(Roughly) Daily

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Dear Ayn,

I’m dating a man who I think I love, but I’m afraid he’s having an affair. He comes home late, he acts suspiciously, and he even has red lipstick on his collar. Should I confront him or just hope for the best?

— County Affair

Dear County,

Red lipstick? Your husband is a communist. Divorce him and sell his clothes, children, and pens to make money to spend on cars, human slaves, and bigger pens. This will simultaneously stimulate the economy and punish the slaves for not having jobs. Slaves: what lazybones!

Hope this helps,
Ayn

More advice-for-the-sniveling at Megan Amran’s “Ann Randers” in McSweeney’s.

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As we remind ourselves that the economic debacle of 9-15-08 was maybe not so surprising after, given Chairman Greenspan’s devotion to Ms. Rand, we might spare a thought for a strong woman of a very different sort; free-thinker Emma Goldman died on this date in 1940.  A political activist, writer, and speaker, she founded Mother Earth magazine in 1906.  She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.

Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.

– from the title essay, Anarchism and Other Essays, 1910

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Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity and sameness that harass the individual most. His very “uniqueness,” “separateness” and “differentiation” make him an alien, not only in his native place, but even in his own home.

– “The Individual, Society and the State” (1940)