Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Three years ago, a state senator introduced a bill making Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged required high-school reading in Idaho (he called the facetious bill a "statement" aimed at Idaho's board of education).
I've met more than a few otherwise intelligent people brainwashed by Rand's callous twaddle.
The hour is long past due to shelve Atlas Shrugged with dusty gems like Malleus Maleficarum, Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, and Mein Kampf.
Revered by aristocrats, Rand's 1957 book isn't merely some silver-fork novel. It's a monomaniacal screed pushing an elitist view.
My insuperable wealth means I'm superior.
And there's insuperable wealth behind the drive to foist Atlas Shrugged on American teenagers.
Since 2002, the California-based Ayn Rand Institute—underwritten by oil barons, bank presidents, hedge-fund managers, and Silicon Valley CEOs—has shipped over 3.2 million free copies of Atlas Shrugged to the nation's high schools and colleges.
Aiming to "spearhead a cultural renaissance that will reverse the anti-reason, anti-individualism, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist trends in today’s culture," these friends of laissez faire have, in addition, shipped teaching lessons to 30,000 teachers.
Teachers, please don't fall for it.
Don't be Ayn Randed.
