guy that will let them starve gets in instead.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday December 26 2014, @06:02AM
I'm simply a teach a man to fish kind of guy rather than a give him a fish guy.
There's plenty for you too. You should be incensed that it costs so much these days to get someone to teach you to 'fish'. And what do they charge? more fish than you've ever seen even knowing you don't know how to fish yet. You should be incensed that then when you show up at the lake with your fishing pole (dragging your debt behind you), someone with a huge boat already dredged the lake empty.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 26 2014, @11:23AM
In regards to the first bits, I am. Public education is worse than it was 100 years ago and university level education is both insanely expensive and largely worthless for most careers. So much so that I'd advise most people not to go to college but instead to a trade school that actually will prepare them for something they can make money at.
The second would be simply my own bad luck or stupidity for picking fishing though. Life doesn't and shouldn't come with guarantees that you'll be able to do what you want and make a living at it. You have to fill a need to be valuable to an employer or society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Friday December 26 2014, @06:20PM
Alas, other than 'born to wealth' or 'millions to one shot', none of the choices are paying off like they used to.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 27 2014, @12:02PM
And as a youth you are so indoctrinated to distrust everything every authority figure from your teachers, parents, industry leaders, preachers, etc ever tells you about how you need to study hard and go to a good college, right? When all those aforementioned are in on it, either consciously or unwittingly, it makes it rather unlikely that you're gonna bolt upright and say, hey, you know what? You're all full of shit. I'm gonna go to a trade school (because as a kid I'll somehow be prescient enough to know which one is the right one).
No one does this.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 27 2014, @08:28PM
Not entirely true or we wouldn't have any skilled tradesmen but it's definitely uncommon, which is why they can make an very good living.
People don't lack for opportunity, opportunity is infinite, they lack only the vision to see it. Seeing what is right in front of your nose isn't easy though and really needs to be taught as a skill right from the beginning. It's far more valuable than anything else you'll ever learn.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday December 26 2014, @01:08AM
Medicare and Social Security are (or were at the time) rights, insureance programs, and not welfare. Programs you paid into, over your working career and were therefore entitled to upon retirement.
Its telling that gewg_ views these as welfare, and uses that to impure someone who uses exactly what is their right.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @01:24AM
Actually, the reference was to the Randians who speak of entitlements as a pejorative, indicating their belief that they weren't earned.
...for everyone except Rand herself, apparently.
-- gewg_
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Friday December 26 2014, @06:28AM
Not really. When social security started making payments it was a brand new program. The recipients necessarily hadn't ever paid into the system. By the time it came into existance, much of rand's income wasn't from employment, and so ducked the tax.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Friday December 26 2014, @05:42PM
I'd friend you, if you registered - but I understand that you won't, and possibly understand why you won't. ;-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by isostatic on Friday December 26 2014, @12:33AM
Fine, so give us a way to cut this crap out. Register an editor called Jon Katz and post inflammatory junk under that account.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 26 2014, @01:17AM
Not a bad idea. Will bring it up to the eds.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @10:56PM
They all believe they would be the rich one with the power and control.
And not the slave doing their bidding.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday December 26 2014, @04:14AM
I really have no idea why people find Ayn Rand so interesting or why I should care at all if she sent Christmas cards or not. I don't find that such an article is in the spirit of what Soylent News was intended to be when it was created. Yes, not every article has to be strictly tech related, but Ayn Rand?
Yes, Ayn Rand. This is completely relevant to a tech site, because techies are notorious for being liberatarians and Ayn Rand worshipers. Just go to Slashdot and browse around a bit; you'll find plenty of Objectivism pushers there.
It's doubly entertaining because Christmas is supposed to be a Christian holiday, according to all the butt-hurt Christians who complain about people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and the lack of focus on Jesus. However, those very same Christians these days (in America) are giant fans of Rand's anti-altruism philosophy, as it's comingled with Tea Party thinking which the conservative Christians have all jumped on the bandwagon of.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @03:22PM
Rand's Objectivism is logically and irredeemably flawed. The core assumption of the philosophy (see "Atlas Shrugged" for the no credit course materials) is that man is a rational being. Couldn't be more incorrect ... because Science. Rationality is Learned. And it is hard. Every single Objectivist statement following the false assumption of human rationality can be considered unfounded, and likely false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @11:38PM
Well, I'm a Christian and I wouldn't say that Rand is hugely popular. I do take your point, though, that she has a much larger fan base among Christians than she ought to, given her utter disdain for just about everything Christians (should) stand for. So, are there any Christians among the soylentils who would like to defend this strange mixture of Christianity with Randian principles? I am genuinely curious to know where this comes from.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday December 25 2014, @09:59PM
I've seen the same sentiments posted and echoed by the Occupy movement and fellow travelers, usually while calling attention to the "evils" of current society.
"The Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors provide the city with a spectacular display which only 'commercial greed' could afford us." -- Occupy Wall Street
Funny how the shoe fits on either foot.
Rand is the very embodiment of Evil in the eyes of the left. They seem to mingle what the characters in her books said with what she actually said. A tactic the reserve for only those writers to whom they object. They love to pic and choose quotes, and would never post any of the following:
Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. ---Ayn Rand
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual). --Ayn Rand
Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins. --Ayn Rand
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. --Ayn Rand
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. --Ayn Rand
Its a pity our education system has pretty much banished Rand, We would all be better of had we read her in school.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 25 2014, @10:13PM
She really should have written proper philosophy instead of fiction. Her novels are painful to read from a storytelling perspective. Heinlein, for instance, was a much better storyteller though his politics were largely the same.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3) by ticho on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:39PM
That's quite subjective. I quite liked both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. Except for that horrible endless Galt monologue near the end, but I found the rest to be a nicely written fiction.
Different strokes, I guess.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:45PM
The monologues lasting entire chapters were what did me in. Otherwise I could have read them and thought they were fairly good stories.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:57PM
Well, for me, most of the monologues were digestible, but that Galt's monstrosity just goes on and on, saying the same thing in each paragraph over and over. Two or three pages of such monologue would have been fine, so that Rand could express her ideas from various angles, but 70 (or however many it is) pages? Come on. :)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25 2014, @11:03PM
Every one of the 21 examples in the linked article is an actual quote from Rand.
Attaching someone else's name to one of Rand's ideas completely misses the point.
If you can find an ACTUAL example of a quote from an ACTUAL Occupy participant, that would be an honest start.
Good luck convincing anyone that that individual represents all--or even a plurality of--the largely anarchist[1] Occupy movement.
[1] "Without rulers" (NOT "chaos").
.
Rand is the very embodiment of Evil in the eyes of the left
...and even those who are not actually Left[2] but who are instead Democrats, largely indistinguishable from Republican Lite.
[2] The Red purges around WWI and McCarthyism after WWII pretty much eradicated the actual Left in the USA.
What remains in any numbers is wishy-washy middle-of-the-roaders who will gladly bargain away the gains made by Working Class people during The New Deal.
(The only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead possums.)
.
better [off] had we read her in school
People who are naturally selfish and full of themselves don't need to be -taught- that.
OTOH, negative examples, properly analyzed, can be useful.
Oblig xkcd. [xkcd.com]
Be sure to hover over the image and read the tooltip (or, if you don't have tooltips enabled, just view the image properties).
...and most problems in the world today are a result of Oligarchy (a lack of actual Democracy) demonstrating the results of Randianism.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0, Troll) by frojack on Friday December 26 2014, @07:26PM
Changing the attribution was mereky an example, of how pointless the cherry picking was.
If you can find an ACTUAL example of a quote from an ACTUAL Occupy participant, that would be an honest start.
That would be impossible, wouldn't it. After all Occupy participants never made a coherent argument, never has a cogent thought, never had even a semi-literate spokesman, and never made a useful impact on society other than the mounds of trash and human feces they left for the rest of society to clean up.
They've all become Professional protesters [ijreview.com], now all ranting about police shootings, after moving on from pointless minimum wage protests, after smashing property protesting the World Trade Organization.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Friday December 26 2014, @09:43PM
You do know what the term "cherry picking" means, right? It means using actual quotes to give a biased representation.
(Score: 2, Funny) by linuxrocks123 on Friday December 26 2014, @09:51PM
I thought it was one of the cool new features of git...
;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Friday December 26 2014, @12:28AM
Competition is obsolete. Cooperation is the replacement.
Everything Ayn Rand stands for and believes, I find deeply toxic and sickening right to my core. Rest in pieces, you amoral, selfish, cow-bitch.
I'll piss on your grave.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ticho on Friday December 26 2014, @01:18AM
I'm afraid that you'd have to reprogram the whole human race for that to happen (I mean the cooperation part, not the pissing-on-grave part).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @01:58AM
If the cut-throat competition we see so much of today had been the standard way of doing things, our species would have never survived--much less thrived.
The selfishness of Capitalism is actually quite recent in human development.
Even Feudalism, which immediately preceded Capitalism, had a concept called noblesse oblige where it was the obligation of the nobility to see after the needs of their underlings|serfs.
If you look at the First Nations peoples who occupied North America before white guys showed up, the lifestyle is very communal.
The Iroquois are an especially good study. (The women were in charge.)
Every time a new isolated group of stone age humans is stumbled on in the Amazon, New Guinea, Africa, ... you see a very cooperative paradigm.
If we would start treating sociopaths as aberrant (rather than uncritically watch Lamestream Media celebrate them), that would be a good start to dealing with the downward spiral of civilization.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @03:00AM
Do you honestly still think what the USA has now is capitalism!? Dude you really need to learn some history. Capitalism is what made the USA great. This croni-psuedo-communist bullshit you got going on now, that resembles nothing of the capitalism of Adam Smith, is tearing the country apart from the inside. Seriously, what sort of competition is there when you have the government playing favorites and the federal reserve printing money and giving it to its wealthy buddies.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @04:08AM
Capitalism requires only an ownership class (allowing the screwing of the working class).
Once again someone is trying to conflate Capitalism with a well-regulated *MARKET* (what Smith recommended).
If all of the aristocratic ownership class had died yesterday and had magically been replaced by several million copies of Mondragon (a Marxist worker-owned cooperative) but the for-sale-to-the-highest-bidder gov't remained, the problem of a poorly-regulated *MARKET* would still exist.
The problems of the last several decades have been a result of trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA which gutted tariffs and enabled the process of exporting good-paying manufacturing jobs.
...and soon there will be TPP[1] (SHAFTA) which makes those look like child's play.
[1] Contact your Congresscritter and ask if there is any possible advantage to TPP fast-track.
If that sucker has to withstand debate (rather than a simple up-or-down vote), it is DOA.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @05:21AM
If you had lived in soviet russia you might realize how full of crap you sound
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dry on Friday December 26 2014, @07:47PM
And yet Soviet Russia was a huge improvement on Czarist Russia, even with the insane dictators and having to make huge sacrifices during WWII they managed to pull the population from being basically subsistence farmers who were literal owned by the upper class to a space fairing nation where everyone had food, clothes, shelter and medical care. Unluckily they didn't get much more in the way of freedom but that seems to be a Russian thing as the new capitalist version of Russia shows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @03:10PM
"they managed to pull the population from being basically subsistence farmers"
By murdering all the farmers, consequently starving most the country. And making the entire population slaves of the new ruling class that was the communist dictatorship.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Friday December 26 2014, @06:39AM
Finally, someone who seems to have actually read Smith! We call it capitalism and everyone pays some lip service to Smith, but if we actually FOLLOWED him, we would have stronger regulations and practically no corporations. Few businesses would be much larger than a Mom'N'Pop but there would be hundreds to choose from.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @02:58AM
The key virtue of any society is resolution of conflicts. Cooperation and competition are merely means to that end and their suitability varies by the nature of the conflict.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by buswolley on Friday December 26 2014, @02:17AM
Capitalism is a myth. It doesn't exist and never has. The same goes for communism. The world is too complex for simplistic ideologies.
subicular junctures
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by jmorris on Friday December 26 2014, @04:32AM
I just love it when atheists go around telling everyone who they can force to listen to them tell us how much smarter they are... as they make basic historical mistakes during an attempt to ridicule religion.
Joseph and Mary were not homeless bums being put up in a manger out of charity. They just didn't have Internet based hotel reservation systems yet. They were in the town of Joseph's birth by order of the King to be counted in a census. A lot of other people were ALSO in town for the exact same reason, the inn was full and they got stuck in the inn's manger.
You guys do know there are BOOKS with this sort of basic information in them, right? If you can't find one of the zillion sites on the Internet you can ask any holy roller and they will instantly hook ya up with a free copy. You could even be different and go read a fellow Atheist like Asimov's two volume book about the Bible and learn these basic details of a subject you guys seem so intent on making fun of while demonstrating your ignorance and intolerance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @11:39AM
You should learn a bit about how the Romans did their census before giving so much credence to what is just a way to fit a Nazaret jew into an old prophecy about the messiah being born in Bethelem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27 2014, @03:30PM
You want ignorance and intolerance? Try reading the old testament. Sorry but your god is a petty, vengeful wanker.
And it's hilarious how even the strictest religious people don't follow at all precisely what the "good book" says...