Ayn Rand, the gop’s guiding light

The latest Republican budget proposal continues to embrace Ayn Rand’s magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged.”

In addition to repealing Obamacare (Supreme Court rulings aside), the House Budget Committee proposes to balance federal spending over ten years by cutting assistance to the poor and elderly while boosting the defense budget without raising taxes.

The budget cuts target programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, highway construction, scientific research, and student Pell Grants, making college less affordable. Medicare will also be transformed into a voucher-like program.

Republicans promise their budget will relieve the burden of debt that’s being passed on to future generations. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas exclaimed, “That’s really unconscionable, to keep spending money and then send the bill to our kids and grandkids …” Apparently, it’s better to cut aid to students now, so they can compete for lower paying jobs in the future.

This year’s budget proposal follows up on Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) previous Republican budgets: cut programs for the poor and increase the Pentagon’s budget beyond what it requested. Ryan credits Ayn Rand with shaping his economic morality: “Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”

So who is Ayn Rand and why have Republicans embraced “Atlas Shrugged” and her Randian morality? During a 1957 interview, a flummoxed Mike Wallace sputtered, “You are out to destroy almost every edifice of the contemporary American way of life, our Judeo-Christian religion, our modified government-regulated capitalism, our rule by majority will. Other reviews have said you scorn churches and the concept of God. Are these accurate criticisms?”

Rand: “Yes… I am against God. I don’t approve of religion. It is a sign of psychological weakness… I regard it as evil… I am the creator of a new code of morality; a morality not based on faith.”

Some Christians find Rand’s code of morality ominous given Matthew 7:15-16: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes or thorns, or figs or thistles?”

Paul Ryan isn’t alone in praising Ayn Rand’s ascendancy to become the economic and spiritual guru of the Republican Party. Glenn Beck: “Ayn Rand, you’ve got to love Ayn Rand. She’s great.” Rush Limbaugh: “The brilliant writer and novelist …”

Fox and Friends declared “Atlas Shrugged,” a “victory for capitalism.”

“Atlas Shrugged” is Ayn Rand’s towering tribute to the glories of individualism, the virtues of selfishness and the morality of laissez-faire capitalism. Never mind the fact that capitalism is amoral, an economic tool that moral and immoral people use for good or evil.

Rand’s novel portrays America as having a collectivist government controlling large portions of the economy where corrupt corporations seek profits by manipulating crooked politicians (sound familiar). The government subsidizes inefficient businesses (too-big-to-fail) at the expense of the more efficient businesses. Success is heavily taxed to support the poor and economic freedom is steadily eroded, leading to a collapse of prosperity.

The characters in Rand’s novel are either portrayed as “producers” or are depicted as “parasites” or “moochers” (Romney’s 47-percent “takers”). The heroes and heroines are brilliant thinkers who are opposed to dictatorial government’s command to conform and obey. Women are ideally “hero worshippers” who should submit themselves, body and soul, to great men.

The novel ends with the collapse of the looter government and the capitalist producers rescuing America by replacing collectivism with laissez-faire capitalism: no food stamps, no Medicaid, no student aid, no child labor laws, no environmental regulations, no workers’ compensation, no Food and Drug Administration, no public education, no government regulations

“The parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should,” -Alan Greenspan.Yes, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, architect of the Great Recession and former Rand acolyte, actually said that.

Rand’s biographer Anne C. Heller somewhat disagreed with Rand’s critique of collectivism as enervating and soul-destroying. “Certainly you can believe that the state can’t do everything for everybody, but if you are a Christian, you also believe that it is our duty to take care of the least among us. And we know perfectly well from history that churches and individuals can’t do that job alone.”

For many Christians, they find it spiritually and intellectually schizophrenic to embrace Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” with its radical selfishness and disdain for the poor, with Jesus’ injunction, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.”

Without irony, Paul Ryan: “I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents…”