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HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 03:26 PM Aug 2012

Paul Ryan’s Guru Ayn Rand Worshipped a Serial Killer Who Kidnapped and Dismembered Little Girls

There’s something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people go frothing batshit angry at the suggestion that maybe health care coverage should be extended to the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it... Where do they find their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude?

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing’s Manson Family. Read on and you’ll see why.

One reason why most countries don’t find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of “ideal man” that Rand promoted in her more famous books — ideas which were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America’s most recent economic catastrophe...

Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/mark-ames-paul-ryans-guru-ayn-rand-worshipped-a-serial-killer-who-kidnapped-and-dismembered-little-girls.html#IXoGYazET2Z6rwT2.99



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Paul Ryan’s Guru Ayn Rand Worshipped a Serial Killer Who Kidnapped and Dismembered Little Girls (Original Post) HiPointDem Aug 2012 OP
In other words, just normal, ordinary, run-of-the-mill Republican family values. Major Hogwash Aug 2012 #1
and then in later years she fell in love and became obsessed with Nathaniel Branden who dumped her grantcart Aug 2012 #2
i think the russian revolution traumatized her. she never got over it. HiPointDem Aug 2012 #3
and apparently neither did Paul Ryan. grantcart Aug 2012 #6
I think being less than attractive also traumatized her. That and decades of amphetamine addiction. Tom Ripley Aug 2012 #9
yeah, i forgot about the drugs. but she was cute as a young person. bad teeth were her most HiPointDem Aug 2012 #10
The Russian revolution traumatized a lot of people, many more than her... JHB Aug 2012 #28
This message was self-deleted by its author grantcart Aug 2012 #5
And a serial killer worships Ryan. Wilms Aug 2012 #4
+1 HiPointDem Aug 2012 #7
If Annie Randy is so correct, Betty Jo Aug 2012 #8
My late Mother was an Ayn Rand fan AnnieK401 Aug 2012 #11
that must have been so hard on you... I'm really sorry renate Aug 2012 #16
Sympathy -- and respect for your effective use of understatement. philly_bob Aug 2012 #20
This God, I RoccoRyg Aug 2012 #12
This is what I see... DAngelo136 Aug 2012 #13
How is she any different than Aleister Crowley with his "Do what thou wilt"? Spitfire of ATJ Aug 2012 #14
omg, ayn rand was a devil worshipper HiPointDem Aug 2012 #23
Anton LaVey, a disciple of Ayn Rand ayak9 Aug 2012 #25
And the religious right? get the red out Aug 2012 #26
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD dsteve01 Aug 2012 #15
k&r Starry Messenger Aug 2012 #17
n/t BOG PERSON Aug 2012 #18
Best description of Rand ever hifiguy Aug 2012 #19
and like Ryan she took government benefits covertly when she had lung cancer.. hue Aug 2012 #21
Ayn Rand was also a hypocrite--like all those far right crazies meow2u3 Aug 2012 #22
I read some about that case but JESUS had no idea Raine Aug 2012 #24
I felt so strongly about this article dsteve01 Aug 2012 #27

Major Hogwash

(17,656 posts)
1. In other words, just normal, ordinary, run-of-the-mill Republican family values.
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 03:38 PM
Aug 2012

I haven't heard a Republican defend helping the poor, the sick, or the elderly in so many years that I don't think they even care that they exist in this country.

So, I am not surprised by Ryan or Romney's attitudes towards other human beings.

grantcart

(53,061 posts)
2. and then in later years she fell in love and became obsessed with Nathaniel Branden who dumped her
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 04:10 PM
Aug 2012

because she was depressed all the time.

What a brigh light they have.
 

Tom Ripley

(4,945 posts)
9. I think being less than attractive also traumatized her. That and decades of amphetamine addiction.
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 04:56 PM
Aug 2012
 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
10. yeah, i forgot about the drugs. but she was cute as a young person. bad teeth were her most
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 05:00 PM
Aug 2012

unattractive feature, other than her ugly soul.

JHB

(37,163 posts)
28. The Russian revolution traumatized a lot of people, many more than her...
Mon Aug 13, 2012, 10:24 PM
Aug 2012

People come in all kinds, and some of those kinds are just rotten.

Response to grantcart (Reply #2)

AnnieK401

(541 posts)
11. My late Mother was an Ayn Rand fan
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 05:32 PM
Aug 2012

Unfortunately I have a genetic/medical condition that was undiagnosed at the time which makes me much less than the ideal physical specimen. Not a good combination.

philly_bob

(2,419 posts)
20. Sympathy -- and respect for your effective use of understatement.
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 06:44 PM
Aug 2012

Shows that you've moved on with your life.

RoccoRyg

(260 posts)
12. This God, I
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 05:36 PM
Aug 2012

Thanks for bringing this up. I advertised this fact in my book, "This God, I," where I present Objectivism as a well-worded, compelling excuse to be a sociopath.

DAngelo136

(265 posts)
13. This is what I see...
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 06:02 PM
Aug 2012

The modern Republican party have intentionally forgotten their past. They are dominated now by right-wing, fearful, bigoted owned by the corporate-industrial complex, empty shells of people. When Herbert Hoover sold the soul of the party by adopting a "Southern Strategy" (It didn't just start under Nixon) to try to win re-election, he sold out the legacy of such progressive Republicans as: Fiorello La Guardia, George W. Norris and Robert LaFollette,Sr. as the party tacked to the the bigotry of southern segregationists.
If you notice, they don't talk about Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits or even the late Jack Kemp. Not. A. Word.
This party, "the party of Lincoln", becomes more of a caricature of itself, a cartoon version of a party that is clueless about the world around them. They hang on for dear life to an economic ideology that was dead on arrival and like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, becomes more "critically dead".They hang on because they don't have anything else to offer.
This presidential ticket they present, is their "crowning achievement" for mediocrity; the epitome of stupidity a high point for hilarity.
This party is a zombie party; they're the living dead. The most merciful thing we can do, is to put this party out of it's misery with a loss, so complete, so titanic in it's effect, that they will treat their exile into the political wilderness as a welcomed vacation respite.
Are we up to doing that?

 

Spitfire of ATJ

(32,723 posts)
14. How is she any different than Aleister Crowley with his "Do what thou wilt"?
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 06:04 PM
Aug 2012

Oh yeah,...that's right,...he added, "As long as it doesn't hurt others"....

 

ayak9

(44 posts)
25. Anton LaVey, a disciple of Ayn Rand
Mon Aug 13, 2012, 02:29 PM
Aug 2012

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

(excerpt)

Far from seeking to obscure the relationship between Rand's ideas and LaVey's, the modern Church of Satan admits it right up front on its website: "Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, is an acknowledged source for some of the Satanic philosophy as outlined in The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey."

get the red out

(13,468 posts)
26. And the religious right?
Mon Aug 13, 2012, 03:01 PM
Aug 2012

They've certainly thrown in their lot with the Republicans who literally worship Rand. It comes full circle to where they've become what they project onto others, what they claim to despise.

 

hifiguy

(33,688 posts)
19. Best description of Rand ever
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 06:36 PM
Aug 2012

"Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing’s Manson Family."

meow2u3

(24,775 posts)
22. Ayn Rand was also a hypocrite--like all those far right crazies
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 07:30 PM
Aug 2012
As Michael Ford of Xavier University's Center for the Study of the American Dream wrote, “In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.”


Not only was Rand a blaring hypocrite, Paul Ryan is, too. He took Social Security survivors when his dad died and now he wants to abolish it. Talk about peeing in the bucket after he had his drink so no one else can drink it.
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