Some John Gault-Style Compassion

I think it's a monstrous thing--the whole progression of everything they're doing--to feature, or answer, or favor the incompetent, the retarded, the handicapped, including, you know, the kneeling buses and all kinds of impossible expenses. I do not think that the retarded should be allowed to come near children. Children cannot deal, and should not have to deal, with the very tragic spectacle of a handicapped human being. When they grow up, they may give it some attention, if they're interested, but it should never be presented to them in childhood, and certainly not as an example of something they have to live down to. - Ayn Rand, Q & A at Ford Hall Forum, April, 1981


It is unfair to build special schools for mentally retarded people when we don't build special schools for the gifted, upon whom all of our lives depend. They carry the weight of everyone else and deserve first priority.- Ayn Rand, on the Phil Donahue Show