More Ayn Rand Inspired Insanity

The ever amazing Cynical-C posted this yesterday. This is an editorial by somebody named Eric Hague and you can find the complete versionhere. It's going to wake up the Brainwashing Boogeyman in you. Here's an quote:

Now let me explain why your son was wrong.

When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, "Have a ball, peas [sic]?" And I'm sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.

To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.

The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously. We conspicuously reward ourselves for our own hard work, we never give to charity, and we only pay our taxes very, very begrudgingly.

Since the day Johanna was born, we've worked to indoctrinate her into the truth of Objectivism. Every night we read to her from the illustrated, unabridged edition of Atlas Shrugged—glossing over all the hardcore sex parts, mind you, but dwelling pretty thoroughly on the stuff about being proud of what you've earned and not letting James Taggart-types bring you down. For a long time we were convinced that our efforts to free her mind were for naught, but recently, as we've started socializing her a little bit, we've been delighted to find that she is completely antipathetic to the concept of sharing. As parents, we couldn't have asked for a better daughter.


UUUUUUUUUUUUGH! Talk about a way to take fiction too seriously. I have no doubt that writing Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's strongest desire was that it would breed humans like Eric Hague, but common sense is that you don't take fiction at the first degree. Dagny Taggert was a woman in a position of power (and struggle). Kids on the playfield are a different ball game. There's a reason why Plato, Descartes and even Nietzsche are thaught in school and not Ayn Rand. It's because she doesn't make sense, except for self-righetous assholes I guess.