But some Randians are pretty creepy. Jim Capo sends in his nomination for most obnoxious “libertarian” hawk: Leonard Peikoff and crew at the Ayn Rand Institute. Not that they’re being untrue to Rand’s vision or anything. Check out her own thoughts on collateral damage:
Q: Assume a war of aggression was started by the Soviet Union; assume also that within the Soviet Union, there were many that opposed the aggressive work of the ruling group there. How would you handle that type of problem?
AR: This question is so blatantly wrong that I cannot understand how anyone can entertain it seriously. It assumes that an individual inside a country can be made secure from the social system under which he lives and which he accepts (because he hasn’t left the country). It is the idea that others must surrender to aggression—in other words, be goddamned pacifists, who won’t fight, even when attacked, because they might kill innocent people.
In Soviet Russia, there aren’t very many innocent ones—and they’re mainly in concentration camps.
If you could have a life independent of the system, so that you wouldn’t be drawn into an unjust war, you would not need to be concerned about politics. But we should care about having the right social system, because our lives are dependent on it—because a political system, good or bad, is established in our name, and we bear the responsibility for it. [emphasis mine]
I think Osama bin Laden would agree. For more on the Divine Miss Ayn, see our own Jeremy Sapienza’s “Kill an Arab for Ayn.”