“Atlas Shrugged” Quote #2

“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against – then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

Boldface is my emphasis. This kind of stuff is absolutely chilling.

“Atlas Shrugged” Quote #1

“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money –  the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society established criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.”

– Francisco d’Anconia, in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Rereading “Atlas Shrugged”

I’ve been rereading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” – actually, listening to an unabridged audiobook of it. (I got it from Audible.com, and it’s the version read by by Scott Brick. It’s probably 60 hours long, and I’m about halfway through.)

Now, please understand that I am only partially an Ayn Rand fan – I do not agree with her stand, and that of the Ayn Rand Institute, on everything. I particularly do not go along with her requirement that a rational person must be an atheist. I suppose the logic makes sense, but I’ve found that as a mature adult I must balance rationality and seeming irrationality. There are many things I understand, and many things I do not – I tend to think that things I find to be irrational today may be found to be completely rational.

However, I completely understand her hatred of communism and her promotion of capitalism. I don’t think I can make a case nearly as well as she did, so read the dang book.

There’s a good reason for you to read it – it’s happening now. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal. It was written by Stephen Moore…the Club for Growth Stephen Moore. It’s depressing and scary, but that’s what it should be. The Big Barak Giveaway is only the first step. It’s like the thin veneer of actually serving the people has fallen away from the Congresscritters and they are now operating in the open. Everyone should be able to see exactly what the Congress is up to…but people who don’t understand what is going on are just afraid and don’t know why, and therefore want the government to “do something.” The proper way to handle this “crisis” is to “do nothing.” I’m planning on posting a few excerpts from the book on here from time to time. Maybe that will help clarify things for me, and perhaps for readers as well.

By the way, JohnGaltGifts.com is pretty interesting…

Escape from Hell

No, Obama isn’t resigning! Sorry for getting your hopes up!

This is about the new book by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, the sequel to their book Inferno from thirty years ago. (By the way, Inferno is back in print. Hint, hint.) Deceased science-fiction writer Allen Carpenter has been all the way through Hell – which, remarkably, looks much like Dante described it – and now is trying to help others escape.

I’m only about halfway through the book, but suffice it to say that there are enough historical figures and recent cultural figures to keep you entertained as Carpenter moves through the circles of Hell. I’d recommend anything these two authors wrote, together or separately, but this is a very interesting concept, and I’m glad that they got back to exploring it after 30 years! Highly recommended!

$ 17 billion – that’s all?!?

I just looked it up – NASA’s annual budget is around $ 17.3 billion. That’s it. We’re taking about three-quarters of a trillion dollars in the Big Barack Giveaway and we can’t throw another 15 billion at NASA? Imagine what could be done with THAT money! Maybe this DirectLauncher.com concept could be implemented. Three or four years of that and we could be on the Moon again!

Naw. Never happen. Every congresscritter in the US has his snout in this one. While NASA provides jobs, and visibile results, for some reason in Washington it’s become fashionable to criticize NASA as being wasteful. Pot, kettle, boys. Maybe if you didn’t have to go on TV and demand 100 per cent success all the time, and yet not even give them enough money to landscape around the buildings, they could get something done.

Oh, well. I’m going to have an attitude problem about the Big Barack Giveaway and all the other crazy liberal crap for a while. I started listening to the audiobook of Atlas Shrugged last week. I don’t buy the atheistic, pro-abortion stance of the Ayn Rand Institute, but she made a lot of sense in the book. Go read it if you haven’t, and then see if you don’t feel like storming Washington to take back your country and your freedoms.