xsquidgator
Member
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2007
- Messages
- 835
Atlas Shrugged contains several vital messages that you may well have a sense of already, but need to hear articulated. These messages resonate strongly with our current struggles to be left alone by the government.
#1) The law descending into a horrible tangled mass of conflicting rules and regulations is no accident. If you read Unintended Consequences, the Henry Bowman character clearly articulates how the (gun) laws are written so that it is literally impossible for some gun owners to bring themselves into compliance with the law, no matter how much they want to or no matter how much they're willing to pay. The protagonist in Atlas Shrugged comes to a similar realization towards the end of the book, when the oppressive socialist government is threatening him with prosecution for violating a number of socialist laws. He despairs to the government agent who's leaning on him that he CAN'T follow the government's law, they've set it up so that the law is so complex that it CAN'T be followed without breaking part of it. And the important message? The government agent gleefully tells him, "Of course!" It's meant to be that way! When EVERYONE is guilty of breaking some law, then the government has a secret control handle on EVERY person in the country. In this situation, they KNOW that if they pick you at random and dig and investigate you, they will find something you've done wrong, innocently, and they can threaten you with prosecution for breaking the law. In this way they can pressure you to testify falsely in a trial, or do anything else they want you to do.
A lot of people think the BATFE, FBI, IRS etc WANT the gun (and tax) laws to be so convoluted so that they'll be able to screw people over like this for their own ends.
That's an important message you won't see taught in any government school.
#2) Atlas Shrugged teaches how the Marxist message "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a message of tyranny. There's a scene somewhere in the middle of the book where some of the characters encounter an abandoned factory town in the midwest US where the owner and the workers of the factory turned the whole place into a socialist experiment guided by this maxim. I didn't realize until reading Rand's explanation of how logically this message enables tyranny.
After all, who could have a problem with you giving as much to the collective as you're able? Especially if the collective gives you back what you need? Well, this is a recipe for tyranny, because YOU don't get to decide what you need, some government bureaucrat does. And if they decide you only "need" 1300 calories a day, then that's all you get. In a FREE society, the ONLY person who should decide what YOU need is YOU. Whether it's health care, food, guns, or whatever, the only reasonable way is to allow each individual person to decide what he or she NEEDS most, and to allow him or her to spend his own money to purchase the items or services that he or she needs.
I see strong parallels with the Brady bunch and gun-grabbers who spout off slogans like "nobody NEEDS a .50BMG rifle" or "no one NEEDS a semi-auto AK47 clone". Says them! I didn't use to think I "needed" one but like many people, seeing what happened to New Orleans after Katrina changed my mind in a big way. I am the only person who should decide what I need, especially when it comes to the important choice of if and what kind of small arms I want for the defense of my home and family.
Read Unintended Consequences. Read Atlas Shrugged. I was introduced to both of these books within the last 3-4 years and imo they are truly examples of books with critical messages each of us should ponder. After reading these, I understand much better why authoritarian governments try to ban certain literature. Big government advocates would like to keep us all from getting dangerous ideas about our own self-determination from books like these.
