Ayn Rand is famous for her philosophical system and political beliefs now deemed as “objectivism,” making a moral case for capitalism and defending individual liberties on the basis of “inalienable rights.”
Libertarians everywhere slurp this up.
There’s some other philosophical stuff (despite her never once citing philosophical literature) in there about “reality being absolute and existing independent of our consciousness,” but that sounds like some woke liberal arts bullshit so the libertarians leave that part out.
They only partially adopt her ideas only when it benefits them.
Oh yes, a martyr of “self-sacrifice.” How very heroic: getting a refund.
Take another aspect of Ayn Rand’s life that they seem to forget: for the last nine years of her life, Ayn Rand collected social security benefits, at the time called “retirement insurance.”
Little Miss Fountainhead herself taking a government handout.
Just imagine the pain she must have felt, lining up in front of her bank each month with the huddled and tired masses, cashing her little $145.80 check.
In “The Question of Scholarship” she would call this “a victim of robbery taking restitution.”
Oh yes, a martyr of “self-sacrifice.” How very heroic: getting a refund.
When found out that their beloved saint was indeed a “welfare queen,” Libertarian knuckleheads will go to great lengths to defend their , dusting off an old defence that Social Security isn’t voluntary and that everyone is required to pay into it.
There is even one convoluted defence that since Rand didn’t manage her own money and hired a law firm to handle her finances, technically she was not a willful participant of the corrupt state.
They will also say the money she received was inconsequential due to her considerable self-made income. She had a huge tax burden due to all of her literary success. She lived in a NYC apartment, had a hot, live-in maid (Hollywood needs a movie about that one), and retained the services of a personal secretary and law firm.
Since she was so rich, she technically didn’t need the Social Security. Her opulence is their defense.
Now, that settles the subject of Social Security, but lest we also forget that it was through Medicare that she was able to pay for her lung cancer surgeries and treatments, even using her health insurance to help pay for her brother in law’s heart surgery.
Now this is fine for a normal person. Again, you pay into the system and eventually you get yours when it’s your turn. Especially when you were a heavy smoker like Ayn Rand.
Look, we here at The Mother Faulkner are not political by any means, but like satirists before us, we have to point out “follies, abuses, shortcomings, etc.” However, we are not trying to inspire social reform, or anything like that. Sometimes just exposing hypocrisy is enough.
Any sane person can agree that a robust social safety net can benefit both the individual and the society itself. Free of the fear of total impoverishment, the individual will continue to spend knowing part of their wealth is “tied up in the escrow” of insurance. Of course, any sane person would acknowledge this while taking part in it.
But we are dealing with a lunatic.
Ayn Rand, after years of opposing benefits programs, collected social security and medicare. It’s that simple. Most libertarians I know pay social security taxes and have health insurance. It’s that simple.
Yet Ayn and her acolytes believe that those who rely (key word here, she never relied, but still enjoyed) on social systems are “parasites.” Those who acquire great wealth but dip in and out of the system when they want to are capitalist supermen.
But none of us are supermen, Ms. Rand. All of us need help every once in a while and it is no weakness to receive assistance when needed. Weakness is holding on to some sort of ideological fantasy or term and dying on a hill of our own created beliefs and ideas.
Ayn Rand learned this late in her life when she relented and accepted government assistance programs. The libertarians can spin it all they like and call the truth about the end of her life a “smear campaign.”
“Welfare Queen” might be a little strong, we admit, but let’s at least agree she was certainly a “Public Assistance Princess.”