Posted on 03/30/2023 10:47:37 PM PDT by TBP
Beginning on page 411 of the 35th Anniversary Edition of Atlas Shrugged. (from Atlas Shrugged II, Minute 40)
Dr. Ferris smiled. . . . . ."We've waited a long time to get something on you. You honest men are such a problem and such a headache. But we knew you'd slip sooner or later - and this is just what we wanted."
"You seem to be pleased about it."
"Don't I have good reason to be?"
"But, after all, I did break one of your laws."
"Well, what do you think they're for?"
Dr. Ferris did not notice the sudden look on Rearden's face, the look of a man hit by the first vision of that which he had sought to see. Dr. Ferris was past the stage of seeing; he was intent upon delivering the last blows to an animal caught in a trap.
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
Watching Dr. Ferris watch him, Rearden saw the sudden twitch of anxiety, the look that precedes panic, as if a clean card had fallen on the table from a deck Dr. Ferris had never seen before.
What Dr. Ferris was seeing in Rearden's face was the look of luminous serenity that comes from the sudden answer to an old, dark problem, a look of relaxation and eagerness together; there was a youthful clarity in Rearden's eyes and the faintest touch of contempt in the line of his mouth. Whatever this meant - and Dr. Ferris could not decipher it - he was certain of one thing: the face held no sign of guilt.
"There's a flaw in your system, Dr. Ferris," Rearden said quietly, almost lightly, "a practical flaw which you will discover when you put me on trial for selling four thousand tons of Rearden Metal to Ken Danagger."
It took twenty seconds - Rearden could feel them moving past slowly - at the end of which Dr. Ferris became convinced that he had heard Rearden's final decision.
"Do you think we're bluffing?" snapped Dr. Ferris; his voice suddenly had the quality of the animals he had spent so much time studying: it sounded as if he were baring his teeth.
"I don't know," said Rearden. "I don't care, one way or the other."
"Are you going to be as impractical as that?"
"The evaluation of an action as 'practical', Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice."
"Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else?"
If you think we'll let you get away with a-"
"You will now please get out of here."
"Whom do you think you're fooling?" Dr. Ferris' voice had risen close to the edge of a scream. "The day of the barons of industry is done! You've got the goods, but we've got the good on you, and you're going to play it our way or you'll-"
Rearden had pressed a button; Miss Ives entered the office.
"Dr. Ferris has become confused and lost his way, Miss Ives," said Rearden. "Will you escort him out please?" He turned to Ferris. "Miss Ives is a woman, she weighs about a hundred pounds, and she has no practical qualifications at all, only a superlative intellectual efficiency. She would never do for a bouncer in a saloon, only in an impractical place, such as a factory.
Miss Ives looked as if she was performing a duty of no greater emotional significance than taking dictation about a list of shipping invoices. Standing straight in a disciplined manner of icy formality, she held the door open, let Dr. Ferris cross the room, then walked out first; Dr. Ferris followed.
She came back a few minutes later, laughing in uncontrollable exultation.
"Mr. Rearden," she asked, laughing at her fear of him, at their danger, at everything but the triumph of the moment, "what is it you're doing?"
He sat in a pose he had never permitted himself before, a pose he had resented as the most vulgar symbol of the businessman - he sat leaning back in his chair, with his feet on his desk - and it seemed to her that the posture had an air of peculiar nobility, that it was not the pose of a stuffy executive, but of a young crusader.
"I think I'm discovering a new continent, Gwen," he answered cheerfully. "A continent that should have been discovered along with America, but wasn't."
Trump stepped on everybody’s Grift.
They don’t care about what they destroy. If they aren’t around to enjoy a legacy, they don’t want one and won’t let anyone else have one, either.
Show trials, political imprisonments, peculiar suicides, neighbors snitching on family & friends, and the complete revision of history are still the principal tools for establishing absolute control...
With current technologies, it is apparent that this current Soviet-style tyranny will last far longer than the Soviet Union did...
When Ronald Reagan talked of a thousand years of darkest tyranny, he knew what he was talking about...
they are prepping the new Medical Industrial Complex to help accomplish the Purge with bioengineered mandatory vaccinations , custom tailored to fit your specific DNA
ping
“”Trump stepped on everybody’s Grift.””
Exactamundo!
They are printing and stealing as much as they can, while they can. Yes, they will attempt to solidify their power, but they have not yet managed to confiscate all the guns. Trump interrupted the $$ spigot. A San Francisco democRAT said, referring to elections: “If we don’t win, we don’t eat.” Getting a real job, getting up every day and going to work is anathema to these creeps. The caliper of The Ruling Class was never that high, and now it has sunk to the likes of the Obama / Biden Regime. Their ‘candidate’ hid in the basement, while millions of ballots were prepared to ensure victory. What their apparatchiks could not foresee was the massive turnout for President Trump. They literally had to shut down vote counting and redouble their cheating. Just like Kennedy cheating over Nixon, President Trump did not not want to tear the country apart by refusing to leave office. President Trump never had to run for office in the first place. His life was set. He made all his money the old fashioned way, he earned it. They could not buy or threaten him financially, so now they distort the justice system in attempts to ensure their power.
I can just see Billary Clinton still seething about no truckloads of ballots for her 2016 election. The fact that Obama and SloJo’s handlers are in the White House instead of her still drives her crazy.
“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”
Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage
I am sure that a scene like this was played out in the boardrooms of Ford, GM, et al which is why we are being inundated with EVs, vehicles that almost nobody wants.
Re: Post 7
All true so far as it goes.
But the brutal reality is that the evil democrats ARE in power, the Jan 6 Trump supporters were locked up and denied habeus corpus,
and little has been done to identify and punish those who stole the 2020 election.
And nothing is in place to stop the democrats from using the same tactics to steal the 2024 election and every election that follows.
Perhaps democrats have not totally solidified their one party control but for all practical purposes that’s the effect at our level.
They are in a frenzy, running amok with their power and nothing on the horizon to stop them.
As a very young man he made his first money visiting towns near the border to record music from radio stations of free nations on cassettes, and then duplicating and reselling those cassettes on the streets of Bucharest.
He went on to escape to the US, where he obtained his PhD and made millions writing and selling computer software.
Julian, who had escaped the worst form of Communism, is no longer alive. Although healthy, the "Covid treatment" killed him.
I guess he didn't escape The Beast after all.
“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”
“I do not recognize my action as a crime.”
“I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you
to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognized. I
will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a
debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend
that you are administering justice.”
“If you choose to deal with men by means of
compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary cooperation
of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And
your victims should discover that it is their own volition - which you cannot force -
that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you
in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the
point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men
to carry me there - I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have
to seize my property to collect the fine - I will not volunteer to pay it. If
you believe that you have the right to force me - use your guns openly. I will
not help you to disguise the nature of your action.”
https://archive.org/stream/AtlasShrugged/atlas%20shrugged_djvu.txt
There's a reason this book's a classic... it's really 'cash in on the guilt AND fear'...
Oh man. Makes me wanna read it again. I’ll do it.
My favorite parts. Page 97. Francisco telling Jim Taggart to spare his opinions-wasting peoples time. It’s THE WAY he said it.
Then there’s the party Francisco crashed. 10 pages of stand ing up for Reardon-I believe.
Last the train derailment. 50 pages or so of how the buck is passed. 360 dead I believe.
1080 pages. Good summer reading requirement for high schoolers.
Who is Sotashi Nakamoto?,,,
Maybe sane reading lists for school kids could start the process of taking schools back from WOKE commie filth...
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