Burn, Baby, Burn!

So, it turns out conservatives do believe in this, after all (in addition to "Drill, baby, drill).

Robertson's piece really says it all, not only about the depths of selfishness to which contemporary conservatism has descended, but the extent to which those depths are related to the writings (to describe them politely) of Ayn Rand, the patron saint of narcissists.  What he really nails is the extent to which Rand's real target audience is teenagers, the most narcissistic age cohort on the planet.  It was certainly true when I was a teenager.  I never did more than thumb through a copy of "Atlas Shrugged," and concluded that you don't have to stick your head too far into the sewer to know how bad it smells.  Many of my friend weren't so lucky; in their yearbook blurb, they'd list "The Fountainhead" as their favorite book.

Self-reliance is a great philosophy--except when it isn't, which is most of the time.  Like it or not, we are an interdependent species, living on a planet that is being squashed by our selfishness.  At the rate we are going, pretty soon Atlas will have nothing left to shrug.