Ayn Rand on Native Land Theft
They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.
So much for Rand's “libertarianism”, not to mention respect for property rights. Property rights are for “white” folks it seems.
Thanks to Red Jenny http://redjenny.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-i-am-not-objectivist-2311.html
Labels: Aboriginal people, objectivism, pseudo-libertarianism
posted by Larry Gambone at
9:09 PM
12 Comments:
She only cared that the enterprise was free, not the people.
She is to the left of Frank Baum, who wrote "The Wizard of OZ," who openly advocated genocide against Native cultures.
Wow, you've discovered that Ayn Rand admired winners and hated losers...
One day maybe you will discover that Hitler hated Jews...
Don't worry, if Native Americans won the war against white colonists, Ayn Rand would have supported native rights...
With a comment like "live practically like an animal" it is obviously more than a case of preferring winners, rather it is racism and chauvinism of the worst sort. And if she loved winners she should have admired Lenin who defeated the Tsarist and Cadet forces.
Also the bigger "winners", Stalin and Mao. Yeah,Rand was an asshole, but she was an asshole who had ideological convictions and actually believed in something. "Supporting winners" is the purview of post modernist "leftists" in academia who will indeed support whatever way the wind blows as well as the good Nazis who became communists and vice versa.
Assholish as Rand was, I don't think you can accuse her of such opportunism. Unpleasant YES, but NOT opportunistic.
funny how many conservative christians embrace her economic view. Even some "leftists" seem to be intrigued by her. Opportunistic, umm yes. If she had any conviction, she would have stayed in Russia and tried to change her own society. Instead, she fled to a country full of people with similar viewpoints.
I wonder why it is ok to force people to stop living in their primitive cultures, but not ok to force them to live collectively? It is only ok for individualists to use force when they want a someone to be just like them, I guess. Strange individualism. I guess that is why she had to leave Russia. Lenin was the winner and she was a complete loser.
this, regarding her death, is from wikipedia:
"A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket."
Sick.
Of course the comment section here is making Ayn Rand look good.
"If she had any conviction, she would have stayed in Russia and tried to change her own society."
Um yea, too bad for those jews who managed to flee nazi germany also. I've never heard a worse "love it or leave it" argument.
As for the 6 foot dollar sign, I take it you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, as it was a whole symbolic thing for Rand.
And no I don't agree with Ayn about the native americans or many many other things - but sheesh.
Ayn Rand was a cult leader and charlatan, not a serious thinker. Anything she said, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, and Ernst Junger said it better.
Most of her ideological children are right-wing reactionary crackpots who make the Neocons seem reasonable by comparison.
Um yea, too bad for those jews who managed to flee nazi germany also. I've never heard a worse "love it or leave it" argument.
After graduating from a posh college in St Petersburg, she got a visa to go to the US. This is how she "managed to flee." She was so brave, I bet she packed her bags all by herself.
"...Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, and Ernst Junger..."
Preston has obviously never read Ayn Rand, because those comparisons are totally absurd.
i agree with boondoggle, Preston has no formal background on objectivism and is trying to connect it to altruistic idealists.
@sonia Liked winners? So if an outside force one over runs your land, occupies it and then subjegates you, I guess you will be ok with that because after all they are more powerful than you and they are the winners while you are the loser, right? She was utterly ignorant of the history. She said nothing of the forced removal of the five civilized tribes - which took place even after they won their case before the US supreme court. Nothing about the trail of tears. Nothing about the fact that the American Indians were not even granted US citizenship until in the 1930s. She was a bigot pure and simple. She cared nothing about the fact that they too are humans, just judged entire groups by the lifestyle of the society they came from. It was money and materialism that madea person life valuable in her view, not that they were humans.
Thank you for the post. This is a great article of native Americans culture!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home