Posted on 02/20/2007 7:23:33 PM PST by DustyMoment
I have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" again for about the 6th or 7th time, mostly because I like the book and I always learn new things. This passage leaped out at me and struck me with Ms. Rand's precience:
"Then you will note 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 establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avengers. 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.
Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs; upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'"
When we look at the past 45 years or more of this country's history, we see exactly what Rand is saying. We had long since been taken off the gold standard by the 1960s, but our dollars still bore the legend at the top "Silver Certificate", meaning that the value of that dollar was backed by an equivalent amount of silver. Then Congress (hitchhikers) decided to eliminate the silver that sustained and supported the dollar and let it float on the basis of GNP; thereby becoming looters and replacing our "gold" with paper.
As we move forward in time, we have seen those who are among our best producers villified and hounded by those who produce nothing (the hitchhikers, again!). We have seen increased attacks on our right to own and bear arms by those who would be "criminals-by-right and looters-by-law".
In 1957, Ayn Rand sought to warn us of the future before us. IMO, we are on the brink of realizing the dark future she predicted. For decades, since I first read "Atlas Shrugged", I have described this book as a blueprint of our future. Look around you at the Global Warming tinfoil hat crowd and compare them to the throngs who protested Rearden Metal in Rand's book. Is there any difference between the collective stupity she described in her book and what we are seeing unfold before us in real time and in living color? FWIW, we are on the brink of the destruction of our society by those who are destroying our system of money and, in fact, our very money, itself via their confiscatory taxing schemes. More than ever, NOW is the time for us to defend our Republic and defeat those who would defeat us without firing a shot!
If we do nothing in '08 to return balance and reason to the chaos that reigns in Washington, then we will be counted among those who are, today, writing the end of the United States of America. We must make sure that we have not only a viable, electable candidate, but we must have the RIGHT viable, electable candidate whom we can be assured will remain true to his/her conservative principles.
It's in our hands to write the future of the Republic of the United States of America. What will that chapter read?
I loved this book, save for her apparent attack on Christianity within.
Robert Reich reminded me of one of the main governmental characters, while all of the rest reminded me of your typical liberal.
Liberalism is a plague that people of true character must fight.
Dems == Looters.
Man proves over and over again he is incapable of governing himself.
With all due respect, look back in history. In the recent history of the Republican-controlled US Congress, the government grew faster and spent more than any previous government in history. The Dems didn't do that, we did.
Look at the changes that occurred under Richard Nixon who brought us the EPA, wage and price controls and the national speed limit. Nixon, like Bush, bent over backwards to reach out to and appease Democrats. All it ultimately brought us was higher prices, restrictions on producers, more regulation and less freedom. Much as I respect Richard Nixon, these are not hallmarks of conservatism.
I'm not defending Dems, but I'm trying to raise awareness of the fact that politicians from both parties qualify under the label of looters.
John Galt is sorely needed these days.
Or not, just show me where Galt's gulch is and I'll keep the secret.
I would say follow me, but I'm also seeking it. First one to find it . . . . . say nothing!! LOL!!
We're in agreement.
I hold out hope, but sometimes I feel like this.
Look around you at the Global Warming tinfoil hat crowd and compare them to the throngs who protested Rearden Metal in Rand's book. Is there any difference between the collective stupity she described in her book and what we are seeing unfold before us in real time and in living color?
As I said on another Rand-related thread, the relevant question today isn't so much "Who is John Galt?" as "Where is John Galt?" We need someone like him right about now.
As Howard Phillips ahs said, when the Democrats are in charge, it's as if you're driving off a cliff at 100 MPH. At least the Republicans drive the speed limit -- but you're still going off the cliff. What we need to do is to turn the car around.
Galt's Gulch is anywhere people form to recreate what they currently despise.
yep-I prefer to think of it this way
Dems-socialsts
Reps-socialists light
Yes, we are.
Yes, and desperately so.
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