Rand On the Dole
30th January 2011
Tim Cavanaugh has some fun with the self-righteous.
In the grand ol’ tradition of “Libertarian reluctantly calls fire department,” all and sundry are having fun with the news that Ayn Rand received Social Security and (apparently) Medicare in her dotage.
But the Randicare brouhaha is completely opportunistic. This is all part of the game of holding libertarians to some standard you would never imagine imposing on a follower of mainstream politics. If a Democrat complains about a bad day at the DMV, nobody claims he deserves it because he wants the regulations that make the DMV inevitable. But let a libertarian send a letter through the U.S. Postal Service and he’s fricking Tartuffe. It’s a goofy game, but you can see why it’s so tempting to play, given that libertarians have such a stranglehold on foreign policy, drug prohibition, financial regulation, health care, and so many areas of public policy.