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We sent the following release to media outlets today:
The Ayn Rand Election?
August 14, 2012
IRVINE, Calif.—Following Mitt Romney’s announcement that he has selected Rep. Paul Ryan to run as his Vice Presidential candidate, another name instantly became part of the presidential debate: Ayn Rand. Ryan is on record as being a fan of Atlas Shrugged although not a follower of Rand’s philosophy.
“For anyone concerned with limiting government, Ayn Rand is badly needed today,” said Don Watkins, an Ayn Rand Institute fellow and author, along with Yaron Brook, of Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government.
“Ayn Rand is history’s preeminent champion of capitalism. Who else had the courage to say that free markets are not simply powerful engines of wealth creation, but one-hundred percent moral—moral because they free the individual to pursue his own goals, wealth, and happiness?
“Instead of apologizing for opposing America’s colossal regulatory-entitlement state, the way virtually all Republicans do, Rand unflinchingly identified it as a moral corruption that sacrifices the individual to the collective. She didn’t seek to reform it but to end it.
“Ryan was right when he said that ‘Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining . . . the morality of individualism.’ But what he and the rest of us must learn is individualism’s full meaning. According to this distinctively American idea, the government’s only function is to protect the freedom of every individual. Nothing short of this principle will end the unlimited power that Big Government now wields over our lives.”
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Don Watkins is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a columnist at Forbes.com and his op-eds have appeared in such venues as Investor's Business Daily, Christian Science Monitor, FoxNews.com and CNBC.com. He maintains the blog LaissezFaire, and is co-author of the soon to be released book: “Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government.” Mr. Watkins is also a regular guest on PJTV’s Front Page with Allen Barton.
The Ayn Rand Institute is a 501(c)(3) dedicated to promoting the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. For more information on Objectivism and Ayn Rand, visit www.aynrand.org.
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