Service to self, philosophy.

[APeacefulWarrior]

I mean, her postscript to "Atlas Shrugged" infamously begins with her proclaiming "My personal life is a postscript to my novels. It consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it!'" That really sums up just how dedicated she was to the ideas she was advancing.

The funny thing is that… she didn't.  She lived in a rent-controlled apartment and was on amphetamines most of the time, and collected social security and medicare towards the end.  I don't begrudge her those entitlement programs, but it seems like she would!

Well, she did write that something like 25 years before she ended up going on Medicare and collecting SSI. But yeah, I've thrown that postscript in the face of Objectivists too. The important thing, though, is that SHE believed it. Particularly when she wrote it.

[Fiara]

As I approach 65 years of age, I will apply for social security and medicare. These aren't "entitlement programs" that constitute government assistance. I've paid my own money into social security since I was 17. I would like to see some of that come back to me. I say "some," because if I had put that money into a savings account all these years it would have earned interest. Although I don't agree with Ayn Rand's beliefs, I wouldn't fault her for wanting to collect her own money back from the government. Please be more careful when you choose to criticize others. Then again, its more efficacious for us to avoid criticism altogether and try to view others with compassion, understanding and love.

[APeacefulWarrior]

The difference is, I'm guessing you didn't spend your lifetime openly opposing programs like Medicare and SSI and claiming they'll bring about the ruin of society. There's a lot more inherent hypocrisy with Ayn Rand deciding to take government aid to pay for her medical bills than for, well, pretty much anyone else choosing to do the same. Regardless of whether she was entitled to the money in a legal sense, her accepting it was very much a reversal of the values she had so often preached.

So she's pretty much the only person I can imagine criticizing for making that decision. And even then, it's usually more in the context of demonstrating that the "collectivist" US isn't as tyrannical as she or her followers claimed it to be, specifically because Ayn Rand still got her entitlements just like everyone else despite everything she said and did to try to undermine the system.