God, I wish people would get over their Ayn Rand fetish

Over the weekend there was a protest outside the house of former Digg co-owner/founder, former tech journalism personality, current Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose.  The protesters are opposed to the work Rose does in attracting startups to the San Francisco area and therefore supposedly contributing to gentrification, an increasing cost of living, and forcing people out of their homes (in other words making San Francisco more livable by providing jobs, cleaning up neighborhoods and bulldozing eyesores to replace with new better buildings).  Instapundit writes in response,

Okay, one more point: Anything successful, lefties will ultimately try to drag down. Because, at core, their politics are based on envy, resentment, and a wholly-earned sense of inferiority. Meanwhile, perhaps I’ll send some remedial reading to Mr. Rose. It may resonate differently now.

I'll let you decide for yourself about the basis of leftist politics, but what pisses me off is the idea that Atlas Shrugged (the proposed remedial reading) is some sort of useful guide to life.

It's not.

It's a crappy story by a shitty writer that lays out a philosophy for being a prick and justifying it as being for the social good.  It's scientology for politics.  The only difference between Rand and L. Ron Hubbard is that some of Hubbard's stories were amusing.  Well, that and Hubbard was far more successful in spreading his philosophy.

I disagree with many of the same things Rand did, and Randians (or Objectistists) as they like to call themselves do.  I just think that her proposed solution was bullshit.  The way to fix the system is success and then teach others to be  successful.