Ayn Rand Institute
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The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism (ARI) was established in 1985, three years after Ayn Rand's death, by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's legal heir. ARI promotes Ayn Rand's philosophy, called Objectivism. It is based in Irvine, California and the executive director is Yaron Brook.
As part of its promotional effort ARI sponsors op-ed writers, lecturers, letters to the editor, high school essay competitions, summer lecture series, and an Objectivism education program, which is primarily aimed at college and graduate students.
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Religion in politics
The Institute promotes atheism and the separation of church and state, and its writers argue that the religious right is a threat to individual liberty [1]. The Institute also supports abortion rights, including intact dilation and extraction [2], and voluntary euthanasia [3]. Its writers have argued against displaying religious symbols (such as the Ten Commandments) in government facilities [4] and against faith-based initiatives [5]. The Institute argues that religion is incompatible with American ideals [6] and opposes the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, while championing evolution [7].
Views on Islam and the War on Terror
The Institute has taken many controversial positions with respect to the Islamic world. It has started what it calls a Free Speech Campaign in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. According to the UCLA Daily Bruin of October 17, 2006, Institute chairman Yaron Brook has called for the killing of hundreds of thousands of citizens of states that support Islamic terrorism to combat "Islamic totalitarianism," [8], and during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, he said that the United States should "turn Fallujah into dust." Institute fellow Onkar Ghate has written that: "In fact, victory with a minimum of one's own casualties sometimes requires a free nation to deliberately target the civilians of an aggressor nation in order to cripple its economic production and/or break its will. This is what the U.S. did in WWII when it dropped fire bombs on Dresden and Hamburg and atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These bombings were moral acts."[9]. Though some at the Institute supported the invasion of Iraq, it now opposes how the Iraq War is being handled [10]. The Institute is generally supportive of Israel [11].
Environmentalism and animal rights
The Ayn Rand Institute is highly critical of environmentalism and animal rights, arguing that they are destructive of human well-being [12] [13].
Diversity, affirmative action, and multiculturalism
The Institute is also highly critical of diversity and affirmative action programs, as well as multiculturalism, arguing that they are based on racist premises [14] [15].
Charitable status
Charity Navigator, which rates charitable and educational organizations to inform potential donors, finds that the Institute has excellent capacity for growth, but is highly inefficient, with only 62.6% of the expenses going towards the goals, the rest being consumed by administration and fundraising costs [16]. According to Charity Navigator only the 10% least efficient charities use less than 65% of their expenses on program goals.
See also
These people are associated with the Ayn Rand Institute:
- John A. Allison IV
- Andrew Bernstein
- Harry Binswanger
- Yaron Brook
- Alex Epstein
- Allan Gotthelf
- Leonard Peikoff
- John Ridpath
- Richard Salsman
- Peter Schwartz
- Tara Smith
