God has a sense of humor, choosing a Jewish atheist woman to serve as one of the 20th century's premiere prophets
This blog will be short and sweet because if you've already read Atlas Shrugged, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you have not, all I can say is I wouldn't consider my life to have been lived to the fullest had I not stumbled across what once upon a time was the second-best selling book in the English-speaking world to only the Bible.
As the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy and KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov tried to warn us, perhaps not so coincidentally in 1984 for the latter, American society was being infiltrated at all levels: the government, the media and the education system. This was dismissed as conspiracy theory. Well, that turned out to only be half-true. The half-false part is that it's no theory.
Here is the full-length interview with Bezmenov from 1984:
Besides the obvious in George Orwell whose works needn't be mentioned in this post because they're so self-explanatory that virtually anyone who has made it this far knows that Orwell was a prophet.
It's another 20th century prophet that I'd like to discuss for a moment. I'm sure some orthodox religious believers would call it utter blasphemy to suggest that God would make into a great prophet, a woman Jew who was Jewish in blood only as she is widely reported to have been an atheist (although this contention has been challenged, I am not interested in discussing that).
Atlas Shrugged was the most influential book I've ever read aside from the Bible, and I suggest anyone and everyone who hasn't read it yet do so and do so with an open mind. Think critically, and don't allow opinions other people manipulated you into thinking were your own fool you any longer. Start from scratch and see where you wind up. I'm betting it'll be somewhere near where most everyone else who has studied Rand has with respect to her work (agreement to one degree or another).
There are some affiliate links in this post to some of Rand's works for anyone new to her or anyone who is familiar but just hasn't developed the muster to tackle a book that long in either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. I recommend readers new to Rand start with Anthem. It's short, sweet, can be read in its entirety in just a couple of hours, and provides a simplified but nonetheless profound glimpse into Rand's philosophy, expounded upon in her later works.
If you're new to Rand, perhaps view check out the above links in this post and introduce yourself. Your mind will thank you later.
For a little sampling of what you can expect from Atlas Shrugged, here's an excerpt from Francisco's Money Speech, which to me ranks among the most profound, thought provoking soliloquies ever written, a mic drop moment hidden within one of the most profound works of philosophical literature ever written.
The following excerpt from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is borrowed from Capitalism Magazine. The full speech can be seen here: Francisco's Money Speech.
“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. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are."
For anyone who hasn't yet introduced themselves to this work of art by Rand, consider this your formal introduction and please waste no time in becoming more acquainted.
Peter Egan Jr. is the founder and proprietor of Egan Store, a US-based purveyor of fine and exotic numismatic collectibles.
