ROMNEY AND RYAN - "THE ICEMEN COMETH"

"Think of all the folks we'll leave in the dust."  "Oh yes!  Ha, ha, ha."

What a perfect headline and what a splendid opinion piece by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite.

We are falling prey, in the United States, to the temptation to equate “freedom” with selfishness.

This is ultimately a counsel of despair and the direct antithesis of the biblical values of love and compassion.
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Jesus of Nazareth was absolutely clear that we have a responsibility to care for one another. Jesus instructed us to “love one another” (John 13:34). Cultivating the virtues of empathy, compassion, and support for other people is the way we love one another in an individual and in a social sense.
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Yes, Ryan’s attachment to the works of Ayn Rand is revealing of his own views and it’s deeply problematic. But the problem of selfishness as a virtue is far more widespread and corrosive in American society than the views of any one person.

Through decades of conservative ideology, the concept of freedom itself has been narrowed to mean simply ‘it’s okay to be selfish.’ In fact, caring for our fellow citizens is regarded as the antithesis of our own individual freedom.

The blood running through the veins of the individualistic, freedom-loving conservatives seems to have turned to ice water.  Ayn Rand's philosophy, or "morality" as she chose to call it, of the negation of self-sacrifice is the antithesis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The wonder to me is how those amongst the selfish freedom lovers who call themselves Christians reconcile the Randian morality and the teachings in the Gospel.

Thistlethwaite is correct when she says the equation of freedom to selfishness has leached into the consciousness of many in the country who may know little of Rand, while the ardent Rand disciples seem soulless in their lack of empathy.  To run a country putting Rand's philosophy into practice would result in life in a dystopia, the likes of which it would be difficult to imagine. Some brave and gifted soul should imagine and write a fictional account. 

H/T to IT at The Friends of Jake for the link.