Charlie Kirk and Atlas Shrugged.

 

Charlie Kirk

What happened to Charlie Kirk was appalling.  Nobody deserves to die for their opinions. Charlie was known as a "right-wing influencer". He was a proselytizer of a pro-capitalist right-wing ideology wrapped up as Christianity.

When I heard Kirk denounce 'empathy' as a dangerous concept, I knew that he was more a devotee of Ayn Rand rather than Jesus Christ. Charlie's Bible is Atlas Shrugged which has been described as the Bible of the American Congress. I read Atlas Shrugged some years ago and I found it a rather silly and absurd novel. When Rand published the novel in 1957, some critics found that the book lacked any sense of moral purpose and was elitist. Atlas Shrugged is a pro-capitalist dystopian novel which depicts an American society in the future that is brought down by too much state interference and regulation. Rand's heroic capitalist multi-millionaires, are depicted as Atlas carrying the heavens on their shoulders.

Ayn Rand railed against altruism and empathy and despised welfare systems. Yet she couldn't live up to her own ideals. As her health failed her in later life, she finished up on social security and Medicare. Charlie Kirk called himself an 'entrepreneur', but his business 'Turning Point USA', seems to have relied heavily on financial donations, which I suspect came from wealthy individuals with vested interests. Rand's heroic capitalists are not quacks and nostrum mongers, but steel barons, railway tycoons and oilmen.