Ayn Rand on Selfishness vs. Obama on Selfishness
First of all, let me start by saying that I’m glad I’m not the Dallas Morning News, New York Post or Washington Times, after all they were kicked off the Obama plane…possibly for being papers that endorsed McCain…no says the Obama camp.
Moving on to redistribution of wealth news, this from Barack Obama:
“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.
“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic,” Obama continued. “You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”
First of all, if this is a reference to a great read: The Virtue of Selfishness by the great Ayn Rand then it would be worth it for any and all conservatives and libertarians to remember this:
The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.
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 dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. (Introduction - Virtue of Selfishness)
Obama would have you believe that concern for your welfare, concern for success and concern for your idea of your own American Dream is wrong, immoral, irrational and if Joe Biden had anything to add - unpatriotic.
I leave it to ethics, just like Ayn Rand, to answer the intent of each individual man’s own interests, but there is nothing immoral, wrong or bad about having concern for your own interests.
If you still don’t buy that, remember this analysis from Rand’s Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal
America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.
More at Hot Air:
This reveals the basic underlying philosophy of the Left - that one cannot possibly be charitable unless they use the government to redirect their funds.
We do not redistribute wealth nor sacrifice rational self interest for society because it is the individual who creates the fortune, prosperity and greatness that is the American Dream.
I leave you with this final thought from Ayn Rand:
…I use the word “rightist” to denote the views of those who are predominantly in favor of individual freedom and capitalism–and the word “leftist” to denote the views of those who are predominantly in favor of government controls and socialism.
This post originally written for Memoirs From a Young Conservative