Ayn Rand was born in 1905 in a horrible country, Czarist Russia, which begat Communism which in the 1917 Revolution took away her father’s business as a druggist. Rand was born in Saint Petersburg, a city that was tragically re-named Leningrad. She passed away in the land of her dreams, America, in 1982 at age 77.
Ayn Rand deeply loved America and she was an expert on morality. She developed, single handedly, an entire, complete philosophy and wrote it up in The Galt Speech in Atlas Shrugged.
Lots of people hate Rand because she skewered their false morality. Atlas and expecially Galts Speech are a bit complex and many people lack the intellect or the patience or both to get through it. It is a brilliant treatise that far surpasses the information about morality even in the detailed moral codes of the religions of the world and because of it’s brilliance The Galt Speech and Ayn Rand herself have been condemned expecially by religiously inclined people. Unfortunately their criticism lacks the essential to make them correct: the truth. If fact, the truth about Rand’s brilliance and the truth about her philosophy as well as the detailed condemnation of  religious values in The Galt Speech is spectacular. The best way to apprehend it is to read Atlas Shrugged. the second best way is to read John Galt’s radio speech which is completely inside the novel Atlas Shrugged. It is a staggeringly great achievement.
Personally, I had a 16 year religious education and forty (40) years of religious education and experience including priests in my slightly extended family and Rand’s take on morality was far wider and deeper than what I was taught. the truth was knowingly or inadvertantly hidden during my entire first 40 years. I stumbled onto Ayn Rand as a result of a caller telling Rush Limbaugh that he sounds like Ayn Rand. He reacted violently saying: “she was an atheist.” Up to that point in my very religious life I had never heard of Ayn Rand. There was every reason for that since Rand is thouughly not only not religious, she was exceptionally anti-religious, writing at age 29 in her philosophical notebook: “I want to be known as the greatest champion of reason and the greatest enemy of religion.” That’s from Dr. John Ridpath’s 1989 lecture: Religion vs. Man.
Ayn Rand’s intellectual exposition is brilliant yet she writes in a very understandable manner. Her reasoning is supurb and is included in full in the 33,378 word Galt radio speech. She discusses morality. Morality is not a simple thing. It can’t be simple since it is supposed to guide your entire life but whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not, you have a morality that you are following and it’s dangerous if you don’t know what it is. Most people blindly follow a moral code without knowing they are doing it. I didn’t even after 40 years immersed in a religion-based life.
Ayn Rand was a phenomon. Her philosophy is phenominal and it is a phenomenon of the most incredible and impressive dimensions of greatest importance. And that is what we need to oppose the spread of false doctrines and wrong moral thinking in our culture.
We are involved in a struggle for life.
So ……. if you want to be for freedom; if you want to be for prosperity; benevolence; for a rational future; for happiness for people for life you’re not just in the right place, you’re in the only place with Ayn Rand because she illuminated not just her philosophy but she showed us how to use it everyday. If you want a complete philosophy to have happiness right now in this life for you, yours and your friends, Rand’s thinking is for you. Have at it.
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