Will Weatherford: Ayn Rand Devotee

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford is a rising star in Republican circles. This should scare anyone that cares about policy. Weatherford revealed himself as someone who gets his economic ideology from Ayn Rand.

Weatherford said parts of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” about a government that grows so large that job creators and innovators pack up and move elsewhere, is starting to become a reality.

“We’re not that far away from that in this country, in my opinion, but what we can do as states is create pockets of freedom all over the United States,” he said.

Rand is the author of The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand argued that looking out for one's self-interest was more important than helping the greater good of others. Rand spent her life fighting against people getting Social Security and Medicare. After all, that didn't further Rand's selfish self-interests. The fact that Rand received government benefits furthered her needs.

Rand's writing was a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo that would make L. Ron Hubbard cringe. An example of Rand's prose from Atlas Shrugged.

“An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not.”

Socrates Rand is not.

Understanding Weatherford's devotion to Rand explains why he would not allow Florida to expand Medicaid. It does not further Weatherford's self-interests. The fact that Weatherford has health care through his service in the Florida House just proves he is following Rand's example.