Please explain how to sell Ayn Rand to low-information voters in 30 seconds...

[brooklynite]

...and make them care about her and what she represents.

Conservative Activists know who she was and what she advocated and love her.

Liberal Activists know who she was and what she advocated and hate her.

The remaining 4-5% of the electorate haven't read her, don't know who she was, and aren't going to sit around for a literature/Poli Sci class explaining her theories, and how they link to the Romney/Ryan campaign.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Tru dat-- you want to make a point, not leave them with their heads shaking.

[elleng]

2. Requires some further explanation, but:

Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights.

[brooklynite]

3. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................

Is professional wrestling on TNT or the SYFY channel?

[Butterbean]

67. LOL, exactly. Gotta keep it short and sweet. I say this as

somebody who read Atlas Shrugged cover to cover and knows exactly what her philosophies are, but also knows the average joe's eyes will glaze over in about 2 seconds with an explanation that complicated. Sort of like mine do when my husband starts talking about computers.

[steve2470]

4. excellent explanation, we just need to boil this down to two sentences nt

[brooklynite]

5. of one-two syllable words.

[steve2470]

6. +1 nt

[elleng]

11. Right:

rejected all forms of faith and religion. rejected ethical altruism, which means a moral obligation to help, serve, or benefit others, if necessary, at the sacrifice of self interest.

In other words, athiest who rejected any thought that people should help others, completly UN-Christian, as noted by the Nuns on the Bus and Friars.

[steve2470]

12. great !

With my memory I'd have to hand out cards with that written on it lol

Good work !

[PADemD]

17. Thanks

I can use that short explanation when phone banking.

[elleng]

19. Good and thanks for reminding me;

so can I!

[ronwelldobbs]

47. Condensed into four words "Law of the Jungle"

[Lucy Goosey]

7. Tell them she's an atheist...

...and that her atheism is an integral part of her philosophy. Then tell them she viewed altruism as evil and selfishness as good. That covers a lot of it, really.

[LiberalLoner]

8. Evil is good. Good is evil. Her whole message.

Short as I could get it.

[budkin]

9. Rulers and peons

From what I can remember, there were the creators who worked hard and made innovation possible and then everyone else was a bunch of lazy slugs who didn't deserve any kind of handouts or help.

[Herlong]

10. Traaaaaaaaaaaaains!

Trains good. Poor bad. via 1957. We are talking Ann Rand right



edit for "poor bad" in any Ann Randian generation


Trains is short but "poor bad" is what you need to know without reading the books.

[longship]

13. Poor personal hygiene; poor mental acuity.

Especially the former.

[Herlong]

22. Why?

Care to clarify?

[Herlong]

23. Longship, what's up with the insults?

Poor personal hygiene; poor mental acuity.

Especially the former.

[longship]

40. Apparently Rand's personal hygiene wasn't very fastidious.

I heard that years ago, and again recently, after the Ryan nom.

I mentioned her mental acuity because of her idiotic political positions. I meant it as a pure ad hominem attack. Deservably so. She was a dispicible person.

[Springslips]

14. Tell them she started the whole me-me meme.

That she is from Russia and loved selfishness, a very unamerican idea.

[RedStateLiberal]

15. Satanism without the ceremony and ritual.

According to Anton Szandor LaVey, founder and first high priest of the Church of Satan.

http://www.theprovocation.net/2011/09/tea-party-owes-more-to-church-of-satan.html

[MADem]

16. Just send 'em the Mike Wallace interview--those buggy, darting eyes say it all!

30 minutes of batshit crazy....

&feature=related

[steve2470]

25. thanks for posting that nt

[MADem]

26. It's the only "full interview" link I could find.

There are other instances of it being posted, in three separate parts, but that's the only version (and it's a good quality one, too) that I could find that was the whole kit-n-kaboodle together. Not sure about the political enthusiasms of the person who slapped it up on the net, but in any event, it's a fascinating--if creepy--portrait!

[patrice]

30. Thanks for posting this. Some odd things there. It doesn't work, even in terms of her holy logic.

I should listen to it again and take notes.

Just a couple of sketchy things now:

Reality is an objective absolute.

Logic is the only meaning there is.

No political choices (That struck me as being quite similar to "No difference between Democrats and Republicans&quot .

Altruism is the hateful master of all in all.

.....................

It's very clear that most if not all of the opposition's rhetoric is deliberately designed out of Ayn Rand's specific words. I knew there was a relationship, but this is more than that.

[MADem]

49. Sure enough. Greed is good, the only way to get by is to be a cold hearted snake!

That's the riff we've been hearing from those monsters for years, and they learned it at Cruella's...er...Ayn's bony knee!

[patrice]

50. Hoping to see some chances for folks to SHOW concretely how good non-Greed can be. Younger

generations, some of them anyway, are already inclined to take the next step.

[MADem]

52. I get called a sucker all the time for volunteering to help people.

My needs are simple at this stage in my life. I have enough money to be comfortable now and take care of those near and dear to me. I could work and make serious scratch, but it would probably shorten my life and leave me NOT free to help people out here and there.

[patrice]

56. What. a. concept! Imagine! People tearing themselves away from their TVs & going out to help ....

someone, anyone, not just those that their ministers tell them deserve certain approved "help", but what the people themselves actually identify about their own needs.

[MADem]

58. I help old people--friends, neighbors, and the parents of friends who have moved across country, etc

Shopping, the doctor, rides to the polls, stuff like that. The public support for that kind of stuff is there to some extent, but it's not always convenient for people with health issues. I'll change the odd light bulb and be the "hovering presence" when a handyman is needed, too, so folks don't get ripped off.

Hell, I figure someday I'll be relying on a little help myself--what goes around, comes around!

It's not like it's a big sacrifice, either--a lot of these more experienced citizens have a lot of wisdom. Some even have coffee and PIE!!!

[patrice]

61. And it feels good! I can just hypothesize how our high anxiety could in part be a result of

the unconscious physiological sense of threat to one's existence acquired in a culture in which members do not help one another unless there's some kind of reward, financial, social, or religious, in it. Think of our species before civilization, and especially capitalism, happened to it, MOST of its existence, when helping was an instinct.

[ronwelldobbs]

48. She looks and sounds like a meth head

[LiberalLoner]

57. She was a speed addict I have read

[bhikkhu]

18. She's a radical elitist social engineer

...who sits at the foundation of the character of the youthful and energetic GOP VP choice. What we need now is an experienced and steady hand on the wheel; a young and enthusiastic radical elitist social engineer is not what we need.

[dimbear]

20. Militant atheist. That's all you need to say.

Reluctantly admitted by another one.

[Whisp]

24. an atheist that would have approved of Bain Capital

[WCGreen]

27. Glorifies selfishness over even faith in god..

[Politicalboi]

28. ATHEIST!

The lower you go the more religious.

[patrice]

29. 100% self-centeredness without limits, without ethics, without morals

[patrice]

31. It's okay to be athiest, but athiest that assumes a RIGHT to dominate everyone is another matter.

[struggle4progress]

32. The Fountainhead in 5 Seconds

[patrice]

53. They left out the mandatory rape scene, foreshadowed by the jackhammer, that's 2 more seconds.

[Jim__]

32. She believes its OK to kill poor people for profit.

[Sick of the GOP]

44. Hell, she don't even consider them people, just a faceless, parasitic mass

.

[HopeHoops]

36. "Lower cost Big Macs if millionaires don't pay any taxes" - hah. Less than 30 seconds.

[Sick of the GOP]

43. I read that in the Lorax's voice and lol'd

.

[HopeHoops]

65. The original cartoon or the new one?

[Raven]

37. Selfishness is a virtue; the weak,poor, infirm

do not deserve to live and do not deserve to be loved. The very opposite of Christian teaching. She would be endorsing the R/R ticket if she were alive.

[Poiuyt]

60. She even wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness

That says it all to me. How can you be proud of that?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

38. My attempt...

She was an author who advocated a philsophy of greed. For Ayn Rand, there was no such thing as a community and no such thing as charity. People should act in their own selfish self-interest and never mind the consequences to anybody else. One could consider her philosophy the exact opposite of what is taught in the Bible or in just about any other religious creed. And even most atheists reject her views as immoral.

[Sick of the GOP]

42. I find it ironic that "Christians" support her

I've read both the Old & New Testaments and from my understanding, Jesus (not that I believe in him), would spit on Ayn Rand. Not just on her, but in her face. Yet "Christians" support her more than atheists. When you add in the research that shows more atheists than Christians have read the Bible...

[Zen Democrat]

39. Ayn Rand: An atheist with a Darwinian economic philosophy.

[Sick of the GOP]

41. Tell them she explains how it's OK to be a selfish asshole

Low-info voters'll flock to her like flies on shit.

[phleshdef]

45. Russian writer/philosopher that preached about the "virtues" of worshipping yourself.

[libodem]

46. I don't care for her theories

But I think she was published at a time when we were steeped in the hate and fear of the Communist manifesto.
She seemed to be writing against the collective and having a share in everything vs the pride and drive an individual has in a personal struggle to succeed and thrive.

I remember seeing that book laying around our house and my parents were liberal. Seems like it was considered an intellectual undertaking back in the
60's mostly condeming Communism and championing Capitalism.

[orpupilofnature57]

51. Cold oppurtunist Bitch, that had her hand out ,,,,,,WAIT

Ann Coulter.

[notadmblnd]

54. A Russian Athiest born Alice Rosenbaum.

who borrowed a lot of her ideas from the founder of Marxism. Educated during the Russian Revolution and emigrated to the US when she was 21.

[Xipe Totec]

55. She was the Ann Coulter of the 40's nt

[thelordofhell]

59. I've got mine and you'll never get yours

[Monk06]

62. I just wish people would stop calling her a philosopher. She wasn't. Not even close.

She has all the intellectual depth of Robert Heinlein or Frank Herbert

[cr8tvlde]

66. Militant Russian Atheist ... Ryan's ideological mentor

AynR = Ryan interesting coincidence.

[Quantess]

68. Satanism for Atheists.

Get all the results of satanism, without having to worship satan!