UPDATE: “AYN RAND & ATLAS SHRUGGED IN UNDER 10 MINUTES.”

[alarimer]

2. I loathe that book.

I have finished it, yet somehow never made it through Moby Dick, one of the greatest American novels.

Atlas Shrugged is probably one of the worst things ever written. It might be better, barely, than 50 Shades of Grey, but I doubt it.

Ayn Rand was an atheist, unfortunately for us in the atheist movement, because we have to share it with weirdo libertarian types. I wonder if Paul Ryan, who has admitted admiring Rand, knew she was an atheist?

I want to ask all those libertarians about the days of the robber barons and child labor. It seems like that was the golden age of libertarianism. No rules, just unfettered capitalism. Would they really be in favor of child labor? Because that is what happened when we had no laws reigning in capitalism. These companies did whatever they wanted, with impunity. It was acceptable for children to work in coal mines. We needed laws to stop them. Left to their own devices, it would happen that way again. Libertarians would probably argue that it wouldn't, that we have changed as a society. Well, yes, enough people decided the rules needed changing and they were, but they had to make laws forbidding child labor, because it wasn't enough to rely on companies to do it voluntarily. It never is.