WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. WAS LESS TALENTED.
I NEVER LIKED HIM AND IT WASN'T JUST BECAUSE HE DIDN'T APPEAR TO BATHE.
This is his weird and nasty eulogy to her. It seems antisemitic too with the mocking of her accent.
A reader writes a rebuttal afterwards.
She died March 6, 1982, so these letters are a little after that date.
HOME Search Site by Topic Go back to the QUACKS AND ODDITIES page.
Ayn Rand tal vez sea el mejor ejemplo con su gruesa novela Atlas Shrugged—y cuando digo gruesa, quiero decir gruesa: ¡Tiene 645.000 palabras! Yo siempre he opinado que se requiere una gran cantidad de amor propio para escribir un libro tan grande, pero estoy siendo quisquilloso ya que he leído Atlas Shrugged de principio a fin y es un buen libro.
Seguidores fanáticos del libro—utopianos de Ayn Rand—sin embargo, lo consideran la verdad del evangelio. Un utopiano en particular me viene a la mente, un tal Paul Ryan ex-senador republicano. Él solía insistir en que sus empleados leyeran Atlas Shrugged en la misma manera que algún demasiado religioso fanático cristiano insistiría en que leyeran el Nuevo Testamento si pudiera hacerlo y salirse con la suya. Tarde en la vida Ryan estaba totalmente atontado al enterarse con horror de que su heroína Rand era una atea y a favor de la libre elección.
Bueno, el muchacho estadounidense medio se enamora de Ayn Rand alrededor de la edad de trece años y la primera cosa que aprende—la primera cosa—es que Ayn Rand era una atea y a favor de la libre elección. No digo que otros utopianos sean tan poco eruditos y tan superficiales respecto a su conocimiento básico de sus gurús como la obvia cabeza hueca de primera Paul Ryan. Todo lo contrario, muchos tienen sabiduría bastante amplia respecto a Heinlein, Skinner y Rand.
Ayn Rand is perhaps the best example with her hefty novel Atlas Shrugged—and by hefty I write a book that long, but I quibble because I've read it myself cover to cover and it's a very good read.
Fanatical adherents to the book—Ayn Rand Utopians—however, treat it as gospel. One reader in particular comes to mind, one Paul Ryan, former Republican US senator. He used to insist that his employees read Atlas Shrugged rather in the way some overly religious Christian zealot would insist that they read the New Testament if the zealot could get away with it. Ryan was absolutely gobsmacked1 when late in life he learned to his horror that his heroine Rand was a pro-choice atheist.
Now, the Ayn Rand bug hits the American male at about age thirteen, and the first thing he learns—the very first thing—is that Ayn Rand was a pro-choice atheist.
I don't accuse other Utopians of being so unscholarly and superficial in knowledge with regard to their guru-authors as is the obvious numbskull and dabbler extraordinaire, Paul Ryan. Quite the contrary, many are very learned in all things Heinlein, Skinner, and Rand.
Paul Ryan is a dabbler. He read a little of Atlas Shrugged and went around preaching it. But he knew nothing about her and was shocked to find that she was a pro-choice atheist. This is the FIRST thing you learn about her if you know anything or are even slightly interested. A dabbler + a utopia novel. I like her being a pro-choice atheist, but not being a loon who said she would never vote for a woman president.