I find myself more and more interested in the political preferences of welknown historical figures, especially those of the first half of the 20th century. Perhaps because that is when the progressive movement in this country really began to gain momentum. Upon reading an article about Laura Ingalls Wilders autobiography coming out this fall, I jumped from one article to another about it which lead me to read about her family, namely, her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. Then Ayn Rands name popped up... so I kept reading of course. :p She vehemently opposed the New Deal, perceived creeping socialism, Social Security, wartime rationing and all forms of taxation, claiming she ceased writing highly paid commercial fiction to protest paying income taxes. A staunch opponent of communism after experiencing it first hand in the Soviet Union during her Red Cross travels, Lanes initial writings on individualism and conservative government began while she was still writing popular fiction in the 1930s, and culminated with the seminal The Discovery of Freedom (1943). After this point, she tirelessly promoted and wrote about individual freedom, and its impact on humanity. The same year also saw the publication of Isabel Patersons The God of the Machine and Ayn Rands novel The Fountainhead, and the three women have been referred to as the founding mothers of the American libertarian movement with the publication of these works. Journalist John Chamberlain credits Rand, Paterson and Lane with his final conversion from socialism to what he called an older American philosophy of libertarian and conservative ideas. In 1943, Lane, likening the Social Security system to a Ponzi scheme that would ultimately destroy the US. The subsequent events remain unclear, but wartime monitoring of the mails eventually resulted in a Connecticut State Trooper being dispatched to her farmhouse (supposedly at the request of the FBI) to question her motives. Lanes vehement response to this infringement on her right of free speech resulted in a flurry of newspaper articles and the publishing of a pamphlet, What is this, the Gestapo?, that was meant to remind Americans to be watchful of their rights, despite the wartime exigencies.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 12:00:14 +0000
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