Ayn Rand, Teacher of Voldemort
When I saw Linn and Ari Armstrong's letter to the Editor at the Grand Junction Free Press titled, Why Harry Potter fans should read Ayn Rand, I spit out my coffee.
The idea that children should be exposed to the greed praising Ayn Rand is nothing less than silly or perverse.
In her books, Rand praises as virtues:
selfishness
the primacy of the individual over the community
the ability to ignore the suffering of others
the belief that, "if I want it I should have it, and no one should have the right to stand in my way."
certain groups should be looked down upon and shunned because we have chosen to class them as lesser beings.
These core beliefs are the beliefs of Voldemort, not Harry Potter. The Dark Lord is the perfect embodiment of greed supporting libertarian of Rand, and I would hope any child reading her books would be able to see that.
I know there are some who have been lulled into a passive stuppor by her fiction and have not spent much time thinking about the "virtues" Rand advocated. Her extreme brand of self-relaince to the exclusion of the needs of others is not what our children need to be exposed to.