Published April 7, 2005, in issue 0414 of the Hook

In her March 24 letter to the Hook ["Work for that bounty"], Ayn Rand-- writing under the clever pseudonym of "Jon Sutz"-- explains how she categorically considers any redistributive action by government to be thuglike "socialism" and "antithetical to any rational concept of freedom, justice, or individual rights."

Her philosophy-- which sees any sacrifice for the betterment of a community as some sort of grievous breach of individual rights-- is madness.

In all seriousness, while Sutz perhaps does earnestly wish for others some basic level of material subsistence, his warped sense of hyper-individualistic ideology renders him unwilling to provide it through the most rational means-- that of ordered government. How he would propose to provide things like roads, utilities, mail and free public education without some required contribution-- a "tax?"-- from his pocketbook is left unexplained.

I suspect he leaves it so because this toxic, conservative ideology, which Sutz shares with the evil currently infecting our national government, is inherently destructive to compassionate values and to any meaningful sense of community that derives from sympathy with one's fellow men and women.

I do not agree with Sutz that the schools, the so-called "liberal media," Starbucks, the state of Massachusetts-- or anyone else-- is involved in a diabolical, coordinated plot to infect our young ones with the insidious "anti-American, anti-freedom" notions that people have a responsibility to ensure that others do not live in a state of dire privation. (Though I don't think it would be such a bad thing if the students were.)

Instead of being scandalized by these encroaching "socialist" ideas, I would rather concern myself with the blight of working poverty, lack of decent, affordable health care, and a dearth of equal opportunity for all people. But then, I'm just a liberal.

J. Blair Reeves
Charlottesville

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