[George Smiley]

Here's a link to an article in Capitalism Magazine entitled On The Left-Wing Reaction to John Galt, Ayn Rand, and Tea Parties.

Well worth the read, and germane to our discussion.

Don't try to post it here, you'll get in trouble (I did because of the way I circumvented the posting process to get the link up in an article.)

[Billthedrill]

Great article. I wonder how many of those critics realize how much they sound like characters in the novel that they haven't read. Not many, would be my guess. As the author points out, Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, with the artificialities necessary to fiction an inherent part. What is astonishing, and it will be apparent in the next chapter, is how very accurate the events of AS turned out to be right down to last detail.

I love Whittaker Chambers and think that Witness is the finest piece of Cold War literature ever penned, but in his criticism of AS he committed the cardinal sin of the critic - there is not a single indication in it that he had actually read the book he was criticizing. His was the outrage of the convert at the defiant apostate, I think. But what he found objectionable about the novel is the very least part of it, IMHO.

Of course the left will sneer. It is, after all, what they do best. Declaring a looter like Madoff a capitalist is simply proof that they don't know the very terms of the discussion. But they'd better be concerned about one thing - if even those of us who aren't ubermenschen decide that enough is enough there won't be enough government revenue to support their precious social programs and printing money without it is a freight train to disaster.