nhboy
08-11-2012, 01:11 PM
Link to original article. (http://exiledonline.com/paul-ryans-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 bat#### angry at the suggestion that maybe health care coverage should be extended to the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it; or when they froth at the mouth in ecstasy at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be as hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of their population who thought like this, but the US is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. 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."
.....
"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.”
(The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s favorite book — he even makes his clerks learn it, much as Vice President-to-be Paul Ryan tried making his interns read Rand.)
I’ll get to where Rand picked up her silly Superman blather from later — but first, let’s meet William Edward Hickman, the “genuinely beautiful soul” and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below — the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a “Superman” in Ayn Rand’s eyes — is rather gory reading, even if you’re a longtime fan of true crime “Death Porn” — so prepare yourself. Because you should read this to give Rand’s ideas their proper context, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made this ####ed-up Russian nerd’s mind tick, because Rand’s influence over the very people leading the fight to kill social programs, and her ideological influence on so many powerful bankers, regulators and businessmen who brought the financial markets crashing down, means that it’s suicide to ignore her, no matter how dumb, silly or beneath you her books and ideas are.
Rand fell for William Edward Hickman in the late 1920s, as the shocking story of Hickman’s crime started to grip the nation. His crime, trial and case was a non-stop headline grabber for months; the OJ Simpson of his day. Ayn Rand joined the herd of Hickman groupies, and there were lots of them at the time—much like metalhead serial killer groupies today, the types who write letters to imprisoned serial killers. That’s Ayn Rand. Here, for example, is an old newspaper clipping showing how common it was for the growing legions of reactionary waffendweebs of the late 1920′s to sign up for the William Edward Hickman Fan Club:"
I apologize to the dweebs on this forum (you know who you are) for posting an article with many words.
"There’s something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people go frothing bat#### angry at the suggestion that maybe health care coverage should be extended to the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it; or when they froth at the mouth in ecstasy at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be as hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of their population who thought like this, but the US is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. 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."
.....
"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.”
(The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s favorite book — he even makes his clerks learn it, much as Vice President-to-be Paul Ryan tried making his interns read Rand.)
I’ll get to where Rand picked up her silly Superman blather from later — but first, let’s meet William Edward Hickman, the “genuinely beautiful soul” and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below — the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a “Superman” in Ayn Rand’s eyes — is rather gory reading, even if you’re a longtime fan of true crime “Death Porn” — so prepare yourself. Because you should read this to give Rand’s ideas their proper context, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made this ####ed-up Russian nerd’s mind tick, because Rand’s influence over the very people leading the fight to kill social programs, and her ideological influence on so many powerful bankers, regulators and businessmen who brought the financial markets crashing down, means that it’s suicide to ignore her, no matter how dumb, silly or beneath you her books and ideas are.
Rand fell for William Edward Hickman in the late 1920s, as the shocking story of Hickman’s crime started to grip the nation. His crime, trial and case was a non-stop headline grabber for months; the OJ Simpson of his day. Ayn Rand joined the herd of Hickman groupies, and there were lots of them at the time—much like metalhead serial killer groupies today, the types who write letters to imprisoned serial killers. That’s Ayn Rand. Here, for example, is an old newspaper clipping showing how common it was for the growing legions of reactionary waffendweebs of the late 1920′s to sign up for the William Edward Hickman Fan Club:"
I apologize to the dweebs on this forum (you know who you are) for posting an article with many words.