[Fred Douglass]

Oh Lordy, Where's Ayn When We Need Her? In yestiddy's Wall Street Journal (1/9/09------p. W11), in a column entitled "De Gustibus", Stephen Moore recounts the critical points made by Ayn Rand in her great novel "Atlas Shrugged". I am sure one of you compootah geniuses could source it up and (legally?) reprint it here.

My wonderful and wondrous father said that the reason Ayn Rand was so loathed and reviled by American liberals was that she---a refugee from Stalinist Russia-----was able to subtly, yet forcefully point out the irrefutable similarities between socialism (and its more extreme offspring, communism) and western liberal philosophy and action.

The problem with liberal egg-heads is that they (seemingly) never have gotten their hands dirty, and/or tried to preserve the fruits of their own honest labor. Sure, societal "glue"---in the form of helping the less fortunate and able---is critical to defusing riots, class warfare and other lamentable eruptions of envy. But when charity becomes systematized and an industry unto itself (especially when run by the gummint) THEN you get the runaway train. Big government, wouldn't you agree, is composed of a myriad of myopic little fiefdoms and it never meshes well or efficiently. It ALWAYS trends toward "mandatory this and mandatory that" as its efforts to control individual liberty breed more contempt and rebelliousness. Money today is freedom. Period. So-o-o-o, guess what the gummint does? Right! Aside from robbing us and bribing us with our own money---how 'bout those seatbelt laws?

The trouble with utopians is that they ALWAYS concoct "solutions" which go against human nature. When anything or anyone goes against human nature, it/they must acquire means to quell disagreement----all the way up to, and including, permanently "silencing" critics and rebels. If you wonder why liberals LIE all the time (look at the foo keen media!), it's because if they DIDN'T lie---and actually spelled out exactly what their aims and methods of achieving them were-----normal folks would HANG 'EM ALL. Lordy knows, there's still enuff trees.

Caveat socialistas!

A pitchforks in every closet!

Chow-dah!