In honor of the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Ayn Rand contrasts the Founding Fathers’ principled concern for individual rights with the unprincipled views of voters and candidates in the 1976 presidential election. Rand also dissects the evils of the welfare state, focusing on Sweden as its exemplar, and calls for Americans to observe their Bicentennial by discovering and upholding the nation’s founding ideals.
In the ensuing Q&A, Rand addresses a variety of topics including her favorite Founding Father, the reason she pays income taxes, the Vietnam War, anti-war activists, bonuses and profit sharing in business, control of environmental pollution, Objectivism’s influence in Scandinavia, the fate of innocents in war, the Equal Rights Amendment, the use of amphetamines, compulsory copyright licensing, the Soviet Union’s influence in the Middle East, the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, American Indians and abortion.