Could'a, Would'a, Should'a.

The President is not just another man. The presidency is as close to a secular "higher power" as we have. We might even think of it as a trinity, consisting of the Office of the Presidency (the father), the person (the son), and the ineffable and ever-changing nature of the relationship between those three bodies and the nation as a whole (the holy spirit). The person, much like Jesus of Nazareth to the Christians, is both a divine embodiment of the Office of the Presidency and wholly one of us. As such, the President is a reflection of us. He can only give what we are willing to receive. He can only teach us insofar as we are willing to learn. He can only shepherd us where we are willing to go. We may not expect more from him than we have made ourselves worthy of.

I am sympathetic to the views being voiced by many of my fellow liberals and progressives today. I, too, am disappointed. I, too, feel hopeless. I, too, wonder whether I can vote for Obama in 2012 - or whether I will even vote at all. But I do not, for one, single, solitary moment regret my vote, nor any of the time and energy I spent working for the election of Barack Obama in 2008. I do not believe that he has let me down personally just because I haven't gotten everything I wanted when I wanted it. I do not care to Monday-morning quarterback about which candidate may or may not have fared better under these circumstances.

If anything, I blame myself. I, like many, many people I know, did not have our president's back in 2010. We rested on our laurels, content to have put our candidate in the White House two years earlier, somehow believing that our efforts in 2008 would automatically bring about all of the changes we were dreaming of. We were tired. It had been a long eight years and an arduous campaign. We breathed a deep sigh of relief and never reengaged. I, for one, ceased nearly all political activism and awareness for about a year. I barely lifted a finger during the health care debate, except for the occasional futile argument with family and friends on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the President was actually doing shit. For two years he battled the tyranny of the minority in the United States Senate, where the 111th session of Congress set an all-time record for use of the filibuster. Then, in 2010, we let a bunch of ideological extremists infiltrate the halls of Congress. Off-year elections are a pain in the ass to begin with, but this one seemed even more so, what with the proliferation of downright idiotic candidates vomiting whatever inaccurate and irrelevant bullshit about the constitution or the founding fathers that they'd heard from some right-wing radio loony (usually Glenn Beck) that morning. Unfortunately, we let enough of them into office to seriously impact the ability of the president to accomplish anything at all. And now we're all sad and disappointed that Obama didn't find a way to get us what we wanted. Well what a bunch of whiny little bitches we are.

Republicans in the United States Congress have just successfully executed a massive-scale, hostage-taking, extortion scheme. Now you can call that "negotiating" if you want and you can bemoan Obama's failed strategy, but that's a bit like saying you failed at parenting because a gang of thugs just crashed through your door, held their guns to your daughter's head and demanded that you blow each one of them unless you want to clean little Suzy's brains off the floor later. You'd do it. You'd do more than that if need be. No amount of good parenting before the incident could have changed a single thing about the outcome. You were going to blow those fuckers one way or another.

But that's all beside the point. Look...it is our nature, as liberals, to prefer decent human beings over the alternative. When given a choice, we will always choose introspection over bluster, compassion over self-interest, humanity over greed, kindness over toughness, and rationality over insanity. This is who we are. We can't help it. If we changed, we'd be...well, we wouldn't be liberals anymore. This is why we will raise our children to be decent and compassionate human beings even though we know that they'd probably be better off if we raised them to be greedy, self-centered little motherfuckers. We just can't do it.

And so, we cannot turn around and say, "Goddammit, why are you so fucking nice?" to the guy we elected because he represents what's best in us. Even if we pretend for a moment that there was something Obama could have done differently - that he could have played dirtier or focused more on the politics rather than on the reality and on what was best for the nation - we cannot ask him to suddenly become that guy. Every time he stepped up to the mic, I found myself hoping against hope that he would open up a can of whoop-ass and stop trying to be so goddamned reasonable and civilized (in stark contrast to the disingenuous, grandstanding histrionics of the GOP).

But that's exactly what sets him apart from the GOP. He refuses to do it. He refuses to stoop to the level of a retarded chinchilla in order to score a few points. What's more, the only time he is genuinely dishonest is when he's actually trying to give those assholes a little bit of cover by pretending that they aren't completely full of shit and that their positions aren't as harmful as they actually are. Republicans get out there and say that Obama is trying to bring down the Republic with socialism. Obama says, "Well, we have some disagreements, but we're working in good faith to close the gap." He's giving them a chance. He's leading by example. Again, you can call that weak, but I happen to be proud that I helped elect someone who won't actively lower the discourse.

If the nation won't let someone govern with dignity and self-respect, fuck the nation, not the president. We can all tweet and post and blog to our heart's content about what Obama should've, could've done (or what someone else would've done), but maybe we should get off our asses and actively do something about it. We know what's happening to our country, but we don't want to sacrifice a damn thing to stop it. We just want to bitch at the president. We did the right thing in 2008, but an election does not a revolution make. When's the fucking revolution already?

Dick & Harry & The Debt Ceiling

I've been trying to find a way to articulate what is most infuriating about the current debt ceiling debacle. It's not easy because the infuriating element is almost too obvious and yet so absurd that it doesn't seem plausible that this could be what is bringing us to the precipice of possible financial calamity. Now...forget all about the possible financial calamity. It doesn't matter worth a damn what anyone believes about whether or not world markets will meltdown if the United States defaults on its debt for the first time in history. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. The GOP's apparent willingness to test that scenario is not the problem. After all, one should stand on principle regardless of the possible outcomes, right? No, the problem is much, much stupider than that. An analogy is probably the best way to elucidate this...

Let's imagine a newlywed couple...and just because we can, let's imagine they're gay. (This has absolutely no bearing on the analogy.) We'll call them Dick and Harry. Now Harry is a little on the plump side, as he's a bit of a foodie. He's always been a little thick in the middle, including when he met Harry. Harry doesn't eat less or work out more, but he benefits from a faster metabolism. He's that guy that can just eat everything in sight and never gain a pound. Bastard.

So as the years go by, Dick and Harry eat their way through life. Harry appreciates nothing more than a gourmet meal. Dick gorges on bacon cheeseburgers, bacon-wrapped hotdogs, cheese fries with bacon, and so on. Through the years, Dick and Harry feed each other, literally and figuratively. Amazingly, they maintain their height-weight proportionality over time, though they both have slightly elevated cholesterol.

One day, Dick says to Harry, "Look at you. You're a disthgusthting pig. You have GOT to get the eating under control, you." (It's just a mildly sibilant "s," I assure you.)

And Harry is all like, "Um...I've always been this way. Besides, not only do you eat every bit as much as me, but you're the one who always wants shitty greasy food when I let you choose. Now get over here and give papa bear a kiss, you skinny little queen."

Well Harry has just HAD it with Dick. (Lately, he's even found himself thinking about seeing Marcus Bachmann to get cured of his gayness. Again, nothing at all to do with the analogy.) He wants a change and he wants it NOW.

"If you don't sthop eating stho much and losthe 50 poundsth by nextht Friday," Dick says, "I'm going to sthtart breaking and shitting on everything in thisth housth."

Harry is stupefied.

"But Dick...You live here. If you break and shit on everything, you'll be stuck in a house full of broken things that are covered in shit. Why don't you just leave me?"

"Becausthe," says Dick, "that would totally sthcrew up the analogy."

"Oh," says Harry. "Well, don't you think you might have handled this a little differently?"

"Like how?" Asks Dick. Dick asks.

"Well, for starters," says Harry, "you could stop bringing home triple bacon cheeseburgers with extra large milkshakes for dinner every other night. When it's YOUR turn to make food choices for us, try making better choices...if it's so important to you."

"But I'm not the one with the problem," Dick weakly protests. "Thisth isth YOUR problem, Harry. YOUR problem. Not mine."

"But Dick. Dick, dick, dick. Listen to me, Dick," Harry pleads. "I've always been this way. I'm fine with who I am. I never claimed to be anything other than a big guy who loves food. Plus, when I choose the meal, it usually involves something much more healthful for us than war and tax breaks for the rich...um, I mean other than cheese steaks and french fries bathing in sausage gravy. If you want to talk about our long-term health, I'm more than happy to sit down and have a civilized conversation about how we get our cholesterol down. I couldn't agree more that we need to discipline ourselves a bit, but you can't just barge in here and start calling me a disgusting pig and threatening to break and shit all over everything we own unless I change MY ways by next Friday. That's not cool, Dick. Not cool."

Sensing that he has made some headway, Harry coyly approaches Dick and places his open palm on Dick's chest. "Let's sit down, have a nice glass of wine, watch an episode of Glee, and see where the evening takes us. What do you say, sugar bear?"

Dick closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and imagines the deep, hard, unlubricated ass-fucking he's going to give Harry later that night.

"Sthounds great, honey."

[CURTAIN]

The Google Crime Unit

Penn & Teller's Bullshit! somehow escaped my notice for eight straight seasons, so I am catching up on the seasons that are available to stream on Netflix. One of the first episodes I watched was "The Death Penalty." While citing the fallibility of human beings (and the government, in particular, in Penn's view) as a primary concern about putting people to death, Penn makes the following off-handed remark: "Now if Google were in charge of the death penalty...I might consider it. The Google kids don't seem to fuck up much." Now I don't think he'd actually consider changing his anti-death penalty position, but he raises a very interesting point about the criminal justice system in general.

Imagine this: When you are arrested for a crime, you are given a choice. You may proceed through the standard criminal justice system, with prosecutors, defense attorneys, a judge, and a jury of your peers - OR - you can elect to let the new crime unit at Google investigate and hand down a binding verdict. The new crime unit at Google uses the most advanced technology known to man. They don't have elections to worry about. They are paid to get it right - and they always do.

Now, consider the following two questions:

1. You've just been arrested for murder. You are guilty. Which option do you choose?

2. You've just been arrested for murder. You are innocent. Which option do you choose?

If you're like me, you choose Google if you're innocent and the criminal justice system if you're guilty. This is not to criticize the criminal justice system for occasionally failing to convict guilty persons. The system was designed to favor the acquittal of a guilty man over the imprisonment of an innocent one. Sadly, it seems to have swung, in many cases, in the other direction, favoring the conviction of anyone, at any cost. It's not that I think I would have a good chance, as a guilty man, of escaping the criminal justice system - only that I would have A chance. More importantly, the Google option would provide an innocent man with a significantly better chance of being exonerated.

Why Weiner Shouldn't Pull Out...of Office

So Anthony Weiner is going to "seek treatment," huh? For what? The human condition? The most prevalent "disease" known to man? The only treatment I know for a man's raging obsession with pussy is death. When will we learn this? When will we stop pretending to be shocked that a man has gone trolling for some play on the side? Better yet, when will we learn that if we'd just get real and stop pretending that monogamy is sustainable, maybe these guys wouldn't have to be so goddamned creepy in their quest for strange?

The GOP's insistence that he should resign is just plain laughable, so I won't waste much time on it, except for a brief recap: David Vitter, who fucked prostitutes, is still a sitting Senator. (Incidentally, Vitter replaced one of the loudest critics of Bill Clinton's infidelity, Bob Livingston, who then had to resign when it was found out that he had fucked women who were not his wife.) John Ensign, who coerced one of his aides into an extramarital affair and then paid her family $96,000 in hush money, only resigned when it became clear that he would not be re-elected and wanted to ensure that the GOP held the seat. These are just the most recent examples of GOP hypocrisy. The GOP has absolutely zero moral standing to make so much as a peep about Anthony Weiner.

As for the Democrats... What a bunch of spineless cowards. First, there's the chauvinism necessary to be blindly concerned, from a political perspective, about Weiner's wife. You may not immediately jump to the conclusion that she was unaware of her husband's e-philandering, that she necessarily disapproves, or that she hasn't been cruising for cock herself. The terms of his marriage are none of our goddamned business. If Ms. Abedin needs comfort, that's a job for her close friends and family. We are fully entitled to have a good chuckle over the unfortunate coincidence (or self-fulfilling prophecy?) of the Congressman's last name, but that's it.

Congressman Weiner...please, please, please do not resign. Do not succumb to this swirling hysteria of hypocritical prudery. Stand up and say this:

I. Like. Pussy. Like most men, my entire post-pubescent life has essentially been one long, desperate quest to get my dick wet as often as possible, with as many different women as possible. I have attempted to disguise this fact by pretending to have other interests and ambitions, but mostly, I've just been chasing ass. Why do you think we seek wealth and/or power? Because we like working really, really hard? Ha. Ha! Sorry. We're seeking wealth and/or power because wealth and power make it easier to get pussy. (This episode of South Park says it all.)

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this fact, because I know - and YOU know - that it is completely, utterly, exceedingly normal. It is not something that needs to be "cured." In fact, it cannot be "cured." It is only a failing to the extent that our society has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the simple, natural, biological, physiological, evolutionary reality of the situation, forcing people, in many cases, to lie about it.

Let me try an analogy out on you. Is it really so hard to believe that I can love Italian food above all else, but still occasionally want a little Thai? Should I really have to sneak around to get some fucking spicy red curry once in a while? Hell, I'll even bring it home and share it if you want. And if you occasionally need to get some soul food, I can dig that. (The portions are so generous!) Sure...some caution and moderation are required. One should, for example, stay away from undercooked meat. Also, too much spicy food might get the old heartburn acting up. In other words, common sense is required. All I know is that an occasional diversion makes me love and appreciate chicken saltimbocca all the more.

I am a human being who has done nothing worse than quite a large percentage of you all have done. The public at large may not hold me to a higher standard simply because I am a member of congress. My wife is free to exercise her options. My constituents are free to dump me in the next election, if they so choose, but I will not resign.

It is the repression of perfectly natural urges that causes so much unhappiness. We teach young girls to expect a Prince Charming who, upon falling in love, will never want to look at another woman again as long as they both shall live. Not only does this set them up for some serious disappointment, it completely discounts the reality that many of them will also be unhappy with only one sexual partner. Yes, women appear to be better at sexual monogamy, but this does not mean that they are happier with it. If women cheat less, we cannot assume that it is for lack of desire.

Let's end this charade. Let's stop pretending to be shocked and appalled every time we learn that someone has cheated, as if this hasn't been going on for all of recorded time. It's just embarrassing.

Why Obama's Bounce Will Last

I have a proposal. I will stipulate that George W. Bush is single-handedly responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden if Sarah Palin and her like-minded conservative colleagues will stipulate that he is also single-handedly responsible for the economic calamity of the past few years. Fair enough?

Jesus H. Christ. Really, people? We can't even pull together on this simple moment of national relief? Don't you realize that you'd look better if you could, for a single, solitary moment, set aside the all-consuming hatred you have for the President of the United States enough to just offer an unconditional congratulations and maybe even an iota of gratitude? Hell...that's probably asking too much. I'd settle for a statement that simply thanks the troops. Instead, you've gone out of your way to pull credit away from Obama and heap it onto Bush. By the way, when you insinuate that Bush "set up" the kill, as Sarah Palin did today, you're also contributing evidence to the theory that he had all of the necessary information all along but failed to act on it because, ultimately, it was good politics to have Osama out there. Cheney's military-industrial cronies certainly weren't complaining about your failure to capture or kill him, were they?

If Bush had been in office when Bin Laden was killed, Karl Rove would have had the body stuffed and mounted on the front of the reelection bus and would have pulled over on every main street in America so that Bush could have his picture taken pissing on the corpse. While I think that Obama is being incredibly classy about this, he has no choice but to take a victory lap. The Right has been calling him a foreign-born, anti-American socialist for the last two years. He's earned the right to stuff this down their throats.

I think that this will, in fact, be a turning point. I predict that a good portion of his popularity "bounce" will last. Here's why: A certain segment of the population has been skeptical of Obama all along. These are the people who held their noses and voted for him simply because they couldn't imagine letting Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House. They're good, intelligent people with only vestigial traces of xenophobia and racial discomfort. For the past two years, their sub-conscious fears have been stoked by the non-stop deluge of bile streaming from the Right. Their judgment has been clouded.

This event will snap them out of that haze. This will provide the clarity they've been looking for. There is suddenly a razor-sharp distinction between the petulant histrionics of the GOP and the wonkish maturity of the Obama administration. While the GOP has been busy spewing a stream of baseless, interchangeable, pejoratives at the President, the President has been busy taking care of business. The difference is suddenly crystal clear.

More importantly, this will allow them to feel firm in the conviction they've had all along - that Obama is an American through and through. They can see this now. They're smart enough. They no longer have to give a shit what their redneck neighbor Dell and obnoxious uncle Larry think. They no longer have to feel insecure objecting to that sort of ignorant insanity. Obama gave the order to put a bullet in Osama's head. Hell, even if the conspiracy theories turned out to be true, the man just earned his bona fides by taking down the most notorious villain in U.S. history. If they didn't want him on our team before, they sure do now.

Those people will no longer be susceptible to the dog-whistle politics of today's GOP. They'll finally be able to focus on the real issues and block out all of the peripheral nonsense that isn't going to put food on their tables. They won't always agree with Obama. They might not even vote for him again, but if they don't, it will be because a sensible and sane Republican stepped up and waged a dignified campaign worthy of their vote. The odds of that happening make me feel pretty good about Obama's 2012 prospects.

Atlas Shrugged Review - Part III (of III)

[Read Part I and Part II]

Now that we've gotten the book out of the way, we can get to the pertinent political question: What are we to make of the current attempt to justify conservative economic policy with the writings and beliefs of Ayn Rand?

Notice that I said economic policy. You don't hear the Tea Party ranting and raving about Objectivist-style liberty when it comes to social issues like abortion or gay marriage. You certainly won't find them acknowledging Rand's hard-line atheism. These aspects of their heroine's philosophy simply don't comport with what they're trying to accomplish. So they ignore the implications and the imperatives that would come with being true believers...while claiming to be true believers.

Rand did not write fiction in the style of Camus and Sartre, whose great works were esoteric works of contemplative existentialism with provocatively ambiguous messages and implications. In a brief epigraph at the front of Atlas Shrugged, Rand says, "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written - and published - is my proof that they do." Based on this statement, we must first reconsider the existence of Hobbits, the Tin Man, and the virgin birth. Then we must take her at her word and read Atlas Shrugged not as allegory, but as a true depiction of the world as she saw it. In doing so, we are not permitted to dismiss as literary hyperbole the otherworldly perfection of her protagonists or the ghastly degeneracy of her villains. We must hold them up against the corresponding characters of our time and determine whether her prognostications are applicable to the current debate.

This is where Rand's contemporary enthusiasts fail miserably, through some combination of ignorance, misinterpretation, and/or disingenuous misapplication. Whereas I am happy to admit my admiration for the actions and motivations of characters like Hank and Dagny (while admittedly doubting the existence of more than a handful of real-world counterparts), Randians are clearly unable to concede that the antagonists and the motives attributed to them are pure partisan fictions. Indeed, they hold that all opponents [read: liberals] are exactly as Rand describes them. They accept Rand's epigraph at face value as justification for vilifying their ideological opponents. Liberals, they say, will destroy the world as we know it. Ayn Rand said so. "That this book has been written - and published," is all the proof that they need.

Setting aside Rand's vehement and delusional misconceptions about liberals, let's take a moment to consider her virtues. She reserves her most ardent praise for the individual who, by sheer force of his nature, will, intelligence, and determination, devotes his entire existence to the conception and creation of great things. Her heroes are unflinchingly principled when it comes to issues of compensation, refusing to take what they haven't earned as forcefully as they refuse to pay more than the value of what someone else has provided them. They are, truly, great men and women.

I struggle to see how these people bear any resemblance to the bankers, hedge-fund managers, failed-but-richly-compensated CEOs, and corporate con-artists who seem to be the largest beneficiaries of the modern conservative movement. I fail to see, for example, how the health insurance industry - which creates nothing - fits into Rand's worldview. (It seems clear that Rand would prescribe a system in which patients pay doctors directly for the services provided.) I cannot imagine Rand approving of the schemes that debilitated the housing market or the derivatives that decimated the financial sector. All of these seem to be perfect embodiments of Rand's "looters" and "moochers." Yet these are the people that today's conservatives are protecting through their single-minded focus on destroying their opponents. Much like Rand, they are so hysterically fixated on the perceived evils of liberalism that they are unable to think rationally or constructively about the real issues of the day. They have no positive vision to speak of, only a fervent hatred of what they perceive to be the antithesis of their non-philosophy.

Whether they realize it or not, today's conservatives are radical, Kantian Deontologists. That is to say, they judge the morality of an action solely on the motives of the person doing it, irrespective of the consequences. Unfortunately, this particular brand of conservatism bastardizes this legitimate, if problematic, philosophical perspective by also presuming to know the motives of anyone who might be called a liberal. It should come as no surprise that they regard those motives as universally bad ones. Whatever liberals are doing at the moment - even if it's something conservatives have done in the past - can only lead to apocalyptic consequences because when liberals do it, they are acting on bad maxims, whereas when conservatives do it, they are acting on good maxims.

To that extent, modern conservatives are clearly Rand's disciples - and this is why we can't just get along. Liberals have positive ideas about what the world should look like. Conservatives merely detest liberals. Sure, liberals often think that conservatives have a tendency to be motivated by greed, xenophobia, racism, chauvinism, and other forms of ignorance, but conservatives believe that liberals are evil - not misguided, not cut from a different cloth - but motivated by powerful, metaphysical forces of darkness that seek to sew destruction and misery.

I am quite sure that most conservatives have not actually read Atlas Shrugged. It is also obvious that many others misunderstand and misapply what it says. No matter. Understanding the novel would not make their case any more substantive. They have latched onto Rand because somehow, somewhere, it was inserted into the conventional wisdom that Ayn Rand was a serious thinker - a philosopher queen - and that there must be some intellectual credibility behind a movement that claims her as its inspiration. That is why I chose to read Atlas Shrugged. I honestly hoped and sincerely expected that it would provide me with some deeper understanding of the logical basis of current conservative doctrine.

But Ayn Rand was not a serious thinker. Ayn Rand was a marvelous, if verbose, writer of fiction. Her logic is shoddy and her postulations go utterly unchallenged for want of plausibly-written adversaries. Setting up kerosene-soaked straw men, lighting them on fire, stomping on their ashes, and bottling the remains to be mixed into martinis is great fun, I'm sure, but it is not an impressive intellectual feat, to say the least. Adopting her writing as the theoretical basis of a political movement is a recipe for vacuous, counter-productive, and unresolvable conflict.

Atlas Shrugged Review - Part II

[Read Part I HERE.]

"I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need - and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling."

This is the first significant statement of belief that we hear from John Galt ("Who is John Galt?) shortly after we meet him in the Atlantis-like utopia inhabited by industrialists who have abandoned the real world to live lives that accord with their principles (though it's difficult to imagine today's gazillionaires being content with the lives of modest simplicity these folks have accepted). It is a theme that appears throughout the novel, leading up to Galt's consecration of it as the fundamental tenet of Objectivism. It is repeated countless times, as if repetition will make truth of the accusation that liberalism is fundamentally motivated by the belief that the greatest of men exist only for the sake of the least. She successfully tears that notion to shreds over and over again throughout Atlas Shrugged, but to what end?

d'Anconia makes this case early on after intentionally driving a large project into the ground to make a point:

Francisco shook his head regretfully. "I don't know why you should call my behavior rotten. I thought you would recognize it as an honest effort to practice what the whole world is preaching. Doesn't everyone believe that it is evil to be selfish? I was totally selfless in regard to the San Sebastian project. Isn't it evil to pursue a personal interest? I had no personal interest in it whatever. Isn't it evil to work for profit? I did not work for profit - I took a loss. Doesn't everyone agree that the purpose and justification of an industrial enterprise are not production, but the livelihood of it's employees? The San Sebastian Mines were the most eminently successful venture in industrial history: they produced no copper, but they achieved, in a lifetime, the equivalent of what they got for one day's work, which they could not do. Isn't it generally agreed that an owner is a parasite and an exploiter, that it is the employees who do all the work and make the product possible? I did not exploit anyone. I did not burden the San Sebastian Mines with my useless presence; I left them in the hands of the men who count. I did not pass judgment on the value of that property. I turned it over to a mining specialist. He was not a very good specialist, but he needed the job very badly. Isn't it generally conceded that when you hire a man for a job, it is his need that counts, not his ability? Doesn't everyone believe that in order to get the goods, all you have to do is need them? I have carried out every moral precept of our age. I expected gratitude and a citation of honor. I do not understand why I am being damned."

Again, the sophomoric distortion of the other side's ideas make for great lampooning, but not for worthy opposition to any serious statement of philosophy. Francisco would be indisputably correct...in a universe inhabited by people who believe "that it is evil to work for profit," or that owners are, by definition, "parasites and exploiters." The problem is we don't live in that universe. Sure, we live in a universe in which some owners have been known to be parasites and exploiters, but that does not translate into a belief that it is evil to be an owner. It translates into a belief that owners should not be parasites and exploiters.

Rand pulls a similar stunt on two well-known phrases, both of which she nonchalantly presumes to conflate with liberalism. First, she introduces us to Ivy Starnes, one of the two remaining siblings who ran the Twentieth Centry Motor Company into ruins through their implementation of a communistic business structure. In helping her find the Starnes brothers, the local police chief tells Dagny "There's all sorts of human beings to see in the world, there's murderers and criminal maniacs - but, somehow, I think these Starnes persons are what decent people shouldn't have to see." Now that we have a totally unbiased view of the character we're about to meet, Ivy explains: "We put into practice that noble historical precept: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Their plan was "defeated by the greed, the selfishness and the base, animal nature of men." "Things became very ugly indeed and went fouler every year," Ivy says. "It has cost me my faith in human nature. In four years, a plan conceived, not by the cold calculations of the mind, but by the pure love of the heart, was brought to an end in the sordid mess of policemen, lawyers and bankruptcy proceedings."

Rand has accomplished two things here. She has indiscriminately labeled all liberals as Marxists. With that out of the way, she claims to show that enterprises run by liberals according to liberal principles are doomed to failure - by merely recounting the failure of a fictional one. Worse yet, similarly fictional attempts to institute such principles all across the country have brought civilization to the precipice of complete meltdown. (Rand would undoubtedly be surprised to hear of the success of the worker-owned Wisconsin robotics firm and California bakery - to cite just two examples from Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story - that are run according to democratic and collectivist principles.)

And so, her beloved industrialists, so righteous that they could not go on in such a world, leave everything behind and set up a spartan commune in a hidden valley where they build their own humble abodes, barter for services, and basically start a new, ideal civilization from scratch. As hard as I try, it's difficult to imagine Jack Welch or the Koch brothers doing anything as high-minded as walking away from their vast fortune and the luxuries they affords them.

Rand also serves up "Money is the root of all evil," as uttered by the detestable Bertram Scudder (couldn't you tell by his name?), for d'Anconia to slash and burn for five long pages. In this case, not only does she deliberately pervert the spirit of the phrase, she inadvertently argues for its correctness (as properly understood) on both sides of the debate. "You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood - money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor." Both the producers and the looters are after the same thing - money. It is the pursuit of money that is regarded by the expression as the root of all evil, in which case the "moochers" and "looters" can just as easily be called "evil" for their determination to take it from the producers. Her attack of this aphorism has a self-defeating element which she ignores for the purposes of tying it around liberalism's neck.

If some of this is starting to sound redundant, you're getting an idea of what it's like to read this book. In Part III I will tie this all together in an attempt to show how current events are being shaped not only by Rand's shoddy attempt at philosophy, but by conservatives' misunderstanding of the Atlas Shrugged.

Read Part III HERE.

And now, for your entertainment, a little Francis Albert with Count Basie: