John Murtha; Dr. Hendricks; Atlas Shrugged; Ayn Rand; Socialized medicine

There is irony to be found in the death of Congressman John Murtha this week. Congressman Murtha was a liberal Democrat who supported government growth and government pork for decades. He provided unwavering support to the Democrat leadership in Washington as they sought to nationalize the health care system.

The irony is that Murtha died from a medical mistake during otherwise routine surgery. Murtha died from something that will become all too common for every American in the coming years if the government completes its nationalization of medical care. Medical care will degenerate like every other government "service." Today's doctors will either quit or become government bureaucrats (or will take orders from bureaucrats). The fictional Dr. Hendricks told our future in Atlas Shrugged:

I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago . . . . Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything - except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of their patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards - never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind - yet what is it that they expect to depend on when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kinds of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it - and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't.

Atlas Shrugged, p. 744, 35th Anniversary Edition

So what was the situation with Murtha's doctors? Did they resent being dressed in white coats as props for Obamacare? Or did Murtha get the leftover doctors after the resentful ones quit?

Woodstock 40th anniversary; New York Times coverage; Ayn Rand; Nightmare in the Catskills

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of "Woodstock." We are supposed to celebrate "peace," "love" and other stuff in honor of this anniversary. Debbie Schlussel has the real story:

I really don’t care that the “greatest names in rock of the day” performed there. So what? And who cares if Jimi Hendrix played there? Look what happened to him just over a year later. Dead of a drug overdose and too much alcohol. Typical of the Woodstock idiots. They, the rockers, and the hippies, yippies, and other numbskulls making up the boomer generation at this infest-o-fest brought us free love . . . and STDs and AIDs, single mothers and baby mamas, and a whole new hipness to out-of-wedlock births that has brought us crime waves, sensitive men a/k/a wimps, and a whole lot of other problems. Their sexual mores brought us sky-high divorce rates and a rate of out of wedlock mothers–40%–that rivals many Western democracies.

They are the liberals who voted for Barack Obama and not too long before him, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. They are the ones who made today’s consideration of socialized medicine possible.

Apparently Debbie didn't get the MSM/DNC memo (or she got it but was able to ignore it like the rest of us should).

In 2007 [in the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting], I wrote in detail about the changing way we view news stories after the initial event. I chronicled how the MSM/DNC line develops, after which all of the MSM/DNC outlets learn to stick to their story:

Years from now, we will forget that we were in the dark for so many days or hours in the immediate aftermath of the killings at Virginia Tech. MSM/DNC becomes more polished the more time passes in the wake of any news item. As various parts of the MSM/DNC "get their story straight," the MSM/DNC line becomes standard and can be reduced to a few soundbites. That is why immediate coverage of any major story is interesting. We have the chance the catch the MSM/DNC off guard.

The same is true of Woodstock. On August 18, 1969, the New York Times published an editorial highly critical of the gathering entitled "Nightmare in the Catskills." By the next day, the Times had apparently received the MSM/DNC memo and changed their position. Today, the Times' original editorial has disappeared down the memory hole. Other MSM/DNC outlets fell into line quickly also.

The definitive piece on Woodstock was written by Ayn Rand four months later. She not only summarized the social implications of the gathering but she chronicled facts that have been lost to history. Debbie Schlussel has summarized the negative consequences created by the participants, consequences from which we suffer today. Those consequences were easily predictable for anyone who had read Rand's piece - "Apollo and Dionysus."

In particular, Rand chronicled the hardships created for neighboring farmers and small businessmen by the Woodstock event:

Richard C. Joyner, the operator of the local post office and general store on Route 17B "said that the youngsters at the festival had virtually taken over his property - camping on his lawn, making fires on his patio and using the backyard as a latrine

.

Clarence W. Townsend, who runs a 150-acre dairy farm . . . was shaken by the ordeal. "We had thousands of cars all over our fields," he said. "There were kids all over the place. They made a human cesspool of our property and drove through the cornfields. There's not a fence left on the place. They just tore them up and used them for firewood" . . .

"My pond is a swamp [said Royden Gabriele, another farmer]. I've got no fences and they used my field as a latrine. They picked corn and camped all over the place. They just landed wherever they could . . . We pulled 30 of them out of the hay mow smoking pot . . . If they come back next year I don't know what I'll do," Mr. Gabriele said. "If I can't sell, I'll just burn the place down."

The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, p. 71 [Signet edition] (quoting New York Times, August 20, 1969)

As Rand wrote, "No love - or thought - was given to these victims by the unsanitary apostles of love." Ibid.

The apostles of love have been enabled for decades since that event (much in the way summarized by Eugene Lyons in the Red Decade (referring to the 1930's)). The enabling and coddling has led that generation to give us the unsustainable welfare state of today with no thought of the consequences. As revealed by a New York Times interview with participants the following week, the participants had no thought of consequences for their own basic needs at the festival:

Q: What about food?
A: We brought a bag of carrots. And some soda.
Q: Did you expect to be able to buy more there?
A: We never really thought about it.

[As quoted by Rand, p. 73.]

In the same way, these same people are now supporting Obamacare without thinking about what will happen when they are denied medical treatment under the system of rationing that may soon be enacted.

No living, eating or sanitary facilities were provided; . . . "Festival food supplies were almost immediately exhausted . . . and water coming from wells dug into the area stopped flowing or came up impure. A heavy rain Friday night turned the amphitheater into a quagmire and the concession area into a mudhole. . . Throngs of wet, sick and wounded hippies trekked to impromptu hospital tents suffering from colds, sore throats, broken bones, barbed-wire cuts and nail puncture wounds. Festival doctors called it a 'health emergency,' and 50 additional doctors were flown in from New York City to meet the crisis." [There will be no "50 additional doctors" flying to our rescue under Obamacare - Salt.]
According to the New York Times (August 18), when the rainstorm came "at least 80,000 young people sat or stood in front of the stage and shouted obscenities at the darkened skies [a precursor to the anti-Christianity that pervades today's culture? - Salt] as trash rolled down the muddy hillside with the runoff of the rain. Others took shelter in dripping tents, lean-tos, cars and trucks . . . Many boys and girls wandered through the storm nude, red mud clinging to their bodies."

Rand, pp. 69-70

Has it ever occurred to you that it is not an accident, but the psychological mechanism of projection that has made people of this kind choose to call their opponents "pigs?"

Rand, p. 75

Who will the leftists shout obscenities at when they cannot receive medical treatment under Obamacare? The thought of such a scene makes it tempting to support Obamacare - except for the fact that I will suffer also.

Drugs were used, sold, shared or given away during the entire festival. Eyewitnesses claim that 99 percent of the crowd smoked marijuana; but heroin, hashish, LSD and other stronger drugs were peddled openly. The nightmare convulsions of so-called "bad trips" were a common occurrence. One young man died, apparently from an overdose of heroin.

Rand, p. 70

There is much more to Rand's article, especially the discussion of the attitudes of the participants, and their expectations of happiness without work and life without thought.



These details (especially the destruction of neighboring property) have largely been ignored in today's MSM/DNC memorials to the event. So have the subsequent disputes among the organizers of the event (over money). That the event was organized by wealthy heirs who spent the next few years fighting over money does not fit the MSM/DNC theme of peace, love and utopia that we are all expected passively to accept. Woodstock has become another object of worship among the MSM/DNC. Leftists expect their history books to treat Woodstock much the same way that Christianity treats the "Sermon on the Mount." They fail to realize that as more of the leftist agenda becomes law, civilization will continue to collapse. With the end of civilization comes the end of higher learning, including the faithful recording of history (even propaganda). Propaganda itself depends on the existence of the civilization that the left seeks to destroy.

As the left becomes more politically successful, the gods of leftism will fade into the memory hole along with the rest of our knowledge. By passing Obamacare, cap-and-trade, the stimulus bill, etc., the left relegates itself (and the rest of us) to oblivion. Future generations will know little or nothing of Woodstock, the first African-American President, the first hispanic Supreme Court justice, the Vietnam protests and other landmarks of leftism. They will know only that the greatest civilization ever to exist somehow collapsed, leaving them to struggle on a daily basis for their very survival.
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Visit counter added August 16, 2009

Garet Garrett - The Driver

Take a moment from the idiocy that is about to descend upon us in the form the DNC convention this week and read about a novel published in 1922 with implications for Ayn Rand's later novels as well as the business cycle that plagued the American economy throughout the 20th (and into the 21st) century.

Classics of Conservatism - Part XXIII - The Secret of the League

Click here for previous Classics of Conservatism.

This month's classic is The Secret of the League, by Earnest Bramah. Secret celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 2007.

1907 (1995 edition)








Secret of the League is one of three old novels that I refer to as "Ayn Rand relics." Together with The Driver (1922) and Calumet K (1904), Secret provides clues as to the origins of Ayn Rand's later novels.


Secret of the League takes place between 1915 and 1918. Being written in 1907, the book has nothing to do with World War I. Instead, Bramah writes of the takeover of the English parliament by socialists, who immediately pass extreme socialist legislation.

(click to enlarge)















Secret dramatizes the creative solution adopted by Salt, the main character, and his friends. The solution is unique and is not beyond the reach of ordinary individuals.

I first read this book in 2004 just before I began blogging (the main character's name and the year of publication inspired my screen name). I describe Secret here because it begins to appear that we may need some unique alternative (and I don't mean a third party candidate) as a result of this year's election. The candidates for President in 2008 appear poised to expand the already unsustainable entitlement programs, increase taxes and choose judges that have no inclination to recognize the government's true constitutional limitations. Our thinking will have to be creative as we face a long era of darkness at the hands of an increasingly socialist government.



The book is far more than a "how to" manual. Secret provides a humorous look at socialist government, pandering politicians, union political pressure and other such plagues. We read with amusement as leftist government officials find themselves helpless as their spending programs leave their government destitute and powerless.

Regardless of whether we implement Salt's ideas, the fate of the government in Secret may well be the fate of our own government. Our own government may collapse under the weight of unsustainable entitlement programs. The only question is "when?" In Secret of the League, Salt and his allies merely found a way to make sure that a large faction of the country was ready to pick up the pieces when the collapse arrived and to remove from office those who were responsible for the debacle. If we do nothing, we will be helpless when social security, medicare, (reparations ??) et cetera drive government and the financial markets to ruin.

I do not reveal specifics of Salt's actions so as not to spoil the plot. For those that have read Atlas Shrugged, Salt took a different course than Galt. Salt's plan required less technology, less cooperation from powerful individuals and less disruption of the lives of his allies. But Salt's plan clearly foreshadowed Ayn Rand's theme in Atlas. Ayn Rand made the plot better and more comprehensive, added her own ideas and provided more thorough philosophical justification for the actions of the heroes [although Bramah provides a fair amount of philosophical justification as well]. There is no dialogue or language from Secret that was repeated in Atlas. Salt's plot in Secret is enjoyable in its own right and also because the reader will recognize the seed of Ayn Rand's story from a half century later.

The few technological aspects of the book provide for additional enjoyment, as the reader will recognize a crude precursor to modern day faxes and e-mails. Bramah also anticipates the ease and availability of modern air travel, but in a different form. Air travel was in its infancy when Bramah wrote Secret of the League.

If nothing else, Secret of the League will help the reader understand that socialism is not inevitable, invincible or irreversible. The book will further reinforce other writers that have opposed socialism and modern politicians that warn of the conseqences for ourselves if we allow the government to continue on its present course.

William F. Buckley, 1925-2008

National Review founder William Buckley died today.

Buckley was a throwback to the era when the MSM/DNC enjoyed a virtual monopoly on information. I first discovered Buckley in the early 1980's. At that time, I was treated to an almost non-stop barrage of twisted news presentations, distorted facts, repeats of Democrat talking points, etc. from the nightly news and the pages of newspapers. Once a week, William Buckley (and a very few others) would have one chance to rebut the entire MSM/DNC in the confined space of an opinion column on the editorial page of some newspapers. Even though it was hardly a fair fight, Buckley's (and others') few inches of weekly space was more than a match for the daily rants of the NYT, AP, WaPo, John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, etc. Buckley kept the conservative light glowing until the New Media could begin fanning the flames at the end of the 1980's.

Conservatives born after 1975 cannot fully appreciate what it was like to live in the era before the New Media existed. Buckley was one voice that helped make that era bearable.
















Ann Coulter posts some anecdotes and quotes here, including Buckley's references to Gore Vidal as a "queer" and a "fag."

Michelle Malkin posts more detail.

Joe Sobran shared his memories in May, 2006, when Buckley's emphysema was announced:

Over the years I came to know another side of Bill. When I had serious troubles, he was a generous friend who did everything he could to help me without being asked. And I wasn’t the only one. I gradually learned of many others he’d quietly rescued from adversity. He’d supported a once-noted libertarian in his destitute old age, when others had forgotten him. He’d helped two pals of mine out of financial difficulties. And on and on. Everyone seemed to have a story of Bill’s solicitude. When you told your own story to a friend, you’d hear one from him. It was as if we were all Bill Buckley’s children.

It went far beyond sharing his money. One of Bill’s best friends was Hugh Kenner, the great critic who died two years ago. Hugh was hard of hearing, and once, after a 1964 dinner with Hugh and Charlie Chaplin, Bill scolded Hugh for being too stubborn to use a hearing aid. Here were the greatest comedian of the age and the greatest student of comedy, and Hugh had missed much of the conversation! Later Hugh’s wife told me how grateful Hugh had been for that scolding. Nobody else would have dared speak to her husband that way. Only a true friend would. If Bill saw you needed a little hard truth, he’d tell you, even if it pained him to say it.

I once spent a long evening with one of Bill’s old friends from Yale, whose name I won’t mention. He told me movingly how Bill stayed with him to comfort him when his little girl died of brain cancer. If Bill was your friend, he’d share your suffering when others just couldn’t bear to. What a great heart — eager to spread joy, and ready to share grief!

In another recent column, Sobran compared the careers of Buckley and Ayn Rand (and even Garet Garrett). While I disagree with much of what Sobran has written in recent years (especially about the war), his comparison in that article is interesting to every student of the history of the conservative and libertarian movements:

When Soviet Communism finally collapsed in 1991,
NATIONAL REVIEW felt that its mission was accomplished.
It didn't notice that the America it had set out to save
from Communism no longer existed. Say what you will about
Ayn Rand, I can't imagine her making such a mistake.

This Sobran column contains more details on Buckleys disputes with other conservatives in later years.

I have read several Buckley books over the years, the following of which I endorse:



Ann Coulter has written that this book "proved that normal people didn't have to wait for the Venona Papers to be declassified to see that the Democratic Party was collaborating with fascists. The book -- and the left's reaction thereto -- demonstrated that liberals could tolerate a communist sympathizer, but never a Joe McCarthy sympathizer."



I read "God and Man at Yale" while in college, before I could run to the New Media as a refuge from campus leftism. This book probably provided generations of pre-New Media students with the reinforcement they needed to withstand the barrage of leftism from their college professors.



Many conservatives await a new Reagan to rescue the Republican party from the moderates that now ignore and do not understand capitalism, history, freedom, the rule of law, etc. Before a new Reagan can emerge, I believe we will need a new Buckley - one who will be willing to maintain conservative principles in the absence of access to power and who can energize a new generation of intellectuals to resist the pressure of the modern leftward movement in all major institutions.

The William Buckley that wrote books and published NR in the wilderness in the years before the election of Ronald Reagan provided empowerment is the example that I fear modern conservatives will have to follow in the coming decades.

Bobby Fischer; Ayn Rand; An Open Letter to Boris Spassky

The world noted the death of Bobby Fischer two days ago. As you may remember, Fischer was the mercurial chess champion that defeated the Russian champion, Boris Spassky, in the match of the century in 1972.




















I cannot think of Bobby Fischer without thinking of an article Ayn Rand wrote shortly after the match. She titled her article "An Open Letter to Boris Spassky." The article barely mentioned Fischer, but for me the article and all that implies about collectivism, individualism, freedom and the future of the western world far outweighs anything else related to Spassky, Fischer or the famous chess match.

Fischer and Spassky in 1972














The article first appeared in Ayn Rand's newsletter and was later republished in Rand's book, "Philosophy: Who Needs It." In this article, Rand applied the basic principles of communism/collectivism/socialism to chess. She asked Spassky if he could play the game if he had to play by the collectivist rules. In fact, these simple questions point out the error in much of the assumptions that underlie not only communism, but the entire altruistic, egalitarian unspoken creed that dominates our life in today's leftist west.

Judge for yourself:

· Would you be able to play if, at a crucial moment – when, after hours of brain-wrenching effort, you had succeeded in cornering your opponent – an unknown, arbitrary power suddenly changed the rules of the game in his favor, allowing, say, his bishops to move like queens? You would not be able to continue? Yet out in the living world, this is the law of your country – and this is the condition in which your countrymen are expected, not to play, but to live.

· Would you be able to play if the rules of chess were updated to conform to a dialectic reality, in which opposites merge - so that, at a crucial moment, your queen turns suddenly from White to Black, becoming the queen of your opponent, and then turned Gray, belonging to both of you? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the view of reality your countrymen are taught to accept, to absorb, and to live by.

· Would you be able to play if you had to play by teamwork – i.e., if you were forbidden to think or act alone and had to play not with a group of advisers, but with a team that determined your every move by vote? Since, as champion, you would be the best mind among them, how much time and effort would you have to spend persuading the team that your strategy is the best? Would you be likely to succeed? And what would you do if some pragmatist, range-of-the-moment mentalities voted to grab an opponent’s knight at the price of a checkmate to you three moves later? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the theoretical idea of your country, and this is the method by which it proposes to deal (someday) with scientific research, industrial production, and every other kind of activity required for man’s survival.

· Would you be able to play if the cumbersome mechanism of teamwork were streamlined, and your moves were dictated simply by a man standing behind you, with a gun pressed to your back – a man who would not explain or argue, his gun being his only argument and sole qualification? You would not be able to start, let alone continue, playing? Yet in the living world, this is the practical policy under which men live - and die - in your country.

· Would you be able to play – or to enjoy the professional understanding, interest and acclaim of an international chess federation – if the rules of the game were splintered, and you played by “proletarian” rules while your opponent played by “bourgeois” rules? Would you say that such “polyrulism” is more preposterous than polylogism? Yet in the living world, your country professes to seek global harmony and understanding, while proclaiming that she follows “proletarian” logic and that others follow “bourgeois” logic or “Aryan” logic, or “third-world” logic, etc.

· Would you be able to play if the rules of the game remained as they are at present, with one exception: that the pawns were declared to be the most valuable and nonexpendable pieces (since they may symbolize the masses) which had to be protected at the price of sacrificing the more efficacious pieces (the individuals)? You might claim a draw on the answer to the this one – since it is not only your country, but the whole living world that accepts this sort of rule in morality.

· Would you care to play, if the rules of the game remained unchanged, but the distribution of rewards were altered in accordance with egalitarian principles: if the prizes, the honors, the fame were given not to the winner, but to the loser – if winning were regarded as a symptom of selfishness, and the winner were penalized for the crime of possessing a superior intelligence, the penalty consisting in suspension for a year, in order to give others a chance? And would you and your opponent try playing not to win, but to lose? What would this do to your mind?

You do not have to answer me, Comrade. You are not free to speak or even to think of such questions – and I know the answers. No, you would not be able to play under any of the conditions listed above. It is to escape this category of phenomena that you fled into the world of chess.

From Chapter 6 of "Philosophy: Who Needs It."

The myopic reader would conclude only that we shouldn't run chess according to the rules of communism - but would miss the bigger picture. We see the folly of undercutting individual effort, reward, achievement, strategy, etc. when it comes to chess or other games, but we fail to see that the same lesson applies to everything else. At the same time we honor chess champions like Fischer and Spassky, we allow politicians to tell us how they are going to apply Ayn Rand's invented nightmare scenarios to health care and other major components of the economy. While Rand's questions might seem ridiculous, we will find ourselves, more and more, answering her questions with regard to our own medical choices, employment decisions, business matters, etc.

Rand's little philosophy book has enjoyed numerous editions over the years:

Classics of Conservatism - part XXI - Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Click here for a previous "Classic of Conservatism."

According to the New York Times, today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged.

Written by Ayn Rand, the novel explores the philosophies of objectivism and liberty. It has been twenty years since I read my copy, but I remember what attracted me to it. Rand did not defend capitalism on the same grounds as modern day conservatives. She did not claim that capitalism was better for the poor or less evil than its critics claimed or acceptable only if properly regulated. Instead, Rand advocated man's happiness and success as values and virtues in and of themselves. Rand was among the first to say that profit is a virtue, while altruism is harmful and wrong. She correctly identified the totalitarian movements of the 20th century, at home and abroad, with the altruistic side of the philosophical ledger. Altruism is the philosophy that one's life is at the disposal and service of others. She draws the logical conclusion between altruism, theft and slavery.

The attack on altruism may shock and offend the average reader at first, but it stands to reason that there must be more to the story about this word [altruism] that we have taken for granted for so long and have repeated without comprehension so many times. Those who want to think will enjoy Rand's books, including Atlas Shrugged, for this reason alone.








Atlas Shrugged is the climax of the Randian novels. In previous years, she had written several novels, plays, short stories, etc. Atlas Shrugged was her masterpiece. The book contains the story of a railroad executive who struggles against the philosophy of not only altruism, but government enforced altruism. But the plot is about more than politics or business. The plot is also a great mystery story, as the reader gradually learns who is responsible for turning out the lights of world.

Paperback (Signet) edition from the 1980's





The story is broad in scope, as it takes the reader from one end of the country to other over the course of three years (with numerous flashbacks to the previous decade and beyond).

Ayn Rand always believed that "plot" was the most important element in any story. The plot of Atlas Shrugged was relatively complex and undoubtedly took much editing [and many years] to make it complete, consistent and integrated. The basic story involved a conflict between the main characters, all of whom are the "good guys." This theme of "good vs. good" was a recurring feature of Randian fiction, as she believed that evil was impotent to do harm in this world unless aided by the good. So she focused on the good and the way that good unknowingly helps evil. Another benefit of this plot style is that the end is much less predictable.

The basic story in this novel can be traced back through numerous novels of Ayn Rand, all the way to a short story named "Red Pawn" in the early 1930's. In the previous works, the plot may be almost unrecognizable as a precursor to Atlas Shrugged, but the similarity exists once the reader understands the "good vs. good" technique and how to match the characters in the early works with those in Atlas Shrugged.







The Times article focuses on the long term influence of Atlas Shrugged:

One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com’s best-seller list.

. . . . .

But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.

“I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s that ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas,” said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States.

“It offers something other books don’t: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete,” he said.

The following that the book has attracted is often watered down with such references as "public benefit" etc.

I have often lamented that Rand did not write more books. But my reading has lead me to an author whose writings in the 1920's often foreshadowed the Randian works in haunting ways. Garet Garrett's novels have sufficient similarity with some of the storylines in Atlas Shrugged to make those novels almost equally enjoyable. Rand not only has left a great impression on future generations, but enjoys deep roots in prior literature.



Previous - Philosophy: Who Needs It

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

What is a demanding pleasure that demands the use of ones mind! Not in the sense of problem solving, but in the sense of exercising discrimination, judgment, awareness.

Ayn Rand