Posted by
Mike on Sunday, October 26, 2008 11:34:02 AM
A surprising number of diverse people were and are followers and devotees of the Russian Jewish emigree', author and philosopher Ayn Rand. She was one of three daughters of Zinovy Rosenbaum and Anna Rosenbaum before the Russian Revolution. Having got her start in Hollywood as a script writer and extra, she lived for a time in Chatsworth, California with her husband Frank O'Connor. I know the area well as Chatsworth High School is my
alma mater. It was a nice suburb on the outskirts Los Angeles, home to such stars as Lucy and Desi Arnaz, and Carole Lombard with Clark Gable's ranch in a neighboring town where I lived, and horse ranches of various other actors. Chatsworth was named for a place in England after a visit to the area by the Duke of Devonshire. As Hollywood declined the area degenerated quite a bit, being the location of Charles Manson's infamous crime family, drugs and porography production. Being on the San Andreas fault, it was hit hard by the Sylmar earthquake in 1971 which I remember, and by the Northridge earthquake in 1994. It is the location of the railroad crash earlier this year.
With the rise of Conservatism and Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964, Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism gained popularity in America and she became somewhat of a cult icon. Today, libertarians are generally pro-choice and subscribe to the tenets of the Cato Institute. This is the idiot wing of the Republican Party. Ayn Rand thought that children did not have the right to life until they were born. Ayn Rand was atheist. I don't see how conservative pundits including Ann Coulter can claim any credibility when they continue to lionize Ayn Rand as Coulter does to this day.