But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed citizens – then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it is safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. Second Amendment, anyone?
I never looked at it in terms of the Second Amendment - or, the literal sense of being disarmed, before. I always looked at "disarmed" and "defenseless" in the sense of the moral code of the time. The victims are being disarmed by their own sense of right and wrong, their own virtue in other words. (As we will see later, Rearden is going to run head first into this particular dilemma.) At the risk of getting ahead a little bit, it's called "The Sanction Of The Victim". It's a code where the honest are punished for being honest, and the dishonest are rewarded for their dishonesty. The honest and the virtuous play along with the system because they believe in obeying the law, and the thought of going against the system is repugnant to them, while the looters have no such compunction against using the system against the virtuous. They are thus "disarmed" and defenseless, until they get wise to the fact that the system is being used against them. I think that's what's happening with those who are disappearing.
I like that analysis.
“The Sanction of the Victim” applies to how the media responds to political scandals, especially sex scandals. Since liberals have no sexual morality other than “if it feels good, do it”, There is no shame, no taint, no consequences other than a quick apology, then back to business as usual. However if there is any scandal involving a conservative, how quick the response of “hypocrite!”. That is because conservatives actually claim to have standards and morals. They are quickly excoriated as scum, run out of town, charges filed, and generally turned into a laughing stock on shows like Daily Show, SNL, and Letterman.
It occurs to me that if members of congress can read a 1100 page bill overnight they ought to be able to breeze through Atlas Shrugged over a weekend. I think I’ll ask my Sens and Reps if they’ve ever read it. If not, I’ll suggest that they do.
I’d like to point out a parallel in the WOT.
Islamists rely on the moral code of their victims in order to victimize them.
Their willing accomplices in the press, code pink et al also use the same code in order to undermine the culture that supports them.
We have watched it repeatedly in the past 8 years.