It's the Republicans who are into Selfishness

From Eric Dondero:

Very late in the campaign of 2008, in at least two speeches, Barack Obama took a direct jab at individualist philospher Ayn Rand. He seemed completely aware of Rand's philosophy. In one election even speech delivered at Tampa, Florida, Obama criticized the "virtue of selfishness," the title of one of Rand's most successful books.

Here's the quote from Oct. 31, 2008:

"John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic. You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness."

And here's the quote in a slightly different form, from a speech delivered in Ohio, Nov. 2, 2008 as reported by Jake Tapper of ABC News, Nov. 3:

"The change we need won’t come from government alone," Obama said to a crowd of an estimated 80,000. "It will come from each of us doing our part in our own lives, in our own communities. It will come from each of us looking after ourselves and our families but also looking after each other. You know I – it’s been awhile now – we’ve made a virtue out of selfishness, there’s no virtue in that. We made a virtue of irresponsibility and we need to usher in a new spirit of service and sacrifice and responsibly."

Community over Liberty

Now, he's at it again, bringing up the subject of individualism last night in a health care vote eve pep rally to Democrat Congressman.

Transcript from the Washington Post:

Something inspired you to get involved, and something inspired you to be a Democrat instead of running as a Republican. Because somewhere deep in your heart you said to yourself, I believe in an America in which we don’t just look out for ourselves, that we don’t just tell people you’re on your own, that we are proud of our individualism, we are proud of our liberty, but we also have a sense of neighborliness and a sense of community -- (applause) -- and we are willing to look out for one another and help people who are vulnerable and help people who are down on their luck and give them a pathway to success and give them a ladder into the middle class. That’s why you decided to run. (Applause.)

YouTube video, June 2009, Ayn Rand vs. Barack Obama

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This site will not be updated today with further articles. Please consider this article to serve as an open thread to discuss the crucial Health Care vote. We will return to regularly scheduled programming early tomorrow morning.