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Ayn Rand

To quote Ayn Rand one more time

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 03/22/2012 - 09:05

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because clearly, I have way too much time on my hands and am far too sore from colt riding to muster much enthusiasm for anything more strenuous than sitting and thinking, I've been sitting here thinking.

And that which I've been sitting here thinking is the following;

Aren't the consequences of ignoring reality simply continued reality?

I think so.

Therefore, maybe you can ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Just not safely.

 

To quote Ayn Rand over and over and ....

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 13:51

 

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
 
The Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals … that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government … that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government.
 
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.
 
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."
 
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.
 
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
 
Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.
 
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed.
 
Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.
 
Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -– and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.
 
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.
 
 

To quote Ayn Rand once again, one more time

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 07:02

 

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion

-- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing

-- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors

-- when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you

-- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice

-- you may know that your society is doomed.

 

You seein' any of that stuff?

 

Tags:

To quote Howard Roark

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 04/16/2011 - 14:53

Speaking of Ayn Rand

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 04/16/2011 - 08:53

 

Don't forget The Fountainhead.

In maybe/probably my second favorite Gary Cooper movie, Howard Roark is forced by principle to destroy his own creation.

But on the positive side, he gets Patricia Neal.

 

 

My favorite?

The Frank Capra classic, way super double highly rated and maybe my all time favorite movie, Meet John Doe.


To quote Ayn Rand

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 17:11

 

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
 
The smallest minority on earth is the individual.
 
Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
 
There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
 
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
 
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.
 
If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.
 
The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed.
 
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
 
Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically;  they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.
 
Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
 
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
 
Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.
 
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.  They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
 
Truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
 
 
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