Scrooge an economic hero, rightwinger defenders say

No, this isn't from the Onion.

Apparently, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim should have just taken personal responsibility for their lives.

It's probably a safe bet that Ebenezer Scrooge, before his spiritual transformation, would have balked at recent proposals in the U.S. to tax the wealthy, even to avoid a so-called fiscal cliff.

(...)

While that may be most people's view of Scrooge, some have rushed to his defence, saying the general interpretation of the old miser has been a lot of humbug.

"I think Scrooge is clearly misunderstood and used to vilify business," said Yaron Brook , president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization named after the author whose books promoted individual rights and made the moral case for rational self-interest.

(...)

In a column for the National Review last year entitled "Scrooge: The First 1 Percenter," Jim Lacey, author and analyst at the Institute for Defense Analyses, made the case that Scrooge, before his ghostly visitors, "was already doing more to help his fellow man than any of the other main characters we meet," and that at the end of the tale, by giving away some of his fortune, he "drastically reduced his ability to do even more good in the world."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/20/f-in-defence-of-scrooge.html

Once again proving that Ayn Rand-ism is just the use of pseudo-philosophy to justify being an asshole.