Jim Taggart obsesses about stability, planning and maintaining an atmosphere of stasis. Change is to be avoided, even if it improves conditions. What parallels can be drawn to current events?
The parallel is the obverse of Jim Taggert's position, that change for the simple sake of change can be even more harmful. Many people vilify conservatism with the slander that conservatives don't like change. The truth is conservatives don't believe in change just because it is different, we ask for evidence that change will be beneficial. (At this point, liberals usually get huffy)
Jim believes that priority of corporate effort should be determined by need, putting emphasis on helping the disadvantaged people of Mexico who never had a chance. Is there an echo of this in American foreign policy today, particularly with respect to delegating blame?
I don't see this in Foreign Policy as much as I do immigration and domestic policy.
FReeper Billthedrill made this interesting observation about the book: “...her villains are drawn so perfectly it's almost painful to read them and a newspaper too close together.” The first villain the reader meets is Jim Taggart. Does he resemble anyone today and, if so, whom?
He resembles Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer or nearly any liberal you can think of.
Is there anything disturbing about the Mayor of New York wanting the current date displayed on a large calendar mounted on a skyscraper? What are the implications of this?
Liberals think that people are too stupid to think for themselves and take responsibility for knowing what the date is.
Good start. But what about the train crew on the Comet? Profit is not a part of their world, but look at their behavior. This is a different kind of rot, and it shows up again and again in the book.
The parallel is the obverse of Jim Taggert's position, that change for the simple sake of change can be even more harmful.
This opens up an intersting idea. When Al Pearlman ran the New York Central, he would look at procedures on the railroad, and if one had been observed too long, he ordered that the procedure be re-thought. Pearlman feared any kind of stasis.
I don't see this in Foreign Policy as much as I do immigration and domestic policy.
Don't you see some of this in the Blame America First impulse? Our capitalism has made the world miserable, therefore we are at fault for things going wrong elsewhere.
Liberals think that people are too stupid to think for themselves and take responsibility for knowing what the date is.
Very good. I was looking for a lnk to government paternalism and the nanny state. And the fact that it was an elected official who did this.
“Jim believes that priority of corporate effort should be determined by need, putting emphasis on helping the disadvantaged people of Mexico who never had a chance. Is there an echo of this in American foreign policy today, particularly with respect to delegating blame?”
“I don’t see this in Foreign Policy as much as I do immigration and domestic policy.”
Obama’s Global Poverty act comes to mind.
What business does government have spending taxpayer money on something they were not authorized to do in the Constitution? And this city is rotting from the inside, yet they are focusing on a flipping calendar? Sort of like spending a billion bucks on a presidential inauguration when the economy is going to heck in a handbasket.
Liberals prey on the youth's desire to change the world and hide behind meaningless platitudes to encourage their cooperation and enthusiasm. Meanwhile liberals go about appeasing the youth while consolidating their power in secret. If found out, the liberals count on forgiveness since they have earned it through their "good deeds".
The problem is that liberals don't care about not only the implementation of certain policies but also the method of implementation. So, society inevitably bears the blunt of their poor planning.
Excellent suggestion. Especially when you see the visual imagery in Rand's description of the oak tree: Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string.
The government has its tentacles embedded in the "earth" of the people. If the government were shaken and pulled up, it would, no doubt, take a significant chunk of earth with it.
She goes on to say: The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside -- just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind.
The government has no substance inside. It is only a shell, but that isn't obvious to everyone. Its tentacles (roots) are wrapped around the people (earth) who depend on big government. It would take a destructive lightening bolt for those people to see the truth.