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Reason's 2009 Webathon! Because Free Minds and Free Markets Aren't Free!

November 12, 2009, 11:25am

Nick Gillespie

For the next week, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch and I will be asking you to please help us keep Reason.org, Reason.com, Reason.tv, and Reason magazine going stronger than ever by giving a tax-deductible donation to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit publisher of the leading libertarian website, video site, and print publication in this and all other known galaxies.

Goddess of the Market Author Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand

Why did conservatives hate Rand and how did she feel about libertarians?

November 6, 2009

Reason Foundation Co-Founder Tibor Machan on Ayn Rand's Great Legacy

November 5, 2009, 5:11pm

"I think that for Ayn Rand to have survived and made a life for herself, she almost needed that edgy personality, otherwise she would have been destroyed," says Machan, who was born in Hungary in 1942. At 14 years of age, his father smuggled Machan out of the country, fearing the Hungarian communist government. His background helps give Machan insight into how the intellectual mind of Ayn Rand functioned. "Her unpleasantness," he says, "ultimately can be fully justified given the treatment she was given when she came out the Soviet Union, told the truth about that country, and nobody paid attention." In 2000, Machan wrote Ayn Rand exploring all the major themes of Ayn Rand's philosophical thought.

Reason Foundation Co-Founder Tibor Machan on Ayn Rand

Machan on Rand's background and the power of her writing

November 5, 2009

"I think that for Ayn Rand to have survived and made a life for herself, she almost needed that edgy personality, otherwise she would have been destroyed," says Tibor Machan, who was born in Hungary in 1939. At 14 years of age, his father smuggled Machan out of the country, fearing the Hungarian communist government. His background helps give Machan insight into how the intellectual mind of Ayn Rand functioned. "Her unpleasantness," he says, "ultimately can be fully justified given the treatment she was given when she came out the Soviet Union, told the truth about that country, and nobody paid attention." 

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