Ayn Rand Institute Announces $2 Million Fundraising Campaign–the Atlas Shrugged Initiative

IRVINE, CA, July 24, 2009—The Ayn Rand Institute has announced a $2 million fundraising campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative—in an unprecedented effort to increase readership of Ayn Rand’s best-known novel, Atlas Shrugged.

The impetus behind the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, explains ARI President and Executive Director Yaron Brook, is the fact that “At no time in history has there been greater public interest in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. And its message has never been more urgent.

“The torrent of destructive, statist policies emanating from Washington represents both a crisis—and an opportunity. Through the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, we intend to capitalize on the soaring grassroots interest in Ayn Rand and her ideas.”

Adds Dr. Brook, “The Atlas Shrugged Initiative is off to an outstanding start. A very generous benefactor has already offered to match every dollar donated to this Initiative—up to a total of $500,000—and as a result of early and substantial funding, the bookstore promotions that are a key component of the Initiative are already well underway.”

Key elements of the Atlas Shrugged Initiative include significant bookstore promotions of the novel; an expansion of ARI’s web-based efforts to spur readership of Atlas Shrugged; expansion of ARI’s long-running educational programs for high school and college students; and targeted outreach to pro-liberty, pro-capitalist activists around the nation.

Visit the Ayn Rand Institute’s Atlas Shrugged Initiative campaign page to learn more or to support this campaign.

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There Is No Right to Health Care

There Is No Right to Health Care

July 23, 2009

Washington, D.C.–President Obama’s health care reform is being driven by the idea that people have a right to health care and health insurance coverage. “This is wrong,” says Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center.

“There can be no such thing as a ‘right’ to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as our Founding Fathers conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.

“You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services–no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a ‘right’ to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.

“A real and lasting solution to our health care problems requires a rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights.”

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Atlas Shrugged Selling in Record Numbers

Atlas Shrugged Selling in Record Numbers

Irvine, CA, July 13, 2009–Penguin USA, publisher of the four American editions of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, has reported that in the first half of 2009 it shipped well over 300,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged to distributors, bookstores, bookstore chains, online resellers, libraries, businesses and other institutions.

As Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, noted, “Considering that in the first half of 2008 Penguin shipped about 85,000 copies, the spectacular jump to 300,000 copies in the first half of 2009 represents an increase of almost 250 percent in gross sales of Atlas Shrugged!

Reports from industry sources indicate that more copies of Atlas Shrugged were sold in book stores and by online resellers in the first half of 2009 than in all of 2008, when a new all-time annual record was established with more than 200,000 copies of the novel sold in the United States.

“The spike in sales of Atlas Shrugged more than a half century after its initial publication is truly remarkable,” Dr. Brook pointed out. “Annual sales of Atlas Shrugged have been increasing for decades to a level not seen even in Ayn Rand’s lifetime. Sales of the U.S. paperback editions averaged around 70,000 copies a year in the 1980s, and doubled to about 140,000 copies a year in the current decade. And the pace of sales has been accelerating recently, reaching an all-time high during the novel’s 50th anniversary in 2007, surpassing this mark in 2008, and on course to set another record in 2009.”

Almost 7,000,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold since it was first published in 1957.

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What Obama Should Say To Iran

Protests in Iran continue despite the theocracy’s attempt to crush them. As Tehran launches its usual accusations of “American interference,” could it be that America hasn’t “interfered” enough?

Imagine what might happen—what potential benefit there could be to us and to Iran—if this speech were made by an American President.

“Good evening. I am here to address events of great significance to the American people. Over the past weeks, we have witnessed the murdering, beating and intimidation of Iranian protestors by a theocratic regime clenching its iron fist to retain power. I strongly condemn these unjust actions of the Iranian regime.

It is time for America to be unequivocal and to recognize its past errors. It is time for the United States to make it clear that it does not recognize the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran has not had a legitimate government worthy of our recognition for decades. The country has been ruled by a series of murdering clerics who seized power outside of any legitimate political means. They were not chosen through any representative process. They are dictators of the worst kind.

For decades, the Iranian regime has repeatedly declared itself an enemy of America, openly acting in violence against our citizens. We’ve known it since the clerics and their supporters took our embassy staff hostage in 1979. We’ve known it in the form of multiple Tehran-backed attacks on Americans since: 1983 in Beirut where we lost 241 people in a bombing; 1985 when TWA 847 was hijacked by Iranian-trained Hezbollah fighters and we lost a Navy diver; 1996 at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where we lost 19; the list goes on. We’ve heard their message: “Death to America.”

This is a regime that loudly calls for jihad on the West—for the violent imposition of sharia law—it calls for Islamic totalitarianism. It provides the intellectual leadership for the Islamist movement: training, financing, and otherwise encouraging a multitude of terrorist organizations—including those responsible for the September 11th attacks on our soil.  America has not forgotten that this regime orchestrated and participated in three decades of deadly assaults upon its people and is ultimately responsible for them. We have nothing to say to the Iranian regime—except that we will no longer repeat our grave errors of the past. We know what you stand for, and what threat you pose. But we do have much to say to the brave Iranians voicing their opposition to the Supreme leader, making it clear his regime does not represent them.

To those among you standing up in the face of threats; to those among you saying “We will continue to speak even if you, Supreme leader, claim that Allah forbids it”; to those among you deciding that it is time for freedom in Iran—we say: you have our encouragement, and our sanction.

To those among you protesting against more than the electoral results, who are wholesale rejecting the oppressive nature of theocratic rule—we offer you our moral and financial support. And if necessary, we will offer you military support to the best of our ability. You see, we share your goal of ending the Iranian theocracy and of eliminating the threat it poses to our own nation. We have had the moral right to end it for decades; you not only have that right, you have the moral fortitude.

To those few in Iran desperately seeking liberty: rejecting theocratic rule is critical, but what are you fighting for? Seize this opportunity to fight for a nation founded on principles that protect individual rights. As America once fought for its independence, so can you. Life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness: these are your inalienable rights. The time is now to fight to create a free nation upholding these principles.

It will not be easy. Our thoughts are with you as you face imminent danger and uncertainty. It will take courage and conviction. But to you, the true friend of freedom, we say: we are with you as you take your first important step towards real revolution. You have rejected the iron fist that smashes you down through religious rule. You have spoken. Stand firm, and we will stand with you.”

Unfortunately we will not hear this speech. Only a President acting on a foreign policy that properly defends the rights of its own citizens—a foreign policy of principled self-interest—would take this bold stand.

Over a Million Ayn Rand Novels in Classrooms This Year

IRVINE, CA, May 18, 2009–As part of its mission to promote Ayn Rand’s ideas in today’s culture, during this school year the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) shipped 350,000 free copies of Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged to high school teachers across North America. Adding these books to those sent in recent years, and which remain in classrooms today, ARI estimates that more than 1 million students studied Ayn Rand’s novels in 25,000 classrooms this year. More than 32,000 teachers and 1.4 million students have participated in this program since it began in 2002. The program is funded through the generosity of ARI’s contributors.

Each school year ARI distributes promotional flyers that offer free classroom sets of Ayn Rand’s novels to English and language arts teachers, department heads and principals, as well as selected counselors and high school administrators. “This offer,” said Marilee Dahl, ARI’s Education department manager, “is available to both public and private high schools throughout the United States and Canada.”

“Each teacher who requests these books,” explained Ms. Dahl, “receives a classroom set of the novels, along with a teacher’s guide, lesson plans and information about ARI’s annual Anthem, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged essay contests. We also offer phone and e-mail support to teachers, as needed, to facilitate their teaching of the books in their classes. The response has been fantastic and a very positive sign for America’s future.”

More information on the Free Books to Teachers program is available at the Ayn Rand Institute’s Web site.

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To interview Ms. Marilee Dahl or for more information on ARI’s educational programs, please contact: media@aynrand.org

Speaking Tour Celebrates Charles Darwin’s Anniversary

Washington, D.C.–In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, Keith Lockitch, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, will be speaking on Darwin and evolution at four college campuses this week.

The speaking tour includes the following appearances:

 February 9: University of Texas, Austin.
 February 10: University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
 February 11: University of Georgia, Athens.
 February 12: University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

According to Dr. Lockitch, “The theory of evolution is often disparaged by its opponents as being ‘just a theory’, a speculative hypothesis with little basis in hard, scientific facts. But this claim carries with it the implied accusation that Charles Darwin was ‘just a theorist’, an armchair scientist whose life’s work was nothing more than an exercise in arbitrary speculation. A look at Darwin’s pioneering discoveries, however, reveals the grave injustice of this accusation.” As Dr. Lockitch explains in his talk, “Darwin was not ‘just a theorist’ and evolution is not ‘just a theory.’”

In this speaking tour, which also celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s masterpiece On the Origin of Species, Dr. Lockitch explores Darwin’s life and work, focusing on the steps by which he came to discover and prove the theory of evolution by natural selection.

How to Stop the Next Madoff

Washington, D.C.–“Want to stop the next Madoff? Gut the SEC,” says Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

“Part of the reason Madoff’s misdeeds went undetected is that the Securities and Exchange Commission spends most of its time doing things the government has no business doing. The only legitimate job of a securities law enforcement division is to protect investors against the specific crimes of theft, fraud, and breach of contract.

“But the SEC plays a much different role. Its mandate is to attempt to make investing ‘safe’ by controlling every aspect of financial markets, from dictating the composition of mutual fund boards to mandating public release of executive compensation numbers that shareholders want kept private to determining when executives are allowed to sell stock–‘insider trade’–instead of leaving that to the discretion of a company’s owners.

“In pretending to guarantee to investors that their investments are sound, which is impossible, the SEC encourages the kind of blind group-think that characterized the Madoff investors. And with the SEC devoting itself to a sprawling array of elaborate witch-hunts, such as the ‘insider trading’ case against Mark Cuban, what time or attention does it have for real fraud?

“The answer–as is clear from the fact that a 29-point, 17-page report on Madoff, submitted in 1999, 2001, and 2005, entitled The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud slipped through its cracks–is none.”

 

Obama’s Backward Economics

Washington, D.C.–“Barack Obama claims that Americans can only stave off economic disaster by trillions in government spending–which means trillions of dollars taxed or borrowed to finance government make-work programs,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
 
“Obama-nomics couldn’t be more wrong.
 
“Prosperity requires that the government drastically cut government spending. That way, as much real capital as possible will remain in private hands, and be put to productive use by entrepreneurs to create valuable goods and services to sell at home and abroad. By taxing and inflating our wealth away, Obama will simply be creating more of the crushing debt that brought about the current crisis.”
 
“You don’t put out a fire with more gasoline. And you don’t end a recession by destroying capital.”

Republican Socialists

Republican Socialists

December 31, 2008

Washington, D.C.–“Republicans routinely criticize the policies of Barack Obama and other Democrats as socialist,” said Alex Epstein an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “But their endorsement of Barack Obama’s imminent, trillion-dollar ‘stimulus plan’ shows that they buy into socialist ideas just as much as the Democrats. Indeed, Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s explanation of his party’s approach to a ‘stimulus plan’ would make Leon Trotsky proud: ‘We should have a simple test: Will the . . . trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy . . .?’
 
“What is socialism, if not the idea that the government should seize citizens’ wealth and control industry in the name of creating jobs and growing the economy? If the government has the political right and economic ability to conduct this ‘simple test’ with a trillion dollars of stimulus, why not just nationalize the whole economy outright, and have McConnell, Obama, and a handful of czars tell us what to do and where to spend our money?
 
“A party that truly understood what is wrong with socialism would recognize the injustice and impossibility of central planners expropriating and dictating citizens into prosperity. It would recognize that wealth creation and economic prosperity are the result of protecting the rights of productive individuals to plan, produce, and trade on a truly free market–absent the massive government manipulation of interest rates and home-buying that brought about the current disaster. The Republicans have not earned the right to call anyone socialist–except themselves.”

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U.S. Should Help Crush Hamas

Washington, D.C. – In response to the Hamas bombardment of Israel, Washington must encourage and help Israel to annihilate that Islamist group, once and for all.

The failure to wipe out Hamas on previous occasions has encouraged Palestinian terror groups. It teaches Islamists that their terrorist war will be rewarded, that their quest to destroy Israel–and ultimately America–is achievable.

To put an end to Hamas’s brazen aggression, the jihadist group must be defeated. It is proper and necessary for America to aid and bolster Israel, its one true ally in the Middle East, in the face of a common enemy.

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