This is Ayn Rand Speaking

Do you know who I am? I am the most creative thinker of the twentieth century. And do you know what I see? I see a world teetering on the brink of disaster. I see a world hell-bent and out of control. I see a world spinning closer and closer to a devastation so vast, your morality cannot behold it. You moral cannibals, you have established a cult of death.

But you already know that. Clearly you think something is amiss, otherwise you would not have called upon me to blog my ideals. Capitalism is once again threatened. When I say capitalism, I of course mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism with a separation of state and economics, much like the separation of church and state. It is the only system fundamentally opposed to war and the only one based on the recognition of individual rights. Give my books Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness a look. They’re as pertinent as ever.

This debacle in Wisconsin has drawn my interest, especially after the student whose computer I’ve borrowed to write this went on a long rant about it (it was a fair trade – the computer for my presence. Though said student was unreasonably unimpressed). Apparently your neighbors to the East have caught themselves amidst some “prairie fire” in a desire to cut state budget (http://www.startribune.com/politics/116541203.html). You might at first think I would be supportive of such a situation – John Galt created his own strike after all, didn’t he? People should think for themselves, shouldn’t they? A strike against “the doctrine that life is guilt” (pg 925) is necessary, isn’t it? But I do not think that this uproar is such a strike. Looking at the rhetoric used at the protests tells me just as much.

People have claimed on this place that you call the internet that John Galt was an organizer, a striker, and thus a voice for union workers. This blogger states that I am against labor unions but claims that Galt was, in fact, “organizing a strike by self-selected elites against the common man, but he was a union organizer and a strike leader nevertheless” (http://vannevar.blogspot.com/2009/08/ayn-rand-john-galt-unions.html). Clearly this blogger is sorely mistaken. Galt is not a union organizer. He is a leader of reason. “There is a difference between our strike and all those you’ve practiced for centuries: our strike consist not of making demands, but of granting them,” I wrote on page 925 of Atlas Shrugged. Union leaders, like those in Wisconsin, are continuously making demands – and through their demands, negatively affecting our economy. This protest is no different than anything that has come before. Besides, the blogger voices his support for the Pope. And everyone knows that Christianity is the kindergarten of Communism.

The opposing side of this battle is not fairing much better. This article from the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/politics/20wisconsin.html) quoted a supporter of Governor Walker’s proposal, who said, “You don’t care about this country! Shame on you, you’re selfish.” I shudder to think how widespread this idea of selfishness still is. It is your very moral code that has gotten you into this mess in the first place! Man’s only moral commandment is “Thou shalt think” (page 932). But that does not deal with morality – it deals with reason. Your idea of morality “is a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain” (page 964). It is a code that “forbids you to cast the first stone, has forbidden you to admit the identity of stones and to know when or if you’re being stoned” (page 965). It is “…a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man” (page 958). Being selfish is not a sin; no, “the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another” (page 932). Do these people who go out to protest – whether in favor or Walker’s cuts or against – go because they care about their own self-interest, or because they wish to submit their mind to someone else? Too many of the pro-cut protestors say they have faith in Governor Walker. Leaving my distaste for the word “faith” aside, I instead wonder whether this people support Walker because they think he is aiding in their self-interest, or if they are simply conceding to his form of thought. And if this man is not thinking for himself, then his support for his country is another form of concession: “you concede it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has not right to values and will not keep them” (page 966).

So what is to be done? Neither side in Wisconsin is worth supporting – they are both blind to reason, “turning the earth into a sacrificial furnace” (page 967). We must turn away from this established code and create a new one, one that supports in the inner truth of man’s mind and the premise that “man is an end to himself, not the means to the ends of others, that man’s life, his freedom, his happiness are his by inalienable rights” (page 972). Those of you who have a shred of decency left will pay heed – and learn to respect yourselves once more.

The student whose computer I have borrowed is spouting some nonsense about a violation in trade agreement. I fear I must depart. Ayn Rand, out.