My favorite quote from Francisco’s speech is this:

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’

I would argue that the Federal Reserve is the root of all evil in the American capitalist system.

She wasn’t trying to write a blueprint for a perfect world, she was trying to illustrate a code of conduct for a good (not perfect) man.

But mostly what she wanted was for men with creative minds to refuse to let others make them feel guilty FOR THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Cutting someone off in traffic is not an accomplishment, it’s a reckless threat to their life.

I don’t want people to be well-disposed toward me. I just want them not to go out of their way to impede me while I do what I do best.

Rand makes the same mistake that every other Utopian does (yes, she’s a Utopian – look at the emergence from Galt’s Gulch). She believes that the world is perfectable by the actions of mankind. The only way that her vision could work would be if mankind were well-disposed toward fellow man – which we ain’t. (Disagree? Then I am sure that you smile broadly and kindly when that #&@!^## other driver (sorry, mom) cuts you off in traffic.) We are well-disposed toward each other only to the extent that we are not inconvenienced by their actions, which is a pretty low threshold for irritation. On that basis, we are somehow supposed to perféct the world…?

Annie451 – That was my favorite part of the book.

http://education.yahoo.com/homework_help/cliffsnotes/atlas_shrugged/

http://www.purelypolitics.blogspot.com

WK – Rand was an atheist, but Objectivism and Christianity are NOT mutually exclusive. For example:

http://christianobjectivists.blogspot.com/

On atheism, the entire universe is an accident, humans are machines made out of meat with no free will, life ends in the grave. It is hard for me to see why moral values would have an independent existence on atheism. They would more likely be individual preferences, or at best a set of customs accepted by the majority of a society in a particular time and place. On that view, there could be no way of preferring a society that accepts slavery to a society that doesn’t since the society makes the rules. I think an objectivist could act “morally” but that would really mean acting fashionably – in keeping with the customs of the day. Which is not what I mean when I say moral. It’s also hard to see how human rights could be grounded on objectivism, since human beings are all different and are not equal in any way.

In contrast, theism (including deism and Christian theism), does ground free will, because humans are souls that stand outside of the material body, so that their actions are not determined. Moral values would be grounded in God’s nature, and moral obligations would be owed to the Creator/Designer. Being moral, on theism, means acting consistently with the design of the Creator/Designer made for humans. If you went an extra step and accepted Christianity, then you would also have the afterlife to make the choice to be moral even more rational. Being good on this view means “being the way that we were designed to be”. And human rights are grounded because everyone is equal since they were made by the same Person.

Not trying to be mean! I think Rand is right about capitalism, but wrong on metaphysics.

“This makes one neck, ready for one leash!”

That line still haunts me every time I hear Obama talk about we need to unite the country.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0452011876/ref=ed_oe_p_olp

Less on eBay:

http://shop.ebay.com/items/__atlas-shrugged?LH_BIN=1&LH_IncludeSIF=1&_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A1199&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_sop=15&_sc=1

Also, I would crawl across a field of cactus infested with fire ants and strewn with iguana dung to escape the sound of Barack Obama’s voice.

That speech by Francisco should be required reading of all children before graduating High School, if not the whole book. My children (12 and 13) are under orders to have Atlas Shrugged read before they graduate High School. No excuses.