<article_title>Ayn_Rand</article_title>
<edit_user>TallNapoleon</edit_user>
<edit_time>Monday, March 21, 2011 8:43:52 AM CET</edit_time>
<edit_comment>/* Reception */ more elegant</edit_comment>
<edit_text>Reception
During Rand's lifetime, her work evoked extremes of both <strong>extreme </strong>praise and condemnation. Rand's first novel, We the Living, was admired by the literary critic H.L. Mencken,&lt;ref&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; her Broadway play Night of January 16th was both a critical and popular success,&lt;ref name=&quot;Branden 122-124&quot;&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; and The Fountainhead was hailed by a reviewer in The New York Times as &quot;masterful&quot;.&lt;ref name=&quot;Pruette&quot;&gt; Reprinted in .&lt;/ref&gt; However, Rand's novels were derided by some critics when they were first published as long and melodramatic,&lt;ref name=&quot;Gladstein 117-119&quot;&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; and they became bestsellers largely due to word of mouth.&lt;ref&gt;; &lt;/ref&gt;</edit_text>
<turn_user>Pelagius2<turn_user>
<turn_time>Sunday, March 20, 2011 9:52:47 PM CET</turn_time>
<turn_topicname>Use of Social Security and Medicare</turn_topicname>
<turn_topictext>Recent news reports indicate that Ayn Rand under the Name Ann OConnor enrolled in both Social Security and Medicare to cover costs related to her lung cancer case. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ford/ayn-rand-and-the-vip-dipe_b_792184.html However, it was revealed in the recent "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by Scott McConnell (founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute) that in the end Ayn was a vip-dipper as well. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor). As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help." But alas she did and said it was wrong for everyone else to do so. Apart from the strong implication that those who take the help are morally weak, it is also a philosophic point that such help dulls the will to work, to save and government assistance is said to dull the entrepreneurial spirit. In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest. given the relative controversy around Ayn Rand, it would be better if a moderator made these changes. font-size: smaller;autosigned—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.199.89 (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC) I am not a moderator, but being bold, I see no reason why I should not have made those changes. After all, if it is true, it would be a pretty blatant case of "do as I say, not as I do". Please feel free to edit my addition or move it to a more appropriate location (I wasn't going to be as provocative as create a "criticism" section, though I'd normally think that would be appropriate). Regards Ingolfson (talk) 01:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)The fact that she accepted these was already in the article when the IP posted. As for the criticism, if we quoted every op-ed critic, the article would be three times its current length or more. The effort to add whatever was published this week is classic recentism. --RL0919 (talk) 02:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)More to the point, the Huff isn't exactly known for its impartiality. Other sources being added include a couple of leftist blogs, one of which apparently did the FOI. That one concedes that the issue is unresolved. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)Note too that she would have spent her life paying social security and medicare taxes... so I'm not sure the hypocrisy charge really sticks, or that this is particularly notable. TallNapoleon (talk) 21:52, 31 January 2011 (UTC)And in this way how was she different than anyone else? Yet she still expounded the belief that people should not make use of these programs while she herself did. That is the very definition of a hypocrite. font-size: smaller;autosigned—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.24.95 (talk) 06:12, 12 March 2011 (UTC) She said that the only people who deserve to use a government program are those who oppose it. She did not say that no one should ever make use of these programs, as far as I know. Can you provide a reference for your statement? -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC) Ayn Rand in fact said that it was perfectly alright to accept Social Security and Medicare and government scholarships and research grants, etc., etc., etc. Rand's article, "The Question of Scholarships," The Objectivist, June 1966 (reprinted as Chapter 7, Part I, The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, L. Peikoff edit., NAL, 1990), covers these things in detail. She said that the coercion used to collect the funds for these very programs, and the impoverishment caused thereby, fully justify taking such benefits without "guilt" of any kind whatever. People are "not responsible for the immorality of the world into which they were born," she wrote in that article. Moreover, since these effects are inseparable, "it does not matter whether a given individual has or has not paid an amount of taxes equal to the amount" the person takes in government benefits. The title of the article specifies scholarships, but, Rand writes, "[t]he same moral principles and considerations apply to issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance, and other payments of that kind." And she repeated this position at more than one Q &amp; A session over the years. So, she would never have had an issue with someone receiving such benefits, and the interview subject in McConnell's book is simply mistaken as to Rand's publicly stated position. The Huffington poster was irresponsible and inaccurate about everything. Since this was her previously published position, Rand would not have needed to commit the criminal fraud of using a bogus name, either -- for which the linked "source" has no factual basis in making in any case. Added to this stack of flat out inventions and lies, it is simply the case that Rand never criticized anyone for taking such benefits. In her novels, for example, it is those in Washington, D.C., calling for ~ more ~ handouts who get the titles "moochers" and "looters" -- never those accepting such benefits in order to get by in a nation wrecked by such things. Also, Rand is hardly remarkable in accepting such benefits -- even as critic of these programs accepting such benefits. Any mention of this at all, i.e., the entire reference as it now stands, is an unjustified and baseless smear of Rand. Once more, the existing text of this Wikipedia article repeats low grade Internet defamation that has no basis in fact whatever.-Pelagius2 (talk) 21:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)The text as it currently stands is accurate, since it says she accepted the same benefits that she told others it was OK to accept. But the issue is too minor to be worth covering in the article, as is discussed in one of the discussion sections below. Since the brief tempest in a teapot stirred up by the HuffPo piece, discussion of this has died down, and I see no reason this shouldn't be cut as the trivia it is. --RL0919 (talk) 22:05, 20 March 2011 (UTC) Agreed. -Pelagius2 (talk) 22:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)I am going to be WP:BOLD and delete this. TallNapoleon (talk) 08:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)</turn_topictext>
<turn_text> Ayn Rand in fact said that it was perfectly alright to accept Social Security and Medicare and government scholarships and research grants, etc., etc., etc. Rand's article, "The Question of Scholarships," The Objectivist, June 1966 (reprinted as Chapter 7, Part I, The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, L. Peikoff edit., NAL, 1990), covers these things in detail. She said that the coercion used to collect the funds for these very programs, and the impoverishment caused thereby, fully justify taking such benefits without "guilt" of any kind whatever. People are "not responsible for the immorality of the world into which they were born," she wrote in that article. Moreover, since these effects are inseparable, "it does not matter whether a given individual has or has not paid an amount of taxes equal to the amount" the person takes in government benefits. The title of the article specifies scholarships, but, Rand writes, "[t]he same moral principles and considerations apply to issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance, and other payments of that kind." And she repeated this position at more than one Q &amp; A session over the years. So, she would never have had an issue with someone receiving such benefits, and the interview subject in McConnell's book is simply mistaken as to Rand's publicly stated position. The Huffington poster was irresponsible and inaccurate about everything. Since this was her previously published position, Rand would not have needed to commit the criminal fraud of using a bogus name, either -- for which the linked "source" has no factual basis in making in any case. Added to this stack of flat out inventions and lies, it is simply the case that Rand never criticized anyone for taking such benefits. In her novels, for example, it is those in Washington, D.C., calling for ~ more ~ handouts who get the titles "moochers" and "looters" -- never those accepting such benefits in order to get by in a nation wrecked by such things. Also, Rand is hardly remarkable in accepting such benefits -- even as critic of these programs accepting such benefits. Any mention of this at all, i.e., the entire reference as it now stands, is an unjustified and baseless smear of Rand. Once more, the existing text of this Wikipedia article repeats low grade Internet defamation that has no basis in fact whatever.</turn_text>