A reader wrote an article entitled “A Close Family Member votes Republican.” Reader/writer
JShCD15 wrote that his close family member says she is only — ONLY — concerned with things that affect her personally. She said that if someone was in a bad situation and she could do something about it to help them, she would not try to help them because it did not affect her personally. Here is a story of an Ayn Rand believer I encountered.
A couple of years ago I found a laptop computer on the commuter train. It was in a carrying case, and in the case was an airline ticket with the name of the owner on it. I wanted to return the computer and ticket to its owner. I found him on Facebook, and he was talking there about how great Ayn Rand is (to him!). I wrote a post on his Facebook page that I had his computer, and how to get in touch with me to get it back.
I did not hear back from him for a few days, so I called my computer guru, and he came over to my place and hacked into the found computer, and found the name of the company where the owner worked. I called or emailed the guy, and said I had his computer, gave him my phone number and address.
My computer guy and I both went to considerable effort to find this guy. Sure enough, he made an appointment with me to pick up the computer, came to my door. I handed him his computer. I wondered how it would set with him, that we had gone to a lot of trouble to return the computer to him, considering his Ayn Rand belief that doing good for someone is weakness. Well, he held out his hand, I handed him his computer, and he left. He did not even say Thank you.
I know that Ayn Rand politics is alive and well in the United States. I tried reading her book “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 22 years old (that was over 50 years ago). It had been highly recommended to me as a great book — but within the first five or ten pages, I “got it” that Ayn Rand was a creep and a jerk of the worst sort because of her belief that compassion and good deeds are, to her, “weakness.”
It’s a crying shame that so many people subscribe to her philosophy. If you do a google search for Donald Trump Ayn Rand, you will find that Ayn Rand is his favorite author.