• • Romney in retrospect 
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Egoism  |Individual Rights  | Despite what Ayn Rand might tell us, we are more than self-interested, economically-driven creatures. We are spiritual and emotional and relational beings who seek community in civil society. Yes we have individual rights, but we also have obligations to our fellow citizens. Government does have a role to play in our lives, and it is more than just to create an environment in which everyone can have a job. Sometimes it must extend a helping hand to those in need, to those who need protection. Mitt Romney and the GOP ignored this reality. Terrified of alienating the critical "swing voter," they sang the same verse over and over: "It's the economy stupid." Not surprisingly, conservative Americans did not join the chorus.  

• • • We the People are the force! 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Written in 1957 by Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged,” which was again put to the silver screen recently, is relevant even more in today’s world than many decades ago. Published during a period when socialism and communism were on the march in Europe, the Soviet Union and China, Rand foresaw government taking over in our nation as well, removing from our lives the incentive to produce and prosper freely, and instead sharing and redistributing wealth.  

• • Operation “Atlas Shrugged” 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | When I think of how these business owners are responding to the political economy they live in today, I think of the great novel by Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. The novel is about businesses and their owners going on strike in response to excessive and even oppressive government taxes and regulations, largely putting the country out of business. It appears many companies are getting poised to do just that after the elections, as seen in the example of working with our clients above as well as untold number of surveys painting a similar picture. However, would not waiting until Election Day be a great example of doing “too little, too late” (which is how, as they say, wars and battles are lost).  

• The false promises of modern liberalism 
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Individualism  | There are two promises that modern liberalism asserts — two images about itself that it propagates. First, that it strives to fulfill the communal bonds and yearnings of human beings, to mitigate the harsh brutalities of an Ayn Rand-type of conservatism. And second, that it, and only it, represents the needs and interests of the common person.  

• Rediscovering what liberty is all about 
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There's nothing more fundamental than to defend the right of the innocent to their own lives. This is why abortion is, in essence, a liberty issue, whether or not the more radical, Objectivist-style libertarians like it or not. Every person, including the unborn, bear the image of God, and enjoy the unalienable right to life.  

• • “The Sirico Brief” makes news again (Part II) 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Egoism  | The newly ordained Fr. Robert A. Sirico, C.S.P., was initially assigned to the Paulist Center in Minneapolis, but shortly thereafter, he received a transferred to the Paulist Catholic Information Center in Grand Rapids, Mich. While at the Paulist Center, Sirico and another Paulist priest, Fr. James Fisher, presented a lecture titled “Who Was Ayn Rand?” Both priests were admirers of Ms. Rand, atheist and author of Atlas Shrugged, prophetess of the philosophy of Objectivism and “the virtue of selfishness,” and the “godmother” of the Libertarian Party. It is clear from an audio tape of the Sirico-Fisher talk that Sirico’s return to the Catholic Church and ordination to the priesthood did not substantially alter the Libertarian ideals he acquired during the heyday of his “gay” Libertarian Party activism in San Francisco, albeit, now with a Christian veneer.  

• • “BACK TO THE SEVENTIES AGAIN”: Quotations, “priceless!” 
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“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue . . . Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think . . . An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced . . . The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it hass earned it.” — Ayn Rand  

• Who owns the movement? 
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The narrative of the group that is rapidly assuming control of the Occupy Wall Street movement, for example, in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere does indeed support free market principles. Many of these people seem to be coming from Ron Paul’s vast network, and they can be described as independents and libertarians, who, as you know, draw their intellectual sustenance from the free market enthusiasts of the Austrian School, and from Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and the like, and, for whatever faults they may have, they loathe leftist Statism as much as Obama and fellow travelers love it.  

• • Mobility of capital trumps class warfare 
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Atlas Shrugged  | As pointed out in this American Thinker article, successful entrepreneurs do not go on strike in some “Galt’s Gulch” as depicted in Ayn Rand’s “The Atlas Shrugged” when government bureaucrats try to stymie their wealth producing activity, they simply move that activity elsewhere.  

• • The soul of Republicanism! 
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Atheism  | The secular camp [within the conservative community is] uninterested in social issues like abortion or defense of marriage. This is most often the camp Libertarians identify with, as so much (not all) of their political philosophy is derived from Ayn Rand’s Objectivism; Rand herself was an atheist.  

• • • Gang of Six: Munich again? 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Individualism  |Personal life  |Image  | Many conservatives have little or no use for the Ayn Rand legend. Cite dozens of examples: her personal life; a tyrannical style with her cult-like followers (the very antithesis of the freedom/rugged individualism she preached); her comment in a thick Russian accent to the late William F. Buckley (a devout Catholic) that “You’re too intelligent to believe in God.”  

• • Netanyahu pragmatist, non-conservative? 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | Though I admired both [Winston Churchill and Barry Goldwater], and was generally in agreement with their policies involving military matters and economic philosophy, by my standard they were not social conservatives. [....] The Senator was very outspoken in his approval of the economics espoused by the atheist Ayn Rand in her “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” and of his related hatred of Progressivist Socialist non-economics. Though Goldwater was often referred to as “Mr. Conservative,” I knew a number of Goldwater supporters, and they were Libertarians. Some to the degree of being virtual anarchist and libertine!  

• Only American life is valuable 
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Holocaust survivors beg generations to “Never forget,” but we have forgotten. We haven’t forgotten what happened to over 6 million people, but we have forgotten our role in ending the senseless slaughter of human beings. We have forgotten that American soldiers who liberated Nazi death camps swore this type of genocide would never happen again. We have couched our indifference to genocide in philosophies like Ayn Rand’s objectivism or Barry Goldwater’s (or Ron Paul’s) non-interventionism. We have couched our indifference to the death of millions in materialism, willing ignorance, and American elitism.  

• • Deadbrains 
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Capitalism  | Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off. — Ayn Rand.  

• What’s love got to do with it? 
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Conservative is a relatively broad term that could encompass everyone from Ayn Rand libertarians to the so-called Religious Right with the Tea Party in between. A conservative typically believes in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the need to preserve life and liberty. As a Christian, I can find biblical support for each of those core principles. George W. Bush once said it was impossible for him to separate his faith from his political views. I find the same to be true for me. I am a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third. The three do not always mesh.  

• • Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism #2: The folly of social libertarianism 
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The fundamental problem with libertarianism is that it is not a practical philosophy of governance. Ayn Rand and Karl Marx both lacked insight into how human beings actually function. Both proposed interesting philosophies on paper that fall apart in the real world.  

• Social conservatism is fiscal conservatism #1: Introduction 
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Atlas Shrugged  | The popular thought of the day is that social conservatism is an accessory item to fiscal conservatism. It's like an optional sun roof, a pretty good idea if you're driving in the South in the winter, but a really bad idea if you're in Maine in the fall or winter. Even some advocates of limited government believe that religion is outmoded. A Libertarian group made news after the Kelo decision, when it wanted to have the house of Justice David Souter seized by eminent domain and turned to the hotel. The group promised not to place Gideon Bibles, but instead give patrons a copy of Atlas Shrugged.  

• Self-reliance: So easy that even a baby can do it 
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There is a moral aspect to self-government, no matter how much the amoralists and misotheists and Objectivists in our society want to deny it. A man's behaviors, when repeated over time, build up character — good or bad — that infuses every area of his life. When a man refuses to take responsibility for his own actions, when he refuses to withhold from himself certain things that harm himself and those around him, when he gives himself over to whatever whim, fancy, or desire he might have, he destroys his own ability to operate beyond the moment-by-moment perspective on life.  

• • Congress mugged, Atlas shrugged 
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Atlas Shrugged  | We will vote in November. Congress, you mugged, but Atlas shrugged. Soon, you will be asking, "Who is John Galt?"  

• • Principles, not polls, should dictate policy debate 
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Polls are tools used by the majority and are designed to bring the minority, or the one, "in line." One of my favorite quotes on the subject is from Ayn Rand who said, "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." The Founders attempted to make a country in which individuals ruled and the elected officials served to protect them (and not "provide" for them).