Foot-in-mouth disease – Ayn Rand on American History
14 February, 2013 at 16:10 | Posted in Politics & Society | 3 CommentsNow, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country …
Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights—they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”—they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using …
What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched—to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it’s great that some of them did. The racist Indians today—those who condemn America—do not respect individual rights.
Ayn Rand, Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, 1974
It’s sickening to read this gobsmacking trash. But it’s perhaps even more sickening that people like Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan – not to mention neoliberal Swedish Minister for Enterprise, Annie Lööf – can consider Ayn Rand “one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century.”
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A way of saying it in fewer words: “They don’t have the same legal concepts as we – kill them.”
Comment by Jan Wiklund— 14 February, 2013 #
That was not a new idea when she wrote it. Some people have a superficial difference to “us” and that difference gives “us” the right to exterminate or herd them like cattle, was not exactly an original idea.
Sven Lindqvist bok “Utrota varenda jävel”, beskriver exakt det tänkande som Ayn Rand byggde vidare på i ovanstående uttalande.
Comment by Martin— 14 February, 2013 #
Ahh, the mono-culture thinking of the 20th century, how fresh. She was ofcourse decades behind everyone else and presented her mono-culture nonsense decades after it went out of style in 1945. Thats some great thinking, right there.
I read some of her books, it was incredibly boring, but I think one of the aspects of a good book is that you should be able to make some form av emotional connection to the characters, this did not happen.
Comment by Martin— 14 February, 2013 #