For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men." Ayn Rand
"The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live. No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man---by the work and the judgement of your mind." John Galt
“For if there is more tragic a fool than the businessman who doesn’t know that he is an exponent of man’s highest creative spirit, it is the artist who thinks that the businessman is his enemy.“ Composer Richard Halley. -- Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged
"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that 'the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it - well, so does any burglar." Hank Reardon
"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that 'the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it - well, so does any burglar." Hank Reardon
"Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification" John Galt
"My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists----and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason----Purpose----Self-Esteem." John Galt
Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else. | “Conservatism: An Obituary,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 192
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." THE OATH
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Atlas Shrugged is a powerful treatise of ideas represented in a compelling story. As a Christian, I have had the most problem dealing with her proposed "OATH". While I understand the treatise on rational trade based relationships, I simply cannot go quite this far. I am lucky to live in a country that "so far" gives me some element of freedom to choose.
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