Galt's Gulch
15

Ayn Rand's Voting Record

Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 2 months ago to Politics
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I read a book that discussed this in more detail but cannot find it. What is clear is that Rand also got played by politicians. As she got older she looked beyond the rhetoric and found it harder to vote for any of the candidates. Ultimately, freedom is not won in elections or procedural changes, it is won in the battle of ideas. Imagine an election between Jefferson, Coolidge, and Rand.
SOURCE URL: http://www.ariwatch.com/PresidentialElections-1.htm

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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 2 months ago
    It is difficult to vote when you believe that neither side should win. However, when you have been put into quicksand and one person throws you a line of crepe paper and the other a garden hose, you are forced to take your best option.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 9 years, 2 months ago
    Hello DH,
    Great find." Will he accelerate, delay or stop the march toward statism?" Sad how little things have changed and how even Rand had to occasionally overlook some shortcomings and hold her nose while voting... even occasionally abstaining as she felt all choices offered were intolerable.
    Regards,
    O.A.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 2 months ago
    An election between Jefferson, Coolidge, and Rand would be a tough one. They each had outstanding qualities. Both Jefferson and Coolidge would be in my top five presidents. Ayn Rand might lose my vote because being a president requires one to be able to get along with people with whom one disagrees. While I agree with the vast majority of Rand thinks, I am pretty sure that Rand would have focused on the 2% we disagree on rather than on the 98% we do agree on.
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    • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 2 months ago
      Have you ever read about how Jefferson got along with his political enemies?
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 2 months ago
        Yes, I have read about Jefferson and his political enemies, particularly Adams. Monticello has a nice display on that topic. I think Coolidge probably would get my vote amongst the three. He was probably the president who least interfered with individuals.
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        • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 2 months ago
          Jefferson never personally put himself out there, but his friends in the press (some I think he funded) said vicious things. Adams did not forgive him for years - on the other hand Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Act - partly in response Jefferson's press cronies.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 2 months ago
      I'd vote Jefferson (he's my #1 actual president) but even he had faults. He created the Bank of the US, for one.

      Various science fiction writers have written of alien races who could map somebody's mind into a computer, then interview it. It would be nice to be able to test all the candidates that way with a bunch of what-ifs and publish the results before election day.
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    • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
      Rand wouldn't run. Do you remember how she answered a question at a lecture, about what would she do as President? She said she would not seek the office, and no rational woman should. So instead she said what she would want a male President to do.

      Recall also: Nathaniel Branden called that "one of her most embarrassing lapses." You see, the reason she didn't think a woman ought to be President is that it would ruin the woman's sex life. It would make her a dominatrix, and that, said Rand, was not what a woman ought to be. (And if a woman did want to be President, Rand would avoid her, regarding her as dangerous to the natural order of things.)
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      • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 2 months ago
        Yes, I thought about that.

        Very strange ideas. Of course there have been women rulers through out history and there is no evidence that they rule better, more humanly, or different in any way.
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        • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 2 months ago
          I am not sure if those are my prime criteria, db. It has always been evident to me that the women who did rule have had a high percentage of 'outstanding' rulers even though the total number of woman rulers is low. The best refutation of Rand's illogical assertion that a woman should not rule because it would ruin her sex life (!) is that it does not seem to have done this for historical rulers (except perhaps for Eliz. the First, who based her public persona on being the Virgin Queen - and there is some doubt there as well).

          It was such an odd think for Ayn Rand to say... I have never been able to figure it out.

          Jan
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        • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 2 months ago
          I see one noticeable difference in women as rulers, and sometimes even just as company management -- they feel they must constantly prove to the world that they can be tough, so they'll often be strict when it is not called for and a good boss wouldn't be.

          I'm sorry that they have this issue, but I don't think it's my fault, nor that I'm a sexist for calling attention to it. YMMV.
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        • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
          Probably the first woman to rule in her own right, was Hatshepsut of Egypt, during the XVIIIth or Ahmoside/Thutmoside Dynasty. She did all the things a new Pharaoh has to do, including go to war. But her biggest claim to fame is a trade exhibition to a land known only as "Punt," that greatly enhanced the economic position of Egypt.

          But of course, the Egyptians being what they were, her successor, Thutmosis III, tried to erase her memory from the historical record.
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          • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 2 months ago
            Actually, there were about 5 women pharaohs of Egypt; I think at least one was in the Old Kingdom. I can look that up if you are interested.

            Jan
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            • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
              I would. But Hatshepsut had this distinction. Her honorific was not "King's Wife" or "King's Daughter," but simply "King." She was far ahead of her time, especially in leading armies into battle.
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              • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 2 months ago
                OK. Had to do a bit of research (which is a good way to wake up the brain). Here is a list of the female pharaohs of Egypt who ruled in their own right (but sometimes for only a very short period).
                MERYT-NEITH (1st Dynasty c.3000 BC)
                NITOCRIS (6th Dynasty 2148-44 BC)
                SOBEKNOFRU (Neferusobek) (12th Dynasty ?1767-1759 BC)
                HATSHEPSUT (18th Dynasty c.1473-1458 BC)
                TWOSRET (Tausert) (19th Dynasty c.1187-1185 BC)
                CLEOPATRA (c 51 BC)

                The list compasses a span of about 3000 years.

                Jan
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                • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
                  Sobek-nofru--now that name sounds familiar. It sounds like "Daughter of Sobek." She could have been the one who fished a certain slave baby out of the Nile and raised him at court--thus sowing the seeds for the temporary subjugation of Egypt to a foreign aristocracy (the Hyksos).
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                  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 2 months ago
                    Huh. Interesting thought. The only word I recall in Ancient Egyptian for 'daughter' is "sa't", but I am only a beginner. I will see what I come up with as a translation of the name (thinking...I believe that Sobek is a god or goddess...)

                    Jan
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                    • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
                      "Sobek," strictly speaking, means crocodile--or a god having the head of one.
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                      • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 2 months ago
                        Yeah! Spot on. Sometimes her name is written as Neferusobek, which makes me think that Sobek-nofru is just an alternate spelling. Happily, "nefer" is one of the (few) words that I know: it means 'perfect', and is a fairly common element in noble names.

                        Why would that make her the pharaoh daughter who plucked "birth" (Mss) from the river?

                        Jan
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                        • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 2 months ago
                          Twelfth Dynasty, for one thing. For another, I believe her immediate predecessor on the throne was Amenemhat III--and he is my favorite candidate for the Pharaoh who ordered the summary execution of all the Hebrew male infants.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 2 months ago
    This was very interesting to read. We are so manipulated by politicians in our government that I have adopted the idea of pretty much ignoring what they say, with the assumption that they are either trying to manipulate me into believing something that isnt true, or telling me lies about what they will do if elected.
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  • Posted by Solver 9 years, 2 months ago
    I am proud not to vote for rulers. There is something immoral in much of the voting these-days. In this modern PC world of voting and politics there are two basic questions:
    “Which group gets the goodies?”
    “Which group pays for the goodies?”

    Rarely is the answer to these two questions the same. Many times the second question is evaded, causing even more long term debts, in which case the answer to question number two is usually, “The unborn.”

    This type of voting and politics should be made illegal, "for the children that our our future."
    Anyway, that's my idea.
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    • Posted by term2 9 years, 2 months ago
      Unfortunately, you are right. I want a NON-politician for a change. That probably means Trump this time. He will tell us at least when the emperor has no clothes. Rand Paul is more consistently free market, but I doubt he would be electable at this stage in our culture. The others are either religious zealots I cant trust, or just idiots
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  • Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 2 months ago
    I don’t know much about Coolidge, but it is a crying shame Jefferson changed as soon as he got into power. He went from the super founder with all the right ideas to intentionally circumventing the Constitution (so much for a strict constructionist). Power corrupts. Any power, just look around you at anyone who holds any power. Within their sphere, they are the god. When the sphere is the nation, the god wants to enlarge it both in scope and territory — as did Jefferson.
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  • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 2 months ago
    some may disagree with me here but I have yet to see any difference between the parties so abstaining will be the right thing to do.
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    Posted by MarkHunter 9 years, 2 months ago
    The article at page top, here titled “Ayn Rand’s Voting Record,” doesn’t support what’s said in the paragraph underneath that title.

    Ayn Rand was not “played by politicians” and she failed to vote in two or three elections spread out over the years: possibly in 1936 (Landon vs. Roosevelt), then in 1956 (Eisenhower vs. Stevenson) and in 1980 (Reagan vs. Carter).
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