Leonid
"Against folly Gods themselves are powerless" Goete.
If we allowed this kind of idiotic society we apparently deserved it.

In 1957 the novel Atlas Shrugged was published. It became a
best-seller, was found in a Library of Congress survey to be the second
most influential book in America after The Bible.

Doesn't the fact that Atlas Shrugged is the second most influential book in the dung-heap that is America really say something to you? Especially when the other one is the BIBLE?!

Hey, always happy to lap up praise ... but this was simply an e-mail doing the rounds that I tarted up a little.

Damn good but.

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

* * * *

'NOT PC.'
**Setting Brushfires In People's Minds**

ORGANON ARCHITECTURE
**Integrating Architecture With Your Site**

Clearly demonstrates the "logical course of events" from a perspective of how collectivism has increasingly sacrificed individual rights in an effort to impose supposed altruistic goals for the sake of the "greater public good"

"They act as our servants in order to become our masters" and aside form offering brazen bribes for our votes, another great vote-winner is to offer that the state take care of those who want to be taken care of...but allways at the expense of the individual rights of those who choose to live as sovereign individuals.

Our only chance is to keep exposing the truth...reality is our only friend.

And for those who find it offensive to have Ayn Rand quoted on this site...Fuck you!

From Capitalism the Unknown Ideal..The anatomy of Compromise by Ayn Rand

It is, therefore,
important-for those who do not care to continue that suicidal process---to
consider a few rules about the working of principles in practice and about the
relation­ship of
principles to goals.

The three rules
listed below are by no means exhaustive; they are merely the first leads to the
understanding of a vast subject.

1. In any conflict
between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles,
it is the more consistent one who wins.

2. In any collaboration
between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles,
it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

3. When
opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the
advantage of the ration­al side; when they are not dearly
defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational
side.

1. When two
men (or groups) hold the same basic princi­ples, yet
oppose each other on a given issue, it means that at least one of them is
inconsistent. Since basic principles deter­mine the
ultimate goal of any long-range process of action, the person who holds a
dearer, more consistent view of the end to be achieved, will be more
consistently right in his choice of means; and the contradictions of his
opponent will work to his advantage, psychologically and existentially.

Psychologically,
the inconsistent person will endorse and propagate the same ideas as his
adversary, but in a weaker, diluted form--and thus will sanction, assist, and
hasten his adversary's victory, creating in the minds of their disputed
following the impression of his adversary's greater honesty and courage, while
discrediting himself by an aura of evasion and cowardice.

Existentially,
every step or measure taken to achieve their common goal will necessitate
further and more crucial steps or measures in the same direction (unless the
goal is rejected and the basic principles reverscd)-thus strengthening the
leadership of the consistent person and reducing the inconsis­tent
one to impotence.

The conflict
will follow that course regardless of whether the basic principles shared by
the two adversarics are right or wrong, true or false, rational or irrational.

For
instance, consider the conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats (and,
within each party, the same conflict between the "conservatives" and
the "liberals"). Since both parties hold altruism as their basic
moral principle, both advocate a welfare state or mixed economy as their
ultimate goal. Every government control imposed on the economy (regardless in
whose favor) necessitates the imposition of further controls, to
alleviate---momentarily--the disasters caused by the first control. Since the
Democrats are more consistently committed to the growth of government power,
the Republicans are reduced to helpless "me-too'ing," to inept
plagiarism of any program initiated by the Democrats, and to the disgraceful
confession implied in their claim that they seek to achieve "the same
ends" as the Democrats, but by different means.

It is
precisely those ends (altruism-collectivism-statism) that ought to be rejected.
But if neither party chooses to do it, the logic of the events created by their
common basic principles will keep dragging them both further and further to the
left. If and when the "conservatives" are kicked out of the game
altogether, the same conflict will continue between the "liberals"
and the avowed socialists; when the socialists win, the conflict will continue
between the socialists and the communists; when the communists win, the
ultimate goal of altruism will be achieved: universal immolation.

There is no
way to stop or change that process except at the root: by a change of
basic principles.

The evidence
of that process is mounting in every country on earth. And, observing it, the
unthinking begin to whisper about some mysterious occult power called a
"historical neces­sity" which, in some
unspecified way, by some unknowable means, has preordained mankind to collapse
into the abyss of communism. But there are no fatalistic "historical
necessi­ties":
the "mysterious" power moving the events of the' world is the awesome
power of men's principles which is mysteri­ous only to
the "practical" modern savages who were taught to discard it as
"impotent."

But--it
might be argued--since the advocates of a mixed economy are also advocating
freedom, at least in part, why does the irrational part of their mixture have
to win? This leads us to the fact that-

2. In any
collaboration between two men (or groups) who hold different basic principles,
it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

The rational
(principle, premise, idea, policy, or action) is that which is consonant with
the facts off reality; the irration­al is that which contradicts the
facts and attempts to get away with it. A collaboration is a joint
undertaking, a com­mon course of action. The rational (the good) has
nothing to gain from the irrational (the evil), except a share of its failures
and crimes; the irrational has everything to gain from the rational: a share of
its achievements and values. An industrialist does not need the help of a
burglar in order to succeed; a burglar needs the industrialist's achievement in
order to exist at all. What collaboration is possible between them and to what
end?

If an
individual holds mixed premises, his vices undercut, hamper, defeat, and
ultimately destroy his virtues. What is the moral status of an honest man who
steals once in a while? In the same way, if a group of men pursues mixed goals,
its bad principles drive out the good. What is the political status of a free
country whose government violates the citizens' rights once in a while7

Consider the
case of a business partnership: if one partner is honest and the other is a
swindler, the latter contributes nothing to the success of the business; but
the reputation of the former disarms the victims and provides the swindler with
a wide-scale opportunity which he could not have ob­tained on
his own.

Now consider
the collaboration of the semi-free countries with the communist dictatorships,
in the United Nations. To identify that institution is to damn it, so that any
criticism is superfluous. It is an institution allegedly dedicated to peace,
freedom, and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia--the most brutal
aggressor, the bloodiest dictatorship, the largest-scale mass-murderer and
mass-enslaver in all history--among its charter members. Nothing can be added
to that fact and nothing can mitigate it. It is so grotesquely evil an affront
to reason, morality, and civilization that no further discussion is necessary,
except for a glance at the conse­quences.

Psychologically,
the U.N. has contributed a great deal to the gray swamp of demoralization---of
cynicism, bitterness, hopelessness, fear and nameless guilt--which is
swallowing the Western world. But the communist world has gained a moral
sanction, a stamp of civilized respectability from the Western world it has
gained the West's assistance in deceiv­ing its victims--it has gained the
status and prestige of aa equal partner, thus establishing the notion that the'
difference between human rights and mass slaughter is merely a differ-once of
political opinion.

The declared
goal of the communist countries is the con­quest of the
world. What they stand to gain from a collabo­ration with
the (relatively) free countries is the latter's mate­rial,
financial, scientific, and intellectual resources; the free countries have
nothing to gain from the communist coun­tries.
Therefore, the only form of common policy or com­promise
possible between two such parties is the policy of property owners who make
piecemeal concessions to an armed thug in exchange for his promise not to rob
them.

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

It's one for the "Hall of Fame" category.

What really impresses me is that Peter did not (as most writers do often), exaggerate to make the point.

Bravo!