Freedom of Philadelphia

As I said in a recent post, I’ve been hit with a bit of writers block, so postings have been quiet. Doesn’t mean I’m not checking in here or staying on top of the news. Case in point, there was a post Merlyworm wrote awhile ago about “Books everyone should read“. Recently we’ve had someone comment on that. Here’s the comment (copied exactly as he left it, no changes to spelling, grammar, or ignorance):

On July 3rd, 2007, shawn said:

So I’ve read atlas shrugged, and as a semi-liberal, which is kind of like saying I don’t much give a shit who’s in office as long as it isn’t George W. Bush, I find this book to be one of the most well-written, and though-provoking books to date. If anything, it shows how conservatives will in the end lead this country to ruin by not seeing how their traditionlistic views are destroying our country, the times are changing, money is corrupting, the only people we have in office are greedy millionaires who seem to think money gives them some kind of endowed authority over others. Want to bash on liberals? Well how’s about we take a look at your “conservative” friends. George Bush: led a war against Iraq because of so-called WMD’s that your “intelligence” said were there. In fact, this war was nothing more than him trying to finish something his father counldn’t complete in his own time. Then there is Cheney: the new, and only member of the 4th branch of government, his super-secret branch that is part executive, part legislative, all bullshit. Anyway, seeing as Atlas shrugged is in fact the most influential book in the US behind the bible, I would assume that liberals and conservatives both enjoy it. So to summarize, your stnace is ridiculous and conservatives will be the downfall of society. Thanks for your time

Now “Shawn” here didn’t leave an email or a place to contact him, so I’m going to respond to him in this post.

Dear Shawn,
Thanks ever so much for reading my page and responding to Merly’s post. While there are things he and I disagree on, our love for Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” is one of the things we definitely agree on! First let me respond to your comments by telling you that perhaps you suffer from BDS and you might want to get that checked out. I’d really advise that you do it soon, because if Comrade Hillary wins the election you might have a very long line to wait in with socialized health care before you can get some meds. Secondly, as to your trite “Bush lied” line of bs. Allow me to point you in the direction of this piece by Horowitz. I’ll save you some time from reading it by quoting, perhaps, the most pertinent piece as it relates to your “Bush lied about WMD’s” talking point.

The Authorization for the Use of Force bill – passed by majorities of both parties in both Houses – is the legal basis for the president’s war, which Democrats have since betrayed along with the troops they sent to the battlefield. The Authorization bill begins with 23 “whereas” clauses justifying the war. Contrary to Gore and the Democratic critics of the Bush administration, only two of these clauses refer to stockpiles of WMDs. On the other hand, twelve of the reasons for going to war refer to UN resolutions violated by Saddam Hussein.

Even if these indisputable facts were not staring Gore in the face, the destruction of WMDs could not have been the “first rationale” for the war in Iraq for this simple reason. On the very eve of the war, the president gave Iraq an option to avoid a conflict with American forces. On March 17, two days before the invasion, Bush issued an eleventh-hour ultimatum to Saddam: leave the country or face war. In other words, if Saddam had agreed to leave Iraq, there would have been no American invasion. It is one of the most revealing features of the Democrats’ crusade against George Bush that they blame the war on him instead of Saddam.

Shawn, please go read the rest of the article. Horowitz is a super intelligent dude so there might be some big words there so feel free to ask an adult to be there with you or perhaps have a dictionary there for anything you don’t understand.

Now let’s talk about you total misunderstand of “Atlas Shrugged”. You seem to assume that the main characters of the book are:

If anything, it shows how conservatives will in the end lead this country to ruin by not seeing how their traditionlistic views are destroying our country, the times are changing, money is corrupting, the only people we have in office are greedy millionaires who seem to think money gives them some kind of endowed authority over others.

However, you miss the point of Rand here completely. Really what she was saying is that any form of government or societal intervention that was used to supersede an inventors or intellectual thinkers right to ideas and the profit from them was not only morally wrong but bad for the world. She compared these socialists to “looters”. Imagine Shawn, if you will, that you were the creator of the new I-phone and wanted to sell it for 500.00 a pop because it was so damn spiffy. Now imagine that a bunch of bleeding heart socialistic ninja type liberals decided that it “just isn’t fair” for only those people with 500 dollars to get one and they ordered you to sell them at 19.99. You would be outraged! The sweat of your hard work, all the time you spent designing and testing the phone to make it the best would now be given away below cost! In Rand’s world you would be among the “thinkers” and all those people forcing you to sell your product at that low price would be “looters” and “moochers”. Now you might think that she’s wrong, that you should make the phone so cheap that you never make a profit off of it. However, let’s be realistic, that’s not a way for any business to run. You wouldn’t be able to pay your workers, pay your suppliers, in effect you would be out of business before everyone got a phone. Denying a large majority of people the chance to even earn one.
Rand is talking about how socialism can and will be the doom of society, she goes on to attempt to prove (I’ll leave whether or not she proves it be up to each reader), that the one thing free market capitalism shows is that it can produce is wealth. Rand wasn’t trying to show that being a “millionaire gave some endowed authority”, rather if you read the book well you would realize that one of the leading “antagonists” is James Taggart who is from a wealthy family! In fact, you will notice that as the “thinkers” disappear they go to a place where they aren’t living in opulent mansions with tons of servants. In fact they are living in obscurity in “Galt’s Gulch”. For more info on all the details from Atlas Shrugged go look here. Shawn, I really think you need to step away from connotations such as “Democrat” and “Republican” and read the book again with a more open mind. Please bear in mind, Rand wrote this in a time way before the animosity that now exists between the left and the right and is speaking more to the potential stagnation and horrors of socialism. Thanks for stopping by and please, feel free to comment or email me at freedomofphiladelphia at gmail dot com.