(Pat Kerby) – I have a liberal friend who scoffed when I mentioned “Atlas Shrugged.” He called Ayn Rand a sociopath, as though her personal shortcomings meant that “Atlas Shrugged” the book/movie has no merit.
“It is a small mind that condemns the message because of the messenger.”
That is like saying that “All men are created equal” is an unsound principle because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
I once forwarded a Keith Oberman rant about the military commissions act and the loss of Habeas Corpus to a conservative mailing list and they condemned it as lefty rhetoric. I’m opposed to just about everything Oberman stands for, but that rant was right on. The truth is the truth, it doesn’t matter from whose mouth it comes.
I know nothing about Ayn Rand, but I did read “Atlas Shrugged,” and I believe the principle behind it is sound.
My friend and I work in the film and TV industry, and I wonder: Where would we be if that greedy corporate producer who got an idea and had the determination and wherewithal to take it to production no longer had the incentive or inclination to do so? We would either starve, or find another person with such an idea to work for (or hopefully come up with our own idea and take the risk ourselves). This formula holds true for all of society. These are the people who move the world.
You can take government employees out of this equation. They might not like to hear this, but no matter how noble, or necessary their job is, they are still parasites whose livelihood depends on the health of the host, and the sooner they accept this fact, the better. Their job as public officials is to protect the rights of the people, to make things better for the host.
The host is private industry. Their motivation might be love of what they do, the excitement of developing a better idea, or pure profit. It does not matter. Those with the ideas and the courage to take the risk to see them completed are the ones who move the world.
Corporations do not become evil until they collude with government to stifle competition (Rockefeller funding the move to prohibition to cripple the alcohol as fuel industry; Hurst, who owned the logging lands lobbying to criminalize hemp in order to protect his paper manufacturing).
As long as they provide a product that they must keep improving to stay competitive in their market, and do not collude with government to stifle competition, then corporations should be able to keep as much profit as they can earn. If they take advantage of their workforce, then their good people will go work for the competition. This is the free market in action.
The liberal left looks at these people as taking advantage of their union workforce, where the libertarian (and hopefully someday Republican) understands that without them there would be nothing for the workforce to do. That is what “Atlas Shrugged” is all about, the government take-aways get so absurd that the producers of the world disappear, leaving the looters to fend for themselves, with predictable results.
This is so close to where we are in this country. In fact, I fear we are past the tipping point (Harry Reid winning was a telltale sign) Once the looters outnumber the producers in a society, there is no coming back from that in a “democracy” (our Republic is all but gone). They will continue to vote themselves benefits, not understanding where those benefits are coming from. A crash is eminent, for how long can the printing presses keep the illusion of a productive society when the private sector is regulated out of existence.
So rejoice my liberal friend, you have most likely won, and we will soon feel the rewards of that victory, which is the downfall of the once greatest nation on Earth.
“Parasites are not smart enough to stop sucking before they kill the host.”
P.S. Go and see, or read “Atlas Shrugged,” and ask yourself, are you a producer, or a looter?
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
RSS