She was one smart human.

This quote is from the three part article "A Preview" in The Ayn Rand Letter July-Sep 1972 https://estore.aynrand.org/p/213/the-... analyzing the George McGovern Democratic National Convention explicitly calling for welfare state "rights", including as a central plank a guaranteed income at the expense of the producers. It marked the transition from the old Democratic Party to the New Left that had taken it over -- including its environmentalist 'Anti-Industrial Revolution' ecology movement -- a preview of the even more tyrannical far left collectivist Democratic Party today. "So long as the statist-altruist-pragmatist doctrine of the welfare state remained unchallenged, there was no other place to go", commented Ayn Rand -- which is why we still have it in even more extreme form now.

Previewing Barach Obama's call for "fundamental change", McGovern said, "We are not content with things as they are. We reject the view of those who say: 'America—love it or leave it.' We reply: 'Let us change it so we can love it the more.'" (Ayn Rand: "I do not know whether that last sentence necessarily has to turn your stomach; it turned mine.")

That was immediately followed by -- in what Ayn Rand characterized as "the worst came last—and it was directed at American history" -- McGovern promoting their crusade for welfare statism as:

"'And this is the time. It is the time for this land to become again a witness to the world for what is noble and just in human affairs. It is the time to live more with faith and less with fear...So join with me in this campaign, lend me your strength and your support, give me your voice—and together, we will call America home to the founding ideals that nourished us in the beginning'. (emphasis added)".

Ayn Rand's concluding response to that began:

"I do not know what level of contempt for truth, for history, for ideals, and for the American people one has to reach in order to utter that statement in that context. Perhaps the answer lies in a different question: What level of contempt for his own professed convictions does a man have to reach in order to declare that his goal is to return to the very ideals which his crusade is designed to destroy?

"America's founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more—and nothing less. The rest—everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything 'noble and just,' and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history—was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle. The first consequence was the principle of political freedom, i.e., an individual's freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by the government. The next was the economic implementation of political freedom: the system of capitalism."

Another "preview" -- of the current "dreamer" rhetoric and the difference between Republicans and Democrats today -- is the rest of Ayn Rand's conclusion:

"'Come home,' said McGovern, 'to the affirmation that we have a dream.'

"'Dream,' like 'imagination,' is a very dubious kind of attribute or compliment. Its value or disvalue depends on its relation to reality. Two kinds of dreams are observable in American history. One was the dream of men who came here seeking an opportunity to exercise their creative ability in full, unrestricted freedom; they were the men who built this country. The other was the dream of men who came here believing that America's streets were paved with gold and that a fortune was to be theirs without effort. They are the men whose spokesman is George McGovern [and now Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton].

"The silent, unadmitted, underground conflict between these two types of men has been growing for two centuries. Now it is in the open. The Democratic Convention has declared which side it chooses to uphold. That speech was its voice, and this is the meaning of what it is now offering the country...

"I am not an admirer of President Nixon, as my readers know. But I urge every able-minded voter, of any race, creed, color, age, sex, or political party, to vote for Nixon—as a matter of national emergency. This is no longer an issue of choosing the lesser of two commensurate evils. The choice is between a flawed candidate representing Western civilization—and the perfect candidate of its primordial enemies.

"If there were some campaign organization called 'Anti-Nixonites for Nixon,' it would name my position.

"The worst thing said about Nixon is that he cannot be trusted, which is true: he cannot be trusted to save this country. But one thing is certain: McGovern can be trusted to destroy it."

Apparently the rest of the voters were "Anti-Nixonites for Nixon", too -- McGovern lost everywhere but Massachusetts and Washington DC. But he was a preview for the predictably worse to come. "So long as the statist-altruist-pragmatist doctrine of the welfare state remained unchallenged, there was no other place to go."

But, but, but, I thought it was for the children~
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c405335...