[Hardastarboard]

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.

I'm still laughing out loud at this one. I thought this post started off strong, then realized from the style who it was.

If all those quotes are from Ayn Rand (whom I've unfortunately never read), there should be a radio and a TV station both devoted 24 hours a day to broadcasting readings of her work. Fantastic stuff, and clear enough for even idiot Dems to understand (at least I'd like to think).

[Lurker]

That little snip is from a section of Rands "Atlas Shrugged" known as 'Francisco's Money Speech'.

Like most Rand works it runs long.

The entire 'speech', which the character Francisco gives to a couple of old biddies at a dinner party after he hears them say 'money is the root of all evil' can be found here.

Reading the entire book is worth it just to get to that part IMO.

If it's true you've never read Rand then I recommend strongly that you do. Yea, the settings are a bit dated but the concepts ring dead true because they are.

She also wrote quite a bit of non-fiction. IMO one of her best is "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal."

It is indeed great stuff.

there should be a radio and a TV station both devoted 24 hours a day to broadcasting readings of her work.

One of her associates, Leonard Piekoff, had a radio show a few years back I think. There were some recordings of it posted on the 'net but I don't remember where.

L

[Lurker]

Here's one more little piece from that 'speech' Tell me if it isn't just as valid today as it was when it was written in 1957.

"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 establishes 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."

See any parallels?

Have a pleasant day my friend.

L