I always loved that line!
Ping! The thread is up.
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: Introduction to Atlas Shrugged
Part I, Chapter I: The Theme
Part I, Chapter II: The Chain
Part I, Chapter III: The Top and the Bottom
Part I, Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers
Part I, Chapter V: The Climax of the d’Anconias
Part I, Chapter VI: The Non-Commercial
Part I, Chapter VII: The Exploiters and the Exploited
Part I, Chapter VIII: The John Galt Line
Part I, Chapter IX: The Sacred and the Profane
Part I, Chapter X: Wyatt’s Torch
Part II, Chapter I: The Man Who Belonged on Earth
This was a great chapter—i loved story between Francisco and Hank at the end-they are both so alike that you cannot dislike either of them!...The middle part involving Cherryl was fairly sad, because I knew what Jim was doing to her.
Great speech that should be read over and over by people today—look at what is happening with our govt printing money that we don’t have. sad stuff.
Fixed it for you... sadly.
I think this goes beyond a Second Amenment issue... though the Second Amendment is an improtant component. We are "disarmed" in a multitude of ways beyond the RKBA. With every law that does not serve the proper role of government, our ability to defend ourselves diminishes.
ML/NJ
“The Aristocracy of Pull,” is the title of the chapter, but that may actually be a bit premature. In it we are introduced to the concept but its membership and operations are only hinted at. We’ll see more of those in the next two chapters. But Rand has chosen her terms carefully – it is, in fact, an aristocracy, an insular ruling class with its own hierarchy and means of exchange.
I should like to take up the topic of humor in this chapter’s commentary, or more precisely a sense of humor, which Ayn Rand is occasionally accused of being without. Certainly some of her principal characters seem to suffer from this deficiency: Rearden the tormented, for one, whose blood pressure could probably benefit from a sense of the ridiculous. James Taggart, too stupid to know a joke if it were tattooed to his forehead and too anxious to laugh at it in any case. Dagny herself, too driven, too “pure” as Lillian puts it at one point although she meant something else by it. Frankly there isn’t a great deal that makes Dagny laugh, and she could use a good one.
And so could we. Watching a country slide inexorably into ruin tends to be grim business. Does Rand have it in her? We shall see.
It is September, and industrialists are falling faster than the leaves that are about to. Quentin Daniels, Dagny’s hope for somebody to reveal the mystery of the motor, has already “gone Galt,” earning his daily bread working as a night watchman. We remember from a previous chapter one engineer’s sneering demand that Dagny support him at the rate of $25,000 a year (quite a generous salary in 1957) to investigate the thing, hinting openly that it is likely to be a long-lived and fruitless effort, fruitless, that is, except for the health of his bank account. Daniels, on the other hand, is a risk taker who only expects to get paid for results and paid well if he manages to produce them. That is Rand’s idea of a moral business arrangement.
But Daniels lets slip one possible weakness:
“…If I spend the rest of my life on it and succeed, I will die satisfied… There’s only one thing I want more than to solve it: it’s to meet the man who has.”
We could not be accused of clairvoyance to suspect that, in Hugh Akston’s words, he will.
Ken Danagger, who has been illegally supplying Dagny – revealing that we think of it as her personally and not her corporation – with the fruits of his coal mines, which is all that is keeping Taggart running now that it has been forced by industrial shortage to shift its engines back to coal. Coal is necessary to the forging of Rearden metal as well. Danagger and Hank find it necessary to meet in secret to conclude an illegal but honest business arrangement. We have reached the point at which the only legal business arrangements are the dishonest ones. But why would anyone want to make the honest ones illegal?
The reader might be forgiven for skipping some of the grim depression that is the exploration of Lillian’s and Hank’s relationship. We already know what that is, and Lillian is an enduring mystery, namely that a woman that simultaneously shallow and dense isn’t holding up a bridge abutment somewhere.
Cherryl Brooks is now Cherryl Taggart, beneficiary of the sort of leech-like arrangement in love that James Taggart appears to have with business. She is treated by James’s contemporaries with the same regard one might expect of a horsefly floating in the Dom Perignon. She is the innocent that Lillian thinks Dagny might be, and is cautioned by a nameless newspaper columnist who has befriended her:
“Listen, kid,” the sob sister said to her, when she stood in her room for the last time, the lace of the wedding veil streaming like crystal foam from her hair to the blotched planks of the floor. (A lovely word image, actually. Rand should do more of it.) “You think that if one gets hurt in life, it’s through one’s own sins – and that’s true, in the long run. But there are people who’ll try to hurt you through the good they see in you – knowing that it’s the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don’t let it break you when you discover that.”
It’s good advice that flies far over the head of the naïf. This cannot end well for the poor dime-store clerk married to the rich poltroon. She gets a welcome to the big leagues from none other than Dagny herself:
[Cherryl] “I’m not going to put on the sweet relative act…I’m going to protect him [Jim] against you…I’m Mrs. Taggart. I’m the woman in the family now.”
“That’s quite all right,” said Dagny. “I’m the man.”
Oh my, yes. You might not read that line in a contemporary novel due to the tender feelings of feminists whose intellectual attainment appears principally to consist of tender feelings. But we know exactly what she means. She is quite as direct with Lillian. Concerning her continuing to wear the Rearden metal bracelet (and in formal dress, too. Tacky.):
“I’m sure, Miss Taggart, that you realize how enormously improper this is…don’t you think that this is a case where one cannot afford to indulge in abstract theory but must consider practical reality?”
Dagny would not smile. “I have never understood what is meant by a statement of that kind.”
Oh, but she does. The sort of abstract theory with which Lillian is most familiar is the sort that issues from the impure mouths of Pritchett the philosopher, Ferris the false scientist, and Scudder the polemicist. It isn’t really the sort of stuff in which Dagny tends to indulge. She will have her own confrontation with abstract theory, not that kind but the real thing, and the time is not yet.
So why does Dagny continue to wear the bracelet in public? It is an acknowledgment of Rearden’s achievement, and hence Rearden himself in a non-sexual sense, and it is, as well, a covenant, a private sign of possession strictly between the two of them, but although she knows that it is also a public statement that she is sleeping with Rearden, she appears not to care. Does she find the inability of those around them to conceive that they might be having an affair to be amusing? Perhaps – “she would not smile” – but if so, it isn’t obvious, and it doesn’t strike me as the sort of sense of humor that fits Dagny’s straightforward personality. But Rand finds it highly amusing, and so does the reader.
There is at least one character among the opposition who does possess a sense of humor – it is the brutal and marvelously cynical Orren Boyle. He is a wolf among sheep and knows it, and enjoys letting the sheep know it as well. He gives us a glimpse of what passes for a medium of exchange in his political circles:
“The ones you buy aren’t really worth a damn because somebody can always offer them more…but if you get the goods on a man, then you’ve got him, and there’s no higher bidder and you can count on his friendship…what the hell! – one’s got to trade something. If we don’t trade money – and the age of money is past – then we trade men.”
The age of money, past. It isn’t only Boyle’s opinion:
“We are at the dawn of a new age,” said James Taggart from above the rim of his champagne glass. “We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power. We will set men free from the rule of the dollar…We will build a society dedicated to higher ideals, and we will replace the aristocracy of money by – “
“ – the aristocracy of pull,” said a voice beyond the group.
They whirled around. The man who stood facing them was Francisco d’Anconia.
It is Francisco the playboy, the wastrel, the clown. He has been Loki in Rand’s tripartite pantheon, but no one seems to be laughing.
“Senor d’Anconia, what do you think is going to happen to the world?”
“Just exactly what it deserves.”
“Oh, how cruel!”
“Don’t you believe in the operation of the moral law, madame?” Francisco asked gravely. “I do.”
Moral law? That’s pretty rich coming from a playboy, and everybody knows that Francisco is a playboy, don’t they? And now Francisco gets to deliver the opening salvo in the battle that is being joined. He steps out of the party for a moment and in front of the proscenium where he makes his “Root of Money” speech. I shall quote only a small part but it seems hauntingly pertinent:
“Do you wish to know whether that day [of reckoning] 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 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.”
Are we doomed, then? It is no idle question. In order to run a commercial enterprise in the United States one may very soon need to purchase a remarkable contrivance known as carbon credits from, and obtain the kind permission of, men who produce nothing. We know who they are. Consider that from Rand’s point of view – we have here a group of political operators who have created a webwork of real law around a scientific fiction and are drawing from it the power to dictate every aspect, not only of commercial enterprise, but of the lives of human beings unfortunate enough to come under their sway. Rand has not yet expounded on morality – she will – but she has described obscenity with sufficient accuracy for us to recognize it when it appears before our astounded eyes.
The Root of Money speech is the first indication that Rearden gets of Francisco’s true nature and game. But he already knows that Francisco is far more than he appears.
“What are you doing at this party?”
“Just looking for conquests.”
“Found any?”
His face suddenly earnest, Francisco answered…”Yes – what I think is going to be my best and greatest.”
He means Rearden himself, of course, but Hank doesn’t make the connection.
Rearden’s anger was involuntary, the cry, not of reproach, but of despair: “How can you waste yourself that way?”
The faint suggestion of a smile…came into Francisco’s eyes as he asked, “Do you care to admit that you care about it?”
And Hank does care, because he senses a kindred spirit under the tuxedo and suntan.
“I wish I could permit myself to like you as much as I do.”
“When you’ll learn the full reason, you’ll know whether there’s ever been anything – or anyone – that meant a damn to me…and how much he did mean.”
He, who? We know, of course, but Rearden does not, yet. We also know where the looters have been keeping their ill-gotten gains, safely invested – or so they think – in d’Anconia stock, a company that has never failed in 150 years. That is why Francisco is systematically ruining it.
No one listening seems to take this disquisition very seriously although is it not entirely the sort of talk one might expect to hear at a wedding party. Francisco is putting on a show, but it is a show for a very select audience. He is a select audience as well, being the only one at the party who knows both Dagny and Hank well enough to realize that they really are lovers. I think that knowledge in the face of the stubborn denial of lesser souls would be the sort of thing that would appeal to his own mordant sense of humor. That it is the woman he loves might appeal to his sense of tragedy. Loki indeed.
And he returns to that character so quickly that no one other than Hank and Dagny seems to notice, starting a run on his own stock with the mere suggestion that it is about to fail, the guests scattering from the exclusive wedding party like cockroaches exposed to the light. It is sordid, and very funny. I suggest that Rand’s characters may lack a sense of humor but their author definitely does not. Hers just happens to be a very dark one.
Have a great week, Publius!
A friend posted the following on his facebook status this week: "I've been looking for the posting of the General Motors CEO on USAJOBS. It's a civil service position now, right?"
The entire handling of the car companies is ripped right out of the bureaucrat deciding who is permitted to make a profit. Google: allowed to make a profit. Oil companies? Not allowed to make a profit. Wind-fall taxes anyone?
Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper ... 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.” The “gun” is the term “legal tender”, which has lost its original meaning of “forced tender”. What forced tender means is, “See this piece of paper? It doesn’t look or feel like money because it isn’t made of gold or silver as the Constitution demands. But I say it’s money, and it is money because I have the guns and the military forces to back that statement up.” We have lost this critical bit of our founding history. What is haunting about “the day the check bounces” is that we will witness it when the government monetizes vast amounts of debt because foreigners won’t buy it anymore. China has cut our credit card in half.
“Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America, that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be “money” in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or “currency.” Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not “money.” A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not “money.” The federal United States government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money, -gold and silver coin.
It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any “money.” Most Americans have not been paid any “money” for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now, do you understand why you are “bankrupt,” along with the rest of the country?
Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). When ever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs. Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-Bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.
There is a fundamental difference between “paying” and “discharging” a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common law is valid unless it involves an exchange of “good & valuable consideration.” Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity or justice because they have so much wealth already.” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2201271/posts?page=6#6
Highly unlikely, because they not only do not need to this, since the dollar is no longer backed by gold, and is a form of secular property except perhaps for gold eagles, but they do not have to, because they are devaluing the dollar already to save the banks.
This time the confiscation of wealth to save the banks is called TARP.
If one thinks about it, US Dollars are being created and provided directly to the banks to boost their free reserves significantly, at a scale comparable and beyond to 1933-34.
The confiscation of wealth is being spread among all holders of US dollars and dollar assets, foreign and domestic, in the more subtle form of monetary inflation.
Granted, the government must be more opaque to mask their actions in order to sustain confidence in the dollar while the devaluation occurs, but this is exactly what is happening, and all that is required to happen in a fiat regime.
There is no need to seize widely held exogenous commodities like gold and oil, but merely dampen any bellwether signals that a significant devaluation of the dollar is once gain being perpetrated on the American people in order to save the banks.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/01/last-time-fed-devalued-dollar-to-save.html
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
THIS IS ALSO WHY PEOPLE CALL US
A DEMOCRACY INSTEAD OF A REPUBLIC!
United States Congressional Record March 17, 1993 Vol. #33, page H-1303 Speaker-Senator James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House: “Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner’s report that will lead to our demise.”
It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. H.J.R. 192, 73rd Congress in session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution To Suspend The Gold Standard and Abrogate The Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers. With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government for the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part: “The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States.”
United States Congressional Record May 4, 1992, page H 2891, Senator and Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Senator Henry Gonzalez (Texas) speaking on “NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL THIEVERY IN HIGH PLACES” “We are bankrupted. We are insolvent on every level of our national life, whether it is corporate, whether it is just plain you and I out there with the life of debt that we have all piled up, private debt, credit cards and what not, or whether it is the government. We are insolvent. How long will it take before that nasty Mega-truth is conveyed?”
United States Congressional Record January 19, 1976, page 240 Marjorie S. Holt (Maryland): “Mr. Speaker, many of us recently received a letter from the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, inviting members of Congress to participate in a ceremonial signing of “A Declaration of INTERdependence” on January 30 in Congress Hall, adjacent to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. A number of Members of Congress have been invited to sign this document, lending their prestige to its theme, but I want the record to show my strong opposition to this declaration. It calls for the surrender of our national sovereignty to international organizations. It declares that our economy should be regulated by international authorities. It proposes that we enter a “New World Order” that would redistribute the wealth created by the American people. Mr. Speaker, this is an obscenity that defiles our Declaration of Independence, signed 200 years ago in Philadelphia. We fought a great Revolution for independence and individual liberty, but now it is proposed that we participate in a world socialist order. Are we a proud and free people, or are we a carcass to be picked by the jackals of the world, who want to destroy us? When one cuts through the high-flown rhetoric of this “Declaration of INTERdependence,” one finds key phrases that tell the story. For example, it states that ‘The economy of all nations is a seamless web, and that no one nation can any longer effectively maintain its processes of production and monetary systems without recognizing the necessity for collaborative regulation by international authorities.’ How do you like the idea of “international authorities” controlling our production and our monetary system, Mr. Speaker? How could any American dedicated to our national independence and freedom tolerate such an idea? ....America should never subject her fate to decisions by such an assembly, unless we long for national suicide. Instead, let us have independence and freedom....If we surrender our independence to a “new world order”........,we will be betraying our historic ideals of freedom and self-government. Freedom and self-government are not outdated. The fathers of our Republic fought a revolution for those ideals, which are as valid today as they ever were. Let us not betray freedom by embracing slave masters; let us not betray self-government with world government; let us celebrate Jefferson and Madison, not Marx and Lenin.”
A dollar is a measure of weight defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 and 1900 which is still in force today. A “dollar” specifies a certain quantity, 24.8 grains of gold, or 371.25 grains of silver. In Black’s Law Dictionary, sixth Edition, Dollar: “The money unit employed in the United States of the value of one hundred cents, or of any combination of coins totaling 100 cents.” Cent: “A coin of the United States, the least in value of those now minted. It is the hundredth part of a dollar.”
Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America, that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be “money” in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or “currency.” Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not “money.” A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not “money.” The federal United States government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money, -gold and silver coin.
It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any “money.” Most Americans have not been paid any “money” for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now, do you understand why you are “bankrupt,” along with the rest of the country?
Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). When ever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs. Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-Bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.
There is a fundamental difference between “paying” and “discharging” a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common law is valid unless it involves an exchange of “good & valuable consideration.” Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity or justice because they have so much wealth already.
Their lust is for power and control. Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.
The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a “Canon Law Trust” as their model, adding stock and naming it a “Joint Stock Trust.” The U.S. Congress had passed a law making it illegal for any legal “person” to duplicate a “Joint Stock Trust” in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post-facto (to 1870), although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution. [1:9:3]
The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums are the same. Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it.) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principle.
Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) “Hypothecated” all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve,-in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a “beneficiary” of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their “subjects,” the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.
In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit “money substitute” it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their “economic slaves”, the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.
Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another.
This has been going on for over eighty years without the “informed knowledge” of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough. Now it’s easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt. Why don’t more people own their properties outright? Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid? Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?
We are reaping what has been sown, and the results of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life. Few of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.
America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit, and its reputation for courage, vision and human rights. This is an undeclared economic war, bankruptcy, and economic slavery of the most corrupt order! Wake up America! Take back your Country. Join AWARE to network with others who feel the same way you do!
6 posted on Saturday, March 07, 2009 5:58:17 AM by mad_as_he$$ (You want me to buy heavy metal? Metallica?)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2201271/posts?page=6#6
Publius, another well written summary. This, and the sage comments of fellow Freepers on this thread and the previous ones is some of the finest work produced on FR.
An education hard won and freely given.
I hope many take advantage of the opportunity to learn from Atlas Shrugged.
Watch this video and try to keep from screaming...and I have no dog of my own in this fight.
http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-090305-atv-ban,0,4227218.story K
It seems dear leader Zer0 has signed the USA up to have our corporations and employee compensation overseen by an international “Financial Stability Board”!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2225613/posts
I always loved that line!