Just So You Know

Atlas Shrugged

I’m listening to Atlas Shrugged again. The first time I started it, I couldn’t stop. It’s amazing how many of the catch phrases from the book I’m hearing from the mouths of pundits on the news and I’m not talking the positive phrases. The lack of responsibility, the constant blaming of someone else until it reached a nebulous unknown responsible party, we should help the smaller people because they deserve a chance even if they don’t deliver, and the lack of leadership taking a decision because it’s right and not because of popular opinion.

The human element should be more important than effectiveness and efficiency – James Taggart’s words have come out of the mouths of more than one environmental activist during the last several month.

The desire for mediocre businesses to be protected from better more efficient competition by government regulation reminds me of the big three automakers pleading at Congresses doorstep.

Hearing that people succeed not because they work and apply their brains but because they are lucky sounds so much like the Legislator who felt that those who built businesses from scratch and have succeeded are “winners in life’s lottery.”

Of what importance is an individual when the group is in trouble? What if the individual is the one who has the idea which keeps the group from starving? Why punish the individual for making the right decisions by making them give of their gains for those who made the wrong decisions? How many motivational and “success” speakers got their true start after a huge failure which left them bankrupt? I keep thinking of the quote attributed to Jimmy Cagney - - The government came in and gave us a check in one hand and took away the dreams with the other.

posted by Shondratasha @ 16:18