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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Die By Your Sword. For I Shall Live By Mine

It's said that Gandhi once  mused that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.  Perhaps this is why I've never embraced the Peacenik/Hippie outlook.  I love meeting the passive resistance folks. The people who abhor violence and believe that all criminals in jail are just misunderstood victims of parental-like punishment of our Male Dominated Society.  I apologize for any typos or mistakes in grammar or syntax in the previous sentence.  I was laughing pretty hard.

I have a fantasy of entering the domicile of every person who is against the Second Amendment.  I would love to hold them and then whisper, quite seriously, if they wished they had a gun to shoot me at that particular moment or if they thought they could talk me out of killing them?  Then I would remind them that they want to deny me the right to protect myself, just before I shoot them through and through, not hitting anything vital, but demonstrating my point. They want to force me to give up my freedom, liberties and paycheck at the point of their gun, let's see if they like it at the point of mine.

Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.  I plan on holding them to it.

In the book Atlas Shrugged, the character of Ragnar Danneskjold is a central yet "also-starring" character who is almost, but not quite ignored by the author.  Because Objectivists don't believe in doing anything through force.  However, we do recognize that there are times when people who try to live without the responsibility of thought need to be reminded of their place in the world.  Beneath the boot of their superiors is where they desire to be.  These are people who who do whatever they are told by whomever they perceive as being stronger so that they will not be beat up or killed.  These are people who willingly bend over to anyone they perceive as more powerful or whom they wish to cultivate as a protector.  This is what Progressive Liberals want for us, for all of us, and they will force you to your knees at the point of their gun.

Mine's bigger and I know how to use it.

Ragnar is introduced in the book very early in Chapter One.  He is in the news as a pirate, sinking a relief ship, filled with supplies taken from Americans to a Socialist nation in Europe.  He allows all of the crew to escape into lifeboats, then he sinks the ship with all of its confiscated beneficence.  He always allows the crew to escape or go down with the ship.  The devotion to being a do-gooder is so shallow in these people that Ragnar never kills a human being in his years of piracy. No man defends the ship of the goods going to another place because they know what they are doing is unconscionable, taking food and clothing from people who need it, from the producers who made such things, and giving it to people who have consciously chosen to live in squalor, filth and ignorance.  Goods stolen from the productive rich and handed over to the lazy-assed poor who stand with their hands out, whining that what you give them is never enough, never good enough.

In every part of the book Ragnar Danneskjold is seen in the back-ground as nothing more than a bogey-man to scare little Progressives at bed time. We do get a glimpse of him when Hank Rearden's assets are frozen in an attempt to keep him from disappearing like the others have.  Ragnar stops him one night as Rearden makes his way home on foot, as usual.  Ragnar gives him a brick of gold that represents the amount of money the government has taken from him in the form of taxes since he started his businesses.  He doesn't mean for Rearden to actually use it, but he gives it to him as a talisman to hold on to because he knows what is coming down for Rearden and knows he will need something to hold on to when it all falls down for him.

The next time we see Ragnar is in Galt's Gulch when Dagny follows Galt there in her attempt to keep Quentin Daniels.  He has a wife and is really quite normal.  We find out he's a philosopher.  What?  A philosopher with a big gun ship who is fine with blowing up other ships?  It flies in the face of logic?  Or does it?  Hugh Akston advises Dagny to re-check her premises again.

Like the brick of gold, Ragnar is not allowing the looters the fruits of any of their looting.  John Galt steals their producers, Francisco d'Anconia steals their wealth and suppositions, Ragnar Danneskjold steals their filthy lucre.  He steals their "good intentions".  He does it without killing a single person.  There are only two deaths in the entire novel and Ragnar Danneskjold is not responsible for either.  But he takes something more important to the looters from them, because you have to remember that to the progressive liberals, life has no meaning, only intentions have meaning, and Ragnar strips them of them all.  He leaves them without even their pretenses.  It's really quite remarkable that this theme is nearly missed by most who read the book.  It is the second most powerful theme in the book and it's nearly ignored by every "analysis" I've read of the book.  Leonard Piekoff, to the best of my knowledge, never even addresses it in the many forwards of the many re-prints of the book.

So the Progressives had best learn lessons well this year.  We know your intentions.  You know the way that road runs, right?

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