Going Galt: Ayn Rand’s Advice On How to Pick a President

In March of 1964, Ayn Rand published an essay titled “How to Judge a Political Candidate.” Her points resonate 52 years later:

1. A candidate’s overall philosophy isn’t as important as their political philosophy
2. They’re being elected for a specific job, not philosopher King
3. A vote for a candidate is an endorsement only of their basic principles
4. The essential issue: statism VS freedom
5. “If a candidate evades, equivocates and hides his stand under a junk-heap of random concretes, we must add up those concretes and judge him accordingly”
6. “An election campaign is not the time to teach people the fundamentals of political theory, and a candidate is not a teacher”

If you’re a freedom-loving and liberty-minded individual, the fundamental approach to a candidate must be to evaluate how involved they think the government should be in our lives. Regardless of rhetoric, emotion, and appeal, this is foundational. Rand was right.

Thanks to Jonathon Hoenig of CapitalistPig for pointing this out.

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