Wealthcare

I know someone who is quite the right winger. Not a neocon but just without tolerance for those more liberal than he is. About a year ago he mentioned that he picked up "you wouldn't believe what, although I had read it in college" he said. It was Ayn Rand,,,the one on objectivism that has the word ego mentioned five hundred times in the first eight pages.
He looked at me with a sort of knowing and was sure that he could convince me to read it again as it was "so timely."
You are right saladin. I am going to re read the posted article here.

Excellent article, I've always picked up on a sort of cult personality coming from those kinds of right-wingers.

Now I know that I wasn't too far off, Rand literally HAD a cult. Its similarity to totalitarian communism is a delicious irony.

This guy just demolishes her ideas too. And not even with commentary or blog snarkiness, just straight data.

Rand wrote the pre script of WALL STREET. Her stuff is SOOOO one sided. She reminds me of a self help book that wraps itself in some kind of monetary/sprirituality combo.
She is right on only half of what makes up an entire human being.

The money paid to insurance companies can go straight to the doctors and the hospitals.
Check the states where there is tort reform. They have just as many problems. Someone can cut off the wrong leg and nobody will take the case. That's not cool either.

I wish people would know who and what is considered "A TORT" and go from there. The Post office is a Tort. Nobody should be immune from prosecution if they kill someone because they didn't follow procedure or did something else to hurt someone. Wonder if TORT reform holds up for doctors who refuse a sobriety test before surgery.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to hire one overseer in every surgery room from sworn professional that all was followed correctly. Suits can only be brought to term if negligence is shown. The good old boys networks know how to cover up really well and the insurance frauders know how to work the system. There is bad on both sides. Clean up what causes bad outcomes and we'll have fewer of them.

There can't be healthcare reform, without tort reform.

Every year, the average age of doctors in Pennsylvania goes up by one. That means there's no new doctors coming to practice here.

What incentive is there to become a doctor anymore? The risk isn't worth the juice.

Maybe I'll just become another lawyer.

wow, i don't think were in Kanas anymore.

This article should have been called "the Cult of Ayn Rand"

He's said more than Republicans are assholes.... (BTW, there are assholes on both sides) He's said white people are evil and the polluters of the earth and that the Indians and black man have been abused by whites and are now going to get there revenge against the white man.
He's a victim! Wow! 'got pretty far being a victim....didn't he. Using the race card and the victim card got him a cushy job, but he just couldn't keep has mouth shut long enough to hold on to it.

From the previous posts, I think everything has already been said that could be about Rand's books. While they are a great read, those who worship them as any new device or proof to subjugate themselves to such a bizarre philosophy. For those who quote John Galt, IT'S FICTION, plain and simple.

The stories devised seem to construct merit of her term of philosophy, and at times, DO become a bit too tongue-in-cheek to suggest liberalism would ever lead to perpetual communism as suggested in Atlas Shrugged.

I'm amused at how so many conservatives, who are so quick to condemn atheism and slander atheists, simultaneously worship the economic ideas set forth by Ayn Rand.

I am about as liberal as they come, but I enjoy Ayn Rands books. I have read Anthem, Atas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. She makes a lot of great points about human potential and will, but the philosophy is as utopian as true communism. The big thing missing from her philosophy, and that of the right, is that not every person can be successful or be brilliant and innovative. Thats the thing about economics, its all based on scarcity, but that doesn't mean that all because someone is not capable of succeeding that they should have an unnecessarily low quality of life, while those who are brilliant and successful wallow in enough to wealth to feed, clothe, house, educate, and provide healthcare to a small country, like many of the top 1% in the country today.

chime in

Mr. Chait sums up my opinion on Rand's philosophies in this paragraph: "The economic right may believe religiously in their moral view of wealth, but we do not have to respect it as we might respect religious faith. For it does not transcend--perhaps no religion should transcend--empirical scrutiny. On the contrary, this conservative view, the Randian inversion of the Marxist worldview, rests upon a series of propositions that can be falsified by data." In other words it may sound compelling at first, but upon closer inspection is just wrong.

But perhaps what really annoys me (and it's related to the fact that this philosophy is not based in fact), is that I'm very content with my liberal elitism and I don't like it when conservatives think they're the elites.

(p.s. The second paragraph is intended to be somewhat sarcastic)