I Swear - By My Life And My Love Of It - That I Will Never Live For The Sake Of Another Man, Nor Ask Another Man To Live For Mine

Dagny to Francisco as she left Taggart Transcontinental behind for good.

Finished at last.

Well, that was some kind of a work. I'm glad to have read it, but there were times that it was like slogging through a swamp with no end in sight.

I'd have to say that the book portrayed the industrialists as higher paragons of virtue than we know a few of them to be, just as the looters were portrayed as much worse than we know them to be. The indictment of the looters morality still stands however, and the book used that exaggeration to great effect.

It's easy to see how this book became the guiding force that it is for so many people, and I better understand what someone means by 'Randroid.' Within its pages are principles that many feel are self-evident, but so many fail to grasp. Throughout my reading I recognized examples of those principles that I have practiced for my adult life, and others that I should have been practicing. Among the things I recognized were also plenty of acts that I am not too proud of, but that happens whenever one looks back with a new perspective. I also saw how Ayn Rand's work influenced of number of artists that I really enjoy. Seeing those influences will give me a deeper understanding of their work I am sure.

It was in the news when I started reading the book that there is a movie project under consideration. Angelina Jolie is attached as producer IIRC, and is likely to play Dagny at this point. I think she could play Dagny well, but this material is going to be tough to adapt and keep true to itself, especially in a Hollywood that seems to be opposed to Objectivism in everything they say. However, what Hollywood says and what Hollywood does are rarely the same thing.

Now, on to my reading stack and see what is next.

I Am, Therefore I'll Think

A nice little twist on Descartes. It becomes the primary point of the big speech. 56 pages of a radio broadcast by John Galt, comprising a little more than two hours of the books timeline, but taking days to read as I grabbed a little time here and there since my last post. It does seem to spell out the whole of Objectivism in a neat, if not compact, package. Much like the first section of the book, it has a lot of disturbing parallels with the political landscape of today. Causality is an important concept that far too many people don't seem to grasp.

I've seen in a couple of places online, mention of this speech when referencing Atlas Shrugged. I have managed to avoid most, but certainly not all, discussions of the book as I have read it. It is noted that Ayn Rand does seem to belabor the point somewhat. I suspect that I will finally finish this book in the next few days. The fallout from this speech should be interesting to say the least, and I may have to set aside time to complete it all at one sitting. It's only about a hundred pages, so it can be done.

What She's Trying To Say Is That We Are Sorry

Said by Hank Reardon's brother to Hank as he and Hank's mother were trying desperately to make sure that Hank's money would still be coming their way.

There are times when even the most clueless realize that what they have done is the reason that they are in the dire straits they are. It is never a comfortable moment. Then there are times that they simply never realize it. Determining who is crazy, and who is crazy-like-a-fox, in the group that appears clueless can be a maddening exercise at times.

It must be true that almost anything can be exploited in a manner that violates the original intention. I wonder about this as I make a phone call to my mortgage lender to exploit programs that I know full well are bad for the economy, but hey, I don't want to leave money on the table when it's tight, you know? Everybody feels a little foxy sometimes.

...A Copper Wire Broke...

Death by a thousand paper cuts. Each one of which is almost too small to be a bother, but accumulated become mortal.

How hard will you struggle for that which you love but you know in your gut is doomed?

Now how about if you had the slightest glimmer of hope that it was not doomed?

Will You Promise Me That You'll Come Back?

Dagny to her Sister-in-Law Cheryl, after a talk that should have happened much sooner.

Monumental events can occur while one is in the depths of despair. Why is it always easier to destroy something or throw it away than to acquire it in the first place? I don't like it when a very likable character in a book does that. It's the sort of thing that hits me more than anything else when I read. This was astonishing, yet I feel like it is not over yet. I wonder what the remaining pages will bring me?

It Was Blackmail

-blackmail by your government officials, by your rulers, by your-
And then the broadcast was stopped.

******* Spoiler Warning *********

Dagny Taggart to a national audience, on a radio program that she herself was practically blackmailed into going on, turning the tables on a bureaucracy run amok. Or at least hitting the hornets nest with a really big stick. I wonder what the consequences of this will be.

The action in this chapter closes the book on some things done previously and was a great read. I look forward to continuing to the next chapter tonight.

Sometimes you do things in the name of love that you realize later were not only a betrayal of your beliefs, but actually a betrayal of that love, even though they didn't seem that way when you did those things.

Don't you just hate it when that happens, and don't you just love it when the one you love it understanding and forgiving about it as well. Love may mean never having to say you're sorry, but you're a cad if you never do.

Celebrating Our Very Own Dissidents

In what I hope to be the first of a number of posts about why the United States of America is simply the greatest nation to have ever existed on this planet so far, I will start at the beginning.

Some 233 years ago, brave men stood up and said they wanted freedom. They said so in a manner that is far too eloquent to simply describe, so I will simply copy the whole thing here.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

How cool is that?