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  • From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Thought this list would appreciate this!
  • Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:42:46 -0800 (PST)

Although I'm sure your question is rhetorical, I'll say: I don't know , Bill.
I'm still trying to wrap my imagination atround some list members' (and
others, off-list) concepts of just how bad things might become in this
society and country. I am not one of the die-hard objectivists who thinks
Rand's philosophy was 100% inherently correct. I still think that purely
altruistic kindness and selflessness is an important part of humanity. But,
Rand does make fantastic thought provoking points like these below, which are
not only hard with which to argue, but also do seem an early predictor of our
current state..........

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


--- On Wed, 12/10/08, william Eggers <wce1482 AT yahoo.com> wrote:

> It sounds like this is saying that we as a country are in serious trouble
> and it may be the end of this country as we knew it growing up.  Now, what
> to do?
>



> --- On Wed, 12/10/08, bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> From: bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Thought this list would appreciate
> this!
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 10:17 AM
>
> Thanks Jeanne: Ayn Rand had the below to say about
> society, money, laws, etc.;
> see how much it appears that we may be headed in her wrong
> direction :
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Rise of the double standard" foretold in Atlas
> Shrugged
>
> If you have never read Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand,
> you should. In one
> passage, a stereotypically "liberal" New York
> journalist named Bertram
> Scudder was overheard by South American copper magnate
> Francisco d’Aconia
> stating to a girl during a social event, "Don’t let
> him disturb you. You
> know, money is the root of all evil – and he’s the
> typical product of
> money."
>
> Rand gave d’Aconia some very excellent lines here to
> describe
> "money." Aside from being, at least from an
> "individualist"
> point of view, a concise and brilliant overview of what
> money, people, good and
> evil really are, Rand used d’Aconia to foreshadow exactly
> what is happening
> today. Ironically, one of Rand’s philosophical devotees
> was Alan
> Greenspan—the man who set in motion the exact
> circumstances described below.
>
> "...Then you will see the rise of the double
> standard—the men who live
> by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create
> the value of their
> looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue.
> In a moral society,
> these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to
> protect you against
> them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and
> looters-by-law—men
> who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed
> victims—then money becomes its
> creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob
> defenseless men, once
> they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot
> becomes the magnet for
> other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then
> the race goes, not to
> the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at
> brutality. When force is
> the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And
> then that society
> vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
>
> "Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch
> money. Money is the
> barometer of a society’s virtue. 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 that money is
> flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in
> favors—when you see that men
> get richer by graft and by 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. Money is so noble a medium that it does not
> compete with guns and it
> does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a
> country to survive as
> half-property, half-loot.
>
> "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."
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --- On Wed, 12/10/08, Jeanne Driese
> <jeanne13 AT earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> Sent to me by a friend...the answer is so obvious, but yet
> we as a country
> just can't seem to "get it"Maybe I should
> send it to our
> politicions?? Unfortunatley I don't think they would
> get it. :(((
>
> > Jeanne
> > tnhillwoman
> > North East TN zone 6
> > A Modern Parable.
>
>
>
>
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