Few people have been more controversial than Alisa Rosenbaum. But few have heard that name, because the apoplectic responses are reserved for the new name she gave herself after she left Russia for America—Ayn Rand.
Some people are devotees of everything Rand. Others use her name as a pejorative. Still others find some of her ideas insightful while rejecting others (e.g., anarcho-capitalists, who reject Rand’s “minarchism,” and Christian libertarians, who reject her lifestyle or insistence on atheism). Yet Rand’s influence is undeniable. She sold over 30 million books, and decades after her 1982 death, hundreds of thousands more annually. In a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was ranked behind only the Bible as the book that most influenced readers’ lives.
What I find most inspirational in Rand’s work are her views on individualism, rights, liberties, and government. So, on the 111th anniversary of her February 2, 1905, birth, consider some of those words.
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Man holds...rights, not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective...man’s protection against all other men.
Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.
Since only an individual man can possess rights...“individual rights” is a redundancy. But...“collective rights” is a contradiction in terms.
An individualist...says: “I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave.”
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Whether one salutes or slams Ayn Rand, or is just trying to find wisdom wherever it can be found, her words on rights, liberties, and government offer serious food for thought. And particularly when so many pursue supposed collective “justice” by violating individuals’ rights, she stimulates foundational questions that have never been wise to overlook. Perhaps that is why she remains so divisive.
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