A Curious Little Blog

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand I knew about Ayn Rand a long time ago, and I read "The Virtue of Selfishness" in high school. I wasn't too impressed with it, and Objectivism seemed a fringe movement, so I didn't make an effort to read her more famous works. Two things changed my position. The first was reading an article in which the author criticized Rand's followers for misreading her (he was completely wrong, it turns out). The second was the discovery that Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan are both big fans of Ayn Rand. If major public figures are influenced by her thought, I wanted to know more about it.   So I read "Atlas Shrugged," her largest and most famous novel. The first thing you would notice about this book, whether you read it or not, is that it is extraordinarily long. It is estimated at 645,000 words. By comparison, "Les Miserables" is only 531,000 words. "War and Peace" is 587,000. The Old Tes...

Hardly anyone, probably not even the candidate himself, believes that Ron Paul can win the Republican nomination.  But his strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire have turned him from a marginal figure into major player in Republican politics.  For many, a strong but unsuccessful run to be a party's presidential nominee could be used as a basis for a future presidential run, perhaps by becoming vice president first.  I think it highly unlikely that Paul will become a vice-presidential nominee, however, because he is too polarizing.  Moreover, at age 76, this is likely to be his last run. Is there any hope that the Republican candidate, should he win the presidency, will offer some sort of post to Paul?  Should he?  Paul represents an unusual constituency, a small but dedicated group who differ from Republicans in general on a number of issues.  Every political party is composed of diverse interests, but libertarians present a special set of challen...