Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Sep 16, 2009, 06:53AM

Conservatives and the debt to Ayn Rand

"What is so striking, and serves as the clearest mark of Rand's lasting influence, is the language of moral absolutism applied by the right to these questions."

The current era of Democratic governance has provoked a florid response on the right, ranging from the prosaic (routine denunciations of big spending and debt) to the overheated (fears of socialism) to the lunatic (the belief that Democrats plan to put the elderly to death). Amid this cacophony of rage and dread, there has emerged one anxiety that is an actual idea, and not a mere slogan or factual misapprehension. The idea is that the United States is divided into two classes--the hard-working productive elite, and the indolent masses leeching off their labor by means of confiscatory taxes and transfer programs.

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