Why ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Matters

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MolimOrion

Veteran XV
Why ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Matters

When I mentioned to friends I was reading Atlas Shrugged their response was uniform: “Oh that. I read it in college but now I have moved on to adult subjects.” These were liberal friends, you understand, and I couldn’t help but wonder why they would want to discourage me from reading a literary classic that is selling better now than at any time in its history. In fact, it has recently moved up to become Amazon’s 37th best-selling novel. Last week it was 44. By the time you read this it will have moved higher.


The reason becomes immediately apparent upon reading. It might have been written yesterday. Rand’s description of a socialist state taken over by “looters,” people who cannot create or produce but who seize power under the rubric of “fairness” is so spot-on accurate of today’s administration it’s scary. At over one thousand pages long, Atlas Shrugged is not a weekend read and made me question whether my fun-loving liberal friends actually read it, or read the Cliff’s Notes version which is also selling at unprecedented levels.
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I could go on. Rand certainly does. This book might have profited by some serious editing. This was her last work of fiction before devoting herself entirely to laying out her philosophy of objectivism, which holds that there are absolute truths and objective means of measuring them. The very word “objectivist” is anathema to liberals who deal in endless “sophisticated” variations of gray.

The solution Rand offers is for the men and women of industry and business to simply withdraw their skills and energies from the market rather than place them in the service of an evil socialist state. In “Atlas Shrugged” they go to a secret valley in the mountains. In real life, millions of Americans are reevaluating their efforts in light of the Obama administration’s punitive and senseless tax and spend policy. It is a viable option and one which every right-minded American must consider. And by right-minded, I mean Americans who understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to whom the pursuit of happiness is holy but the guarantee of happiness is a cruel joke perpetrated by the present gang of looters in the White House and Congress who couldn’t make a buck if their lives depended on it.
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Discuss.
 
She strikes me as a pompous intellectual who gets into shouting matches with religious types over god.

Anyone who can't just recline and let people believe what they want is a douche bag to me.
 
In an overly wordy way Rand perfectly describes what is happening now 60 years ago. Talk about seeing the future. The dollar sign in my sig is in homage to the dollar branded cigarettes from Atlas Shrugged.
 
haniblecter said:
She strikes me as a pompous intellectual who gets into shouting matches with religious types over god.

Anyone who can't just recline and let people believe what they want is a douche bag to me.
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i dont recall any video of her shouting... rather it was the religious creatards doing the shouting.

also, blind faith is dangerous for society. so no, reclining isn't an option.
 
if only you tards actually read what the stimulus entails instead of hearing foxnews' chicken little gross reinterpretation.

oh and the economy is suddenly recovering... im sure bush's policies are to thank am i right? lol
 
I wish the randites would stick to their objectivist shit and refuse to use anything created by the statist government, like the internet

can't wait for the grand scheme of GOING GALT to fail the moment they realize that there's no internets on the island :-[
 
Copy\Paste? Check
The word "discuss"? Check
Nothing relevant added? Check

Right out of the Orbital123 handbook of douchebaggery.
 
HaPpY said:
if only you tards actually read what the stimulus entails instead of hearing foxnews' chicken little gross reinterpretation.
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You're too stupid to realize that this^^ implies that YOU are, in fact, the one watching FoxNews.


I read Reuters, AP, and BBC papers. I listen to NPR. I watch my local news station and NBC nightly news--and sometimes Nightline.
 
FngrBANG said:
You're too stupid to realize that this^^ implies that YOU are, in fact, the one watching FoxNews.


I read Reuters, AP, and BBC papers. I listen to NPR. I watch my local news station and NBC nightly news--and sometimes Nightline.
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no i get all my news from the daily show :D

and rss feeds from: economist, physorg, bbc, digg
 
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