Atlas Shrugged Review

I finished reading Atlas Shrugged last night. It took me five months, but only because for the first two I was reading several other books and not giving it my full attention. Finally, however, I came to the end (and I want to know what happened to Eddie Willers. I mean, really?), and my mother made me promise to write a review about it. So here it is.

Atlas Shrugged seems, without exception, to be one of those books that is met with only one of two reactions--on the one hand, hatred to rival that afforded Hitler, or a mindless sort of love that equals that given to Mouch's policies amongst the unthinking rabble. I'm going to be the odd woman out and strike a middle road.

While I agree with Rand in some respects (I do believe that a government that keeps itself to the defense of life, liberty, and property is the best sort of government), much of her analysis struck me as simplistic and, at times, downright unrealistic. She, along with most of the people who love her book so ardently, failed to realize that what she was dealing with were fictional characters who were living in a fictional world. Of course they behave in a certain way. They were written that way. The way most of them behave would be entirely ridiculous in the real world; to expect every member of her society to behave in exactly the same manner, no matter the world around them sounds like some sort of really bad twist in a modern YA dystopian novel.

Which, of course, leads to the fact that all the "bad guys" think exactly the same way, and so do the "good guys". Despite her vociferous rejection of the absolutist thought that gives rise to the ideas of Thompson, Mouch, and Co., John Galt, Inc. does exactly the same thing. Except, of course, under the guise of being good and righteous, because making money is the only thing that is moral in the world. In essence, one can only be a good sort of person if one is just like John Galt, and is utterly and completely brilliant. Rand, and Galt with her, are rigidly absolutists when it comes to their ideas. In essence, either you are with them, or you are against them, and no thought that does not agree with their's can be permitted--which is the essence of tyranny. It may not be the tyranny of the looters, but it is still tyranny.

In addition, Rand seems to think that, so long as you can come up with some wonder product that you can give to the world, you will be acknowledged for your amazing talent and immediately given a place among the highest of the high...despite the fact that real life doesn't work that way, and never has. Capitalism is not a meritocracy any more than socialism is.

All of that isn't even touching on the flat characters that clogged the pages of this book. The story was reasonably engaging, but I couldn't get past Dagny's meek submission to every "worthy" man that came along, and the fact that every single "thinking" person worded their "thoughts" exactly the same way. Whether on the side of the looters or the side of the mighty paragons of business virtue, they all articulated exactly the same thoughts in exactly the same way, without pause or dissension.

So, it gets three stars because it managed to hold my attention throughout most of its 1,000 pages. I could have done without the 80-page speech that was a thinly-veiled rant against religion, but we readers can't have everything.

Adventures in Partisanship...

Today I went to the library. At my grandmother's house. My grandmother lives in rural Arkansas. There are roughly ten itty-bitty towns all around her, about half of them with libraries. We went to one of them. The reading material being a bit scarce (at least in the variety I wished), and there being nothing by Ron Paul, etc., I chose a book by Sean Hannity, Deliver Us From Evil.

Now, usually I don't read Hannity. Or listen to Hannity. Frankly, I find the man a boring alarmist who has nothing better to do than spout Republican talking points. (That's the same reason I don't watch say, Keith Olberman either.) But I'd already read Slander (Ann Coulter) and The Obama Nation (Dr. Jerome Corsi), so I got Hannity's book.

Ugh.

I am on the second chapter. Frankly, I can't decide whether President Obama's Audacity of Hope was better or worse. If we're measuring a book by level of partisanship, they rival each other quite nicely. Of course, they do have opposing viewpoints- Obama blames everything on the Republicans; in Hannity's book, everything is the Democrat's fault.

Frankly, both views are nauseating.

I mean, seriously. Is that the whole substance of our political argument? If I don't like it, it's their fault? Sheesh people, can't we defend ourselves with something beyond that? Can't we have an original thought once in our lives?

Apparently not.

So far, Deliver Us From Evil has been nothing but pro-Bush, pro-war, pro-Constitutionality raping on the part of Hannity. I am sure he did not intend it as such- I mean, anyone could have missed that fact that Iraq is a sovereign nation. And I'll grant you that maybe, just maybe someone could have overlooked the fact that when the ability to set foreign policy is granted to Congress, it doesn't mean we're supposed to go in and invade other countries.

Maybe. But perhaps it's just my personality, but I'm not at all willing to let it slide so easily. The idea that someone of Hannity's stature could miss this is rather astounding to me. But then, given his outspoken support in favor of the PATRIOT act, it isn't surprising that he's so pro-war. Oh, and he's a Republican.

No surprise at all.

I don't understand partisanship. Everything is the opposite side's fault, no matter what it is. Eve eating from the tree was the opposite party's fault, apparently! Cain killing Abel, Noah's flood, the origin of wickedness, the capture of the Israelites...all of it was the opposite side's fault.

Perhaps this can be attributed to human nature. Perhaps it is a natural impulse: to blame someone else for all your troubles.

But when you're a nationally-recognized figure, it just doesn't look good.

Is there any responsibility in the house?

None Dare Call it Conspiracy

Excerpt from Gary Allen's 1971 book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, which can be read online in its entirety at: http://www.whale.to/b/allen_b1.html

Our Founding Fathers revolted against the near-total government of the English monarchy. But they knew that having no government at all would lead to chaos. So they set up a Constitutional Republic with a very limited government. They knew that men prospered in freedom. Although the free enterprise system is not mentioned specifically in the Constitution, it is the only one which can exist under a Constitutional Republic. All collectivist systems require power in government which the Constitution did not grant.

Our Founding Fathers had no intention of allowing the government to become an instrument to steal the fruit of one man's labor and give it to another who had not earned it. Our government was to be one of severely limited powers. Thomas Jefferson said: "In questions of power then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the 'Constitution." Jefferson knew that if the government were not enslaved, people soon would be.It was Jefferson's view that government governs best which governs least. Our forefathers established this country with the very least possible amount of 'government. Although they lived in an age before automobiles, electric lights and television, they understood human nature and its relation to political systems far better than do most Americans today. Times change, technology changes, but principles are eternal.

Primarily, government was to provide for national defense and to establish a court system. But we have burst the chains that Jefferson spoke of and for many years now we have been moving leftward across the political spectrum toward collectivist total government. Every proposal by our political leaders (including some which are supposed to have the very opposite effect, such as Nixon's revenue sharing proposal) carries us further leftward to centralized government. This is not because socialism is inevitable. It is no more inevitable than Pharaohism. It is largely the result of clever planning and patient gradualism.

Since all Communists and their Insider bosses are waging a constant struggle for SOCIALISM, let us define that term. Socialism is usually defined as government ownership and/or control over the basic means of production and distribution of goods and services. When analyzed this means government control over everything, including you. All controls are "people" controls. If the government controls these areas it can eventually do just exactly as Marx set out to do-destroy the right to private property, eliminate the family and wipe out religion.

We are being socialized in America and everybody knows it. if we had a chance to sit down and have a cup of coffee with the man in the street that we have been interviewing, he might say: "You know, the one thing I can never figure out is why all these very, very wealthy people like the Kennedys, the Fords, the Rockefellers and others are for socialism. Why are the super-rich for socialism? Don't they have the most to lose? I take a look at my bank account and compare it with Nelson Rockefeller's and it seems funny that I'm against socialism and he's out promoting it." Or is it funny? In reality, there is a vast difference between what the promoters define as socialism and what it is in actual practice.

The idea that socialism is a share-the-wealth program is strictly a confidence game to get the people to surrender their freedom to an all-powerful collectivist government. While the insiders tell us we are building a paradise on earth, we are actually constructing a jail for ourselves.

Doesn't it strike you as strange that some of the individuals pushing hardest for socialism have their own personal wealth protected in family trusts and tax-free foundations? Men like Rockefeller, Ford and Kennedy are for every socialist program known to man which will increase your taxes. Yet they pay little, if anything, in taxes themselves. An article published by the North American Newspaper Alliance in August of 1967 tells how the' Rockefellers pay practically no income taxes despite their vast wealth. The article reveals that One of the Rockefellers paid the grand total of $685 personal income tax during a recent year. The Kennedys have their Chicago Merchandise Mart, their mansions, yachts, 'planes, etc., all owned by their myriads of family foundations and trusts. Taxes are for peons! Yet hypocrites like Rockefeller, Ford and Kennedy pose as great champions of the "downtrodden." If they were really concerned about the poor, rather than using socialism as a means of' achieving personal political power, they would divest themselves of their own fortunes. There is no law which prevents them from giving away their own fortunes to the poverty stricken. Shouldn't these men set all example? And practice what they preach? If they advocate sharing the wealth, shouldn't they start with their own instead of that of the middle class which pays almost all the taxes? Why don't Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Ford II give away all their wealth, retaining only enough to place themselves at the national average? Can't you imagine Teddy Kennedy giving up his mansion, airplane and yacht and moving into a $25,000 home' with a $20,000' mortgage like the rest of us?

We are usually told that this clique of super-rich are socialists because they have a guilt complex over wealth they inherited and did not earn. Again, they could relieve these supposed guilt complexes simply by divesting themselves of their unearned wealth. There' are doubtless many wealthy do-gooders who have been given a guilt complex by their college professors, but that doesn't explain the actions of Insiders like the Rockefellers, Fords or Kennedys. All their actions betray them as power seekers.

But the Kennedys, Rockefellers and their super-rich confederates are not being hypocrites in advocating socialism. It appears to be a contradiction for the super-rich to work for socialism and the destruction of free enterprise. In reality it is not.Our problem is that most of us believe socialism is what the socialists want us to believe it is-a share-the wealth program. That is the theory. But is that how it works? Let us examine the only Socialist countries according to the Socialist definition of the word extant in the world today. These are the Communist countries. The Communists themselves refer to these as Socialist countries, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Here in the reality of socialism you have a tiny oligarchial clique at the top, usually numbering no more than three percent of the total population, controlling the total wealth, total production and the very lives of the other ninety-seven percent.

Certainly even the most naive observe that Mr. Brezhnev doesn't live like one of the poor peasants out on the great Russian steppes. But, according to socialist theory, he is supposed to do just that!If one understands that socialism is not a share-the Wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes the logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite. The plan of the conspirator Insiders then is to socialize the United States, not to Communize it.