1 Boring Old Man

^{The book was ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., brother-in-law of William F. Buckley. Bozell had been Goldwater’s speechwriter in the 1950s, and was familiar with many of his ideals…}

It was the definitive statement of the now Conservative litany – small government, decreased spending, strong military, low taxes. The book is still quoted, and the term "Goldwater Conservative" is firmly embedded in our political dialog now a half a century later. But the less quoted, more influential writer of the times was Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Ms. Rand was a Russian Immigrant who wrote and preached a Gospel of Capitalism. Though she never adopted the term, she was a Darwinist – survival of the fittest. Her heroes were rugged individualists with angular features – superior beings who rose to the top in spite of the weak collectivists that stood in their paths. Ayn Rand was the Priestess of Capitalism and an enormous influence of the people who became the Neoconservatives and other figures in our government – among them Alan Greenspan.

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

^{Mr. Greenspan met Rand when he was 25 and working as an economic forecaster. She was already renowned as the author of “The Fountainhead,” a novel about an architect true to his principles. Mr. Greenspan had married a member of Rand’s inner circle, known as the Collective, that met every Saturday night in her New York apartment. Rand did not pay much attention to Mr. Greenspan until he began praising drafts of “Atlas,” which she read aloud to her disciples, according to Jeff Britting, the archivist of Ayn Rand’s papers. He was attracted, Mr. Britting said, to “her moral defense of capitalism.”}

^{Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, “King of Kings.”}

^{He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter. She sold several screenplays and intermittently wrote novels that were commercial failures, until 1943, when fans of “The Fountainhead” began a word-of-mouth campaign that helped sales immensely.}

^{Shortly after “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that “the book was written out of hate.” Mr. Greenspan wrote: “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should”…}

We now live with Conservatives who have betrayed Goldwater’s "small government, decreased spending, strong military, low taxes." They are huge spenders, have intruded a major governmental presence into our lives. They got the part about low taxes, but it doesn’t show [yet] that they simply defer taxation by running up the National Debt, imposing an enormous tax on future Americans. And they’ve betrayed Ayn Rand. She was a prophetess of Narcissism, but her characters were honest – truly talented. Her free market economy has become a playground for thieves who have manipulated the economy to almost wreck it. I expect they have the Ayn Rand attitude about Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should, but it is they who have become the parasites that need to perish.

Those pro-capitalism, anti-FDR, anti-communist ideas that fascinated us in the 1960’s have become perverted into rationalizations for rape and plunder by people who are anything but  rugged individualists with angular features – superior beings who rose to the top in spite of the weak collectivists that stood in their paths. They are simply crooks. And this financial crisis makes it clear that it’s time to say "No" to their whole perverted way of thinking. Capitalism is very dangerous, and must be regulated. That’s just all there is to say…