Ayn Rand

Rand's message is quite obvious and doesn't really take much thinking to figure out: Racism is bad, and fighting against racism is bad. For the most part, the government is bad, and if it does anything, it's bad. Rand says that racism is equal to the lowest form of collectivism, the needing to belong to a group, and to discriminate other groups is against human nature. According to her subjectivist philosophy, she thinks that doing so is makeing you less of a productive individual, and thus not as important to society. Also, fighting for a bill against racism, with reference to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, is also against capitalism because it isn't lassiez-faire enough for her, and it strips business owners of their rights to discriminate.

I'm sorry for this, but I fucking hate Ayn Rand. I think she and her philosophy are childish, and her egocentric ways of looking at the world do nothing to help it along. However, as much as I don't want to say it, I do agree that being racist is a form of collectivism, which is in human nature, really. I completely disagree with her implications that the people fighting for thier rights in the south are no better than the people who are opressing them, as that's just terrible. All of her arguments are flawed, though. Not really anything in this piece is backed up with facts except for the reference to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.  I can see how it would be a decent piece if you didn't have a predisposition to how much of a bitch she is, because her point is an interesting perspective on racism that usually isn't looked at or even thought about. However, I am really unable to appreciate it.