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Who would Ayn Rand Vote For?

Posted by robgambrill 8 years, 1 month ago to Humor
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"I really believe that if Ayn Rand were alive today, she would vote for Trump. But since she is dead, she will most likely be voting for Hillary."

User @Fountainhead on Gab.ai earlier today...


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    Posted by Billpro 8 years, 1 month ago
    Do I like Trump? No. Do I like Hillary? NO, NO, NO!! Am I a registered Libertarian? Yes, BUT, I understand that any vote for a "can't win candidate other than Trump" is a vote for Hillary. I'll be holding my nose as I cast my vote for Trump. He's going to have a tough time with the RINOs on the hill, assuming they retain control. I think, in general, he is far less dangerous to the Nation.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 8 years, 1 month ago
    My first connection was that Ayn Rand is in hell and voting for Hillary Clinton because I believe that Hillary Rodham sold her soul to the devil. But then I got the voter fraud humor. Cute.

    In real life, Ayn Rand wrote against voting for Ronald Reagan. I do not think that she voted Democrat that time, though. She did admire Adlai Stevenson, but, as I recall reading, she voted for Dwight Eisenhower. Her attraction for the liberals was that they had an intellectual approach to problems and offered solutions. She disagreed with those specifics, but she praised the process. On the other hand, the conservatives and Republicans were just "me, too" traditionalists with no program and no perception of the actual problems.

    She would not have voted for Donald Trump. He is unintellectual, range-of-the-moment. He is a demagogue, appealing to fear. His campaign slogan "to make America great again" assumes that America is no longer great. It admits a defeat that never happened.

    While it can be impossible to do productive, creative work without the government being overly involved, Trump actively courted favors for his real estate deals. He did work his way through college, granted. But he did that with HUD houses. Again, there is a reality to that which an honest person could come to grips with, but Donald Trump seems never to have asked any basic questions about eminent domain.

    I think that Ayn Rand would not vote for anyone for President in this election.
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    • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
      Re: “She would not have voted for Donald Trump. He is unintellectual, range-of-the-moment.” Depends to what extent she would have considered Hillary dangerous to America’s survival. She reluctantly supported and voted for Nixon in 1972, even after he had imposed wage and price controls, because she thought that George McGovern’s domestic and foreign policy views might destroy the country.
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      • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
        If Hillary gets in, she WILL destroy my current business, put 10 people out of work, and then take most of what I might leave to my heirs. She might even get us into nuclear war with Russia over stupid things like safe zones in Syria. Trump wont do any of those things. Will he stop the movement to socialism, NO. But he will slow it down
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        • Posted by edweaver 8 years, 1 month ago
          So you are good with passing the problem on to your children. That's what slowing it down does.
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          • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
            I don't have children and I have a limited time to live. Anyway, it will take a collapse to wake people up, and hopefully by then enough education will have been done so that the system will be rebuilt the right way. I say the collapse will take 40 years before all the wealth is squandered by the socialists. That will be a time of hardship and governmental control. I would rather not live thru that
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            • Posted by ewv 8 years, 1 month ago
              A "collapse" in any form only wakes people up to the presence of a serious problem, if they don't already know it. It doesn't provide a solution.
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              • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
                Correct, and in todays culture, we would be in the same boat as Venezuela, where they just hope against hope that socialism done the right way will save them
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
            Re: "So you are good with passing the problem on to your children. That's what slowing it down does." So speeding it up is better? Any chance of giving Objectivism a foothold in our culture depends on a slow enough decline to allow the further spread of rational principles. I'm not voting for Trump, but I understand the reasons why others might.
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    • Posted by minesayn 8 years, 1 month ago
      All throughout this election process, I kept thinking Orren Boyle and Trump are interchangeable. Orren was a 'pull peddler' and so, it seems, is Trump in his business dealings. Trump's cheating of his contractors and their workers out of payment for services rendered is not the action of a Reardon.
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    • Posted by MinorLiberator 8 years, 1 month ago
      I can see why she might admire Stevenson, as at that moment in time many Liberals were still actual intellectuals, and even though wrong-headed in their ideas, they still loved America. The Conservatives of that era were exactly as named: tradition bound, non-thinking anti-Intellectuals. I was too young to know of that brand of Liberal first-hand, but not too young to remember the 60's, when The Far Left, anti-Amerika non-intellectuals began to take over and replace the Stevenson like Liberals. Certainly Nixon was no intellectual, but McGovern was clearly the first real New Left candidate. Hence her decision to vote for Nixon. Nobody can really know what her thoughts would really be now, but I'd have to think that as Hillary makes McGovern look like Jefferson, the Nixon/McGovern logic would still apply, and IMO she would vote Trump.
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      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 8 years, 1 month ago
        Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition (1948) was written from a liberal perspective. He defined that tradition as "......shared a belief in the rights of property, the philosophy of economic individualism, the value of competition... [T]hey have accepted the economic virtues of a capitalist culture as necessary qualities of man." (Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ame...
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        • Posted by MinorLiberator 8 years, 1 month ago
          What is described here are the first and true Liberals or "free-traders" who blossomed most prominently in 19th England and opposed Conservative mercantilism, protectionism, economic nationalism.

          It has nothing to do with, and is actually the complete opposite of modern "Liberals". In advertising terms, it was a highly successful (although evil) "re-branding"
          of essentially Marxist theories. Black is white.

          The unfortunate but necessary result being that modern free market Economists are careful to use the term "classical liberals" to refer to the early free-traders. (Another example of successful and devastating rebranding is the term "progressive", which now applies to people and ideas who are the exact opposite.)
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    • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
      If she decided to vote, it would have to be for Trump, as he is definitely less evil than the alternative Hillary and will give more time for education to take hold and reverse where we are going. Perhaps she might vote for Johnson.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 1 month ago
    Hard to tell. She said one time, "It's no sin not to
    vote," and in 1980 she said, "There is a limit to the
    notion of voting for the lesser of two evils." She was very much anti-Reagan, because he was a
    "religion-based conservative," and he was anti-
    abortion. Yet in 1976 she went for Ford, even
    though he gave some lip service (she said he
    had caved in "shamefully" to the anti-abortion
    people).
    She said at one point that there was (this is
    a memory quote,pardon me if there is a mistake)
    "There is only one group of people who could
    make it necessary to vote for Reagan--the Dem-
    ocrats (by voting for some version of Kennedy)
    ...".
    If Trump has gone anti-abortion, I do not
    think he is fervently so, or that he will do much
    about it.
    But I consider Hillary Clinton an intolerable
    socialist. As I have said, over and over, it is
    like a choice between being shot through the
    head with a gun one knows to be fully loaded,
    and playing Russian roulette.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 8 years, 1 month ago
    "And the dead shall rise and make their presence known." The zombie vote may decide this election.
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    • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
      Hopefully NOT. Hillary will speed us all into the oblivion of socialism faster than any of the candidates. Plus, she is the posterchild for crooked cronyism that I cant believe people are overlooking.
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      • Posted by ProfChuck 8 years, 1 month ago
        If you have ever watched "Watters World" you should be able to predict the outcome of the election. "In a democracy the people get the government they deserve."
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        • Posted by term2 8 years, 1 month ago
          I did watch that. Its SCARY. I just hope that people are pissed off enough over corruption and government intrusion that Trump succeeds. Otherwise, I will lose this business I have (cant afford the $15/hr wages) if Hillary gets in. Not to mention, she might just get us into war with Russia over stupid safe zones in Syria.

          Big bruiser confident bouncers are less likely get into fights in bars because the bad guys are intimidated. Scrawny insecure security people are more likely to have to fight.

          Hillary and Obama are likely to project weakness and will invite challenges from Russia. At some point they will be forced to fight Russia. Trump wont have that problem. He will meet with Putin and they will understand each other and neither will actually want to fight
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 8 years, 1 month ago
    I have been convinced for the past few years that Hillary would be next. That hasn't changed. What has changed is my feeling of doom as the reality nears. I was out playing golf with a buddy yesterday morning and we had time to discuss this election. He said something that is haunting me. "Trump just talks about money. He has no plan." I subconsciously mulled that over until this morning when I had the thought, "What is Hillary's plan?" I haven't heard any plan from her. Oh...I heard her yell in the middle of a speech, "We will raise taxes on the middle-class!" But, that's all I've heard.

    I have to be honest. I'm scared of this woman.
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  • Posted by minesayn 8 years, 1 month ago
    I don't believe she would ever vote for Trump. She believed in women's rights..she was pro-choice before it was labelled pro-choice. She thought that women had a right to control their reproductive rights, up to and including abortion. I suspect that she would not vote for anyone in this election, but based on some of the statements Trump has made (particularly those about punishing those who have had abortions, etc.), she would never vote for him.
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  • Posted by $ rainman0720 8 years, 1 month ago
    If Montgomery Brewster's "None Of The Above" was running, I think Ayn Rand would vote for it.

    Beyond that, I don't think she'd even recognize what elections have become.
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  • Posted by dwlievert 8 years, 1 month ago
    Excellent reminder Mike. I always enjoy your postings as they always prompt me to examine CONTEXT.

    America remains (IS!) great, though its light has become dimmed, those that wish to turn off its power seem steadily on the ascendancy.

    The proper context, as you remind, is that despite what seems to occupy our focus, we are living in the best of times in the best of places - with comfort, security, and opportunities that would challenge the imagination of those who came before us.

    Yes, we are watching it all put at risk, but as Rand aptly stated, the power of evil comes from the sanction of the victim. Thanks to the fact that Gutenberg's printing press has been reinvented using touch screens of all descriptions, more and more victims are understanding the sanction!

    It's all about CONTEXT.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
    I think you are right. But before she endorses him, she would require an interview or better still to be on his staff as an advisor. However, the Ayn Rand I'm referring to is the younger woman at the peak of her powers, having just written "The Strike." Later, she likely would not vote for either of them, and certainly not Johnson.
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